No Quarter: an Anarchist Zine about Pirates

No Quarter #4 and more

2009-04-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

Out Now: No Quarter #4. Also No Quarter Pamphlet Series #2 : Trevor Bark - Crime Becomes Custom, Custom Becomes Crime and No Quarter Pamphlet Series #3 : Omasius Gorgut - Poor Man's Heaven, The Land of Cokaygne: A 14th Century Utopian Vision. Still available: No Quarter 1-3. If anyone really wants From Idle Hands The Devil's Work #1 I might have a couple left. No Quarter #1 & 2 are still available from AK Press too. email me if you are interested in any of the above (captainmissionismycopilot {at} @hotmail .com), although I am a little less than reliable when it comes to email. I don't currently do anything hi-tech like paypal. I often like trades. The Land of Cokaygne pamphlet may be available soon from Past Tense, and an earlier version is available from them for free download. Trevor Bark may have copies of his pamphlet and the text is here. Also, special thanks to breviary stuff, they are very nice to No Quarter and also I steal all the scans they do of the covers.

Sad News

2009-04-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

Franklin Rosemont, surrealist poet and historian is dead. Born October 2, 1943 and died April 12 at 65. Franklin was a prolific editor, author and poet, and co-founder of the Chicago Surrealist Group. Closely associated with Black Swan Books and Charles H Kerr and published dozens of books. Sad news indeed. Here is a nice obit on the ak press blog.

Calgary Anarchist Bookfair 2009

2009-03-20T06:20:00.000-07:00

I will be at the 2009 Calgary Anarchist Bookfair April 24, 25, and 26 !

It's at the Rehabilitation Society of Calgary #7 11 St NE (a short walk east from Bridgeland c-train station, it's the building with lots of nice murals on the north side of Memorial Drive)
http://bookfair.anarchistservices.ca/
Book Vendors from across Canada, workshops, movies, plus a keynote speaker. No charge for admission. Free Vegan food.

Friday, April 24
- Vendors - 2pm - 7pm
- Workshops
- Keynote speaker - Ron Sakolsky* - 7pm - 9pm
- Acoustic Show - 10 pm - late

Saturday, April 25
- Vendors - 10am - 7pm
- Workshops
- 4th Annual People's Prom - 8:30pm - late

Sunday, April 26
- Pancake Breakfast, Anti-2010 Olympics flyering, and hanging out

*Ron will share his ideas on wilderness, the green scare, miserabilism, pirate radio, resistance, visionary thinking, utopia and the art of demanding the impossible. His past books include: Gone To Croatan: Origins of North American Drop-Out Culture; Sounding Off: Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution; Seizing the Airwaves; Surrealist Subversions, and Creating Anarchy. His latest book, *Swift Winds* (Eberhardt Press, 2009) is a backpocket compendium of outrageous ideas, subversive tracts, mutinous manifestos, spitfire rants, polemical broadsides, incendiary poems and utopian visions. This volatile mixture is strategically aimed at countering authoritarian thinking with the surreal laughter of the insurgent imagination in flight. Currently, he is involved as a co-editor (with Andrea Langlois and Marian van der Zon) of an anthology scheduled for a 2010 release by New Star Press, to be entitled, *Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada*.

Very excited about Ron's talk. I just got his new book, and its awesome. There will likely be a new zine or two from me, although no guarantees what...

Dead Somali Pirates and a Mystery

2008-09-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

Somewhat sketchy reports about Somali pirates hijacking an Iranian vessel for ransom and then falling sick and some dying. A Sept 28th report claims "Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill 'within days' of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died". There is some question as to what the cargo is. "The vessel’s declared cargo consists of 'minerals' and 'industrial products'. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels". FoxNews.com has picked up on the story publishing a story with the cautious title Mysterious Cargo Aboard Iranian Ship Seized by Pirates Raises WMD Concerns. Perhaps the Somali pirates should now be considered allies in the Global War on Terror.

Off With Their Heads !!!

2008-09-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

Bristol Radical History Week 2008
Off With Their Heads: Assassins, Plots & Regicide
Saturday 25th October – Tuesday 4th November 2008
With both Canada and the United States in the midst of a deluge of electoral politicking it is nice that our friends at the Bristol Radical History Group offer us an alternative to the banal bleating of liars of different stripes. We can examine with them how people in the past dealt with presidents, ministers and kings. And like all their events, it looks very good!

The Works of James Naylor

2008-09-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

One of the most fascinating figures of the English Revolution was James Naylor. He is perhaps best remembered for his ride into Bristol in 1656 emulating Jesus' ride into Jerusalem. Some of Naylor's companions sang Holy Holy Holy as he rode. He was arrested, convicted of blasphemy, and nearly executed. Parliament showed mercy, and instead flogged him, branded his forehead with the letter B for blasphemy, and stuck a red hot poker through his tongue. Plus two years hard labor.
Naylor was also quite a writer and his works are getting the deluxe treatment from Quaker Heritage Press. So far three volumes have been published, with a fourth and final volume in preparation. In addition they have been so kind to put the full text of the volumes on the internet! QHP have also published the works of Naylor's contemporary Isaac Penington, as well as a lot of other interesting material, all or most of which is available online too. Thank you Quaker Heritage Press.

A Few Things

2008-09-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

One- Bristol Radical History Group has posted mp3s of the talks from Down With Fences. So far I've only listened to Peter Linebaugh's talk about his most recent book Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberty and Commons for All (which I've just finished reading, it's good), and George Caffentzis talking about an older book, Clipped Coins: John Locke's Philosophy of Money (which I haven't read, but maybe I will now). The rest of the talks seem equally good. They've also published three pamphlets: Cry Freedom, Cry Seven Stars: Thomas Clarkson In Bristol, 1787 by Mark Steeds, We Come For Our Own And We Shall Have It - Smuggling In Poole And Dorset by Kevin Davis, and A Brief History Of Corporations - Where Did They Come From? By Dan Bennett & Andy Singer. I haven't seen any of them yet, but they seem awesome.

Two- Our friends at Breviary stuff have taken the time amidst posts about anti-enclosure riots, Elizabethan Rogues and Vagabonds and awesome books (seriously, please check out the current books list) to post about No Quarter #3.

Three- I've just seen Anja Kirchner's new film Trail of the Spider. So Awesome! "Trail of the Spider is a 55 minute Western that collides the suppressed multi-racial history of the American frontier with the conflicts breaking up East London today." Couldn't have said it better myself.

No Quarter #3 Out Now!

2008-04-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

No Quarter #3 Out Now! Pick one up at the calgary anarchist bookfair or email me:
captainmissionismycopilot [at] hotmail (dot) com

Down With The Fences! The Struggle for the Global Commons

2008-04-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

Our friends of the Bristol Radical History Group have a wonderful event coming up. Down With The Fences! The Struggle for the Global Commons is happening May 1st to 11th and is packed full of excellent talks, workshops and picnics. They always do a great job of balancing the microcosm and the macrocosm, so they have a bunch of stuff very local to Bristol and surrounding areas, talks relating to the whole of England as well as international struggles. Please check out the programme and be stoked.
Also, I've posted about it before, but recordings of the talks from Bristol Radical History Week 2006 can be downloaded here. And the programme for BRHW 2007 is here, and if you click on the details for each talk there are mp3s as well.
As if this wasn't enough BRHG news, there is also an interview in No Quarter #3 (which will be out in less than 7 days!!!).

Calgary Anarchist Bookfair

2008-04-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

The Calgary Anarchist Bookfair is coming up April 25-27. No Quarter #3 will be out by then, and consequently I'm doing a workshop:
Anarchy and the Golden Age of Piracy / Polly II: Plan for Revolution in the Docklands aka The (un)official No Quarter #3 zine release workshop.
Looking at the Golden Age of Piracy (roughly the 1680s-1720s) from an anarchist perspective. What do we make of Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Bart Roberts, Captain Mission and the rest? This workshop draws on standard pirate history as well as the work of radical historians such as Marcus Rediker, Peter Linebaugh, Christopher Hill, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Stephen Snelders, and Larry Law. It is also the release party for No Quarter (an anarchist zine about pirates) #3, and will feature special limited edition Calgary Anarchist Bookfair only No Quarter stuff (which will remain a secret until the bookfair). To celebrate we'll also be showing Polly II: Plan for Revolution in the Docklands (30 min.), a wonderful film by British film maker Anja Kirschner. "Polly II" is a near future tale of squatters flooded east end London fighting against corporate real estate development, becoming pirates and building a revolution.

Also of note at the bookfair is that Friends of Ann Clayborne distro will be tabling (extremely important I know), and the keynote speaker will be John Zerzan!

Bold Robin Hood

2008-03-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

Last year at the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair some friends of mine gave me a copy of Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales edited by Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren. This book is an amazing source for the original source material for the world's most famous outlaw. It has all the early ballads, Robin Hood plays, and many of the later ballads. It has notes to explain the context, but mostly these texts are left to stand alone. So I have been reading bits and pieces for the past seven months or so and thoroughly enjoying myself.
I've come across some good resources in these months, some of which I will hopefully talk about at my other blog at some point. I did want to mention a very good website: Robin Hood - Bold Outlaw of Barnsdale and Sherwood. So much material! Please do check this website out if you have any interest in Robin Hood.

Friends of Ann Clayborne distro list

2007-10-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

Here is the list of what I have for my distro that I'm bringing to Edmonton for the Anarchist bookfair. I'm also going to brings some of my personal books that I'm getting rid of. If you are going to be at the Edmonton bookfair and want me to bring you something from the list then email me:
captainmissionismycopilot [AT] hotmail [dot} com

Jacques Baynac - The Story of Tatiana (Black & Red) $9
Fredy Perlman - Worker-Student Action Committees: France,May ’68 (Black & Red) $5
John Zerzan & J. Munis - Unions Against Revolution (Black & Red) $2.50
Fredy Perlman - The Strait (Black & Red) $10
Fredy Perlman - The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism (Black & Red) $3
Fredy Perlman - Against His-story, Against Leviathan! (Black & Red) $8
Jacques Camatte - The Wandering of Humanity (Black & Red) $2.50
Fredy Perlman - Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom (Black & Red) $1.50
Fredy Perlman - Reproduction of Daily Life (Black & Red) $2
Loraine PerlmanHaving Little Having Much (Black & Red) $6
Henri Simon - Poland 1980-82 (Black & Red) $5
David Watson - Beyond Bookchin (Black & Red) $7
Wildcat! Dodge Truck (Black & Red) $2.50
Taylor Sparrow - A Problem of Memory: Stories to End the Racial Nightmare (Eberhardt Press) $10
Catherine Marie Jeunet - Reclaiming Our Ancient Wisdom: Herbal Abortion Procedure and Practice for Midwives and Herbalists (Eberhardt Press) $4
At Daggers Drawn (Eberhardt Press) $4
A Crime Called Freedom: Writings of Os Cangaceiros Vol. I (Eberhardt Press) $6
Shon Meckfessel - SUFFLED HOW IT GUSH: A North American Anarchist in the Balkans (Eberhardt Press) $12
Criminal: Writings by Isabelle Eberhardt (Eberhardt Press) $4
Fredy Perlman - Progress and Nuclear Power: The Destruction of the Continent and Its Peoples (Eberhardt Press) $1
Fire To The Powder Keg: War And Social Guerilla War in Iraq (Eberhardt Press) $6
Communicating Vessels #16 $3
Communicating Vessels #17 $3
Communicating Vessels #18 $3
Communicating Vessels Anthology $10
No Quarter #1 $2
No Quarter #2 $3
FIHTDW:RIOH #1 $2
Stuart Christie – Granny Made Me an Anarchist (Scribner) $10
Green Anarchy #23 $4
Green Anarchy #24 $4
It’s Not Books, Nor High Marks. What We Lack is Life: 2 Documents From the 1998 Student-Teacher Tumult in Greece $1
An Introduction To The Situationists $1
Towards the Distruction of Schooling $1
Feral Forager $1
Species Traitor #3 $3
Memories of Freedom by the Western Wildlife Unit of the Animal Liberation Front $3
We Are All Hooligans: Youth Revolt in France, March 1994 $2
Albania: Laboratory of Subversion $2
The Rebellion In Los Angeles: The Context of a Proletarian Uprising $1
The Anarchist Tension $1
Critical Thinking as an Anarchist Weapon $2
At Daggers Drawn $2
Fawda: On The Situation in Palestine $1
The Insurrectional Project $2
Armed Joy $1
The Undesirables $1
Autonomous Self-Organization and Anarchist Intervention $1
Insurrectionary Anarchy: Organizing to Attack $0.25
Dreams of Insurrection $0.25

I'm selling books, cds, records etc

2007-10-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

This blog is mostly about my zines, but the next best thing to my zines is buying books from me!
Here is the link. Of course, it pretty much only applies if you live in Calgary (or Edmonton if you contact me before October 26th and come to the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair to pick them up) because I'm probably not going to ship them to you (although you could ask I guess). They are good books at good prices. Please check it out.

Pirates, Witches & Smugglers

2007-10-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

October 27th - November 4th is Radical History week in Bristol, put on by the Bristol Radical History Group. Oh how I wish I was going! Speakers include Marcus Rediker, Stephen Snelders (author of The Devil's Anarchy: The Other Loose Roving Way of Life & Very Remarkable Travels of Jan Erasmus Reyning, Buccaneer, on Autonomedia, which is excellent), and Sylvia Federici (author of Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body, and Primitive Accumulation, also on Autonomedia, as well as several other interesting looking books). There are a bunch of other speakers who I'm not familiar with but who have very interesting seeming topics (As I alluded to in the title of this post the theme is Pirates, Witches & Smugglers). Should be amazingly rad.

Instead of Bristol I will be in Canada, up at the Edmonton Anarchist book fair. I'll have a bunch of excellent distro items which I'll post about soon. Ward Churchill is speaking at the fair, which is exciting too.

Also, a somewhat recent article about modern day piracy in the Strait of Malacca. Pretty interesting.

Also, Make Magazine has a Halloween Special out. Not radical in any way really, but DIY in a very you-need-skills-to-do-this-shit way, but still lots of pretty fun Halloween stuff that is not focused on buying costumes or pre-fab decorations.

Also, through Scarstuff (which I posted about before) I found Mostly Ghostly Music Sharing Blaaahhhggg!!! which has been posting some interesting Halloween records and related material.

A Few Things

2007-08-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

AK Press is sold out of No Quarter #1 (I think), but will soon have copies of #1 and #2.

No Quarter #2 got a very nice review in MRR #292 (September 2007) and was in the Zine Top Ten.

Breviary Stuff (formerly daWB>> fragmented) wrote a post about No Quarter #2. It also happens to be a very interesting blog.

There is an article about modern piracy at Smithsonian.com. Pretty interesting stuff. Link.

I just got Peter Lamborn Wilson's CROSS-DRESSING IN THE ANTI-RENT WAR from Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs (here's the book). A beautiful and wonderful book of poetry about a number of interesting topics including the Calico Indians and the anti-rent war, Charles Fourier, utopian experiments in New York State, the Hudson River School (also mentioned in Kim Stanley Robinson's Sixty Days and Counting which I recently finished), and much more. If you don't like poetry but do like Peter Lamborn Wilson then I suspect you would still like this. You can also listen to him read from these poems at the Bowery Poetry Club December 17, 2005 here.

No Quarter #2 links

2007-05-04T18:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of links not included in No Quarter #2
Marcus Rediker's web site.
Pirate Utopias: Under the Banner of King Death. An article from Do or Die #8 (also an article about the Luddites from issue 6).
Bristol Radical History Group.
The International Chamber of Commerce weekly piracy report.
daWB>> fragmented.

Links for No Quarter #2

2007-04-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

I didn't include a list of websites in the print zine because if you have the internet (and obviously you do if you are reading this) then its easier to follow the links here than type out long urls.

Illegalism
Doug Imrie wrote an article called The Illegalists for Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #41 Winter 1995. Its online here.
A critical, and only slightly interesting essay by Emile Armand called
Is the Illegalist Anarchist our Comrade? (written in 1911) is posted here.
Here the French movie La Bande a Bonnot is here in its entirety (but without English subtitles) on Brightcove which seems like a youtube clone. Christie Books is the user who posted it.
They also posted newsreel footage about the Bonnot Gang narrated by someone who sounds suspiciously like Stuart Christie.
Here is a french site with nice pictures from newspapers at the time.
If you want a basic introduction to the illegalists keep reading or read the Doug Imrie article. You could also check whatever source you usually check (wiki-whatever etc.).

Here is the short introduction I wrote for the translation of a piece by Octave Garnier in No Quarter #2.

The illegalist milieu developed in French anarchist circles in the first years of the 20th century. France was still reeling from bombings and assassinations committed by anarchist practitioners of propaganda by the deed* such as Ravachol and Emile Henry in the 1890s. Individualist anarchists, despite their critique of syndicalist and worker based anarchist activities were still forced to sell their labour for pennies or starve. A small number sought to remedy this by re-acquiring some of the wealth stolen from them by stealing it back. This developed into the theory of la reprise individuelle*. Anarchists such as Marius Jacob took up burglary rather than wait until after the revolution to live life. Jacob operated one of the most successful burglary rings in Europe prior to his arrest. A portion of the money was funnelled back to the anarchist movement to support prisoners and publish newspapers. In 1905 he was sentenced to life imprisonment in French Guiana. He was released in 1927.

In 1911 a group coalesced around Jules Bonnot and Octave Garnier that would be responsible for some of the most spectacular crimes in French history. The were the first group to use an automobile to flee the scene of a crime. Bonnot had acquired his driving skill while chauffeuring for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

Octave Garnier was born near Paris on Christmas Day 1889 and died in a shootout with police on May 14, 1912 at the age of 22. Every attempt has been made to preserve the spirit of his writing here. It is not polished anarchist theory. It is rushed, full of mistakes and run-on sentences. It is defiant and unapologetic. We present it here as a small contribution to the literature on illegalism in the English language which is extremely insufficient. A short (and hopefully incomplete) bibliography of English Language material follows this translation.

*Propaganda by the deed is basically the theory that assassination of politicians, industrialists, or police could be the catalyst of a more general revolt. For instance, the assassination of Czarist officials in Russia by anarchists was hoped to spark a revolutionary uprising.

*La reprise individuelle is the theory that since the bourgeois and the rich obtained their wealth through exploitation of the lower classes, individuals are justified in redistributing wealth on a small scale (i.e. stealing it back) rather than waiting for a general redistribution “after the revolution”.

No Quarter #2 Out Now!!!

2007-04-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

No Quarter #2 is out now. I got it done just in time for the Calgary Anarchist bookfair. It will be available soon from Haymarket Cafe in Calgary and currently from C.H.U.D. in Edmonton. Its 60 pages half legal and $3 in person $4 through the mail to Canada/U.S. Email me for details captainmissionismycopilot [AT] hotmail [dot] COM

No Quarter #2 coming soon!!!

2007-03-25T12:31:00.000-07:00

That's right! Issue 2 of No Quarter should be out by early May, perhaps sooner. Until then I've posted a few things that will be in the issue. Here is a review of Frances Yates - The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972, Routledge Classics 2001).
Somewhat related to that check out a bunch of illstrations from Robert Fludd's De Naturae Simia, published in the first quarter of the 15th century. It is on the always interesting bibliodyssey.
Robert Fludd was an English alchemist who is a bit of a central figure in The Rosicrucian Enlightenment.

I should also note that both No Quarter #1 and From Idle Hands the Devils Work #1 were reviewed in MRR #286 (March 2007) and got critical but good reviews. It seems unlikely that I'll post them anytime soon because I'm trying to get No Quarter #2 out, but at some point I'll type them out... Oh, and both were in the Zine Top 10. Of course, they only reviewed 25 zines in the issue, but I'm still happy about it.

A Micronation of Pirates

2007-01-15T17:14:00.000-08:00

People for The Pirate Bay, a really cool bit torrent/copyright liberation type sight have entered into negotiations with the government(sic) of Sealand (official site, wikipedia entry) to buy it or transfer sovereignty or however you sell your semi-legal semi-nation to a bunch of Swedish anti-copyright swashbucklers. The Pirate Bay people are soliciting donations to this end. I'm not sure how serious a possibility this is but they say they will use any money raised to buy an island to found their own micronation if Sealand doesn't pan out. No word yet if they plan to change Sealand's name to Libertalia. I'd like to point out that while the notion of micronations is not anarchist it is also not statist. In fact it is to a large extent a critique of the legitacy of the state. There is lots of interesting discussions happening on the buy sealand site. Check it out.

Scarstuff!!!

2007-01-11T19:56:00.000-08:00

Here is an excellent blog relating to Halloween and halloween music!!!

some books i've recently obtained

2007-01-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

I’ve recently picked up a number of very exciting used books which are relevant to this project:

John Humphrey Noyes – Strange Cults & Utopias of 19th Century America
First published in 1870 as History of American Socialisms, this is the lovely Dover edition first reprinted in 1966. Noyes was the founder of the Oneida community, and offers a sympathetic look at the history of 48 utopian socialist communities in the U.S.
Pretty cool stuff.

Mark Poster (ed) – Harmonian Man: Selected Writings of Charles Fourier.
Almost all the communities examined in Noyes’ book were influenced by the work of Robert Owen or Charles Fourier, often both. This is a nice paperback collection published by Doubleday Anchor in 1971. Its amazing how many radical books were published by mainstream publishers in the mid sixties to mid seventies. This seems like a pretty good selection of Fourier’s writings on knowledge, society, work, sex, and education, although missing much of his weirder stuff on evolution, aesthetics, food etc. Books like this are why I haunt used bookstores.

Abeizer Coppe – Selected Writings
Many thanks to Andrew Hopton (ed) and Aporia Press for publishing this handsome edition in 1987. Coppe was perhaps the best know of the Ranters, proto-anarchist religious radicals in the English Revolution. Coppe is best known (by the few who know him) for A Fiery Flying Roll (late 1649 or Jan 1650), a wonderfully scurrilous, vulgar, and poetic pamphlet which was burned by parliament shortly after its publication and lead to Coppe’s arrest. Luckily a few copies escaped the fire and made it to us. Excerpts were first re -published in the appendix to Norman Cohn’s wonderful The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (1956). Here Andrew Hopton gives us (I believe) all of Abeizer Coppe’s extant writings. I’m so very excited to get this book!!!

Norman Cohn – Europe’s Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom.
I happened upon this book in a used bookstore the day after I finished Pursuit of the Millennium. I was very excited to note that Cohn considers this book to be a sort of companion to Pursuit of the Millennium. This is also one of the most important books criticizing Margaret Murray’s theories about Witchcraft and her Witch Cult in Western Europe.

Raoul Vaneigem – The Movement of the Free Spirit
Vaneigem was of course the author of The Revolution of Everyday Life, and with Guy Debord the most important theorist of the Situationists. Here he writes about the Movement of the Free Spirit, a radical antinomian sect which existed from the middle ages until the 1500s and which Norman Cohn considers to be precursors of the Ranters. This book looks awesome.

Andrew Bradstock & Christopher Rowland – Radical Christian Writings: A Reader
This book covers a lot of ground but we are particularly interested with excerpts of writers including John Ball, one of the leaders of the peasant uprising in England in 1381, the early Anabaptist including Thomas Muntzer, Anna Jansz and others, members of the Family of Love, Early Baptists, Levelers, Diggers, Ranters, Fifth Monarchist, Early Quakers and other radicals around the English Revolution. As I said this book covers a lot of ground and the excerpts are generally quite short, but this is a great collection none the less.

Bulldozing the Great Pyramids (of Georgia)

2006-12-24T12:02:00.000-08:00

An interesting and depressing story from BoingBoing linking to the Oxford American (unfortunately Oxford American doesn’t have permanent links to their stories so I’m only linking to BoingBoing) about the destruction of the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors compound in Putnam County, Georgia. The UNNM were (I’m assuming the sect is past tense because their leader Malachi Z. York is currently in prison for RICO, child molestation, and tax related charges. No offence intended) related to the Nation of Islam and Moorish Science (but not the Moorish Orthodox Church as reported on BoingBoing), and very into ancient Egyptian mythology and UFOs. Anyhow, I first heard of the Nuwaubians in UFO Religions by Christopher Partridge (ed). The article “The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors” by Theodore Gabriel reminded me a lot of Peter Lamborn Wilson’s essay about Moorish Science in Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam. Gabriel’s article paints the sect in a very positive light and I was very disheartened (although not surprised) to hear that York had been convicted of sex and tax charges and was in prison. The Oxford American article has a lot of amazing pictures and is well worth checking out.

Halloween Horror Movie choices

2006-10-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

After you’re done trick or treating (some emphasize the treat, some the trick) this year you might want to settle down and watch a horror movie. Here are some suggestions:

In her interview Hanna (of Ax Wound zine) mentioned Ginger Snaps, May, Nightmare on Elm Street, Slumber Party Massacre, I Spit on Your Grave (with caution due to tough rapes scenes), Dead Alive, Re-animator, Evil Dead and Army of Darkness.

On the H. P. Lovecraft tip (in addition to Re-animator) definitely check out Call of Cthulhu, which is a faux silent film (or more accurately a modern silent film made to look like a classic silent film. I recently re-watched In The Mouth of Madness, which holds up pretty well I think. I have yet to watch several recent adaptations: Beyond the Wall of Sleep, Dreams from the Witches House (directed by Stuart Gordon, who directed the excellent Re-animator, the ok From Beyond, and the terrible Dagon), and Cool Air. Cool Air is a selection from the annual H. P. Lovecraft film festival and seems very interesting.
Or if you are feeling a little more on the brain eating side of things please watch Dellamore Dellamorte (aka Cemetary Man). In case you ever wondered what film Winnipeg hc band Malefaction was sampling on that one album… I forget what it was called. The one with the pentagram and no jewel case. Of course Dawn of the Dead (hopefully I don’t need to say this but, the original). Zombi 2/Zombie is pretty good Halloween watching fare. I recently watched Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love and thought it was excellent. If you are more in a hopping zombie mood check out Mr. Vampire (or any of the sequals). Plague of the Zombies is one of the best Hammer films. There are shitloads of new zombie films out too. I have no idea if they are worth watching. Maybe I’ll check one out on Halloween night. More likely I’ll be watching Cool Air.
I also wanted to mention Charm, the long awaited film released by Kill Rock Stars. Very beautiful and interesting movie. Sort of a slasher, in an unconventional shot on Super 8 sort of way.
I also want to see Alucarda, a Mexican horror (and source of the image on the Kirsk shirt), and any of the Indian horrors of the Ramsey Brothers. I’ve been searching the DVD bins at local South Asian grocery stores to no avail so far. Mondo Macabra has also released a double feature of two of their films Purana Mandir and Band Darwaza.
I’m sure you all have your favorites too. Have a good Halloween and hand out lots of candy (or maybe make up a bunch of dvdrs of your fave horror movies and give those out to trick or treaters too. Maybe leave I Spit on Your Grave off that list).

Radio Free School Halloween episode

2006-10-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

The most recent episode of Radio Free School is there Halloween episode. Download it here. Past Halloween episodes are here and here. But to read the interview with Randy of Radio Free School you’ll just have to get a copy of the zine.