My things, my grand-mother’s things

By Sarah Pinder
Bits of String Press

One of the wonderful things about living in this digital age is that you don’t have to be famous to be a real artist or a writer. You can create your vision, and then get it out into the world through the Internet if you're so inclined. And once online, you don't ever have to throw anything you create away. It can all be stored... forever.

Enter Sarah Pinder: a Toronto essayist who, for a decade now, has been a maker of zines, self-published works. And for about two bucks (Canadian currency), you can own and enjoy her brief yet insightful pondering My things, my grand-mother’s things.

What I like about Pinder’s prose is that it’s highly relatable. True, I can relate as a woman with a Depression-era grandparent who hoarded trinkets away, and as one who helped to clear those objects out of attics and basements after that seemingly ancient relative had passed on. And I can relate to her take on twenty-something nostalgia: the place when we’re not quite ready to be grown up and throw away our childhood things.

But most, if not all, people can relate to her rather haunting description of how the spaces we inhabit shape and trap our memories, not because of their own qualities, but because they become “repositories” for the things we collect along the way: “My grandmother lived in a house that was a constant archive of identity... Everything in this house was a touchstone, a trigger to summon memory... And regardless of how broken or worn things were, my grandparents’ Depression aesthetic meant that nothing was thrown out...”

This reviewer had two sets of Depression-surviving grandparents and observed two distinct reactions to the crisis. One set decided that: well, if they overcame that, they could overcome anything. They lived out their days without saving much of anything. The other parent's father became a hoarder. This man, who as a boy had shot and skinned squirrels for supper so as not to starve, secretly tucked away mountains of seemingly meaningless household items: camera film, new pens, etc. He was never content to have just one of anything after the Depression ended, and cleaning out his closets yielded hundreds, if not thousands, of things-treasures to him-that told tales of a man obsessed with getting to the bottom of how things work, and a man who lived in fear of owning absolutely nothing.

Pinder’s essay serves as a wonderful launch pad for this kind of reminiscing if you’re game. Her words seem genuine and her doodles–somewhat resembling the sketches of Shel Silverstein–might remind you of any number of seemingly frivolous objects your ancestors once collected and then subsequently left behind. “(I)t seemed callous to get rid of objects from a space that held such meaning for me, regardless of the fact that the objects I had were not the touchstones I’d hoped to use to recreate my grandmother’s life before illness,” Pinder reveals.

For more information or to purchase any of Pinder’s zines, visit her online hub Bits of String Press. My things, my grand-mother’s things was given as a lecture in October, 2009 at the Ontario College of Art and Design during a symposium called “Collectorama,” which focused on people’s obsessions with the act of collecting.

Review by Rachel Moehl

make/shift: feminisms in motion (Issue 7)

make/shift is a satisfying thing. Describing itself as "feminisms in motion," it is a much-needed breath of fresh air for both our minds and our movement. Deep, political roots give way to a body of thought-provoking content and are topped with flexible branches of ideas, encouraging discourse and change. The magazine itself has full-color front and back covers. The entire inside is in black and white. It's heavy on text, and I like it that way. The layout is easy to read; no "continued on page seven" nonsense here. Pictures are scant, but clear and artful. There are advertisements, and as expected for a feminist magazine, they're not of the demeaning garden-variety like the ones we see in other magazines.

make/shift boasts quality content; empowering, thought-provoking, and provocative. I saw boatloads of grassroots activism and resources, along with essays, interviews, news stories, poetry, and reviews. The advice column is answered by Nomy Lamm, which is pretty sweet. Reading this magazine brought up a lot of thoughts and feelings I haven't experienced in years. I felt both educated and encouraged, as if they were saying, "You're capable of making a difference. Then, tell us about what you did!"

Most magazines make me feel like I need to change my body and my life in order to be happier and more accepted. Instead of stress and insecurity, I welcomed the empowerment. "Why Misogynists Make Great Informants" definitely struck a chord in me. It made me recall my earliest days of activism, the people I met and the situations I encountered. I was disappointed to experience sexism and homophobia in activist groups. After fervently waiting for so long to move away and meet "my own kind," such experiences made me feel as if nothing on Earth was definitive.

Nomy Lamm's advice to an assault survivor's question both educated and moved me. I was very happy to see a column about self-publishing poetry, and plan to send my writing to a few of the DIY publishers listed. (Cross your fingers for me, yes?) In a nutshell, every article made me see things a little differently or taught me something new. All magazines should aspire to have high-quality content like make/shift.

Review by Jacquie Piasta

Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart

Edited by Nina Simons with Anneke Campbell
Park Street Press

How could the title of this book not hook you? Power. Women. Heart. So, maybe I was biased from the beginning. Honestly, I was hoping that the book would be “all that.” It was.

By page fifteen, not having gotten past the editor’s introduction, I was pulsing with energy. I was ready to get my lazy butt up off the couch and pitch in. I was jonesing for my old “activist” days when I used to join in pro-choice marches and volunteer with the NW AIDS Foundation handing out condoms on the streets of Seattle.

Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart is a collection of essays that were originally presented as lectures to attendees of the annual Bioneers conferences. Nina Simons, the editor and a co-founder of Bioneers, describes it as “a nonprofit educational organization that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet.” These essays cover a vast range of topics from truly knowing one’s self to finding your inner leader to mentoring, partnering, and imagining innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems as women see them. Some of the authors are household names such as Alice Walker and Julia Butterfly Hill, and others are simply women who are spending their energies learning from and teaching others to live authentically and purposefully. They will undoubtedly be household names in their own right soon.

Each and every essay contained in Moonrise is inspiring, touching, and revitalizing to the reader. Not all of the authors are women, but each and every one of them celebrates the unique gifts that women bring to the world in the form of their vision and perspective as caring, compassionate individuals who have found ways to rise above feelings of powerlessness and living in the minority to honor their communities, societies, and, indeed, the entire planet.

There are humorous tales of women fumbling their way through, led only by their instincts and their resolve to make a difference, painful stories of loss, and everything in between. This book truly offers something for everyone and I, for one, have decided to take the bait. If there are this many strong female voices out there clamoring for a change in the way we approach our collective challenges, it’s the least I can do to join in the march.

Review by Kari O’Driscoll

We Are an Image from the Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008

Edited by A.G. Schwarz, Tasos Sagris, and Void Network
AK Press

Consider what it might feel like if July 4th in the United States were celebrated not with fireworks and barbecue but with demonstrations and occupations to achieve a further social revolution. That's what November 17th is in Greece since a student revolt on that date in 1973 triggered the end of the dictatorship. In fact, because of the role of the students in achieving this, a law was passed by the socialist government in 1981 to establish academic asylum. Although the law has since been weakened, police are restricted from entering university campuses.

I learned these facts from reading We Are an Image from the Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008, a collage of interviews, oral history, chronologies, personal essays, manifestos, and political essays, edited by A.G. Schwarz, Tasos Sagris, and Void Network. The format is similar to that used in the INCITE! collective's The Revolution Will Not Be Funded, which tells its story in a range of contradictory voices. In both books, the format results in repetition and a difficult-to-track sequence of events, but allows DIY interpretation and wide range of views, some of them way, way beyond the political discourse permitted in the United States, even in so-called progressive media.

Here is as good a point as any to complain about how the physical book under review—a wide ten inches on a six-inch spine—was difficult to read in bed. Perhaps this is in keeping with the direct action message of We Are an Image from the Future: get up and out and do something.

For those undeterred by these difficulties, there are rewards. The editors argue that their book is not a history, but is as close to a true account as can be achieved for the unexpected and multifaceted events sparked by the police murder of fifteen-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on December 6, 2008 in the Exarchia section of Athens—a neighborhood known for countercultural and anarchist activity. A witness entertaining a guest in his apartment above the square (who calls the Athenian equivalent of 9/11), activists who admit to being frightened by the violence of the ensuing riots, radicals who experience the realization that a revolutionary moment can occur in unpredictable ways that don't match a theoretical scheme, and a veteran of the overthrow of the dictatorship who chastises contemporary revolutionaries for smashing shops all have their say.

We're definitely not in Kansas anymore—or even in New York. Greece, which experienced occupation during World War II but actually liberated itself and endured a civil war in living memory, has some far-from-tame political confrontations. In the United States, we are more likely to criticize Washington and Jefferson as hypocritical slaveholders than recapitulate their revolution with a little political rumble of our own.

We Are an Image from the Future provides an honest and unforeclosed discussion of political violence. There is room for differentiation among property destruction, self-defense, expropriation, and deliberate attacks on the authority of the state, without distinctions being lost in the mire of the ever-expanding catch-all of "domestic terrorism." After all, Washington and his comrades were insurrectionists to the British.

Review by Frances Chapman

Anarchism and Its Aspirations

By Cindy Milstein
AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies

Anarchism and Its Aspirations is a collection of several essays that together offer an introduction to modern anarchist thought and its applications. The title essay, which is the first and longest essay in the book, discusses anarchism’s historical and philosophical roots, as well as its fundamental tenets. The other three essays, “Anarchism’s Promise for Anticapitalist Resistance,” “Democracy is Direct,” and “Reclaim the Cities: From Protest to Popular Power,” attempt to tease out the relevance of anarchism in the contemporary context of state consolidation and the globalization of capital.

The book is geared toward two audiences: first, established anarchists who want to renew their visions for anarchism, and second, readers curious about anarchism who are familiar with the basics of progressive political theory, but unacquainted with anarchist thought in particular. As the author states explicitly, the book attempts to present a rosy view of anarchism–an emphasis on what it strives to be capable of–more than a detailed analysis of its past or present weaknesses or distortions. However, the author does touch on her opinions about the areas in which anarchism has room to grow–in particular, she discusses the importance of getting beyond “protests against” and placing more emphasis on building popular power.

I appreciated the book’s visionary tone, as well as the clear analysis of what anarchism uniquely has to offer to other progressive schools of thought. Among the many aspects of anarchism discussed in the essays, I found the focus on unabashed utopianism particularly compelling. In a world in which even the most progressive of activists often think in terms of strategic compromise, it is refreshing to remember that it is possible to dream bigger dreams–anarchist dreams of pluralism, direct democracy, organizing for mutual aid based on true consensus, and above all, an abundance of resources, love, play, sustainability, and peace for all inhabitants of the planet.

If Anarchism and Its Aspirations has a single flaw, it is its tendency towards slightly dense prose. Overall, it is highly readable, especially given the many layers of history and politics that it explores with depth and nuance. However, a few more anecdotes and applications would have helped this particular reader immensely–the most striking example is the “battle of Seattle,” which is mentioned throughout the book as a watershed moment for modern anarchism, but which is never elucidated, not even via a brief account of the events of November 30, 1999. In this regard, the book occasionally assumes prior knowledge and familiarity (which I, for one, didn’t have) with the internal politics of modern anarchism, which renders some of the book’s detailed political discussion abstract and difficult to follow. In general, I don’t have a problem with finding myself in over my head when I’m reading about something new–in this case, though, the book states that one of its two main aims is to serve as an introduction to anarchism to those who are unfamiliar with it, so I feel that the omission deserves comment.

On the whole, though, Anarchism and Its Aspirations succeeds in painting a hopeful portrait of the relevance and utility of an anarchist framework in the context of the contemporary struggle for revolutionary social change.

Review by Ri J. Turner

Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World

By Rita Golden Gelman
Three Rivers Press

I love reading essay collections. For a voracious reader without much free time, the ability to pick up a book, read a few self-contained pages that pack a punch, and go on to the next task is so rewarding. And unlike reading blog posts, I don’t feel the need to comment or otherwise let the author know that I was there.

Female Nomad and Friends is an absolute treat for women who love to travel and connect with new people. Even for those who simply dream about it, but don’t have the means or the fearlessness to travel to exotic places, this book offers funny stories, unbelievable adventures, and... recipes.

Rita Golden Gelman received such tremendous feedback from her book of travel stories, Tales of a Female Nomad, that she decided to collect some of her favorite fan responses and publish them. Another friend suggested she add recipes and, voila, the book was born.

The essays are organized into different themes: Connecting, Language, Food, Passion, etc. and give the reader a colorful array of experiences that span the globe. The women who contributed stories to the book had predictably unpredictable mishaps, some titillating moments, a few frightening culinary experiences, and ultimately learned some universal truths about people and themselves along the way. In the past few decades, the world has gotten smaller and it is easy to take for granted how easily we can glean facts about life halfway across the world. Thanks to this book, we are reminded that there is just no substitute for face-to-face contact. Reading about personal interactions between people who don’t share languages or cultural norms but who nonetheless show kindness and respect for each other is both heartwarming and hilarious.

I must admit I’ve dog-eared a few recipes to go back and try once I get some free time in the kitchen. There is just something special about re-creating something you first experienced abroad, especially if it is a time honored tradition in someone else’s kitchen. Many of my favorite discussions have occurred in the kitchen, hanging out with a group of women, working away, everyone doing their part to create something magical and special for their families and friends. The travel stories and recipes go hand-in-hand as they create a wonderful tapestry of travel images for the reader.

Review by Kari O’Driscoll

Keep Your Wives Away from Them: Orthodox Women, Unorthodox Desires

Edited by Miryam Kabakov
North Atlantic Books

Approximately 900 years ago, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides wrote a book, called the Mishneh Torah, that acknowledged the presence of women “who rub against each other.” His advice to the tract’s male readers was clear: Keep your wives away from them. Sadly, it is one of the only Hebraic texts in which the existence of lesbians is acknowledged.

Kabakov’s collection of fourteen personal and scholarly essays not only acknowledges Jewish dykes, it argues that as long as Orthodox Judaism exists, there will be Orthodox LGBTQ people. The anthology includes the voices of diverse women, all of them bound by a desire to maintain a connection to traditional Jewish life—reciting daily prayers, keeping kosher, going to a monthly mikveh after menstruating,observing the Sabbath—but with a female partner. Some wonder—obsess,even—about whether this will doom them to an afterlife in hell, or whether living authentically trumps all else. Others question whether lesbianism is completely prohibited, or just discouraged by Jewish law. How about passing as a man, or having a sex change?

Mara H. Benjamin’s “Learning to Be a Lesbian” describes the process of choosing a same-sex partner. “I fantasized about women: Not just about having sex with them, but about the whole package, of what living as a lesbian seemed to offer: Companionship. Understanding. Good food cooked by someone other than me. A presumption that household chores were a shared responsibility. All told, life with a woman seemed a better arrangement than living with a man, even with the one obvious downside, homophobia.”

Benjamin joined a group, called Orthodykes, which helped her to not only come out, but to interpret traditional texts in ways that affirmed her queer, feminist persona. The camaraderie she found also enabled her to push back against heterosexist assumptions.

Sasha T. Goldberg’s “The Road to Yehupetz” chronicles her move from the US to Israel where she lived as a male. A self-described “bulldagger,” she writes that what initially started as “passing,” over time “turned into being... Being a man in Israel was one of the most comforting experiences in my life... I say my prayers, I like to eat, I love and respect women as I love and respect my mother, and I am faithful, hard-working, and neurotic. I was the nice Jewish boy that they wanted me to be.” While Goldberg eventually returned to California and resumed living as a butch female, she owns the power of adopting a false identity. It’s an exhilarating read.

But what of those who don’t want to pass, but instead desire a more radical identity change? Joy Ladin’s “In The Image” is a heartfelt overview of her transition from male to female—all while teaching at Stern College for Women, an Orthodox institution in New York City. Her pre-surgical certainty that she was doing the right thing left her both breathless and terrified. “When, in a few months, I achieve the sin qua non of transsexual transition—living full-time in my new gender role—I will simultaneously complete the mid-life crisis trifecta of losing my career, my home, and my family,” she writes. An Afterword reveals that her worries were at least partially for naught:Stern College did not fire Ladin after she transitioned, but used her example to open dialogue about transgender issues inside and outside the Orthodox world. Keep Your Wives Away from Them is a bold plea for tolerance. What’s more, the depth of faith that keeps Orthodox lesbians within the fold affirms the need for LGBTQ visibility in both religious communities and their secular counterparts.

Review by Eleanor J. Bader

Philosophy: An Innovative Introduction: Fictive Narrative, Primary Texts, and Responsive Writing

By Michael Boylan and Charles Johnson
Westview Press

I was interested in Philosophy: An Innovative Introduction because I so thoroughly enjoyed Steven Church’s Theoretical Killings. Church’s book could appear to be a group of essays on many aspects of philosophy, but actually is as innovative as it is entertaining, ranging from the formally philological to rampant pop-culture rampages. If Theoretical Killings is a fun amusement park ride of the life of the mind, Philosophy: An Innovative Introduction is a more informative museum installation, with relevant interactive exercises at every turn. Muriel Rukeyser stated that, "The universe is made up of stories, not atoms." Applicable to the study of ethics and humanities as well as philosophy, the book utilizes a strong manifestation of ‘fictive narrative philosophy’—a perspective that respects the role of story in philosophical discussion.

Boylan and Johnson’s work innovatively seeks to engage by taking historical figures from dusty pages to serve as protagonists of life’s travails and intrigues. Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Hume, Murdoch, and King are included. Short stories are juxtaposed with excerpts from original texts. Students gain comprehension through indirect argument in the stories and via direct, deductive sections. Each group of readings is followed by study questions and essay suggestions as an aid to an understanding and construction of creative arguments. This is a work of relative diversity for its genre, with the Buddha accompanying Plato and Arendt balancing Aquinas. The attempts to humanize these historical figures can be inadvertently amusing—readers learn of Kant’s dinner menu and Marx’s choice of color in neckties—but the overall quality of the fiction is of the caliber indicated by Johnson’s MacArthur Fellowship and National Book Award. Recommended for both classroom and informal study.

Review by Erika Mikkalo

I'll Mature When I'm Dead: Dave Barry's Amazing Tales of Adulthood

By Dave Barry
Putnam

One of the back cover blurbs on my copy of I'll Mature When I'm Dead states that Dave Barry is "The funniest man in America." Now, I am not quite sure I agree with that, although Barry is quite hilarious. There is no overarching plot to his new book, and I don't think each piece is considered a short story. I guess one could call this book episodic. There were pieces that had me running to show everyone around me, and pieces that have already been overdone by other comedians.

The subjects of Barry's essays run the gamut from raising a dog to the marriage of one's child to a parody of Twilight. Some of the subjects I had an easy time relating to—such as the dog essay and the Twilight parody—but the others, not so much since I'm unmarried and lack children. However, I don't think you need to connect with each story to enjoy this book.

I found I'll Mature When I'm Dead to be an incredibly fast read and a good transition for going back to reading adult books. I say this because 90% of my reading has been YA lately, so adult books are quite a change of pace. I would say this book read as fast for me as Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.

Now, what hindered me from loving this book was the section where "a man answers a woman's questions." Basically, it was cliche after cliche after cliche. Perhaps I am a humorless feminist, but I don't really find repeating tired old stereotypes all that funny. Ha ha, women have emotions and talk a lot. Ha ha, men hate listening. Tee-hee, men only listen to you talk so they can figure out how to get in your pants. The intro to the book said to take what was written with a grain of salt, but this really rubbed me the wrong way. The book was full of laugh-out-loud moments with the exception of this section.

However, the good parts of this book outweighed the one that is bad. I am not in the Twilight fan club, so I totally found his riff of the series to be spot on. The characters' names are changed, and it takes place through Bella's point of view; he states that all these males are attracted to her for absolutely no reason, and that she has to make every situation about herself. The Jonas Brothers and Zac Efron make a cameo. It is great. If you have no inclination to read the entire book, at least read that one chapter.

Review by April Conant

Cross-posted from Good Books & Good Wine

Sick: A Compilation Zine on Physical Illness

Edited by Ben Holtzman
Microcosm Publishing

It surrounds us. No matter how difficult, awkward, or painful, we will inevitably come into contact with it. But despite its ubiquity, physical illness continues to be one of the most challenging subjects for people to broach.

Sick is a compilation zine on physical illness that offers up the experiences and perspectives of individuals living with illness. Whether dealing with incurable polycystic kidney disease, coping with cancer, or struggling with an unnamed medical condition, each piece, no matter how distinct, explores common themes of support, communication, and community. Each writer concisely documents her or his personal struggle with illness and sheds light onto the stigmatization of sickness and deep-seated taboos that hinder dialogue. Apart from exploring the painful consequences of living in a society unaccustomed to discussing illness, the writers offer valuable tools that teach us to be considerate and helpful allies.

Sick gracefully navigates its way through a wide range of experiences as it aims to open the channels of communication and establish a collective voice for those impacted by illness. How do we respond when someone tells us they are sick? How many people in our community are transparent about having a disability or illness? What can we do to help each other feel welcome, equal, and supported?

The zine also considers exclusivity within radical/DIY/punk scenes. How does someone’s level of health determine their participation in a particular community? Riding a bicycle, marching in a protest, and dumpster diving, for instance, are activities accessible primarily to the able-bodied. To avoid being ostracized or dismissed, many sick individuals find themselves pushed into the proverbial closet of shame and isolation.

In our culture, sickness is a private affair. We have been socialized to fear or ignore it. Consequently, sick people must not only learn to manage their own disease, but are often burdened with others’ inability to openly discuss and cope with illness. Often racked with feelings of guilt, isolation, and alienation, it is essential that a sick person’s experiences are acknowledged and validated. This is what Sick achieves. It opens dialogue and validates experience. Perhaps we cannot understand what it means to have supraventricular tachycardia, but we can learn to listen and ask our friends how we can provide the support they need.

Though the accounts in Sick can be grim or downright disturbing, the writers’ warm resilience brightens every page with hope for opening discourse and dismantling entrenched social norms. It’s the writers’ heartfelt declarations and earnest desire to create a caring community that makes this read so compelling.

Sick is a compassionate, honest work and a necessary first step toward understanding the complexities of physical illness and building communities of support. It is challenging and tender; it is unprecedented and accessible.

Review by Sofia Marin