Gone To Croatan
One of the goals I've set for myself for the year 2006---i.e., to publish a book, or take significant steps toward making that happen---has gotten a big boost in the last few days. As I have stated previously (just click on the "croatan" tag), I have been given the opportunity to edit a book which would, in some form or another, be a follow-up to the book Gone To Croatan: Origins Of North American Dropout Culture. I have the blessing of Ron Sakolsky, one of the editors of the first book, and I now have heard from one of the members of the Autonomedia collective saying that there is definite interest on their part in publishing it. Now, I want to be clear that this is only interest---Jim Fleming has been too busy with end-of-the-year paperwork to look at my proposal, but Ben (the member of the collective with whom I have been in regular contact) says Jim is aware of the project, and I should hear from him soon. Ben would like a more thorough outline of the proposed project to present to the rest of the editorial collective, so that is my task for the immediate future.
With this information, I wrote to Ron Sakolsky yesterday, asking if he could share with me what files, information, etc. he has compiled in the last several years. I heard back from him this morning, and he said he is busy with some other projects currently, but has invited me out to Vancouver in April or May to start work on the project.
In the meantime, I have begun work on a more detailed outline for the book, and I am actively calling for ideas, proposals, suggestions, criticism, hints, etc. for this project. Consider yourselves enlisted in the cause!
Here's some of what I've come up with so far:
"Withdrawing In Disgust Is Not The Same As Apathy": Slackers & The Continuities Of Dropout Culture In The '90s---could include a discussion the ethics of dropping out (i.e., the very precise wording of the titular phrase); the lack of other options in the face of branding and the marketing of rebellion (see Thomas Frank's The Conquest Of Cool); the Situ influence, etc.
"I wait in Bughouse Square...": Hobo Prophets As Tricksters & Holy Fools---Slim Brundage, Kenneth Rexroth, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, et al., and the whole lineage, as bridges between the Wobbly/hobo underworld and later forms of cultural dropouts like the Beats---ersatz insanity as a praxis of resistance, i.e., why is "Haywire Mac" haywire?---Mac's heirs could include Harry Partch, Moondog, Tom Waits, and Wesley Willis; the title is a line from the Tom Waits song "Earth Died Screaming," and I have often wondered at his inclusion of the line---the liminality of Bughouse Square (a space between spaces, a doorway)
Pirates, Partisans, and The Johnson Family: A Burroughsian Praxis & Strategy Of Dropping Out As Resistance---specifically, an examination of drop-out culture through the lens of Burroughs final trilogy, in which, variously, pirates, partisans, gunslingers, and the "Johnson Family of good bums and thieves" create an underground (and largely invisible) network of resistance to the colonial machinery in the Americas; Burroughs also dealt with this, to some degree, in his "Blade Runner, A Movie", with a network of resisters in the swamps from east Texas to southern New Jersey; could and should include a discussion of the map and the territory, psychogeography, nomadism, etc.
I am also very much interested in the "back-to-the-land" movement, from its origins with Helen & Scott Nearing and Ralph Borsodi, through Mildred Loomis, the School Of Living, and the publication "Green Revolution", all the way up to the Mother Earth News, the Whole Earth Catalog, and hippie communes in the '60s. Also, anarchists, squatters, and hackers in the '80s and '90s---is this not also another example of dropout culture?! So much to think about and do!
Give me feedback, people!