for a stranger, with strangers, in a strange town, and with a cop named Hans

I am traveling around Europe this summer which means breaking out of routinues, judgements, and pre-conceived notions about people & their practices. This is a refreshing break for me and I hope this fuels my next set of projects and collaborations. It is also quite difficult as I am feeling quite lonely and isolated. Perhaps I should sing a song?

Under the Prison dark and tall
The Anarchist has come into his hall!
The foe is dying, the State of Dread,
And ever so our foes shall fall.

This is particularly striking in Stockholm. The bookfair was a painful affair for me. Obviously I don’t expect people from around the globe to know about Little Black Cart or even to necessarily be interested in Enemies of Society but the crowd was so actively disinterested in me, my table, and conversation that I believe that a conspiratorial minded person would have suspected the Illuminati or the like. That would be a good verse to the song.

The sword is sharp, the spear is long,
The arrow swift, the Scene is strong;
The heart is bold that looks on society;
The workers no more shall suffer wrong.

The truth is that Stockholm probably has the largest active syndicalist (not necessarily anarcho-syndicalist mind you) scene in the world. Their Central Organization of the Workers of Sweden (aka SAC) is an actually politically relevant force here, organizing public sector workers and “the paperless” ( a fact I was informed about at least 10 times over the weekend). I’ll leave my editorializing about syndicalism for another time (although it’s not hard my feelings on a socialist workers movement) but it was clear that syndicalists were of one mind regarding me. Basically they didn’t even approach the table. They gave me the “solidarity cold shoulder” and didn’t even look at me. This will go in for sure.

The workers of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

The next day was much better. I stayed at a lovely house along with many other people. A solidarity action had been planned the day before but really kicked off once this entire household of freeloaders headed into action. Or should I say sprung into a nearly endless series of waitings. The goal for the day was to express solidarity to one of the Fittja 2 who had been captured just that week. This entailed (as we were to learn) quite a bit of a journey because Stockholm is a town spread out much further than its population would lead one to believe.

On silver carriages they were strung
The light of stars, onward they sung
The dragon-fire, from twisted wire
The melody of harps they wrung.

To be specific to get to the prison where our comrade was held we took a bus, then the metro, then transferred to another line, then landed on a train (and an hour ride), another bus ride (thirty minutes) and finally trekked around 5 kilometers to the prison. This entire comedy was accomplished by 30+ anarchists… in the rain!

The spirit of ours once more is freed!
O! wandering folk, the summons heed!
Come haste! Come haste! Across the waste!
Our lost friend and kin has need.

As with most journeys ours was mostly in the travel rather than the goal but the event itself was some fun. We walked around the prison with 5 meter tall walls and not a window or seam to be found making as much noise as we could manage. After our second go around the police finally appeared (clearly prompted to action from our banging on the front gates as there was no sign of life from the prison itself the entire time we were there). They chased us around the prison another time before their official spokesman appeared, approaching half a dozen of us with the cry “My name is Hans, would you like to talk to me?” But no body did. And once Hans had enough of a posse of what could easily have been the extras of The Will to Power in tow we were herded back to the parking lot and the hike back to the bus.

Now call we over prisons cold,
‘Come back unto the caverns old!’
Here at the walls the anarchist awaits,
Her hands are rich with dreams of old.

A few last notes on this small event of solidarity. One, you can find our more information about the prisoner we were expressing our solidarity with here. Two, after we dragged our cold shivering carcasses back to Stockholm proper we were fed by the awesome workers of Kafe 44. I would not be exaggerating to say that this place was (by far) the best thing about Stockholm. Three, I was reminded during this event that it is the act of solidarity with each other (the 30 on the outside) that was the powerful “take away” of the experience for me. The cops harassed the one car that left the parking lot, taking registration information and making it clear they wanted to hold the people within until the crowd of us surrounded them and made them uncomfortable enough that they freed the vehicle.

Under the Prison dark and tall
The Anarchist has come into his hall!
The foe is dying, the State of Dread,
And ever so our foes shall fall.

ps bonus points if you know what song I stole from. extra bonus points if you don’t use a search engine to find it.

The bulk of the socializing, selling, talking, and this-and-that is over. All that is left is a dinner and the last Anarchist Study Group. Before we finish up I’ll share with you some of my impressions of the past 7+ days and give some shout outs to people & projects I am happy about.

Obviously for me the two big projects for this week were the brand new issue of The Anvil (here is the editorial) and our brand new book Enemies of Society. We gave out over 500 copies of The Anvil over the course of Saturday alone (!!!) + sold enough copies of Enemies that I am not freaking out today. Whew…

Here are other notes from the 8 days of anarchy

• Mental illness is serious business. We see shattered people all around us and I think it is evident that each and every one of them could be part of an amazing, vibrant, quilt-like world. Instead we live in a ticking terrifying landscape where we anticipate explosion and pain.
• Attempting to have a conversation with 30+ people is ridiculous… and I love trying.
• Bob is better when he drinks less
• This movie wasn’t incredible but good for an introduction to the SI
• This movie is now officially among my three most favorite SF movies ever (including Robocop and Starship Troopers)
• Voyer didn’t stop writing… and his shit is very powerful
• Techs deal with cognitive dissonance by filtering out any input they refuse to process
• Station 40 is a monster
• Logistics are a pain in the ass
• Americans know how to shop
• I really really really look forward to carrying manyCharles H Kerr and Black Swan
• Occupied London are really nice and, while less showy than our other Greek friends, give good presentation
• Drunk entitled POC’s are just about the worst people to have in a workshop
• PNW participants in the anti-police activity are the best trolls EVAR!
• My house is way to small for 50 plus people… which means there should have been 80!
• Lorraine is a good one. Shocking but true!

If you live in the Southwest I will be near you soon.

Tucson AZ: April 14th & 15th
Phoenix AZ: April 16th – 18th
Austin TX: April 19th – 22nd
Houston TX: April 22nd – 24th
St Louis MO: April 25th – 26th
Milwaukee WI: April 27th

I hope to see you there!

I am looking forward to Spring. Many projects are coming to fruition and I am finally reclaiming some of my time. My burnout is officially over and what cured it was the humans.

Here is what is coming up

We are finally working on a new book “Enemies of Society” and the second edition of “Till the Clocks Stop”. Little Black Cart is taking a couple week tour through the southwest in late April. We will go through Phoenix, Austin, Houston, St. Louis, and Milwaukee for sure. If you would like LBC to stop in your town (on the way from one of these towns to another) drop us a line. I will be spending the next three months in Europe. If you have any contacts there that you think I should meet… please let me know.

Also by April we should have another issue of The Anvil out. Issue #2 will include an insert of some of the material from the Insurgent Summer reading group. Hopefully this will engage more readers in one of my favorite books, Letters of Insurgents. Allegedly we will also have a series of new pamphlets that attempt a new approach to “introductions to” anarchism. Not sure that is going to happen though.

Oh! and starting this month some friends of mine from the Anarchist Study Group are starting a monthly audio event. You can find more information about it at TCN Radio (as soon as we finish it).

Burnout

The truth is that I am still not working effectively. This albatross around my neck is filling my head with static and heat. Everyday I stumble around, through the mediocrity of the grind, and if I’m lucky, if nothing particularly stressful comes up, I get an hour or two of good project time at night. At least I’m getting that much and for that I thank the holiday season.

Tons of people came around, we talked about things I like to talk about, we laughed about things I like to laugh about and for a little while I felt normal. I was excited about writing and thinking and what I am doing with my time. Working through burnout by the social.

Writing

In addition to a review I am working on of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” I am working on an article on hosting software on corporate servers, the 101 series, and I updated The Anarchist Library with some of my older reviews and editorials from AJODA. I look foward to writing longer stuff later in the year but feel fairly good about what happened last year. I’ll probably put up a draft of the SAAS article here in the next week or so.

The Good

The BASTARD Conference

Yes, the Greeks were inspiring and what I hoped for. Yes, the comedy was funny (Crudo was particularly good) & bizarre (I’ll upload a picture of McQuinn as robot later). Even my workshop went pretty well (I was really surprised how many people got up that early (10 am Daylight Savings) to see me), but I was right next to the entrance. I have a bothersome habit that I’d like to cure myself of. I over-prepare with too little time, don’t finish, and as a result have about the first 1/3 of what I’d like to do totally nailed. The rest I end up having to wing.

BASTARD can be a little surreal. We hold it at UCB for lack of a better (large & free) space but often times it means sharing space with the ISP (insane student posse). This year they were marching, waving colored flags, and singing the national anthem in an area where the reception was chillier than they are probably used to. I am still cursing the lack of total occupation on March 4th.

the minor 8 Days events

The big events during 8 days are always the ones that stick out in our memory but it is the smaller events; showing a film, the reading of the BASTARD surveys (which were particularly dull this year… since everyone said the same thing) that really make me glad that I live in the Bay Area. I am not alone. I might convince myself that I am from time to time, but I am not.

Spending time with the Greeks

We got to discuss exactly how different the social mores and attitudes are in Greece. I imagine many @ from the (identity) left would be uncomfortable there. I am not sure I have the energy myself for what seems like an intense place but the difference is exhilarating and I look forward to visiting one day.

A house full of guests

The house I live in is not designed for guests. We rarely have them and aren’t willing to make many accommodations for them. Over the weekend we had about 20 different people sleeping on our floors and couches. It was awesome. Even better were the hang out sessions and off-time with all these people. I like shooting the shit. I will not lie.

The political line of the PCWC

At the top of the pile of these off sessions was a breakdown of the Phoenix Class War Council political positions. That shit blew my mind.

Over the past decade they have been in a (hot but not humid) revolutionary laboratory distilling the good bits out of every tendency of the modern anarchist milieu into a extract that can only be called good old American eclecticism. Not wingnuts (although perhaps a little) the PCWC is totally passionate about the connections they have made between the different strands and their project of revolutionary change. In their words…

PHOENIX CLASS WAR COUNCIL is a fanatical, revolutionary anarchist group pressing the attack against capitalism, the state and all systems of hierarchy and oppression. We fight for a self-determined, projectual life for ourselves and all humanity. We oppose those who hinder working class self-organization. We are libertarian and libertine. We support movements but we don’t wait for them. We are in the thick of it.

The crazy thing for me is that they actually took a social situation, with a room of near-stranger anarchists, to make their case for what boils down to a program for anarchist revolution. I haven’t had someone try to actually win me over in years and I barely knew what to say. It didn’t help that they had knocked back a few before they came over but I really feel like I got the full monty on the PCWC and it was a blast. I’m not exactly applying for a membership card but I applaud their passion, the disparate sources that they draw their position from, and mostly… their passion.

The Bad:

Broken Windows

As many of you may have heard the vehicle that the Greeks were using for their tour was broken into. Fucking drag, mostly because they were told by their collective that bringing the projector to the States was a bad idea and they were feeling really bad about having it stolen. The response to this has been great though.

• It could always be better
• $20 via Little Black Cart
• $5 via Little Black Cart

Tech incompetence & lack of planning

I dropped the ball in regards to recording all the presenters. I just didn’t leave enough time to test the new recorders I got for the event. Luckily the Greeks recording from BASTARD can be found on Indybay.

The Loot:

Every year I get far more literature than I have time to review. They are slowly piling up in my library to share (although no one every sticks around for long enough to really dig into it). This year I will share the list and take advice on which of these things you’d like to see me review first.

• The Theory of Bloom (also found on Zine Library)
• winding down of the clockwork lips (can be found on The Anarchist Library)
• The Coming Community. (3) by Agamben
• Blocs and Tactical Evolution
• The Match #108
• Rolling Thunder #8
• the enemy of mankind speaks power
• Din&#201. O’Odham. Anarchist. Reflections on the DOA Bloc
• Kanellos: Athens riot dog
• It’s easy to attack: A sharpening of the anarchist struggle in Barcelona
• Rolling Thunder #9
• Anarchist International Action Against Francoism From Genoa 1949 to The First of May Group
• Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #68/69
• La Calle Desde el Tejado
• We are an image from the future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008 (the first AK title I have purchased new in many years)
• Used books: Pistoleros!, A Seasion in Hell by Rimbaud, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Carroll, Freakonomics by Levitt, Genius by Bloom

Friends,

Big changes in the air, which is a great, as 2009 has been utter shit. A horrible year that I am happy to see behind me. I’ll review.

Work

I am still working full time. The job is increasingly grueling as my tasks become more cyclical (month-to-month) and less problem solving (day-to-day or hour-to-hour). My job has become very social in that I work in a “team” where there is an expectation to socialize. This makes side project or learning new tech exceedingly difficult during the week. Very frustrating with no end in site…

Health

As many of you know I had a wretched year health wise. The worst in my life.

First I went in for a simple laproscopic hernia operation. It seemed to go well but instead almost killed me twice. First time, by freezing my GI system forcing a return visit to the hospital for a couple of days of stomach pumping. That was a blast. The second time with an infection that required pumping out two liters of material, a couple of weeks in the hospital, and surgery after surgery.

After all this was wrapped up (which it still isn’t, of course, since I still have a large wound in my abdomen) I had a brain hemmorage. This necessitated two days of symptoms, three days of hospital stay, and three trips to the MRI terror show. We will see what the results are early next year.

Projects

The projects are going well. The print projects are changing but include a total of four books in the process for publication (at this time). We hope that all of them will be ready by March 2010.

1. Nihilist Communism
2. Willful Disobedience: Anthology
3. Til the Clock Stops: Beginning Texts for the Constitution of A War Machine
4. Anarchy Works – by Peter Gelderloos

For 2010 we (Ardent) have quite a few books lined up (we hope for four releases in 2010) and are already planning for 2011.

The web projects continue to thrive. The news site is still very active and has been frustrating me less and less as time has gone on. The library site has been amazing and continues to inspire me with the dedication and diligence of the new librarians (and old) who have made the project a pleasure to be a part of.

The big new web project (which is evidenced in this URL) has been slow moving but hopefully will launch in full effect sometime in January or Febuary 2010. The idea is to provide a set of web services and portal like functions to the milieu. We will be providing blogging, email, instant messaging and a series of new sites for interested parties. I can’t wait to launch it and start working with an active technical group on a proactive project they can all be involved in.

Travel

This year I mostly traveled for bookfairs. I made it to San Francisco, New York (twice, once to go to CT), Portland, Santa Cruz, Seattle, and missed my flight to go to Tacoma. Hopefully next year I will slow down that pace and spend a bit more time in some places so I can spend quality time with friends and comrades.

I’ll try not to bore you with the retail realities of my recent trip up to the Seattle bookfair. Maybe I will dedicate a post later in the month on the oh-so-exciting topic of what ppl are interested in, commodity wise, but I will tell you that I just returned from the first annual Seattle anarchist bookfair. There are only a few months left in the year so if you want your city to have its very own Anarchist Retail Experience (ART ™) you better act fast. Do you hear me Chicago? Detroit? St. Louis? Florida?

Here are some impressions I had this weekend about the people of Seattle and the kind of anarchism that appears to be happening up there.

1. The most exciting things happening in Seattle aren’t happening in Seattle. It is probably similar to the SF experience in that it is so fucking expensive to live in the city that it is hard to get something exciting going on there but there wasn’t much that popped out to me
2. Identity still rules the airwaves – The workshops that had the most excited attendance were the ones around queer and poc identity
3. Fashion – lots of leg warmers and layers for the rain. Not so many messenger bags but lots of overloaded backpacks (of the student not traveler variety). Lots of wool and REI-style gear (I was treated to several descriptions of which outrageously expensive gear company was the best).
4. There were quite a few very young ppl at the event who appeared to drag their parents. They had lots of youthful, colorful tchotckas that made me feel like they would get caught on any branch around. Lucky for them there was nothing but concrete around.
5. The space was nice (and I’m sure affordable) but too small for workshops plus tablers. I still believe strongly in the one day bookfair only (Montreal does this right!)
6. Many of the traditional tablers seemed very unhappy and unfriendly
7. Certain discussions are really exciting to a lot of people right now and they aren’t in the anarchist mainstream (state/capital/religion). What to do!

Enough with the bullets. I really hope some closer ties are built between the Bay and Seattle as there appear to be a lot of similar thinking happening in the short conversations I had between people. I am really bummed that I missed the Tacoma event last month as I think I would have had a better (intellectual) time at that event. Naturally I wasn’t invited to participate in any of the panels or workshops over the weekend. But at least they didn’t have a “future of radical print” without us this time around…

Other highlights

1. Blue Moon Cafe – excellent Vietnamese food recommended by the kate from riseup
2. long car drives are made much better if ppl actually talk
3. I have been cured of junk food by watching ppl eat it instead of food
4. solo tabling continues to be a drag
5. Mighty O’s
6. No one looks at our bright orange banner before asking who we are
7. The rushed wheeling-and-dealing is more fun that I should let on

Till next year

This is the quote on the back cover of the book from “Anarchists Must Say What Only Anarchists Can Say”

It is not for anarchists to celebrate when The People tak over; anarchists ought not to be so amazed at examples of natural ingenuity and resilience. That is after all what they base all their principles on. Unfortunately their proper political task is less appealing and more controversial; it is to poke their fingers into the wounds of revolution, to doubt and to look for ways in which the Zapatistas, FLN, ANC or any other bunch of leftwing heroes will sell out, because they always do.

This simple statement probably sums up as well as I can why I wanted to publish this book. Today I held it in my hands for the first time and I am happy with it. It has heft. It is dark and moody. It is not a book that people should believe in but one that should shed some darkness on the places that my friends think are full of brightness.

Nihilist Communism