locustreview

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The newest episode of Locust Radio is now live.

We have guests! Artists Omnia Sol (whose music you will recognize as a regular feature at Locust Radio) and Adam Ray Adkins (a.k.a. Dirt: Son of Earth and co-host of the Acid Left videocast) come on the show to talk their own work, the impact of acid communism, and what it means to build a 21st century psychedelic reason. Each of our guests shares some of their poetry and music, and we hear some more of Tish’s ongoing novel Sound. Plus, just in time for the holidays, we get to hear what actually happened to George Bailey that night in Pottersville, after the Angel of History intervened...

For the second half of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, Markley and Adkins share more of their work. We also talk a bit more about narrative conceptualism, and why the Peoria Cookie Monster mural is so much more interesting than those stupid fucking monoliths that have been appearing lately. If you want to hear this portion, and haven’t subscribed yet, do so now.

Check out more of Omnia Sol’s work on YouTube and Instagram and support their work on Patreon. Check out Adam Ray Adkins’ work at his YouTube, his Instagram, and listen to the Acid Left.

Some additional material we reference in this episode: “Acid Communism,” unfinished introduction to Mark Fisher’s book of the same name, as it appears in K-Punk; “An Essay On Liberation,” by Herbert Marcuse; Postcapitalist Desire, by Mark Fisher, with an introduction by Matt Colquhoun

Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol.

Snow footstep sound effects by ("Footsteps, Snow, A.wav" and "Running, Snow, A.wav") by InspectorJ of Freesound.org

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In our quixotic attempt to help create the gravediggers’ multiverse, the Born Again Labor Museum and Locust Review are releasing the second Irrealist Worker Survey. All survey fields are optional. Fill out as much or as little as you like. We eagerly look forward to your responses! And please share the survey widely with your friends, comrades, neighbors, and families. It is up to all of us to build the gravediggers’ multiverse.

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Adam, Tish, and Alex discuss all manner of post-election oddities, and what they tell us about an imminent Joe Biden presidency. We also talk about the prospects for anti-fascism, the tasks of radical art, and why brunch is a stupid idea for a meal in the first place. Plus, poetry from Tish and fellow Locust editor Mike Linaweaver, and the final thoughts of two very severed heads.

For the second half of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, we share some of our current writing and research, including a much-overlooked group of writers who tried to claim sci-fi for communism in the 1930s, and an overview of the work of Hugo-nominated fantasy writer Chuck Tingle. If you want to hear this portion, and haven’t subscribed yet, do so now.

Selected articles and work discussed in Ep. 3: “The Urgency of Anti-Fascism,” by Adam Turl, Tempest, October 15th, 2020; Starship Troopers, written by Eric Neumeier, directed by Paul Verhoeven; “The Politics of the Pandemic: Panel I,” part of Historical Materialism Online, featuring Rob Wallace, Richard Seymour, Josep Maria Antentas, George Nikolaidis; “Out of the Castle and Into the Street: Art Under Trump,” editorial in Red Wedge, January 20th, 2017;  “‘One thinge that ouerthroweth all that were graunted before’: On Being Presidential,” by China Mieville, Salvage, January 30th, 2018.

Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol.

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Some of the folks from Locust Review discuss “Irrealism as a Socialist Cultural Strategy” at the Historical Materialism conference (online this year because of Covid 19 and all)...

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Join us on Thursday, November 12 (18:30 GMT, 1:30pm EST, 12:30pm CST, 10:30am PST) for a Locust Review panel discussion at this year’s (virtual) Historical Materialism conference. Our panel, focusing on “Irrealism as Socialist Cultural Strategy” will feature Locust editorial collective members Alexander Billet on “The Case for Critical Irrealism,” Holly Lewis on “How Collective Dreams Can End the Sleep of Reason,” Adam Turl on “Their Weird and Ours: Socialist Irrealism vs. Fascist Occultism,” and Anupam Roy on “Representational Impossibility: A Propagandist’s Urgencies and Crisis.”

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Some election day poetry from Locust Review editor Alexander Billet, loosely inspired by Bertolt Brecht's War Primer. "In the plague times, we will spend / hours… days… waiting. / We no longer remember what is at the end. / Voting center? Food pantry?"

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Trash Mage

Poem by Tish Markley from Locust #2

One night, you’ll get up from the chair, tired of your music and the cricket’s chirp. You’ll head outside, engrossed in your phone, and only look up after your cigarette is lit.

On the trash can, there will be a man draped, head bowed, admiring his hospital blanket cape, and he will be talking to the pigeons sleeping above him.

Trash Mage will raise his arms towards the steel canopy, shaking the scratchy blanket free from his shoulders revealing he’s only wearing torn swimming trunks. Tied around his middle is a red tie from a garbage bag, with a flashlight and a lighter tied to the slack.

He will say he’s schizophrenic, but it’s safe because he knows. He will say he knows the voices he hears – he will pause to cover himself and ask for a cigarette – the voices aren’t real even if they’re pretty cool.

Next time you see him, head shaved, he’ll be dressed in two coats and Carhartt pants. He’ll say your boss told him he can’t come inside. He’ll say he knows it’s not your fault, but he’ll try to steal peanut butter. After he apologizes he asks for one last cigarette before he takes the 109 to wherever looks quiet.

Kirsten, chain-smoking Timeless Times, will quietly side-eye Trash Mage He’ll say he wants to build a gazebo, big enough to house everyone without a home, and Kirsten will call him crazy, despite once telling you about feelings, and how she sometimes has to cut hers out.

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What is it?

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And then you have a Spinal Tap moment reciting Wordsworth over Wordsworth’s grave. 

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Mother of the end of history! 

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detail, Vivarium Annex - Born Again Labor Museum

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from Tish Markley’s short story Memez...

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from the Stateless Militia series by Anupam Roy

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art by Sambaran Das from Locust #2.

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Adam Ray Adkins, "Catch up loser, I made a playlist for the sacrifice!" 2020 mixed media on canvas. Check out our interview with Adkins in the current issue of Locust Review.

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Most souls automatically find themselves in heaven, which turns out to be a multidimensional holy battery created to boost god’s power. Only those who specifically made pacts with demons end up in hell, which isn’t so much a place of punishment as it is just some other god’s soul battery. The Queers build cozy enclaves with warm hearths in the perpetual rain of limbo.