OS ANGELES - The head was in the alley; the hand had to be somewhere. David Solnit's mission was to find it amid all the other body parts strewn on tables and propped against walls.
Solnit is a puppet master. His specialty of late: mass protests. He has seen his work paraded through the streets of Seattle and smashed by police in Philadelphia. An equal opportunity demonstrator, he's helped make papier-mache caricatures of both George W. Bush and Al Gore.
Yesterday, at a building that until recently sat abandoned but is now dubbed the Community Convergence Center by protesters taking on the Democrats at their national convention, his immediate concern was a puppet named the Mask of Fake Democracy.
Around him, hundreds of mostly young volunteers cut out letters for banners decrying deforestation, painted signs demanding access to health care, and chopped lettuce for the free lunch that is served daily. Upstairs, dozens more demonstrators were learning how to resist arrest, and how to handle an LA jail if their resistance fails. ''Go limp, go limp, go limp,'' urged Sarah Seeds, an instructor in nonviolent protest. ''See, that way they can't pick you up.''
But the demonstrators have every intention of standing firm against what they call the sellout of democracy to big business. Even after the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, where hundreds were arrested and the puppet factory was raided, the center near downtown Los Angeles has been packed from morning to night with artists, activists and demonstrators. They have, however, learned some lessons. ''We've become guerrilla artists,'' Solnit said. ''We've strategically cached supplies and puppets around the city. There's nothing the LA police can do to shut us down. If they destroy our puppets, we'll just make more.''
That sort of fervor was evident everywhere in the chaotic convergence center, from the overly hot classrooms to the booth where crude musical instruments were being fashioned out of any available material, including rubber bands and plastic tubes.
Despite sleeping on friends' floors or in hostels, despite the sweaty smell of hard work that filled the building, the demonstrators in their 20s and 30s said they welcomed another opportunity to grab attention. Jennifer Waltz's only concern was for her mother, who, she said, had a heart attack when she saw her daughter on television being pepper-sprayed at the World Trade Organization meeting last year in Seattle.
''But she likes that I do this because she was active in the civil rights movement,'' said Waltz, 28, an environmental activist from Northern California.
Like her, Brian Couser has attended mass protests before. He came to Los Angeles from Austin, Texas, and yesterday he attended a class for protesters taught by law students from a group called the Midnight Special Law Collective. He worked on a huge cardboard puzzle for a demonstration slated for Santa Monica. He both fit right in and stood right out, with his short hair and clean, unwrinkled clothing.
Many of his fellow demonstrators looked more like hippies from the 1960s than the techies that have come to represent their generation. And they sounded as optimistic as the new economy dreamers. Among the classes and lectures available at the center yesterday were ''antiracism for white activists,'' and the ''Asian left forum.''
''I got a lot of grief the first day I got here,'' said Couser, 26, who recently graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in American literature. ''I guess a lot of people thought I was a cop or something. They kept asking me if I had an escort.'' As adamant as they are about opening up the political process, demonstration organizers and the demonstrators themselves can be distrustful of outsiders. They said that their paranoia is legitimate.
Lawyers representing them for free have accused police of harassment. Yesterday, police cars could be spotted up and down the street, but the police have been visible everywhere downtown. No matter how many times a visitor drops by the center, an escort is required.
Many of the demonstrators have run into each other time and again in the last nine months. And they often greet each other with hugs and warm hellos.
At the entrance to the building, run down and lacking air conditioning, participants were invited to leave personal messages at an altar of flowers and candles. Dozens had tacked index cards to a bulletin board. ''I am love,'' read one. ''I am here to create visions,'' said another. A third explained: ''I am here because I am a protest junkie!''
