The Iron Rail

NO ANSWER

2008-11-17T18:27:00.014-06:00

"What's your name? How long have you been in New Orleans? Where did you come from? What groups do you belong to? Are you part of an anti-war movement? What do those patches mean exactly? Are you carrying any weapons or drugs? Why do you choose this lifestyle? Have you ever been arrested?"

I came across a troupe of these obviously gang-affiliated skinheads gaffling a pair of traveller kids, and since all six of them couldn't really be that busy pestering two underfed hippies, I asked the gang members the above questions. They declined to answer; they wouldn't tell me anything about themselves. They told me to leave, albeit in a manner much less gratuitously unpleasant than the NOPD's usual.

Fair enough. I sure as shit wouldn't answer those questions put to me, and neither should you. Nobody should. Silence when questioned is our first and strongest line of defense against agents of the state. Silence, until we choose to make ourselves heard on our own terms: silence until the time we tell them, pleasantly or otherwise, to leave.

ART WARS: SWOON GOES OVER BANKSY

2008-11-10T17:30:00.004-06:00

In most contexts, one graffiti artist even partially covering or overlapping another's work means it's on, big time. Not sure that will be the case here.

But has this specific thing ever happened before, anywhere? In any other city in the world, have these two international super-monsters of politically aware street art hit the same corner, the exact same spot, within weeks of each other, to the point where you have Swoon's trademark paper cutouts wheatpasted DIRECTLY on Banksy's stenciled spraypaint? What are the odds of that? I love you, New Orleans, I love you so much, every day.

Background on Swoon: Swoon discusses street art vs. museums, Swoon talks about her influences

From the dungeon...

2008-11-06T23:29:00.002-06:00

Iron Rail now has a "Facebook" page. Find us on it if you want to.

Help us spread the knowledge of radical radicalism, extreme extremism, and free freedom across the land.

the islands

2008-11-06T20:35:00.015-06:00

I do still sometimes think of you. When I'm listening to Diamond Head or Grim Reaper, the kind of shit nobody else except you ever really appreciated-- and it's night-time, and maybe I'm caffeinated, it's not so hard to drift back there: Driving the beat-to-hell (but still V6 balls-out) Camry, both of us drunk as lords, wheeling wildly among the glinting neon night-time surf shops and resort hotels of the islands. Always on the way to somewhere, and I can still see you in the passenger seat, bare feet on the dash, chugging Sparks Light, tossing the cans out the windows, arguing about something, complaining about something, hating something together-- didn't it sustain us? wallowing in the sea air, the repeating sidewalkless cul-de-sacs and Super-Mario-World hyperreal landscaping, everything framed against the massive, serene, dolphin-infested bathtub of the Gulf of Mexico.

Inter-island drawbridges, touristy "pirate" ships, squalid overpriced fish shacks where the staff all fucked each other, ten hundred food-service jobs, delivery, retail, photography, deckhand, covering ribbon cuttings and zoning disputes, 10 articles a week under silly fake names, scamming free meals for advertorial write-ups. Didn't we live large? Trashing one sublet after another, ruining acres of carpet with blenders of slushy day-glo, insane glittering-sun hangovers, blown deadlines and bold long-necked white birds, swerving back home across floodlit causeways after a night raising hell at the only cool bar that wouldn't card you, fighting about who flirted with whom, ferocious drunken sex that settled nothing, or waking up bleary facedown on the beach, or lawn, or condominium parking lot.

God how good it was, hunched over the iMac, so far gone I had to cover one eye to write, pounding out a profile of a senior-center inhabitant for Tuesday's edition while you were out fucking the girl from the tattoo shop, and the stereo so loud it shook the walls, so loud I couldn't hear the cops hammering on the door, and the money from the house sale steadily dwindling, emptying out the IRA, each condo smaller than the previous, then to apartments, then sharing a room in a converted garage that flooded, ruining your record collection. How broke we went! The gun shows, the palmettos all over our walls, the emerald lizards and noon-time downpours, hands shaking for hair of the dog, hustling short money out of leathery "swingers," Western Union from the exes, laughing with each other at our audacity.

Didn't we have fun? Horrible parties at your horrible co-workers' horrible apartments-- meth, bong hits, playstation 2 and Rap-Metal-- absolutely no control, landlord after landlord, employer after employer, and never my fault, never yours, always the hateful world's. What a team we were, darling, what an amazing team.

Barack Me Amadeus

2008-11-06T01:12:00.003-06:00

Hope all of you who bothered to vote for district attorneys, judges, congressmen & president don't have to answer to the whores in the office which exists because you've substantiated its actuality.

The weather has changed, meeting attendance has jumped into double digits, but the Iron Rail can still use your help.
Not getting all you want out of the New Orleans radical community?
The Iron Rail has weekly membership meetings at 8pm in the space. Join us and help make the most of Our Shop.

the fucking days are fucking long

it fucking gets you fucking down

evidently chicken town

SUE BUTLER KNOWS WHAT'S UP

2008-11-05T19:21:00.008-06:00

It's a very magical little piece of the week, almost. It's the time where YOU get a phone call or text message about volunteering at the Rail! Ha ha I bet a lot of you wish you could somehow "block" messages sent from certain phones. Maybe you can? I'm not too up on this stuff.

Seriously there's no reason filling the schedule should be as stressful & last-minute as it has been the last few weeks. Help us out!!!

And of course the one sure-fire way to not get an annoying text message is to come to the weekly collective meetings, every Wednesday at 8... We love you / miss you / need your input and ideas!

FUCK THE VOTE

2008-11-03T18:25:00.007-06:00

Voting at all represents compromise with the illegitimate systems imposed upon us, fuck it!

but

if you wanted to know what your fave embarrassing-older-brother figure the D-Block would recommend voting for regarding the LOCAL stuff (and the presidency) then click here for a non-Iron Rail-approved voter guide. Again let me stress this is not related to the collective, it's just one collective member's views (based on views of others).

UPDATED!!! AS OF 8:45 PM, NOW MORE ACCURATE! PLZ RE-PRINT IF YOU SAW IT BEFORE.

A PILLAR OF WIND

2008-11-03T02:52:00.005-06:00

I spend a couple weeks preoccupied and this place is a morgue. COME ON FOLKS.

So I happen to work in an office. It's an easy "go-to" when I need something to castigate myself over, that I'm a white-collar wage lackey. Anyway my office is in a building with a really powerful elevator, and when I ascend the elevator to work and there aren't other people I like to close my eyes and experience the WHOOOSH as the elevator yanks me skywards. It's astonishing when you consider it... there's this giant WELL and you step into a brass bucket and WHOOSH it sucks you up through space at however many miles per hour.

There are probably all kinds of interesting effects in the elevator shaft itself created by having something rocketing through at such a high speed. The elevator is fancy but you can hear whistling air if you press your face to one of the seams in the side panels and thus get a sense of just how crazy the physics of it is. So even though it demoralizes me to have a job and not a trust fund I must say it's cool that at least 2 or three times every shift I have the experience of being rushed heavenwards on a pillar of wind.

WHAT, YOU DON'T THINK THAT'S REMARKABLE OR INTERESTING? YOU THINK THAT'S OPPRESSIVELY MUNDANE? Well fuck you, if you were trapped 10,000,000 miles below ground and you felt like you were constantly exhausting yourself in the fight to get up to Zero, the level from which most people start their days, if you felt like you were buried so far below any kind of real life that even breaking through the surface of Zero for an occasional gulp of air and a glimpse of daylight was an accomplishment to be savored, then you might get a kick out of zooming around in an elevator too. God, my pretty little turns of phrase are clearly wasted on you! Can't you allow me my small pleasures, you philistine? Fuck it that tears it I'm going to go get drunk.

Iron Rail Definitive Update

2008-10-16T17:53:00.005-05:00

We have gotten tons of cool new books in. We have movies figured out for a while, and there is some stuff you need to know. Check it out:

New Books & Stuff:
-More Iron Rail T-Shirts ($5-15 sliding scale)
-Rolling Thunder #6
-Abolition Now! 10 years of Critical Resistance
-Derrick Jensen books, including Endgame
-Wild Fermentation
-Chainbreaker
-Toolbox for Radical Sustainable Living
-Red State Rebels
-Orgasms of History
-Conquest
-Twilight of the Machines, a new book by John Zerzan
-Disaster and Resistance, a new book by Seth Tobocman related to Katrina
-That's Revolting!, probably one of the best radical queer books ever
-A Disjointed Search for the Will to Live
-Open Wide The Freedom Gates: A Memoir
-Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
-Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
-One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy
-Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster
-Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States

We also always carry current issues of:
-Make/Shift Magazine
-$pread Magazine
-Earth First! Journal

and
-2009 Slingshot Organizers are on their way!

Movies {All FREE. Start @ 8pm} :
Oct. 21: "The smartest guys in the room" A Documentary about Enron that is very similar to what Wall St. is currently going through, and what they just did.
Oct. 28: "Battle in Seattle" A new movie about the WTO protest, with Hollywood actors. Pretty crappy, but fun to watch anyway. See CrimethInc.'s leaflet made to hand out at theaters when the film was showing.
Nov. 4: "Manchurian Candidate" For Election Night. BYOB and Attitude.
Nov 11: A documentary about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Nov 18: TBA
Nov 25: "Dos Americas"

Citywide Anarchist Potluck, Meeting, and Protest
Join other anarchists in a potluck, meeting, and protest against Starbucks for their anti-union illegal firings against the IWW, their financing of Israeli terrorism, and their corporate occupation of cities across the world. October 26th, The Peristyle at City Park on Dreyfous Ave., 12 noon. See right-hand sidebar.

Bike Buddy Meeting
Next Wednesday at 7pm a meeting will be held to organize a bike-escort service for folks who don't want to ride home alone late at night. It is up to us to keep each other safe.

New Orleans Anarchist Email List
Organize, strategize and discuss with local anarchists via the listserve to create a new world. Use the list to let others know about local radical info and events, discuss news and views, and figure out how to best create the world we want to see. To join, send a blank email to nola-anarchists+subscribe@googlegroups.com

90s ROMANTIC COMEDY MOVIE MONTH JUGGERNAUT ROLLING FORWARD GRINDING YOU INTO BONE MEAL

2008-10-14T17:45:00.006-05:00

It's Tuesday! That means there must be a movie at the Iron Rail Library and Bookstore. It's at eight p.m. tonight, and it's the 90s romantic comedy film "She's All That."

TOMBSTONES ON THE MOON

2008-10-11T16:53:00.005-05:00

I was at the lake beach it was hot and there was a sparkle on the water and the sparkle moved side to side like someone darting and skating wildly back and forth sideways while making steady progress in my direction and the sparkle was in the form of a human-shaped figure way out on the lake skittering side to side zigzagging in towards shore and the figure was made all of sparkle and so bright and morbid I couldn't look at it and I experienced fear at its approach and it moved so unusually and rapidly and could reach me in a moment.

Fortunately there was a small skinny dog nosing around and I called it and it came and it stank and I cracked its neck with my strong hands as the bright side-sliding figure out on the lake was zeroing in like a pea in a funnel and I used my fingers to get out one of the little dog's milky eyeballs and brought it close to mine and could see filmy layers of rainbow translucence on its surface and the eye was a pearl and the pearl was a planet and the closer I looked I could see individual continents, islands in oceans of glistening sand and I was on a chilly island on the shore of sand and the sand was blowing in plumes and there was marble statuary all about and no people no sky and the ground was polished stone and I was safe from the bright sliding figure, gone from the lake, gone from everywhere and safely hidden among tombstones on the moon.

90s ROMANTIC COMEDY MOVIE MONTH

2008-10-06T15:48:00.011-05:00

Some may think I'm joking, some may wish I was, and some are wiggling in their chairs with glee at the prospect: The Iron Rail is showing romantic comedy films from the 1990s throughout October. This bold and refreshing filmic initiative first manifests itself on

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7th, at EIGHT P.M.:
A screening of "Ten Things I Hate about You."

Next week will likely be "She's All That," but we'll keep ya posted. Regardless,

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF MOVIE NIGHT ARE STRONG

NOT ANYTHING

2008-10-05T19:56:00.012-05:00

Sobriety is so awful, and it's so awful in such uncool ways. It's waiting, always waiting, and you're the only magazines to read, you're the unattractive wallpaper pattern, and you're the climate control that displeases and the TV that's loud and the receptionist who won't make eye contact. You're stuck in yourself waiting for nothing, nothing, it really sucks. I mean drinking makes one fat and clownish and more monstrous than usual and ruins one's life but there are far worse things than ruination. Ruination is at least something, and sobriety is nothing, nothing, nothing, every fucking tick-tock moment.

It's a howling absence of pleasure's possibility, an absence that makes the multifarious other absences in one's life sing in sympathy, chiming in until every dog in the neighborhood's barking. Emptinesses, shortfalls, absences, keening like cavities, a cacophony crowding ever into one's attention, the wind whistling through them all. God, one longs for the absence of absences, but of course there are things to be done.

Another moment endured, another minute survived, another hour harrowed, another afternoon undergone, another weekend withstood finding ways to get by, and no reward waiting, nothing waiting but nothing, more of it, a fucking wall of it falling over you every second, burying you again and again, and you're clawing through your life like it's quicksand, but it's not-- it's not anything.

...Fortunately, one can sometimes find solace in a good book. The Iron Rail is open every day from 1 to 7 p.m.

NOTES ON PRISONER SUPPORT

2008-10-04T18:23:00.013-05:00

Is there somebody in OPP you'd like to help out?

Books and magazines cannot be mailed or hand-delivered or even ordered from a third-party vendor; they can only be obtained by the inmate herself ordering from the book selection on the commissary list. I'll see what I can do about getting a copy of the commissary list, but in the meantime please join me in making uninformed and overwhelmingly negative assumptions about its contents.

I asked a couple jail employees if the prices on books and magazines are more or less in line with the prices of other commissary items (meaning hyperinflated) and was told yes. This means reading material would be pretty hard for somebody locked up to get ahold of first-hand when balanced against necessities like soap and tobacco.

Inmates can receive letters, however. If you were to lay hands on an electronic text of something, maybe some poems you like, maybe some shakespeare plays, maybe a novel, and broke it into chunks and printed it out, you could certainly send it along, in envelope installments, in 10- or 15-page increments. You cannot send blank envelopes, stamps, stamped envelopes, blank paper, or cards, however... nor can you send a literarily inclined inmate pens or other writing utensils. Stationary supplies may only be obtained via the commissary.

You will need the inmate's actual name, booking #, and location to send mail.

To put money in an inmate's commissary (very important), you can either mail the inmate a signed money order or donate over the web, though the latter does add a fee. Again, you will need the inmate's personal information. The webpay service is here, and for somebody in OPP the Pay Location Code would be 5500 and the Facility Code would be "MSY - Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff (LA)".

To avoid providing the sickening, parasitic war-criminal fucks who run these hideous systems any more $$fees$$ than necessary, I encourage those interested in helping somebody in OPP in these specific ways-- money and reading materials-- to get ahold of me. If you don't know me, or how to reach me, come to a meeting; we can discuss pooling our resources.

Jails are not justice
"Judges" are an illegitimate authority
The legal system is corrupt beyond saving

HERO OF THE HOUR

2008-10-03T16:46:00.011-05:00

So this seven-year-old went into a zoo and killed a bunch of animals and also fed a bunch of 'em, living and dead, to crocodiles. Here you may read the article and be appropriately appalled at the Dollar Amount of damage wrought.

There is nothing beautiful, good or acceptable about captivity; being bashed to death with a rock or fed to a big ass crocodile may or may not be "preferable"-- we can each decide that about our own lives-- but it has a fuck of a lot more in common with whatever may still be said to constitute the natural order than you'll ever find in any zoo.

I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't acknowledge there's plenty of innocent animal blood on my hands-- I wear a leather belt, I eat lambs. Nevertheless, zoos horrify me in a way few other settings do. We'll forgo the polemics; suffice it to say zoos are hateful and this larval psycho-killer is my HERO OF THE HOUR.

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE FREE BIN ARE STRONG

BOW TO SANTA'S BLEND

2008-10-02T00:10:00.012-05:00

This has nothing to do with Santa's Blend, though while we're on the subject, isn't it delicious? Chocolatey, Pepperminty, Cockroachleggy, it's the special coffee with the dusty zing, the coffee that says "Iron Rail." God, even writing about it makes me crave a murky jarful.

But really, this post is about Iron Rail volunteers tabling popular music concerts. If you are remotely connected with the Iron Rail now or at any past point and disinclined to swindle us, please accept this cordial invitation to spend an evening or two staffing a table at a local music event. You can meet people and sell them things and tell them about the Iron Rail... many of our most valuable collective members first learned of the Rail's existence by just such means.

Following is a list of October shows it would be cool to Table. If you are interested in attending and shilling radical/anarchist books and 'zines at any of these shows-- specific shows, or just generally-- please send an e-mail to our Live Music coordinator, the Big Dawg of New Orleans punk: flyerstorm AT yahoo.com

OCTOBER
Thu 02 - Theresa Andersson | The City Life | Big Blue Marble @ Howlin Wolf
Thu 02 - Guitar Lightning Lee and His Thunder Band | The Young | Hollywood Blues | King Louie One Man Band @ Saturn Bar
Fri 03 - Rotary Downs | MyNameIsJohnMichael @ The Republic
Sat 04 - Antenna Inn | The Revivalists | The Other Planets @ One Eyed Jacks
Sat 04 - Start Select | Pumpkin | Party Time | Epic @ Parlays
Mon 06 - Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship? | Nick Jaina @ Dragons Den
Tue 07 - Sourvein | Zoroaster | Hellkontroll | Thou @ Hi Ho Lounge
Wed 08 - Elysium | Consumed | Sisera | Raum @ Hi Ho
Wed 08 - Saviours | Hawg Jaw | Thou @ One Eyed Jacks
Wed 08 - The Walkmen | The City Life @ Republic
Wed 08 - Helios Creed | MC Trachiotomy and th' Cone of Uncertainty | Rampede @ Saturn Bar
Thu 09 - My Graveyard Jaw | Deering + Down | Jamie Randolf @ Dragon's Den
Thu 09 - The Dead Science @ Hi Ho
Fri 10 - I, Octopus | Meadow Flow | Smiley With A Knife | Tony Italiano @ Dragons Den
Sat 11 - Spickle | Terranova @ Checkpoints
Sat 11 - The Pallbearers | Switchblade Combs | All Rise | Blanks 77 @ Hi Ho
Wed 15 - Sunburned Hand of the Man | Rob Cambre / Donald Miller duo @ Hi Ho
Thu 16 - Hail Seizures | Chin Up, Meriwether | A Collective of Dirt @ Ducbo
Fri 17 - Spider Bags | The Golden Boys | Die Rotzz | RomanGabrielTodd's Beast Rising Up Out of the Sea @ Saturn Bar
Sat 18 - Black Tusk | A Hanging @ Saturn Bar
Sun 19 - Ladyfest 2008 @ the Big Top
Sun 19 - Bridge and Tunnel | O Pioneers! @ Dragons Den
Sun 19 - Tim Green + Steve Masakowski + Larry Sieberth + Doug Belote @ Hi Ho
Tue 21 - Jack of Heart | Die Rotzz @ Saturn Bar
Sat 25 - Why Are We Building Such a Big Ship? | Japanther | Killer Dreamer | Turboslut @ Heavy Metal Parking Lot
Sat 25 - Fishbone @ Dragons Den
Sun 26 - Watain | Withered | Book of Black Earth | Ritual Killer @ Dragons Den
Tue 28 - The Matadors of Shame | Party Time @ 4722 Palmyra (house show)
Wed 29 - The Screaming Females | Pumpkin | Spring Break Shark Attack @ Zeitgeist
Thu 30 - Evil Army | A Hanging | Tirefire @ Heavy Metal Parking Lot
Fri 31 - Zydepunks (plus, early show with Angry Banana) @ Dragons Den

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE 'ZINE ARCHIVE ARE STRONG

FRED GOTS IT

2008-09-30T19:26:00.020-05:00

The National Guardsmen near the Rail are now painted over. Why and by whom? A righteous patriot who found the depiction offensive? Some total weirdo making an ironically complex gesture of anti-art? The building's owner, afraid of thieves stealing his wall? Fred himself, using his penis as a brush? Doesn't matter. Really, really doesn't matter. All that matters is that it's greyed over. Fred is greying, and all greying accrues to him.

I liked the Guardsmen stencil-- hell, I loved the piece, even more than I love Banksy's other work-- but the half-assed buffing of the artwork does resolve the tension of how long it would last and what would become of it. Vulnerability is part of what makes Banksy's work and all graffiti exciting. Now it's grey again, or mostly grey.

We've reached a point where we can pretty much ascribe public artwork's inevitable reversion to grey to a natural process. It's no longer an insult, no moreso than litter on your stoop or mold spots on your linens. Call it an environmental quirk, endemic to the area. Fred has made himself the status quo, but he isn't just the status quo, he's ours. He's us. Banksy visited, graced our city with several glorious artworks, more than one of which specifically critiqued the Grey Ghost... did you really think some foreigner, some out-of-towner, would be allowed the last word over New Orleans' own Duke of Desaturation?

Maybe you're tired of Fred, and tired of hearing or reading about him. Only two more short paragraphs.

No-one can still deny Fred's tireless labor has created our city's contemporary visual reality. It's a distinctive, recognizable look, as pervasive as summer heat. It's locally characteristic, full stop. The WWL radio promos like to say, "As New Orleans as the St. Louis Cathedral." "As New Orleans as Filé Gumbo." As New Orleans as Fred Radtke.

I should be funnier, but I don't want anyone to mistake my tone. We might as well own this, and we might as well recognize the buffing of Banksy's National Guard stencil for what it is: an assertion of authentic New Orleans ugliness destroying a colorful, beautiful contribution from someone from somewhere else. It happens every day, and in ways much worse than paint on a wall. Don't try to distance this from yourself. If you love our city, go pose for a snapshot in front of the eradicated Guardsmen. There's your postcard: New Orleans 2008.

MUSINGS

2008-09-29T03:47:00.009-05:00

There are many reasons to destroy society as it stands, but reducing social organization to the atomic structure of interpersonal relationships simply isn't enough; those also must be boiled away.

One never really knows where one stands with friends, don't you find? Maintaining cordial relations is a strain. A wrong word, a thoughtless gesture or a moment of human selfishness can compromise a relationship that took months or years to build. A vivid enmity, on the other hand, is as constant and reliable as the sunrise. When you deal with people overtly committed to destroying you, there's no mistaking where they're coming from. Viciousness is a consistent quality, one which rarely disappoints.

Too, a long-standing hatred has nuance, a richness and texture the bland truce of friendship can never achieve. What is friendship, after all, but a suspension of natural hostility, a temporary absence of distrust? The only things that make a friendship interesting are the subliminated cruelties it conceals, the papered-over hurts, the suppressed resentments-- the unfriendly elements.

One "knows" one's friends, and how tiresome we quickly become to one another. How quickly familiarity breeds contempt. Friends tell you things about themselves, tawdry truths, cold porridge. With an enemy, you are cut off from tedious interpersonal intimacies, safe in both directions. You get only their malevolence, from which you may seek to deduce the shape of the mind beneath. Their dislike and their efforts to hurt you function as psychic lingerie, simultaneously hiding and revealing, hinting, limning, alluring.

One's enemies seldom have difficulty identifying what it is they dislike, and isn't that refreshing? Hatred is more genuine, fundamentally more honest. Don't the things your enemies virulently despise about you ring far truer than the nebulous, patronizing crap your friends claim to like, if and when they bother to say so? Who really "gets" you, those who flatter and indulge you, or those who declare you monstrous and take action from there? Between two people who can't stand each other there can even arise a grudging respect, but at that point the relationship has strayed into perversity and should be terminated. A moment to savor the rewarding nature of this respect is acceptable, but a moment only.

Everything about friendship (or love, dare I say) is tragic in the classical sense. Tragic, because it is hubristic to suppose we can get along, or be endured. Tragic, from the deluded optimism of the outset to the bewildered obsequies concluding it. The only heroism available to a friend is to suffer on a friend's behalf, or to endure outrages a friend perpetrates. Not very stirring, unless you're a masochist. An enemy provides all sorts of opportunities for thrills, and even a hatred conducted in low-level, cold-war ways brings a frisson impossible to disentangle from sexual excitement. What will happen? How far will it go? How crazy will it get? This dynamic is heightened by the inconvenient but inarguable fact one's enemies tend to be vastly more sexually appealing than one's friends. Why this is, only science could explain.

Admit your weariness with navigating the minefield of "friendship." The wasted energy, the misunderstandings, the inevitable betrayals-- what a drag. Only in the fertile, bottomless draught of hatred do ingenuity, creativity and all the nobler parts of our nature find the sustenance they need. Being loved inspires complacency; being hated spurs us to action. How I wish I was surrounded only by those who hated me! What a luxury it would be to inhabit a world peopled entirely by enemies.

Ha! Ha!

Yes, what a delicious luxury.

NEXT TIME: MY THOUGHTS ON PARENTING

MISSIONARIES OF CAPITALISM

2008-09-28T22:43:00.023-05:00

Guess what, New Orleans??? We're gonna be rescued by opportunistic technocrat white-collar ruling-class youth! Hurray!

Last night, in true New Orleans style, some 504 New Orleanians attended the historic launch of 504ward, an initiative designed to retain the influx of young movers and shakers who are arriving by the hundreds with dual aspirations of sparking social change and advancing their careers in the inspiring laboratory of post-Katrina New Orleans...

Leslie Jacobs, a business leader and venture philanthropist in New Orleans, spearheaded and funded 504ward. According to Jacobs, "New Orleans is experiencing a historic opportunity as the city is attracting droves of educated young people, poised to advance their careers and contribute to the rejuvenation of New Orleans... A silver lining to Hurricane Katrina has been the influx of college-educated, mission-driven 'brain gainers.' Our community must join together to retain this high-demand demographic."

YUPPIE CAREERIST SCUM GO HOME

This is not a laboratory. This is not your playground. This is not a resume item. This is a battleground, and I hope you wander outside the Green Zone and find that out the hard way.

You're the imported beaureacrats who can't speak Arabic, here to aid reconstruction. Come tour our colorful, exotic marketplaces, kids. You may not be the army-- they're already here-- but make no mistake: you're the occupation.

DEATH TO ALL WAR PROFITEERS

-- D-block

TAKE MY BREADTH AWAY

2008-09-23T23:14:00.005-05:00

No more narrow column! Reject the aesthetic heresies of Funckism! Wide 'em, cowboy! I'm not into this corsetry crap... I need my elbow room! Awwwwww shit, you could drive a TRUCK through this motherfucker now... much more like it...

Change of film tonight

2008-09-23T18:05:00.003-05:00

The DVD of Cache (Hidden) which arrived today was cracked in half. So, instead we will be showing the 2003 Hungarian film Kontroll. I have not seen it, but it recied a lot of acclaim.

Here's a summary:

Ghost trains and ghostly characters, figuratively speaking of course, are what run through the perpetual night of this fictitious underground (metro) system. Bulcsú's (Sándor Csányi) life that once was, on the surface, where the real people go home after work, who go to the movies or a fine restaurant is now replaced by the dark, cold and solitude arena of his new dwellings. Him, and his motley crew of ragtag metro ticket Kontrollers must patrol the trains that run these City dwellers back and forth and with daily ritual, check that no one dare come down into their world for a free ride. With indifferent passengers, a possible love interest, a regime set on competition and to top it all a mysterious serial killer at large, Kontroll is a dark and bleak comedy of the world of the ticket inspector, who, in the end must keep this Metro system running. If not, what would be the worst that could happen, if they ever lost control? Dare you ride here for free, too?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373981/

Will Banksy Affect New Orleans?

2008-09-18T17:55:00.006-05:00

Will you just appreciate Banksy's art or will you use it as inspiration?
There is a city-wide anarchist meeting & potluck at the City Park Peristyle on October 26th.
All are welcome. Download the .PDF flyer citywide.pdf
But don't wait until October to put your plan of civil disobedience into action. The figures in the photo above are already painted over.
Will Banksy's legacy of disobedience with a purpose outlive his art?

<3 - co@ch

Eric McDavid

2008-09-17T13:29:00.003-05:00

Several folks from New Orleans' radical community came to Iron Rail Tuesday night to watch representatives of Eric McDavid's prisoner support team discuss Eric's case & to give suggestions on how to pretect oneself from suffering the same injustices dealt Eric.
Learn More:
@ Earth First
Anna in Elle Magazine (indymedia)
Crimethinc's Elle Retraction?
Coax

NOLA Anarchists E-mail List

2008-09-14T15:06:00.002-05:00

To sign up to the NOLA Anarchists email list, visit http://groups.google.com/group/nola-anarchists

or e-mail

nolabookcollective@hotmail.com

and tell us you want to be added to the list.
This list will work as a discussion list for New Orleans area anarchists to co-ordinate, plan, and network.
We have to get organized so we can make our city and our world a better, more egalitarian place!

September Films at the Iron Rail

2008-09-12T12:29:00.005-05:00

Tuesday, September 23, 8:00PM
CACHE (2005)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387898/
In Paris, Georges Laurent is a famous host of a literary talk show on TV, who lives in a comfortable house with his wife Anne and their teenaged son Pierrot. When Georges and Anne receive videotapes of surveillance of their private life and weird and gory childlike drawings, they go to the police, but they do not get any protection since there is not a clear menace to the Laurent family. When Georges follows a clue in one of the tapes that shows his childhood home, he meets his former adopted brother, the Algerian Majid and accuses him of sending the tapes. Meanwhile, through glimpses of Georges' nightmares, his lies due to his jealous relationship with his foster brother are disclosed.

Tuesday, September 30, 8:00PM

BABY DOLL (1956)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048973/
Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll tells the story of Baby Doll Meighan (Carol Baker), a pretty, vacuous Southern 'white trash' gal who at 19 still sleeps in a crib and sucks her thumb. Married for two years to the middle aged, ineffectual and impossibly bigoted Archie Lee (Karl Malden), the couple have not yet consummated their marriage because Archie Lee promised Baby Doll's dying father that he would not touch his daughter until she said she was "ready for marriage." He is frustrated by this strain and obliged to peek at his squirmy half-dressed child-bride through a hole in her bedroom wall, among other things. Archie Lee is further humiliated ind incensed by a flashy Sicilian business rival (Eli Wallach) who has recently managed to force Archie Lee's decrepit cotton gin out of business. One night in a fit of desperation and frustration, Archie Lee burns down his rival's cotton gin. The rest of the story describes the Sicilian's revenge as he blatantly pursues and seduces a distraught but sensually aroused Baby Doll, and attempts to terrorize her into revealing Archie Lee's crime. Amazing performances from Carol Baker, Karl Malden and Eli Wallach in this sordid tale of a decrepit and decaying South in a film adaptation from Elia Kazan.