Journal of Radical Shimming Issue 9 I Three Part Path: A brief X Punk Politics? Or lack guide to making a pilgrimage for the thereof? A Punk House is only a purpose of reforming your relation- Pedagogical Beginning ship to the landscape P. 89 Cassie Troyan P. 0, 17 Mike Wolf XI An Introduction to the II Feral Children, Civilized Introduction to “After the Fall” Gaze: Adapting to the Wild Mirror P. 93 Gabriel Saloman P. 24 Robin Hustle XII Introduction to After III Cascadia Journal 1907, the Fall 1912 (from F I L M) P. 95 P. 1, 29 Ola Ståhl1 XIII January 7, 2010 in Reggie’s Journal of Radical Shimming 9 Journal IV Vedem House Soul Food Restaurant in P. 37 Matthew Stadler Detroit, Michigan P. 108 V Dear Laura, P. 2, 43 Dan S. Wang XIV LIVING FOR CHANGE: Re-Imagining America, Re-Creating VI Flatlands: Non-Hierarchical Ourselves Space and its Uses P. 4, 113 Grace Lee Boggs P. 3, 52 Sam Gould XV First Encounter at the VII Introduction to Boggs Center “MYSTERY ECOLOGY” (2009) P. 115 Dan S. Wang P. 75 Gabriel Saloman XVI Half of a quick report-back VIII Introduction to “Media- from the January 7 Boggs Center tion, Self-Marginalization and Post meeting Politics in Protest Media” (2009) P. 117 Mike Wolf P. 78 Robby Herbst XVII Varieties of Craft, IX A Conversation between Smoothness, Alchemical Pedagogy Sam Gould, Gabriel Saloman and P. 4, 119 Dylan Gauthier Robby Herbst concerning the You- Tube School for Social Politics XVIII Late night talkback assess- P. 80 ing A/AA and educational staging as a Politics over homemade Ginger Tea, Vancouver, B.C. Canada P. 6, 129 I Pull the pages you need out of the book and keep them in a plastic bag to protect them from rain and sweat and wear. Borrow or purchase a simple compass. P. 19 III When we arrived in Oregon they made note of our names. / a note were made of our names and there was a chef and he took us into an old railway carriage and pointed at two sleeping berths. / When we arrived in Oregon they made note of our names and there was a chef and he took us into an old railway carriage and pointed at two sleeping berths we would dispose over. / P. 31 V VI Having been provided an ex- posure to this experimental method, I and many of Paul’s students adopted a particular kind of activist mode: histori- cally-informed, thesis-positing, continually self-educating, and taking action in the world. P. 48 In re-telling the above histories in brief, and framing them specifically within a context of, not simply education, but pedagogy, my desire is to promote a view of education that is plural and positively haphazard. P. 59 XIV It never occurred to me that eventually my identity would be shaped not mainly by my ethnicity, class or gender but by how I responded to the challenge to rebuild, redefine and respirit Detroit from the ground up. P. 114 XVII Craft is finely interwoven with luxury, as a craftsper- son’s time is costly. But when boats are not built for luxury, they are built of necessity. A boat should be a way of traveling across water surfaces while staying mostly dry. We wanted each boat to be rapidly re- producible by anyone. The conceptual plan emerged long before the initial construction phases but became enmeshed with it as well. I had also been thinking initially about tides and flood-lines left on houses in New Orleans, and it was easy to project in what we were doing some kind of eco-apocalyptic remediation project, some kind of Ark or escape hatch. P. 125 XVIII JRS Issue 9 9 • winter as the sun began to set early in grey New York. Tomorrow would be Has Anyone Seen Monday, the beginning of the school week. In Louis’s cracker nightmare the Bridge? I sensed he had been experiencing something similar to this dread I was An Introduction to JRS 9 remembering—a desperate feeling, an attempt to grasp something out Not too long ago, a few weeks before of reach that couldn’t quite be un- my twin girls were born, my son woke derstood, but something that felt so up in bed with a start. He kept repeat- so important that the very thought ing the same word, over and over. At of not being able to get to it in the first I couldn’t quite make out what it end made you feel alone, vulner- was that he was saying. Concerned, able, open to any and all levels of at- I tried to comfort him, running my tack. Crackers indeed. As I thought hand through his hair, telling him about what Louis might have been everything was fine. I attempted to experiencing, and I pursued this line decipher what it was that was upset- of thinking further, I was reminded ting him so much that it woke him, in of one incident in particular that I shock, at three in the morning. As the hadn’t considered in years. situation began to calm somewhat, Louis’s voice began to even out and Ms. Dixon was my sixth grade sci- I heard clearly for the first time what ence teacher and she was an asshole. was making him so anxious. Over Or at least that’s what I felt at the and over again he cried out, to no one time. To me she seemed a wild mix of in particular, “Crackers! Crackers! emotions, at turns kind and toughly Crackers!” Though he was obviously caring, while equally spiteful, and very upset, I couldn’t help but find it purposefully cruel. Almost twenty hilarious that my son was so uncon- years in the past my memory of my sciously concerned with crackers. Did time in her class is, of course, hazy. he desire them that much? Did he What I do recall is that, while try- find himself being attacked by spec- ing as best I could to get through the tral crackers in the night? work she assigned, I did horribly in every respect no matter how hard I The following morning, after drop- tried. Never all too comfortable in ping him off at school I was relaying school, when feeling out of place, this story to a friend. In its retelling hemmed in by the limitations of vari- a feeling came over me, a feeling I ous teaching methods and my own hadn’t felt that severely since child- process of learning, I would be com- hood. A palpable emptiness, coupled bative. I’d fight the situation at hand, with sincere fright, this feeling often uncertain and afraid because I didn’t I have to say it broke my heart to leave the structure, the thing. But when it comes down to it, Columbus consumed when I was young, late know the answers. Or so it seemed. doesn’t need another physical space for activity, it needs a different kind of activity to create within existing on Sunday afternoons, especially in That said, while I may have enacted spaces. I’d say that about the earth, in general, at this moment. P. 134 10 Introduction JRS Issue 9 11 any number of feats of subterfuge, morning will come and the crackers aim, an engagement with disparate published in Issue #2 of the JRS as shrinking from confrontation was will, or will not, still be there. Take it and anarchic forms of learning on part of our project Learning is Fun not one of them. That is, until Ms. as it is and work your way through it”. all levels, as well as an examination and Dangerous which took place Dixon. As the pressure of her class The bridge will always be crumbling of the more dominant forms that we over a weeks time at Reed College. and her aggressive teaching methods behind us. The job, on our part, is to encounter throughout our day-to- Released in the spring of 2007, this increased, and her distrust and com- consider if that is a threat or a gift. day lives. issue was broken up into many indi- plete lack of empathy for my just not vidual zines, which were then pack- getting it continued, I grew more and If we’ll agree that the framework Within this, Issue #9 of the JRS, these aged in full as one whole edition. more introverted and afraid. My anx- we’ve established for our grade inquiries come in the form of, among Issue #2 was our smallest print-run to iety grew. It got so bad that I couldn’t school’s, our high school’s, our col- others, a consideration of non-hierar- date, at somewhere around 200 cop- go to school. I wasn’t skipping out lege’s—our mass-culture learning chical educational sites, a pilgrimage ies of complete editions. I don’t think and fooling my folks or the school institutions in general—are there as through the landscape and its uses, I even have a complete edition of this in the process, I couldn’t even bring much to help us navigate the world YouTube as an anarchic pan-demo- issue. In light of how extraordinary myself to leave the house. outside of those spaces and their in- cratic educational space, boat build- the story of the boys of Home One herent social dynamics, as they are ing as a pedagogical construct for the and the magazine Vedem is, we felt it I’ve had my fair share of anxiety- there to assist us in accessing discrete consideration of singular craft over vital to reprint this text in book form ridden situations in my life, just like forms of knowledge, what does it say mass-production, a brief overview for it to gain a wider and more last- everyone else.