Ceding this space to Yasiin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def, this is his introduction (“Fear Not of Man”) to the album, Black on Both Sides: “A lot of things have changed / A lot of things have not, mainly us / We gon’ get it together right? I believe that / Listen—people be askin’ me all the time / ‘Yo Mos, what’s gettin’ ready to happen with hip-hop?’ / (Where do you think hip-hop is goin’?) / I tell em, ‘You know what’s gonna happen with hip-hop? / Whatever’s happening with us’ / If we smoked out, hip-hop is gonna be smoked out / If we doin’ alright, hip-hop is gonna be doin’ alright / People talk about hip-hop like it’s some giant livin’ in the hillside / Comin’ down to visit the townspeople / We are hip-hop / Me, you, everybody, we are hip-hop / So hip-hop is going where we going / So the next time you ask yourself where hip-hop is going / Ask yourself: where am I going? How am I doing? / Till you get a clear idea / So if hip-hop is about the people / And the hip-hop won’t get better until the people get better / Then how do people get better? (Hmm) / Well, from my understanding people get better / When they start to understand that they are valuable.”
Hip-hop, like literature, like politics, synecdoches all for humanity. The question then reiterated: what is valued, and how is that value expressed? So our work continues: to contextualize and to illuminate the exuberant expression of life through the structures and forms that yield to and give it shape.
—Nicholas Grosso
New York
August 2020
AUTHOR: ELLIOTT COLLA
A professor in Arabic Literature at Georgetown University, Elliott Colla’s scholarly and creative writings explore the Arab world from its literatures to its struggles against Western colonialism and imperialism. He has translated works by authors from Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine.
In On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians, Giambattista Vico wrote “The criterion of the true is to have made it,” along parallel lines 300 years later in Orientalism, Edward Said wrote, “men make their own history, that what they can know is what they have made, and extend it to geography: as both geographical and cultural entities . . .” These lines feel like the perfect introduction to We Are All Things, a story of a love affair in verse told through the (manmade) objects in a room. What do physical objects offer to our stories that are not captured in thoughts or conversations?
Great question. I think the answer has to do with my own experience writing fiction, and finding it very difficult to write description. My favorite authors know how to paint (in words) an entire inhabited world, which invariably is filled with things. Balzac, for example, often builds character through the interiors of their rooms. He shows us how to see the reflection of people in the furniture they sit on, the everyday objects they employ, and especially the tchotchkes with which they decorate their surfaces. In his hands, these things can tell us much more than a description of their physicality.
Yet, when done badly, rich, thick description becomes a distraction. I often find myself skipping long, descriptive passages when I read because, when it comes down to it, I don’t care about the world of that particular book, or character, and am only curious about plot. When I write fiction, I often begin with description, but find myself cringing when I start to read what I’ve written. Most all of it disappears during editing. Why? Because, if I cannot discover the purpose of that description, it probably shouldn’t be there. And too often, I haven’t figured out how to do it all. But that’s one of my struggles as a writer.
This text is based on the experiment of putting description first. I began by writing up each object as fully as I could, without regard for plot. It was a list, though at the beginning it had no order at all. Some dynamics emerged immediately. First, a mood was set: the emptiness and sadness of the piece was there as soon as I turned my attention to things rather than people. Second, a set of relations between the various objects began to take form. It is a hierarchy of sorts, but it is also a familial, even intimate. These things are stuck with each other, long after the people come and go.
I should say a word about the room where I wrote this. It was in a friend’s apartment. It was a lovely place, and I vividly recall the months I was there. But the thing I want to signal about the apartment is that it was not where my friend actually lived. As a house, it was usually being leased to people like me. And so while lovely and clean, it was not exactly anyone’s home. This is what is known in Egypt as a sha’a mafrousha (a furnished flat). I give the colloquial Egyptian because those words have a special resonance in the country that ‘furnished flat’ doesn’t seem to have. There’s also a moral judgment in Egypt about the kind of people who’d reside in such a place. In a word, they’re loose people, the kind that might bring disgrace. But more importantly, from my experience, furnished flats in Egypt are fundamentally empty places. They are usually places where locals used to live, but are now empty. And they remain empty until someone—usually a wealthy foreigner—comes along and resides in it on a temporary basis. I spent many years living in such apartments. But as long as I stayed in them, I was always aware that while I was temporary, the furnishings were permanent.
So these two things—experimenting with description and thinking about the particular nature of the furnished flat—came together immediately, but it wasn’t exactly forming a narrative. It was something else.
There is also another strand to this. At the time, I was reading and translating an Egyptian author named Yahya al-Tahir ‘Abdallah. While working on him, I made some discoveries. One for instance: while ‘Abdallah is known mainly as a ‘short story writer’, a lot of his works are not exactly stories. They are intensely small pieces that set a scene and establish a mood. They let the reader imagine the backstory or what comes next. And his language is not like that of other prose writers. It is dense and often lyrical. At times the language is liturgical, with Quranic and Biblical resonances. Voices appear and fade like angels or devils whispering in your ear. At some point, I began to suspect that ‘Abdallah was writing often in stanzas, not paragraphs. When I realized that, a whole set of possibilities opened up for me. He’s a poet, but writing what appears to be prose. Or it seems like he’s telling stories, but these are stories that work like poems. Realizing this helped me relax with the problem I was having between wanting to write thick descriptions of a material world. I let go of plot, until much later, it reintroduced itself by way of the humans that reside—but don’t live—in that world.
Moving from the physical form of objects to many forms of literature, in your article “Revisiting the Question of the Novel/Nation,” reviewing The Palestinian Novel: From 1948 to present by Bashir Abu-Manneh, you write:
For Abu-Manneh, arguably the most important component of [Georg] Lukàcs’s theory of the novel is its historicity. The novel is neither a static nor neutral form, but rather one that exists in relation to social history, which means that its styles and genres—its very shape—arise from particular circumstances, and change with them accordingly.
Which I think does well to contextualize an earlier citation from the book being reviewed:
To read the Palestinian novel or Palestinian politics through the prism of statehood is in fact to repress the history of revolution, modernization and cultural renaissance. In Palestinian politics, the statist option represents an outcome of the defeat of the revolutionary forces. The political and cultural rise of the Palestinians after the nakba was always about much more than statehood, and the shift from liberation to independence reflects a shrinking of political horizons and possibilities.
Is the form of We Are All Things, the interplay of text and image, an attempt to try to wrestle with contemporary times, seeking new forms to both process the moment while also remaining an active participant in it? How much back and forth was there between you and Ganzeer in the development of what would become We Are All Things?
I first encountered Ganzeer in 2011. His street art in Cairo was stunning. The martyrs’ series he did was monumental in more than a couple ways: he was of course honoring ordinary Egyptian citizens who fought—and died—for a better society, naming their names, showing us their faces, reminding us that the collective contains individuals; and he was insisting that their images weigh on the public sphere as a kind of challenge or unfulfilled promise, a kind of “They sacrificed their lives for a better Egypt. What have you done?”; and finally, like other street artists, he was reclaiming the public space as a place of DIY creativity and democratic meaning-making. Whenever one of his pieces appeared, friends would snap pictures and post on social media. People responded immediately and viscerally to his street art in 2011-13, which is remarkable given how invisible this kind of art had been previously. It was like waking up and realizing that the city you lived in was filled with art galleries.
I became a fan-boy. When Donia Maher’s book, The Apartment in Bab El-Louk, came out, I saw another, more bookish side of Ganzeer. And then The Solar Grid started to appear, which established that Ganzeer can work in pretty much any format he wants: he’s a guerilla artist working on dusty walls, a gallery artist, a book illustrator, sci-fi visionary, and graphic novelist.
But I didn’t meet Ganzeer until later. It was at the Cosmos Club in Washington, DC, at an event sponsored by one of our many organizations that come across as a CIA front whether or not they really are. A bunch of us went out afterwards for beer and we talked about comic books and graphic novels mostly. (I am a latecomer to the medium and am still astounded by it.) I’m also one of those annoying people who meets an author or artist and starts to tell them what they should consider doing next. (My partner calls it my “you’re gonna wanna” discourse.) I started throwing things at Ganzeer over email. One was for him to illustrate a list of words for drunkenness taken from the medieval book of words, Fiqh al-lugha by the polymath al-Tha‘labi. He wasn’t convinced. This one, however, piqued his interest.
He started building images and would send them to me in batches. I remember liking all of them. Ganzeer began by separating each object from the others, giving it its own page. This may have been a natural mode for translating the written text to graphic form, but it wasn’t obvious to me when all I had were words. One upshot was that as each object got its own turn in the spotlight, its uniqueness became more pronounced. As he worked, his images would change my understanding of the written text. So I would go back to that and work on it more. Very occasionally, I would make small suggestions. Like the weevil, which is so central to cotton production and thus to the memory of the cotton. But mostly, the process of collaborating entailed learning more about the text itself.
Most of We Are All Things seems beyond place and time but there are a few clues that ground it in a specific reality. To me the sounds of a call to prayer and the tape cassette deck playing Umm Kulthoum are where readers find solid ground, perhaps a cheeky twist for a story otherwise told through physical objects. What role do sounds and acoustics have in shaping this story (and perhaps the human experience)? The text on the back of the book places We Are All Things in Cairo, what do the architectures and cultural symbolism of Cairo provide to this story?
Cairo is a deeply aural experience. There is an incessant ambient sound that is richly, and often maddingly layered. There are the amplified calls to prayer, which can be beautiful but usually are not. (I remember living next to a mosque whose muezzin had a chronic chest cough. His wheezing and hacking woke all of us up at dawn everyday.) There are the street vendors: the sellers of mangoes or mint with their distinct cries; or the rag-and-bone men whose call, “Rubabikiya” still echoes the old Italian, “Ropa vecchia.” There is the upstairs neighbor installing a bathroom sink at 11PM, or the other neighbor watching Dallas at full volume. Or the sewage truck that comes at 4AM to suck out the septic tank. (And in that case, it’s the smell, not the noise, that is most unsettling.) Or the car mechanic who job consists of banging on a muffler all day long. Or the howling of feral cats, or packs of dogs that used to haunt many of the bougiest neighborhoods.
There is the honking of the cars, which at first hit me like a wall of noise. Later, my friend Samer Shehata taught me about how soccer fans use particular honking patterns on game nights. It was like Morse code, if you had the code. There are many kinds of horns, and many ways of honking. And some of that honking is articulate language: people letting each other know they’re there; people encouraging people to move; people telling each other to fuck off. There’s a lot of noise in Cairo but a lot of signal, too.
As your question rightly suggests: all this sound exists in an urban landscape that amplifies, channels, and concentrates it. Here we need to remember the difference between building materials. Concrete, for instance, makes for a lively, bouncy room with a sustain that matches Nigel Tufnel’s Les Paul. In contrast, wood dampens sound. But wood is exceedingly rare as a building material in Egypt. Most Cairo rooms I’ve ever been in are made of concrete, and with ceramic tile floors. If there are no carpets or curtains, they can work almost like a radio receiver—picking up everything and intensifying it in surprising, infuriating ways. It’s not for nothing that so many Cairenes rely on earplugs, hashish, and sleeping pills to get rest.
When I write, I try to start from the specific, not the general. The historical, not the timeless. And you’ve just put your finger on one concrete detail that opens up the historical moment of the poem: the cassette tape. My life in Cairo could be explained through cassette tapes, which are now a sound medium relic, only without the vintage aura of vinyl. Back when I was in my 20s, I had the great fortune to study Arabic with Abbas al-Tonsi—any student of Arabic now will know his name, because it’s on the cover of the textbook everyone uses. Ustaz Abbas used to make us record ourselves reciting practice sentences, or lines of poetry, on cassettes. Then he’d listen to them, grade them, make his comments, and return them to us to record again. But that wasn’t all. He made a generous offer to those of us who were interested in the kind of poetry and song that wasn’t sold on the market, because either it was banned, or because it wasn’t meant to be commodified. Music and poetry by the Egyptian radical duo—Sheikh Imam and Ahmed Fouad Negm—or by the Iraqi communist poet, Muzaffar al-Nawwab. We’d bring in a blank cassette, and Ustaz Abbas would make copies from his library of recordings. And these copies were themselves copies of other copies from other personal collections. In time, I did the same with my copies, sharing them with other friends. As Nick Hornby taught us in High Fidelity: sharing music is a time-honored method of male bonding.
They also got me out exploring the city of Cairo. I first listened to Umm Kulthoum on cassette tapes when a hash dealer in Boulaq Aboul-Ela told me to. He also told me to start with al-Atlal, which I later found out was like older stoners telling you to listen to Dark Side of the Moon. Cliché, yes—but not a bad place to start.
Cassette tapes took me to an amazing music market in the gritty district of Ataba. The place was the ground floor of a concrete carpark, and it was filled with small music shops that sold mostly Nubian and Sudanese music. It was right next to the station for the long-distance buses—the ones that could take you to Riyadh or Baghdad or Benghazi and Tunis. The travelers on these buses were usually peasants embarking on long labor migrations: for them, the market was the last stop where they might find familiar music to bring along into their exile. I would ask the people in the shops what they listened to, and they sold me treasures like shaabi music superstar Adawiyya and the Sudanese rocker Sharhabeel Ahmed, whose voice is about the sweetest thing you’ll ever hear. I wouldn’t know any of these guys if it weren’t for those shops in Ataba.
Now, cassette tapes are almost gone. But let me share one more story about them. Around the time I wrote We Are All Things, a friend used to take me often to the weekly flea market in Imam Shafi‘i, which is a big mausoleum complex in the southern graveyard. You could find pretty much everything in that market—and over the years, we bought all sorts of things from there, old wooden radios, antique photographs, magazines, a brass bed. Because it is relatively close to where many of the garbage collectors live, a lot of the stuff on sale is culled by those same rag-and-bone men I mentioned earlier. You could buy beautiful bottles salvaged from the trash of upscale Zamalek households: Sport Cola, Hendrick’s Gin, Johnnie Walker Red, Tanqueray, Beefeater. There was a guy who sold nothing but dolls’ heads and another guy who sold nothing but dolls’ bodies that needed heads. Everything.
My friend wanted to show me how poor he was when he was a kid—and he did this through the cassette tape stalls in that market. There were men who sold the empty, plastic cassette cases recovered from the trash collectors. And next to them, were men selling the tapes themselves. Imagine piles of black magnetic tape, sitting under the sun, covered in dust and bits of trash, and that’s what it was. People would come up, pick through it, and offer pennies for an armload of the stuff. If the vendor liked you, he might give you a few extra handfuls for free. Later, at home, you would respool the tape (using pencils, of course) into the empty cassette cases. It was the ultimate in surprise shopping: only then would you find out what you’d bought. But all too often, my friend told me, it wasn’t music at all. It might be a religious sermon or recording of an old radio program. Or if you were really unlucky, the magnetic material on the tape might be so scratched or damaged that it wouldn’t play at all.
See how much life is involved in an object as common as the cassette tape? This is why it’s difficult to imagine cassette tapes as inanimate! How could I when I learned a language through cassette tapes? These same tapes went on to entertain parties and keep me company when I was alone. They became the currency of friendship and something to argue about, something to preserve or record over. For me, they are a key to a complicated world that stretches from the desperation of migrant workers and street kids, to the biting political verse of a poet like Negm, to the sublime sounds of Umm Kulthoum, all the way to me—a transplant from Los Angeles who, by virtue of US empire, privilege and luck, managed to have my life transformed in Cairo. Not bad for a spool of magnetic tape encased in plastic.
ILLUSTRATOR: GANZEER
Ganzeer is an Egyptian artist whose work plays at the intersection of forms as diverse as stencils and murals to comics and graphic design. In 2016, he was honored with the Global Thinker Award from Foreign Policy.
At Berkeley in 1980, Julio Cortázar taught a literature class and talked about the rise of consciousness of Latin American peoples to worldwide oppression and the potential of art to reflect on and incite illumination (if not action):
... more and more readers for whom a literary work continues to be not just an aesthetic event sufficient unto itself, but also one that is felt as an effluence of strengths, tensions, and situations that make it what it is and not something else. Readers such as these—who are more and more common in our countries—enjoy as much as anybody else the literary contents of a short story or a novel, but at the same time they come to this content with a questioning attitude. For these readers, the books we write are always literature, but they are also sui generis reflections of history, they are like flowers of a plant that can no longer be ignored because the plant is called land, nation, people, raison d’être, and destiny.
But at the same time, he was wary of art that solely had the “right” politics, concluding: “that bad literature and mediocre literature can’t convey anything efficiently.”
In your New York Times feature, “Hieroglyphics That Won’t Be Silenced,” you explained the meaning of your name: “‘bicycle chain’ because [you like] to think of artists as the mechanism that pushes change forward. ‘We are not the driving force,’ [you] said. ‘We are not the people pedaling, but we can connect ideas and by doing this we allow the thing to move.’” If you agree with the idea that mediocre and/or bad art cannot communicate anything effectively or efficiently, how do you walk the line between creating thoughtful work that is at the same time actionable for viewers?
Great question! In my mind there are essentially two sides to any work of art. The craft of the thing and then there’s the idea of the thing. Often times when people talk about good art vs. mediocre art, what they’re mostly referring to is the craft side of the art, which may include things like composition, anatomy, expressiveness, use of color and/or material and so on. With that in mind, I would argue that there’s plenty of “good art” that doesn’t communicate anything effectively, because there may not be much of an idea behind what all that great craft is being put to use for. The alternative is also true, someone may have a fantastic idea, but may have not yet mastered the skills to effectively communicate it. The sweet spot in my mind is when you have a convergence of both craft and idea.
But what is a good idea? This is where it gets tricky, especially in the “West”, particularly for two reasons:
1) A decades-long museum/art-school-driven campaign that has emphasized the self and the ego as the most glorious of artistic pursuits.
2) A hyper capitalist/consumerist socioeconomic existence that has emphasized commercial success as the benchmark for “good work.”
The truth in my mind exists somewhere in-between. Wherein the best ideas don’t necessarily ignore the self, but involve the self in relation to the world outside the self because no self exists in a vacuum. And those “best ideas” tend to be really, really good when they fill an obvious cultural vacuum, rather than ride the bandwagon de jour. Those who see “commercial success” as the benchmark for good work are only slightly off the mark in that their point-of-focus is on the monetary implications of the work rather than on the very obvious social implications: the work must speak to society, beyond the self.
I wouldn’t put so much emphasis on the necessity of immediate actionability, because it’s entirely likely that many of my influences were things I was exposed to . . . maybe ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. If we think of art as food for the mind and soul, well then there’s the food you prepare for immediate consumption, and there are also the seeds you scatter for future food to grow. Art is no different.
On your website, your work is described as the intersection of art, design, and storytelling (or Concept Pop), how do you define “Concept Pop”? And how do these various fields illuminate one another?
Concept Pop fills the vacuum between Conceptual Art and Pop Art (with all of its offspring be it “Urban Art”, “Urban Contemporary”, etc.). Wherein the former focuses primarily on presenting concepts and ideas with very minimal concern for aesthetics, and the latter is heavily aestheticized with very little concern for anything beyond that. Concept Pop “hits two birds with one stone” so to speak, in that it utilizes “pop” language, imagery, media, and/or delivery mechanisms specifically to express concepts and ideas rather than just for show.
In Restricted Frequency #139, your meeting with Elliot Colla appears marked by a mutual appreciation for “old printed matter, predominantly from Cairo” and Arabic poetry, which seems to have anticipated We Are All Things. What sparked the idea to collaborate? And how is your process different when working with someone else?
It’s my understanding that Elliot wrote the text for We Are All Things many many years ago, and didn’t really know what to do with it (it’s also my understanding that he’s got quite a lot of material of that nature). He had recently come across a copy of The Apartment in Bab El-Louk though, written by Donia Maher in a somewhat similar vein and illustrated/designed by myself in collaboration with Ahmad Nady. And that kind of lit the spark in Elliot’s mind to contact me about giving his text a similar treatment. He sent it my way, and I could almost see it right away. A couple months later, I had the entire thing illustrated and designed for him. It was really that straightforward.
Elliot’s initial idea was to print it himself on his home printer and staple it together, effectively making a very DIY-zine of the thing. I proposed approaching Radix Media about publishing it, because I’d recently been in touch with them and because it felt like it might be along the lines of the things they’re interested in, and when it came to print-making, they would do a much better job than either Elliot and I could do. Elliot agreed, not thinking much of it, but much to our glee Radix took it on!
From then on, it became a matter of adjusting the design to meet appropriate printing specs, which the Radix crew and I brainstormed and discussed over a couple sessions. All in all, the process wasn’t much different than if it weren’t collaborative, only because the working relationship between all parties involved was just so seamless and pleasant.
Of course, generally speaking collaborative projects don’t always go that way. But as a rule, it’s important to remember that with collaborative stuff, it’s totally normal and even vital for all parties involved to have a degree of creative input. Once any single person wants their “creative vision” to be the only vision, completely overpowering everyone else’s, well then it isn’t really very collaborative, is it?
And there’s totally a place for that kind of project. But the vast majority of the work I do involves me sitting alone in a room largely working on stuff that is entirely my own singular vision. So when I do get the opportunity to do something collaborative, I find great, great joy in the multi-input nature of the thing. I suppose it’s important to understand the “role” each person is meant to play, and respect that. As the writer of the text, it makes sense that Elliot would have final say on his text with no one coming in saying you can’t say this or that. As the illustrator/designer of the text, it makes sense that final say in that regard would be mine as long as I go about it in respect to the text those visuals are meant to go along with. As the print-makers of the book, it makes sense that Radix would get final say on how best to manifest the physical incarnation of the thing, with complete respect to the nature of the text/imagery/design they’re bringing to life.
PUBLISHER: RADIX MEDIA
Radix Media is Lantz Arroyo, Nicholas Hurd, Sarah Lopez, and Meher Manda. Committed to the values of being worker-owned, union strong, and eco-friendly, the publisher is also a commercial print shop, a possible sustainable model for the future of independent publishing.
In an interview with Entropy, the history of Radix was discussed, from its origins as print and design shops to the recent expansion into publishing with a mission “to publish new ideas and fresh perspectives, prioritizing the voices of typically marginalized communities to get to the root of the human experience.” Combined with your name, Radix, coming from the Latin word meaning root or to get to the root, how is literature particularly capable of getting “to the root” of things? And how do your printing services inform the publishing program?
Sarah Lopez [SL]: Literature has the ability to connect with people on a visceral level. History and theory get to the root by laying out concrete facts and dissecting the structures that make up systems of oppression. But literature has the power to make a direct, personal impact in a way that places the reader at the center of an experience, making it easier to relate to the subject matter and experiences outside of their own.
Lantz Arroyo [LA]: I would add that literature can have a particular advantage over theory or nonfiction books. People don’t always like being preached to, or being hit over the head with hard data. Literature can be a way to engage with complex ideas in a way that allows the reader to use their imagination.
The relationship between our printing and publishing is also a way for us to get to the root. By owning the means of production, we’re paying tribute to the publishers of old, who were printers themselves. This creates a more streamlined environment for the various stages that every project goes through. Because we operate a commercial print shop, we also have a wealth of knowledge about paper types and printing processes. So we’re able to manage costs more effectively and make choices based on what will work best for the project, making the final books both beautiful and economical.
Since starting literary publishing in 2018, how have your publications, from Aftermath: Explorations of Loss & Grief and Futures: A Science Fiction Series to We Are All Things, refined or focused the editorial vision of Radix?
SL: We’re all learning about each other’s tastes, which luckily are all similar. We’re also learning more about the publishing landscape, and the kinds of stories that need to be uplifted. Similar to any other decisions we make in life, each title that we publish informs the next.
A direct example of this is Futures. We published a couple of sci-fi stories in Aftermath, and that led to us conceptualizing the Futures series. We realized that we all love science fiction, and that the genre really lends itself to our politics.
Another thing that’s worth noting is that we make all of our decisions as a collective. So our editorial vision will also change and expand as we bring on more people. The one thing that will always be consistent is our dedication to uplifting voices from marginalized communities.
Meher Manda [MM]: Because we’re mindful of movements and grassroots politics, our editorial moodboard is also very much influenced by the current zeitgeist. So in addition to developing and soliciting projects, we also keenly follow artists and newsmakers who share our anti-establishment values and have work to back it up. As Sarah mentioned, Futures not only appealed to us with its genre and politics, but it also touches upon a crisis that is prevalent in our lives: climate change. Similarly, the projects we have planned for the next few years embark on exploring themes such as the failure of capitalism, nihilism, and transnational literature, by writers who have been making their voices heard from the margins. When we consider a new project, we want it to, first and foremost, appeal to us as readers, and then also have something essential to say about the state of us.
In an interview, the scholar Dr. Eleanor Janega defined literature as the preoccupations and “the imagination of society and how people are thinking writ large.” This calls to mind an exchange with Danielle Dutton in HAUS RED Volume 2:
In The Western Canon, Harold Bloom writes: “Our legions who have deserted represent a strand in our traditions that has always been in flight from the aesthetic: Platonic moralism and Aristotelian social science. The attack on poetry either exiles it for being destructive of social well-being or allows it sufferance if it will assume the work of social catharsis under the banners of the new multiculturalism.” Have you found Dorothy walking this line between destructiveness, social catharsis, and aesthetic exuberance?
Danielle Dutton: Always we are working to find and champion books that we ourselves find cathartic, books that seem to provoke fiction or language or the world in necessary ways. Exuberance is our jam. Are we destructive? Creative destruction? If so, I suspect it’s only in as much as we represent an alternative model (i.e., slow! sustainable! feminist! innovative!) to the norm.
To this end, I see the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd as a form of creative destruction or deconstruction. But if you trace how these social movements are interpreted or are adopted by corporations and institutions, they often appear like performative gestures or tokenism, cosmetic changes to obscure the foundational rot or systemic disconnect. All of which to say, what are the values that Radix prioritizes in its publishing? Are any in conflict with each other? How conscious of a conversation is the team having in developing its editorial vision long term or is it developed from project to project?
SL: That’s the power of capitalism and neoliberalism! They have this slimy way of co-opting the language and hard work of social movements to maintain the status quo. Beyond the titles that we publish and authors and artists that we work with, we’re also living our values through our structure as a worker-cooperative. What that means is that we’re all equal owners or on the path to becoming owners, and every member is informed on the finances and decisions being made in the company. I’d say that the biggest conflict we have is that we’re anti-capitalists, but have to sell books and constantly market our printing services in order to feed and house ourselves.
MM: To add to that, as a small, diverse collective ourselves, we make sure to realize projects that actually support emerging writers from the margins through collaboration. That commitment led us to conceptualize the Own Voices Chapbook Prize, the name of which was taken from Corinne Duyvis’ movement to observe, celebrate, and insist on greater diverse representation in publishing. For the first iteration of the prize, we opened submissions to poets of color working on chapbook-length poetry books that inform, challenge, and experiment with poetic forms. Unlike other book contests, we kept the submission fee to a minimum and made a fee-free option available to any writer who requested it, so as to achieve better inclusivity. As a collective, we also ensured that the prize is a respectable compensation for the chosen winners. Though the prize was announced before the Black Lives Matter movement was re-energized this year, the steady stream of political poetry we received from writers was a clear sign of the role literature can play in political reckoning. We hope to bring back this prize every year, with subsequent iterations opening up for submissions in nonfiction, graphic narrative, and other forms from writers of color.
On the Harriet blog for the Poetry Foundation, Matvei Yankelevich (co-founder of Ugly Duckling Presse) has a four-part essay on the history of small and independent presses. In “’Power to the people’s mimeo machines!’ or the Politicization of Small Press Aesthetics”, he highlights the establishment of:
Tin House, founded in 1999 as the “singular lovechild of an eclectic literary journal and a beautiful glossy magazine” committed to “stake out new territory” by showcasing “not only established, prize-winning authors” but also “work by undiscovered writers,” indicated a valuation of idiosyncrasy and irreverence, yet gave no indication of a particular community or aesthetic to the content it would publish.
Elsewhere I have discussed the dangers and misdirection of seeing “freedom” as being without ties or connections to others, when in reality so much freedom (or power) is derived from how well-connected or well-established individuals and organizations are; now, to go back to your name and the core of Radix operations (worker-owned, union strong, and eco-friendly), what communities does Radix consider itself a part or who do you all feel accountable to?
LA: Radix Media began as a movement print shop and we remain such to this day. In our earliest days—prior to any printing—we were designing flyers for activist groups, benefit posters to raise money for jail support, etc. Although our business and mission has changed over the years, we remain committed to those values. With the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, we joined forces with the World Print Coalition to offer free printing to activists doing that work, to help them amplify their message at no cost. Beyond that, we still try to look at projects on a case-by-case basis and see if we’re able to offer discounted or pro bono printing. It’s the least we can do to stay involved in activism.
In terms of accountability, first and foremost we are accountable to each other. That’s critical in a worker-owned cooperative. There’s no one at the top barking down orders, without regard for how other people feel about the decisions being made. We own this business together, we make decisions together, and if we have a bad month, we face the music together. That requires clear communication, trust, and accountability. Of course, we are also accountable to our neighbors, and our activist communities. If we ever betrayed our values, we’d be betraying them, too.
In a New York Times op-ed, Sarah McNally, owner of McNally Jackson bookstores and Goods for the Study, described the biggest threat to the life of her bookstores and to small businesses more generally: not COVID-19 or Amazon but artificially high rents in New York City. As a print-shop-meets-publisher, what do you see as the biggest challenges to the work of Radix? Built around the production side of publishing, what systemic failures and shortcomings is Radix in conversation with? And which ones do you all feel uniquely capable of addressing, given your intimate knowledge of and expertise in the production process?
LA: I’d say the biggest challenge for us is the overhead needed to sustain our operation. Many small publishers can work in home offices or co-working spaces, but we are constantly assessing our space and electrical needs. Having a big-ish space means that we keep all of our inventory onsite, which is great for us and cuts down on costs. But as we publish more titles, we will eventually need more space, and that’s difficult to come by in New York City.
We’ve also seen during the pandemic how few resources small businesses have access to. Many of them across various industries have either already closed or are in danger of closing, which really shows how fragile the economic landscape is. I think because we are a relatively lean organization, our worker-owned structure gives us the freedom and flexibility to make better decisions about our future. But that doesn’t mean we’re immune to outside forces, either. It will be important for us to always maintain a big enough space for our equipment and inventory.
EL REBOZO PALAPA EDITORIAL ON UNDERGROUND PRESSES: FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM AND LIFE
El Rebozo Palapa Editorial is a Mexico-based publisher that actively challenges and seeks alternative modes and structures to the existing heirarchical systems in literature and society, at large. Here, they explore some foundational inspirations and the values that lie at the core of their publishing program.
“Underground presses cannot survive within capitalist society . . . they are created in order to destroy capitalist relations”.
—Fredy Perlman
As we stood at Radix Media in Brooklyn, NY not many years ago, a printshop whose walls were peppered with posters and letterpress prints, this Fredy Perlman phrase stopped us in our tracks.
Immediately identifying with the poster’s imagery of an offset confronting Leviathan, we sought out and learned Fredy Perlman’s story. Displaced and stripped of his home in Czechoslovakia at a young age during the times of Nazi Germany, he was forced to migrate for his freedom.
His first stop was Bolivia, where he lived with his parents before migrating north to the United States where later on he would help start The Detroit Printing Co-op. The co-op, rooted in the principles of cooperativism, developed a sharp criticism of waged work and the exploitation that surplus value represents.
As we went deeper into Perlman’s story, we were struck by how much we identified with the co-op and his work. In 1977, it was Black & Red publications—the publishing arm of the co-op—who translated Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle into English. Debord was an author whom we considered part of our arsenal of critical thinkers. The work of Black & Red recognized the art of printing and bookmaking as a task of resistance, important in the construction of new, non-capitalist relationships.
We were reminded of the interconnection between generations and struggles, seeing our work as a small press and printer today as an inheritance from those who came before us. This tradition of independent publishing, of controlling the means to our own production has been carried out by those who dreamt of a free and dignified world, beyond capitalist society.
El Rebozo Palapa Editorial, our small press and printing cooperative, began back in 2011 in a completely free-spirited, de-professionalized, and informal way. None of us knew much about the editing process, about book binding, about margins and design; we learned by trial and error. Our work has been driven by the principles of autogestión: self-management with an implied collectivism; collective learning: seeing the book not as merchandise, but a form of sharing knowledge; and the creation of new relationships: seeing the book as a bridge to political/social relationships. It was no wonder we felt this kinship with our friends at Radix Media, who like us, also create and struggle under the principles of autogestión and cooperativism.
After almost 9 years, developing our practice of the art of printing, editing, and bookmaking, we believe that free and autonomous learning is a driving force to ensure that radical projects persist. We know that generating work spaces free of exploitation is possible. This of course has challenges of its own and demands serious discipline, passion, and commitment. Having to negotiate with capitalist society at times, or to co-exist with one foot inside and one foot out at others, is part of the challenge. But our experience has shown us that when we preserve our ethics and place the building of non-capitalist relationships at the center, we can create intentional spaces defined by our own collective terms.
Our work is the continuation of a long tradition of the printing and the spreading of ideas and proposals for liberation. For Fredy Perlman, the oppressive machine was Leviathan, in southeast Mexico, the Zapatistas have called it the Hydra, and for the Revolution of Rojava and the Kurdish people, Patriarchy and its Modern Capitalist State.
Today, there are signs that the capitalist patriarchal regime is wavering. History shows that whenever Power feels threatened, it’s chokehold becomes tighter, provoking killing and repression on a larger scale. We remain determined to carry on, and not only print and publish but actively exercise mutual support, free learning, and direct democracy. It is our task to continue to sow the seeds of rebellious publications in order to harvest hope in times of chaos and uncertainty.
Four years after coming across this poster, we hope to live up to the name of “underground press”—to preserve and defend all that exist and lift them up . . . because a good seed, once planted, is very difficult to uproot. Just like the maíz, whose seeds our pueblos have been defending for centuries, these are the seeds that in the end will continue to feed us.
After almost 9 years, developing our practice of the art of printing, editing, and bookmaking, we believe that free and autonomous learning is a driving force to ensure that radical projects persist. We know that generating work spaces free of exploitation is possible. This of course has challenges of its own and demands serious discipline, passion, and commitment. Having to negotiate with capitalist society at times, or to co-exist with one foot inside and one foot out at others, is part of the challenge. But our experience has shown us that when we preserve our ethics and place the building of non-capitalist relationships at the center, we can create intentional spaces defined by our own collective terms.
Our work is the continuation of a long tradition of the printing and the spreading of ideas and proposals for liberation. For Fredy Perlman, the oppressive machine was Leviathan, in southeast Mexico, the Zapatistas have called it the Hydra, and for the Revolution of Rojava and the Kurdish people, Patriarchy and its Modern Capitalist State.
Today, there are signs that the capitalist patriarchal regime is wavering. History shows that whenever Power feels threatened, it’s chokehold becomes tighter, provoking killing and repression on a larger scale. We remain determined to carry on, and not only print and publish but actively exercise mutual support, free learning, and direct democracy. It is our task to continue to sow the seeds of rebellious publications in order to harvest hope in times of chaos and uncertainty.
Four years after coming across this poster, we hope to live up to the name of “underground press”—to preserve and defend all that exist and lift them up . . . because a good seed, once planted, is very difficult to uproot. Just like the maíz, whose seeds our pueblos have been defending for centuries, these are the seeds that in the end will continue to feed us.
SARAH LOPEZ ON ZINES AND ZINE CULTURE
Originiating in the United States in the early 1990s, riot grrrl is an intenational underground movement that joins together feminism, punk music, and political activism. As a way to sidestep the corporate structure and to confront head-on topics otherwise seen as taboo or unwelcome by traditional outlets, zines supported the reach of riot grrrl and encouraged participation.
I was introduced to zine culture through riot grrrl. I knew about DIY publications, but didn’t know just how far-reaching zines were until I started digging deep into riot grrrl history. They combined my interests in music, politics, and print media, and became a huge obsession.
Through zines, I also learned about herbs, self-care, politics, other people’s experiences, and—most importantly—myself. While it’s always great to learn new facts or ways of doing things, the zines that I’ve treasured most are perzines, or personal zines. Like the name suggests, perzines are more personal and about the zinester’s individual experiences. The topics can range anywhere from experiences with gender, race, or medical issues, to family life. Because of zines, I probably know more intimate details about strangers than about some of the people I see on a daily basis.
It is because there are people willing to share these tender aspects of their lives that I feel less alone. Zines are where I first read about the experiences of other alternative Latinx folks. They’re where I first learned about the many privileges I didn’t realize I have. And zine fests are where I started to truly grow into myself.
Though I studied printmaking and illustration, it took me a long time to feel comfortable tabling a zine fest, festivals devoted to the presentation, celebration, and distribution of zines, but once I did, I felt right at home. Zine fests are often inclusive spaces with the aim that no one be excluded due to race, gender, or ability. A labor of love, at these fests, many are willing to swap or trade, so you can show up with zero dollars and still walk out with a new zine. The connections I have made at these fests are priceless.
And it is this feeling of community and connection that I have seen mirrored at the recent Black Lives Matter uprisings. Through such collective happenings, my hope in our ability to build a world centered around mutual aid has been renewed. In fact, while writing this essay, I realized that one of the first times I ever encountered that feeling was at a zine fest.
Zines and fests have been a lifeline for me. Not requiring a certain standard of professionalization or expertise, zines are a small project to pour my energy into every now and then, reconnecting myself with the process of making art, even when it’s difficult. Something to look forward to even when it’s hard to get excited about anything.
The more I learned about zines and their history the more I appreciated them. From the fact that you can find one on just about any topic, to their roots in the science fiction community. I love zines for all of the reasons that I love books and indie publishing: you can learn, explore, and build community around the love of exploration or whatever particular niche topic—all on your own terms.
READING CONSTELLATIONS
Bashir Abu-Manneh, The Palestinian Novel (Cambridge University Press)
Jane Alison, Meander, Spiral, Explode (Catapult)
Stephanie Alves, Outspoken Objects and Unspoken Myths (Symbolic Interaction)
Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Hill & Wang, parent company Holtzbrinck Publishing Group)
Albert Camus, The Stranger (Vintage, parent company Bertelsmann)
C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems (Princeton University Press)
Julio Cortázar, Literature Class (New Directions)
Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton, Women in Clothes (Riverhead Books, parent company Bertelsmann)
Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social (Oxford University Press)
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (Routledge, parent company Informa plc)
Orhan Pamuk, The Innocence of Objects (Abrams, parent company La Martinière Groupe)
Georges Perec, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (Wakefield Press)
Edward Said, Orientalism (Vintage, parent company Bertelsmann)
Leanne Shapton, Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry (Sarah Crichton Books, parent company Holtzbrinck Publishing Group)
Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (City Lights Publishers)
