Fri. May 17th – Sun. May 19th Central Wisconsin Action Camp!

The Central Wisconsin Action Camp will bring together organizers and activists from the Great Lakes region for a series of trainings, discussions, and workshops. We wish to challenge environmental and economic problems, including upcoming regional infrastructure projects like the Penokee Hills Taconite-Iron Mine, Frac-sand Mining, the CAPX2020 transmission line, the Keystone XL and Enbridge Pipelines, Factory Farming and High Capacity Wells, the Kennecott Nickel and Copper Mine, etc.

Your ideas are needed! No special prior experience is required to participate. There are many simple yet important ways to contribute, such as sign and banner making, legal observation, media work, etc, but if you are feeling a little bit on the wild side, there will be climbing and blockading training, as well.

To register for the action camp or more info, contact: centralwiactioncamp@gmail.com

Workshop list can be found at:  http://centralwiactioncamp.wordpress.com/workshops/

For carpooling from Madison, please contact:  thistle@riseup.net

The Infoshop goes Steampunk

This past weekend, Madame Rowdy’s Traveling Infoshoppe attended Teslacon 3, Madison’s immersion Steampunk Convention.  As an off-shoot of the Madison Infoshop, Madame Rowdy and her Victorian Luddite sidekick Ollie distributed a collection of zines assembled specifically for a politically-curious steampunk crowd.  Zines were filled with essays on race and identity, radical history, and viewing the genre through critical lenses.  Many essays hailed from blogs such as Beyond Victoriana and Steampunk Emma Goldman, or were borrowed with permissions from Steampunk Magazine (an anachro-anarcho favorite!).  Many steampunkers were thrilled to be presented with free radical literature, and we had some fun interacting with bourgeoisie in-character.  A near mutiny arose when the Queen herself toured the spaceship upon which we were traveling — punks, vagabonds, and airship pirates barraged her with shouts of “Death to the Empire!”

Our favorite steampunk union, the Airship Workers of the World, distributed posters calling for decent conditions for steerage and the ship’s crew, and an uprising of the Ninety-nine Hundredths.  They shared with us and other con-goers their union-made patches, a must-have for any socially progressive steampunk.  We were also happy to support the folks at Combustion Books, who shared their talents and knowledge of period card games and Victorian sex-ed.  They even cured a few of the con’s elite of their fascism using tesla-coil electro-shock therapy!

Zine titles available through Madame Rowdy’s Traveling Infoshop include:

• “Steampunk and Identity” by various authors
• “A Healthy Alternative to Fascism” by Steampunk Emma Goldman
• “Anti-fascist Deiselpunk” by P. Djeli Clark
• “Asians in the Americas” by Ay-leen the Peacemaker
• “Boldly into our Patina’d Future: How Speampunk Can (Help) Save the World” by Margaret Killjoy
• “Bombing Victoria: A Story of Fenian Dynamiters & British Intelligence” by Kevin Mullens
• “Fiesty Ladies of the 19th Century” by various authors
• “From the Wilds of America: Analyzing the Idea of  ‘British Colonial America’ in Steampunk” by Ay-leen the Peacemaker
• “On the Atrocities Administered in Appalachia: A Primer on Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining” by Madame Rowdy
• “My Machine, My Comrade” by Professor Calamity
• “On Race and Steampunk” by Jaymee Goh
• “Steampunks Around the World Unite: Multiculturalism in Steampunk” by Ay-leen the Peacemaker
• “Knights of the Road: The Dawn and the Rise of the Tramp Printer” by Charles Eberhardt
• “What Then, Is Steampunk?” by various authors
• “To the Tramps” by Lucy Parsons

Extra zines will be available at the Madison Infoshop kiosk at Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative.  For digital copies, or to recommend zines or essays, please get in touch with Madame Rowdy at madisoninfoshop@gmail.com.  Perhaps she’ll get one of her automatons to turn them into .pdfs and make them available at the Madison Infoshop digital library…. someday.

Also available at Rainbow Bookstore shortly will be a collection of works from Combustion Books, including the recently debuted A Steampunk’s Guide to Sex, as well as A Steampunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse, White is the Color of Death, and Catastrophone Orchestra.  We’ve had our noses in these books since getting a hold of ‘em!  And as usual, Steampunk Magazine is almost always available at our favorite radical bookstore.

Update 12/7/12: Madame Rowdy’s  Traveling Infoshoppe’s zines are now available at the Madison Infoshop Digital Zine Library!  Check ‘em out!

How To Save Rural America and the Rest of U.S. – talk with Jim Hightower Fri. Dec. 7th 7:00 pm Rm. 180 Science Hall, UW-Madison

Introduced by Sarah Lloyd, Rural Sociologist and active member of Family Farm Defenders and Wisconsin Farmers Union

The former TX Agricultural Commissioner and populist radio talk show commentator will address the current crisis facing family farmers and how grassroots solutions to our current political morass could save all of America.

Hosted by the Madison Infoshop, FH King Students for Sustainable Agriculture, Family Farm Defenders, and others with support from Associated Students of Madison (ASM).

Madison Zine Fest & Dane County Print Explosion! Fri. Nov 9th – Sat. Nov. 10th 2012

Fri. Nov. 9^th 7:00 pm – 11:00 pm Ambrosia Co-op (225 E. Lakelawn Pl.)  Kick-Off open-mic/variety show party for the Dane County Print Explosion/Madison Zine Fest 2012!
DIY art, music and zines! Come early to enjoy delicious snacks for zinesters and their friends!  Performances include:  spoken word by Ali Muldrow; Thistle and Thorns – radical folk; Miranda Moon – fusion bellydance ; 9-uh – interpretive piano; Cassidy Ann – original singer/songwriter and YOU! bring a comedy routine, break dance, skit, your favorite zines or just a fancy outfit to wear to this gala event!  $5 suggested donation and/or bring “gently used/new” softcover books for Wisconsin Books to Prisoners (WBTP).  Any proceeds will got to WBTP, a project of Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative.  Info?  www.madisoninfoshop.org  or #262 9036.

Sat. Nov. 10^th 11:00 am – 5:00 pm  UW-Madison, Helen C. White Library (600 N. Park St.)  Madison Zine Fest and First Annual Dane County Print Explosion!  Join us for this  one-day show of printed matter, including posters, stickers, zines, journals, and books. The roster of exhibitors includes experimental publishers, visual artists, artisanal bookmakers and printers, radical imprints, grassroots zine authors, and activist designers. The exhibitors hail from across Wisconsin and from around the United States. Drawing on the traditions of radical book fairs, artistic printed matter, and the zine underground, the DCPE is a meeting place for contemporary print media subcultures. For lovers and collectors of creative print media, this is the place to buy, sell, trade, meet, talk, grok.  Plus, there will be a series of related workshops across Library Mall in the Humanities Building.  Info?  Check out: http://printexplosion.blogspot.com/

 

Free Women, Wobblies and Brown Berets – Fall 2012 Discussion Series on the History of Radical Urban Politics in the Midwest!

Every Other Thurs. Sept. 6^th – Dec. 20th 7:00 pm  Rainbow Bookstore (426 W. Gilman)

In this free community discussion series, co-hosted by Rainbow Bookstore and the Madison Infoshop, we’ll explore historic episodes of radical urban political protest in the Midwest.  What were the conditions that led poor tenants, workers, immigrants, and urban youth to challenge ruling elites in such ways?  Which strategies were successful?  How can we draw upon this legacy and build more effective grassroots coalitions for our organizing today?

This is meant to be an interactive participatory discussion, so the topics are open to change.  People are also welcome to join the series whenever, though each session will certainly build upon prior discussions.  Below is a tentative schedule:

Thurs. Sept.  6th – Introduction and Overview

Thurs. Sept. 20th  – 1886 Hay Market Riot in Chicago, Milwaukee’s Bay View Massacre

Thurs. Oct. 4^th –  Birth of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Chicago 1905

Thurs. Oct. 18^th –  Jane Addams, Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman & Friends

Thurs. Nov. 1^st -  1934 Minneapolis Teamsters Strike vs Right Wing Citizen’s Alliance

Thurs. Nov. 15^th -  Father Groppi, Civil Rights, and the 1967 “Race Riot” in Milwaukee

Thurs. Nov. 29^th – Young Lords, American Indian Movement (AIM), Black Panthers

Thurs. Dec. 6^th -  “Urban Renewal,” Tenant Rights, and Isaiah 5:8 Committee in Madison

Thurs. Dec. 20^th – Wrap-up and Conclusion

Suggested short readings will be made available the week before each topic.  A more detailed bibliography is also available upon request.

Questions?  jepeck@wisc.edu  #262-9036

Dis-Orientation Manual for 2012-2013 is Available!

Thanks to the herculean efforts of several volunteers, the 2012-2013 edition of the Dis-Orientation Manual is now OUT well before the start of the semester!  For those unfamiliar with the manual, it is an antidote to all the other glossy lit one gets if you’re new to town, chock-full of useful material from a radical perspective.  Since the Madison Infoshop first published a Dis-O Manual back in 1992, this popular guide to alternative resources has helped thousands of folks find their activist footing in this new community.

You can pick up your Dis-O manual at both the main Madison Infoshop (1019 Williamson St.) or at the new Madison Infoshop annex within Rainbow Bookstore (426 W. Gilman).  Copies of the Dis-O Manual will also be distributed at the Student Org. Fair on Tues. Sept. 11th (5 – 8 pm Kohl Center) and to those who join the Radical Historic Walking Tour on Thurs. Sept. 13th (4- 6 pm meet up in front of Memorial Library).

Madison Free Store

If you ever get the chance, check out the Madison Free Store at the Madison Infoshop, 1019 Williamson Street (basement). Its a small corner in the Infoshop where there is usually clothes, electronic widgets, books, miscellaneous widgets, magazines, and many other surprises (probably other widgets). Its free, but the ultimate idea is to take and give back so that the Free Store stays alive. Its a Really Really Free Market on a more continuous basis.

Madison Infoshop Is Your Best Friend

If you would like to be a Friend of the Infoshop and receive more information about upcoming events and what we are up to, check out:

http://groups.google.com/group/madisoninfoshop

Activism, Anarchism and Aging

July 17 at 7p.m. at the Infoshop The Madison Infoshop Collective is hosting a discussion on Activism, Anarchism, and Aging. The event is an open, round-table discussion on the intersection of … activism, anarchism, and aging… about whatever you’d want to talk about. Some ideas include: selling out, agism, dominant youth [sub]culture, the astrological Saturn Return, community support, collective old-folks’ homes, inter-generational organizing, mentoring, cynicism, burnout, etc. We look forward to holding a discussion across generations, making space to hear what each other have to say on this hot topic that’s not often openly discussed! We’re tentatively planning to meet at the main Infoshop.

Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army invading Madison, WI

After a fun-filled performance at Rainbow Bookstore Co-op last summer, the Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army will return to the store on Monday, July 9th at 7pm as a part of a tour of North America.

This summer’s tour features their newest puppet production, “Donny Quixote!”, a scathing critique of “green” capitalism and “green” technology told through a humorous adaptation of the story of Don Quixote. In addition to the featured show, the Puppet Army will be bringing a few fun performances, including a charming cantastoria. They will also be travelling with a distro of material related to the content of the show.

All Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army shows are non sub-culturally specific and rated PG. To learn more about the troupe and past shows, please visit their website: mrpuppetarmy.wordpress.com