---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
francesca the coat <
the.coat.and.general@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, May 7, 2008 at 8:25 PM
Subject: nowtopia: writings in the anarcho-marxist hinterland....
To:
the.coat.and.general@gmail.com
Dear friends, acquaintances, esteemed professors, good people,
The author of "Nowtopia", an interesting book that taps into some of the important questions du jour about revalorization and anticapitalist practice, that also happens to be written by my dear old dad, is in town and having three book talks scattered around new york. I do think it is an interesting interrogation, 'important' even, and I encourage a sojourn out to see what it's all about. I hear the discussions so far during his tour in baltimore, philly, etc, have been pretty interesting and i'm sure the trend will continue in ny.
FRIDAY, May 9, 7:30pm: Brecht Forum, manhattan
MONDAY, May 12, 7pm: Vox Pop, brooklyn -- Also performing with Carlsson at vox pop: music and sound performance by the indubitable Nader Hasan and the inscrutable Seth Porcello; short films by the incorrigible Brett Story; lecture #2 on the possibility of life without the sun "by" alexis bhagat.
WEDNESDAY May 14, 7pm: Bluestockings Books, manhattan
I encourage those who enjoy the odd aural experience or visceral film experience to come to vox pop, where Seth Nader and Brett will bring the best of Montreal to our borough. but i'll, sigh, probably be at them all, yelling at my dad like "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT". no just kidding.
more info on the book, etc, below
in love
f.
Nowtopia is a book about a new politics of work. It
profiles tinkerers, inventors, and improvisational spirits who bring an
artistic approach to important tasks that are ignored or undervalued by
market society. Rooted in practices that have been emerging over the
past few decades, Nowtopia's exploration of work locates an
important thread of self-emancipatory class politics beyond the
traditional arena of wage-labor.
http://www.processedworld.com/carlsson/nowtopia_web/ Outlaw bicycling, urban permaculture,
biofuels, free software, and even the Burning Man festival are windows
into a scarcely visible social transformation that is redefining
politics as we know it. As capitalism continues to corral every square
inch of the globe into its logic of money and markets, new practices
are emerging through which people are taking back their time and
technological know-how. In small, under-the-radar ways, they are making
life better right now, simultaneously building the
foundation—technically and socially—for a genuine movement of
liberation from market life.
Nowtopia
uncovers the resistance of a slowly recomposing working class in
America. Rarely defining themselves by what they do for a living,
people from all walks of life are doing incredible amounts of labor in
their "non-work" time, creating immediate practical improvements in
daily life. The social networks they create, and the practical
experience of cooperating outside of economic regulation, become a
breeding ground for new strategies to confront the commodification to
which capitalism reduces us all.
The practices outlined in Nowtopia
embody a deep challenge to the basic underpinnings of modern life, as a
new ecologically-driven politics emerges from below, reshaping our
assumptions about science, technology, and human potential.
With
historical grounding, a toolbox drawing from multiple schools of
anti-capitalist thought and theory, and a refreshingly pragmatic
approach, Carlsson opens our eyes to the revolutions of everyday life.
Chris Carlsson,
executive director of the multimedia history project "Shaping San
Francisco," is a writer, publisher, editor, and community organizer. He
has edited four collections of political and historical essays. He
helped launch the monthly bike-ins known as Critical Mass, and was
long-time editor of Processed World magazine.