Upcoming public appearances

Just so I can keep better track at a glance, but also in case any of you legions of fans wants to come and cheer me on, here’s my upcoming appearance list:

Thursday, March 10, 7 p.m. at The Booksmith on Haight Street, with Eric Martin and his novel Winners! I’m just doing a five minute overview of neighborhood history, and Eric and I will probably chat about our respective takes on the dotcom time and history and public space…

Saturday, March 19, 8 p.m., ATA/Other Cinema on Valencia at 21st, with Josh MacPhee of Stencil Pirates and Erick Lyle doing a bit on cement etchings, I’ll be talking briefly about my intention to launch a new magazine this year called “HeadFirst!”, the topic of precariousness, and showing some clips from an awesome DVD collection on Precarity put out by Greenpepper magazine.

Wednesday, March 23, 12:30 lunch at SPUR, 312 Sutter, a reading/talk from Political Edge and Deluge called “A Bold Look at an Improbable Future”.

Thursday, March 24, 7:30 p.m. at Modern Times with Eric Martin and Winners! again.

Saturday, March 26, 12:30 at the Anarchist Book Fair at 9th and Lincoln, reading/talk from “Jobs Don’t Work!” and maybe a short excerpt from After the Deluge.

Sunday May 1, 6 p.m. until late GRAND OPENING of new CounterPULSE theater and offices, 1310 Mission Street, All invited!

Wednesday, May 11, 12:30 p.m. Thoreau Center at Presidio, “A Bold Look at an Improbable Future”

Wednesday, May 18, 8:15 p.m., Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Berkeley, talking about Critical Mass to the Grizzly Peak Cycling Club.

Wednesday, June 1, 6:30 p.m., Potrero Branch Library, 20th Street, “A Bold Look at an Improbable Future”.

“Taking” self-management seriously

The new documentary about Argentinian workers banding together to take over their abandoned factories, The Take, is playing here at the Red Vic. Naomi Klein is the writer, and her husband Avi Lewis is the director. It’s a very good film, and well worth seeing. But I didn’t love it through and through for two basic reasons.

One, I think it embraced a Spielberg-ian emotionalism that bugged me. And two, it compellingly illustrates the confusion and difficulty facing workers who slowly decide their only course is to “occupy, resist and produce” (the slogan of the Argentinean movement), but fails to contextualize the self-management movement either in terms of Argentinean history (anarcho-syndicalism was a powerful movement in the early 20th century), or in terms of the problems of self-management as the ultimate co-optation of workers’ energy back into reproducing capital.

Continue reading “Taking” self-management seriously

“Taking” self-management seriously

The new documentary about Argentinian workers banding together to take over their abandoned factories, The Take, is playing here at the Red Vic. Naomi Klein is the writer, and her husband Avi Lewis is the director. It’s a very good film, and well worth seeing. But I didn’t love it through and through for two basic reasons.

One, I think it embraced a Spielberg-ian emotionalism that bugged me. And two, it compellingly illustrates the confusion and difficulty facing workers who slowly decide their only course is to “occupy, resist and produce” (the slogan of the Argentinean movement), but fails to contextualize the self-management movement either in terms of Argentinean history (anarcho-syndicalism was a powerful movement in the early 20th century), or in terms of the problems of self-management as the ultimate co-optation of workers’ energy back into reproducing capital.

Continue reading “Taking” self-management seriously