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16 June 2004
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17 June 2004 2004 was an historic year, the first time the British Consulate was
invited to join the memorial ceremony for the first battle of the American
Revolution. After attending the memorial for the The Battle at Bunker Hill, (depicted
to the right in a late 20th century painting) The Tea Party campaign stopped in Boston Common for a
swan boat tour, which we are particularly fond of because of its
pedal power and petroleum-less nature. |
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23 June 2004 The
Teaparty candidates headed to Coolidge Corner in Brookline to interview T
passengers about the new “See something, say something”
campaign on the subway and bus system in Boston. In a few days, Boston
will become the first city to do bag searches on the subway. |
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30 June 2004 We joined the National Lawyers Guild for a protest in front of Park Street Station this morning. We handed out heaps of Securitea and talked to a number of people that felt safer knowing the T would be conducting these searches. |
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July 4th- Independence Day! We hit the Esplanade where hundreds of people had gathered since dawn. Despite warnings of possible terrorism, Bostonians and others came from around the U.S. to witness the fireworks display and hear the Boston Pops orchestra. Most folks we met were eager to snatch up some SecuriTea. |
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| 7 July 2004 Today we had a design workshop with Roxbury's kids camp, Arts-in-Progress. Many fantanstic ideas were concocted for alternative fuel sources, including bubble gum, money and koala spit. Much thanks to Arts-in-Progress and the budding artists and engineers for helping us to expand our MobiliTea platform.
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11 July 2004 We headed to Lexington, MA for a tour of important revolutionary sites with Star and Bob Zieve. At the Tavern, we fit right in (almost) with the re-enactors. We were really impressed with how these guys have everything they need right on their bodies: several sizes of knives, a sand-formed leather water bottle, and gun powder. Learning about these first face-offs of the revolutionary war (between
Lexington and Concord, MA) we were struck by how few people were killed.
The death of 12 British "Regulars" at a crossroads between
Lexington and Concord was considered a bloodbath. The intention of
the British in this historic march was to walk from Boston Common
(their base of operations) to Concord to destroy an ammunitions collection.
It's probably about 12 miles. The descriptions
of the battles were amazing: along the March a few shots would be fired, a few
people injured, a few killed, and then the British would continue
on their way.
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12 July 2004 Tonight we had a tea party with people in the building – the former Berwick Cake (whoopie pie) Factory. The purpose of the party was to discuss arts related gentrification. There were about 8 people in attendance. As visitors to Boston and Roxbury, we aren't here long enough to observe changes in the neighborhood, but this issue of gentrification is one that artists are often faces with due to funding sources, seeking inexpensive living and studio spaces, or places to show our work. All of these situations put artists at the forefront of gentrification in many cities. At the tea party the artists and entreprenuers who came to the gathering shared examples of gentrification that we have observed or participated in and also discussed ways in which it was happening in Boston and Roxbury in particular. We talked about the role that we as artists have in perpetuating this process. We also discussed ideas that could possibly stop or slow gentrification. |
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13 July 2004 This morning we went to our second demonstration regarding the upcoming
searches on the T. Yesterday the MBTA distributed fliers announcing
that "From now on: All MBTA customers will be subject to security
inspections of any carry-on item. Your commute may be briefly delayed.
Please allow a little extra time for a potential security inspection
of your handbags, briefcases and/or other carry-on items and for other
security measures. Your patience is appreciated." |
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| 19 July 2004 We met with Clint Conley who is a producer for the local Channel 5 news show The Chronicle. He is also the bassist for the band Mission of Burma. He was doing a piece about local artists who have done political art work. It seems that in the election year a lot of attention is being given to art and politics. We met Clint at Copley Plaza where the security forces (police and
others in a brown "security" uniforms) were harassing local
homeless people who were sitting on benches in the park or laying
on the grass. Some of them (the police) were wearing blue latex gloves
which seemed totally unneccessary. Clint asked us questions from the
side of the camera. Our responses will be spliced in with questions
from reporters or anchor people. Clint himself never appears on camera, unless they need an extra. |
Clint Conley and Mission of Burma |
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21 July
2004 Saturday
24 July 6:30-7 pm Supercharge your CARma: Designing Imaginary Petroleum-Free Vehicles
for the Future |
| 23 July 2004 Today we had our final Tea Party on the Esplanade. We served all kinds of tea, did tea leaf readings, and kicked off our campaign with a Kar-manifestation session where together we envisioned a world not dependant on oil. Then we handed out flags for participants to plant around the city where they determined suspicious behavior to be occurring. Half of the flags depicted a masked raccoon sniffing an orange and the other half of the flags said "Orange you glad you didn't ______?" Our mascot of the day was a beautiful inflatable horse named after Paul Revere's horse: Brown Beauty, ours: Blue Beauty. This tea party marked the end of our time in Boston. We are happy to report that we did receive our party's nomination and you are welcome to write us in on your ballot in November!
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