Strange Matters Magazine

this article is the reason he won the Nobel, they told me over the phone

No Such Thing as a Way Out - Strange Matters Krasznahorkai employs an almost cubist prose—we are somehow given the inside of a narrator’s mind from every angle at once.

Congrats to friend of the mag László Krasznahorkai for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature -- a well deserved award for someone whom real heads have known for years as a master of neo-modernism.

@jakeromm.bsky.social wrote about him for us in 2023.

strangematters.coop/chasing-home...

Issue Five is in production and will be coming soon to our website and the doorsteps of our subscribers!

IMPORTANT: Are you an SM subscriber who's moved since the last number came out? Make sure to log on to our website and *change your address* so the issue arrives where it ought to!

one of the reasons i cover such a broad scope of topics - e.g. gaming, politics, protest/movement journo, genocide, sports, technology, just to name a few - is because these issues aren't independent of each other, at all

every issue is interconnected. here's why that should give you hope. 🧵

this manifests in me taking it to it logical conclusions in anarchism & the theory that informs it. i know many MLs may roll their eyes at that (i implore you to read anarchist theory, especially anarchist economic theory - see @strangemattersmag.bsky.social), but its the truth of my views.

I do feel a bit bitter at people who were like, "oh it's not fascism if you can say it's fascism."

Now you can't. yay?

Pulitzer Bait - Strange Matters The decline in book titles: a taxonomy of Pulitzer Bait, in most of its common variations.

Walk into any bookstore and the #book #titles aren’t just bad, they’re outrageously bad; and they’re not just outrageously bad, but outrageously bad in very much the same way.
strangematters.coop/pulitzer-bai...

Very, very bad stuff coming from leading right-wingers

ICE agents in the Park Ave neighborhood spark large-scale protest The group shouted “shame” and "Gestapo,” and applauded as agents in the ICE-led action drove a Border Patrol SUV away on four flat tires, which had been slashed.

Federal immigration agents were seemingly forced to retreat from a roofing job site in Rochester, NY, after being confronted by more than 100 protesters

The workers stayed on the roof and agents drove away in a Border Patrol SUV on four flat tires, which had been slashed

Socks - Strange Matters I had been working at this private hospital for about nine months when I broke.

Labor day 2021 was a breaking point for me, I am still working on building myself back up to a fully functional human being 😅
strangematters.coop/socks-al-wri...

Buy Boltcutters! - Strange Matters Robert Evans has become a fixture of not only the Portland antifascist scene but the press corps too.

I liked this profile by Mary Steffenhagen in @strangemattersmag.bsky.social of @iwriteok.bsky.social

strangematters.coop/robert-evans...

appreciate yall so much <3 - i have an even bigger project im part of with @transnews.network that yall may be interested in checking out ;)

go support Gazan oomfs www.gofundme.com/f/providing-...

So exciting to see one of our writers launch a new and urgent publication. Congrats @thefreeradical.org!

You can read Mira's account of trying to unionize a McDonalds with the IWW in Issue 2:

strangematters.coop/mcdonalds-un...

What Should Money Be Made From? - Strange Matters History of Chartalism Pt. 1 Debates over money are really debates about power, the political order, and economic planning.

Everything you think you know about money is wrong strangematters.coop/history-of...

Wobbly Economics – Part I - Strange Matters Fred Lee's war against the neoclassical economists.

you read this article yet? strangematters.coop/frederic-s-l... it’s one of my favorite talking points now

Great discussion, looking forward to digging into @htwvmag.bsky.social and placing it on my shelf next to @strangemattersmag.bsky.social and Long Haul (longhaulmag dot com)

One thing about the post-Covid crash in legitimately popular (if niche) small businesses & third places:
it's an easy guess they went out of business because of external pressures rooted in the blank-brained, greedy demands of the rentier class & possibly also unhelpful regulations & tax schemes.

More people need to read Quinn Soutar's essay "The Socio-Material Lens" in Strange Matters @strangemattersmag.bsky.social

Shoah Bonus Round The whole point of a skull is to hit other people with the skull. Why even bother with atrocity if it doesn’t lead down a blood slick path to more and better atrocities? The hollow place in your heart, the gutted cavern retching dirt, is our heritage of righteousness shining grey like murder.

got a bunch of more or less explicitly antifascist poems up at Strange Matters, including one on Webern and this short piece below.

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But we shouldn't mistake this rage for self-loathing. Berlatsky is clearly full of affection & good humor for the traditions in which he was raised -- see his wordplay meditation on the nature of the law. He dreams of other ways out of our conditions but bombs & ethnic cleansing.

But classical fascism isn't his only target. As a Jewish man, Berlatsky is filled with rage at the atrocities now being committed in his name.

This bursts forth in the explosively titled "Shoah Bonus Round," a denunciation worthy of a prophet of the misuses of collective memory.

The poems are a mix of satire, elegy, & history. Few worthy targets escape their bite.

In the modernist composer Anton Weber, who had fascist sympathies but was banned by the Nazis, Berlatsky finds a sharp analogy to our own artists-gone-chud. Ironies abound at each line break.

“Gleich und Gleich” & Other Poems - Strange Matters The whole point of a skull / is to hit other people with the skull.

‪
What does Jewish identity mean to Jews -- along w/ the Holocaust, fascism, & modernism -- in light of the ascent of authoritarianism & the genocide in Gaza?

@nberlat.bsky.social has brought the full force of his mordant, piercing poetry to bear on the matter.

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Tbh I kinda expected this, I think it’s a way bigger indictment of the military leadership that there has been zero resignations or statements

Exclusive: Hundreds at Alligator Alcatraz have no criminal charges, Miami Herald learns Descriptions of the Everglades detention center as a place for violent criminals tell only part of the story.

People who entered the US legally and have no criminal charges are being held in the Everglades camp, according to records obtained by the Miami Herald. Maybe that’s why the government won’t release the names of those being detained. www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

my “not the gestapo” shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by my shirt and if you don’t stop asking them, i’ll have you disappeared.

The Department of Homeland Security is reversing last week’s pause on immigration enforcement actions at agricultural and hotel worksites, per my colleague Gabe Gutierrez.

CONFIRMED

ICE accuses Lander of assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer