a beautifully lame poetic

ge∂ure flung into the face of

terroristsneo-liberal capitalismyour day jobyour ex-boy /girlfriendother people (hell is)

{IS

SU

E 7 // A

UT

UM

N 2005

MADE IN MILE END

FOURMINUTESTOMIDNIGHT

/150

SEVEN

THE ANTICIPATED FIRST

Rowena Kennedy Epstein

I met you somewhere between revolution and my heart. You walked in cold and smooth on the eve of History. Stories whispered by my ear and maps lay on my lap, actions were planned and I signed up to lock down around a cow. You slid in next to me and shook my hand. I said, “Nice to meet you, are you getting arrested?” You said, “No, not this time.” Then you turned on your heels and walked toward the ruckus of the week to come. I desperately want to say that I thought about you every day, that the revolts on the street were nothing next to the revolts of my heart. But I had been training in a boot camp for combatants against capitalism for the last 19 years, and all I could think of was glory and stories of the Movement to come. I hadn’t slept in weeks; I couldn’t dream of you. I hadn’t eaten in days; I was planning our attack. I hadn’t loved in months; I was organising the stories of Salvadoran struggles. I woke up at four am on November 30th, 1999 from the pre-battle lump in my throat and the ten thousand monarch butterfly skeletons rattling in my belly. I had two hours to get to the park, two hours to meet my affinity group; two hours ’til I would introduce myself to a hormone injected cow. A cow that would make its way through wet streets and riot police, a cow that mooed: “We’re cold, we’re wet, and we hate Monsanto.” I arrived armed with hot tea and a mistrust of the already swarming police. I watched cops confiscate puppets

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and shopping carts, smirking as they walked away with a 40-foot paper mache carrot that read “Uproot Oppression.” — that’s what we were, all of us, bold and cold. Some with wings and a smile, some with lock-boxes tucked under our Gore-Tex jackets and Bolivian wool sweaters. The ground vibrated beneath our collective fear and anticipation. We sang songs in rhythm with memory, and moved in beat to the stories of those who had fought before. We functioned in narratives. We saw microscopic forms of the present. We longed in future syllables of what may come. We aged. The smell of wet hair and history sailed into my nostrils as we stepped into those streets. There was a collective sigh of relief as the morning light pierced through the clouds onto the streets that would become our home for the next week. We had fun, the Monsanto hormone-injected cow and I. We ate words of struggle, spitting them out with venom and power, and as day broke night we broke oppres-sion. Empowerment swelled over us; a generation began to understand. Our work was legitimized, our back-alley meet-ings made sense. And our fates had been sealed by sticky, permanent, revolutionary glue. I didn’t think about you that day. I thought about El Salvador and Chiapas. I thought about Emma Goldman and the Chicago anarchists of 1887. I thought about the fact that I paid for my own teargas, and wondered if I had gotten my money’s worth. I wondered if my parents were proud, hearing my father say, “They think they can hide, but not this time; people are organising.” I saw them standing in shat-tered glass; they watched my face and for a moment our lives had reversed – a recognition of their past. I remember the collective. I remember standing in the intersection of Stewart and Olive and hearing my life change. I remember thinking that I would talk with you about all of

12 |

this. I remember thinking I would never stop. My body was caving in on me, my eyes were swollen, my feet were bleed-ing, and I never anticipated stopping. I would like to think a generation never anticipated stopping. I lay down that night and heard drums in my ears, and watched helicopters fly past my high school. I watched riot police stand on the same corners where I used to smoke a joint. I watched the begin-ning and the end of my career as a forgiving activist. I knew that I would soon be a casualty of everyday meetings and the jailhouses of Seattle, Philadelphia and D.C. I don’t think I thought much more that week. I had occupied a different mind, trying to organise the events, trying to organise the order of the streets I would be running in.

We won that night. A phone call from the jailhouse yielded me my breath. I heard the drums and the chanting and then the words, “We won this battle, there was no new round, we shut down the wto!” I fell to the floor and cried; I cried an hour before I met you and I cried an hour after I left you. I cried from the acid left in my mouth and numb limbs; I cried for all our defeats. I cried because I never imagined expe-riencing a victory in my lifetime. And then I ran to my car and came to you, bearing my body and the news of the first victory of this war. I remember you sat down and stopped moving, and looked at me as though the world had just fallen from my tongue. We smiled. We would have kissed if we had known each other; we would have hugged if it hadn’t been our first date. And I said, “Should we go downtown?” and you said, “I really want to hang out with you.” That night we sat across from each other sipping tea and singing stories, weaving the past into our present; speaking of yesterday as if it had already been entered and meticulously recorded into the history books. I felt the philosophical

| 13

knife of my life before and my life after N30 slide deep into my skin. I had broken open; I was seeing new land with views of rebellion and courage, a glimpse that will be with me through the stories of repression and time and survival. That will outlive me. I knew then that I might never have the words to tell this story, our story, a story of rebirth.

I can never forget the history of that week, so I can never forget the history of us. I met you in simple language, at the beginning of a complex battle, somewhere between revolution and my heart.

WE ARE EVERYWHERE

14 |

Our love of life is total.Everything we do is an expression of that.Everything we write is a love song.

38

You ask for the world,

it is yours.

Your confusion is the box in which you put your answers,

your limitations are the walls of the box.

Destroy the box.

There are no lights to guide your path, only your love.

If you show your love, there are no questions,

no beginning and no end,

you stand apart from your confusions,your achievementsand spent realities.

39

The beautiful eyes of the warrior,they are nothing but boot polish.

16 |

Tactics as Strategy

Don’t be tempted to stand there and fight — get out to where you can cause some damagewithout the police around.

Keep moving around, as a group and individually. Fill gaps.Never stand still.

Crowd divisions and the formation of police lines must be nipped in the bud.

Don’t be intimidated.

Do everything in small teams, prepare in advance.

Think defensively. Protect each other and escape routes.

Always face outwards.

Link arms, form barriers, use your body.

Move quickly and calmly, never giving the police time to react.

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Bleeding Heart

18 |

OPPRESSIONSOMEOFUSWILLITONANDON

Punk Ass

| 23

I AM BEATEN,BLACK& .

BLUE

BY THE READ,WHITE&z

TRUE

PEOPLE ARE MUTE. AS

THE CARBON NIGHTS STRETCH OUT.

24 |

IN THIS CITY, MY THIRTY YEAR CENTURY

SIX YEARS SINCE ARRIVING WITH AMMUNITION AND CATHODE RAY GUN

It wasn’t meant to be like this

CATHODERAYGUNDREAMS

16 People are bewitched into believ-ing that time slips away, and this

belief is the basis of time actually slipping away. Time is the work of attrition of that adaptation to which people must resign themselves so long as they fail to change the world. Age is a role, an acceleration of ‘lived’ time on the plane of appearances, an attachment to things.

DREAMS the crushed birds nest butted tobacco bleached paper suicidethis isn’t Paris in the evening, music and laughter filling the air, hands clasped around your first fleeting love{IT’S BEEN A LOVE AFFAIR REALLY, LIKE IN A ROCK N’ ROLL MOVIE, SCRAPING MY KNEES ON WHO’S CONCRETE I CAN’T SAY, LICKING MY OWN TEARS

F R O M T H E L A N D S C A P E FROM FEAR OF CONTAMINATION. LES S TEARS YOU SAY, IF I COUL D FIND MINEmemory , I ’ D P A C K T H E M A W A Y I P R O M I S E

.

but that never really happened anyways, and now, this is nowhere even remotely close. On this street, on

this corner, at this table is vital now because it won’t ever change sustain release unless you... Fumbling

through too many images and things between Brixton and South Kenn, Mile End and Hochelaga-

Maisonneuve, with the same music ringing in your ears, triggering the same false memories, subtle (fucking)

reminders of how the words keep failing faster and I still get broken faster. You know that song; It’s so hard when

the lovin’s only goin’ one way: uuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh ooooooaaaagggggg

ggghhhhhhhhhhhh. Those old songs in the southern heat where anybody, pretty much, can grow old

gracefully. The sidewalk looks like shit. Gotta swamp hop, cockroaches always underfoot. The lazy bastards

won’t even answer the phone. Well I sure as hell don’t want to. What are you doing here anyway? I thought

I’d left you at the train tracks, I said never come back.Though moving forward sure is scary in the world

these days; I practically had to strip just to get something I fucking paid for. We need a civil war or

something. “I only squat to shit!” I screamed at them. It was 7 AM. I mean what were they thinking(???)

CATHODERAYGUNDREAMS

{

I PROMISEOF,(were they thinking)

in the howling electric light ((the pulsing sun spots behind closed eyes))

the sun dried sentence, smeared across the page, the letters and words scattering like pigeons, slipping between their lips, past their fingers,and careening upwards back towards the pulsing light.

28 |

I’ll take a handful of words with windows smashed, and profane faces, I’ll take therogue glyphs, and scatter theminto the wind of passing trucks. hurl them.my only tenuous lifeline.

fragile. immobile.

quiet.stoic.stiff-fingered.useless.frozen-frigid-fuck-faceto face to facewiththeviewfromhere;

| 29

DRONE

from

DRONE

to

skipping the seconds

DRONE

30 |

ONE

everywhere

everyone

IE there sat

O

54415441minutes patterned shadows of hanging plants

narrow jutted stair

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Wilensky

Trotsky

Deen

t h e r e s a t Wilensky, Trotsky

and Deen

and

DRONE

one time

never mind thein janvier

32 |

slotted smoky stare

mutes theconversation to metallic drone and soundless lips throbbing like cursors

| 33

this shifty corner

wail another coffee. social st. viateur

Well, never mind the drone, the lig a t u r e s . . .

{nouveau palace chocolatiers and sweatshops at the traintracks

ARE YOU A WANDERER OR A SETTLER, THE VAGABOND OR THE CITIZEN, NOMADIC OR CIVILISED?

THE CITY CARRIES A STORY. THE CITY PRESENTS A LURE INTO ITS OWN VERSION OF THE PAST: YOU COULD SAY IT TELLS TALES, THAT IT LIES.

| 35

36 |

IF NECESSARYCONSIDER THIS AN INTRODUCTION

John Stuart & Kevin Lo

We thought we were warriors, but in reality we were just tired, lonely and bored.

More eloquently, Geof Huth;

Against Silence, Against Darkness

We are the nocturnal artists, the weekend poets, those people locked in a battle against our own commitments. We work all week, cook dinner, make our beds, clean our homes. The bare responsibilities of living take up most of our time. Our simplest choice would be to do nothing extra, to write nothing at all, to allow the surging silence of the universe to overcome us. But we do not.

| 37

We decide to create. We could interpret this as a mania, a negative compulsion. But I prefer to think of it as a calling, one that might dull with time, one that we sometimes force ourselves to ignore, but something somehow meaningful. If I could, I would celebrate all those poets—cerebral and instinctual, visual and otherwise—because they at least try. They struggle against the silence they could so easily succumb to. They know—maybe only deep down, but they know—that their voices might have no effect, that they might be totally forgotten. But at least they try. And that gives us the only chance we have.

More specifically, us;

I’m at a loss for what passes as thought in this machine without ghosts.

In all honesty, we’re really not sure what this is. Two years ago an act drenched in loss led to a naïve and simple question; “what’s wrong?” This led to a multitude of courageous answers; plastic coffee cups, erasers, broken dreams and jealous eyes turned upwards to form many more questions. Yet the first still seemed the most pertinent. The questions that followed wrapped around and bit their own tails, choking on the fear of their own wrongness. People shut up. Was it merely the initial spark which waned or was it the nature of that simple question, it’s commonness in every day dialogue, thrown into a new context, that made people actually speak up for once. All of us know what’s wrong. We just can’t agree on what ‘that’ is. So, hunkering down over this page again, struggling with words after exhausting my mind in the service of cold, sterile, dead media, I think to myself; Design has to be quashed... it’s a trigger phrase in a weekend lifestyle section, it’s a

38 |

guidebook and shameless hustle, it’s made commodities of every action we try to take. In this café, surrounded by these well-rendered orgasms, I wonder, shouldn’t the lust-driven be the ones to lead dissent? ...no, everything’s cool — really? Is that why I’m sweating-unsteady so much? We can’t even imagine the world we want to live in anymore, all the alternatives tainted by the alternatives — just give me a beach, two trees and a huge fucking dead whale. It’s high time to walk away from this and redefine what we can do.

‘They shot us first’ isn’t really a good excuse — but it’ll do for now.

Pragmatic poisons; Why don’t you just fucking give up already? That voice I’ve heard everywhere, calibrated to perfection, honed by professionals like ourselves (hah!), only with far more influence and less conscience. Using the same method would not only be misguided, it would be morally bereft. Do you really assume that I’ll grow tired of all this and topple lovingly into your smothering arms? Two, twenty seven, thirty seven years on... hack, hack, cough, spit... Traces and fragments, it’s all we’re willing to offer at this point, because anything more would be a lie. We’re really not sure what this is. A list is an easy way out of literature, consider it an invitation:

the list ¶ a machine without ghosts ¶ an act drenched in loss ¶ a beach, two tress and a dead fucking whale ¶ a well-rendered orgasm ¶ a bed ¶ a contract worn thin ¶ a child with pain I can hardly comprehend

| 39

theviewfromhere; >>>

40 |

SOME THINGS PEOPLE HAVE TOLD ME

REGARDING GRAPHIC DESIGN AND LIVINGKevin Lo

SIMON DAVIES During the orientation session at Post St. Joost in Breda, the Netherlands, my soon to be professor, Simon Davies mentioned to me in passing;

I think the antiquated notion of (graphic) design as problem solving should be buried and replaced with an understanding of design as a process of problem revealing.

I identified strongly with Simon’s words as I’ve never really thought of myself as a very good problem solver, but would still like to consider myself a competent designer. No doubt graphic design does solve some problems. But in the grand scheme of problems, differentiating products in the market and making a text more legible seem pretty trivial, and certainly not important enough to be the basis of a profession. This shouldn’t be seen to discount the important place of good (moral?) craft work within society, but the extension of the designer’s role as official “problem-solver” is based in an ideal of modernism, with design acting in the service of (the captains of ) industry. Whose problems have we really been solving all these years? As a socially engaged designer, a constant rebuttal to my ideal-ism is that graphic design can do nothing to solve the problems of poverty, hunger, environmental destruction or war. The argument

| 41

continues, who are we to pretend we know the solution to these problems? We’re artists, not (political) scientists. Therefore, we should stick to what we know, get on with doing good work, and solve the problems we’ve been trained to solve (justified or ranged-left? definitely ranged-left...). Yet the second half of Simon’s statement offers an alternative to this simplistic argument. Without getting into the “designer as author” debate, the common understand-ing of graphic design is one where the designer works with predetermined content. The very same processes of organi-sation, clarification and differentiation that have been linked with solving, can more naturally be seen as revealing that which already exists within the content. Identifying what to reveal and how to reveal it (and whom to reveal it to), is the starting point for design as a rhetorical practice, from which an argument can be formed (argument as solution? believe me because I’m good..) or from which questions can be asked (do you believe me because I’m pretty?). Seen in this light, the ques-tion of whom we are serving becomes all the more pertinent. The line between solving and revealing is blurry, yet a reversal of perspective could open up real spaces for question-ing and dialogue. When asked what I know about solving the problems of global warming, I ask what do I really know about the effects of selling (insert product here). But this isn’t simply the issue of selling versus telling, it is a basic questioning of our acceptance of our role/ability to tell. Maybe we should focus on our ability to show...

::

HUGUES BOEKRAAD Three months later, I had made the decision to leave the Netherlands, broken-hearted and broken-spirited. On a misty December evening, Hugues, my theory professor, asked me why I was leaving. In a moment

42 |

of clarity, I responded that I was leaving because I recognised my own weakness. He nodded and replied that it was good that I could recognise this:

I’ve never had to deal with that, I’m strong of body, strong of mind, I’m smarter than most people I know. Yet, I’ve had friends who were far weaker, far stupider than me, who man-aged to achieve more because they accepted their own weak-ness. Remember Kevin, in your struggle against capitalism, if you can recognise how truly weak you are, how small you are, how impotent you are, then you’ll be able to do great things.

Beyond the surrealism of that moment, with Hugues relating my struggle to capitalism (while I was pining over lost love), the idea of recognising my own weakness has stayed with me ever since. I’ve asked myself what he meant with this contradictory statement, and in different instances come up with different answers. At first, it meant learning patience, learning how to delay dreams and temper ambitions. To accept pain and let wounds heal. Another obvious and practical answer (which I therefore doubt is what he meant), is to not be afraid to ask for help, constantly. To know how to swallow your pride and be genu-inely open to support and collaboration. Together we stand... Less optimistically, I’ve also learned how recognising weakness means making very real compromises with reality. That in order to stay alive, you have to sell some things, and you better sell it well, and sell it cheap. The machinery of capitalism is vast, and I am small. These reflections might seem like tired platitudes, but sometimes it takes a big man telling you just how small you are in order to face up to them.

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GRAHAM WOOD I wrote Graham asking for help. I’ve always admired his design/art/writing practice, both as part of Tomato and individually. I’d never met him before, yet in asking for help, I was unusually frank, explaining in great personal detail why I needed it. He replied:

i don’t know what the (or at least my own) drive to transform? or hope? or actually communicate really comes from—i don’t think i’ll ever really know and i know i don’t want to know anymore because it gets more and more irrelevant as time passes. i know what you mean about crying to bon jovi—so called ‘crap’ hollywood movies get me that way very very often... the most recent was the ‘last samurai’ but you know what they say about cliches and truth... i think i’m always starting again—not in a ‘you’re only as good as your last work’ way, but because you just never know—what something will be, where it will lead... whether it will be worth it... i think i lost my ability to expect anything (well, miracles and disasters at least) a long long time ago and because of that i’ve found life to be... life. we can’t all be saints but you can hold a door open every so often—just realising that we’re on a planet along with other people can sometimes be a bit of a shock.

by the way (not advice, just an aside)—marry the next girl you want to go out with. it sorts all the shit out—for a while, if not a lifetime (if you’re... lucky)—and you can get on with the things that really matter. a quote i always think of is “i’ve seen too many men driven insane by their distractions.”

::

ABE BURMEISTER I sent Abe a link to a political design project produced at Design Inquiry, On Secession and Reclamation. He was unimpressed and when I asked him why, he answered:

44 |

I know it’s well intended, but that is one of the most misguided sites I’ve seen in a while. Pushing deep division when what’s needed is working unity, and one of their main charges against Bush is that he promotes disunity! I spent the election out in Ohio working to swing things. When I came back there was a lot of talk about “they”, “them”, and the sky falling. It killed me a little, because when I left people were mainly concerned with what to do for halloween. And more to the point, if you think of people as “they and them” then you’re not going to get much popular support are you? For all the American left talks about being for the people they sure don’t talk to too many people. I didn’t meet any “theys” out in Ohio, just real people with real concerns.

Over the last few years, I’ve had quite a few brief email exchanges with Abe around issues of social change. He’s explained to me, in unambiguous terms, why he’s moved away from the concept of resistance to one of transforma-tion and construction, “not only does resistance promote conflict, it also implies a resignation to failure.” Though I agree with him in principle, I know I’m still very seduced by the rhetoric of resistance. And though I can understand it as rhetoric, I believe that in these times, there’s a genuine necessity for making (dissident/resistant) rhetorical arguments. I’m scared shitless of what would happen if we stopped speaking of revolution. Yet it’s also been a long time since I’ve worked on the ground, and Abe’s words do just that, grounding me, making me realise the practicality and importance of the choices we make. Moreover, his ability to move ‘beyond’ a position of resistance empowers me to believe that my own anger can become more constructive and progressive, given a commitment of my time and will.

| 45

STUART EWEN Three years ago I wrote a thesis on graphic design and the politics of visual culture that was largely structured around arguments made in Stuart Ewen’s book, All Consuming Images. Last month, much to my delight, I recevie an email from him out of the blue:

Kevin: I just found your site. It’s needed now more than ever. Best, Stuart Ewen.

As I write this, I realise that there’s very little to say about these three little sentences. They are neither meaningful nor thought provoking to anyone but me (how did he find my website? why does he think it’s needed?). Their inclusion here is simply a projection of my bolstered ego.

We all need a little encouragement sometimes...

§

more from GRAHAM WOOD

the problem is most likely designers themselves. too many of them, caught in a torturous circle of ego and servility they end up losing sense of what is intended (or deliberately unintended or left open) and what is forced until, bitter, lost, they retreat into conservatism, toeing the line even in the face of other valid and workable ways of being.

assumption, not thought, underlies the majority of so-called decisions they make. they wait to be given the brief and reflex drives the process until, all potential life willingly wrung and drained from a project (to ensure there is comfort, to ensure there are no surprises), something stillborn adorns the pages

46 |

and screens of the world. all inspiration comes from the project on the table and the pages of design annuals. give them a pencil and a piece of paper and they won’t know what to do. to think that brian eno or stanley kubrick or the heart sutra or a stick standing next to a stone in a forest might have some relationship to the project for the client is anathema.

that there may be many ways to do what is best for the project — let alone the fact that there are many things they could be doing that has no ‘client’ but their own passion and commitment — is implausible, a fiction beyond imagination. they deny art (and therefore life) as if it were a form of fascism, and deny thought like creationists deny the evidence of the rocks.

they are complicit in a lie that has no balance and would only be balanced if they realised that in the very nature of design is the act of biting the hand that feeds you: it is this knowledge and the ability to act on it that makes powerful, living design-and it is this ability that is ultimately the downfall of the most committed designers.

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>>> theviewfromhere;

CENTRE HI-FI // Kenwood, Hitachi, JVC, Panasonic, Sony, Technics, Pioneer (are these even words, images, sounds?) // HOMOGÈNE MINI-MARKET // SEXE-APPEAL //

DANSE CONTACT with a // GUICHET ATOMAT- ique // (give it up forrrrr...... JANE)

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Dipping into older fragments and philosophies, some monster once told me that I would find you here. That if I looked long

and hard enough, maybe tore down some walls (and built up some others), or dug some deep holes into the dirt, or even just

stood still for long enough in one particular place, you would find me.

It may be 15 years on now with trembling hands, a rotted gut and yellowing teeth, sharp pains on the surface of skin and

bending, bendy, bone, but I’m still too scared to call him a liar.

Jusqu’ici tout va bien.Jusqu’ici tout va bien.Jusqu’ici tout va bien....

***FOR WHO?***

this old lady, complaining at the laudry mat how the posters and flyers was making the joint look hippy or something, like that cafè down the road. you old greek, she told the buandrette owner, you turnen into a hippy or somethin’ why don’t you paint your place up nice and put some curtains in those windows. “wwwwweeeeeeeeellllll....” he said, “lady, you are twenty years behind. we get articles in magazines, alright?” and he confides in me (and every other passer by), “how do ya like them curtains now huh, how do you like em curtains now?” “i never used to let people poster the windows,” he told me, “i did it just for her. yep. hope she likes it...” DAMN............HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM CURTAINS NOW?

then someone tells me it is our fault, the artists, causing hipseterism. making the yuppies move in. the place to be so i hear....what has become of this paradise??????????????what will become of us?

i am dying here

i keep pulling my face off the ground and no one seems to see the blood. that was the quickest 160 bucks i ever made. i just keep selling it and shit is lookin’ ugly around here... i heard a story today

�����������������������������

CHANGESUSTAIN RELEASE

54 |

64 |

| 65

66 |

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the ideal world...

14.1 “The ideal world,” says Nietzsche, “is a lie invented to deprive reality of its value, its meaning, its truth.

Until now the ideal has been the curse of reality. This lie has so pervaded humanity that it has been perverted and has falsified itself even in its deepest instincts, even to the point where it bows down to values directly opposed to those which formerly ensured progress by ensuring the self-transformation of the present.” The lie of the ideal is of course merely the truth of the masters. When theft needs legal justification, when authority raises the banner of the general interest while pursuing private ends with impunity, is it any wonder that the lie fascinates the minds of men, twisting them to fit its laws until their contortions come to resemble ‘natural’ human postures?

sweatshops at the traintracks&

remember,

hearing music in the bramble?

h2tangO drone

DRONE

68 |

And it is true that man lies because in a world governed by lies he cannot do otherwise: he is falsehood himself, he is trapped in his own falsehood. Common sense never underwrites anything except the decree promulgated in the name of everyone against the truth. Common sense is the lie put into lay terms.

by a trail of smoke — a trial of reason

who

imag-inedthis place

( 5441 )

( ???? )

vs. imagination...

| 69

the man across the table

with his roman paul auster

DRONE

between latte sips

transubstantiated

glyphssteaming into

his mouth

¶¶¶

when he speaks

bricks form around l’esplanade, and graffiti rises out of the cracks

perhaps

70 |

the sun streams out of our eyes and the windchill braces our spines driven to the earth, spiked as the railroad guitar weeping drones \\ 256

w h o i m a g i n e d t h i s p l a c e ?

and climbs

the

wall

() | 71

72 |

| 73

74 |

It’s Better This Way Joshua Mensch

Your hands are dirty, she says. Go wash them. Only you haven’t been outside — you’ve hardly left your room in the longest time. It doesn’t make sense, then, does it? You didn’t run your palms across the walls even as a child. Along one wall, and then another, a crow shoots like a shadow. I saw a bird today, you say. A big one. It was black and its wings clapped like hands building. Slab of wood, slap of stone,hands build a roof, then seal the chimney. You’ve been sent back to your bed. But you aren’t hungry anyway, are you? At night the trees blow. They throw the windone way and then another. Trouble’s brewing.That’s what you say. The whole world must be awake by now. Crater of shadow — the size of a house — so you can’t even see the backyard. The backyard’s been swallowed. You said it.It’s been pushed down a well. When rain starts, the trees get extra angry. They hit the roof, the chimney above your bed. In the stairwell you hear voices. I don’t deserve this, one says, I didn’t ask for it. For what? I didn’t say it. But they’re really angry now.These walls are dirty, you say. Go wash them.

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76|

18.2 Through force of circumstance, poetic energy is everywhere renounced or allowed to go

to seed. Isolated people abandon their individual will, their subjectivity, in an attempt to break out. Their reward is the illusion of community and an intenser affection for death. Renunciation is the first step towards a man’s co-optation by the mechanisms of Power.

There is no such thing as a technique or thought which does not arise in the first instance from a will to live; in the official world, however, there is no such thing as a technique or thought which does not lead us towards death. The faces of past renunciations are the data of a history still largely unknown to us. The study of these traces helps in itself to forge the arms of total transcendence. Where is the radical core, the qualitative dimension? This question has the power to shatter habits of mind and habits of life; and it has a part to play in the strategy of transcendence, in the building of new networks of radical resistance. It may be applied to philosophy, where ontology bears witness to the renunciation of being-as-becoming. It may be applied to psychoanalysis, a technique of liberation which confines itself for the most part to “liberating” us from the need to attack social organization. It may be applied to all the dreams and desires stolen, violated and twisted beyond recognition by conditioning. To the basically radical nature of our spontaneous acts, so often denied by our stated view of ourselves and of the world. To the playful impulse, whose present imprisonment in the categories of permitted games from roulette to war, by way of lynching parties leaves no place for the authentic game of playing with each moment of daily life. And to love, so inseparable from revolution, and so largely cut off, as things stand, from the pleasure of giving.

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WH

AT W

ILL

BEC

OM

E O

F U

S?

LIKE A RAISIN IN THE SUNNever, she said, never fold like that. This isn’t Harlem any more. It’s not that moment when it was easy, not even... So must we, I ask, must there be another retreat?

Many, as always, scattering for the few, the callous few who... degrade, who ostrasize, claiming ‘wasn’t it always like... this is just the way things are...’

Those empty foolish sentiments are not forgivable, not rational or humane.

and another building burns. another condo rises. another closure. another space. paying for what is mine. what belongs to everyone. what has been stolen.

don’t ask, don’t smile. the only question worth asking is:

“ d o e s i t e x p l o d e ? ”

LIKE THAT LAST POUNDING BASS LINEbefore the feedback kicks in.... then drones on and fades out. One by one, a crackling chorus of voices builds up to replace it. My hands pull at the air like some kind of fool.

Inevitably though, the voices drop off, one by one, into a silence that no crowd could break.

Outside, a warm but menacing orange light hangs in the night — and I forget how to speak to you — ‘wow, would you look at that...’

In these sad, slow streets, each footstep carries my body fluttering between action and inaction, between hope and despair, between word and image, between language and love.‘hm... that’s nice... I guess.’

Inside, on scratchy, sweat soaked sheets, on the verge of delirium, you somehow manage to whisper into my ear:‘love, we both know they’re winning...”

and it’s the saddest, sweetest, meanest thing I’ve ever h e a r d .

DO

ES IT EX

PLO

DE?

��� �

ADAPTED FROM CASLON THE FACE USED TO SET THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. THIS REVISION

TREATS THE LETTERS AS INDIVIDUALS RATHER THAN A SYSTEM. A STENCIL READY TYPEFACE FOR CONTRARIANS AND PUNKS EVERYWHERE.

EVIL EMPIRE ROMAN

abcdefghijklmn

opqrstuvwxyz::

1 234567890 ( ) ; !+?

ENTROPY

ENTROPY is a deliberately awkward typeface based on scans of stencil lettering found on packing cases and shipping containers. The word entropy refers to the degree of disorder, randomness and inefficiency within a system. Within communication studies, it relates to a forced redundancy in the meaning derived from specific words or systems of language — a definition set against the utopian modernist principles of a ‘universal language’ or the ‘transparency’ of meaning. As such, it is an apt typeface for the labelling of its contents, not a ‘crystal goblet’, but a filter.

Pressing my cheek against the window, I look up and watch the stars rotate with each curve of the road. They have more stars here than I’ve ever seen, and I don’t recognize any of them. Looking up, I imagine the mountains are teeth and the narrow valley we are driving through is a mouth opening to swallow all the stars whole. I like the thought of this happening, and think about it some more until it starts to frighten me. “You’re really going to like it here,” Grandpa is telling me. “You get a real sense of the wilderness here. We’re in a place miles from anywhere. About three to the nearest house, but even that’s abandoned, actually. We get our water straight from the spring, grow our own food; we even have a chicken coop.” “You have chickens?” I ask, suddenly interested. “Unless the fox got the rest of them, we do.” “You have a fox?” “No. But there’s one who lives in the woods. I’ve never seen him but I saw what he did to our chickens.” “He ate them.” “That he did.” “Do you think I could have one?” “Have one what?” “A chicken.” “You want a chicken?” “Yeah.” “As a pet?” “Uh-huh.” “Well, they’re not really pets, you know. We eat them. But I don’t see why you can’t make friends with one of them.”

INTO THE DEEP, KNOWLEDGEABLE DARK

Joshua Mensch

82 |

“If I make friends with one, do we still have to eat it?” “Not if you don’t want us to, I suppose. But we will have to eat some of them. Just as long as you know that.” Thinking about it for a moment, I decide that’s ok. So I say, “That’s ok, I only want one.” Then, thinking about it some more, I ask, “So, how do you kill them?” “We chop their heads off. There’s a stump behind the cabin we use as a chopping block and we chop their heads off with a hatchet.” After a minute of silence, during which I notice that Grandma is asleep, I suddenly remember something. Whispering, I ask Grandpa, “Do chickens really run around with their heads chopped off ? That’s what I heard chickens do when you chop their heads off.” “Well, I suppose they could, but I’ve never tried it. We tie them up by the feet and hang them upside down for a while so that the blood goes to their head. That way they’re usually asleep by the time we kill them.” “Why would you want them to be asleep?” “It’s better that way. They aren’t as scared and they don’t fight as much. If we didn’t do that they’d try to escape and damage the meat.” I try to imagine what damaged meat looks like, but can only picture a chicken rolling down the stairs. By the time it reaches the bottom it is soft and boneless and the skin under the feathers looks a bruised banana. Even though I won’t say it, I decide that the next time a chicken gets its head chopped off I want to be there for it. And maybe if I ask right, Grandpa will even let me untie it and watch it run around for a while. Or, maybe not. “That’s why we can’t let them run around, either,” he continues, “for the same reason. There just isn’t enough space to do it. There are too many trees, too many things for it to run into. It would be a waste of food, and a waste of the chicken’s life, too. Don’t you agree?” Though I don’t want to agree, I know that he is right and nod a silent “yes” into the darkness outside the window. Slumping back in my seat, I watch the single yellow ribbon dance down the middle of the road. Then, holding my hands out in front of me, I turn an imaginary wheel and pretend for a minute that I am driving. With near-perfect accuracy, I navigate the dips and curves of the road, and only once almost go off the road. Even then, I save myself from sudden doom by jerking the wheel to the left and skidding to a stop at the edge of a massive cliff. Grandpa is talking about how every chicken I’ve ever eaten was probably raised in

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a factory, and telling me this is only one example of how badly we treat animals these days. I am wondering if he has any ducks. “Though I don’t think your father would agree with me,” he continues, “I think real goodness is shown not just in how we treat other people, but in how we treat the earth. How can we say we care about future generations and still go about killing the planet, even as we are living on it? The way they talk, you’d think they expect us all to move to Mars in the next twenty years. It’s just ridiculous. It’s the same lack of care we have with our food. We raise animals in factories, in tiny cages where they don’t have any leg room, where they can’t even stand up let alone walk around — and there are thousands of them there, all in one room — feeding them hormones and pills, and then sell the meat in supermarkets, where it’s packaged and stored until it almost goes bad. And we expect it not to affect our health?” Images of thousands of chickens locked in tiny cages flicker through my mind as Grandpa tells me this. But the thought of not being able to stand up or move around makes me feel suddenly claustrophobic and all I want to do is get out of my seat and walk for miles. Wondering what it would be like to chop the head off a duck, I ask Grandpa, “Do you have any ducks?” “No. The meat’s too greasy. Now, as I was saying, your parents don’t have any choice, of course. In a city like Warshington” — he pronounces it Warshington — “there aren’t any farms. You live near a park, and that’s the closest to nature you get. It’s sad, when you think about it. I used to live like that but now I just feel sorry for them. Not your parents, I mean — or not them specifically — but people who live in cities in general.” As Grandpa talks, I imagine myself in the park behind my house. My father is there, and so is my little sister. My sister runs ahead of us into the darkness, and hides there without making a sound. I run after her and find her in the shadow behind a small knoll. We play like this for a while until Papa tells us he’s tired of walking alone. His hands catch us like nets as we pass him. At the top of the bluff, the windows of the houses blink like spaceships under the glow of their televisions. There is no one else out here but us. We are completely alone. Papa says let’s walk to furthest end. Without thinking about it we run on ahead without him. “But I like the park,” I protest. “It’s really peaceful at night. There are no muggers or anything.”

84 |

“Well, there are no muggers here either, certainly. Unless you count raccoons. They’ll steal anything, you know. I know you like the park. I liked it, too. It is peaceful. But there’s something unnatural about, something I find unsettling.” “What’s ‘unsettling’?” “It’s the opposite of calming. Now let me drive, son. You’re making me nervous with all your thoughts.” We have been winding our way though what looks like a small town made up entirely of farms when, without warning, the pavement suddenly ends and a hard dirt road begins. Under the headlights, it looks like the surface of the moon. It is wide and flat and heavily pocked by deep, shadowy pits. Pretty soon the whole van is shaking and I feel like I’m about lift off out of my seat. Though I try not to think about it, I notice we are driving into a large black lake. When I look at Grandpa he tells me it won’t be long. “Just a few more miles and we’ll be home,” he says, and turns back to his driving. But the lake is not a lake at all. It is just a blank spot in the road. “Where are we?” I ask, staring out my window at nothing at all. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.” “Really?” “Literally, I’m afraid. But don’t worry, it won’t last long. Everyday, in fact, I swear can I see it shrinking. There’s just no room for places like this anymore.” As the van swerves left and right to avoid various scattered pockets of landscape, I imagine I am the co-pilot of a spaceship on a hostile, foreign planet. Using my index fingers as crosshairs, I bring rocks, bushes, mailboxes, into my sights, and blast them away. Also eliminated are: parked cars, broken beer bottles, garbage bags, scattered litter, a school of fish. When we reach a three-way intersection, Grandpa pulls the van over and Grandma gets out. We watch as she slowly clambers up and then disappears over the lip of an embankment to our right. Her head reappears when she stands up and we watch as she walks up to the porch of a large, white wooden house that looks like it’s about to fall over. I bet it would hit the road, I think to myself, then imagine it rolling, cartoonishly, down the hill. When she reaches the door, Grandma lights her hand on fire and waves goodbye. I wave back and Grandpa puts the van back in gear, and we drive off into the night.

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EMANUELLE

ENCHANTED

(

OR

A DESCRIPTION

(VISION?)

OF THIS WORLD

AS IF IT WERE

A BEAUTIFUL

PLACE

)

CONTRIBUTORS

++++++++++++++++ wind is the enemy abe burmeister // handwriting cat // rabbits + paintings kajin goh // walk constantin demner // the anticipated first rowena kennedy epstein // love songs crass / penny rimbaud // tactics as strategy adapted from manchester earth first public order guide // words shawnda wilson // the revolution of everyday life raoul vaneigem // headstone letters brigid byrne // against silence, against darkness geof huth // the playing field + responsibility bleeds contempt typography kenneth fitzgerald // drawings asma khan // poem + prose joshua mensch // entropy typeface russell bestley and ian noble // emanuelle enchanted interpreted by members of the lcp ma typo/graphic studies 2004 // twiggies letterforms conceived by rick valicenti and collected by dakota brown // comic colin white // boing! sandy k //// all other word + image + design john stuart and/or kevin lo //// coffee club social and pharmacie esperenza // soundtrack thee silver mt. zion memorial orchestra and tra-la-la band // printing lovell litho

+++ www.lokidesign.net/2356

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116 |

To my one.Beautiful and strong.

I get lost so easily sometimes, in token struggles and grandiose metaphors. I’m tempted into them to quell the oppressive silence that surrounds people like you and I and us. At the very least, it helps to explain, but once there, it’s a long way back out. I struggled (dramatically in my own mind) trying to understand the connection between Celine Dion mouthing hollow words to a hollow crowd through a hollow screen and the years of struggle (real radical struggle with many lives lost and hearts/wills/minds broken) that it took to bring that forth. Trying to understand that connection is difficult enough — the history and progress of cooption —especially while trying to see it as a victory. Because we need to see it as a victory, for all our tired fragile egos. So it’s a victory, yes, and still my brothers and sisters are being demonised and locked in cages, and bombs explode and more people fucking die. The triviality of it all is only emphasised by the brutality of the violence — these confusions and contradictions settle in around me, bringing with them a modicum of cold comfort. Were I to throw myself, my own mind and body (trivial all the more) into that equation... And of course, inevitably, I do...

LOVE LETTER AFTER THE G8

Kevin Lo

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118 |

Yet still, somehow, you can find me. I find you reaching out to me through this murk, this haze of treasons, all the bitter touches of the past. And when you touch me, the world goes ablaze at your fingertips. A reckoning smile is born. I’m reminded of the conversations I had with Tom, during a torturous time in each of our very separate lives, and him speaking to me of love as action — imperatively. As obvious as it seems, to never see love as an object and certainly not as a possession, but only as something you can do — must do, and how in most times it is the only thing you can do, the only action one can possibly take to make things move forward, and how often we will stumble and fall, but as long as we’re falling forward... this was long before I learned he had fallen perhaps too far — mouthing Sartre’s words ‘Hell is other people.’ Less obviously perhaps, I’m learning through you to see love as reflection as well. A critical reflection that could fall in line with, or put to shame, all those French intellectuals. Watching you cry at the realisation, as obvious as it should/ could be, that you aren’t alone in the world. Sitting next to you as you wept, you, embarassed by your tears, not knowing that in my selfishness, I saw myself in each drop. And I thought this isn’t joy, this isn’t pain, this is just how it is, clear as crystal, you and me, on a couch in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. And I was glad of all the choices I had made. Every time I stare at you, I’m trying to memorise all your curves and subtle movements, the length of your neck and the angle of your elbow, framing all my unreasoned arguments about why we should give a damn... And every time you turn away from me and let the silence speak, I see the countless battles we’ve lost throughout history, and I try to pinpoint where the tactics broke down or became petrified, where words failed or succeeded, and it

bores a hole in my stomach. Yet every time I can bring your face around and meet your smile, your eyes, your lips, I find that simple reason to believe a little longer and fight a little harder. I understand a bit more each time, and a razor cuts through the clouded words. If our frail bodies can still come together in action, reflection and perpetuity, I know we could also make our voices scream song – dissonant – cacaphonous – beautiful. Sifting through all the time we can give to it, we could finally find those few words that wouldn’t need to be cut through or reshaped or reinterpreted or ever doubted. Pen to paper, lips to ears, eye to eye.

Meet my gaze and whisper truths...

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changing the season Shawnda Wilson

sleep becomes hopedemainticks time to wrappinginevitablereminders not to squanderyour shooting starsparanoid dark eye’d try’sat being the sun

PAX. LUST. GOAT.

a beautifully lame poetic

ge∂ure flung into the face of

terroristsneo-liberal capitalismyour day jobyour ex-boy /girlfriendother people (hell is)

{IS

SU

E 7 // A

UT

UM

N 2005

MADE IN MILE END