Cindy Milstein · @cbmilstein
2221 followers · 309 posts · Server kolektiva.social

There are many ways to make merry on May Day, big and smaller.

A dear friend in Greece, already ahead of us here in North America in getting a jump on our anarchist holiday, texted me to say that the top news story is about all the things/places/people that are on strike for May Day and that the minister of health was pelted with yogurt while eating at a restaurant.

Another dear friend, @eff_charm, shares in the May Day spirit in what might be seen as a less grand gesture then workers refusing to work or pranksters spoiling a government official’s meal, yet it’s equally delightful and meaningful. He creates a special May Day book, prints many hundreds, and freely gifts them out.

It feels huge to hold his little 2023 book in one’s hands, with his design and layout inseparable from the words of Saidiya Hartman, as if the two are in riotous conversation. Powerful, poignant, poetic words seem to leap off the pages, grabbing you by the hand. These “Notes for the Riot”—maybe your May Day one, or maybe for another date and time that too will be remembered as an anarchistic holiday—grasp just the right tone for May Day, on which we mourn our dead, our losses, and yet simultaneously twirl with joy, with living, celebrating those moments when the impossible is possible.

As Hartman writes, “Is the riot like the general strike a bridge between now and the free territory?”

For that’s also what May Day promises: that bridge.

So I took my copy of @eff_charm’s May Day book out onto stolen Anishinaabeg lands as the sun broke riotously free from the rain clouds and spring burst riotously free all around me in a confetti of buds tumbling from trees and a bonfire of tulips ablaze like the precinct in Minneapolis in 2020, and read the pages into my heart.

Here’s a little sampler, in these photos here, my re-gifted gift to you—all of you who, as Hartman pens, “dream a new set of arrangements. … dream the end of involuntary servitude.”

For May Day is for dreaming. And dancing. And other merrily riotous fun.

(To get a copy of the book, see @eff_charm’s IG post for details.)



#mayday #anarchistholiday #readwriterebel

Last updated 1 year ago

Cindy Milstein · @cbmilstein
2220 followers · 308 posts · Server kolektiva.social

How rad to be side by side with @margaretkilljoy for this early May Day celebration—at least in spirit via our books, both published by the equally rad Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness collective!

And while our anarchist holiday thankfully doesn’t revolve around shopping, anarchist books have a long, storied history in educating, agitating, and being the inspiration for all sorts of good troublemaking. They also make for good bedtime reading given that they’re filled with the stuff of sweet dreams. Plus in this case, you can get both our new books through May 7, so you can focus fully and freely on May 1.

That said, I hope you do decide to snag copies of my “Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle” and Margaret’s “Escape from Incel Island.” I also hope that my book encourages you to remember some of the many beautiful reasons we’re in the streets, forests, cities, and elsewhere, not merely fighting for a better world, but already living as if it were here.

May Day and books—and who we are and what we put into this world—are crucial carriers of the flames of liberation and freedom, especially in a time that feels and is so antithetical to all we strive for and try hard to prefigure. We need our blessed flames more than ever as the gloom and doom of fascism descends.

So write, read, and rebel, knowing that words can shape and transform lives, that words can be our weapon and collective defense, that words can keep us going and lend comfort and joy to each other. Words can sabotage the current social order by sharing stories of what’s possible instead.

Plus both our books, in this specific instance, are fun to read.

To order, see www.tangledwilderness.org

Use the promo code: MAYDAY.






(photo features the covers of the two books—Margaret’s with a drawing of swords and palm trees sticking out of an island, and mine sporting a big, bright pink circle A with a simple floral pattern in it surrounded by a spring-green background)

#TryAnarchismForLife #beautyofourcircle #readwriterebel #AlwaysCarryABook #AnarchistsCareAboutBooks #HappyMayDay

Last updated 1 year ago

Cindy Milstein · @cbmilstein
2199 followers · 295 posts · Server kolektiva.social

There are countless spaces of state and fascist violence, systematic brutality and unnecessary loss, these traumatizing days. So it’s extra worth celebrating each and every space of possibility that we ourselves carve out. It’s worth jumping for joy when our collective efforts feel good. When they hold out delicious promise, if only for the much-needed nourishment of a big, quirky, beautiful anarchist family reunion—aka the 2023 Montreal Anarchist Bookfair.

It’s extra worth proudly sharing a delightful peek at some of the rebellious beauty that’s emerging from our hours of collective organizing toward that the said bookfair. And tonight that means excitedly sharing the freshly done artwork and poster design by @pendracocomics.

As this marvelous poster declares, “Anarchists Care about Books,” and this year’s Salon du livre anarchiste will feature almost 100 tablers, over 2 dozen workshops, a kidzone along with a KidsKlez music show, anarchist fun and games, an interactive grief and remembrance space, a display of historical anarchist posters, live theater piece, live-streamed panel, late-night show, care space, and more. Maybe most important, it will bring together more anarchists than any other bookfair in North America for schmoozing, socializing, and reconnecting, for meeting old friends and making new ones, for reinspiring and refreshing ourselves—for all of those times that aren’t so pleasurable yet demand that we stick by each other for the long haul.

So if you’re not already planning to come to the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, May 27-28, whatcha waiting for? Clear your calendar and join in the magic!





www.salonanarchiste.ca
www.anarchistbookfair.ca

(Artwork features two anarchist folks reading books, and two animals, atop a smashed-up Montreal police car with flowers and grass growing out of it)

#AnarchistsCareAboutBooks #AlwaysCarryABook #autonomouscommunitiesarebeautful #acab #readwriterebel

Last updated 1 year ago

Cindy Milstein · @cbmilstein
2126 followers · 266 posts · Server kolektiva.social

This little bookish anarcho-kitty wants to remind you that tabling applications and event proposals are due this Wednesday, March 15, 2023, for the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair / salon du livre anarchiste Montréal!

By events, it can be anything from a talk, panel, structured debate, or facilitated conversation to a performance, skills share, hands-on activity, or kids-oriented workshop—in French, English, Spanish, and/or a combination. Events by engaged authors and organizers are highly encouraged, including intro to anarchism workshops as well as ones on relevant, provocative, or playful topics relevant to the hellscape we inhabit and the world we dream of (and already prefigure).

The bookfair itself, one of (if not the) largest in North America, happens during the “Month of Anarchy” on the weekend of May 27-28, 2023.

To apply, see:

anarchistbookfair.ca (English)
salonanarchiste.ca (French)



(photo: sticker for Bibliothèque DIRA as spotted on the streets of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal on a wintery day—keeping most cats indoors to catch up on their reading)

#AlwaysCarryABook #readwriterebel #EducatingOurselvesForFreedom

Last updated 1 year ago

Cindy Milstein · @cbmilstein
2078 followers · 251 posts · Server kolektiva.social

Since I seem to be in a space of not feeling inspired to write my usual picture-prose pieces for social media—call it winter or perhaps pandemic numbness—and as a way to encourage myself to do so again, I’m catching up on sharing some old writing. Or rather, some old talking that Sarah Lawrance kindly curated into a zine years ago, and then Kai Schmidt stumbled across it years later and surprised me by creating a new edition of the zine.

Truth be told, I haven’t had the heart to read my old words here, in the new and improved “Educating for Freedom” zine. Since I gave the talk that became the original zine at the unSchooling Oppression conference in Ottawa in 2007, there’s been much beauty, and yet also so much loss, and so much has shifted in the world, making it wrenching to revisit the “old” one via my musings here. But Kai asserts in the intro that one shouldn’t “be fooled by [the writing’s] age”; that the zine is “sharp, relevant, and generally incredible.” You can be the judge, of course!

And of course, I’m grateful to Kai for putting so much “labor of love” into this new version, from editing and design, to getting full consent from both Sarah and me, to hosting it on Kai’s website (www.ratpokes.com) and uploading it to internet archive. I’m grateful, too, to the good folks at Sprout Distro for making readable and downloadable/imposed versions available on their website, including for freely and widely distro’ing.

As enticement to check out this zine, here’s what Sprout says,

“The zine begins with a brief segment titled ‘why anarchism?’ that situates the rest of the talk, with an emphasis on the notion that a key aspect of anarchism is educating ourselves and inspiring others to question the way things are. For anarchists, education reminds us things haven’t always been like this and gives past, present, and future examples of alternatives. It also helps us to understand complexity and to remain vigilant about the work we are doing. The majority of the text focuses on anarchist projects and how they contribute to an ‘educating’ process within and alongside the anarchist space. The projects explored are local collectives, nonhierarchical institutions, and social movements. In these areas, anarchists educate themselves through practice and interplay with others.“

Excerpt from the zine:

“Because anarchists are interested in this idea of education for freedom, anarchism as an idea, and a huge percentage of the work that anarchists do – despite the stereotypes of anarchism – is actually about education. And some of it we don't even see as education because it's not how we've understood education to be.”

For the zine itself: sproutdistro.com/catalog/zines



#EducatingOurselvesForFreedom #readwriterebel #TryAnarchismForLife

Last updated 2 years ago

Cindy Milstein · @cbmilstein
2060 followers · 243 posts · Server kolektiva.social

I’m delighted to announce the dates for the next Salon du livre anarchiste de Montréal | Montreal Anarchist Bookfair, started almost 25 years ago and still going strong: May 27–28, 2023.

Its longevity speaks to many decades of often-imaginative anarchist(ic) resistance and many generations of anarchists here in Tio’tia:ke, not to mention far more continuity between people, projects, spaces, uprisings, strikes, and so on than in most North American cities. Plus the bookfair is always like an enormous anarchist family reunion, filled with all sorts of events as part of the “Month of Anarchy” here, including the Festival International de Théâtre Anarchiste de Montréal | International Anarchist Theater Festival. And Montreal in May is rebelliously romantic!

So here’s my encouragement, as a collective member who has a longtime diasporic and loving relationship with Montreal, to apply to table at this large, beautiful two-day bookfair and/or propose an event (talks, panels, debates, skill share, care or kidz zone offerings, music, art, performance…). Or *simply* plan to come to the bookfair that weekend! I don’t know about you, but after three pandemic years of too much isolation and fragmentation, the more that a whole bunch of us can gather, socialize, grieve, process, gossip, laugh, play, learn, and so much else together in joyous spaces of our own making, the better!

For tabling and event applications, see www.salonanarchiste.ca (French-language version) or www.anarchistbookfair.ca (English-language version). Deadline for applications is March 15, 2023.

You’ll find other info at our bilingual website too, including that we’re asking everyone to mask up when indoors at the bookfair—because and .

I’d also greatly appreciate it if you’d circulate these infographics, via my post or by making your own, on your Instagram, other social media, email lists, Signal chats, and other places.

Hope to see many, many, many of your faces (and masks) there!




#allcovidsarebad #allcaretakersarebeautiful #AlwaysCarryABook #AutonomousCommunitiesAreBeautiful #readwriterebel #montrealanarchistbookfair

Last updated 2 years ago