Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair
I recently had the pleasure of tabling at the Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair. (I love to table. I am a tabling robot. I am speaking in a robot voice.) I flew out of Baltimore on Friday 10/8 to head to Edmonton. My flight got in at 11:30 or something ridiculous like that, and bookfair organizers Sean and Jeff were kind enough to pick me up from the airport and take me to a DANCE PARTY! I was so gruesomely tired and luckily the dancing part was winding down so I didn’t have to limp around the dance floor like the old jet-lagged hag that I was. This turned out to be great as it gave me a chance to mill about and talk to some new folks. Yay talking to new folks at anarchist bookfairs! After the party I was ushered to my accommodations (or “billets” in Canadian), which were at the house of a friend of theirs who happened to be out of town all weekend. I had a shower in my room, which was very luxurious, and good wireless so I could obsessively check my email throughout the night. A far cry from the sleeping bag on the floor that I’m used to when tabling.
Saturday morning I woke up refreshed at a mad decent hour, caffeinated myself, walked around the neighborhood a bit, and strolled the leisurely 5 blocks to the site of the bookfair. Finding a farmers market on the way was a bonus, so I picked up some fruit and carrots to munch on throughout the day (not realizing that the bookfair organizers had an entire kitchen crew working all weekend to feed the speakers, tablers, and bookfair-goers. They made freaking sushi and samosas and stew and they were awesome). The bookfair took place at the Cosmopolitan Music Center and attached community center. I rearranged the table, put out new stock and settled in with the Edmonton Wobs on one side, and Black Books Distro from Edmonton on the other. Some of the other vendors were Black Cat Press, PM Press, Black Sheep Collective in Calgary, Migratory Words Literary Collective, Vegan Outreach in Edmonton, Make Total Distro, ThoughtcrimeInk, and more!
Saturday night there was another dance party. The theme for the night: Pajamarchy! I’m not gonna lie; there was a whole lot of no-pants going on. This was followed by an after-party, which was followed by an after-after-party (which may or may not have taken place in a drained swimming pool, and which I very wisely decided to forego, though I hear it was fun!). Gotta give a shout out to organizers who make sure that dance parties get built in to anarchist bookfairs.
On Sunday I was hungover and wore my sunglasses inside! A new friend brought me a gatorade! I did a lot of trade sales! It was great!
Workshops throughout the weekend included “What is Capitalism? What is Revolution?”, “Beyond Resistance: Logistics of Struggle”, “The Web of Struggles: Organizing Across Multiple Sites of Oppression” hosted by No One is Illegal, and “Community Organizing 101: How to talk to (and work with) Non-Anarchists.” I didn’t see any of them, because I was at the table selling a crap-ton of books. Folks were pretty excited to get the new AK titles without the insane cost of international shipping. AK Thompson’s Black Bloc, White Riot was a huge hit, along with Cindy Milstein’s Anarchism and Its Aspirations.
There were a lot of really cool folks there and it was my pleasure to make their acquaintance. Also, I didn’t realize how far north Edmonton is. I looked at in on a map after I got there and had a panic attack that I was at the top of the freaking world and might fly off into the outer atmosphere! But I didn’t. I got back to Baltimore Monday night, lighter by one mostly-empty tube of toothpaste confiscated by customs officers. And I didn’t even get run out of the country for telling the best Canadian anarchist joke ever! Okay, okay, I’ll tell it…
Why do Canadian anarchists like bagels?
Because they’re a circle, eh?