Helloooooo North Oakland neighbors! Welcome to spooky month, second summer, pre-election chaos chapter, or whatever your favorite moniker for October is.

The zine was printed and distributed earlier this month in the usual places near Bushrod Park, in front of Nick’s Pizza, and pretty much wherever I am (I generally have a few copies on me nowadays). If you want me to install one near you let me know, as I’m literally making new ones at the same time as I’m writing this email. I’ll probably just ask you to be responsible for refilling it, which I would greatly appreciate so that I don’t become a literal newspaper boy.

All said, I am actually very proud of this issue!! Our “nature editor” (my partner, whom I have formally roped into contributing to the zine) kicked off the unofficial theme for this month’s zine with their very astute question: “if it’s Oakland, then where are all the oak trees in our neighborhood?” That kicked off an awesome little article in the zine, but also a lot of little synchronicities: a neighbor on the Facebook group who has an oak tree in their backyard that is producing a ton of acorns, learning what a “mast year” (a regular overproduction of acorns that happens every 2-5 years), a friend who has been harvesting acorns for flour, and – my favorite – a neighbor who has been making EARRINGS out of acorns. More than any previous issue, The Flyer really feels like it’s a project made for and by the neighborhood :)

To that point: submit to The Flyer!! Literally anything you want to share with the neighborhood is fine (photos, events, stories, articles, mutual aid requests, or whatever else)… don’t overthink it… email me… please and thank you

Also: forward this email to neighbors who might be into it! Or, if you want a physical copy, let me know and I’ll deliver it to you!

Events (& Election Stuff)

Full list on theflyer.org/events.

To be honest I did not have to do as thorough of a job of curating events this month, as evidenced by the fact that there are no Halloween events on the calendar and I completely neglected to notice the Oktoberfest on Colby Street. The way you can prevent such an atrocity from happening again is by letting me know of fun neighborly events ahead of time… it’s not too late to let everyone know where to go for king sized Snickers Bars…

In any case, here are a few special events I managed to find that are coming up:

• [10/17 @ Root Stock Arts] Afghan Ghazal Night. The last two performances that I’ve gone to at Root Stock have both blown my socks off, so I imagine this will be equally special. Go learn what a rubab sounds like (some variant of lute, apparently) and bask in its beautiful sounds alongside voice, tabla, and keyboards.

• [10/23 @ Underpainting Collective] Blockprinting for Activists. Fernando is part of an activist artist collective called Just Seeds and sold me some cool art at the Anarchist Book Fair! His blockprints are very cool and he can teach you how to do the same thing! Go check him out!

• [10/25 @ Local Economy] Tax Release: Art Installation and Public Shredding Event. “Galen Cranz, UC Berkeley Professor of the Graduate School in Architecture will share an installation of her 1963-2018 tax returns – an accumulation of bureaucratic effort that is personal to her and relatable for us all.” Should be a unique and somewhat cathartic experience.

Also: I’m thinking of organizing a ballot party on October 29th at Good Times! If at least like, 5 people say yes then you can expect me to be there and we can work through our last minute questions about the ballot . This is somewhat late relative to when you probably should try to submit your ballot, but it is the earliest I can reasonably host something… if you want to be a responsible voter, check out Open Ballot for summarized voter guides and braceandbolt.info for simple, accessible information about how to vote.

The one thing that I’m less confident about is OUSD school board stuff. I know that our district doesn’t have to worry about that this election cycle, but I also know that many parents in the neighborhood have a lot of thoughts about OUSD… anyway, if you are one of those parents and would like to educate me (and the rest of the neighborhood) about the state of Oakland education, hit me up.

Main plea: vote NO on Props 41 and 42, they were placed entirely by billionaires to nullify the billionaire tax (40). Very antidemocratic, to say the least.

Photos & Other Stuff

❤️‍🩹 Mutual aid request to support an OUSD teacher in our neighborhood who is facing serious financial and health issues after a car accident :( Donate what you can to the GoFundMe.

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That’s all for now! Still planning on sending another dispatch later in the month about the election. Don’t wait for me to send my random opinions and guides though! If you need help with your ballot in the meantime (or just want to say hi), give me a holler.

<3,

Humphrey