interests meme

[sabotabby]

Via one_serious_cat:"Comment on this post and I will choose seven interests from your profile. You will then explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along."

art terrorism was a lot funnier before some douche from OCAD used it as an excuse to call in a bomb scare at a fundraising event for AIDS research. But I appreciate it when Banksy replaces gallery and museum pieces or viral marketing goes awry.

biotic baking brigade: I used to be really into these guys. I don't think they do much as a collective anymore, but the idea has caught on and now pompous asshats are getting pwned by pies (usually vegan) all over the world. The pie's the limit!

gwendolyn macewan is one of my favourite poets. She lived here in Toronto and wrote poetry and plays and drank herself to death. I used to live across from a park named after her. She was a depressed, broken person but utterly brilliant and prolific. Some of her poems are here but you really should check out some of her books. Also, she was a total cat person and sort of looked like me.

leftist trainspotting is a major pastime of mine. It refers specifically to the study of leftist sectarian splits. My basic worldview is similar to that of most of the people and organizations that I mock, but that doesn't matter. Most splits occur for hilarious reasons.

Here are some fine examples of leftist transpotting: U.S. | Nepal

Also check out pemm.

nestor makhno was a Ukrainian anarchist who fought basically everyone during the Russian Revolution, on horseback, and with a wicked mustache. If the Bolsheviks are to be believed, he was an utter dick in almost every way. I find him rather interesting even though I suspect that they're probably right.

phil ochs: Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan were, respectively, the Tupac and Biggie of their day. Bob Dylan told Phil Ochs that he was a journalist, not a folksinger. I gather Phil Ochs told Bob Dylan some things that can't be repeated in polite company. Both had some self-destructive tendencies but Phil Ochs died of his, whereas Bob Dylan sold out and became a Christian. Guess which one I like better?

the coming beecopalypse (OR zombie porn): I'll talk about the beepocalypse, because it's more interesting. Bees all over the world have been dying of something called Colony Collapse Disorder. There are many theories as to what causes this, but the bottom line is that if the bee population is drastically reduced, the current food shortages we're seeing (which aren't really shortages but distribution problems but that's a whole other rant) are going to get even worse. Bees die, you die. I find the idea fascinatingly horrifying. (Also see: peak bee, peak banana.)

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Wow, it's been a while since I'd done one of these.

Hit me!

[sabotabby]

quirkyalone
stitch n bitch
vox populi vox dei
house m.d.
post-zionism

[thebigbadbutch.livejournal.com]

You are turning into a memewhore :D

[sabotabby]

I'm lacking in original-content-generation owing to not enough time reading the news. It's the whole school/endgame factor.

hanifah walidah
stone butches
you look better naked
blaxploitation films
neo-soul

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

If the Bolsheviks are to be believed, he was an utter dick in almost every way.

Nothing dickish about anyone who resisted "dictatorship by proletariat"; Makhno was a towering figure. The Butcher of Kronstadt didn't exactly cover himself in glory in his attitude toward the Makhnovshchina either.

I take it you're aware that a fictionalised Makhno also appears in Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius universe - in which he takes over part of Canada?

[sabotabby]

Nothing dickish about anyone who resisted "dictatorship by proletariat"; Makhno was a towering figure. The Butcher of Kronstadt didn't exactly cover himself in glory in his attitude toward the Makhnovshchina either.

I think the shit about him being an anti-Semite is probably true.

I take it you're aware that a fictionalised Makhno also appears in Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius universe - in which he takes over part of Canada?

Um. No. I didn't know. I need to read that now, yes?

amon düül ii
van der graaf generator
anti id cards
not voting labour
great cheese

[troubleinchina.livejournal.com]

The beecopalyse stuff upsets me.

Pick me? I'm off work today and so I spent the day beating Don at chess and chasing bubbles.

[sabotabby]

I joke about it because it scares me.

all the books
chocolate-covered lesbians from belgium
famous spammers from cystalwank
pretty princess castle
they made me king!
green slime syndrome
anti-anna laws

(Hey, I'm one of your interests! But I'm not arrogant enough to ask you to explain.)

[ebourland.livejournal.com]

Nice.

Gwendolyn MacEwen -- good stuff.

[sabotabby]

I <3 her.

Okay, you only have four interests. Explain yourself!

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Do me!

[sabotabby]

You get ten. :)

alan turing
complexity theory
ontario wines
invented traditions
weill
mrs ackroyd band
letterpress
boethius
lost causes
mentalites

[joxn.livejournal.com]

Me!
(Although hoyvenmayven has kept me apprised of "peak bee", I didn't know about the bee rental business until I read that wikipedia article.)

[sabotabby]

20/20 lifestyles
chip delany
hating objectivists
metamagical themas
queer mathematicians
verwandtschaftsunheimlichkeitsgefühl
計算流体力学

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Great namecheck for Makhno! I wrote a long magazine article about him and the RIA of the Ukraine a while ago. Mostly military, not much political though.

Okay, hit me too, puh-leeze....

[sabotabby]

I'd be interested in reading it, if only because I blow at writing military strategy so I'm always into hearing about real life examples.

artist trading cards
asperger's syndrome
blixa bargeld
the young ones
huun-huur-tu
great proletarian cultural revolution
hectography

[frippy.livejournal.com]

Yes, me, please!

[sabotabby]

I love your interests; it's hard to pick just seven.

beards of bees
avante-retard music
our glorious leader
pancake deprivation fetishes
whupping illustrator's ass
kick a hipster day
hating helvetica

[one-serious-cat.livejournal.com]

Phil Ochs: "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" is my favorite song of his.

the coming beecopalypse: That is alarming.

[sabotabby]

Oddly enough, that's one of the few songs of his that I actually don't like. It's too cheery for what it is.

BEES DIE YOU DIE! I have to refasten that button to something to raise awareness.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Memememememememe!!!

[sabotabby]

being called sir by strangers
against bourgeois-feminism
ultrabrutalist modern architecture
failed subcultures
red star nutritional yeast
responsible anarchists
jack layton's moustache

[lovableatheist.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked at my interests for a long time, so this could be embarassing, but I'll give it a shot.

[sabotabby]

If nothing else, this meme reminded me that my interests are due for an overhaul.

bezbozhnik
white rose movement
bérurier noir
bolchoi
aylmer
a-political
philip pullman

[kchew.livejournal.com]

Re Nestor Makhno: I copyedited a novel set in the Mennonite community in the Ukraine during 1919, and the village is destroyed by Makhno and his men. I have a viscerally bad reaction to his name after reading it, as the novel was (apparently) based on the experiences of the author's family. Here is only the second time I've ever heard him referenced.

[sabotabby]

That's the sort of thing I mean when I say he was a dick. It's difficult to tell, given the existing historical record, what he did or didn't do, but I wouldn't imagine that his hands were in anyway clean.

embroidery
martial arts
alternate history
dorothy dunnett
manga
editing
terry pratchett

[roter-terror.livejournal.com]

That chart of the Nepalese "communist" parties is amazing. A while ago I spent a night reading on wikipedia about Nepal, and probably the most confusing aspect was the multitude of similarly-named Maoist parties.

Also, if you want to read some top-notch leftist trainspotting-cum-american history, check out Thedore Draper's Roots of American Communism. Interesting fact I learned in it: the tendencies that would later develop into Council Communism had a much greater influence in the U.S. before 1917 than Lenin did (who was virtually unheard of). Unfortunately, it seems that the the movement here was so immature that the first hint of success in Russia sent everyone flocking to the Leninist camp.

Anyhow! It's good. If you ever have the time and inclination, it's a fine book.

[sabotabby]

I think Maoist parties in Nepal follow the same splitting/naming policy as they do in India (though I may be wrong about this). If you and I were in a Maoist group called Communist Party of Livejournal, and you followed an incorrect line, split, and formed your own splinter group, it would be called Community Party of Livejournal (R_T). The way Maoists split, it gets to be a tangle of initials really damned quickly.

That book sounds good.

If you're up for it:

against-biases-against-the-midwest
socialism=lemonade ocean
uncle wiggly
my cub's smile
minnesota nationalism
s:aab
snapping torah pointers

[orpheus42.livejournal.com]

I always thought it was "bionic baking brigade".

[sabotabby]

I always thought it was "bionic baking brigade".

Obviously a better mental image.

inversion/subversion
regimes of truth
ontology of participation
postmodern christianity
revolutionary orthodoxy
cowboy mouth
capitalistic iconoclasm

[(Anonymous)]

he became a jew again! :)
i like the artist better, personally. love is also important, not just politics. or something.

i wanted to comment on the cake picture and the birthday clothes picture. they were very cute.

lisa

[sabotabby]

I love select periods of Dylan and loathe others. Phil Ochs, I love across the board, but of course he died young. His best song is a love song.

The cake was so awesome it was unbelievable.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

do me! do me! if you like.

I know a friendly chap who draws splitter graphs like that for British leftist parties. They look awfully similar.

[sabotabby]

cerdd dafod
silly noodles
contagious interest list memes
far-left woowoo progressives
greenend
cynghanedd
not being a goth

meep

[jenlight.livejournal.com]

I'm late to the game, but if you feel like it - me?

Re: meep

[sabotabby]

nom_de_grr's mother
autoethnographies
mothwentbad
charlie chaplin
harpo marxism
having authority
post-christianity