So I'm establishing a format here. First off, i make no commitment to digest this material for you. I'll leave that to people who'd enjoy doing that more than I. If you explore some of Noble Savagery's links you can find such folks, and there will be a diversity of applicable opinion there I assure you.
Second off, I'm putting this out in chapters, paragraphs being sepparated by a double space, reading blocks sepparated by three stars. If I can find the accompanying William Blake images, I'll include them.
Don't bitch at me for the lack of citing, footnotes and bibliography, cuz as far as i know they don't exist. If anyone cares enough to shed some light on a quote or persona mentioned, just chime in on the comments.
I'm doing this because I love you and want to share something of value to me with you. Blessed be.
_____
Against His-story, Against Leviathan
Fredy Perlman
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night. (M. Arnold)
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain...(T.S. Eliot)
The darkling plain is here. This is the waste land: England, America, Russia, China, Israel, France....
And we are here as victims, or as spectators, or as perpetrators of tortures, massacres, poisonings, manipulations, despoliations.
Hic Rhodus! This is the place to jump, the place to dance! This is the wilderness! Was there ever any other? This is savagery! Do you call it freedom? This is barbarism! The struggle for survival is right here. Haven't we always known it? Isn't this a public secret? Hasn't it always been the big public secret?
It remains a secret. It is publicly known but not avowed. Publicly the wilderness is elsewhere, barbarism is abroad, savagery is on the face of the other. The dry sterile thunder without rain, the confused alarms of struggle and flight, are projected outward, into the great unknown, across the seas and over the mountains. We're on the side with the angels.
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs...(W.B. Yeats)
...is moving its slow thighs against the projected wilderness, against the reflected barbarism, against the savage face that looks out of the pond, its motion emptying the pond, rending its banks, leaving an arid crater where there was life.
In a wonderfully lucid book titled Beyond Geography, a book which also goes beyond history, beyond technology, beyond civilization, Frederick W. Turner (not to be confused with Frederick Jackson Turner, the frontiersman's advocate) draws the curtain and floods the stage with light.
Others drew the curtain before Turner; they're the ones who made the secret public: Toynbee, Drinnon, Jennings, Camatte, Debord, Zerzan among contemporaries whose lights I've borrowed; Melville, Thoreau, Blake, Rousseau, Montaigne, Las Casas among predecessors; Lao Tze as long ago as written memory can reach.
Turner borrows the lights of human communities beyond civilization's ken to see beyond geography. He sees with the eyes of the dispossessed of this once beautiful world that rests on a turtle's back, this double continent whose ponds emptied, whose banks were rent, whose forests became arid craters the day it was named America.
...a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Focusing on the image, Yeats asked,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
The vision is as clear to Turner as it was to Yeats:
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.
Seers of old returned to share their visions with their communities, just as women shared their corn and men their hunt.
But there is no community. The very memory of community is a fogged image out of Spiritus Mundi.
The seer of now pours his vision on sheets of paper, on banks of arid craters where armored bullies stand guard and demand the password, Positive Evidence. No vision can pass by their gates. The only song that passes is a song gone as dry and cadaverous as the fossils in the sands.
Turner, himself a guard, a professor, has the courage of a Bartolome de Las Casas. He storms the gates, refuses to give the password, and he sings, he rants, he almost dances.
The armor comes off. Even if it is not merely worn like clothes or masks, even if it is glued to face and body, even if skin and flesh must be yanked off with it, the armor does come off.
Of late, many have been storming the gates. Only recently one sang that the net of factories and mines was the Gulag Archipelago and all workers were zeks (namely conscripts, inmates, labor gang members). Another sang that the Nazis lost the war but their new order didn't. Ranters are legion now. Is it about to rain? Is it the twilight of a new dawn? Or is it the twilight in which Minerva's owl can see because day is all done?
* * *
Turner, Toynbee and others are focusing on the beast that is destroying the only known home of living beings.
Turner subtitles his book, "The Western Spirit against the Wilderness." By Western Spirit he means the attitude or posture, the soul or spirit of Western Civilization, known nowadays as Civilization.
Turner defines Wilderness the same way the Western Spirit defines it, except that the term is positive for Turner, negative for the Western Spirit: Wilderness embraces all of Nature and all the human communities beyond Civilization's ken.
In A Study of History, Arnold Toynbee expressed enthusiasm for history and for civilization. After seeing the rise and fall of the Nazi Third Order and all the refinements it brought in its train, Toynbee lost his enthusiasm. He expressed this loss in a book called Mankind and Mother Earth. The vision in this book is kin to Turner's: Mankind is rending Mother Earth asunder.
Toynbee's term Mankind embraces the Western spirit as well as the human communities beyond Civilization's ken, and his Mother Earth embraces all life.
I'll borrow Toynbee's term Mother Earth. She's the first protagonist. She's alive, she's life itself. She conceives and births everything that grows. Many call her Nature. Christians call her Wilderness. Toynbee's other name for her is Biosphere. She is the dry land, the water and the earth enveloping our planet. She's the sole habitat of living beings. Toynbee describes her as a thin, delicate sking, no higher than planes can fly and no lower than mines can be dug. Limestone, coal and oil are part of her substance, they are matter that once lived. She selectively filters radiation from the sun, precisely in such a way as to keep life from burning. Toynbee calls her an excressence, a halo or rust on the planet's surface, and he speculates that there may be no other Biospheres.
Toynbee says Mankind, human beings, in other words We, have grown very powerful, more powerful than any other living beings, and at last more powerful than the Biosphere. Mankind has the power to wreck the delicate crust, and is doing it.
There are many ways to speak of a trap. It can be described from the standpoint of the self-balancing environment, of the trapper, of the trapped animal. It can even be described from the standpoint of the trap itself, namely from the objective, scientific, technological standpoint.
There are as many ways to speak of the wrecking of the Biosphere. From the standpoint of a single protagonist, Earth herself, it can be said that She is committing suicide. With two protagonists, Mankind and Mother Earth, it can be said that We are murdering Her. Those of us who accept this standpoint and squirm with shame might wish we were whales. But those of us who take the standpoint of the trapped animal will look for a third protagonist.
Toynbee's protagonist, Mankind, is too diffuse. It embraces all civilizations and also all communities beyond Civilization's ken. Yet the communities, as Toynbee himself shows, coexisted with other beings for thousands of generations without doing the Biosphere any harm. They are not the trappers but the trapped.
Who, then, is the wrecker of the Biosphere? Turner points at the Western Spirit. This is the hero who pits himself against the Wilderness, who calls for a war of extermination by Spirit against Nature, Soul against Body, Technology against the Biosphere, Civilization against Mother Earth, god against all.
Marxists point at the Capitalist mode of production, sometimes only at the Capitalist class. Anarchists point at the State. Camatte points at Capital. New Ranters point at Technology or Civilization or both.
If Toynbee's protagonist, Mankind, is too diffuse, many of the others are too narrow.
The Marxists see only the mote in the enemy's eye. They supplant their villain with a hero, the Anti-capitalist mode of production, the Revolutionary Establishment. They fail to see that their hero is the very same "shape with lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun." They fail to see that the Anti-capitalist mode of production wants only to outrun its brother in wrecking the Biosphere.
Anarchists are as varied as Mankind. There are governmental and commercial Anarchists as well as a few for hire. Some Anarchists differ from Marxists only in being less informed. They would supplant the state with a network computer centers, factories and mines coordinated "by the workers themselves" or by an Anarchist union. They would not call this arrangement a State. The name-change would exorcize the beast.
Camatte, the New Ranters and Turner treat the villains of the Marxists and Anarchists as mere attributes of the real protagonist. Camatte gives the monster a body; he names the monster Capital, borrowing the term from Marx but giving it a new content. He promises to describe the monster's origin and trajectory but has not yet done so. The New Ranters have borrowed lights from L. Mumford, J. Ellul and others but have not, to my knowledge, gone further than Camatte.
Turner goes further. His aim is to describe only the monster's spirit, but he knows it is the monster's body that destroys the bodies fo human communities and the body of Mother Earth. He says much about the monster's origin and trajectory, and he speaks often of its armor. But it is beyond his aim to name the monster or describe its body.
It is my aim to speak of the beast's body. For it does have a body, a monstrous body, a body that has become more powerful than the Biosphere. It may be a body without any life of its own. It may be a dead thing, a huge cadaver. It may move its slow thighs only when living beings inhabit it. Nevertheless, its body is what does the wrecking.
If the Biosphere is an excrescence on the planet's surface, the beast that is wrecking her is also an excrescence. The Earthwrecker is a rust or halo on the surface of a human community. It is not excreted by every community, by Mankind. Toynbee himself puts the blame on a tiny minority, on very few communities. Perhaps the cadaverous beast was excreted by only one community among the myriads.
* * *
The cadaverous beast excreted by a human community is young, it is at most two or three hundred generations old. Before turning to it, I'll glance at human communities, for they are much older, they are thousands of generations old.
We are told that even human communities are young, that there was an age when all was water until a muskrat dived to the seabottom and brought earth to the turtle's back. So we're told.
Supposedly the first walkers who benefitted from the muskrat's exertions were giants or gods who are nowadays called dinosaurs.
Modern graverobbers have been digging up these god's bones and displaying the bones in glass cases of Positive Evidence. The graverobbers use these bone cases to bully all stories other than their own out of human memory. But the graverobber's stories are duller than myriad other stories, and their cases of bones shed light only on the graverobbers themselves.
The stories are as varied as their tellers. In many of the stories, memory strains to reach an age when it, memory, was lodged in a grandmother who knew the swimmers, crawlers and walkers as her kin because she walked on her hind legs no more frequently than they.
In one ancient account, the first grandmother fell to earth from a hole in the sky.
In a modern account, she was a fish with a snout who, having playfully practiced breathing by sticking her snout above water, survived thanks to this trick when her pond dried up.
In another ancient account, the Biosphere swallowed several grandmothers before the general progenitor made here appearance, and is expected to swallow this progenitor's great grandchildren. Toynbee may turn out to be wrong about the relative power of the two protagonists.
Many stories tell of miniature grandparents, midgets; a modern account calls them tree shrews.
These midgets inhabited the earth while the giants, the dinosaurs, walked about in the light of day. Prudent tree shrews climbed down to feast on insects at night, not because the giants were mean, but because of the discrepancy in size. Many of the tree shrews were satisfied with this arrangement and they remained tree shrews. Some, undoubtedly a small minority, wanted to walk about in the light of day.
Fortunately for the restless ones, the dinosaurs were among the grandmothers swallowed by the Biosphere. Former tree shrews could bask in the sun, or dance and play in broad daylight, without fear of being trampled. Minorities among these grew restless; some wanted to crawl, others to fly. The smug, conservative majorities, happy with their capacities, fulfilled by their environments, remained what they were.
* * *
The managers of Gulag's islands tell us that the swimmers, crawlers, walkers and fliers spent their lives working in order to eat.
These managers are broadcasting their news too soon. The varied beings haven't all been exterminated yet. You, reader, have only to mingle with them, or just watch them from a distance, to see that their waking lives are filled with dances, games and feasts. Even the hunt, the stalking and feigning and leaping, is not what we call Work, but what we call Fun. The only beings who work are the inmates of Gulag's islands, the zeks.
The zek's ancestors did less work than a corporation owner. They didn't know what work was. They lived in a condition J.J. Rousseau called "the state of nature." Rousseau's term should be brought back into common use. It grates on the nerves of those who, in R. Vaneigem's words, carry cadavers in their mouths. It makes the armor visible. Say "the state of nature" and you'll see the cadavers peer out.
Insist that "freedom" and "the state of nature" are synonyms, and the cadavers will try to bite you. The tame, the domesticated, try to monopolize the word freedom; they'd like to apply it to their own condition. They apply the word "wild" to the free. But it is another public secret that the tame, the domesticated, occasionally become wild but are never free so long as they remain in their pens.
Even the common dictionary keeps this secret only half hidden. It begins by saying that free means citizen! But then it says, "Free: a) not determined by anything beyond its own nature or being; b) determined by the choice of actor or by his wishes..."
The secret is out. Birds are free until people cage them. The Biosphere, Mother Earth herself, is free when she moistens herself, when she sprawls in the sun and lets her skin erupt with varicolored hair teeming with crawlers and fliers. She is not determined by anything beyond her own nature or being until another sphere of equal magnitude crashes into her, or until a cadaverous beast cuts into her skin and rends her bowels.
Trees, fish and insects are free as they grow from seed to maturity, each realizing its own potential, its wish--until the insect's freedom is curtailed by the bird's. The eaten insect has made a gift of its freedom to the bird's freedom. The bird, in its turn, drops and manures the seed of the insect's favorite plant, enhancing the freedom of the insect's heirs.
The state of nature is a community of freedoms.
Such was the environment of the first human communities, and such it remained for thousands of generations.
Modern anthropologists who carry Gulag in their brains reduce such human communities to the motions that look most like work, and give the name Gatherers to people who pick and sometimes store their favorite foods. A bank clerk would call such communities Savings Banks!
The zeks on a coffee plantation in Guatemala are Gatherers, and the anthropologist is a Savings Bank. Their free ancestors had more important things to do.
The !Kung people miraculously survived into our own exterminating age. R.E. Leakey observed them in their lush African forest homeland. They cultivated nothing except themselves. They made themselves what they wished to be. They were not determined by anything beyond their own being--not by alarm clocks, not by debts, not by orders from superiors. They feasted and celebrated and played, full-time, except when they slept. They shared everything with their communities: food, experiences, visions, songs. Great personal satisfaction, deep inner joy, came from the sharing.
(In today's world, wolves still experience the joys that come from sharing. Maybe that's why governments pay bounties to the killers of wolves.)
S. Diamond observed other free human beings who survived into our age, also in Africa. He could see that they did no work, but he couldn't quite bring himself to say it in English. Instead, he said they made no distinction between work and play. Does Diamond mean that the activity of the free people can be seen as work one moment, as play another, depending on how the anthropologist feels? Does he mean that they didn't know if their activity was work or play? Does he mean we, you and I, Diamond's armored contemporaries, cannot distinguish their work from their play?
If the !Kung visited our offices and factories, they might think we're playing. Why else would we be there?
I think Diamond meant to say something more profound. A time-and-motion engineer watching a bear near a berry patch would not know when to punch his clock. Does the bear start working when he walks to the berry patch, when he picks the berry, when he opens his jaws? If the engineer has half a brain he might say the bear makes no distinction between work and play. If the engineer has an imagination he might say that the bear experiences joy from the moment the berries turn deep red, and that none of the bear's motions are work.
Leakey and others suggest that the general progenitors of human beings, our earliest grandmothers, originated in lush African forests, somewhere near the homeland of the !Kung. The conservative majority, profoundly satisfied with nature's unstinting generosity, happy in their accomplishments, at peace with themselves and the world, had no reason to leave their home. They stayed.
A restless minority went wandering. Perhaps they followed their dreams. Perhaps their favorit pond dried up. Perhaps their favorite animals wandered away. These people were very fond of animals; they knew the animals as cousins.
The wanderers are said to have walked to every woodland, plain and lakeshore of Eurasia. They walked or floated to almost every island. They walked across the land bridge near the northern land of ice to the southernmost tip of the double continent which would be called America.
The wanderers went to hot lands and cold, to lands with much rain and lands with little. Perhaps some felt nostalgia for the warm home they left. If so, the presence of their favorite animals, their cousins, compensated for their loss. We can still see the homage some of them gave to these animals on cave walls of Altamira, on rocks in Abrigo del Sol in the Amazon Valley.
Some of the women learned from birds and winds to scatter seeds. Some of the men learned from wolves and eagles to hunt.
But none of them ever worked. And everyone knows it. The armored Christians who later "discovered" these communities knew that these people did no work, and this knowledge grated on Christian nerves, it rankled, it caused cadavers to peep out. The Christians spoke of women who did "lurid dances" in their fields instead of confining themselves to chores; they said hunters did a lot of devilish "hocus pocus" before actually drawing the bowstring.
These Christians, early time-and-motion engineers, couldn't tell when play ended and work began. Long familiar with the chores of zeks, the Christians were repelled by the lurid and devilish heathen who pretended that the Curse of Labor had not fallen on them. The Christians put a quick end to the "hocus pocus" and the dances, and saw to it that none could fail to distinguish work from play.
Our ancestors--I'll borrow Turner's terms and call them the Possessed--had more important things to do than to struggle to survive. They loved nature and nature reciprocated their love. Wherever they were they found affluence, as Marshall Sahlins shows in his Stone Age Economics. Pierre Clastres' Society Against the State insists that the struggle for subsistence is not verifiable among any of the Possessed; it is verifiable among the Dispossessed in the pits and on the margins of progressive industrialization. Leslie White, after a sweeping review of reports from distant places and ages, a view of "Primitive culture as a whole," concludes that "there's enough to eat for a richness of life rare among the 'civilized.'" I wouldn't use the word Primitive to refer to a people with a richness of life. I would use the word Primitive to refer to myself and my contemporaries, with our progressive poverty of life.
* * *
The main part of our poverty is that the richness of life of the Possessed is barely accessible to us, even to those of us who have not chained our imaginations.
Our professors talk of fruits and nuts, animal skins and meat. They point to our supermarkets, full of fruits and nuts. We have an abundance our ancestors didn't dream of, Q.E.D. These are, after all, the real things, the things that matter. And if we want more than fruits and nuts, we can go to the theater and see plays; we can even sprawl in front of the TV and consume the entire world-wide spectacle. Hallelujah! What more could we want?
Thanks to our professors, we barely have access to our dangerous, demonic, possessed ancestors who though fruits and nuts were not the real things but trivia, who abandoned themseves to visions, myths and ceremonies. Thanks to our professors, we now know that visions are personal delusions, myths are fairy tales, and ceremonies are play-acting which we can see any time in movies.
We even know a lot about Possession. Possession is ownership. We possess houses and garages and cars and stereo equipment, and we're constantly running to possess more; there's no limit to what we want to possess. Surely it must be said that possession is our central aim, not theirs.
Rare is the professor who, like Mircea Eliade, frees himself of the armored vision and sees through the iron curtain of inversion and falsification. And even Eliade fogs what he sees by claiming to find analogies and vestiges in our world. The strait that separates us from the other shore has been widening for three hundred generations, and whatever was cannibalized from the other shore is no longer a vestige of their activity but an excretion of ours: it's shit.
Reduce to blank slates by school, we cannot know what it was to grow up heirs to thousands of generations of vision, insight, experience.
We cannot know what it was to learn to hear the plants grow, and to feel the growth.
We cannot know what it was to feel the seed in the womb and learn to feel the seed in earth's womb, to feel as Earth feels, and at last to abandon oneself and let Earth possess one, to become Earth, to become the first mother of all life. We're truly poor. Thousands of generations of vision, insight and experience have been erased.
Instead of abandoning ourselves, instead of savoring what little we can of their powers, we define and categorize.
We speak of Matri-archy. The name is a cheap substitue for the experience. It is a bargain, and we're always on the lookout for bargains. Once the name is on the door, the door can be closed. And we want doors to stay closed.
The name Matri-archy is on the door of an age when women knew themseves, and were known by men, as the conceivers, as the creators of life, as embodiments of the first being, as first beings.
To know the name on the door is to know nothing. Knowledge begins on the other side of the threshold. Even the name on the door is wrong. Matri refers to mother, but archy comes from an altogether different age. Archy refers to government, to artificial as opposed to natural order, to an order where the Archon is invariably a man. An-archy would be a better name for the door. The Greek prefix "an" means "without."
On the other side of the threshold, the possessed mother returns to her body and proceeds to share her experience with her kin, just as she shares fruits and nuts.
Our tongues would be hanging out for the fruits and nuts. But her sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews are hungry for the experience.
When the mother shares the experience, she also shares the thousands of generations of vision and insight, the wisdom that helped make her experience so meaningful, so frightfully profound. She doesn't apply chalk to a blackboard. She doesn't write a textbook. She hops. She sings. She begins the "lurid dance," the "orgy" that will one day terrify the Christians.
Her cousins and nieces join in the dance. They let go, they abandon themselves to her songs, her motions. They too let themselves be possessed by the spirit of earth. They too experience the greatest joy imaginable.
The nephews also abandon themselves; they too are posessed, enriched. But when the ceremony is over, they sense that they have less to look forward to than their sisters. They know they're not creators of life, first beings. In "The Flounder," Gunther Grass vividly portrays the inferiority complex of these nephews, these males in the state of nature. They're studs. They're sexual objects. They're the onces who preen and ornament themselves to make themselves attractive to women, like peacocks, ducks and other cousins of theirs.
The nephews take phallus-shaped spears and arrows to the woods, and they return to the village with meat. But they know that meat, if not as common as fruits and nuts, is still trivial compared to their aunt's trips of possession and self-abandon, for such trips bring one face to face with the very springs of Being.
The nephews also seek visions. They too are heirs to thousands of generations of observation and wisdom. Their uncles saw to that. They know that the forest is not the thing it has become for us: a meat corral, a lumber factory. They know the forest is a living being who teems with living beings. They too, like their aunt, let go of themselves, let themselves be possessed by the spirit of a tree, of a place, of an animal. If they've learned much, and well, they even look up, above the forest. They strive for the sky. And on rare occasions the spirit of the sky possessess them. They fly. They become sky, feeling all its motions, sensing all its intentions. They become the sky who mated with earth and gave birth to life. A man who returns to his village with such news is much and has much to share, more than mere meat.
What trips those must have been! Such profound celebrations of life have no counterpart, no analogy, in what Turner calls "the narrow, unsexed, anthropocentric version that Western Civilization has become uncomfortably familiar with . . ."
Just how far progress has brought us is revealed by the occasional tourist who happens on a seer. The tourist listens to the old man who somehow slipped into our age from the other shore. The tourist sits fidgeting through what he calls a "seance," snapping photographs. At the end of it all, the tourist produces a photograph which proves that the seer didn't fly, didn't even rise from his seat. And the tourist leaves, happily convinced that they, not he, are dupes and morons.
Photographs show what we're most interested in: the surfaces of things. They don't show qualities, spirits.
Some of the people who left the humman communities remembered some of the qualities. They remembered some of the joys of possession--but vaguely, foggily. Surrounded by things, they lost the ability to express the qualities. They knew the age they had left was more valuable, more pure, more beautiful than anything they found since. But their language had gone poor. They could speak of what they lost only by comparing it to things of their world. They called the forgotten age the Age of Gold.
* * *
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
'Planets have feelings, too'
By Pluto
Originally published August 24, 2006, 5:34 PM EDT
OUTER BELT OF SOLAR SYSTEM // What did I do to deserve this?
There I was, minding my own business, orbiting the Sun just like all the
others. I got my little bit of atmosphere going, got a lot of ice. I was cool.
I
stayed out of everybody else's way, sometimes way out.
Then some eggheads on that uppity third rock -- they think they're so hot
because they have "life" -- went and decided I'm not a planet anymore. What's up
with that? My life is hard enough as it is.
First of all, it takes forever for me to do a lap around the Sun, and it
gets really lonely out here. They tell me that part of the reason I'm not a
planet anymore is that some of the time I sneak inside my buddy Neptune's
orbit.
What do they expect? I need somebody to talk to out here sometimes. And don't
get me started about that mass of junk they call Charon that is supposedly
my partner in non-planethood; Charon is dead to me.
Then there's my name. Let me say I was happy enough without anyone else
giving me a name. For millions of years, maybe even billions -- time sort of
has
no meaning out here -- I liked to think of myself as Lex, except for a very
brief period of experimentation and confusion when I thought I was Sophia. But
that's a long story, and Uranus promised never to talk about it.
Anyway, Lex was short, snappy and just tough-sounding enough to keep
unwanted visitors away. I felt like a growling dog with that name, not that I
had
any idea what a dog was then. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
So then those numbskulls on Earth finally figure out I'm here, and start
calling me Pluto. I had mixed feelings; I liked Lex, but I also heard through
the microwaves passing by that Pluto was a god of "Death" over there. I barely
knew what "life" was, but I knew Death kicked life's butt all year long (and
the years are really long here).
But I nearly fell out of my orbit when I found out a pet dog -- not even a
real dog but a cartoon dog -- gets to be called Pluto on their planet.
Suddenly Pluto was something cute and cuddly and not tough or threatening at
all.
It's bad enough when you're the smallest guy on the playground. With the
cartoon dog thing, everyone was making fun of me, even Uranus. I was
humiliated.
Planets have feelings, too, you know.
So you can imagine how I'm taking this planet thing. Neptune, which used to
hang out with me to try to look cool by association, won't even talk to me
anymore. I can't take it. The Solar System is the only family I've got.
So for all you Earthlings reading this, I, Pluto, am taking a stand. I'm
here. I'm a sphere. Get used to it.
--As told to Sun reporter Gady A. Epstein
(taken from timewave2012.com where someone posted it from baltimore times)
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
hand drills and land snails
last night i called lots of people, very late, cuz i had to tell someone... i finally succeeded in coaxing a coal from a fire drill set. and then i repeated the feat... make sure your stuff is dry, the right stuff for the job, and be preparted to use all your elbow grease
on another note, i finally bothered to look up these snails. i find them in kentucky. i find them in ohio. it looks like there are two species, Capaea nemoralis (white-lipped banded snail) and C. hortensis (brown-lipped banded snail).
C. nemoralis http://www.msu.edu/~gillilla/cepaea.html
and guess what? we have confirmation that tasteful Europeans eat C. nemoralis! http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0401c&L=conch-l&D=0&H=1&P=9616
guess that means i do too
on another note, i finally bothered to look up these snails. i find them in kentucky. i find them in ohio. it looks like there are two species, Capaea nemoralis (white-lipped banded snail) and C. hortensis (brown-lipped banded snail).
C. nemoralis http://www.msu.edu/~gillilla/cepaea.html
and guess what? we have confirmation that tasteful Europeans eat C. nemoralis! http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0401c&L=conch-l&D=0&H=1&P=9616
guess that means i do too
introduction & daydreams
Much thanks to werebrock for inviting me to blog here. I have this other blog but Noble Savagery might be a more appropriate forum for some of my interests. I've never been to Ohio and I have no idea who these Noble Savages really are but I feel a strong affinity! Me & my people are marooned out on the Barrens of Flatistan, Springfield, Illinois. Is it really that bad? We'll See.
As to "Rewilding, Urban Exploring, and the Other Adventures," we're definitely rewilding our yard, with a gazillion mulberry trees sprouting up, not to mention burdock, plantain, dandelion, lamb's quarter, volunteer squash in the compost, jimsonweed in the cheap dirt we had trucked in. Not that we actually eat all of that. But it's all building up organic matter in the soil & bringing up deep trace nutrients to the surface. All y'all probably already know that though. Anyone wanting to know what to do with their yard & garden, permaculture style, should read Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway. Trust me, I'm an anarchist and I rarely say "should"!
We love to wander aimlessly, and get to know our city's alleys. That's where the cool stuff waits in dumpsters, the alley fairies hide od things to find, and of course the mint and berries and other good stuff grows. We brew our own sweet wine from local fruits. This year's raspberry wine from our yard berries was divine. I'm glad I set aside a couple reserve bottles 'cause it didn't last long. I guess we like to celebrate.
As good as things can get (and the tornado of March 12 taught us some lessons), we are still trapped in the belly of the Beast. We dropout-types of course want to consume less and work less, thereby pulling the levers that operate the Leviathan less. But there's no readymade alternative; the intentional communities we visited just didn't quite work out for us. In the meantime, there's the imagination.
A vagabond colony on the Barrens is almost invisible in Springtime. Earthen houses & treehouses are shaded by vigorous new growth of tree leaves, ivy trellised along sunny walls, & berry patches on roofs. A large mound topped with smaller mounds, just a little bit like a hobbit house.
There are barriers–herb mounds, sinuous flower rows, tree lines, trellises–but no boundaries. What could be a patchwork of clearly demarcated lots & crops is blurred, swirled, ever shifting with the seasons, and contoured in concert with the land & sky, not in opposition.
A lot of rampant weeds are actually cherished by the vagabonds for their ease of growth & high nutritional & medicinal value.
It’s funny how, the more one questions one’s sanity, arguably the more one is in touch with reality.
In difference is divinity.
salaam,
hakim baker
As to "Rewilding, Urban Exploring, and the Other Adventures," we're definitely rewilding our yard, with a gazillion mulberry trees sprouting up, not to mention burdock, plantain, dandelion, lamb's quarter, volunteer squash in the compost, jimsonweed in the cheap dirt we had trucked in. Not that we actually eat all of that. But it's all building up organic matter in the soil & bringing up deep trace nutrients to the surface. All y'all probably already know that though. Anyone wanting to know what to do with their yard & garden, permaculture style, should read Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway. Trust me, I'm an anarchist and I rarely say "should"!
We love to wander aimlessly, and get to know our city's alleys. That's where the cool stuff waits in dumpsters, the alley fairies hide od things to find, and of course the mint and berries and other good stuff grows. We brew our own sweet wine from local fruits. This year's raspberry wine from our yard berries was divine. I'm glad I set aside a couple reserve bottles 'cause it didn't last long. I guess we like to celebrate.
As good as things can get (and the tornado of March 12 taught us some lessons), we are still trapped in the belly of the Beast. We dropout-types of course want to consume less and work less, thereby pulling the levers that operate the Leviathan less. But there's no readymade alternative; the intentional communities we visited just didn't quite work out for us. In the meantime, there's the imagination.
A vagabond colony on the Barrens is almost invisible in Springtime. Earthen houses & treehouses are shaded by vigorous new growth of tree leaves, ivy trellised along sunny walls, & berry patches on roofs. A large mound topped with smaller mounds, just a little bit like a hobbit house.
There are barriers–herb mounds, sinuous flower rows, tree lines, trellises–but no boundaries. What could be a patchwork of clearly demarcated lots & crops is blurred, swirled, ever shifting with the seasons, and contoured in concert with the land & sky, not in opposition.
A lot of rampant weeds are actually cherished by the vagabonds for their ease of growth & high nutritional & medicinal value.
It’s funny how, the more one questions one’s sanity, arguably the more one is in touch with reality.
In difference is divinity.
salaam,
hakim baker
Monday, October 16, 2006
food grade plastic?
i've scavenged some buckets from construction dumpsters. they had stuco, paints, and other such liquids used for normalizing and updating buildings. i wondered if i could store food in them. and i can, turns out.
according to this FAQ, buckets with a recycle sign with a "2" in the middle of it are good for storing food. the plastic needs to be inert to the point where foodstuffs and the plastic will not chemically interact. High Density PolyEthelene is a common plastic type that will work, and will sometimes have the abbreviation "HDPE" on it.
fuck yeah
http://www.survival-center.com/foodfaq/ff17-equ.htm#FG
according to this FAQ, buckets with a recycle sign with a "2" in the middle of it are good for storing food. the plastic needs to be inert to the point where foodstuffs and the plastic will not chemically interact. High Density PolyEthelene is a common plastic type that will work, and will sometimes have the abbreviation "HDPE" on it.
fuck yeah
http://www.survival-center.com/foodfaq/ff17-equ.htm#FG
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli - Le Parkour
| The David Belle Demo Reel Includes Jackie Chan-like stunts from Banlieue 13 http://www.le-parkour.com/ | |
Monday, October 09, 2006
page 37 of The Principia Discordia
FOR YOUR
ENLIGHTENMENT
THE PARABLE OF THE BITTER TEA
by Rev. Dr. Hypocrates Magoun, P.P.
POEE PRIEST, Okinawa Cabal
When Hypoc was through meditating with St. Gulik, he went there into the kitchen where he busied himself with preparing the feast and in his endeavor, he found that there was some old tea in a pan left standing from the night before, when he had in his weakness forgot about its making and had let it sit steeping for 24 hours. It was dark and murky and it was Hypoc's intention to use this old tea by diluting it with water. And again in his weakness, chose without further consideration and plunged into the physical labor of the preparations. It was then when deeply immersed in the pleasure of that trip, he had a sudden loud clear voice in his head saying "it is bitter tea that involves you so." Hypoc heard the voice, but the struggle inside intensified, and the pattern, previously established with the physical laboring and the muscle messages coordinated and unified or perhaps coded, continued to exert their influence and Hypoc succummed to the pressure and he denied the voice.
And again he plunged into the physical orgy and completed the task, and Lo as the voice had predicted, the tea was bitter.
"The Five Laws have root in awareness."
--Che Fung (Ezra Pound, Canto 85)
The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclus-
ively for them that believe in it. Further,
the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them
that believe in it on the supposition that
they'll go there if they don't.
HBT; The Gospel According to Fred, 3:1
ENLIGHTENMENT
THE PARABLE OF THE BITTER TEA
by Rev. Dr. Hypocrates Magoun, P.P.
POEE PRIEST, Okinawa Cabal
When Hypoc was through meditating with St. Gulik, he went there into the kitchen where he busied himself with preparing the feast and in his endeavor, he found that there was some old tea in a pan left standing from the night before, when he had in his weakness forgot about its making and had let it sit steeping for 24 hours. It was dark and murky and it was Hypoc's intention to use this old tea by diluting it with water. And again in his weakness, chose without further consideration and plunged into the physical labor of the preparations. It was then when deeply immersed in the pleasure of that trip, he had a sudden loud clear voice in his head saying "it is bitter tea that involves you so." Hypoc heard the voice, but the struggle inside intensified, and the pattern, previously established with the physical laboring and the muscle messages coordinated and unified or perhaps coded, continued to exert their influence and Hypoc succummed to the pressure and he denied the voice.
And again he plunged into the physical orgy and completed the task, and Lo as the voice had predicted, the tea was bitter.
"The Five Laws have root in awareness."
--Che Fung (Ezra Pound, Canto 85)
The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved exclus-
ively for them that believe in it. Further,
the lowest Rung in Hell is reserved for them
that believe in it on the supposition that
they'll go there if they don't.
HBT; The Gospel According to Fred, 3:1
unusual
i hadn't signed an e-petition in years, but this place reminds me of home. soooo... http://www.viabalticainfo.org/spip.php?rubrique2
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Show and Tell #2, pretty much as it is in paper
Show and Tell #2
by werebrock
fall ‘06
by werebrock
fall ‘06
* *
Table of Contents
preface
paw paws
paw paw intro
atl atl intro
atl atl construction from a branch- by Dino Labiste
Sentinelese Strike BACK!
more on paw paw fest experience
apples
i dedicate this poem to apples
Maltus domestica in the way back time
Quotes and Reviews
Permaculture Intro
Back Cover
*
Preface
Welcome to the latest issue of Show and Tell! #2 This is only the second, and the first one was lost and never published... so say hooray! You’re holding the first zine I’ve ever gotten out to anyone!
I’m really sick of asking permission to use people’s “intellectual property”. FUCK CAPITALISM, and fuck the free market if it means i can’t cut and paste your ideas. So there’s pirated stuff here, and if I don’t feel like giving someone credit for it, don’t assume it was my idea.
This zine is a result for the need for an outlet of personal expression. I must TALK TO THINK, and since writing is eternally editable, it can be a lot of fun to work with. So this is really a piece me and my thought process, and I hope you enjoy it. May reading it be a positive experience. If it dissapoints, smear it with something tasty and feed it to a goat.
Dedicated to an inspirer of nascent libertarians, and also to my brother Sea Serpent, and Marv.
Marv: There's no settling down. It's going to be blood for blood and by the gallons. It's the old days. The bad days. The all-or-nothing days. They're back. There's no choices left and I'm ready for war.
Lucille: Prison was hell for you, Marv. It'll be life this time.
Marv: Hell? You don't know what hell is. None of you people do. Hell isn't getting beat up or cut up or hauled in front of some faggot* jury. Hell is waking up every god damn morning and not knowing why you're even here. Why you're even breathing.
The author is too PC to use a term like that, but don’t tell please don’t tell Marv.
And actually I’m not.
*
*
You might be exclaiming “What the bleeding stump is a paw paw?” or “What’s up with that logo?” We’ll quickly deal with answering those questions before going into context.
Paw paws are a fruit, indigenous to the Eastern United States. They taste a bit like a banana-y papaya, and they grow on trees that grow beneath really tall trees, in the understory. They’re very healthy, can be dried into fruit leather and harshly judged, as we’ll see shortly, and were so popular among canoeing First Nation folk that they planted paw paw groves along their water roads. More info on planting at http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/pawpaw/ppg.htm
*
Spicebush and black walnut grow well with paw paw, like a jazz trio. And they’re all useful to humans as food. Check ‘em out when you get a chance. And if you’ve got deer and sassafrass trees nearby- an amazing place to hunter gather, am I right? And a very pleasent climate. CINCINNATI isn’t LAME!
Anyway, 4 of us drove to Albany, Ohio for the 2006 Paw Paw Fest. Aventure capitalist by the name of Chris Chmiel got this annual shindig rolling as part of a movement to bring paw paws back into our diet, and honestly feed his kids with his proprietary paw paw processing technique, which he uses to make all kinds of condiments, spices and pulps under the label Integration Acres. Very permacultury* operation he’s got goin’, and its gathering attracted anarchists, sierra clubbers, herbalists, potters, jewlery makers, rastas, yogi tea barons and pro atl atl throwers. Besides frolicking and napping down migraines with Dandilion, most of what we did was have encounters with these varied folks.
*Permaculture is explained in the last item in this zine.
Some of the most highly ranked atl atl throwers in the world were* present, letting us use their darts, atl atls and targets and coaching us as to how to improve our throws. A former world champion was there. Amazing fella, he had weak arms but his form was so good he outthrew everyone.
*There may be plenty of atl atl throwers out there who haven’t haven’t and won’t compete with this super man, but first an atl atl explanation is in order...
Making an Atlatl From a Branch
by Dino Labiste
The atlatl was used for thousands of years almost worldwide. It had the advantage of lengthening the throwing arm of the hunter, thus more leverage to increase the speed of the dart. Despite the worldwide variations in the design of the atlatl, the basic components are still the same. They all incorporate a handle connected to a shaft with a spur.
A simple atlatl can be made from a tree branch. Look for a straight branch with a smaller side branch extending out at an angle. An ideal angle for the smaller side branch would be 40 to 45 degrees from the main branch. Less than 40 degrees would work, but the smaller branch should not be parallel and lay flat to the main branch. The diameter of the smaller branch, which will become the spur, should fit the size of the notch hole on your dart. Also, be sure that the main branch is large and comfortable enough to fit in your hand. Too small of a size will be unstable during the throwing of the dart. The length of your simple atlatl is subjective, although I would not go smaller than 11 inches. Various type of woods may be used for your atlatl. Try not to get a branch that is too soft and too flexible.
* This branch from the Toyon tree (also called Christmas Berry) has the potential for becoming an atlatl.
A completed atlatl made from an oak branch. The handle may be wrapped to provide a better grip. The handle of the oak atlatl was wrapped with split pine root. You may also use buckskin or willow bark for the handle wrapping. Experiment with different materials.
Another alternative for the handle, besides wrapping, would be to shave or cut the top side of the handle flat. Leave the bottom side in its natural rounded shape. The flat surface will provide a better gripping surface than a rounded surface.
The dart ready to be launched using the oak atlatl.
When looking for that atlatl branch, be mindful of the environment and the tree in which you will be harvesting the branch. Will the tree survive the cutting? Is that branch providing shelter for other plants growing nearby. Am I gathering on private property? In the excitement of looking for that perfect branch, don't let our own desires overpower our common sense.
I wouldn’t cite this, ‘cept that I’d be depriving you of such a jolly good aboriginal skills site I’d have to flog myself for penance. http://primitiveways.com/
Anyway, ‘member where we left off? Dandilion and I, throwing atl atls? Here’s the news about atl atl throwers that probly didn’t compete. It’s a SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE, found on Voice of a Native Son- Intelligent Aboriginal Commentary, angryindian.blogspot.com
6 February 2006
INDIA: WORLD'S MOST ISOLATED TRIBE KILLS INVADERS
Members of the world's most isolated tribe, the Sentinelese of the Andaman Islands, killed on 26 January two fishermen who had illegally approached their island. The Sentinelese, who were photographed after the December 2004 tsunami firing an arrow at a helicopter over their island, have resisted contact with the outside world for up to 60,000 years. They are under threat from poachers illegally fishing and diving for lobster around their island.
Survival's director Stephen Corry said today, 'Contact with the outside world could very quickly wipe out this unique and vulnerable tribe. The local administration must ensure that the Sentinelese are left alone as long as that is their wish - and what happened last month made it very clear that it is. These tragic deaths could have been avoided if the authorities had been enforcing the law.'
The tribe killed the two men, Sunder Raj (48) and Pandit Tiwari (52), after they had slept overnight in their boat near North Sentinel Island. It is illegal to go within five kilometres of the island, in order to protect the Sentinelese from exploitation, violence, and diseases to which they have no immunity. But increasing numbers of people from neighbouring islands visit the island to dive for lobster close to the shore and to hunt pigs on the island, depriving the tribe of essential foodstuffs.
The Sentinelese tribe is thought to number between 50 and 200 people. Wreckage salvagers killed many in the late 1980s and early 1990s when they visited the island with guns to try to salvage iron and other goods from a shipwreck.
The related Jarawa tribe stopped resisting contact with outsiders in 1998. They are now plagued by intruders on their land stealing the animals they hunt, bringing in alcohol and sexually exploiting Jarawa women.
Samir Acharya of local environmental organisation SANE said today, 'The Indian Coast Guard and Police must be commended in this case for resisting local pressure to retrieve the men's bodies, thereby avoiding further contact with the Sentinelese.'
Sigh...
After leaving there, we went an entered my key lime and paw paw fruit leather in the paw paw dish competition. The wanking punks didn’t like it. O well, more for us.
There was somebody with the mannerisms of a Yogi, who just started a tea business, importing and packaging really healthy and wonderful teas. They were also giving samples of home made saurkraut and flax seed crackers. Does anyone have a recipe for those? I’m sorry to say I seem to have lost their card.
I stayed pretty well clear of the Society for Creative Anachronism, as I didn’t need that superstitious lot deciding I was an ogre that needed putting down. I also stayed clear of the jewlers, cuz I wear too many bawbles and clothes for complete freedom of motion allready.
Learned something interesting from the potters. Nice, nice folks. All their stuff was oven ready. For once, an artisan recognized me as a kindred spirit (sometimes I come on to people too fast or something when I want information) and told me that yes, I could make a clay pot for cooking w/o using any glaze. All i needed to do was shape the vessle from local stream clay, let it half harden w/o firing, and “burnish” it. This means I need to just rub the whole thing, with a bit of elbow grease, and its molecular structure will become much less porous.
Folks from the The Wire were there, distroing and giving away literature. The Wire is an anarchist community center in the nearby town of Athens. They were sad, because a huge multi fuel pipeline had been put through their wonderful woods recently, their efforts didn’t stop it. Actually, there were two pipelines that they couldn’t stop. Where the fuck was their backup, their solidarity? I wish I’d been on the scene earlier. There’s virtually nothing about this on the internet.... except the title of the perpetrators: Carlton Oil Corporation.
I saw a cluster of people, looked like families, all white people, all slim, all with dreds. “?” I went over to inquire about their identities.
Rastas, all of them. They (I think) invited me to go to a show, and recommend I check out the venue at Cincinnati’s Annie’s, apparently some pretty hot reggae gets spat there. Someone had told me that the Rastafarian hair tradition was rooted in mysogeny. I asked these folks about it, and they didn’t know what I was talking about. Reflecting back on it now, it was probly the girl’s way of saying that she wanted to break off our brief romance- (I was wearing dreds at the time). Ja Love, baby.
Another thing that deserves mentioning is Stevia. It’s 5 QUADRILLION times sweeter than sugar, may be used in recipes similarly (as a sweetener), and you can grow it as an annual in this area.
Dandilion got a migraine, so we layed down for a few hours and sporadically blocked the sun from each others faces. She got better, than I got sick and decided to throw in the towel. Got a ride home with the gang instead of staying on another day, volunteering, than hitching home.
**I have been noticing a lot of derelict apple trees, putting out fruit on the edges of fields and old lawns. Nobody seems to appreciate them anymore, cept me. They go very well in porridge, out of hand, etc, why aren’t people loving their apples anymore? I dedicate this little ditty to you, abandoned apple trees. My heart goes out to you
we come to each other in the mornings and evenings
better than anything in a pill
skill improves till we can fly at each other forever
like an inverted sisyphean challenge
(and then more melodically)
Yeah we rut in the mornings and evenings
lots of exercise, she’s sucking on my chest
& I’m wriggling like I’m exorcized
who knows what comes next, but how could i care?
i’m here right now
i was right there
and nothing will pull me away from my lover
Mythology strikes me as being very much like Vitamin C, your body takes in as much as it wants when you have enough, and you piss out all that you don’t need; when you don’t get enough for too long, you’ll get pain-stricken, depressed and eventually die. So here’s what the dear old wikipedia says about Apples in the way back time.
Apples in mythology
The Greek hero Heracles, as a part of his Twelve Labours, was required to travel to the Garden of the Hesperides and pick the golden apples off the Tree of Life growing at its center.
The Greek goddess of discord, Eris, became disgruntled after she was excluded from the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. In retaliation, she tossed a golden apple inscribed Kallisti ("For the most beautiful one"), into the wedding party. Three goddesses claimed the apple: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Paris of Troy was appointed to select the recipient. After being bribed by both Hera and Athena, Aphrodite tempted him with the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta. He awarded the apple to Aphrodite, thus indirectly causing the Trojan War.
Atalanta, also of Greek mythology, raced all her suitors in an attempt to avoid marriage. She outran all but Hippomenes, who defeated her by cunning, not speed. Hippomenes knew that he could not win in a fair race, so he used three golden apples to distract Atalanta. It took all three apples and all of his speed, but Hippomenes was finally successful, winning the race and Atalanta's hand.
In Norse mythology, the goddess I©£unn was the appointed keeper of apples that kept the Æsir young forever. I©£unn was abducted by ®≠jazi the giant, who used Loki to lure I©£unn and her apples out of Ásgar©£r. The Æsir began to age without I©£unn’s apples, so they coerced Loki into rescuing her. After borrowing Freyja’s falcon skin, Loki liberated I©£unn from ®≠jazi by transforming her into a nut for the flight back. ®≠jazi gave chase in the form of an eagle, where upon reaching Ásgar©£r he was set aflame by a bonfire lit by the Æsir. With the return of I©£unn’s apples, the Æsir regained their lost youth.
Celtic mythology includes a story about Conle who receives an apple which feeds him for a year but also gives him an irresistible desire for Fairyland.
Legends, folklore, and traditions
* Swiss folklore holds that William Tell courageously shot an apple from his son's head with his crossbow, defying a tyrannical ruler and bringing freedom to his people.
* Irish folklore claims that if an apple is peeled into one continuous ribbon and thrown behind a woman's shoulder, it will land in the shape of the future husband's initials.
* Danish folklore says that apples wither around adulterers.
* Apples are said to increase a woman's chances of conception as well as remove birthmarks when rubbed on the skin.
* According to a popular legend, Isaac Newton, upon witnessing an apple fall from its tree, was inspired to conclude that a similar 'universal gravitation' attracted the moon toward the Earth as well (this legend is discussed in more detail in the article on Isaac Newton).
* In the European fairy tale Snow White, the princess is killed, or sunk into a kind of coma with the appearance of death, by choking on a poisoned apple given to her by her stepmother. Later, the princess is jostled into coughing up the piece, miraculously returning her to life.
* In Arthurian legend, the mythical isle of Avalon’s name is believed to mean "isle of apples".
* In some places, bobbing for apples is a traditional Halloween activity.
* In the United States, Denmark and Sweden, an apple (polished) is a traditional gift for a teacher. This stemmed from the fact that teachers during the 16th to 18th centuries were poorly paid, so parents would compensate the teacher by providing food. As apples were a very common crop, teachers would often be given baskets of apples by students. As wages increased, the quantity of apples was toned down to a single fruit.
* The Apple Wassail is a traditional form of wassailing practiced in cider orchards of southwest England during the winter. The ceremony is said to "bless" the apple trees to produce a good crop in the forthcoming season.
* In Ancient Greece, a man throwing an apple to a woman was a proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted .
how off topic, except my imagination’s the topic, so it’s not! mwa ha ha ha
*
Quotes and Reviews
I’m one of those types that is halfway through a bakers dozen of novels, shows, graphic novels, zines and always feels like they’re not getting anywhere with any of them. What I’ll do is give you a few quotes, then review the latest issues of GA, the Match!, The Tragic Treasury.
“O, come on- he’s old and weak and small. We can do whatever we want to him.” Dr. House, joking about a man who has illegally requested assisted suicide.
“There is a profound truth to the notion that "lovers need no words." The point is that we must have a world of lovers, a world of the face-to-face, in which even names can be forgotten, a world which knows that enchantment is the opposite of ignorance. Only a politics that undoes language and time and is thus visionary to the point of voluptuousness has any meaning.” John Zerzan, final paragraph of his essay “Language: Origin and Meaning
“As I have admitted before I’m intelligent, as contrasted with the orthodox. I haven’t the aristocratic disregard of a New York curator or an Eskimo medicine-man.” Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned
“We tend to associate firearms with the iron age, thinking that only a metal barrel could withstand the ‘explosive’ force of gunpowder. I have seen published directions, however, describing how to make a .22 caliber zip gun entirely from wood -- barrel and all. Admittedly, the barrel was wrapped with wire for reinforcement, but it was only a 1” square piece of hardwood to start with.
I can envision an extremely primitive firearm that employs no metal whatsoever. The barrel could be made from a drilled out baseball bat. All wooden bats are seasoned hardwood, but hickory is the toughest and would be the best choice.
Instead of wrapping with wire for reinforcement, it could be wrapped with rawhide. I understand that woodchuck hide is one of the toughest leathers going. It’s recommended for shoestrings, for example.
To make rawhide from woodchuck hide, first skin the chuck, then scrape all fat from the hide, remove the hair as described below, and cut into a long, continuous strip. Soak it in water overnight, wind tightly around the wooden barrel while wet, and allow to dry and shrink in place.
To remove hair from a hide, cover the hair with a 2” thick layer of wood ashes, dampen with water (the water and ashes react to produce lye), and roll the hide up tightly, hair side in. Cover it with wet cloths and leaves four days, then unroll it and scrape off the hair.
A wooden barrel thus drilled out and wrapped with rawhide, loaded as a muzzle loader, firing stones for shot, and set off with a fuse, would be a firearm employing no metal at all.
Just an interesting idea. I’m not recommending it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Aborigines could have firearms if they wanted. Such a weapon would be immune from metal detectors. The only problem I forsee is getting the target to stand still long enough to get a shot off.” -Ronald B Brown, Homemade Guns and Homemade Ammo
*
I’m a real fan of Lemony Snicket’s series of elementary school level novels. They’re called “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. Every time I’ve dipped into them, I see a lot of what I value in the actions of the 3 young orphan protagonists. They are passed off from incompetent guardian to incompetent guardian by their legal overseer, while a band of murdering extortionists tracks and attacks them. One of them is really into DIY inventions, one saves the day again and again with the extraordinary strength in her jaws, and the other one is super book smart. They’re all hardened by their horriffic experiences, having had to be accomplisses in killing lots of people in order to save many more lives. They’ve had to abandon and shun “the authorities”, who originally were supposed to be on their side. The press turns their story around so the general populace hate, fears and attack them. The End, book the 13th, comes out October 13th. There’s a sort of soundtrack to the series, done by Lemony on the accordion and Stephin Merritt from the Magnetic Fields on vocals and synthesizer. That comes out Oct 10th. If you might be into it, check it out: http://www.nonesuch.com/thegothicarchies/player.html
"Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it might be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it." -- Lemony Snicket, The Wide Window
* go for it dude *
I like (some of) what I see in GA, though I was dissapointed not to see something major on Permaculture in this issue, which was specifically focussed on strategies and tactics. seaweed, an activist author from denman island (or is that Ron Sakolsky, whom I also adore) had a good piece called “permenant subsistence zones”, which basically says we need to get some of our calories from off the grid, and since foraging is so fun and shit, we should all try and get involved with community based rewilding to meet some of our needs. Another good piece was on the failures of the affinity group model, and the returning appeal of the lone gunmen approach. I give it 4.5/5 black and green stars.
The latest issue of Green Anarchy was wonderful, but the crew who puts it out seems to be overworked. They take months to answer emails, and seem to have a substantial backlog as far as getting the wonderful rag out to subscribers.
Send well-concealed cash (US currency),
postal money orders or checks made out to:
$19 cash concealed in an envelope for 4 issues
Green Anarchy
PO Box 11331
Eugene, OR 97440
The Match! was very interesting, my first time reading that particular rag. It’s all done on antique, DIYed printing presses and shit. He hates primitivists, yet he’s sort of a Luddite. I’m still getting over that.
He had an absolutely marvelous piece on the brutality of the former Tibetan Theocracy- torture chambers and dungeons under the monestaries, reincarnation used to justify class division, a lot of ugly moralistic stuff shoved down everybody’s throat. I give it the same rating as the GA, because so much work went into spiffing it up and such valuable content was contained therein. You can order it from Microcosm Publishing: http://www.microcosmpublishing.com/
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Permaculture Intro
from wikipedia
“Permaculture is a design system which aims to create sustainable habitats by following nature's patterns.
The word 'permaculture', coined by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren during the 1970s, is derived as a contraction of permanent agriculture, or permanent culture.
The idea of permaculture is considered by Australia's Powerhouse Museum to be among "the [100] most significant innovations developed by Australians in the century since Australian federation". [1]
Today permaculture can best be described as an ethical design system applicable to food production and land use, as well as community building. It seeks the creation of productive and sustainable ways of living by integrating ecology, landscape, organic gardening, architecture and agroforestry. The focus is not on these elements themselves, but rather on the relationships created among them by the way they are placed together; the whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts. Permaculture is also about careful and contemplative observation of nature and natural systems, and of recognizing universal patterns and principles, then learning to apply these ‘ecological truisms’ to one’s own circumstances.
Though the general principles seem to be sensible, early texts promote the use of non-native invasive species or environmental weeds e.g. many acacia species.”
me, that sounds good enough to eat, so i’m going to go live and apprentice somewhere next summer. but where should i go?
i checked out this place in Florida, it’s with one of the original instructors and his wife. Barking Frogs, it’s called. they do Chinampas, which are human constructed biomass islands, used to grow food. sounds really cool.
but the barking frogs outfit is pretty isolated, and Dan Hemingway described he and his wife as a pair of grouchy recluses (my words), so for someone who likes people it didn’t seem like a good fit.
there are all sorts of intern gigs, scattered across the planet, just search for it on the internet to learn more.
1 result for: jabroni
back cover
View results from: Dictionary | Thesaurus | Encyclopedia | the Web
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English - Cite This Source
Main Entry: jabroni
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: in professional wrestling, a wrestler who loses in order to make another wrestler look good; also called jobber
Usage: slang
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.6)
Copyright © 2003-2005 Lexico Publishing Group, LLC
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werebrock@riseup.net
WWW
i'd heard of driving while black, but walking while white? i didn't know it was a criminal offense yet.
i was strolling through the neighborhood, doing a little adventuring as i am apt. the neighborhood has a lot of black drug dealers in it, which is the subtext for this fiasco.
the cops pull up in front of us, and we beat a hasty retreat to the swingset behind us where they'd have to get out to talk to us. they move on. we cross the street, and walk down a hill.
the sidewalk is cluttered as fuck, so we have to step into the street several times to avoid tripping or getting whacked in the face. this is when the cops pull back up.
we were jay walking, parently. i tried to do the whole know your rights shit, and it didn't fly. now we both owe $104 to the government. they said it was just an excuse to stop us, as they were thinking maybe they'd catch a few lighter skinned people coming to meet the darker skinned folks to get their fix. they told us this was a dangerous neighborhood. i looked at the cop and thought yeah, maybe for you if you push on somebody who's got the guts and strength to push back.
later, i saw 4 black guys in the street, standing next to a car that turned off in the middle of the street. they didn't get fucked with. i don't resent them at all, just the pigs and their racist bullshit. i'm going to court to fight it
i was strolling through the neighborhood, doing a little adventuring as i am apt. the neighborhood has a lot of black drug dealers in it, which is the subtext for this fiasco.
the cops pull up in front of us, and we beat a hasty retreat to the swingset behind us where they'd have to get out to talk to us. they move on. we cross the street, and walk down a hill.
the sidewalk is cluttered as fuck, so we have to step into the street several times to avoid tripping or getting whacked in the face. this is when the cops pull back up.
we were jay walking, parently. i tried to do the whole know your rights shit, and it didn't fly. now we both owe $104 to the government. they said it was just an excuse to stop us, as they were thinking maybe they'd catch a few lighter skinned people coming to meet the darker skinned folks to get their fix. they told us this was a dangerous neighborhood. i looked at the cop and thought yeah, maybe for you if you push on somebody who's got the guts and strength to push back.
later, i saw 4 black guys in the street, standing next to a car that turned off in the middle of the street. they didn't get fucked with. i don't resent them at all, just the pigs and their racist bullshit. i'm going to court to fight it
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
one fine day - The Offspring
If I had a perfect day,
I would have it start this way,
Open up the fridge and have a tall boy,
Yeah.
Then I'd meet up with my friends,
Head out to the game again,
We don't even really care who wins,
Now excitement seems to grow,
When we're hangin' with the bro's,
When we're chillin' and we pound a case of Stroh's.
Now the game is cool to see,
You can "High 5" on TV,
Count the riot on the one, two, three.
Operation is in sight,
And the field is open wide,
When you break it then you know you're still alive.
If the cops don't make you pay,
And you make your getaway,
Then you know,
That's one fine day.
On that day before we're through,
We could torch a car or two,
Then have ourselves another tall boy,
Yeah.
Water hoses and batons,
That's the real game that's on,
I don't really give a shit who wins,
Now excitement seems to grow,
When we're hangin' with the bro's,
When we're chillin' and we pound a case of Stroh's.
Now the game is cool to see,
You can "High 5" on TV,
Count the riot on the one two three
Operation is in sight,
And the field is open wide,
When you break it then you know you're still alive.
If the cops don't make you pay,
And you make your getaway,
Then you know,
That's one fine day.
I believe it's my god-given right,
To destroy everything in my sight,
Cause it never gets dull, it never gets old,
The only thing it gets is real bold.
Drinkin', Fightin', goin to the game,
In our world it's a way to stay sane,
If your asking me,
To have it my way, I'd say that's,
One fine day.
Now excitement seems to grow,
When we're hangin' with the bro's,
When we're chillin' and we pound a case of Stroh's.
Now the game is cool to see,
You can "High 5" on TV,
Count the riot on the one, two, three.
Operation is in sight,
And the field is open wide,
When you break it then you know you're still alive.
If the cops don't make you pay,
And you make your getaway,
Then you know,
That's one fine day.
Yeah,
Then you know,
That it's a one fine day.
Hey,
Hey,
Hey Hey!
I would have it start this way,
Open up the fridge and have a tall boy,
Yeah.
Then I'd meet up with my friends,
Head out to the game again,
We don't even really care who wins,
Now excitement seems to grow,
When we're hangin' with the bro's,
When we're chillin' and we pound a case of Stroh's.
Now the game is cool to see,
You can "High 5" on TV,
Count the riot on the one, two, three.
Operation is in sight,
And the field is open wide,
When you break it then you know you're still alive.
If the cops don't make you pay,
And you make your getaway,
Then you know,
That's one fine day.
On that day before we're through,
We could torch a car or two,
Then have ourselves another tall boy,
Yeah.
Water hoses and batons,
That's the real game that's on,
I don't really give a shit who wins,
Now excitement seems to grow,
When we're hangin' with the bro's,
When we're chillin' and we pound a case of Stroh's.
Now the game is cool to see,
You can "High 5" on TV,
Count the riot on the one two three
Operation is in sight,
And the field is open wide,
When you break it then you know you're still alive.
If the cops don't make you pay,
And you make your getaway,
Then you know,
That's one fine day.
I believe it's my god-given right,
To destroy everything in my sight,
Cause it never gets dull, it never gets old,
The only thing it gets is real bold.
Drinkin', Fightin', goin to the game,
In our world it's a way to stay sane,
If your asking me,
To have it my way, I'd say that's,
One fine day.
Now excitement seems to grow,
When we're hangin' with the bro's,
When we're chillin' and we pound a case of Stroh's.
Now the game is cool to see,
You can "High 5" on TV,
Count the riot on the one, two, three.
Operation is in sight,
And the field is open wide,
When you break it then you know you're still alive.
If the cops don't make you pay,
And you make your getaway,
Then you know,
That's one fine day.
Yeah,
Then you know,
That it's a one fine day.
Hey,
Hey,
Hey Hey!
Sunday, October 01, 2006
one of my trips in the woods
the forest beckons more and more when you're in the city, so we dipped and then climbed up a hillside from the road. first we had to jump up on a retaining wall, where a snake was easing its way up a vertical face. very impressive, and i dare any spiders to one up that shit.
muha, i also climbed a wall sorta like that today, and i don't have thousands of joints! i suppose have limbs and digits gives me a bit of an advantage though
when we got to up on the climbing, we passed some rad shit. there was an old concrete bird bath support, with moss enjoying its rough surface. then there were small overhangs, with ledges and mad animal trails. and orange poop. ORANGE POOP. fascinating. i smelled it, and it was giving off a fruity odor. later figured it was gingko berry remains.
we found a wonderful and secluded vista of the macateewa valley. and lizards and snakes, lots of them. i got one for a pet named snakelette.
the lazarus lizards, though, proved too quick for us. or maybe their being on their home turf gave them a huge leg up. we'll just have to lay a trap if we want to catch some.
muha, i also climbed a wall sorta like that today, and i don't have thousands of joints! i suppose have limbs and digits gives me a bit of an advantage though
when we got to up on the climbing, we passed some rad shit. there was an old concrete bird bath support, with moss enjoying its rough surface. then there were small overhangs, with ledges and mad animal trails. and orange poop. ORANGE POOP. fascinating. i smelled it, and it was giving off a fruity odor. later figured it was gingko berry remains.
we found a wonderful and secluded vista of the macateewa valley. and lizards and snakes, lots of them. i got one for a pet named snakelette.
the lazarus lizards, though, proved too quick for us. or maybe their being on their home turf gave them a huge leg up. we'll just have to lay a trap if we want to catch some.
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