Anarchists Knitting Mittens

The Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend J1 and I went on a tour of the downtown, including a gorgeous art deco building and the company HQ. While in the area, we stopped off at the First Annual Punk Rock Flea Market. It's kind of hard to describe the experience, but - you know of course that I'll try. ;)

It was in the basement of a neighborhood cultural center (made possible by the very government that the people at the anarchist literature table were pushing to tear down - I'm sure the irony was lost on the group.) and had about 15 tables selling both used and newly handmade stuff. I was the only person in the room over 30 and so got a few inquisitive looks, but also got involved in a couple of interesting and enthusiastic conversations.

I was fascinated as I riffed through the Punk and Hardcore music for sale (um... and what's the difference, again?), to find that so much was on vinyl. How long have these bands been around anyway? But then I realized... Hey! this is NEW vinyl! New! As in they just pressed the stuff this year. You must be kidding me...

So I asked a kid behind one table about it, expressed my amazement, and he said "Yeah, vinyl's cool. In fact, here... this one's an EP of my own band. I'm giving them out as promos - take one!" Promos, I said? That can't be cheap. Aren't CDs more economical? "Of course", he said, "but they're not as cool. And you guys were right, man, vinyl just sounds better! Plus, the cover art is waaaay better. It's like, you know, BIG! You can really see the detail in great graphics and stuff so much better that way. It's like, some of the old classic rock albums had really great artwork, too - you remember, right?"

Yeah, man, I remember - hey, I'm cool. I just... forgot for a while that I was. :)

Funny how things come around again. Like great vinyl LPs with cool cover art. I have some on my lounge wall right now. :) Classic stuff, dude. But it's not just happening in music. You look on furniture or clothing design websites and it's lots of 60's retro looks. That was a very hip time, innovative, edgy, cool. I think that's why I like my lounge so much - it's a modern take on old coolness.

And then there's philosophy. Some of the same concepts are coming around again there, too, just with a modern take. Anarchist literature for example... I read a fair amount of radical leftist power-to-the-people tear-down-the-government pamphlets in my late teens/early twenties. Feminists wanted sexual liberation and to destroy gender objectification, while the anarchists wanted liberation from the warmongers in Washington (as I recall, the Democrats began *that* war and Republicans were left to handle the withdrawal...) and to break down the military-industrial complex. Right on, brother!



Yet here, while the boys were selling used CDs (and new vinyl!), t-shirts, band posters, anarchist literature and vigorously discussing "the movement", the girls were selling vegan baked goods and home made crafts (cloth purses, decorative buttons, knitted mittens, Christmas (!) ornaments, notecards) and discussing so&so's new baby. Hmmm... so much for gender objectification.

It felt like I entered a time warp and I stepped into 1971. I'd been here before! Except back then the girls wore granny dresses and head scarves instead of layered t-shirts and goth makeup, and the boys were not dressed in studded black leather with half-gloves - it was work boots and loose-fitting poncho-style shirts with rawhide laces and fabric that felt like gunny sack material. And when it got damp it smelled like wet dog.

But everything else was the same. Kids passing out ideological literature (libertarianism, conservation, communism), discussion of "the movement" (be it back-to-the-earth, feminism, the Jesus movement - you could pick your movement), cool band posters and radical album cover art (remember the inside of Steppenwolf's "For Ladies Only"? Shocking!), and loads of home made crafts (macrame' hanging plant pot holders made from hemp) and nasty-tasting but healthy baked goods. Yikes! I've entered The Twilight Zone!

I shoulda saved all my copies of Mother Earth News. They would've gone over big. And! My Mr. Natural cartoons...
keep on truckin', mama - truck my blues awayyyyy. Far out!

Were we all that earnest in those days? Yeah, I think so. Everyone had a secret (or open) dream of going off the grid and doing a little organic farming with renewable energy, raising some chickens... and some friends actually did! Spent a weekend once at a Christian Commune... discovered I don't really like chickens. :) But, man, what *was* great was to be quietly zealous about an idea and think that you could actually maybe go off and live according to it! Hm. I miss that.

Time to do that again, maybe. I kind of liked these kids. I recognized them - and myself - from another time. I'd like to be zealous for a cause again. And the corporate profit motive isn't cutting it as a cause around which to unify and get people excited.

So, with some magnetic letters I got in Juxtapoz magazine (J1 pointed it out to me - now skater art is becoming collectable! who knew?), I posted this reminder to myself on my bookcase at the office.

For the last... oh... 6 years or so, I've felt like my flame is sputtering, here in corporate America. Not enough oxygen in this part of the world.

Maybe if I get to a place where I spend my time filling young minds with something other than a rigid ideology and teach them instead how to reason through, understand, and relate to people with, philosophies other than their own, I can see that flame burn bright again until one day it just goes POP! and then I wake up in a place filled with pure motives.

(sigh)

Wouldn't that be lovely? Almost like living the simple life on a little organic farmette somewhere off the grid - with no chickens.