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

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!

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).

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/

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

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).

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

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