Nowtopian

Yep, probably good luck too. I was pedaling through the Cape Cod National seashore’s charming paved bike way, first undulating through dunes and scrub forest and then into a deep, gorgeous beech forest, and suddenly we screeched to halt to avoid this noble resident:

Given my recent musings on the Tortoise and the Super Hero (manifesto-like writings to follow), this seemed portentous. In fact, the day at Cape Cod was beautiful and a welcome respite from four straight nights of speaking publicly. (more photos below) The New England leg of the tour wasn’t quite as “successful” as New York City or the mid-Atlantic. I had good conversations in 3 out of 4 stops up here, but the turnout was notably less than previously. In Amherst, at one of the best bookstores I’ve seen in a long time, Food for Thought Books, a crowd a bit under 20 was attentive and provided a stimulating conversation afterwards too. A couple of skeptics raised the temperature a bit, which I enjoyed enormously, especially a woman who accused me of “pitching a lifestyle” which is far from the case. In fact, she provided me with the perfect foil to launch on my ongoing campaign against subcultural exclusivity, but as a new friend Hannah noted in Boston two nights later, my tour consists of the same kinds of small anarchist infoshops and lefty bookstores that tend to remain isolated from the rest of the population…. ouch! but true in its own way. Then again, part of my take on all this is that what I’m arguing is so different than most anarchists or lefties have tended to, that it’s a challenge and a break even for so-called predictable audiences. I wonder if I could attract any sizable audiences at mainstream stops anyway; the two Symposium Bookstores, both pretty “mainstream” in spite of their owners and employees, both failed to attract anyone to hear my presentation.

Here’s the crowd at Food for Thought in Amherst and a shot of it from the outside too:

Continue reading A Black Turtle Crossed My Path!