the committee for the study of desert alchemy

“A militant nationwide uprising did, in fact, occur.  The progressive wing of the counter-insurgency seeks the denial and the disarticulation of the event. “ – Idris Robinson, How It Might Should Be Done

Hunkering Down, This isn’t What We Imagined. Pandemic Journal. COVID-19

March 14th, 2020. Tucson AZ

Between all the anxiety, the prepping, the sifting through the good and bad info, and the endless talk of mutual aid networks and meetings, there’s this strange underlying feeling that I see come up in moments from some of my closest friends. For the longest time, we have imagined what a prolonged suspension of normality might look like. We’ve called it many things. Social Rupture. Insurrection. Collapse. Disaster. Riots. Generalized Unrest. We imagine what our response would be, what we would call it. Disaster Relief. Mutual Aid. A street gang with politics. A street gang against politics. A contagion to spread the rupture. Disaster Communism. Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs. At times, some of us have even experienced these things on some level, at Standing Rock, Ferguson, Baltimore, Charlottesville, and even in moments at the G20 in Pittsburgh, Hamburg, or Donald Trumps Inauguration. (Yes, despite what many of our milieu remember from that day, a lot more happened than a brutalized and badly planned march and a kettle of 200 of our friends.)

I think in our speculation and imagination we have space for all the bad ways this could go. and certainly in our lived experience we have seen plenty of bad ways this has gone. A friend shot and revived in Ferguson. A comrade losing an eye or an arm in the plains of North Dakota. Heather Heyer dead and countless friends injured, bleeding on the ground all around us.

But I’m not sure any of us really expected this. Not this way at least. This isn’t what we imagined.

Typically, in a disaster or some other rupture, people come out to the same place. Theres a focal point. West Florrissant. Zucotti Park. Generally my friends don’t like things too centralized but we see a coming together as a good thing. This isn’t the kind of decentralization that we wanted. What to do when the reality of the situation demands we keep each other at a distance? If the folks at Chuang are right, that  “The quarantine, then, is like a strike hollowed of its communal features but nonetheless capable of delivering a deep shock to both psyche and economy.”

then what does it look like to move in a crisis that is physically the opposite of anything we have practiced or speculated about before? This feeling that pervades is one of confusion. We are disoriented. Sometimes I catch it in a glance or a tone of voice. Maybe the trick will be to truly sit in the confusion? To be a force of steady, patient confidence? Maybe diving headlong into it is the way to best learn from it. To pull open the doors of possibility in a way we haven’t thought of before. This is completely new to us. This isn’t what we imagined.

March 16th, 2020. Tucson AZ

talked too much about the virus. read too much about the virus. talked to too many friends wanting to flee, or stuck. we need more housing for our friends. stayed up too late, emergency house meeting for a friend in a pinch. sleepy typing. mutual aid virtual assembly yesterday. actually worked. actually amazing. impressed face. 3 hours long. my friends spent all day condensing and translating the notes and they’re still not done. J20 all over again but for everyone. full write up later.

to build a fire print

broken down by chapter, we encourage the reading of this text from 2010, examining the historical promises and pitfalls of vitalism and what we might salvage from the wreckage. if what we mean by freedom or autonomy or a life in common or whatever can’t speak of what we mean by life, what are we speaking of? we are only posting the imposed for printing versions. let us not give up the sensation of paper on our skin so willingly.

introduction. chapter 1. chapter 2. chapter 3. chapter 4. notes and index.