MY NEVER-ENDING BATTLE AGAINST THE INSATIABLE THIRSTIES

Sobriety isn't hell, not after the first week or two. It's merely purgatorial. It's an undifferentiated dispiriting twilight; it's standing in line at the registry of motor vehicles, forever. It's uncut existential tedium, and it makes me want to GET LOST IN A GOOD BOOK AT THE IRON RAIL BOOKSTORE AND LIBRARY, OPEN EVERY DAY FROM 1 to 7 PM!!

See how I tied that in, there? Total magic.

Soon I will begin posting poetry I have written.

consuming culture: a story of halves and have-nots

what creates real safety?
food, housing, education...let's talk about the 1st one, FOOD!

Come join us
this wednesday, august 20th at 8pm
for a multi-media performance about the global food crisis

consuming culture: a story of halves and have-nots:

Anna Whitehead and Michelle Posadas from Philadelphia host
an evening of theatre, song, shadow puppetry and antics.

A benefit show's for Critical Resistance 10th anniversary conference!
Come find out more!

This wednesday, August 20th, 8pm at Lazizza's, 2106 Chartres
and Frenchmen Street. suggested donation $5-10.

see you there!
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Access to food rests on the power of imbalance. Governments
spar with their people and each other as the global climate
shifts, fueling violent struggle all over the world, and the
collapse of our culinary traditions. consuming culture: a story
of halves and have-nots is a multi-media performance of
gastronomical proportions. Anna Whitehead and Michelle
Posadas from Philadelphia host an evening of theatre, song,
shadow puppetry and antics. These are the musings of two
half-breeds confronting their own oppressor/oppressed
identities over coffee table conversations, milk chugging,
and a giant refrigerator. As they navigate the rising waters
of the global food crisis, the audience is encouraged to consider
all of our roles in the current food epidemic and possible
steps toward change.

Self-defense workshop changed to the 13th

Our self-defense and hold breaking techniques workshop is changed to 4pm on August 13th. It was previously advertised as happening on the 11th, but the people doing it are on tour and had to revise their schedule.

Self-Defense and Hold Breaking Workshop
August 13th, 4pm, Iron Rail Books
Come learn self-defense and hold-breaking techniques from a knowledgeable Kung Fu practitioner. This is a useful skill for: getting away from cops, defending yourself from an attacker on the street or in your home, staying safe and out of jail at protests (such as the RNC), and more! This will be super fun, there will be cold drinks like lemonade and a comfortable atmosphere for all. Come!

Thanks everyone and see you there!

August Movies and Iron Rail Events!

Lots of great stuff in this August email, coming as it is in the midst of our building excitement for the re-emergence of anarchists as a visible national presence in the streets, with the DNC and RNC protests looking to be off the hook at the end of the month.

- August "Long, Hot Summer Survival SALE"
- Iron Rail Supports Anarchist Injured by Police
- August 11th workshop: Self-Defense and Hold-Breaking 4pm
- Shut Down the RNC with us!
- August Movies
- End Notes and Quibbets

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The very first Iron Rail sale EVER!
It has a taken us four long years to get this great idea, but our blossoms have finally borne their succulent fruits in the form of a sale!!! We must take a moment to pay homage to our heroes of sales, Frankie & Johnny! Let em haveit! Here's the terms of our "insane" idea:

-All pamphlets are buy one, get one free (almost all are priced at $1)
-All $1 used books are buy one, get one free. (These books can be found in the large "used fiction" section, as well as scattered through all of the for sale books, in every section.
-All books with "Bush" in the title are 50% off, because the bastard's almost history! Woo!
-Our large size 2008 Slingshot organizers are down from $10 to $6 because the year is half over.
-We have some books on permanent sale to reduce overstock. Another World is Possible, Get Your War On, SchQuall Yearbook 2001 are all $5.

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The Iron Rail recently sent $50 to an IWW member in Providence, RI who got her leg broken a year ago at an IWW demonstration. She has undergone surgeries and physical therapy because of her extensive injuries. We also signed letters asking the DA to drop her charges. More on her case: http://www.iww.org/en/taxonomy/term/679/all

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Self-Defense and Hold Breaking Workshop
August 11th, 4pm, Iron Rail Books
Come learn self-defense and hold-breaking techniques from a knowledgeable Kung Fu practitioner. This is a useful skill for: getting away from cops, defending yourself from an attacker on the street or in your home, staying safe and out of jail at protests (such as the RNC: see below), and more! This will be super fun, there will be cold drinks like lemonade and a comfortable atmosphere for all. Come!

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Shut Down the RNC with the Iron Rail!
Some of us will be headed north to the Republican National Convention at the end of August to join with tens of thousands of others in shutting down the RNC. We are trying to co-ordinate interested people from New Orleans into a car caravan to ride up ttogether and fill every car that goes to St. Paul, MN from here. PLEASE, email us if you want to go or help with gas money or in any way.

The dates are flexibly from August 29-September 4. If enough volunteers end up going, we may close for a few days during this time. Email nolabookcollective@hotmail.com to get hooked in. RNC Protest info:
http://www.nornc.org
http://www.unconventionalaction.org
We also have papers about the protests available free at the Iron Rail.

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August Movies - All start at 8pm on Tuesday nights

August 5: The Triplets of Belleville
When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters--an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire--to rescue him. Fun animated movie.

August 12: The Gits
The story of the promising, underground Seattle band, The Gits. Fronted by charismatic vocalist, Mia Zapata, and poised to explode onto the national music scene, a stranger came in and took it all away. A decade later, the legacy lives on. 'The Gits' party included, as they are one collective member's favorite band of all time. WOO!

August 19: Breaking the Spell
Anarchists make a documentary about the WTO protests in Seattle, telling their story and getting us pumped up before we head to Minnesota to shut down a spectacle of capitalism ourselves!

August 26: Fourth World War
From the front-lines of conflicts in Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, Palestine, Korea, 'the North' from Seattle to Genova, and the 'War on Terror' in New York, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It is the story of men and women around the world who resist being annihilated in this war. It is the story of a global movement for justice, against the corporate tyranny swallowing the world. Another film to get us pumped up before the RNC protests, and to remind us of the millions of people who would be there with us if they could, whose lives are devastated by the policies of the US empire.

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-Bring us your textbooks, they help keep us open and buy awesome books for the library.
-What the hell is a quibbet?

FRAUD RADTKE

What is this nonsense? Some dupes are claiming Fred Radtke painted over Dr. Bob's Bywater sign? BULLSHIT. I know my boy's handiwork. I know his technique, and I know his approach. I know the brushstrokes-- rollerstrokes-- that make a Radtke a Radtke; I see them in my dreams.

This hasty, half-assed hackwork, this sloppy, slipshod slapdashery is NOT an authentic Radtke. I say it, and I will pin my reputation as a Radtkologist upon it. The photos tell the story, and examination in person certainly confirms it beyond all doubt, or certainly would if I was to ever venture somewhere as déclassé as the Bywater. Pay nothing for this piece, and reprove its provenance, 'cuz it's straight-up a FORGERY!

Whatever one thinks of the gesture-- the effacing of beloved, cheerful public art with magisterial grey-- this gesture was not carried out by the maestro, but by some imitative Other. The incomplete coverage, the awkward mélange of horizontal and vertical strokes... dead giveaways.

What then does it mean? What motivated this copycadtke? ...can it be? Can this be the time long foretold by Mayan calendars, convicts' knucklebones, and Jackson Square tarot readings? It is! The hour is finally upon us when other painters admit defeat and each take up the mighty grey torch, spreading it to a grey conflagration. Let remaining taggers, sign-painters and muralists tremble! This is the great crisis, the birthing of the future! Secure all tray tables in the upright and locked position: we are in final approach to a glorious Grauenacht!

OR

maybe this is someone's attempt to make Radtke look bad. If that's the case, while I generally avoid passing any sort of judgement, it does seem to me that you have in this case achieved an un-victory. Of course you have outraged those whose whole lifestyle and worldview is founded upon their own outrage-- but that's no accomplishment. Those people are professional shriekers; Radtke is just one dark deity in their teeming personal pantheons of put-uponness. Career complainants, eternally victimized by the less enlightened. Oh how dare he! I bet he won't vote for Obama, either! Radtke, blasting Pop Country from a Humvee... there, I just made them all quit reading, 'cuz they fainted.

No, if you're trying to make Radtke look bad, I deem it an un-victory because the quality of your work stands in such stark, unflattering contrast to Radtke's. It's a travesty that anyone could mistake your work for his! Many think what Radtke does is easy, in part because he executes an individual work relatively quickly, but first of all, any given Radtke is just a piece of the larger Ur-Radtke, and second of all, his technique, honed over more than a decade, is explicated in the parable of the zen ceramicist:

"Master, how can you sell that pot for eighty dollars? It took you only ten minutes to create it on your potting wheel."
"Grasshopper, creating this pot took me my entire life, and ten minutes."

That's where Radtke's at. Second or third- or whwhatever... fuck these are strong ... of all, when you use Radtke's language, the grey language of obliteration, you are totally in his power, even moreso than the reactive, semi-satirical school of "Radtke-critical" art that has sprung up in supposed opposition to him (a school of art ferociously excoriated at the tragically American-spelling-of-grey-employing therealgrayghost.blogspot.com). By trying to make a point about Grey with grey, you are playing poker with his chips, so when the chips are down, they're always gonna be his chips. It's trying to tear down the Grey Master's house with the Grey Master's tools, y'erdme?

BUT

If you're just some dipshit who thought it would be funny to stir the pot by Greying a giant, prominent Dr. Bob piece, then baby, let's get drunk and screw, because you're my kind of reckless, socially irresponsible adolescent nihilist!

In conclusion : not a real Radtke : portends a new era in Radtkism I am too fucked-up at present to figure out : author needs a disco nap.

--the mighty respiratory-infection-riddled d-block