COMFEST.COM COMMUNITY FESTIVAL 2015 3 Welcome to ComFest 2015 WHAt’s INSIDE? Welcome to ComFest! You are now a moving part in the all-too-human Welcome ........................................................ 3,4 machine that is Columbus’ best festival. Festival Rules .................................................... 5 We’re glad you’re here. You have a place and play a part, whether Spirit and Purpose ...................................7, 24-27 you’re aware of it or not. This festival, which began in 1972 in the Who We Are ...................................................... 8 University District as an artistic and political celebration of alternatives to mainstream culture, happens because thousands of volunteers from all ComFest Principles/Meeting Schedule ............... 9 over the city and far beyond understand and subscribe to this year’s slogan: Honored Community Activist .............................11 “One…Linked To Many…Moving All.” This Year's Theme .............................................13 ComFest grew from an early coalition of counter-cultural Honored Community Organization ...................15 organizations—food co-op, health center, tenants union, underground Information Station/Field Guide .......................16 newspaper, and phone information center for needs not being met by the Clean-up & Recycling ........................................17 larger culture. The principles around which the coalition organized remain Volunteer Thank Yous ................................18 - 23 the guiding ideals of ComFest (read them on p. 9). Much of what such groups built as alternatives is now mainstream: Workshop Schedule ......................................... 24 healthier food options through community markets, rape crisis services, Special Speakers ............................................ 25 laws recognizing tenants’ rights, free or low-cost health services for those Workshop Highlights.................................. 26, 27 in need, the spectrum-wide political megaphones of the internet. But the Honored Artist ................................................ 29 fundamental issues remain, and ComFest celebrates the ways in which Grants ............................................................. 30 individuals can collectively take control of their own lives. Healing Arts/Poets .......................................... 31 Fun Map ..................................................... 32-33 Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things Stage Schedules.....................34-35, 38-39, 42-43 are bound together. All things connect. Wine ............................................................... 34 — Chief Seattle 3 Word Descriptions ............................. 36, 40, 44 Comedy ........................................................... 38 The great Native American was describing the natural world, and his Solar ............................................................... 39 wisdom still resonates. But the connections he notes apply to people as well. Beer ................................................................ 42 This year’s t-shirt graphic illustrates how movement toward controlling KiDSART/Kid Friendly Performances ................ 47 one’s circumstances is never an individual act. How each of us affects and depends on others. And, yes, how a flowing ribbon brightens even the most ComFest Booth/Logo Contest ........................... 48 mechanical activity. Street Fair/Sculpture Garden ........................... 49 Gears are simply sets of toothed wheels that work to alter the relation Honored Volunteers ....................................51, 53 between a drive mechanism and the speed of connected driven parts. Community Organizations/Food ...................... 55 Without getting mired in technical metaphors, this same principle applies In Memoriam .............................................57, 59 to personal, social, and political relationships: we are interconnected, Parking Tips & Information .............................. 59 interdependent, our lives intertwined in ways that are seldom obvious but First Aid/Bike Corral .........................................61 nonetheless potent. Leave Your Dog At Home ................................. 62 This enmeshed movement translates energy into action. This has been the story of political and social concerns from civil rights to neighborhood Heads Up Information ..................................... 64 revitalization. When one wheel begins to turn, others are set in motion as well. comfest.com And we do affect each other, with our kindness or cruelty, fairness or ComFest™ is a registered bias, attention or interest, generosity or selfishness, compassion or scorn. trademark of So we must be conscious of how we live with each other, locally and Community Festival, Inc. internationally. The concept of the “butterfly effect”—small aspects of life 4 COMMUNITY FESTIVAL 2015 COMFEST.COM having significant impact on others elsewhere—is familiar We often underestimate the power and influence of our to the point of cliché, yet the underlying awareness of it more noble and altruistic actions—small courtesies and often fails to penetrate our daily decisions. Modern life is kindnesses, empathy for those in need or in pain, work for complex, demanding, distracting; it’s easy to focus only social justice, shared efforts with others. on what is immediate and personal. Yet our underlying ComFest is possible through shared effort. The festival interdependence continues. consistently refuses corporate sponsorships in order to In one of his most powerful poems, the Ohio-born retain control over what is presented here during three poet Kenneth Patchen wrote, “…this, the world. / And days each June—workshops, performances, activities, and each is the work of all.” What we think and say and do products that commercial sponsors might object to. So matters. Putting a toe in a lake generates ripples that organizers, performers, and workshop presenters aren’t move out of sight. One gear in a gear paid. They donate their work in chain has no awareness of other gears the spirit of demonstrating what moving further along, but they are still individual engagement in collective connected to, and affected by, its own effort can produce. spinning and meshing. And that’s only part of the Baba Ram Dass has suggested that volunteer ethos of ComFest. It’s the cause of much of the unfocused out of the question to hire people disaffection of modern life lies in to do everything it takes to make seeing ourselves as something separate ComFest happen—securing permits, from the world rather than part of it. arranging logistics, providing safety In this way, we hold the universe— and medical resources, coordinating other individuals, our communities, performances, ordering t-shirts, our environment—at a distance. We hauling equipment and trash maintain a sense of other-ness from containers, pouring beer, distributing something we are intimately connected programs, cleaning up and recycling with and thus reinforce separation from the tons of trash thousands of an essential part of what we are. participants generate, and scores of As a result, we fail to realize that smaller details. So volunteers do it. polluting the world—through toxic Photo by Michael Gruber You can, too. You can become dumping, overuse of pesticides and a moving, living part of ComFest antibiotics, improper disposal of electronics, discharge of rather than a detached observer. Volunteers receive a t-shirt medical & other waste into oceans, even the simple of act and tokens good for food and beverages, along with the of littering—is self-destructive. We fail to recognize that satisfaction of making all of this happen. The Information allowing our government to casually crank up the gears of Station near the Park Street entrance can help you spin the war machine generates long-term resentment across ComFest’s gears. the globe that eventually affects our own safety. We fail Here at ComFest and in our lives in the coming year, to acknowledge that what’s good for corporate profit is let us live the awareness that each of us is One…Linked frequently bad for communities and individual citizens. To Many…Moving All. — Steve Abbott • Edited by Mimi Morris, Steve Abbott, Michael Gruber • Design and Layout by Michael Gruber, Jonathan Johns, David Browning • Illustrations by Paul Volker and Jodi Kushins - Fun Map by Max Ink - www.maxinkcomix.com. • Photos by Michael Gruber, Mara Gruber, Steve Abbott, Harry Farkas, Brian Loe • 2015 ComFest logo design by Gail Bernard • Writers: Michael Weber, Mimi Morris, Shanna Harrell, Connie Everett, Jonathan Johns, Marty Stutz, Allen Zak, Leslie Zak, Curt Schieber • Distribution by Jim Mc Namara, Jim & Alice Irwin, Jodi Kushins, Harry Farkas • All photos copyrighted by the photographers • ComFest TM is a registered trademark of Community Festival, Inc. COMFEST.COM COMMUNITY FESTIVAL 2015 5 IMPORTANT FESTIVAL RULES NOTE: No coolers, please. Don't leave backpacks unattended. Bags subject to being checked. • No bottles or cans/NO BYOB. No glass of any kind. • ComFest encourages following all city, county, state and federal laws. • No weapons of any kind are allowed at the event. • No unauthorized parking inside the park. • Walk bikes inside the park. • No roller skates/blades/skateboards/Segways or scooters except medical mobility devices. • No vending, distribution of arts, crafts, literature