The Hammer – brief monthly reviews of the anarchist press

Even though publishing in the anarchist space was down a little this month (it being the end of the summer and all) we (LBC) attended the Seattle bookfair, which means this Hammer will be heavy on PNW (Pacific North West) publications. This is exciting, of course, because these publications reflect the high level of anarchist activity in the area over the past year. This next month includes a trip to Victoria BC and Minneapolis. I hope this means that the next Hammer will reflect recent Canadian & Midwest publications and activities that haven’t made it to the interwebz.

If you have a publication you want the Hammer to review send it to us
c/o The Anvil
PO Box 3549
Berkeley CA 94703

If your publication is more of the pdf/web variety send notice of it to me directly. There are already a couple dozen subscribers to the Hammer newsletter but feel free to add your name to their ranks. You can do that here.

On to the reviews.

Affinities Vol 5 No 1, PDF, August 2011

This is a journal that combines activist ethics with academic aesthetics. It uses this alloy to “construct sustainable alternatives to the racist, hetero-sexist system of liberal-capitalist nation-states”. Clearly the forged weapon isn’t particularly lethal but could probably spread a mean schmear or something. This issue is particularly strange for me as I am cited in several of the essays to such an extent that I feel like the missing contributor. Perhaps the editors didn’t know that I have an email address. The topic of the issue is called Anarch@Indigenism which is fine (albeit a little silly) but the subtitle basically makes me gag: “Working Across Difference for Post-Imperial Futures: Intersections Between Anarchism, Indigenism and Feminism.” I really wish that an attempt at a deep understanding of a topic, of any number of topics, wasn’t by those who are chasing, or have caught, careers in knowledge production. As long as I’m wishing I’ll add that I couldn’t easily understand these essays, which made it hard to access whatever interesting information was conveyed by the authors.
Web, Identity/Academic

Burning the Bridges They Are Building, half sized, winter 2011

This is an extensive report back on the context and events of the anarchist intervention in the anti-police struggles of early 2011 in Seattle, WA. If I were to criticize it, I would point out that its comprehensive and dry style is a nice counter-point to the flowery and semi-mythical style of other reports from the area, but isn’t half as compelling. It is, on the other hand, far more useful. This should be the template by which other towns strategize anarchist activity over the next few years. Plus, the fact-inistas will enjoy it greatly.
Strategy/Insurrectionary

Diaspora, half sized

This is a list of the prison-industrial-complex profiteers who are located in the PNW. This is an interesting project because it asks, without asking, for action against a list of targets without being explicit. It also evokes a kind of journalistic reporting that used to be done by the leftist press but has been long since abandoned. It is activist without prescription, informative without preaching, dangerous without the restraint of responsibility. My concern is that it will sit in a pile of paper, or in a directory of a hard drive, without ever finding the audience who could properly consider the fact that those who constrain us have names, addresses, and commutes.
Download

In Defense of Conan the Barbarian, PDF, 2011

This is a fantastic and spirited anarcho-primitivist reclaiming of Conan the Barbarian. Not the Schwarzenegger version, although that would have been more awesome, but the original Howard version. It takes the original seriously and spends a great deal of time examining the definition of nature, violence, & social roles in Howard’s universe. It does err toward primitivist parody (for instance this quote is representative “Conan clearly has no love of or fear for the violent brutes who enforce civilized laws and oppress the poor and downtrodden”) but as we were informed of the author’s bias in the introduction it is forgivable.
Download, Anarcho-primitivist/Literary

Koukoulofori, half sized

This is an older (2010) publication on the “hooded ones” of Greece, but this is the first time I have actually sat down and read this unassuming publication. Its stated intention is to move North Americans’ understanding of the Greek experience away from the mythological. For that purpose, this project is a total failure as the selection demonstrates fascinating and exciting aspects of the Greek experience which are in no way transmittable to the US. If the difference between Greece and the US is as simple as self-confidence, then hearing another set of stories about successful organizing, free spaces, and life long trusting radical relationships doesn’t exactly demonstrate this simple difference or point a way for us. On the other hand this zine is a best of the We are an image from the Future book and worth checking out in lieu of it..
Web, Greece

Not Afraid of Ruins #3, PDF

Given the fact that I just returned from Europe, reading this personal zine/travel journal (visiting of many of the same places, including some of the same beds slept in) is very nice. The author lives a very different experience than I do, punkier, cut-and-pastier, and probably 15 years younger than I am. This journey spans Berlin, Milan, Spain, and much of the UK.
Download

Rivista Anarchica #364, HTML

This is a web instance of an Italian anarchist publication with a 40 year history and an open approach to anarchism. In their terms we want to discuss everything from God to the worm. This sounds great and this issue is indeed broad, albeit classical, in scope. It includes Proudhon, several articles remembering Colin Ward, an interesting article on anarcho-humanism, and much, much more. The closest publication in the US we have to this is Social Anarchism and similar to SA this is a publication of words and history rather than of the present and of the actions of anarchists today. To be specific, I asked an Italian comrade about this periodical and they nearly choked on the idea that one would take it seriously as the publication has been silent on the decades of anarchist struggle in their own country.
Web, Anarchist-without-adjectives

Tides of Flame #3/#4, PDF

Tides of Flame is the bi-weekly paper of anarchists-with-a-threatening-posture who have made themselves known in Seattle, WA. Reported on were the twenty-odd anarchists who were arrested in July, including several around the intrusion of police-with-shovel into a party at their group house and then a mass arrest at their solidarity demo the next day. Also an attack on a DOC office in West Seattle. Each issue has a well done piece on local anarchist history including an article on the George Jackson Brigade and the Seattle General Strike of 1919. Additionally there is new analysis/theory in the form of a rich article counterposing species being with the creative nothing and another on the Crisis. Other local articles, including one on a local cop and another on a local infrastructure project, round out these two issues. Awesome project that I have no idea how they accomplish every two weeks.
Web, Seattle/Insurrectionary

What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower, book, Margaret Killjoy

This is the first book of a new anarchist fiction imprint and the first book (that I know of) written by Magpie (not counting his collection of interviews). It is a choose-your-own-adventure story which is a cute idea but isn’t nearly as compelling as I had hoped it would be. This is no fault of MK but a fault of the form, one that makes it difficult to hang together anything thicker than a children’s story. MK’s idea here is to put the reader into the role of protagonist and then push them along an adventure with a standard set of D&D/steampunk characters. The problem is that the conclusions are more or less arbitrary. There is no projectuality in this story and this means that it is an adventure for tweens and nothing more. But, anarchists need more of these too so… fair enough.
Publisher, Fiction

I am going to try to catch up with my writing because I am now sitting in a squat in Amsterdam and am anxious to talk about my intense & awesome day today but first things first…

I love to drive. I can handle 500 miles before lunch and absolutely love the headspace that I get in during drives that span the night. I mostly tolerate driving during the day, but the night…

Which is a good thing because after leaving Houston on Sunday night we went to St. Louis (Monday), Milwaukee (T-Wed), and then streaked the 2000+ to be back in Berkeley on Friday by 2 pm. Monster driving was required.

St. Louis

If I could calm the fuck down and smell the roses, or seriously consider moving back to the Midwest, this would probably be the second place on my list. (I am from MI so that would be first) The people who comprise the St. Louis scene are the most, I hate to use the word sophisticated, but perhaps experienced and not-backwards of any place outside of the coasts. During my event there were a dozen people who had entirely thought through (and discussed with each other) topics that many places were hearing said out loud for the first time. I would not feel lonely in St. Louis, neither would you.

Like idiots we scheduled an event on the day that Black Bear Bakery was closed which meant we didn’t have a chance to hang out there and enjoy the @-Bakery. Suffice it to say that their bread is really good and the atmosphere is IMO the best of any @-work project in the US.

There is an urban squat project in St. Louis that I will not spoil by talking to much about. The US doesn’t have a squatting culture and so building one (both a squat(s) and a culture) is an incredible task filled with trepidation and awesome. I mostly think that people shouldn’t visit St. Louis for their squats but think seriously about what extra-legal land projects are possible in their location and how to learn the lessons of other US & European experiences.

Milwaukee

Milwaukee has shown me different faces during different visits. I’ve seen punk Milwaukee, some version of @ Milwaukee, and I’ve passed through a few times. This time I saw the Riverwest neighborhood and the adorable coop & CCC. A total treat and a total Midwest intersection of space (meaning they have a lot of it) and comfort (meaning a short walk to great food & their community center + comfort food).

Drive

I have decided on the next LBC project. It is the biggest risk and reward potential yet. It hopefully will be what will get more people involved in the project and connect us more to the people that we like. It isn’t a project of reaction but doing shit I’ve been fascinated with for a decade… I can’t wait. Oh, except I have to because I can’t even get started on it until I get back from this damn three month vacation.

End of US trip

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