Category: Issue #140: Summer 2024

The genocide in Gaza changes everything

By Elia J. Ayoub

thefirethesetimes.com / iwritestuff.blog

CW: extreme violence of all kind, genocide

Every day, it seems, someone I know has been murdered. And if not them, a relative or friend or neighbors of theirs. To name but one: Refaat Alareer, a gentle soul and lover of literature, was murdered alongside his brother, nephew sister and three nieces by the Israeli state which “surgically bombed out of the entire building.” The Israelis told him where to go, and then bombed the entire building just to take out one academic who said bad things about them on social media. The moral depravity of it all. I can’t keep up. By various degrees of separations, I’m surrounded by so many deaths, and yet I’m one of the lucky ones — I’m in Switzerland, and the worst I have to deal with is racism and censorship and grief. 

The Israelis have done everything in their power to prevent information from coming out, murdering at least 103 journalists according to Reporters Without Borders — an extraordinary crime against humanity in itself. But Gazans have continued to live-stream and document as much as they can, in the hope that this moves the world to do something, anything, to stop Israel from ‘finishing’ this genocide as so many in Netanyahu’s administration clearly wish to do — or as Trump put it, ‘finishing the problem,’ the Palestinian question. 

What keeps me going is this: amidst of all this carnage Gazans are still trying to save one another from the might of one of the world’s most powerful armies. A nurse was forced to choose which premature baby was most likely to survive the lack of oxygen, leaving the others behind after being told by the Israelis that they would be safe; they were not, and a journalist discovered the rotting corpses two weeks later. A child died after his parents tried to mix animal feed with water to make ‘bread’ to avoid starvation, a desperate measure countless families have since had to resort to. Palestinians are lining up almost anywhere in Gaza for food, which didn’t prevent the Israelis from opening fire, killing at least 112 and wounding 750 more in southwest Gaza. 

Besides the Assadist destruction of Aleppo and the Putinist destruction of Mariupol, no event in recent years has made it clearer to me that “hope is a discipline”, to quote Mariame Kaba. People are still trying, because they have to. To quote Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah, “we teach life, sir!” 

At the time of writing, 9 March 2024, some 60% of houses in Gaza are either partially or completely destroyed, amounting to the crime of domicide. A large part of the population — including over 90% of children — is at risk of mass starvation, the direct result of Israel’s policy of starvation as a weapon of war, which is a crime against humanity. Some 17,000 children have already been left orphaned, and are referred to by the acronym WCNSF – wounded child, no surviving family. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 15 litres of water per person per day for everyday use including drinking, with 7 litres being the absolute minimum. In Gaza, the number is around 3 litres, and that water is contaminated as a result of Israel blocking all access to water to the besieged strip. Diseases such as diarrhea and hepatitis are threatening to add tens of thousands of deaths while — just to add insult to injury — Israeli soldiers mock Palestinians’ suffering with open-air barbecues in destroyed Gazan neighborhoods. 

And yet, the overwhelming majority of Israelis continue to believe their military is acting justly in Gaza, and that the violence is justified. We have reached the stage where no amount of evidence to the contrary will change the minds of pro-Israel apologists, and nothing but direct outside intervention of one kind or another can stop this carnage. 

The cruel truth that underpins all of what is happening today is that Palestinians have, for years, tried to warn about Israel’s downward path towards mass-violence. The normalization of an occupation, a blockade, an apartheid system and an ethno-supremacist ideology could only be made possible if the Israelis became ‘moral monsters’ themselves, to use James Baldwin’s description of pro-segregation White Americans. Indeed, the genocide in Gaza is the end-result of decades of preventable policies by the Israeli state with the full-backing and complicity of Western countries, Arab states and numerous others. In fact, even as the Israeli state continued to colonize Palestinian lands decade after decade, the only real action taken by so-called democracies was to criminalize or censor the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, one of the few non-violent avenues left to Palestinians in their quest for justice. 

Today, we find ourselves in cruelly absurd situations where the USA, Israel’s primary backer, is both apparently frustrated with how the Israelis are ‘handling’ the war while also sending billions worth of weaponry and financial aid to make the genocide possible in the first place and preventing any diplomatic response at the UN level. The US is more comfortable setting up a ‘port’ off the Gazan shore to deliver some aid than telling its supposed ally to simply allow aid to come in from the existing land crossings.

Right now, I am incapable of doing more than write and take part in protests calling for an immediate ceasefire and for Israel to be held accountable. This is my way of bearing witness, I suppose. I do that because I’m the grandson of a Palestinian refugee who was exiled from his land, but also because I fear for a world that finds it easy to witness the annihilation of a people in slow motion and do nothing to stop it. Failing to stop the genocide in Gaza will not just hurt Gazans and Palestinians more broadly. It will greatly accelerate the ongoing authoritarian turn in large parts of the world, from India to the US. As with any situation, oppressors from around the world learn from one another. It is up to us to learn how to resist them, together.

VERSION WITH LINKS:

Title: The genocide in Gaza changes everything

By Elia J. Ayoub

thefirethesetimes.com / iwritestuff.blog

CW: extreme violence of all kind, genocide

Each day brings news worse than the day before. The more Gazans document the apocalypse brought upon by the Israeli state from the air, land and sea, the more it seems they are punished with more death and destruction. At the time of writing, 9 March 2024, some 60% of houses in Gaza are either partially or completely destroyed, amounting to the crime of domicide. Everything from schools to hospitals to bakeries to mosques to churches to kindergartens have been annihilated by the Israeli state. A large part of the population – including over 90% of children – is at risk of mass starvation, the direct result of Israel’s policy of starvation as a weapon of war, which is a crime against humanity. Over 30,000 Palestinians have already been murdered by the Israeli state since October 7, and thousands more are still buried under the rubble. Each day around 10 children lose one or more limbs, amputations are performed without anaesthetics, and around 37 mothers die. Some 17,000 children have already been left unaccompanied, and are referred to by the accronym WCNSF – wounded child, no surviving family. Barely three weeks into the genocide and the Israelis had already killed more children than are killed in global conflicts annually over the previous 4 years. The numbers today stand at over 13,000 children killed. To make matters worse, the World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 15 litres of water per person per day for everyday use including drinking, with 7 litres being the absolute minimum. In Gaza, the number is around 3 litres, and that water is contaminated as a result of Israel blocking all access to water to the besieged strip. Diseases such as diarrhea and hepatitis are threatening to add tens of thousands of deaths while – just to add insult to injury – Israeli soldiers mock Palestinians’ suffering with open-air barbecues in destroyed Gazan neighborhoods.

These are merely a few of the many examples of what the Israeli state has unleashed on the largely defenseless population of Gaza, a population with neither army nor navy nor airforce nor port nor airport facing one of the world’s most powerful armies backed by the world’s major military superpower. As a result, horror stories abound, the kind that can make even the most heartless individual think twice about endorsing this madness. And yet, the overwhelming majority of Israeliscontinue to believe their military is acting justly in Gaza, and that the violence is justified. The world’s largest open-air prison, populated by mostly children under the age of 18, has been turned into an extermination camp. We have reached the stage where no amount of evidence to the contrary will change the minds of pro-Israel apologists, and nothing but direct outside intervention of one kind or another can stop this carnage. Indeed, the scale of destruction is so large that comparisons to Dresden, Mariupol and Aleppo have been floated around in expert circles, including at a recent panel of UN experts that I’ve attended. 

The cruel truth that underpins all of what is happening today is that Palestinians have, for years, tried to warn about Israel’s downward path towards mass-violence. The normalisation of an occupation, a blockade, an apartheid system and an ethnosupremacist ideology could only be made possible if the Israelis became ‘moral monsters’ themselves, to use James Baldwin’s description of pro-segregation White Americans. Indeed, the genocide in Gaza is the end-result of decades of preventable policies by the Israeli state with the full-backing and complicity of Western countries, Arab states and numerous others. In fact, even as the Israeli state continued to colonize Palestinian lands decade after decade, the only real action taken by so-called democracies was to criminalize or censor the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, one of the few non-violent avenues left to Palestinians in their quest for justice. While the October 7th massacre by Hamas and other groups was horrific, it is absurd to act as if it occurred in a vacuum. The Israeli state has done everything in its power to exert more control over Palestinian bodies than is possible almost anywhere else in the world – for decades. The list of crimes committed by Israel is so long I cannot do it justice here. Virtually everything imaginable has been done, from the obsessive destruction of ancient olive trees that predate nation states to the imprisonment of around 10,000 children processed in military courts, from mass torture and rape to routinely stealing Palestinian homes and moving Jewish settlers into them.

After South Africa brought the charge of genocide against Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) the ICJ ordered the Israeli state to ensure ‘life-saving goods and services reaching a population at risk of genocide and on the brink of famine.’ There was a moment of hope there, and virtually everyone I knew, it seemed, was watching the livestream of a court. That in itself was quite the event as it gave many some hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will stop Israel, for once. This, as Amnesty International documented and as anyone with the capacity to pay attention to what’s happening knows, was soon crushed. Not “even the bare minimum steps,” in Amnesty’s words, were taken by Israel. In fact, they have stepped up their campaign of extermination through bombs and starvation since the ICJ’s ruling. Today, we find ourselves in cruelly absurd situations whereby the USA, Israel’s primary backer, is both apparently frustrated with how the Israelis are ‘handling’ the war while also sending billions worth of weaponry and financial aid (and preventing any diplomatic response at the UN level) to make the genocide possible in the first place. The US is more comfortable setting up a ‘port’ off the Gazan shore to deliver some aid than telling its supposed ally to simply allow aid to come in from the existing land crossings.

Every day, it seems, someone I know has been murdered. And if not them, a relative or friend or neighbors of theirs. To name but one: Refaat Alareer, a gentle soul and lover of literature, was murdered alongside his brother, nephew sister and three nieces by the Israeli state which “surgically bombed out of the entire building.” The Israelis told him where to go, and then bombed the entire building just to take out one academic who said bad things about them on social media. The moral depravity of it all. I can’t keep up. By various degrees of separations, I’m surrounded by so much deaths, and yet I’m one of the lucky ones – I’m in Switzerland, and the worse I have to deal with is racism and censorship and grief. 

Calling this a months-long campaign a series of blood baths doesn’t seem to do it justice. There is something additionally horrifying about what’s happening in Gaza, and that is the sheer scale of documentation and evidence that anyone with an internet connection or access to newspapers is able to go through. The Israelis have done everything in their power to prevent information from coming out, murdering at least 103 journalists according to Reporters Without Borders – an extraordinary crime against humanity in itself. But Gazans have continued to live-stream and document as much as they could, in the hope that this moves the world to do something, anything, to stop Israel from ‘finishing’ this genocide as so many in Netanyahu’s administration clearly wish to do – or as Trump put it, ‘finishing the problem,’ the Palestinian question. 

What keeps me going is this: amidst of all this carnage Gazans are still trying to save one another from the might of one of the world’s most powerful armies. A nurse has had to perform emergency caesarean operations on six dead pregnant women to try to save their babies. Another nurse was forced to choose which premature baby was most likely to survive the lack of oxygen, leaving the others behind after being told by the Israelis that they would be safe; they were not, and a journalist discovered the rotting corpses two weeks later. A child died after his parents tried to mix animal feed with water to make ‘bread’ to avoid starvation, a desperature measure countless families have since had to resort to. Palestinians are lining up almost anywhere in Gaza for food, which didn’t prevent the Israelis from opening fire, killing at least 112 and wounding 750 more in southwest Gaza. 

Besides the Assadist destruction of Aleppo and the Putinist destruction of Mariupol, no event in recent years has made it clearer to me that “hope is a discipline“, to quote Mariame Kaba. People are still trying, because they have to. To quote Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah, “we teach life, sir!” Right now, I am incapable of doing more than write and take part in protests calling for an immediate ceasefire and for Israel to be held accountable. This is my way of bearing witness, I suppose. I do that because I’m the grandson of a Palestinian refugee who was exiled from his land, but also because I fear for a world that finds it easy to witness the annihilation of a people in slow motion and do nothing to stop it. Failing to stop the genocide in Gaza will not just hurt Gazans and Palestinians more broadly. It will greatly accelerate the ongoing authoritarian turn in large parts of the world, from India to the US and passing by Germany. As with any situation, oppressors from around the world learn from one another. It is up to us to learn how to resist them, together. 

April 20 1 pm Free All Ages

People’s Park 55^th Anniversary Concert and Block Party. Telegraph Ave. Berkeley peoplespark.org

April 20 10:30 Free All Ages

Milwaukee Zine Fest @ Central Library

April 21 noon – 6 Free All Ages

Berkeley Student Cooperative Community Care Block Party Block party Davis Park 2424 Haste St, Berkeley

April 21 Free All Ages

Decolonizing Economics 2024: Earth Day to May Day! McKinleyville, CA (and May 1-3 on-line) decolonizingeconomicssummit.org

April 26 – 6 pm Free All Ages

San Francisco Critical Mass bike ride – Justin Herman Plaza – last Friday of each month sfcriticalmass.org

May 1 Free All Ages

International Workers Day – Worldwide! Who wants to organize a general strike?

May 3 – 8 pm Free All Ages

San Francisco Bike Party – at a BART station to be announced – 1^st Friday of each month eastbaybikeparty.wordpress.com 

May 4 – 5 Free All Ages

Upstate NY Anarchist Bookfair – Binghamton, NY upstateanarchistbookfair.com

May 10 – 8 pm Free All Ages

East Bay Bike Party – at a BART station tba – 2^nd Friday of each month eastbaybikeparty.wordpress.com 

May 26 

Punks with Books public reading. Vantpop Books, Las Vegas

June 1 & 2 Free All Ages

Art Party to make the 2025 Slingshot organizer – at Long Haul – 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley

June 1 – 2 

Bay Area Book Festival – downtown Berkeley. baybookfest.org 

June 11

International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason and Long-term Anarchist Prisoners. june11.org

June 16

Berkeley Juneteenth near Ashby BART 

June 22 Free All Ages

Nxoeed Art Show Opening, 5-9 pm – Studio Fallout SF – Alleyway, 50 Bannam Pl., San Francisco, CA 94133

June 22 – 23 Free All Ages

9th annual KC Zine Con at Goofball Sk8boards 

June 23

Trans March – Delores Park, San Francisco 

June 26

LA Zine Fest – LA Arts District 

June 28-30 

ACAB – Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair Asheville, NC

July 1 – 7 Free All Ages

52nd Rainbow Gathering – somewhere in California, Oklahoma or Washington… or…all 3 at the same time!!! ask a hippie for details. 

July 2-9

Earth First! Summer Gathering Hudson Valley, NY

July 20 Free All Ages

Street Cat Zine Fest! – Chillicothe, OH streetcatzinefest.org

August 11 Free All Ages

Party for Long Haul Infoshop’s 31^st birthday – 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley – thelonghaul.org

September 5 – 8 Free All Ages
Berlin-Kreuzberg Anarchist Bookfair Germany anarchistischebuechermesse.noblogs.org

October 6 
Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair – Humanist Hall 

Ongoing every First Sunday 

6-8:30pm Free All Ages

Triple Justice Film & discussion about the Climate Crisis, Capitalism, Racism, & more, and their connections

at Long Haul – 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley –triplejusticeforclimate@gmail.com

By Jose Fritz

Feeling trapped by the corporate narrative? Check out one of these small press works known as a “zine”. Better yet make a zine. Because why not? And if you do make one, send us a copy. We just might review it. 

Nardcore: 1981 to Infinity
76 pages – $10 shininglifepress.com

Music scenes are fleeting, ethereal things locked up in fading memories; usually only documented in yellowed zines, crumpled fliers and scuffed polaroid pictures. This zine is a canonically complete and chronological history of the music scene in the Oxnard, California area from about 1976 thru the Fall of 2023 —almost half a century of music.

I was absolutely riveted to each page, and it wasn’t even until the section on the year 2005 that I’d even heard of one of the bands: the fucking Wrath. I flipped back to the start and read each band name again. Was that Green Day? I knew more of these names than I thought. You don’t even have to be a hardcore kid to know all the names: Stalag 13, Downpresser, Minus, Nails, Offspring… You will know someone in here… there must be hundreds, and that’s before you start really reading the flyers. Oh, the flyers. He formats them mostly four to a page and there must be hundreds. It’s like an accounting of every stapled telephone pole, and every wheat pasted alley wall you’ve ever walked past. There is an entire life’s work in here, and it’s devastatingly beautiful. 

Not Our Farm
28 pages – free pdf/$5 printed notourfarm.org/resources

There is much to be said about working on a farm. I’ve done it, and it puts all other work hardships in perspective for the rest of your life: manual labor in cold weather and hot, sunburn, dehydration, sweat, dirt, chemical fertilizers, heavy machinery, substandard housing and unimaginable volumes of manure. Admittedly, this zine soft pedals the grosser parts of farming. There’s no discussion of inseminating cows, butchery, injuries, bug bites and stings, manure, or sunstroke. But it does address the bathroom situation. Most farm marketing shares a certain image of rustic wholesomeness, but it takes only two words to destroy the implied purity of all that marketing: poop kit. 

Most importantly this zine discusses in detail how to screen your future farm employer. Every farm is different and so is every farmer. The politics and values of the farm owner may make some folks feel unwelcome, possibly even unsafe. In this way the zine treats farms like any other employer. Their advice on screening is sound, and as for salary and work hours it advises to “get it in writing.”

This zine puts it all into perspective. What’s the right type of farm for you? Would you be happier on a large farm or a small one? Do you want to drive a tractor or use hand tools? Do you want to work with vegetables, animals or both? The zine gives space for all likes and dislikes, and how to find those farmers when they’re hiring. If you want to avoid cubicle life, you should probably read this.

Grow Worms – Winter 2024
44 pages – $6 justinlutz.bigcartel.com

From the first few pages I thought this was a slasher movie zine in the same vein as Municipal Threat. This is not the case, and I wouldn’t want to offend the Worm Wizard by suggesting such a thing. There are a few slasher movie reviews here but more pages are dedicated to music reviews and short fiction, the latter of which is wildly more disturbing than the underground cinema.

Mike Madrigale tells a strange and meandering first person story about the satanic cults of central Pennsylvania. Sam Richards reviews an album by Portrayal of Guilt, Evan Shelton writes an experimental fiction that reminds me of Reddit’s Interface Series. The prose here leans away from gore and toward the mindfuck category. Speaking of which… Hey! Edwin Callihan —does your momma know what you wrote? I’m not reading anything else with your byline until I get a written apology. Your writing is the type of dirty where you can’t get clean… This goddamn thing needs a warning label.
My favorite piece in the whole zine was a short treatise on the album Famine, by the band Paint It Black. It came complete with footnotes referencing Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Pryor and Henry James to name a few. Grow worms has a powerful will to live (willie zum leben) and its no-holds-barred approach to content evokes the a priori transgressive lit zines like ExBe, Vile and even Jim Goad’s Answer Me! 

Hi-Fi Anxiety – Issues #21 & 22.
24 pages – $10
duckyboardmanart.bigcartel.com/product/hi-fi-anxiety-zine

Jason Boardman makes zines like it’s his day job. The first issue came out in September of 2022 and while I was writing a review of issue 21, issues 22, 23 and 24 came out. By the time you read this I’m sure I’ll see issue 25 on Instagram. In the same year he’s created probably 25 zines, he’s also put out another dozen “fun-size” zines, special issues. Many of these have custom formatting, packaging, wrapping paper, sealed bags, or boxes. He’s an unstoppable force, like death and taxes, but wildly more entertaining. 

His fascination with zine culture, and graphic design shines through those flexi-discs, record reviews, and perzine style monologues. Like McLuhan, Boardman understands that the medium is the message, but he has the chops to back it up. Issue 21 sports a duo-tone Warhol-esque milk crate cover design with the block text “empty inside.” It’s T-shirt worthy. Issue #22 tops it, a double issue designed like a double VHS sleeve, this one full of movie posters and movie reviews. Each issue has a QR code link to an online “mixtape” thematically linked to the zine.

If I have any criticism, it’s that his emphasis on design definitely overshadows the writing. While not falling into the genre of text-less art zines, he’s precariously perched on a tipping point beyond which we might just have to appreciate artful zines while listening to well curated mix tapes. Oh the horror…

DOPE Magazine – Issue 24

22 pages – Free pdf

dopemag.org

DOPE Magazine is a British, donation-funded mutual aid project, at least that’s what it says on the tin. It also says “Fuel for the Machine, Caskets for the Poor”; the texts astride an image of a skull superimposed on a soldier’s head. The color scheme is risograph-inspired with a hard orange clashing with a pastel turquoise on a flat cream background. On the inside it has even more punch.

Just a little context, for those not keeping up with Brexit… the situation across the pond is bad. The Tories have done more damage than the Thatcherites managed in the whole of the 1980s. The rate of poverty in the UK is double that of the US; affecting over 8 million people. In other words, the British are skint. The articles here are powerful statements on endurance, perseverance, resistance and survival. These are juxtaposed against full-page artworks, collage photos and prints. 

It opens with an essay by Matt Wilson, about the use of language for post-capitalist future. It reminded me immediately of Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent: sharp, erudite, and insightful. Jay Kerr tells the story of Asel Luzarraga, a punk essentially arrested for being a Basque novelist. Morgan Trowland writes from prison the most subversive thing I’ve ever read. He feels unthreatened, and unintimidated by the system that jailed him for what should have been free speech. He is in a Zen monastery of his own making, and growing more powerful as he waits to be released. 

But there’s room in here for lighter topics as well. Helen Hester wrote a paean to the health benefits of naps. I don’t think it’s what Paul Lafargue had in mind, but I think he would still approve.

Ear of Corn – Issue 55
24 pages – $2 foodfortunata@hotmail.com

The zine Ear of Corn has been around forever. You can look up issue #1 on the Internet Archive; the date on the cover is February of 1989. That is literally before the movie Home Alone came out. Macaulay Culkin is old enough to run for President today. When a zine has been running that long it’s almost above mortal judgment. It’s from an earlier era of zines, when we still mostly called them “fanzines.”

It was an era before every zine had a glossy cover, an e-commerce platform, and multiple social media accounts. There’s an odd sort of purity in that. You have to respect that level of intransigence; defiantly resisting the unrelenting march of cultural change. 

It’s appropriate then that the first two pages of record reviews here feature The Absentees “Illegal Listening Device” and a re-release of G.G. Allin’s country opus, “EMF”. The original releases are even older than Ear Of Corn, and only someone from that era could, with a straight face, describe any recording by GG Allin as “Crystal Clear.” Similarly, the movie reviews go back as far as Dr. Strangelove (1964). But it also reviews dozens of new albums from every niche genre you can imagine…even Finnish hardcore. (Apparently that’s a thing.)

Throughout the zine, new and old sit side by side. That combination feels culturally fresh. It’s the gestalt of Generation Z to simultaneously experience all content, new and old, through memes, and samples, agnostically distilling all media into some kind of post-Clockwork Orange milk cocktail. Well done droogs, well done.

Restless Legs Inquirer – Issue 6

4 pages (8.5×11 ) – free brybry@riseup.net

This zine is the ideal size: four 8.5 x 11 pages. You can fold it in quarters and stick it in a pocket. I miss that about the old pocket-size novels. I carried it with me for a few days. Bryan’s writing has a quiet intensity that reminds me of Raymond Carver. His thoughts on “ruiners” and the narcissism of social media were both insightful and visceral. The zine ends on a lighter note with short movie reviews — one sentence each, some without punctuation. They were silly, but felt very deliberate, like haiku.
This zine came in the mail with an adorable photo zine, which tells a story as well as any crafted with words. Burroughs once wrote “Open your mind and let the pictures out” and so they have:

An image of a leg in a cast; a friendly face; images of young hipsters alternately disheveled makeup smeared and sharp, ready for their close up Mr. DeMille; a carnival, a house party; a mosh pit kicking up dust; industrial wastelands juxtaposed against the suburbs; a basement show and dancing; a man screaming into an SM58; young people enjoying life with intensity and joy — every image selected with care, and imbued with meaning.

Just a Jefferson – Issue 56
23 pages – $2 markellorhighwater@gmail.com

The first page includes a list of 42 contributors spread across 20 U.S. states and 5 other countries: Greece, India, Japan, Russia, and Turkey. The contributors here don’t contribute poetry or prose. They ask each other questions; many are about reading, writing or course but most of them are exceedingly random: odd foods, fish stories, favorite songs beginning with the letter “O”, bad customer service and good TV shows. Presumably other issues cover favorite songs beginning with the letter “R” and bad TV shows. The whole zine seems deeply committed to randomness which is a cause I can support, whole cults have been founded on less. 

Node Pajomo – Issue 2.8

38 pages – $5 

P.O. Box 2632, Bellingham, WA 98227

The cover of issue 2.8 is an artfully blurred image of a bearded man. On prior covers, we’ve seen parts of this face before. It reminds me of Freda Khalo’s iterations. Warhol and Maplethorpe both also engaged in frequent self portraiture. Somehow this one has a Rasputin-like intensity. Several pages later he walks it back with a Lester Bangs quote “The first mistake of art is to assume it’s serious.”

Like a good mail art zine, odd-sized bits of paper fell out of the envelope and all over my desk like confetti: tiny stickers, an ode to unrequited love, a pamphlet on non-binary child rearing, a square of wrapping paper, two more stitched together, a tiny flyer in Italian, another in German… I’m lost in a blizzard of colorful confetti.

I am also pleased to report that the font size has been increased, making Node Pajomo an easier read. As a certified old person it’s a comfort to my eyeballs. In this issue were reviews of zines on every conceivable, and even some inconceivable topics: Led Zeppelin bootlegs, beefs, linocuts, comics, language, Brooklyn, NY, drugs… It feels like a microcosm of everything. How do you wake from reading a zine about a zine about zines? Can you ever come back all the way? Does some part of you get left behind every time you try?

Out From the Void – Issue 6

32 pages – $5  Outfromthevoid@yahoo.com

On the inside cover, this issue advertises that Brenton Gicker guested on the true crime podcast “The Murder Sheet,” which I listened to while writing this. The recording opens with a content warning “This episode contains discussion of murder, suicide, mental illness, drug and alcohol adiction and possible sexual crimes against children.” This same warning could easily sit on the cover of his zine. Brenton was in good form, and advocated well for people at risk.

The zine opens with a feature by Gicker, a solid 8 pages about missing persons in The McKenzie River Valley. It and a few other pieces were previously printed in the Eugene Weekly. Even the gothic poetry, which fills out the last few pages, is reprinted from other sources. Not that Gicker is hiding it. Every work is properly dated and attributed. So I’ve come to see the zine as curated work catering to Gickers interests. 

The focus of this issue isn’t just missing persons. There’s an excellent tell-all by Bob Keefer about what Reagan’s defunding did to mental hospitals in the 1980s. That’s followed by a news piece from the Chris Hedges Report about millionaire Healthcare CEOs reducing care, while crushing nursing unions. These are about systemic issues in healthcare that do lead to higher mortality rates, and to more missing people. It does contrast a bit with the poetry about feral cats and government peanut butter, but that can’t be helped; we’re not all poets. 

Aaron Aarons — a perennial member of the Berkeley radical direct action scene — died January 19. In lieu of a formal obituary, here are some reflections:

I met Aaron through Campaign Against Apartheid when I moved here in 1986. I knew him as a regular — a presence at many protests and meetings. Aaron called into KPFA and KQED to bring the radical viewpoint and you would instantly recognize his New York accent. He had a hilarious show on pirate radio station Free Radio Berkeley in which he often mostly argued with his co-host, Dean. 

Aaron hung out at Long Haul so often that he was an agenda item at meetings. I never knew for sure, but I got the feeling he was a 1960s veteran who had stuck with the radical scene permanently. Turns out he was arrested in 1960 for being part of a group that used rowboats and a canoe to block the launch of a nuclear missile-armed submarine! Aaron sometimes rubbed others the wrong way by being argumentative and long-winded at meetings, but I never doubted his sincerity or his commitment to a better world. — jesse

#

We lose friends, family, and lovers, but the harder losses to explain are the minor characters whose appearance — and disappearance — in our lives and scenes is still profound. 

We rarely know more than one part, and one period, of their lives. No doubt Aaron Aarons was once a handsome, shy kid in Brooklyn, rather than the irate, contrite elder wingnut familiar to those of us at Slingshot.

I remember him fondly from the Long Haul Sunday night dinners, where he sat next to me for years without acknowledging my presence except for occasionally asking me to pass the salt. (Activist dinners are never short of adversity, personality, and complaints, which Aaron provided easily, but salt is worth its weight in gold.) 

Aaron’s thorny grumpiness delighted me, and put me at ease. He was a whetstone we could grind against, or a rhino at the zoo to tease. His exaggerated role allowed us to hone our own acts and feel at ease. Thank heavens for elders because they give us a chance to be kids. 

I remember his disgust at one of my found t-shirts; the obscure acronymed group it called for freeing was, according to the all-knowing Aaron Aarons, a biker gang. But I also recall his joy at finding one of his own T-shirts that had fresh relevance: “Bush” with a swastika for the “S,” which he proudly dug out after the disastrous election of George the Second. “Good as new,” said Aaron, with something like a smile. — Aaron Cometbus

#

Besides Long Haul, Aaron was a frequent face at La Peña for all events cultural & political. You would also be sure to see him at any of the political lectures around town whether it was a DIY activist space or institutional. He would often take the mic during Q&A to pursue a point that went after capitalism.

Aaron was at every protest well into his old age when marching and rioting stays in the body longer. 

He cared passionately for international struggles. For Palestinian rights. He was anti-war. He was vigilant about police abuse. In many ways the things taken seriously now he was neck deep in. His engagement was not only attending protests and public talks but in keeping records that traced events as they happened. [He donated his papers to Long Haul.]

Aaron was into a broad range of cultural things intersecting with the radical community. An avid reader whose book collection was hungrily sought after, he also invested deeply in the alternative press and even the mainstream press. He attended dance performances, plays, repertoire films. He danced at Ashkenaz with its blend of world music. A diehard Peace and Freedom Party member attending meetings and helping to shape its progressive agenda. A tenant organizer for 40+ years living in the flatlands of Berkeley watching the rents shoot into the stratosphere. Being able to live and resist here due to rent control and disability checks. It was hard to see any trace of a day job on his hands. The kind of activist threat ignited when not watered down chasing the capitalist dream. 

He was into computers as early as the 1970’s. Traveled to Mexico and kept up with culture and politics of that region. He spoke and wrote in Spanish. 

Born in NY. (From Queens? Brooklyn?) In the early 1960’s while in college he started his own radical publication that got him into trouble with the school (expelled?). He moved to Berkeley in the early 1970’s. —Eggplant

There’s a lot missing in what we know about Aaron — Presente! 

By Elle Dee and C.C. Brigade

This obituary of a beloved Oakland anarchist we lost over three years ago was written for an issue of a magazine that did not go to print. Although we are a bit late getting it out into the world, her life was beautiful and her legacy is timeless.

Carrie was a dear friend of mine who passed from cancer on October 26, 2020. She was with her children in her home, where she wanted to be. She was comfortable, she was ready for her next adventure, and she left so many of us enriched by her presence, and humbled by her graceful exit. She was a vibrant 63 years old.

Carrie was first drawn to anarchism in San Francisco in the late 1970’s. Specifically, she became intrigued by radical leaning flyers pasted to telephone poles around town. Some of the flyers made fun of things like the Abalone Alliance, while others advertised adult play spaces like Gorilla Grotto. Pursuing these leads she made friends with anarchist authors and event organizers. She read and discussed anarchist theory, and attended anarchist parties and events. Not an activist or a punk, she was her own kind of anarchist — one dedicated to pursuing intimacy, connection, and the liberation of her time to do what pleased her. She came to view cities as playgrounds, and enjoyed counter culture expressed in art and political critique.

I met Carrie in 2005 at an anarchist study group in Berkeley. By then she had moved to Oakland, married, had two children, homeschooled her children, and worked intermittently as a Hebrew teacher, preschool teacher, community organizer, and baker. Her children were growing up, her marriage was becoming polyamorous, and she was actively pursuing anarchism again.

When meeting Carrie it was immediately apparent that I was in the presence of someone who lived joyfully, sensually, and thoughtfully. She made friends with people in their 80’s as easily as with people in their 20’s. She was a firm believer in having as many deep and wonderful relationships as possible. She was quirky and deliciously witty, extroverted and welcoming. Carrie loved to talk about everything from the philosophies of Anarchism to the problems with Zionism, and while she was inclusive and intellectually generous, she didn’t let problematic statements slide, ever. She was unashamedly challenging, and enjoyed sharing her thoughts and knowledge.

Carrie was a true scholar, magician, and occult anarchist, and she always had a project that stimulated her spirit. When she died, Carrie was a 3rd year PhD candidate at the Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley. Her thesis was an argument for reclaiming Thelema, as an occult practice with anarchist, revolutionary potential. This radical ideology, along with many Jewish elements, the use of sex magic, and an active local community, made Thelema a priority for Carrie. She opened her home as a Thelemic Temple, where like minded people were invited to meet weekly for ritual, food, and community. She even traveled to the ruins of Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic abbey in Sicily, and brought back a relic for her temple.

But Thelema wasn’t all Carrie studied. Her home was filled with books she’d read on anarchism, Kabbalistic mysticism, unorthodox Judaism, cultural and literary criticism, political theory, feminism, and racism. She was intentional about collecting books which might go out of circulation. And she would discuss any of these with friends at her kitchen table, under a fig tree in her backyard, on a walk through a cemetery or forest, over lunch, while camping, or in a discussion group. She was boundlessly curious, and incisively poetic in expressing herself. Carrie participated in consent workshops, helped to edit many issues of Anarchy: Journal of Desire Armed, and participated in countless anarchist bookfairs, conferences, and other events.

In reviewing her life with me, Carrie said she felt her most anarchist moment was during Occupy, when she facilitated the occupation of empty houses in her neighborhood by squatters. It was a project based on mutual aid and the desire to grow community. That project lasted two years, and she was justifiably proud of her efforts. Carrie was also a solid participant in the Free Association Land Project for many years.

What must be clear by now is that Carrie had an amazing passion for life, and her most powerful magic shown in the care she put into her life and her relationships. She didn’t let herself get stuck in the past, but kept her eyes on where she was heading. One of the things Carrie told me in her last week was that she was always a “Let’s go!” person, when someone mentioned an adventure. She said that was how she was feeling about her journey into spirit form. Still, I thought I would see her at least once more. I can barely express how much I will miss her — she inspired me to unashamedly seek out pleasure and friendship, and fearlessly embody my beliefs. Beautiful red haired spirit, my dear friend, you were so very good at living. I can only imagine what you’re up to in the after! I love and miss you..

If you never got a chance to meet Carrie, you can still hear her talk about anarchism and Thelema with The Brilliant in Episode 99 at thebrilliant.org/podcast. You can also see her talking about several Jewish and Esoteric topics on youtube as well; the video she made for the GTU about the World-to-Come (Olam Ha’Ba) is particularly moving. 

By Jesse

One of the great things about the East Bay is how people make DIY art installations, mutual aid stations and other public offerings that defy categorization. One of my favorites is a house near Long Haul that periodically posts 7 thought provoking questions with a paper and pencils for anyone who is walking by to write an answer. They call themselves the Street Words Project but it is just pinned to the side of the house. Here’s the current 7:

1. What aspect of life confuses you the most?

2. What is the most difficult part of your day, usually?

3. What’s something that hangs you up again and again with another person?

4. Name one thing, big or small, that has changed for the better recently?

5. What if something really great for all of us is about to be invented and surprise us all – what might it be?

6. What person did you the most good this week, and how?

7. How will you connect with another human today?

By Alice

Over the last few years, I’ve rolled my eyes as what seemed to be a baseless moral panic about cellphone towers erupted among my more conspiracy-oriented friends. Cell phone towers can’t hurt you, right? 

But then, last August, I moved into a rooftop apartment in Berkeley. The building next door had a bunch of weird electronics installed on the roof, including two little red-capped antennas peering out over a wall that were eye level with me while I stood at my kitchen sink. These little metal nodes were at such an angle that I could see them out the window while lying in my lofted bed. 

In the first days after moving in, I started to have very vivid dreams. Flashbacks. The quality of my sleep began to suffer. Within a few weeks, little cigarette-burn-sized sores started to appear on my body, concentrated around my organs and as well as around the fattier bits, like the underside of my arms but not on top. I’ve never had sores like that before: they felt like first degree burns, like when you burn yourself while baking. More and more sores began to appear, and they never seemed to heal. As the weeks passed, my short-term memory and concentration started to suffer. I work in education, and minor tasks that I’ve done for years were suddenly taking more time. I was having to relearn software tools that I already knew. 

My grandfather was a physicist and engineer, and when I was a small child, he taught me how to use a gaussmeter (a.k.a. an EMF meter). I have fond memories of walking through the house with him, the meter held out before us, scanning things, getting a sense of all the invisible forces all around us. Normally, when you use a gaussmeter to scan your home, the center of the room should be at or near zero microTeslas (μT), but as you move it closer to power outlets, it should pick up a bit of a charge (perhaps around 4 to 7μT), and that’s perfectly normal. In recent years, I’ve tended to include a gaussmeter as part of my maker stuff, alongside my soldering iron and other tools, and usually, at some point after moving into a new apartment, I’ll give the place a good scan, while thinking of my grandfather. It’s a soothing ritual to me, much like the way some people like to “smudge” their homes with sage.

In November, while unpacking the last few boxes from the move, I found my gaussmeter and turned it on. To my utter shock, the reading immediately shot up to over 100 μT, which is higher than the international safety standards set by the CNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection). As I walked around the apartment, I found that there wasn’t a single place much lower than 20 μT, and that around my sink and bed, the levels shot up to 120 μT or more.

I immediately called the landlord, thinking that perhaps a wire was loose or something. A guy from the power company came out and the landlord also came out as well, and we were all trying to figure out what was going on. The power guy inspected all the wires, and they were fine. The landlord let me go out on the roof, and we walked around together with the gaussmeter in front of us, moving towards the spot with the highest reading. We quickly realized that the source of the radiation was from those little red-capped antennas poking up over the wall on the neighbor’s roof, and my landlord identified them as a type of cellphone tower. I hadn’t realized that cell towers emit so much radiation, and that they can be installed literally on top of and next to dwellings. 

Contemporary cellphone towers emit a type of radiation called RF EMR (Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Radiation). RF EMR is a form of non-ionizing radiation, meaning it doesn’t knock electrons off atoms. We get small doses of this type of radiation from the sun. It becomes a problem, though, when you’re getting heavy, consistent doses.

In 2021, a systematic review of over 30 studies found that consistent exposure levels of RF EMR higher than 0.4 μT led to a doubled rate of leukemia [6]. The levels in my apartment were over 250 times higher than that. Other health risks associated with RF EMR exposure include tumors in the heart and cell damage in mammals [1], cognitive issues and memory loss [3], and an ailment identified by World Health Organization as EHS (Electromagnetic field Hypersensitivity Syndrome), which includes diminished tolerance to pain and heat [4].

Many of my symptoms matched the classic symptoms of RF EMR exposure, and as the weeks progressed through winter, they were getting worse and worse. I tried covering the windows and parts of the wall with foil, but the radiation kept coming in through the floors. The burns around my organs were getting worse and worse, constantly oozing a thin layer of yellow puss. My ability to focus and memory were falling apart, and I also began to experience nerve pain all through my body, along with migraines. It was like I was being cooked, slowly, from the inside.

In December, I asked the landlord if there was anything that could be done about the neighbor’s cell tower. “My hands are tied,” the landlord said and explained that since the cell tower was technically on the neighbor’s property, there was nothing he could do. “There’s no law to make him move it, and he refuses to do anything unless told by law.”

RF EMR is a public health risk, yet, currently, there are no enforceable laws in the U.S. protecting people from it. Many countries have regulations against unsafe levels of RF-EMR in places where people live and work [7]. These regulations were often set in the late 2010s, as more research about associated health risks with RF EMR came to light. At that time, however, the U.S. was in a strange place because of the way Trump gutted the EPA. During his first 18 months in office, Trump fired over 1,500 EPA workers, including 260 scientists and 106 engineers. Because of this, the U.S. has fallen behind other countries in regulating environmental hazards. 

Having things in our environment that make us sick infringes upon our freedom and autonomy. Whether it’s lead in the soil, microplastics in the water, RF EMR from cell towers, or wildfire smoke from climate change. 

I wish I could trust other humans to not do this kind of stuff (i.e., putting hazardous things around that hurt people), but it’s like how in any community organization, there will be a few bad actors who make selfish decisions that hurt everyone else (every anarchist community has had to deal with at least one such person over the years). Some people are just built that way, and it’s pointless to try to convince them to change. Without being confronted with some kind of regulations, policy, or social agreement—whatever you want to call it—these people are going to continue to harm the rest of us. 

Luckily, I had the resources to move, and got out of that apartment in January. I’m sad to think that the landlord has probably rented that apartment out to someone else by now, and that they are probably going to get sick.

Currently, homes, workplaces, and even elementary schools across the country have cell towers on the roofs, and thousands of people are currently being exposed to this form of radiation. 

Within days of getting out of that apartment, the burns have started to heal and scab over, but the headaches and nerve pain remain and my ability to focus isn’t what it was before. I am contending with the reality that I may have permanently damaged my body and brain just from those five months of exposure. RF EMR is a silent killer, not just through cancer rates but through the way it impacts memory and cognition, robbing you of the ability to think and remember.

As an anarchist, I imagine that even after we create a federated cooperative commonwealth, there would be some kind of board or union that serves the same role as the EPA in making sure that things meet safety standards. I dream of a consent-based society in which environmental safety is valued as the backbone of autonomy. In the meantime, I hope some kind of regulations about RF EMR are passed soon. 

Studies referenced: 

Adebayo, E.A., et. all. (2019)  “Bio-physical effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation (RF-EMR) on blood parameters, spermatozoa, liver, kidney and heart of albino rats,” Journal of King Saud University – Science 31(4), 813-821, sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1018364717308789

1. Kim, JH, et. (2019) “Possible Effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure on Central Nerve System.” Biomol Ther 27(3):265-275,ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6513191/
2. Narayanan, S.N., et al. (2019) “Radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation-induced behavioral changes and their possible basis.” Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 30693–30710,link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-019-06278-5
3. Ouadah NS, Blazy K, Villégier AS. (2020) “Effect of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields on Thermal Sensitivity in the Rat.” Int J Environ Res Public Health 17(20):7563,ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7589172/
4. American Cancer Society “Cell Phone Towers” White Paper. Accessed 22 December 2023. cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/radiation-exposure/cellular-phone-towers.html
5. Seomun G, Lee J, Park J. Exposure to extremely low-frequency magnetic fields and childhood cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2021 May 14;16(5):e0251628. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251628. PMID: 33989337; PMCID: PMC8121331. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8121331/
6. See: tinyurl.com/EuropeLawsRFEMR

Greetings friends! Spring and summer are just around the corner, and with the changing seasons, another June 11^th! If you’re unfamiliar, June 11^th is the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason and Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. June 11^th is a day to gather, celebrate, and build continual support for Marius Mason, an anarchist serving a 22-year prison sentence for actions in defense of the Earth; as well as for other anarchist and anti-authoritarian prisoners across the world. As prisons everywhere work to tighten their grip of terror and control, keeping prisoners in our minds, hearts and actions, and keeping them connected to the world outside the prison walls is a great tool to combat the isolation and loneliness of being locked away. Every year, people across the globe act in solidarity, or organize fundraising events in their area to socialize, spread stories, and raise funds for Marius. Visit June11.org to learn more about Marius Mason, the other prisoners we support, and how to get involved!

Compiled by Jesse D. Palmer

As fragile, small, individual humans facing overwhelming threats like climate change, mega-corporations and repressive political movements, organic connection with others based on love and mutual aid is all we have. It also happens to be a superpower our opponents lack that they can’t squash, co-opt or steal. AI-armed computers and capitalism can’t understand or operate with love — a glue that binds people together not out of transactional selfishness but which rather comes from an irrational yet evolutionary essential place as old and universal as life itself. Giving ourself to others and the earth is fundamental — because while each of us is unique, we’re also all one. Everyone everywhere has the same hopes, weaknesses, pleasures, fears as we do — looking out at the world with the same eyes.

It’s up to us to create community, nurture it, seek it out, plug in, and then give what we can to keep it alive — and bask in the glow that gives back more than you put in. Which is why people all over are putting their lives into creating underground spaces that are alternatives to a world dominated by bleak conformity, mediocrity and boredom — chain stores, office parks, cement, iphones, consumerism — fuck that shit. May we spend our days around freaky, friendly people in cozy homemade artists warehouses, all-ages venues, radical bookstores, maker spaces and community centers. 

Here’s some radical spaces Slingshot has heard about since the 2024 organizer was printed in June, 2023. Email us with your corrections and additions. Updates are at slingshotcollective.org/contacts.

Under the Umbrella – Salt Lake City UT

A queer bookstore providing “a safe space for queer folks of all ages to congregate and celebrate their stories.” They feature many types of books. “Every book in our store is either queer in content and/or written by queer authors.” 511 W 200 S Suite 120 Salt Lake City, UT 84101 801-922-0923 undertheumbrellabookstore.com

Grey Coast Guild Hall – Quilcene, WA

A volunteer collectively run event space in rural Washington that hosts drag shows, a local film fest, speakers, punk shows and other events.  11 Church Hall Road Quilcene, WA 98376 graycoastguildhall@gmail.com, graycoastguildhall.com

Love Reforms Cooperative -Harrisburg, PA

A non-profit cooperative that promotes gardening and the arts.  2358 Berryhill Street Harrisburg, PA 17104 lovereforms.org

Milwaukee Outdoor Indoor Exchange – Milwaukee, WI

An outdoor repair / recycling store that hosts events and shows. 3044 S. Delaware Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53207 414-935-2903 mkeoutdoorindoor.com

Eleanor’s Norfolk – Norfolk, VA

A radical neighborhood bookstore & bottle shop that also acts as a safe space for community activism, engagement, and learning. They amplify underrepresented voices and invite those seeking to be a more active part of their community by offering space for education & conversation. 806 baldwin Ave. #1 Norfolk, VA 23517 eleanorsnfk.com

Mac’s Backs Books on Coventry – Cleveland Heights, OH

An independent bookstore that hosts events about different issues/personal topics. 1820 Coventry Rd. Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44118, 216-321-2665 macsbacks.com

Meinolf Weaving School – San Anselmo, CA

A weaving school that offers shared equipment and materials, and a space for people to make things and be with other people. Home of Marin Zine Club for all kinds of making, mending, skill sharing, and community in addition to zine making and sharing every Sunday from 5 – 8 pm. They aim to host other events and have a small zine library/free media area. 141 Tunstead Ave, San Anselmo, CA 94960.  510-229-7466.

Silver Sprocket – San Francisco CA

Radical indie comics publisher, shop, and gallery with a focus on zines. They share their zine making resources with anyone who comes in. 1018 Valencia, San Francisco 94110 silversprocket.net

Positive Images – Santa Rosa

An LGBTQIA+ Community Center with a library of media, recreation room, food pantry and transformation station providing free clothing and gender-affirming aids. They offer peer-run mental health support groups and many other programs. 200 Montgomery Drive, Suite C, Santa Rosa, CA 95404 707-568-5830 posimages.org

Lizard Tree Library – Niland, CA

A library for Slab City, an off-the-grid squatter community built by the Salton Sea on an abandoned military base. 555 Rosalie Drive, Niland, CA  (mail: PO Box 642 Niland, CA 92257)

Grand Opening – Berkeley, CA

Alternative art space that hosts events and roadside attraction The Illusion Room. 1220 4th St. Berkeley CA 94710 IG: @grand.opening.arts

Red Willow Collective – Minot, ND

An Indigenous, volunteer run music and art collective that presents social justice workshops, art shows, zines, skill shares, and all-ages events at various locations in downtown Minot. They don’t have a space but are hoping to locate one soon. redwillowcollective@gmail. instagram/bitch_cave

La Colectiva Feminista En Construcción – San Juan, PR

A political organization that hosts workshops and events on social justice. 51 Calle Robles, Río Piedras, San Juan, 00925, Puerto Rico colectivafeministapr@gmail.com instagram.com/colectivafeministapr/

Taller Libertá – Mayagüez, PR

A multidisciplinary space for the arts. 66 Calle Pablo Casals, Mayagüez, 00680, Puerto Rico taller.liberta@gmail.com facebook.com/groups/TallerLiberta

Filaret16 – Bucharest, Romania

A DIY, autonomous space for alternative music, art, politics and community events. 16, Strada Mitropolit Filaret Bucharest Romania instagram/filaret.saispe echipa.filaret16@gmail

Corrections to Radical Contact List

• Oops – we published the wrong address for The Lucy Parsons Center in Boston because we thought they were going to move when were making the organizer – they are still at 358 A Centre Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 

• Taala Hooghan Infoshop in Flagstaff, Az is closing in the wake of Klee Benally’s death. 

• Oops we left out People’s Cauldron Herbal Apothecary & Free Herbal Clinic 69 Coxing Rd. Cottekill, NY 12419, 845 332 3354.  It’s a point of contact for Mastodon Valley EF! (previously known as Hudson valley EF!  and The Moon Infoshop (previously in Newburgh NY). Their physical locations are word of mouth only. 

• We forgot to include Impetus Records at 13 Delaware Ave, Claymont, DE 19703.

By Lola

It always starts the same, brown eyes looking into blue eyes, cat eyes looking into black eyes… a feeling communicated or miscommunicated, in a crowded room that smells like cigarette smoke. It will become messy; it will become everything. But first, a look. It begins with a look. 

—

Two summers ago, August, 2:22 pm: I was lying on the hot pavement of my parent’s driveway, doodling on a page that had fallen out of my notebook. “Everything is made out of two’s,” I wrote. Two bodies drinking beer on the beach, I was thinking. Or saying goodbye to one another in the church parking lot. My mind was on someone in particular, that day, but I still felt that our whole community was made out of these little interactions, these exchanges both sacred and mundane, between the one and the other. Even in our most united moments – dancing at the boys’ show, squeezed in next to one another in Paloma’s van, crowding around an ocean beach bonfire – it was always someone’s shoulder I was pressed against. Always one pair of hands twirling me in circles.

It’s February now, years later, and I don’t have that boy anymore. He kissed me on the nose and got into his car, pulled out of the parking lot, and that was it. I came home and wrote poems and cried on the driveway, and that torn out notebook paper, with the scribbled fuck you’s and the line about two’s, found its way into the converse box full of letters that sits on top of my dresser.

Really, there’s a lot of boys I don’t have anymore. Friends and lovers. I’m trying hard not to look at it this way, but sometimes it’s alI I can see. The fact that a ripped piece of paper with a half-finished thought has outlasted them. 

—

My mom grew up in SF in the 80’s. Her mother, my grandma, was a busy single parent: broke, working full time, friends with everyone in the city, and casually dating a handful of men who were all desperately in love with her. My mom had a lot of unwanted independence from a young age, and with that independence, she found some of her chosen family in the angsty and wild teenage boys that populated the punk/skater scene. It was rough back then, much rougher than it is today, but I know my mom found gentleness and love in many of these relationships. Today, I call those boys my uncles. I think about my mom often, as I sit cross-legged at the skatepark with a book. Or stand on the perimeter of the mosh pit holding someone’s jacket. I think about the way these histories repeat themselves — the best parts, the worst parts. Maybe we are headed toward a future that abandons gender completely, but the reality is that right now, in my life at least, gender seems almost as prevalent as it was when my mom was a teenager. And just as when my mom was a teenager, unhealthy masculinity still seems to dominate so many of our creative, social, intellectual spaces…

But I don’t want to write about that anymore. I have always been surrounded by men, my whole life. Playing guitar in my living room. Telling loud stories at the dinner table. Finishing my burritos for me when I’m too full. My uncles, my sisters’ boyfriends, my closest friends – my mom’s chosen family coalescing into mine, crystallizing in the form of generations of skater boys, musicians, alcoholics. 

They take up a lot of space. I love them fiercely. But recently, I’ve been wondering. Or maybe I’ve always been wondering. If I love them so much, why do I always feel like screaming? Why is it always a battle? Why is it always me, drunk at the bar, sitting on the pool table, telling them there are more important things in the world than their fucking activities, and them laughing, or putting their head in their hands, or looking the other way – lola’s being crazy again. Why is it always like that? 

These past few months, I’ve been brought pretty close to the point of giving up. A few different things happened with my closest guy friends that really made me consider if my love for them was a complete waste. Other women in my community felt equally disillusioned, abandoned by these masculine forces in the midst of crisis, in the moments we most needed them. The common thread throughout their transgressions, which manifested as everything from angry outbursts to radio silence, drunken carelessness to professions of “keeping the peace,” was a simple, strong impulse to avoid conflict. The fissures they created, the pain they caused – all in the name of this negation, this desire to sidestep a bedrock of the human experience. To put it another way – all in the name of nothingness.

My sisters and I were talking about that the other night. Maddy drew comparisons to members of male-dominated spiritual lineages, such as buddhist monks, or catholic priests. Within these traditions, enlightenment can only be reached through detachment from the drama of the world: the censure of pain, and pleasure, and passion and hunger and grief and desire… Snuff out that little flame inside of you, or else it will burn the world down. Get rid of the heat and intensity and the burning love and rage, and you will be left with a clear blue void. That is what you really are. A small, infinite pulse in a sea of nothingness. 

It’s true, Maddy said, we are the void. But the void isn’t nothing. It’s everything. That’s the kind of spirituality she practices: stoking the flame rather than extinguishing it. Understanding that underneath all of this, there’s something real, something invisible to the senses, but that doesn’t mean that everything else — the things you see and taste and hold — aren’t real, too. 

Which brings me to last Wednesday, sitting on a park bench with one of these boys, trying to work it out. I was explaining the irony of the fact that although both of us were considered by many of our friends to be fairly aggressive, fiery, and prone to out-of-pocket and drunken behavior, my outbursts were always met with much more resistance, and discomfort, and disapproval than his. ‘I think we both share a love for chaos,’ he said. ‘But my love is born out of skating and punk music and feeling like nothing really matters, cause we’re gonna die in about 40 years anyways. Meanwhile your love for chaos comes from – ?’ From the opposite of that, I thought. From my heart bleeding and from being in love and from caring about life so much that I might die from the weight of it. 

The funny thing, to me, is that it boils down to the same antics – playing music, and kissing, and starting fires, and getting into fights. There’s nothing these boys need to worry about, no reason for them to fear conflict, to fear a knotted rope. Just pull at the edges. Let it release. Let it knot again. The pure blue nothingness of the void is prone to frequent tangles; just as it’s prone to messy break-ups, fresh starts, and magnolia trees in the rain. Fingers on the piano and burning cheeks. Snow falling. Ideas surfacing. Breath coming in, and going out, and footsteps in sync, walking, then running, then standing still.

— 

If our community is made out of two’s, out of these little moments where consciousness winks back at itself, I need to be able to trust men. I need to be able to trust everyone. To view them as my balancing halves, my muses, my comrades, my partners in crime. But the reality is, you won’t always be able to place your trust in avoidant men. You will give them your years and your generosity and your laughter and your poems and sometimes, when it’s comfortable for them, or when they want to have sex with you, they will give it all back, and more. And then a lot of times they won’t. They will become afraid because your emotions were too real, too honest. If you are in love with them, they will be afraid, and if you are in love with someone else, they will be afraid, and if you are free, really genuinely free, through and through, so free that no one can ever challenge it or take it away from you — if you’re free, I promise you that they will be terrified. I wish it wasn’t true. But I’ve seen it too many times. And fear can release all of the worst things in the human heart. 

The damage that men are capable of causing when they are afraid can, obviously, have very real consequences. It reminds me of Carmen Machado’s short story “The Husband Stitch,” which follows a young woman from the day she meets her husband to the day she dies. She loves her husband, loves being intimate with him, sharing her life with him, raising a son with him, growing old with him. She speaks of him with only admiration and respect. But throughout the story, she will sometimes mention the green ribbon tied around her neck. This is the one barrier between the woman and her husband: he must not ask about the ribbon, not touch the ribbon, and must never try to untie it. Sometimes he becomes frustrated and tells her a wife shouldn’t have secrets. “It’s not a secret,” she says. “It just isn’t yours.” Whenever the ribbon is mentioned between them, he will become aggressive, or confused, or sad, and she will fill up with rage. Eventually she grows tired of resisting him, and lets him untie the ribbon. I think you remember how this story ends.

The toxic-ly masculine practice of turning away from emotion, from passion, and from conflict will continue to contaminate our communities. I don’t know what to say about that, I just know that it will. It doesn’t feel good to write that down. It’s not that I’ve given up – I am sure I will continue to debate these boys, to painstakingly explain things to them, to cry with them, to kiss them, to interrupt their pool games and rant at them, to believe they really got it this time, to get disappointed all over again… they’re my family, maybe not yours, and I’ll have to do what I can do. I have to keep holding them to a ‘higher standard’ — or maybe just a darker and wilder standard, a more honest one — as I hope they do for me, too. And yet, with all that said, I know that some kind of a shift is necessary. Not for them. That’s out of my hands. But for me, for us. 

Maybe some of the shift lies in the radical, non-dual interpretation of feminine spirituality I’ve talked about here, the precept that says we are not just the rope, not just the knot, but the knotted rope, perpetually capable of sliding free. 

We are the storm and we are the still water. As Maddy would say – the whole ocean.

It leaves space for everything. For life to be fucked, and for life to also be okay. For these truths to exist in harmony. For chaos and for peace. Love and rage. It leaves space for men to mess up, because they will, and for you to get hurt, because you will, and for you to keep loving, because you will. I don’t know what kind of a weird misogynist F. Scott Fitzgerald was, but he once said that true genius is the ability to hold two contradictions at once without losing your mind. And I agree with that. Because I look around, and I think my community is made out of two’s, out my burning love for everyone else, and maybe in some ways, it is. But sometimes, when the boys are playing ‘idiot wind’ in the living room while I’m sitting on the table drinking a glass of wine, I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in the black-glass reflection of the bay windows and notice that there’s a green ribbon tied around my neck. When did that get there? But it doesn’t make me angry, just then. Actually, it almost makes me smile. I tuck my hair behind my ear and my eyes sparkle a little in the reflection. No one else sees. Some things belong to you alone. 

So maybe it’s this: I won’t say that you can’t trust men, and I also won’t say that you should try to. I’ll just say that you probably will. There’s a lot of things you probably will do. And that’s what counts. The trust, the rage, and the devotion you are capable of holding, still, after all of this time. 

—

If it begins with brown eyes looking into blue eyes, then I think this, here, is what it usually ends with. The blinking cursor after you type the last sentence. The piece of paper in the converse box on top of the dresser. If it begins with twos, then it ends with what you made out of the love that was always yours, yours, yours.