____________________________________ E M P T Y | V E S S E L | P R O J E C T | N E W S #21 | D E C . 15 . 05 ____________________________________

A great elephant moved!!

Like a pre-Christian epic, the goodship EV was moved last Sunday by audacity and sheer strength. Ropes were cast across the canal, kayaks were deployed and mouths hung agape as twenty odd people pushed, pulled and wrangled the boat to her new home. This Herculean feat included swinging EV out into the canal against wind and current, straightening her out, opening the Carroll street bridge and guiding her through to the waiting bulkheads. Only one virgin(?) sacrificed herself by means of falling onto spiked fencing, but the little blood drawn was enough to ensure an easy voyage.

** See HISTORY section for a first (bloodied) hand account

____________________________________ T H I S W E E K ____________________________________

Due to our recent move we will be closed for the following week as we settle in. Check out below for future events or contact us and propose your own.

____________________________________ U P C O M I N G ____________________________________

A DAY IN JANUARY ::: Midnight, The First Snow Storm

ROCK VIDEOS at the Carriage House :: TBA January

Fancy-Fancy Dinner :: Coming Soon

WEBSITE LAUNCH

APRIL 2006 ::: GRAND OPENING ::: Empty Vessel Launch Festival

We are accepting proposals for events and collaborations. Email as@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASUREREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org to discuss your wintery watery scheme. ____________________________________ W H E R E I S T H E B O A T ? ____________________________________

We are at the Carroll Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal.

To take a look at a bird?s eye view of the boat?s location, check out the http://maps.google.com satellite image at http://tinyurl.com/7eu5q.

For directions by train: http://www.hopstop.com. We are 2 1/2 blocks from the Carroll Street Stop on the F and G trains. ____________________________________ H I S T O R Y ____________________________________

Moving

So here's the scene - Sunday, December 2005, high noon. The sky is threatening to snow. We have a motley crew, an icy engine-free 63 foot vessel, some ropes, sheer will and a retractable bridge. So we set out to move it just 2 blocks south. Slowly. Nearly gently. Pulling back as the enormous ship sled slides forward. Waiting patiently as the silent bridge slips out of the way. Abandoned tires dropped strategically at each point of contact by able hands - and so brave! A series of light taps. What is missing is the sound of scraping wood.

A line dropped. Nowhere to go but down into the inky myth-ridden waters. Delivery by kayak brings the line's end to the west side of the bridge. Dry. Hand off to the man hunched by the 8" diameter pulley fresh from moving the bridge. Every shoulder is hunched, lips bit, waiting for impact, for imminent disaster. No cracks yet. The vessel glides on through. Snow. Ice. Lines walked by hand just a little bit further south, through the brush, around the trees dried out by winter. Every footstep a creak, a crunch. A swan looks on, finding refuge from the icy winter sea in the warmer waters of the canal. The bridge slides back into place. And our huge white elephant glides along the shore line. Nearly silent. Faces peek out of the windows. Lines are adjusted. What was the front becomes the back. Add another and keep moving. A small moment of panic. Too fast, too fast. There is a barricade intended to keep unwanted visitors on one side of the fence or another - a series of vertical ribs, each about two feet long and covered in home-made spikes, purtruding over the water. Long wooden wands poised to give the boat a shove away from that impalement. Heave from both earth and vessel. The boat moves away. A misstep. Ice under the snow. And one of the barge-haulers launches towards those murky waters, grabs at a rib, aiming between the upended nails. Nails pierce leather gloves and skin. She hangs. And is hauled back onto solid ground. A three point stigmata. Two punctures on the right hand and one on the left lower abdomen. Not too deep. The vessel stretches out in its new digs. The bargemen forgo murtsovka* and pass a bottle of whiskey. A job well done.

* Murtsovka is dish of soupy mush made of rye bread, onions, a little salt, a few drops of hemp oil traditionally mixed with the waters of the Volga river and fed to the bargemen of the Volga River in the 19th century.

____________________________________ S H I P ? S L O G ____________________________________

Heat on EV: In our utopia, we will create a pod that runs on garbage - a figurative cultural machine that is fed exclusively on our culture's literal debris. We would like to heat the vessel with waste oil. Our initial experiments have been with appropriating a small oil-burning, water-circulating home heat boiler. We are not sure that we have considered all our options. We are investigating diesel stoves and other oil-compatible solutions. We need your (or your neighbor's, your uncle's, that strange guy's who lived in the trailer down the street from your grandpa's farm) stories of waste-oil-burning success or failure. Email pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASUREREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org. We are hungry for advice. ____________________________________

For updates on ongoing projects, check out our TWiki at http://log.emptyvesselproject.org. Advice is always appreciated. Don?t be shy. Please post.

____________________________________ W I S H L I S T ____________________________________

MATERIALS: We are creating a practice of re-use and salvage. We would like to give your old materials new life. Specifically, we are looking for:

**fire extinguishers **10 gallon plastic buckets with lids **toaster oven **vegetable steamer **wet/dry vac **50,000 ?100,000 BTU oil-burning boiler OR a diesel stove **a Franklin stove **solar panels **12V batteries **a transformer 120V to 12/24V **another small boat (canoe, kayak, motor) **life rings **marine paint **small fans **beautiful material in bulk to face ceiling (about 12' x 42') - tin would be fantastic **plywood for skinning the ceiling (about 12'x 42') - 1/2" or 3/4" **pretty old single-pane windows **handles, hooks, small cleats **steel **aluminum for constructing a gangplank **railings **water hose **plastic 50 gallon barrels

We will haul away any material contributions. Please forward widely. Contact tk@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASUREREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org to donate. MATERIAL DONATIONS: We are partnering with companies that have ecologically friendly materials and getting material contributions to the Empty Vessel Project.

Johns Manville (www.specjm.com) has donated formaldehyde-free insulation. BuildItGreen^?? (www.bignyc.org), a salvaged building materials warehouse in Astoria, has contributed some great slotted floorboards to face the cabin walls.

Mojo Fine Art Moving has been very generous with their trucks. Do you know a company that might be interested in showcasing their products on EV? Contact pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASUREREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org.

____________________________________ F U N D R A I S I N G ____________________________________

We are $110. towards our goal of $500. to make the warm water run through our lovely heating loop and radiate warm air through the vessel. Thank you!!!

You can make a financial contribution to the EVP on our website at http://log.emptyvesselproject.org or by clicking here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_xclick&business=info%40emptyvesselproject%2eorg&item_name=Empty%20Vessel%20Project&no_shipping=0&no_note=1&tax=0&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF&charset=UTF%2d8

Thanks to the Madagascar Institute, we have a 501c(3) Non-Profit number we can provide you for your contribution. Give to the Empty Vessel Project = save on your taxes. ____________________________________

We are also looking for sources of official money that will fund the Empty Vessel Project in the longer term as either (a) an arts project (b) an environmental project or (c) a social experiment and decentralized environment for skill shares. We need money for both infrastructure and specific projects. Are you a grant writer? In development? Know someone that is? We need to raise $10-20,000 to get through the winter.

Contact pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASUREREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org.

____________________________________ H E R O E S ____________________________________

David & Sharon Lefkowitz (our new landlords!!)

Hannah Marcus (for the delicious food)

Ruban, Cameron Hull, Bill Wasik for saving a life, Alyssa Abeta & Zeb Stewart of Union Pool,Dylan in the kayak,Arnie at the Puppet Lending Library, Josh Wienstien, Dept. of Transportation Bridge operators.

A history of heroes: Danny, GDM, Captain Jim, Fictional Company, Ed, Michael, Madagascar Institute, Cindy Vanden Bosch, Dirty Fingers, Porkchop, northguineahills, Front Room Gallery, DJ Olive, Steven, Ed and Brooke, Paris 1968, Corey and the Free Store, Christian, Mike Topper, Alisa Blanter, Jesse Green, Leo Raphaely, Peter Field, Jeff Stark, Stephen, Lee Azzarello, Nathan, ToddP^??, Dan and Elizabeth, Trevor, Brian Spinks, Andy Baker, Shellshag (Jen and Shell), Urban Stitch (Alessandro and William), Paul Ford, Bez, Brian, Alex Lucas, Leah Beeferman, Brent Arnould, The Dave Carter Quartet, Estee Pierce, Alison Prete, Jason Enghert, Rosie Weinberg, Johns Manville, Black Label Bike Club, New York Harbor School, Eric Forman, Gregory Zaslavsky, Leslie Stem, Andres Colapinto, Anney Fresh, Justin Green, BuildItGreen^??, Mojo Fine Art Moving, Dave Sharps ____________________________________ W H A T I S T H I S ? ____________________________________

The Empty Vessel Project is an action, art, and sustainability experiment. We salvaged EV, a WWII rescue boat, to create a space for re-imagining the post-industrial urban environment. We are a non-profit, volunteer-run organization and encourage participation on all levels. EV is moored on Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal. The boat is our first project. We invite you to come join us on board to work and play. We host work parties, movie nights, seminars, concerts, dinners, and workshops. The Empty Vessel is available to realize your dreams and schemes.

This newsletter is your guide. It appears in your in box at the beginning of each week, listing events and tracking changes. Can it be better? Contact pz@emptyvesselprojectREMOVEANTISPAMMEASUREREMOVEANTISPAMMEASURE.org with suggestions.

-- PaulaZ - 19 Dec 2005
to top