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Police at w4th subway station thought my friend Drew looked like a terrorist, so they asked to randomly search his bag. He said (hell) no. So they told him to leave the station. He walked three blocks up and entered by a different entrance where there was no police. The morale? NYPD must be stupid. Either that, or this is all a concerted effort to keep us scared and thinking of terrorists so we vote for Republicans. Or they are stupid. Either way it’s none of their business what’s in Drew’s bag.

People power works on art too, apparently. In a surprise move Wooloo Productions announced two winners instead of one. The girl from Serbia-Montenegro AND Mexican artist Antonio O’Connell. We did it folks. The guy is so happy. And so puzzled. Here’s an article about the exhibition from the Japanese press. They shamefully neglect to mention the International Campaign and the all-important Danish-Puerto Rican Society. But that’s ok.

AsylumNYC ends tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who’s supported this fun opportunity to combine politics with art. The text messages and emails you sent were printed out and placed in Antonio’s cell in the gallery.

We took over the front of White Box, and collected some more signatures for the petition. I spoke briefly with CNN Español to defend his case. Yeah, I can tell they won’t use it, because the reporter looked at me like I was some kind of loca.

Hard to say at this point who will get the visa. My guess is the administrators (dictators) will give it to the girl who has been slowly expanding the boundaries of her designated floor space with black and white tape donated by gallery visitors. She is going to try to make it out the door.

The Japanese artist has been asking people to bring him instant noodles. But that’s because the boxload he tried to smuggle in himself was confiscated. The Japanese Consulate called today to hear if it was true that there was a Japanese artist in danger. And one of his friends tried to start a fight yesterday with the administrators.

I just got a phone call. A woman looking for the Minute Men, an anti-immigration group of vigilantes who patrol border areas, accidentally called my number (yup, I get weird calls from people on the internet). She said she wanted the “American side” of the immigration debate to be heard, and that they were organizing a rally on cinco de mayo. She seemed bothered by the big a day without immigrants protests planned for May 1st.

It’s funny she should call today, because I just got off the phone minutes earlier with Mexican artist Antonio O’Connell. He was selected to participate in the AsylumNYC art project, but couldn’t come because it takes 4 months to even get considered for a tourist visa. There wasn’t enough time.

Antonio was going to cross the border illegally to come to New York, but in the end decided it was too risky. They’ve increased the number of border patrols in advance of the May 1st protests. Instead, he mailed his passport and a petition for gallery visitors to sign, and he’s been sending messages to the public by fax.

My friend Katja and I (under the auspices of the Danish-Puerto Rican Society) have begun an “International Campaign to Bring Antonio O’Connell to New York”. We’ve decided to represent his case and work for more democratic and just rules of engagement in the gallery. We’ve plastered the gallery with posters, and asked people to send text messages and emails to the administrators (dictators). Thanks to everyone who has.

Antonio himself is slightly bemused. The whole thing is sort of fitting with his last art project (see picture). He built a floating house on a river in Mexican border country and put a laptop with wireless internet in it. Migrants actually slept in it. Internet transcends borders indeed. Let’s see if we can find a way to challenge the “creative asylum” process and bring him to New York. We think Antonio deserves to win.

This new proposed legislation on immigration in the United States is really scary. Thankfully, Republican politicians are now saying they may drop plans to criminalize 12 million illegal immigrants and any person who helps them get by in America, including their (often legal) children. The rest of the bill would still suck.

This week, openDemocracy has been linking to the online project I worked on with graduate journalism students from NYU: UndocumentedNYC.org. Lots of rich details there on immigration in New York. Have a browse.

Finally, my friends at Wooloo Productions in Berlin are packing their suitcases for New York, where they will be curating AsylumNYC from April 24-29. It’s a project where 10 artists from 10 different countries will apply for “creative asylum” at a gallery in SoHo. One lucky artist will get the opportunity to obtain a US visa. The whole thing is a comment on the plight of asylumseekers who are shuffled around inhumanely between detention centers worldwide. The artists will not be allowed to leave the gallery for a week, and will be asked to produce an art project using only whatever materials they can get gallery visitors to supply.

I have now entered adulthood after succesfully managing to keep this little plant alive for nearly a year. The day before yesterday it blossomed in my kitchen. If that’s not a sign of maturity I don’t know what is. You should have seen how scrawny it was when I bought it at the supermarket (for a friend).

When I am not galavanting around at loft parties, I am at Sotheby’s the world famous auction house. Through a friend of a curator I ended up at a private viewing for their Asian Art exhibit. There were so many great paintings there, all with price tags on. But we didn’t witness any of the shopping. There were two small display cases for Sotheby’s new line of diamond jewelry, and a very friendly salesperson who asked if I wanted to try one on. He explained that there were no middle men with these diamonds – that they came fresh and flawless, straight from the mine in South Africa. And the great thing about them – apart from their competitive price – is that you get to take them home as soon as you buy them. “Instant gratification,” he called it. How did he know my birthday is coming up? I resisted the temptation to ask him about blood mines or the working conditions of people like the 16-year old diamond cutter I met at the World Social Forum last year. That would have been rude.

Tsk, first time I get quoted in the The New York Times, and I say something sophisticated like “super sneaky”. Never agree to interviews when you are drunk.

This weekend I went to Prospect Park in Brooklyn with a German, a dinosaur, and a camera. We’ve created an unscripted masterpiece of a film, which still has no meaning, purpose or storyboard. But it’s dramatic. Sneak preview of behind the scenes slideshow, here.

The Village Voice has a nice article on the recent FBI attacks on Puerto Rican independence activists, which towards the end points out how many activists were based in New York.

Landmarks of the movement to free Puerto Rico are here, too, if you know where to look. At 336 East 110th Street, a construction company now occupies the site where on December 11, 1974, a New York cop opened a door and was blinded by a booby-trap bomb apparently set by the FALN, a Puerto Rican radical group.

That wasn’t New York’s only link to either the peaceful or violent side of the independence struggle. The city was a base for the pioneering revolutionary Eugenio María de Hostos, as well as for the gunmen who tried to kill Harry Truman in 1950. In the ’70s and ’80s there were bombings here; in 2000 there was a peaceful occupation of the Statue of Liberty to protest U.S. target practice on Vieques.

Plus: openDemocracy published a tribute to Nuyorican musician Ray Barreto last week.