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Sunday, August 5, 2018

1985: John Antonelli: Kerouac, The Movie, Daybreak Films


  • a biographical documentary of Jack Kerouac's life
  • talking head statements made by people from Jack's life, mostly ex-wives and other Beat writers interspersed with dramatized scenes from his life accompanied by readings from his work.

Saturday, July 21, 2018

1987: Penelope Spheeris: Dudes, Vista Organisation

1987: Penelope Spheeris: Dudes, Vista Organisation

  • Punk Easy Rider
  • Includes Flea and Lee Ving

Sunday, July 15, 2018

2018: Margaret Killjoy: The Barrow Will Send What it May, Tom Doherty Associates



2018: Margaret Killjoy: The Barrow Will Send What it May, Tom Doherty Associates [0]




A follow up to 2017’s The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (one of my favorite book titles) in the Danielle Cain series. This is, I believe, book 2 in that series.


Like the previous book this is another mix of anarchism and magic. While the first book was about a demon that ensured that oppression and exploitation did not take hold in an anarchist community in Iowa, this book is about a small town in Montana with an anarchist-run public library with a large occult collection and a man in town who unleashed a wave of death by using one of the books to return his dead wife to life.


The resurrection spell requires the death of one individual for each resurrectee - a metaphor for capitalist exploitation and the destructive side of desire.

Monday, July 2, 2018

2008: Cesar Chavez: An Organizer’s Tale: Speeches, Penguin Books

2008: Cesar Chavez: An Organizer’s Tale: Speeches, Penguin Books [0]




Collection of speeches, interviews, letters, by United Farm Workers of America leader Cesar Chavez


The content of the book comes from Chavez’s entire career, beginning with a 1965 speech titled We Shall Overcome discussing a strike and the pressures on the union, very inspired by the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement, and ending with a 1991 eulogy to his mother.


One piece of particular interest is titled “On Money” wherein he describes how to do union organizing and strike actions without any money - how to effectively organize poor people.


A few of the pieces are memorials to murdered union members.

Sunday, July 1, 2018

1997: Harmony Korine: Gummo, Fine Line Features

1997: Harmony Korine: Gummo, Fine Line Features [1]
  • Harmony Korine’s first directed film after the release of Larry Clark’s Kids, which Korine wrote.
  • With Gummo Korine established himself as a director who could push the sensibilities of 1990s indie filmmaking into avant territory as he wrapped a series of disjointed scenes populated by amateur actors around a loose narrative set against a background of a natural disaster - the film takes place in Xenia Ohio not long after, but not immediately following a bad tornado - and blended with footage and imagery from disparate sources.
  • I first saw this film when it was first released and I remember enjoying it but it includes a number of scenes of cat killings and I was plagued by the thought that those scenes were real. Only recently I learned that they were not, phew.
  • Something that stood out to me was the element of metal, specifically the death metal soundtrack. I found this to be VERY jarring when I first saw this, not only because I’ve never, at that time, seen a film that used Death Metal like this, respectfully, (I know Ace Ventura Pet Detective featured a scene with Cannibal Corpse but that was to provide the background for some jokes) but also because I just figured punk made more sense. Now that I’ve lived in a small midwestern American town for a time I see how extreme metal, that is death and black varieties, and all of their demonic and satanic poesis makes so much more sense as a rebellious artform in those places that are saturated with Religion.

Friday, June 29, 2018

2018.06.27: Thinking Allowed: Gangs and Spirituality, BBC

2018.06.27: Thinking Allowed: Gangs and Spirituality, BBC [1]
  • Begins with a clip from West Side Story and plays other clips through the episode as a way of including a dramatic misconception of street gangs.
  • Three academic criminologists Discussing street gangs and try to challenge some of the illusions (which are often hysterically generated) that produce the popular concept of a gang.
  • Talk about the critical issue with criminality being persistence in crime beyond a certain age - the teenage years - when breaking the rules is almost a normative behavior. It’s the career criminal which is of interest.
  • Available to listeners here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b7hbc0
2018.06.18: Arts and Ideas: Sarah Scott and the Dream of a Female Utopia, BBC [1]
  • Brief radio broadcast and podcast of a talk by Lucy Powell about an 18th century English writer named Sarah Scott who explored the “radical power of female friendship”
  • Sarah Scott also imagined a female-only utopian community that included charitable activities as well as rugs manufacturing 
  • This utopian community was first imagined in literature by Scott and then she tried to make it a reality in 1765.
  • Available to listeners here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06btwsz

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

2018.06.23 The Forum: The Life and Works of William Blake, BBC


2018.06.23 The Forum: The Life and Works of William Blake, BBC [1]

  • Radio Discussion of English romantic poet/illustrator William Blake’s career and life
  • Can be heard at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswps4
  • Discusses is fall into obscurity and his renewed influence during the 1960s
  • Includes a discussion of some of the Proverbs of Hell and their renewal as political slogans during the 1960s

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

2016: Alexander Nakov: The Dossier of Subject No1218: A Bulgarian Anarchist’s Story, Black Cat Press [0]



2016: Alexander Nakov: The Dossier of Subject No1218: A Bulgarian Anarchist’s Story, Black Cat Press [0]


  • Memoir of a Bulgarian anarchist named Alexander Nakov. This memoir was originally published in Bulgaria, in the Bulgarian language, in 2006. 
  • Nakov was a lifelong anarchist but he wasn’t a career anarchist the way figures like Emma Goldman were, whose every action seemed to serve her causes in some way. Therefore Nakov’s story is often one of facing persuction and social exclusion, denial of employment, etc, due to his political views. 
  • Was imprisoned for a time, but speaks of a ‘genocide’ of the anarchist movement in Bulgaria. 
  • Speaks of the persecution of anarchists in a Communist/Soviet context, rather than a capitalist/democratic one. 
  • Includes appendices of other writings by Nakov.

2018- : This is America, Itsgoingdown: https://itsgoingdown.org/category/podcast/this-is-america/ [1]


2018- : This is America, Itsgoingdown: https://itsgoingdown.org/category/podcast/this-is-america/ [1]
  • Anarchist podcast put out by Its Going Down crew - new episodes are released every few days 
  • Episodes began releasing about a month after the release of Donald Glover’s This is America video. 
  • Episodes are less than half an hour. Format consists of a headline news reading for anarchists followed by a brief interview with someone involved with one of the events discussed in the news segment. 
  • Swearing is bleeped out - part of a trend in anarchist podcasting to make them ready for radio broadcasting. Other podcasts to do this are The Final Straw Radio and The Hotwire. 
  • Also promoted on the Channel Zero Podcast Network. https://channelzeronetwork.com/

Monday, June 25, 2018

2003: Noah Levine: Dharma Punx: HarperCollins

2003: Noah Levine: Dharma Punx: HarperCollins [1]

  •  Memoir by Noah Levine, a lifelong street punk turned buddhist teacher.
  • spent most of his life in California with some time spent in Arizona after his parents split up.
  • Like so many disaffected youth emerging from broken homes, he found meaning and power in the punk scene.
  • Noah became an addict of hard drugs as an adolescent. His path to buddhism came out of his recovery and following the twelve steps but also out of his experiences in prison. His father is a well known Buddhist author named Stephen Levine who gave Noah advice on how to meditate when he was trying to cope with a possibly long prison stretch.
  • The book is primarily about drug and alcohol recovery however there is a constant undercurrent of finding the synthesis between punk attitude and the practices of first the twelve step program and then Buddhism.




Sunday, March 18, 2018

New Citations: Anarchism, Anti-Fascism, Bob Marley, Environmentalism, Indigenous Resistance, Irish Republic Army, Paris Commune, Popular Uprisings, Prisoner Uprisings, Punk, Radical Left Wing Movements, Radical Arts, Theodore Kaczynski, Timothy Leary, Underground

Anarchism: Book: 2014: The Invisible Committee: For Our Friends, Semiotext(e)

Anarchism: Pamphlet: 2017: Below & Beyond Trump: Power and Counter-Power in 2017, Black Rose
Anarchist Federation

Anti-Fascism: Pamphlet: 0000: Stop Fascism: New America
  • Published in the 1930s

Bob Marley: Books: 2017: Roger Steffens: So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley, WW
Norton & Co

Environmentalism: Newspaper: 2017: The Olympia Communard: Dispatches from the Olympia Blockade

Indigenous Resistance: Book: 2013: Louise Leclaire (ed): The Artwork of Louis Karoniaktajeh Hall, Blurb Inc

Indigenous Resistance: Pamphlet: 0000: Louis Karoniaktajeh Hall: Warrior’s Handbook

Irish Republican Army: Book: 1993: Brendan O’Brian: The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Fein 1985 to Today,
Syracuse University Press

Paris Commune: Pamphlet: 0000: Max Schachtman: 1871: The Paris Commune, Daily Worker Publishing Co

Popular Uprisings: Book: 0000: Alessio Lunghi & Seth Wheeler (eds): Occupy Everything: Reflections on
Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere, Minor Compositions
  • A collection of essays responding to Twenty Reasons Why its Kicking off Everywhere by Paul Mason

Prisoner Uprisings: Journal: 2017- : Paper Chained: A Journal of Writings and Artistic Expressions From
Behind the Bars, Running Wild

Punk: Film: 2001: Jack Lefelt: 25 Years of Punk, VH1

Punk: Film: 2005: Tim Armstrong: Give ‘Em the Boot, Hellcat Records

Radical Left Wing Movements: Books: 2002: Steve Wright: Storming Heaven: Class Composition and
Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism, Pluto Books

Radical Arts: Pamphlet: 1947: Diego Rivera, Pan American Union

Theodore Kaczynski: TV series: 2017: Manhunt: Unabomber, Netflix
  • Tedious FBI propaganda

Timothy Leary: Book: 1993: Timothy Leary & Robert Anton Wilson: The Game of Life, New Falcon

Weather Underground: Book: 2017: Jonathan Lerner: Swords in the Hands of Children: Reflections of an
American Revolutionary, OR Books