Compiled by Jesse D. Palmer
Here’s some updates to the Radical Contact List published in the 2019 Slingshot Organizer. Please send us your updates about new spaces. We know we’re just scratching the surface of a global, fired-up, exciting do-it-yourself underground. Thanks for everyone who is making it all happen with your hard work and passion. You can sometimes find updates at slingshotcollective.org. Note that the on-line contact list hosted at tao.ca is no longer being updated and due to computer problems we are unable to take it off the internet. Sorry for the confusion.
GG’s Social Trade & Treasure Club – Brooklyn, NY
A social center with studio residences, an event space, art gallery and vintage shop with a forming income sharing co-op. 1339 Dekalb Ave, Brooklyn, NY 347-808-1919 ggssocialclub.com
Trans Pride Initiative – Dallas, TX
A community space and office that hosts events. 614 W. Davis St Suite 208, Dallas (Mail PO Box 3982, Dallas, TX 75208)
Dismantle Change Build Center (DCBC) – Portland, OR
A collectively operated community center that hosts a number of grassroots social justice groups including Critical Resistance, Don’t Shoot Portland, Brown Girls Rise, Urban Nature Partners PDX and Portland Books to Prisoners. DCBC also hosts Crescent Shine, a multi-vendor artist and consignment shop. It occupies the space that used to be In Other Words Books. 14 NE Killingsworth, Portland, OR 97211, dcbc@criticalresistance.org, dcbcpdx.org
Delaware Art Initiative Booking Collective – Claymont, DE
A booking collective for all-ages punk/DIY shows in the Wilmington area based in a house that hosts local independent label Impetus Records. 13 Delaware Ave, Claymont, DE 19703. deartinitiative.booking@gmail.com Folks in Delaware may also want to look for DisturbancE, a monthly punk zine that has lists of upcoming all-ages events, articles from people in the scene and local artist highlights. They host events but do not have a physical address (yet). disturbancede@gmail.com
Medusa Women & Trans Squat – Chicago, IL
An anarchist, feminist squat. 1450 S Avers Ave. Chicago, IL 60623 773-322-5562
People’s Harm Reduction Alliance – Seattle WA
A peer-run harm reduction organization that does needle exchange, hep-c testing and provides other services at a variety of locations. Headquarters at 1415 N.E. 43rd St. Seattle, WA 98105 206-330-5777 peoplesharmreductionalliance.org
Mankato Makerspace – Mankato, MN
A volunteer run art and fabrication space with welding, glass working, forging, woodworking, painting, aerosol, textiles, pottery and more. 1700 3rd Ave., Mankato, MN 56001 507-387-7218 mankatomakerspace.org
Empowerment Infoshop – London, Ontario, Canada
The have books and zines as well as shirts and buttons they make themselves. They have an archive and host events and shows. 613 Dundas street East, London Ontario, N5W 2Z1 Canada
Glitter Bean – Halifax, NS, Canada
A unionized workers coop cafe that is queer and trans centric with radical art and zines that hosts activist events, meetings, and parties. 5896 Spring Garden Rd., Halifax, NS B3H 0A6, Canada
The Common House – London, UK
An event space with members not consumers. Unit 5E, 5e Punderson’s Gardens, London E2 9QG, UK, commonhouse.org.uk/about-2/
Sparrows Nest – Nottingham, UK
A library that hosts events. They don’t want us to publish their physical address but if you email them to set up a time to visit, they’ll tell you. tel. 7388417325 thesparrowsnest.org.uk
Glasgow Autonomous Space – Glasgow, UK
A huge warehouse with a library, herbal clinic dispensary, kitchen, wood workshop, meeting space, and a garden with a greenhouse. Unit 11, 53 Kilbirnie St. Glasgow, G5 8JD glasgowautonomous.weebly.com
Librería Proyección – Santiago, Chile
A volunteer-run social center and library that supports small publishers with 3 meeting rooms and a multipurpose room for presentations and workshops. San Francisco 51, Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile +56 2 2639 6950 www.libreriaproyeccion.cl
Infocentrum Salé – Prague, Czech Republic
An anarchist community center that hosts workshops, presentations, screenings and meetings with a radical library and archive. Named after the Salé pirate colony in Morocco, which was an economically, politically, and intellectually independent territory for decades that was a base for subversive activities. Open Monday to Thursday. From 4 pm to 10 pm. Orebitska 14, Praha 3, 130 00, Czech Republic, sale(at)riseup.net, sale.451.cz
Tři ocásci – Brno, Czech Republic
A co-op owned fair trade café and vegan bakery supporting human rights and civil society. třída Kpt. Jarose 1935/18, Brno 602 00 Czech Republic, info@triocasci.cz triocasci.cz 775 702 778
Changes to the 2019 Slingshot Organizer
• Interference Archive / Common Notions Books is at a new location (they moved and were not included in the 2019 organizer.) 314 7th Street Brooklyn NY 11215. interferencearchive.org
• We published In Other Words books in Portland, Oregon but they closed in June and are now DCBC (see above). They put a goodbye message on their website which is at the end of the on-line version of this article.
• Anarres Infoshop in Portland, OR isn’t in the printed calendar because they moved right before presstime. As of today they are looking for a new space – but by the time you read this they may have found one, so look them up.
• Blood Fruit Library in Chicago has moved to a new location that is no longer public, so do not go to the address listed in the 2019 organizer. If you want to contact them, email bloodfruit_library@riseup.net. Also they got a lot of letters from prisoners so prisoners can mail Chicago Anarchist Black Cross at 1321 N. Milwaukee Ave. PMB 460 Chicago, IL 60622 (it is a PO Box, not a place you can visit.)
• Qilombo in Oakland, Calif. was evicted.
• The phone # for Boing Anarchist Collective in Salt Lake City, UT changed to 385-229-4235.
• The address for Peoples Cauldron in New York changed. The new address is 3669 Main St., Stone Ridge, NY 12484. They share the space with Carthaigh Coffee, an anarchist coffee shop.
• Comrades in Chicago told us we should remove Working Bikes from the contact list because they said it isn’t a real community bike shop. They suggested we list West Town Bikes 2459 W Division St, Chicago, IL 60622 instead because even though it is a for profit business they have a work-on-your-bike night available even to those without funds. Slingshot is in Berkeley so it is hard to check this out, but if you’re in Chicago, please email and let us know what you think.
• We got an email from Delaware pointing out that the contact listed there is just a natural food store — they suggested better things to include (see above.) If we can’t figure out a good contact in a state, we may list a coop or natural food store so there’s at least something but we are eager to take those out if we can figure out something better. Thanks!
• We heard about K’é Infoshop — an indigenous community organizing space with a library that hosts events “in the capitol of the Navajo Nation” — but we can’t figure out if they have a physical address nor get them to write us back. We think the mailing address may be PO Box 400, Window Rock, AZ 86515 — let us know if you have any info about them.
• We didn’t include Edmonton Small Press Association in the printed edition. They are located at 11336 101 St. Edmonton, Alberta T5G 2A7 Canada 780-434-9236 ESPAArtHaus@gmail.com – please call or email for an appointment before you visit.
• The address for l’Etincelle should be 56
Boulevard du Doyenné, 49000 Angers, France.
ON LINE VERSION ONLY (do not paste into the newspaper by mistake):
Good Bye Message from In Other Words, Portland, Oregon
Dearly beloved In Other Words Communities,
There is no softening this announcement. After 25 years, In Other Words is closing at the end of June 2018. The current members of IOW do not come to this decision lightly. We are grieving. We invite all of you who have found even a moment of clarity, love, determination, and joy to spend some time with our reasons for closing In Other Words.
Some reasons for the closure are increased expenses and the lack of funds, volunteers, and board members. This is a cycle of In Other Words as an organization, and also the cycle of community spaces in capitalism. IOW periodically discusses closing because of a lack of money and people. This isn’t sustainable, especially emotionally, for the people who come here and work to provide this space as a resource to Portland Feminist communities. Even if funds poured in, and masses of people showed up in response to this announcement, we would not continue our tenure here.
We cannot continue because we know reform does not work. The current volunteers and board members stepped into and took over a space that was founded on white, cis feminism (read: white supremacy). It’s really difficult, actually, impossible, for us to disentangle from that foundational ideology. Volunteers and board members tried to reform and re-envision the organization, and have found it unattainable to do, especially with so little resources. We have experienced this as a very real reminder that reform doesn’t work. Patriarchy, White Supremacy, Capitalism cannot be reformed and ever serve the people. Abolition is the goal.
We are then very excited and grateful that Critical Resistance Portland is working to keep the space on Killingsworth open as a community center. Critical Resistance seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe.
CR is actively looking for partner organizations who wish to participate in keeping this vital community resource available. Interested organizations can email them here: crpdx@criticalresistance.org
To all of the people who have organized here, attended events, read a life-changing book in our library, gave their time, money, energy, knowledge, skills, and love to this space – we thank you. We invite you to share your stories, feelings, and memories of In Other Words.
We invite you to participate one last time. Please, join us in the closing process, to be a part of the transition of the end of one story and the beginning of another. If you would like to help with time and energy in physical or logistic closing work, you can email us at: scheduling@inotherwords.org or call 503-232-6003 between 1 and 5pm Friday through Sunday. If you cannot physically join us in closing and you would like to help, we still need funding to help us make it through this closing process. You can donate here: tinyurl.com/donate2IOW