Posted on 12/12/2016 5:42:05 AM PST by BenLurkin
As Oakland’s tightknit arts community continues to grapple with dozens of deaths in the Ghost Ship warehouse blaze, it is also being roiled by heightened scrutiny over the safety of similar living spaces.
...
“We’ve been in the shadows for a long time for a reason ... and it worked really great for a lot of people for a long time until this one incident,” said Scrivani, a photographer who also produces art shows. “Right now the spotlight is on us.”
...
Sam Lefebvre, a music journalist who has been covering the fire for the weekly East Bay Express newspaper and who lost friends in the blaze, held back tears...
Lefebvre said warehouses “are important because for people who may inhabit nonconforming bodies or who are queer or who are in some way an affront to mainstream society — all those people can congregate there, and they can do so in a safe environment."
Just three days after the fire, Hunter Savoy Jaffe, who said she was friends with at least three of the Ghost Ship victims, warned the artist community to fight to protect itself. “This world was not built for us,” she said at a vigil for those lost. “They will denounce the way that we live, and they will dehumanize our passing and the shutting down of our spaces.”
Emotions surfaced Thursday night in a church next door to the now-gutted warehouse known as 1919 Market, which has become a cause celebre in Oakland’s artistic community. The city red-tagged the building for major safety hazards in January...
San Francisco developer Danny Haber...met in the church with former residents to discuss his plans...“to re-create the intent” of the former illegal conversion, but he was shouted down and branded an “interloper.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“...all those people can congregate there, and they can do so in a safe environment.”
Stars and garters! These people are thick.
Got it.
So at least everyone will have high self esteem as they are burned to death or crushed under tons of “art”.
“...for people who may inhabit nonconforming bodies or who are queer or in some way an affront to society...”
So, IOW, this hell hole fire trap was a metaphor for the practice of creative body mutilation...And a raging inferno is preferable as a safe space, because laws are for the straights and the haters.
These poor, lost souls....smh.
Nothing says "objective reporting" like a guy who lost friends in the incident...
It is so very interesting to read the defense of living in squalor and depravity while enjoying beautiful music and art. I saw very little original “art” in the photos and, of course, did not hear the music.
I had friends in the 60’s who thought ‘free love’, LSD and cannibis were non threatening and gave them great creative powers. They also had many infections, ate badly and eventually did turn to other forms of recreation. STDs/STIs were rampant.
My friends so wanted me to try LSD and everything else they had. I think they were lonely, distressed due to lack of money and unwillingness to work to make money and mostly they were quite immature...making me wonder if all the drugs they used had contributed to a continuing life as a teen ager no matter their age.
But what never made a positive impression on me was using drugs to BE creative. Perhaps http://luxury.rehabs.com/blog/famous-works-of-art-created-under-the-influence/ and
http://drugabuse.com/20-genius-minds-and-the-drugs-they-were-addicted-to/ would be interesting.
I think there might be a fine line between defined insanity associated with creativity and need for drugs or maybe it is
the pleasantness of being elsewhere and no having to cope albeit for the smallest period of time.
My final thought is I wonder how many wonderful artists have NOT used drugs and yet produced great art. I wonder.
It is so very interesting to read the defense of living in squalor and depravity while enjoying beautiful music and art. I saw very little original “art” in the photos and, of course, did not hear the music.
I had friends in the 60’s who thought ‘free love’, LSD and cannabis were non threatening and gave them great creative powers. They also had many infections, ate badly and eventually did turn to other forms of recreation. STDs/STIs were rampant.
My friends so wanted me to try LSD and everything else they had. I think they were lonely, distressed due to lack of money and unwillingness to work to make money and mostly they were quite immature...making me wonder if all the drugs they used had contributed to a continuing life as a teen ager no matter their age.
But what never made a positive impression on me was using drugs to BE creative. Perhaps http://luxury.rehabs.com/blog/famous-works-of-art-created-under-the-influence/ and
http://drugabuse.com/20-genius-minds-and-the-drugs-they-were-addicted-to/ would be interesting.
I think there might be a fine line between defined insanity associated with creativity and need for drugs or maybe it is
the pleasantness of being elsewhere and no having to cope albeit for the smallest period of time.
My final thought is I wonder how many wonderful artists have NOT used drugs and yet produced great art. I wonder.
Assumption of Risk.
If they are willing to accept the risk, I’m good with it.
I just worry about other folks who might be adjacent.
Assumption of Risk.
If they are willing to accept the risk, I’m good with it.
I just worry about other folks who might be adjacent.
Just called yourselves an abortion clinic and the Left will continue to leave you alone to do whatever you want.
Right. And one of the taxpayer funded muckety-mucks stood in front of a camera and said they would investigate thoroughly and make sure 'something like this never happens again'.
I'm not good with it because it's a public space and unsuspecting visitors, tourists, workmen etc who think that the laws on construction are operative can be caught in the fallout. Our fire & rescue teams risk their saftey as well.
No exceptions that compromise saftey. I might go with wavers if they are evaluated by the town and are different than the norm but maintain safe conditions.
“all those people can congregate there, and they can do so in a safe environment.”
He’s kidding, right?
Maybe part of the solution is to simplify code so that common sense saftey issues is mandated. Codes have gotten so elaborate and the ADA has complicated the situation even further. Problem is that its not just state by state but also city by city where codes need to be brought into line and simplified...perhaps following MAGA
A little responsibility and accountable? As “Good it Gets.”
Uh, yeah. Enforcing fire safety and zoning regulations to avoid keep dozens more from burning alive qualifies as “witch hunts”.
something tells me that continuously referring to these bunches of squatters as “artists” is pretty much like calling all of the drug-dealing gang-bangers who shoot each other to death as “aspiring rappers”.
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