The Antisocial Socialist

1. Via sphinctourist:

The ViceTV guide to the Anarchist Cookbook. Lots of nice explosions, questionable sense of self-preservation. I can't say "do not try this at home" often enough for this 12-minute long video. Don't try any of the recipes in the book itself at home either. Just don't.

I wonder if anyone has ever made a book of recipes for vegan and dumpster-dived foodstuffs and called it "The Anarchist Cookbook."

2. MAC is a bad company.* Makeup and fashion, inspired by the lives and deaths of maquiladora workers in Juarez, Mexico. I think there was an episode of More Tears like this, only it was supposed to be ghastly parody.

"At Rodarte, the designers were inspired by the idea of workers in Mexican maquiladoras walking half-asleep to the factories in Juarez, after dressing in the dark."

3. Most everyone has seen this awful story. A Palestinian man was convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a Jewish woman, who was under the mistaken assumption that he was a Nice Jewish Boy. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised—we live in a world where a man can get away with murdering a woman if he finds out that she's transgendered.

"The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls."

For the record, things you should disclose to a new partner before having casual sex with them for the first time: If you have any STDs, if you have any other partners, if your significant other is likely to barge in and aim a shotgun at your head, and, if you are taking them home with you, whether you have any sort of animals to which they might have a deadly allergy. Things that you do not need to disclose: The shape of your genitals, your ethnicity, your religion, whether you've done your taxes yet this year, whether zombies or pirates would win in a fight, whether you're ever going to give them up or let them down. The former is life-or-death stuff directly related to sex. The latter is typically nice to know when you're sleeping with someone, but we takes our chances and part of life's adventure is discovering things we don't know about our fuckbuddies, pleasant and otherwise.

* Really glad zingerella introduced me to Urban Decay last weekend. I do like my fancy makeups.

I've been wanting to see this since the spoof trailer in Grindhouse. Just the political timing of the trailer alone makes me smile. I kind of love that Rodriguez and Tarantino make subversive* movies that are still totally trashy and have lots of shit blowing up. It's like the 14-year-old boy part of my brain can get its adrenaline fix while the Marxist feminist part of my brain can watch and go, "Hmm, interesting."

* Not without flaws, of course, but definitely more progressive than typical Hollywood or even indie fare.

The murderer is not going to return to the scene of the crime, simply because the murderer is the scene of the crime. The murderer is the system.

The nice thing about my ridiculous commute is that I just burn through books like you wouldn't believe. So I finished reading The Uncomfortable Dead by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos this afternoon on the ride home. It did not disappoint. I was worried that it might—you know the thing about how revolutionary sorts frequently don't make particularly good writers? Marcos is a good writer. Taibo is better, at least to my taste, but their contrasting styles worked for the sort of pomo-absurdist book they were going for.

The Uncomfortable Dead is structured as alternating chapters (PIT writes the even-numbered chapters, Marcos the odd) about intertwining mysteries involving government corruption and repression. In Chiapas, Zapatista investigator Elías Contreras is sent to Mexico City ("the Monster," as the Zapatistas call it) by Subcomandante Marcos to seek out "the Bad and the Evil," and in particular, a man named Morales who betrayed the EZLN and may have had a hand in the Acteal Massacre. Meanwhile in the city, the one-eyed detective Héctor Belascoarán Shayne is also searching for a man named Morales, who may or may not be the same Morales, who reportedly murdered a former political prisoner. But the aforementioned activist may not be entirely dead—Belascoarán learns of him after he leaves a series of rather hilarious messages on a former comrade's answering machine.

I mentioned that the book was pomo—it's written in a mishmash of styles, from multiple viewpoints and tenses (the narrative is, at one point, snatched from Elías by a gay Puerto Rican mechanic named Julio who, much to his annoyance, disappears entirely from the book after his chapter is finished). Elías is dead, though we never find out how he died or, more crucially to the plot, when. Marcos appears several times as a character in his own chapters, from Elías' first-person point-of-view, both a Trickster archetype and the omnipotent author. One of my favourite bits involved multiple characters being irritated with Marcos because, having written the book, he should know how it ends and tell them already. Oh, and there's Barney the purple dinosaur. Trust me, it makes sense in context.

At any rate, some of you should read it so that I have someone else to blabber on about it with. It's terrible amounts of fun mixed with good politics and a serious emotional jolt, so go check it out.

1. Via audrawilliams. This is worse than TV Tropes: There's a website for the Bechdel Test. I need to stop looking at it or I will not get to sleep tonight.

2. I'm halfway through The Uncomfortable Dead by Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcommandante Marcos. It's making me look forward to my daily commute, which is the best possible endorsement I can give a book. When I am done my big stack of readings (I still have a ton of comics and such to get through) I am going to drive myself insane trying to find the rest of PIT's books in English.

Has anyone else read it, by the way?

The weirdest thing for a Jewish vegetarian to crave is a ham sandwich. I don't think I've ever even eaten a real ham sandwich. But anyway, I was going out to mail something to rohmie and pick up milk and coffee, and I asked captainmushroom if he needed anything from the grocery store.

"Bread," he said. Which, for some reason, induced a ham sandwich craving in me.

(Not, I should add, a craving for something made from an actual pig. But I used to make these awesome sandwiches with Yves Veggie Ham and San Francisco sourdough bread.)

So I indulged, and I made myself a kosher, vegetarian ham sandwich with Future Bakery bread, honey mustard, Italian salad dressing, sliced tomatoes, and jalapeños. With spicy olives on the side. It was awesome and I think I'll have another one for lunch.

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I can't believe Ward Churchill is speaking Friday afternoon while I'll be in class. The nerve. Maybe he'll stick around that night and I can go for a beer with him. One of my goals in life is to go for a beer with Ward Churchill, which I don't think is unreasonable.

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Toronto people: If you are around tomorrow night, you have to come see "A Little Bit of So Much Truth," with a Q&A by director Jill Freidberg (the one who made "This Is What Democracy Looks Like). It will be fabulous, it will be free, and if you donate any money, it will go directly to the people of Oaxaca.

Here's the info;

Thursday January 31st 2008
Time: 7PM to 9:30PM
Location: The Koffler Institute, 569 Spadina Ave - Room 108
(the east side of Spadina, between College and Harbord, north of Russell)

Hosted, of course, by the OMG-why-did-I-take-on-another-political-commitment? group that I joined recently. Because I don't have enough on my plate so I have to go join new groups. I'm like that.

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Hmm, what else? Life drawing with my step-sisters tonight, if we can figure out where the hell the place is. It's been about a decade since I've done any life drawing, so I'll post the embarrassing results here and you can all point and laugh.

Via nuncstans: The situation in Oaxaca has escalated. To say the least.

Anyone have updates? Suggestions for protest actions? (As we found out when we tried to deliver a letter of protest a few weeks ago, the Mexican consulate in Toronto keeps some very shitty hours.)

Related: IWW Resolution from earlier this month.