Month: October 2009

Entropy

I am not sure how else to put this but that I am falling apart. The center is no longer holding. My will just isn’t enough to prevent simple decay from eating away at me. I guess I am going to have to make choices. Cuts in exactly how much I am trying to do at once.

It is heartbreaking to imagine that just now, when I am at the height of my creative, technical, and organizational power that I am going to have to slow down but the facts are the facts.

yep. that about says it
yep. that about says it

Fact 1: What should have been a simple hernia surgery turned into a now 5 month ordeal.

Fact 2: I woke up Wednesday with slightly slurred speech & weakness in my right hand

Fact 3: After a CAT Scan it was determine that I had a small (although WTF is small in this situation) brain hemmorrhage.

Fact 4: 3 days later I am back home. Waiting for several months for an MRI and about to start occupational therapy to, hopefully, get back the function I lost 4 days ago.

All of this is rather dramatic, at least from my point of view, and puts a bit more of the fear into me than I had before but I have to admit that the repercussions have yet to really hit me. Perhaps they never will. I am still typing at least 80% as fast as I was before TDMBB (the day my brain broke), my slur is subtle (strangers would never know), and since I exhibit none (or should we say few) of the lifestyle risks for what just happened to me (as an OG XVX) the cause is most likely genetic. This doesn’t preclude more of this “genetic” problem from rearing its head but hopefully I’ll know what color to paint the BBTL (brain break threat level) chart in the next month or two.

On to more positive things. Here are a few I am looking forward to in the next few months…

NAASN – Less for the conference, which I am sure will be fine, in an East Coast @ kind of way, but more because of some time (and FOOD!!!) in NYC. If they would only move the radness of NYC to the west coast I’d only hop over the Miss. for MI.
Synology DS409 – I am thinking about this less for the 4.5T of space for ~$800 (!!!) but because of the fact that it runs quiet.
The Nook – Yes I am a gadget fiend. Since I am probably going to be taking the motorcycle less (if at all) in the future, the idea of a BART boredom buster (that actually reads PDF’s) is pretty exciting to me.
LA Anarchist Bookfair – Last year LA had its first bookfair and it was excellent. Very affirming to the fatalistic. It was almost good enough to pre-wash the bad taste of the SF bookfair a few months later. Hopefully this year will keep the great energy with a bit more room.

A short trip to Seattle

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