Tag: littleblackcart

The fog may lift

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.

Sewer rats & cockroaches – NYC at its best

NYC is a lovable shithole that drives people crazy.

I just did a whirlwind tour of the town, from the best of it (the food!) to the worst (the wingnuts), all in the context of the NYC @ book fair. This year went by so fast that its hard to believe that I am already back with a day of work under my belt before another trip.

Here are some highlights…

  • NYC Bookfair: Probably the most intense bookfair with a very packed room and a very sophisticated audience. While our “west coast” vibe isn’t that popular over here it seems to finally be making some cracks in the autonomous-academic-leftoid axis.
  • Reverend Billy: I hear that one of the organizers of the NYC book fair invited this fool to the event but they were misguided. Anarchists don’t give a fuck about his “life after shopping” church and to the extent to which there is a postmodern tongue-in-cheek statement to be made about the book fair itself it is definitely lost in the one man megaphone show that is Reverend Billy. Chaos ensued and a drenched and battery-less RB left the event dejected and ejected.
  • APOC gone wild: I don’t know the context outside of seeing it happen a million times before but I saw this… philly APOC bullying the fuck out of some clueless white kid ending their articulate chest thumping (and jacket throwing) conversation with spittle in the poor kids face. Then they turned on anyone who would look at them cross-eyed… This shit is officially ridiculous
  • Non-violent children: The Greeks gave a presentation on much of the theoretical orientation of the Assemblies and the Greek Insurrection. They did it in front of a non-violent activist whose child more or less controlled the entire event. Quote from her “I can’t control him, but you are welcome to.” Pacifism for the WIN!
  • Autonomedia: I made my journey to the warehouse on Monday and like usual it was a pleasant and enjoyable time. I was there with people from all over the globe and was reminded of how much I want a space like this of my very own.
  • Curly’s: I am a simple person. I ate the vegan Cubano + mango shake twice. I am very lucky that I get to do such things.

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