Birds Before The Storm

The Oregonian wrote a rather nice piece about Ursula K LeGuin, including a bit about her anarchist politics and the event we did together at Powell’s. I’m pretty wary of corporate media, of course, but the only problem I’ve got with this article is that they claim I was wearing a kilt. It was clearly a skirt. I don’t wear kilts.

Killjoy, who wears a kilt and has dreadlocks, calls himself Magpie when he plays the accordion. He helps edit SteamPunk Magazine and maintains a blog of erotica called Steamypunk. He gives a loose, knowledgeable overview of anarchist literature and tells a story about Kurt Vonnegut Jr. being asked, “Why are you ruining the youth of America?” and walking away in disgust.

A few minutes later, after Killjoy talks about Tolstoy and writers who explicitly identify as anarchists, he pauses and takes a drink of water.

“Why are you ruining the youth of America?” Le Guin calls out, laughing.

Questions come thick and fast from the audience. Killjoy makes the point that anarchy and organization are not contradictory and that anarchists are productive people who get things done without a government structure. Someone asks about the role of anarchism in the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle and in a 1993 incident with police in Portland. Le Guin responds:

“As an inveterate peace marcher … I’ve marched around Portland more times than anyone in this room except my husband. I did get cross with the self-styled anarchists, the noisy ‘look at me’ people, whereas just as Margaret said, a lot of the organizers and people who were keeping it so it worked were also anarchists.”

A long question is summed up as, “What do you see role as?”

“What’s our cellular purpose?” Killjoy asks.

“To try to maybe show that there are alternatives to the way we presently do things and that people think is the only way to do things,” Le Guin says. “Democracy is good but it isn’t the only way to achieve justice and a fair share.

Ursula K. Le Guin and Margaret Killjoy - Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers On Fiction from pdxjustice Media Productions on Vimeo.

there’s also a video of the more complete presentation (as done in Los Angeles) that I’ll be posting a bit later when I’ve got better internet.

Tour continues! I have a chance to stay in Portland and breathe a little bit, which is exciting.

The event at Modern Times was good, and it was exciting to meet more of the folks behind AK Press. And to eat the largest falafel I’ve even imagined to exist.

The next day, I spoke at a packed Long Haul infoshop in Berkeley. It went wonderfully, in no small part because of the hilarious readings by Tomas of Rad Dad and Artnoose of Ker-Bloom!.

Then Artnoose and I headed up to Portland, and on Monday I shared the stage with Ursula K Le Guin, who is absolutely amazing. She read from The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home, then I did my presentation, and we spent most of the hour or so answering questions. There was only one person who was all “nurrr why do you anarchists always ruin everything?” (which was funny because I’d just told the anecdote of someone asking Kurt Vonnegut “Mr. Vonnegut, why are you ruining the youth of America?”). But the room was absolutely packed, with over 300 people, and an amazingly diverse and attentive crowd. Certainly one of the highlights of at least the last year or so of my life.

Tomorrow I’m speaking at The Red and Black Cafe at Portland, then up to Seattle, down to Olympia, and then… no idea after that.

Tonight is the event that I booked my tour around: I’ll be doing a presentation at Powell’s (the world’s largest independent bookstore, for whatever that’s worth) tonight at 7:30pm, speaking with Ursula K Le Guin. Ursula is, and I know I’m not alone in this, without a doubt one of my literary heroes: unabashedly political and personal at the same time, not afraid of “genre,” and just, well. Yeah. If you’re in Portland, don’t miss this.

Tucson, Arizona: I spoke at what was Dry River’s first event since running into (and navigating) a bit of a legal mess. The place was packed. Plus, I ate a ton of really cheap awesome burritos, since I was there for three days.

Los Angeles: I’d never been to Los Angeles before, and it’s sort of frightful, I have to admit. But I had a perfect excuse to listen to Black Planet by sisters of mercy (driving down the highway 101, heading for sunset [boulevard]). The weather was eerily warm, but the reception at Book Soup was warm as well, and I met several awesome folks, including the first time I’d met Carissa van den Berk Clark, who is in my book, in person.

Santa Barbara: I met the earth first! roadshow folks in a park in front of city hall, after busking on State street. It was refreshing to do an event outside, and it was creepy to be wearing a tshirt. The EF! folks did an awesome job afterwards of making everyone feel connected, and it was a pretty good place.

Santa Cruz: Santa Cruz is full of shiny people. That is, full of people that I’d known for years but hadn’t seen in equally as long, as well as awesome new folks. Today I saw sea lions and they weren’t even in a prison zoo. The event was at SubRosa infoshop and was coordinated by the talented artist and interesting fellow Wes Modes. Hurrah for anarcho-steampunks!

Right now I’m in San Francisco, getting ready to speak at Modern Times.

Traveling is fun. Touring is fun. You come up with weird inside jokes that you think everyone will find hilarious, and then what’s hilarious is that no one else finds them hilarious. Anyhow, the first leg of our tour, from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, was the four of us pictured. From left to right, that’s Rollerskate, Relocate, Undedicate, and Vacate. Because we decided we were all named Kate. Since then, we’ve had Sophisticate, and “whatever, I’m ignoring your stupid game” with us. Anyhow, this photo is by the amazingly talented Undedicate, who authors the remarkable zine No Gods, No Mattress which is a personal zine that’s actually really really worth reading. Photo was taken in Athens, GA. And it’s true, a fisheye lens makes everyone look like a band.

I’m halfway between Austin and Tucson (which is to say, I’m in El Paso) and I’m probably more than halfway done with the driving, but only a quarter done with my book talks. And it’s been going awesome. The book talks, to be sure, but I just feel… I feel like myself again. I was worried, going into this tour: who would ever want to travel with an itinerary? Where’s the fun (read: chaos) in that? But the trip has been full of adventure. Shove an amazing and rotating cast of 4-5 folks into a minivan, and everything will be interesting, if nothing else.

I’d been to New Orleans only briefly, but this time I may have left my heart there. I watched birds fly before the endless sunset while on an abandoned rooftop punk show, I found rusty stuff everywhere, and the Iron Rail Infoshop is one of the best I’ve ever seen. (It’s crusty friendly, and seems to be holding it down for anarcho and crusty, which is a dying trend across the country).

I’d never stepped foot in Houston before, but Sedition Books is lovely, and the place was packed for the book talk. And the hospitality? Incomparable.

Austin is a beautiful town. A local community radio recorded the event at Monkey Wrench Books.

So… sorta embarrassing to be the front page of a radical newspaper. But I got interviewed by the Nor’Easter, the magazine of the North East Anarchist Network about Mythmakers & Lawbreakers.

Also, comic book author Alan Moore mentioned me in a recent interview with Wired:

We’ve got an excellent article coming up in the second issue by Magpie, Margaret Killjoy, who was formerly an editor for the excellent Steampunk Magazine. She also helped bring out The Steampunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse, which was very useful. It included, and I think she designed it herself, a design for a desalination unit based upon a completely new principle, which was effective and easy to put together.

She’s moved on from that to the post-civilization movement, which is arguing that increasingly it is not becoming a matter of if civilization breaks down, it’s becoming a matter of when civilization breaks. She’s saying that when that happens, we’re probably going to have to do a lot of work to get things going again. She suggests that perhaps it will be a good idea to start doing this work before civilization has broken down, so that we still have some resources [laughs]!

I didn’t actually design the desalination unit, though… can’t take credit for that.

So… more information soon, but I’ll be speaking three more times in California:

SANTA BARBARA: January 12th, at De La Guerra Plaza at 3:00pm. I’ll be joining the Earth First! roadshow folks, which will be exciting!

SANTA CRUZ: January 13th, at SubRosa Infoshop. 6pm. Once again, with the EF! Roadshow!

OAKLAND: January 15th, at Long Haul Infoshop. 7pm. I’ll be sharing the stage with my friend Artnoose of Ker-Bloom! and with Tomas, who does the zine Rad Dad.

4,500 miles and, at the moment, 10 events in 9 cities. Below are the confirmed dates (still waiting on a few holes that might be filled).

• New Orleans, LA: Sunday, Jan. 3rd at Iron Rail Book Collective. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• Houston, TX: Tuesday, Jan. 5th at Sedition Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• Austin, TX: Wednesday, Jan. 6th at Monkey Wrench Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• Tucson, AZ: Thursday, Jan. 8th at Dry River. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• West Hollywood, CA: Sunday, Jan. 11th at Book Soup, with Carissa van den Berk Clark. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• San Francisco, CA: Thursday, Jan. 14th at Modern Times Bookstore. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• Portland, OR: Monday, Jan. 18th at Powell’s Books with Ursula K Le Guin. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• Portland, OR: Monday, Jan. 21st at the Red & Black Cafe with Artnoose of Ker-bloom!. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• Seattle, WA: Friday, Jan. 29th at Left Bank Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.
• Olympia, WA: Monday, Feb. 1st at Last Word Books. Flyers: letter and quartersheet.