The Antisocial Socialist

 I vacillate wildly between abject terror and—that other thing. It's neither relief nor hope, but rather a belief in a set of steps that need to be taken to reorganize our world in a way that is sustainable and just. 

I woke up with a panic attack. The school closure thing hit me really hard.* I don't know if they're going to let us back in three weeks, to be honest.

Then I saw the picture of Bolsonaro in the hospital and I thought, well, he can't commit genocide against Indigenous peoples or burn down the Amazon right now, which is a good thing for said Indigenous people and those of us who enjoy breathing.**

And then I thought, what if my cats get sick(er)? Can I ensure that I have an adequate supply of Cocoa's kidney food? What if there's an emergency? Will the vets all be closed?

Even if younger, healthy people are mostly safe, there are many people in my life who are neither young nor healthy.

I always fantasize about having unstructured time off where I can just rest. I guess I'm getting it now. But that only works in contrast to the rest of the world proceeding as normal.

When this is over, am I even going to emerge into a world that requires my skillset?

I mean. I have anxiety. It's protected me up until last night, because I was so worried about other things that this whole thing registered as an Over There Problem. But it's finally hit me where I live in a very real way.

* This is the first thing the provincial government has done right and was absolutely the correct call. But I have serious doubts about their motivations for doing it, and their capacity to navigate a real crisis, because they are utter incompetents.
** Apparently the photo is from another time he was in the hospital. But he is being monitored for it. Regardless, he's probably too busy to do a genocide right now.

Leigh Phillips joins authors Gwyneth Jones, Marge Piercy, Ken MacLeod and Kim Stanley Robinson to discuss the role of science fiction in extending the radical horizons of our imaginations.

I don't agree with everything in this article, especially in regards to Zizek (Ken MacLeod, you know that's not what he meant) but it's a pretty fascinating read on the radical potential of science fiction and a good starting point for discussion. I particularly liked the last question, about technology and its place in cultural narratives. All of the authors really hit the nail on the head in terms of describing exactly why I feel uncomfortable with the emphasis on anti-GMO/anti-Monsanto/pro-woo stuff on the left:

Gwyneth Jones: Progressives have a right to be cynical about nanotechnology, likewise GM foods and crops, as long as these developments are controlled by ruthless corporate interests. It isn’t about the science; it’s about the tragedy of the commons.

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On a more mundane (but still futuristic!) note, this article on organizing workers in a service economy (from Macleans, no less!) is also an interesting read. The premise is that traditionally middle class jobs aren't coming back (likely true) and thus minimum wage service sector jobs should be transformed so that one can actually earn a living at them.

Proponents of the idea that service jobs can become the new ticket to the middle class point to sweeping changes in the manufacturing sector in the early 20th century that helped transform factory work from dangerous low-pay jobs into secure careers that could support a family. From 1914, when Henry Ford declared he would pay his employees what was then an exorbitant sum of $5 a day in order to reduce turnover and boost demand for his cars, governments saw higher wages and greater workplace regulation as the start of a virtuous economic cycle. But whether the service industry can follow the same model is far from certain.

Read and discuss.

It's been awhile since my dreams have been properly apocalyptic, but this one made up for lost time.

( cut for the uninterested )

As promised, some words about the most horrific book I have ever read.

It's called Voices from Chernobyl: the oral history of a nuclear disaster, written by Svetlana Alexievich and translated by Keith Gessen. Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the Chernobyl meltdown, including liquidators sent in to clean up the disaster, firefighters, scientists, soldiers, family members of victims, and, most chillingly, young children. I'm not sure whether it's their stories, her editing and transcription, or Gessen's phenomenal translation, but there's a haunting lyricism to the monologues that places the reader at Ground Zero of the humanitarian catastrophe of these stories.

I'm afraid of the rain. That's what Chernobyl is. I'm afraid of snow, of the forest. This isn't an abstraction, a mind game, but an actual human feeling. Chernobyl is my home. It's in the most precious thing: my son, who was born in the spring of 1986. Now he's sick. Animals, even cockroaches, they know how much and when they should give birth. But people don't know how to do that. God didn't give us the power of foresight. A while ago in the papers it said that in Belarus alone, in 1993 there were 200,000 abortions. Because of Chernobyl. We all live with that fear now. Nature has sort of rolled up, waiting. Zarathustra would have said: "Oh, my sorrow! Where has the time gone?"

I think I was startled by just how compelling and awful I found this, given that I've read plenty of books on the Holocaust and Hiroshima and Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine and the Congo and Bhopal. Maybe it's because the Chernobyl meltdown happened when I was seven, and is one of those events that stuck in my mind and gave me nightmares, or because, while there are no shortage of disasters and wars and horrible things that can happen, Chernobyl was unpredictable and, as we saw in Japan, can easily happen again. Could have happened here. But it's also the luminous quality of the writing that makes the suffering and death depicted in these pages feel incredibly concrete and present.

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On a more cheerful note, I went to Word on the Street today and picked up an incredible haul:

The Female of the Species, Sarah McCully. Sarah and I were friends in high school, but from the description of the book, I'd still be completely eager to read it even if I didn't know her. She's also an incredible musician and I bought her CD as well.

The Panic Button, Koom Kankesan. I know Koom as well, through teacherly things. Anyway, Alan Moore recommended it, which is good enough for me. I can't believe that someone I know (albeit not someone I know well, but still) is in communication with Moore. I seriously envision him living this Salingeresque life of hermitude that he emerges from only to write the occasional comic and make disparaging remarks about cinematic adaptations of his work.

Book of Disorders, Luciano Iacobelli.

Teaching Rebellion: stories from the grassroots mobilization in Oaxaca, Diana Denham and the C.A.S.A. Collective. I'd never heard of this book but I think it's obvious why I'd have picked it up.

Zot, Scott McCloud. I feel it is probably essential to read this.

Barnum: In Secret Service to the USA, Howard Chaykin. Never heard of it, but I liked the cover and it's by Howard Chaykin.

The Authority: Human on the Inside, John Ridley. I didn't read very far past Ellis' run on The Authority, and that clearly needed to be remedied.

I also picked up some cool t-shirts, one from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and another from Spacing Magazine, and three issues of Shameless for my class.

I am very pleased about this, as I ran out of books that I own, haven't read, and am excited to read. I've got some holds at the library but I'm going through a new book every few days. One of my holds is Das Kapital, which should keep me out of trouble for awhile, but in the meantime I need some good commuting reading.

In other news, I have a migraine. Still. The pills aren't helping.

Go look at your blog/journal. Find the last Fandom-related thing you posted. The characters in that post are now your team-mates in the Zombie Apocalypse. How fucked are you?

Yep, the last fictional characters I posted about were from Treme. I have nothing to worry about. Even the least badass character on that show would just roll their eyes and keep going in the face of a zombie apocalypse.

New and exciting blog the Eschatologist has an interesting and charmingly non-judgmental article on the redesign of the Left Behind novels and what the new covers say about how pop culture imagines apocalypse(s).



Aesthetically, I like the new typography—much more modern, fun, and refreshing. The old covers had an extremely formal design, with the horrible faux-stone 3D effect on the serif type. This made the apocalypse seem like a done deal, to be honest, which robbed the novels of any sort of suspense that their protagonists might, you know, actually lift a finger to attempt to struggle against evil rather than calmly waiting out the Tribulation. Also, the type on the old covers looked too much like a movie poster, which is presumptuous.

Image-wise, I am split. The photos for Left Behind, Soul Harvest, Appolyon, Assassins, The Indwelling, The Mark, and Glorious Appearing are clear improvements. Tribulation Force's new cover is terrible. It looks like a dull book on American policy in the Middle East. No one wants to see photos of faces on the covers of trade fiction books. It is simply Not Done.

The cover of the original edition of Nicolae is terrible—the new one is a much better photo, artistically speaking—but I agree with the Eschatologist that it kind of screws with the meaning. Carpathia is not supposed to look like an old Soviet bureaucrat. For fuck's sake. The original one is a terrible composition but at least it keeps the whole Antichrist-as-charming-visionary aesthetic.

I disagree with the Eschatologist on the cover of Assassins. I don't disagree that it's racist as fuck. It is definitely racist as fuck. It's prettier, though. The original looks like a Clancy cover.

I can't make up my mind on Desecration. Personally, I'm just not sure a book with dead fish on the cover will sell. Who is their target market, exactly? Does this target market like dead fish floating in blood and, more importantly, are they likely to either buy it to put on their bookshelves or give it as a gift? "Just what I wanted for Christmas, Aunt Maude! A book about dead fish floating in blood." Whereas on the old cover, it's clear that the Antichrist is rising and means business, and they manage to get this impression across without dead fish floating in blood. I'm just sayin'.

Both of the covers for The Remnant suck. Come on, book designer! This is a series about the end of the world—you really couldn't find a better photo to use?

The old cover for Armageddon is the clear winner. As a book designer, if I'm given the choice to show the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or a helicopter flying over an explosion, I'm going to choose the former every time, if only because the movie Live Free Or Die Hard is pretty much the end of the story in terms of illustrating helicopters and explosions. Also, horses are cool.


What Would Sabotabby Do?

Both covers for Glorious Appearing are a bit shit, mostly because they missed the boat. That's the book where Jesus comes back and shoots laser beams out of his eyes and burns all of the sinners in a pit of lava (sorry, I guess that was a spoiler). That is the sole reason why anyone would pick up the book, to read about Jesus with laser beams shooting out of his eyes, and you're telling me that the designer couldn't be arsed to put that scene on the cover? What. A. Waste.


There, I fixed it.

I really like the new clock graphic, too. Subtle, Tyndale. Very subtle.

Still, this would be a very difficult book design project, both because a designer would have to actually read the books and also if you don't do a good job, Jesus will kill you with his laser eye-beams, so I doff my hat to the person tasked with this endeavour.

A few pages in, I became engrossed in Romantically Apocalyptic and was nearly late for work. It's an utterly gorgeous webcomic about people amusing themselves after the apocalypse.

When I say gorgeous, I mean it looks like this:



Completely unrelated, but also very cool: There probably doesn't need to be epic take-downs of Ayn Rand anymore, but I do admire how clear and concise The World Is Socialist is. Basically, yeah, this is why I'm a socialist, and this is why Objectivism is bunk.

Here's why she doesn't have an answer -- snow storms are socialist. They hit everyone the same. We have a collective interest in getting the streets cleared asap, so we can get to work, so the ambulances can get in to take people who have strokes and heart attacks to the hospital, etc etc. We got a tiny peek, in NYC, what an Ayn Rand paradise would be like. Because we'd still be under a couple of feet of snow, a week later. Snow doesn't care how much Reardon Metal you have or if Dagny Taggart thinks you're hot. :-)

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not share with you all From This Swamp: Lovecraftian and Dystopian Music. You can download entire albums of spooky shit. A lot of it is punk and black metal, but there are some quirkier selections.

Particularly good:

Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From the Golden Age. Loltastic songs in a variety of genres, many of which are about Joe McCarthy or Joe Stalin.

Salah Ragab and Cairo Jazz Band. Egyptian jazz with an emphasis on drums. Very beautiful.

Tom Waits: Black Rider Demos. Very different from the version that you should already own.

Dirty water kills more people than violence, according to the UN.

The Story of Bottled Water:


And a trip down memory lane—Bolivia's water wars: