The Urban Soup (Part VIII)

We don't have enough forays into anarchism these days. But today was unusual, because as I sat in a coffee shop (not my usual one) at a six-person table, I was joined by an impromptu gathering of anarchists and culture jammers. So I did what I never normally do: I started talking to them and listened in on their meeting. No fooling: there were the two idealistic girls who took issue with my denigrating of naive anarchism, there were two beardos like me who I could totally relate, full of impotent, bitter rage at the status quo, the kind of people who carry black markers to deface Christian Dior ads with remarks such as "feed me", earnest writers and comedians (also beardos). There was a raver there who talked of internet-based culture jamming and Big Brother: I can't figure out whether he was brilliant or mad--probably some combination of the two. There were notebooks and e-mails and anarchist business cards. We talked about authorship and the end of irony; I almost launched into my talk on how irony is slowly dying, even though it resonates with the public, and earnestness is back in vogue. We talked of revolutions and words like subvertising. One guy ducked out when a police car passed by. So now it appears that I'm acquainted with a group of culture jammers. I've always been sympathetic, and I'd like to see where it goes. But I must admit that my faith in human organizational capacity is less than stellar. It didn't help that we were all hung over. (Except for me, because for some reason I didn't go drinking yesterday.)

Ultimately the only strength our communities will have is the strength of our connections. That's how we resist ads: through communal irony, through humor, throuhg dance and climbing, through poetry read-ins, through teach-ins. But all this makes me tired. The personal is political, and that is the saddest realization of them all. I don't want to be a fucking example of lifestyle politcs, or a cog in the machine. But there is no choice. It appears that the global is local, except distorted through some fucked-up lenses. Shit. I don't want to have to deal. But if I'm at all interested in people, I will have to. Shit.

Consider: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."