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London Anarchist Bookfair 2022

It's a bit old moaner anarchist point, but I do wish they wouldn't use images that look like a hippie kid has drawn. Too fucking subcultural by far, if I showed this to folks I worked with or lived near to encourage them to come they'd laugh at the idea this was an event of a serious political movement.

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danny la rouge said:
What is it with raccoons? I’ve only just caught up with the capybara thing. People aren’t going to get it. In jokes exclude people.

That aside, good luck to the event in its endeavours.
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The poster has no address, physical or virtual. The venue names will mean fuck all to most. The point in the book fair is surely to attract those who may never previously had significant contact with @. Having said that I quite like the design.
 
Ravens, Petrels, Racoons, Jackdaws, Capybaras (missed that one), possums (google that one too)...probably all started with cats (wild and black) in 1880s
from wiki....

The origin of the black cat symbol is unclear, but according to one story it came from an Industrial Workers of the World strike that was going badly. Several members had been beaten up and were put in a hospital. At that time a skinny, black cat walked into the striker's camp. The cat was fed by the striking workers and as the cat regained its health the strike took a turn for the better. Eventually the striking workers got some of their demands and they adopted the cat as their mascot.[23]

The Swiss anarchist Théophile Steinlen made use of the black cat (Le Chat Noir) in a number of his paintings. In an 1890 oil-painting, he depicted a black cat raising a red banner emblazoned with the word "Gaudeamus" (English: Rejoice). And in the large landscape painting Apotheosis of the Cats of Montmartre, he showed a clowder of cats on the rooftops of a working-class Parisian neighbourhood, beneath the moon. Francophone anarchists like Steilein and Zo d'Axa were inspired by the independent and undomesticated nature of the cat.[24]
 
kenny g said:
The poster has no address, physical or virtual. The venue names will mean fuck all to most. The point in the book fair is surely to attract those who may never previously had significant contact with @. Having said that I quite like the design.
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TBF I bet it isn't a poster designed to be flyposted or stuck up like ye olden days when people used to advertise it in the real world, it's just an image on their website. Probably done by one of their mates.
 
LDC said:
Dare I ask, but what exactly is 'the capybara thing'?!
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Yes, exactly. But there was a, to me, utterly inexplicable burst of interest in capybaras amongst the social media anarcho scene a couple of years ago. They seemed to be an emblem. I didn’t get it. I asked a young person recently and apparently it stems from a gated community that was built somewhere capybaras had inhabited and the capybaras, rather than moving on, overran the landscapes of the wealthy, reclaiming the territory to the annoyance of the rich folks.

That, I understand, is the gist of it.
 
LDC said:
Me trying to navigate the 'new' anarchist scene....

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Well, quite. And the thing is the capybaras were completely decontextualised. It was drawings of capybaras - very much is the style of the above poster - but not explained. As if the capybaras themselves were the point. It was, like all online memes, very meta and self referential. And if you’re not in on it, baffling. There was no political message, without knowing the foundation story, which I didn’t. Until a friendly young person told me.

It’s like the Netflix and chill thing. I didn’t know it meant casual sex. I thought it meant hanging out and watching box sets. I’d been inviting people round to do it, until my younger daughter told me what it meant.
 
Whereas stormy petrels go back a long way. TheStormy Petrel bird, which was seen as a herald of coming storms. The Russian poet Maxim Gorki wroteThe Song of the Stormy Petrel in 1901 and it is a coded call for revolution, coded because of Tsarist tyranny. It proved very popular in Russia and was translated into many languages. Gorki himself became known as the Stormy Petrel of the Revolution.The poem was popular in anarchist circles and Burevestnik (Stormy Petrel) was a paper published by Russian anarchist communists in exile in Paris and then Geneva between 1906 and 1910. Burevestnik was later the title of the daily paper brought out by the Petrograd Federation of Anarchist Groups in 1917-1918.The German-American anarchist communist Claus Timmermann edited Der Sturmvogel (Stormy Petrel) between 1897 and 1899.The name has also been applied to anarchist militants like the Russian sailor Anatoli Zhelezniakov, the Spanish militant Buenaventura Durruti and the Scottish anarchist EthelMacDonald.
 
charlie mowbray said:
Whereas stormy petrels go back a long way. TheStormy Petrel bird, which was seen as a herald of coming storms. The Russian poet Maxim Gorki wroteThe Song of the Stormy Petrel in 1901 and it is a coded call for revolution, coded because of Tsarist tyranny. It proved very popular in Russia and was translated into many languages. Gorki himself became known as the Stormy Petrel of the Revolution.The poem was popular in anarchist circles and Burevestnik (Stormy Petrel) was a paper published by Russian anarchist communists in exile in Paris and then Geneva between 1906 and 1910. Burevestnik was later the title of the daily paper brought out by the Petrograd Federation of Anarchist Groups in 1917-1918.The German-American anarchist communist Claus Timmermann edited Der Sturmvogel (Stormy Petrel) between 1897 and 1899.The name has also been applied to anarchist militants like the Russian sailor Anatoli Zhelezniakov, the Spanish militant Buenaventura Durruti and the Scottish anarchist EthelMacDonald.
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And, furthermore, it is the masthead of your magazine. You don’t just tweet endless drawings of stormy petrels.
 
LDC said:
TBF I bet it isn't a poster designed to be flyposted or stuck up like ye olden days when people used to advertise it in the real world, it's just an image on their website. Probably done by one of their mates.
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I can't see what is wrong with an actual physical flyer. People do them for other events, even minor festivals and such like bung up fliers on the streets. It's a good way of reaching people.
 
kenny g said:
I can't see what is wrong with an actual physical flyer. People do them for other events, even minor festivals and such like bung up fliers on the streets. It's a good way of reaching people.
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There may or not be one. I think the point being made is that’s probably not it.
 
danny la rouge said:
It’s like the Netflix and chill thing. I didn’t know it meant casual sex. I thought it meant hanging out and watching box sets. I’d been inviting people round to do it, until my younger daughter told me what it meant.
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I think the fact she's your daughter means it's implicit she is younger than you, you don't need to say younger daughter.
 
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