BOOK REVIEW: THE ANARCHISTS

GFR NEWS | TAKE 34 📵

..been putting a shitload of hours into mixing a new Guiltfilter single and aagh I am over it so can I pretend writing this newsletter article is urgent? Fuck yeah I can - let us make it about paperback novels my bloody fucking favourite thing in the world..

The Anarchists

1968 - Dell Laurel Edition

Essays by Max Stirner, Henry David Thoreau, William Ernest Hocking, Georges Sorel, Paul Goodman and Philip Selznick and many more.

The Anarchists is a late 60s collection of essays on Anarchism by various authors and is excellent reading for anyone who feels like the current wave of conservative pressure and the online intrusion into our personal lives completely oppressive and fucking boring to boot. With this subject there is a wide range of anarchist paradigms and factions and the thread that runs through it - and I think the essence of it - is basically one of decentralisation, y’know like republicans and libertarians who don’t want big gov telling them what to do on their own little bit of earth. And closely related to Anarchism is syndicalism; the idea that small and equally rewarded co-ops should run their local businesses without state and federal interference and intrusion and rules and fucking hell you can’t fart these days without getting a permit and insurance lest your fart make someone with a twitter account uncomfortable.

The essay I most liked was of course Anarchist Labor Federations in the Spanish Civil War, fastidiously written by Hugh Thomas and a very good insight to how fucking scary Stalinism was in the middle of the twentieth century. Basically the Anarchists would say “people can do and say whatever they like” and the Stalinists would say “no no no, better to only say whatever beliefs Stalin is currently focused on or you are going to literally disappear after some quick torture and firing squad action”. Obviously the latter prevailed and the lesson for libertarians, anarchists and subversive freedom seekers in general is to stay the fuck out politics and power and away from news propaganda at all times if possible.

And that brings me to the most un-political of the Anarchist styles that exposes complete separation and disregard for all forms of authority and organised society and that is covered in this book by the man, the legend himself: Henry David Thoreau in the essay Civil Disobedience. With Thoreau basically the way to be free is to go very, very, very far away from human cities/settlements/rules/propaganda/roads etc and live off your own wits. Very extreme and pure form of Anarchy I would say and very admirable. Not sure I could live without jamming though so I would have to take a bunch of muso’s with me. For more on HDT watch the fantastic film The Mosquito Coast directed by ozzy great Peter Weir.

I have yet to read all the essays but that won’t take long with my utter commitment to insomnia going as strong as ever fkn fuck insomnia just go get fucked. A thought changing book and a reminder that humans have railed against authority in intelligent fashion for many hundreds of years - I highly recommend it.

12 TOP AUTHORS

A random collection of books sitting on top of my bookshelf has inspired a list of 12 of my fave authors:

Colson Whitehead

Pulitzer winner for The Crook Manifesto.

Marcus Aurelius

Roman Emporor from the halcyon years of the Western Roman Empire and one of the best know stoics, recommend his Meditations.

Leon Trotsky

author The Russian Revolution and white-anted for wanting free democratic elections with his Marxism (can’t have those pesky people deciding the tiny cartel that owns all the wealth of a nation said Joseph and his cult of personality). Fair play Trotsky did do some shitty things too when in power, make you think doesn’t it: what if Lennon and Lenin had of survived? Could have been a very different world or more likely just a different shade.

George Orwell

covered him extensively last issue did we.

Dostoyevsky

this towering deviant does not even need a first name, he is that good.

William Gibson

just read Neuromancer or Mona Lisa Overdrive and like a smoking hot rock of crack charging down your lungs you are hooked for life.

John Fowles

same as above with The Magus or The Collector.

Mikhail Bulgakov

my all time best ever and most read book is his Master and the Margarita - a devilish masterpiece about the evils of blindly following orders that was banned for 30 years by the aforementioned eastern European dictator J.S.

James Joyce

have just re-read Dubliners for the 3rd time, the mighty Irish wordsmith.

Brett Easton Ellis

forget American Psyco and read his other novels, one of kind who paints desire and lust with a totally corrupt mind.

Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash… read it. Cryptonomicon… read it. Seven Eves… 1300 pages maybe just read the plot as it will blow your mind like the Matrix films did.

J. G. Ballard

got famous with Empire of the Sun but his later novels on modern disenchantment are the best; see Cocaine Nights, Super-Cannes and Crash.

REMEMBER POLYESTER BOOKSHOP?

Oh sister yeah I found a Polyester bookshop card yesterday and it made me realise how fucking straight and conservative times we live in, around 70% of these books are un-findable on the net and not in any hipster bookshops (are there any other kinds these days?). A brief glance at there catalog: The Anarchist Cookbook, Cunt Colouring Book, Drugs Are Nice, Encyclopaedia of Psychoactive Plants, Modern Drunkard, Wild Side Sex, Orgies Of Hemp Eaters, You Are Being Lied Too, Bondage Fairies and many, many more. The best shop on Brunswick St by a mile back in the day and a good record label too, you are fucking missed big time Polyester and if 99% of people were not zombie-staring at screens all day you would be still around I dare say when the internet becomes meaningless in a few years you shall return.

NEW GUILTFILTER SINGLE

And finally here at GFR HQ we are doing the final mixes for Guiltfilter’s next single WRECK IT ALL, it is very poppy for us and should be a hit with everyone, a bit Midnight Oil Bird Noises sounding and quite a nice little relief from the heavy stuff we normally do. More news on that in the coming weeks.