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Mid-Atlantic Radical Book Fair: Totally Tubular!
This weekend a bunch of us mounted a fixed gear biking expedition (actually, mine was the only free wheel in the bunch) down to the 2007 Mid-Atlantic Radical Book Fair here in Baltimore, held at an old Methodist Church which has an amazing event space, 2640 (PS. I’m tired of indy artsy venues with numbers for names).
Anyway, we had a lovely bike ride and I enjoyed myself at the Book Fair, looking around, seeing what people are up to and into. You had your usual host of crust punks, socialists, the edgier end of hipsters dressed in black, and some fat lesbians selling vegan muffins and stickers that said stuff like “Get off our backs!” However, I didn’t see a single booth, table or book about alternative or community currencies. Maybe it’s just my pet obsession right now, but I kind of think it’s a big deal - or at least it should be, especially among the self-professed “radical” crowd.
My theory goes like this: you “hate the system,” right? You can choose from whatever grab bag of personal and social grievances and point it at any particular target you want. One guy even had a giant sign: “ASK US ABOUT SOCIALISM AND REVOLUTION.” And while some people were giving away free brochures and newspapers, everybody else in the entire place was spending their time collecting little green slips of paper with pictures of dead presidents on them. Slips of paper which symbolically and very tangibly represent and support that system which you’re supposed to be so opposed to.
Does that strike anybody else as inconsistent?
October 24th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Hell yes its inconsistent! And beyond just the fact that they seek money, its the fact that they take it and put it right back into corporate hands, whether its paying money that goes to through some “alternative web host” to LEVEL III or at some “alternative goods” produced with energy from mideast oil. We have to get on top of this, and economic constructs like alternative currency are the way: we have to take charge of the system or it will continue to take charge of us.
October 24th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
The other thing that pissed me off: the majority of these people were just selling books that you could go out and buy from Barnes & Noble. What the hell is “radical” about that?
October 24th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Did they really call it the Mid-Atlantic “Radical” Book Fair? When you have to tell people it’s radical, it’s probably not very radical. Tubular, maybe, what with all the narrow reality tunnels involved, but not radical.
I read somewhere today that “radical” comes from a word meaning “root”. To do something radical is to change something at its very root — to create deep, fundamental change. The money system is pretty deeply-rooted, obviously. Pretty fundamental.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
I saw a shampoo commercial the other day where they used the phrase:
“Neutralize Free Radicals”
It seemed like some kind of subliminal language assault…
October 25th, 2007 at 1:04 am
That term “free radicals” gets thrown around a lot it seems, and as something 100% bad - the cause of aging, cancer and a zillion other diseases. That’s all you hear. And anything that “neutralizes” or minimizes them is then touted as 100% good. But that’s not even true! whether it’s being used subliminally as a metaphor for free, radical people or not. But it’s interesting you bring that up. Lets take the metaphor further. Looking at what wikipedia has to say.
Free radicals are not all bad after all:
And neutralizers of free radicals are not all good:
PS: what the f. good is a shampoo going to even do to “neutralize free radicals?” How is that useful? What’s it going to do, save me from getting hair cancer?
well it’s about time someone stepped up to the plate on that one. thank you shampoo company. that was extra animal torture well spent.