Ground Theory

The road to a new way of living.

I’ve started another blog to document my experiences working the soil and building a more just and sustainable world.

Please visit Ground Theory, a chronicle of how I keep myself close to the Earth and its people.

Earth and Air

“I am large. I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman, ‘Song of Myself’

Please visit my new blog Earth and Air, where I try to capture the parts of myself and life that escapes words.

2010 in Photos

Glimpses into the life of an artist.

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The Adrien-naissance

When you live your dreams, you’re answering your soul’s request to be heard.
- Greeting card at the Tree of Life Bookstore,
Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, San Jose, CA

I have been waiting for months to write these words. Maybe years. I am at the advent of some major changes in my life. In the last several months I’ve been consumed by work and I don’t mean my job. I’ve been thinking about the next thing for me. I’ve decided to leave my comfortable job in non-profit property management to pursue what poet Aya de Leon calls “the created life.”

PAWA/Maganda Reading and Conversation — Adrien shares words with other wonderful people

I will be reading or performing some other magnificent spectacle next Monday for an event organized by Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. and UC Berkeley’s Maganda magazine. I am honored to be reading with other Maganda alumni David Maduli, Sean Labrador y Manzano, and Maiana Minahal. Come and allow their combined brilliance to take over your spirit.

PAWA/Maganda Reading and Conversation (UC Berkeley)

When: Monday, November 8, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
Where: 106 Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley (campus map)
Who: David Maduli, Sean Labrador y Manzano, Maiana Minahal, and Adrien Salazar!

Into Angels – October 20, 2010

In memory of our young people who have not made it, that we may be lifted by the light of their wings.

I’m queer.

And I love it.

Today is National Coming Out Day and today I come out for the young people who fight valiantly just to be themselves.

Not all of us make it here. It has been a hard month. Since the beginning of September, six young people have committed suicide across the country due to anti-gay bullying. Just this week  19-ear-old Zach Harrington, from Norman, Oklahoma committed suicide after a city council debate over recognizing October as LGBT History Month in Norman that included some vicious comments from local citizens. Zach was taunted in high school due to his sexual orientation.

The above video is produced by the New York City-based Youth Pride Chorus in contribution to the It Gets Better Project begun by partners Dan Savage and Terry Miller in response to the tragedies of the last few weeks. The Make It Better Project was also started to give young people tools to make a difference in their communities now.

Only nine states in the country have laws to protect LGBT youth against anti-gay bullying. To learn more about how you can take action to protect young people, visit makeitbetterproject.org.

Younger Than Gautama — Kearny Street Workshop presents young writers (including this one) at LitCrawl 2010

I may dress up for this. Or not. You’ll have to come to see.

Kearny Street Workshop‘s LitCrawl 2010 event, at which I will be reading, is titled Younger Than Gautama, which supposes that I am younger than Siddhartha Gautama when he achieved enlightenment. I am flattered to be considered within the same sentence as the Illustrious Buddha. I am even more flattered to be reading with the other amazing writers at this event. Come hear us and you might achieve nirvana.

Younger than Gautama: KSW at Lit Crawl

Saturday, October 9
8 – 9 pm
Cafe La Boheme
3318 24th St., SF
FREE Admission

Siddhartha Gautama (AKA Buddha) achieved enlightenment at the age of 35. These young Asian American writers are not quite there yet. But as we know, it’s not the end result but the journey that matters. Come and hear their stories.

Writer Bios

Noelle de la Paz sneezes loudly, laughs daily, plays with her DSLR, and spends much of her time thinking about things to write.

mai doan uses poetry to disrupt and expand understandings of what it means to be queer, mixed, woman.

Cathlin Goulding has been involved with Kearny Street Workshop since 2003. She lives in New York City, where she studies at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Vanessa Huang practices poetry to feed resilience and movement building from the margins. Her manuscript was a finalist for Poets & Writers’ 2010 California Writers Exchange.

Adrien Salazar is an artist, warrior of light, and lover. Do not be fooled his appearances. He is actually a lion.

Jonathan Yang writes novels for young adults, mainly about celebrities and shopping. And um, hopefully deeper stuff too. He lives online here: www.jonyang.org.

A Place of Her Own — Irene Wibawa makes entire worlds of glass, cork, and tea leaves

This is my final artist interview for AAWAA‘s A Place of Her Own exhibit currently at the Driftwood Salon in San Francisco — which just means that you will have to check the show out before it closes on October 3 for more insights directly from the artists’ work.

Irene Wibawa’s work, Experiment D0910 A-Z,  dangles on wood boards floating from the ceiling, a collection of dozens of glass jars each containing fantastical scenes in miniature. I try not to bump into the floating worlds as we talk.

The two women who stood at the center of everything and survived and in their surviving changed everything

“The most powerful weapon is truth. Go out and tell truth everywhere.” – Yuri Kochiyama

I’ve got to shout out for this historic event coming up at the revolutionary Eastside Arts Alliance in Oakland. Activists Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama will come together for a screening of the new film Mountains That Take Wing, which features thirteen years of conversations between the two women on topics ranging from the role of women in social movements, to the prison industrial complex, to war and the arts.

I have heard both these women speak separately and each one carries the weight of change in her body. Their words serve as a wellspring of inspiration that spurs me to speak truth and work hard for justice.

Mountains That Take Wing:
Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama-
A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation
Friday, September 24, 2010 7pm Free
EastSide Cultural Center
2277 International Blvd Oakland

Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama will both be present for the screening.
Limited seating, so come early!

Final Fridays Films of Resistance & Solidarity
Mountains That Take Wing:
Angela Davis and Yuri Kochiyama-
A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation
Friday, September 24, 2010 7pm Free
EastSide Cultural Center
2277 International Blvd Oakland