Episode Summary

B and M from Rot Glow Farm teach Inmn about how to farm mushrooms in the forest. They talk about their farm and growing set up, as well as the Lobelia Commons project they work with, and the Earthbound Almanac that they help put out.

Host Info

Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery.

Guest Info

Rot Glow Farm can be found on Instagram @RotGlowFarm. Lobelia Commons can be contacted at [email protected] or found on Instagram @LobeliaCommons or on Twitter @LobeliaCommons.

The Earthbound Almanac can be found at www.Earthbound.farm or on Emergent Goods at https://www.emergentgoods.com/

Deadline for submissions is July 31st, 2023.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

Live Like the World is Dying: Rot Glow Farm on Forest Farming Mushrooms

Inmn 00:16 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host Inmn Neruin, and this week we're going to be talking about something really fun. And that is fungi. Specifically, we're going to be talking about how someone can grow mushrooms for food or medicine. And we're going to be talking with the folks that operate Rot Glow Farm where they grow mushrooms in the forest. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channels Zero Network of anarchist podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network. Doo do do doo doo doooo. [Making noises that sound like singing a melody]

Inmn 01:40 And we're back. Thanks y'all so much for coming on to the podcast today. Would you like to introduce yourselves with your name, pronouns, and the farm that y'all are both part of and just tell us a little bit about about that project?

B 01:59 Sure. My name is B. My pronouns are they/them. We a part of Rot Glow Farm and are farmers in Mississippi, pretty close to New Orleans, about an hour and a half away.

M 02:16 Yeah, I am M. And he/they. And yeah, we've been farming here in southwestern Mississippi for three years.

Inmn 02:26 Cool. Cool. And could y'all tell us a little bit about like, what is Rot Glow Farm and what do y'all do there?

M 02:34 So we're primarily a mushroom farm and tree nursery. We grow quite a bit of shiitake mushrooms outdoors on logs, which we take to market and most of the sales from the shiitakes goes into basically subsidizing this tree nursery that we have where we grow thousands of trees and give them away in New Orleans and rurally in Mississippi.

Inmn 03:07 Cool, cool. Like how did y'all get involved in doing this?

M 03:12 For me, several years ago, I read that book Mushroom At the End of the World, which was kind of a life changing book for me. And that got me really excited about mushrooms generally and fungi. That first manifested by growing shiitakes in New Orleans as part of a backyard gardening practice. And then, when the pandemic happened, some of us had been part of this project in New Orleans called Lobelia Commons, which is this...We define it as like a network for food autonomy and neighborhood survival. In that project, we started a collaborative mushroom group where we kind of learned together how to produce mushrooms, which would fit into a wider network of ways of producing food in the city. So, the way that first manifested was doing oyster mushrooms, workshops to do oyster mushrooms in buckets at a decent scale. And we then also started doing some production on logs. Then wanting to scale that up a bit, we were interested in growing shiitakes in the forest north of New Orleans. So then we started growing out here in Southern Mississippi. And yeah, that's how I got here.

Inmn 04:53 B, How did you start to...Like what got you interested in in mushroom farming?

B 05:00 Yeah, so where I was living before, I was involved in mutual aid programs and just living in a place for a while and feeling sort of stagnant and feeling like the work that we were doing was great and impactful. But it...I just....I think my heart wasn't in it. It felt more like a job, like going to my mutual aid job. And it felt more like charity than it did like actually connecting with people in a way that felt horizontal. And, I had a big life event and had to leave where I was living at and started to get involved with the Gulf South region through hurricane relief after [Hurricane] Ida. And so I was connecting more with people in this area. And I met M a few years prior and M and I were getting closer as friends and starting to meet more people who were doing this work that, to me, felt more aligned with my interests and my value system and also just something I was really fascinated by. And the mushroom farming was an aspect of that. And like M said prior, it helped us subsidize this thing that we do and the nursery growing that what we do and some of these other projects that were involved in. And, it felt sort of like a natural progression for myself because years prior I used to live in central California and had a fair amount of experience just walking through the woods and foraging mushrooms that were wild and talking with budding mycologists. And where I was living before, it was sort of like a casual culture of mushroom interest that people had. And so there's like a annual fungi fair that happens every year in the area I was living before. And so I guess I had never really considered farming mushrooms. And M was already starting to cultivate that here. And once I was introduced to it, it felt like this really exciting thing, but yeah, it just kind of fell into my lap in this way what was like, "Oh, yeah, of course. That's what I'm doing now." And yeah, like I said before, it's not disconnected from anything else that we do. It feels really interconnected. And that's what also makes it feel regenerative and worthwhile. Does that make sense?

Inmn 07:47 Yeah, totally. Totally. And I guess maybe this is silly question, but like, why...why mushrooms as opposed to like any other food or medicine thing that you could grow?

M 08:03 Um, so partially, the land that we inhabit here is a successionary forest, very young. Everything around us is pine plantation, mostly Lob lolly pine. We have a lot of like lob lolly here and a lot of young sweet gums, young oaks. And in...like, in some ways, the only way to farm at all here we would have to clear some woods. So, and on the one hand, it's practical, because we also would like to grow large amounts of trees. So, we can't grow trees in the middle of the forest. Well, we could, but it would take a very long time. And it wouldn't be like really effective towards getting them in the hands of people who want to plant trees. So, we cleared some of the forests to have that nursery and small garden and, you know, meeting some local needs. So, with those trees, the sweet gums and the oaks in particular, we turn them into mushroom bolts is what they're called, like blogs, basically. But I think beyond that, I think mushrooms are just like an extremely fascinating subject. They're unlike anything else that you eat. I think they have something that's kind of like indescribable or like uncanny. And I think when you get into conversations with people--especially like we're often at farmers markets--there's a way of finding, especially rurally like who the kinda secret freaks are. And like you know, it's really hard to find each other out here. And mushrooms, I think is like kind of a little like, "wink wink," in some ways, and I think that that's been a big asset for us. We met a few people through farmers markets like that.

Inmn 10:27 Like, mushrooms is like, more....Farming mushrooms is more common like, for people that you might feel more like the true freaks or something? Or?

M 10:38 I think not even just farming--I mean definitely farming--but I think, like in a good way and a bad way. There's definitely some mushroom farmers who are like, maybe not freaks we'd like to hang out with on a lovely Saturday night. But I think the type of people that are drawn to are like going into the woods, getting down, and like looking at the Earth very close and that these super tiny things or sometimes, like really phallic things. Or, you know, like in all the all the forms...[B interrupts]

B 11:17 Yes. Slimy, stinky, like, yeah, voluptuous, like, disgusting. All of the brackets of signifiers. Yeah, and like you said, it takes a certain kind of attention and careful consideration and observation where you're getting down on your hands and knees and just like you're...There's this one particular--I can't remember what it's called--but

Episode Summary

This time on This Month In the Apocalypse, Brooke and Inmn talk about storms, extreme flooding, and the deadly heat dome. They talk about a lot going on in the ocean, including orca attacks, the Ocean Gate submersible, and El Nino. They also talk about mostly bad things for trans people. However, there are some fun instances of fascists beating each other up.

Host Info

Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

This Month In the Apocalypse: June, 2023

Brooke Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. This is your early summer June-ish installment of our segment This Month In the Apocalypse. I am Brooke Jackson and co-hosting with me today is the very delightful Inmn. Our podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And before we explore today's episode, we'd like to share a little jingle from another pod on the network. JIngle jangle, jingle jangle. [Brooke singing a simple melody]

Brooke And we're back. Hey Inmn, how are you feeling today?

Inmn I'm, I'm feeling fairly good today, Brooke. But you know, a lot of bad things happened in June. But also, some really funny things happened in June. So...

Brooke This is true. You wanna hear the funniest thing that happened? I bet you have one, but I have one that's gonna be funnier.

Inmn Yeah, yeah. There's a couple of funny things that we'll get to. How are you, Brooke?

Brooke I'm good. I like that we've swooped in and taken this podcast away from Margaret. Just kidding. She's dealing with other stuff. We miss her terribly. And, she trusted us to do this whole episode on our own.

Inmn Yeah, because we're real people.

Brooke And I'm so excited about that. Do you want to hear really funny story?

Inmn Yes.

Brooke Okay, so Portland, Oregon always does a big Pride celebration on--well it's usually it's a Sunday, I think--in June and it's often fallen on Father's Day because of terrible planning and timing. And this year it finally didn't for once. So, it was having his big Pride celebration. I think this was just a week ago. And both the Proud Boys and the Rose City Nationalists showed up to protest Pride, except both groups showed up to the wrong location. And they showed up to the same wrong location. And they got in a fight with each other instead of fighting and protesting Pride.

Inmn Wow, do you know that the fight was...Like, why did they fight?

Brooke There's some videos you can find on like Twitter and the Proud Boys are attacking the Rose City Nationalists and they're calling them racists. And the Rose City Nationalists are in like khaki pants and blue shirt, you know, that full face covering thing. What does they call that? Something. And like hats. And the Proud Boys are a bunch of older white dudes, burly biker gang kind of guys, and they're yelling at them for being like punk kids, and wearing masks, and being racist. They just kick the shit out of them.

Inmn Maybe just because I don't know totally who they are; who are the Rose City Nationalists?

Brooke Oh, there are local to Portland chapter of one of the white nationalist groups in the US.

Inmn Okay. What...Do you know why did the Proud Boys think that they're racist?

Brooke I think if I remember correctly, I think they're like a neo-Nazi affiliated group, the nationalists, and they think it's really weak of them to wear full face coverings and not show their faces when they show up to events and to be in like matching outfits. I think they mock that too when they're getting into the fight, how they're in their little khaki and blue shirt uniform thing.

Inmn Wow. That is...You know, if all of the white supremacists want to like fight each other and spend all their time doing that, I would be thrilled.

Brooke The best outcome to a Pride protest ever, two asshole groups showing up at the wrong location and fighting each other instead.

Inmn Oh, that's just wonderful.

Brooke A big thanks to friend of the pod, Alex, for sending me all of the videos from this and news articles and stuff. I've just been laughing about that all week. I keep thinking about it and just chuckling

Inmn I have a similarly...you know, it's like a something bad happened, but also something funny happened kind of thing. All right.

Brooke Let's go. I like funny news.

Inmn Okay, so, ongoing anti-trans legislation across the country and in Texas. Yeah, it's pretty bad. But, Michelle Evans who's like...I think she's a Texas House Representative candidate and some kind of like legislative Director for some wacky organization that is trying to do weird things around COVID vaccines. She was at the Texas State Capitol to celebrate SB14, which is a bill that was signed into legislation that blocks doctors from providing gender affirming care to minors, which is pretty horrifying.

Brooke It's awful.

Inmn Yeah, it is. It is not as bad as SB 1029, which would essentially defund all gender affirming care for anyone in the state of Texas. It's through some pretty interestingly deceptive means. Like, it blocks use of public funds for those things, which sends this ripple effect through....because you could be like, "Oh, What about like, you know, private providers? Wouldn't they still be able to provide care for people?" And the answer is probably not. Because, the public funding affects things like malpractice insurance or insurance providers in general. And so it's essentially, private doctors who don't receive public funding for doing gender affirming care, would essentially not be able to get insured because of this funding that's being...would be taken away. So...

Brooke It's not okay. So not okay. These bills make me so angry. And I feel like every time we do one of these episodes, we're talking about another state, another place, another layer of these bills, and it's not just like, "Oh, they're considering this," like it's that these bills are passing in various places.

Inmn Yeah, and SB 1029 has not passed in Texas, but SB 14, which blocks gender affirming care for minors, did pass. But, Michelle Evans was there at the Capitol celebrating and she confronted a trans woman in the bathroom. The altercation reportedly like involved some verbal harassment of this person. And then Michelle claims, she claims that she was sent a picture of this person in the bathroom.

Brooke That's creepy.

Inmn Yeah, by one of her followers. That's what she says. But she...It'll make sense in a moment. Okay, so she tweeted this out to her following and it very rapidly, you know, went viral and there were people commenting to her about it, being like, "Hey, you know, it's illegal to film people in the bathroom, right?" And she was...While she was still at the Capitol, she was detained by the Capitol Police and got her phone confiscated and she was questioned about the photo being like....They were like, "Oh, we heard that you tweeted this photo of someone in the bathroom." And she was like, "Oh, but I didn't take the picture." You know, or so she claims. And yeah, so she is still under investigation for taking a picture of someone in the bathroom, which is against the law it turns out in Texas.

Brooke Oh, there's a ray of sunshine in this awfulness. And that's like, I mean, even if...Okay. Laws, not laws. Anarchism....You know, it's confusing. But, It's wrong, whether or not it's legal or illegal, it's just like, your own internal ethics should tell you that that's wrong to do. So it's nice that there's repercussions for it in some way.

Inmn Yeah, you know, like, I don't...like I'm not down with the State existing or laws or like, whatever. But I'm absolutely not going to have sympathy for anyone who, like, might end up getting charges for filming people in the bathroom because that's fucked up. So, I'm curious if it'll catch on as like any kind of thing or like piece of resistance that people can do for like being harassed in bathrooms, like wherever they are, is to like....if you get filmed in the bathroom, it's like...I'm wondering if more people will end up catching charges for filming people in the bathroom who they believe to be trans.

Brooke Right, you know, but then now, as you say that, I realized the flip side of it. If you're someone who's being verbally or whatever, assaulted, attacked in the bathroom, like, you shouldn't get in t

Episode Summary

This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Sean teaches Margaret about brewing alcohol. They talk about fermentation in general and then walk though how to make beer and cider.

Guest Info

Sean (he/him) can be found at https://seanvansickel.com/

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

Live Like the World is Dying: Sean on Brewing

Margaret: Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. This week we're talking about fermentation. We're talking about little things that eat things and then poop out alcohol. I actually don't really know because I'm the one who's going to be asking these questions and I record these introductions before I actually do the interview. So, I'm going to be learning more about fermentation and we're gonna be talking about alcohol, but we're also gonna be talking about all kinds of other stuff too. And I think you'll get a lot out of it. And first, we're a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network. La la la, la la la la [Margaret making musical melody sounds]

Margaret: Okay, we're back. And so if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then I guess like a little bit about how you got into fermentation?

Sean: So my name is Sean. Pronouns are he/him. Well, I actually started with, with cider and mead because I had a harder time finding commercially available cider and mead that wasn't just kind of like a novelty product or obscenely expensive, you know, imported from like Basque country or whatever. So that's, that was kind of where I got my, my kickoff on fermentation. I worked in commercial fermentation doing sour beer production as well as like conventional clean, you know, canned beer, and then actually worked in sales and distribution with beer for a while.

Margaret:Okay, so this is really exciting because I've always kind of wanted to get into this. Well, I've kind of wanted to get into everything, which is the whole reason I started this podcast, so I could ask people about how to do things. But fermentation...so you can format things and it makes them different? What is fermentation?

Sean: So fermentation basically is either yeast or bacteria breaking down almost always some form of sugar or carbohydrate. The main thing that is being produced by that is co2. But a nice little side effect that is often produced is alcohol, right, or lactic acid is often produced especially in the presence of bacteria, specifically in the presence of lactic acid producing bacteria. We call them you know, LAB is the abbreviation that's used. So, fermentation is happening generally-when people are referring to it--they're referring to yeast fermentation. So the most common yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, right, beer yeast. It's the same. It's called beer yeast. But that's the same yeast that's used to ferment wine. It's used to ferment like a sour mash, if you're, you know, making whiskey in a legal distillation situation as opposed to you know, the other distillation situation. It is illegal to distill alcohol for home use in the US. So, yeah, you have to be very careful you don't do that. On Accident.

Margaret:Yeah, we won't cover that for a while.

Sean: Yeah, right.

Margaret: Okay, wait, is this the same yeast as like sourdough and all of that?

Sean: It's very, very close. So sourdough is--especially if you make like a if you'd like a sourdough starter capture right from the air... I have not done this. It's something I've wanted to do. I've captured wild yeast for brewing from the air but never for baking. But they are a similar blend of airborne yeast, so you'll have wild yeast. You'll have wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae as well as wild other yeasts, Brettanomyces. Yeast strains are very common in air. And then you'll also have lactic acid bacteria in the air. So these are those rod shaped bacteria that are active in the absence of oxygen. They're anaerobic bacteria. So, they will continue to acidify things, even when there is no oxygen present to like kind of fuel or catalyze that reaction in a way that regular beer yeast, or even bread yeast, baking yeast, right, won't necessarily be able to do.

Margaret: I'm really not used to the idea of thinking about bacteria as a positive thing.

Sean: Right. No. So they are extremely a positive thing, Lactic acid bacteria, because they drop the pH as well. And lower pH means you don't have to worry about like botulism, for example. You know, so that's definitely a benefit. Most spoilage...So one number I'm going to be saying probably a few times is 4.2. 4.2 is like the pH level, below which you have a greater degree of protection because of the acidity, right.

Margaret: Okay. Cause botulism doesn't like hanging out in there?

Sean: Botulism is...I'm not 100% sure if it's the pH, the alcohol, or both. But botulism does not like low pH, nor does it like high ABV. So these are, these are both good ways of protecting yourself from that.

Margaret: So it's that kind of...so fermentation probably comes originally, basically...Well, probably by accident. But originally probably comes from people just basically desperately trying to figure out how to make sure food doesn't go bad. And this is and fermentation is like, one of the many ways that humans have developed to keep food from going bad? Is that a?

Sean: My theory is that's why fermentation stuck around. I think it showed up eventually because human... ancient, you know, human beings, proto humans even, you know, proto hominids realized they could get fucked up with it.

Margaret:Yeah. That's fair.

Sean: I think that's the key point. Like human nature hasn't changed that much. That will always be the driving influence on novelty, I think.

Margaret: So, what are some of the things--I'm going to ask you about some of the specifics about how to do this a little bit--but what are some of the things that you can ferment? I know, you can make sauerkraut and you can make pickles? Nope, that's not fermentation.

Sean: No, lacto fermented pickles, absolutely. That's frementation.

Margaret: Oh, yeah. No, I totally knew that. That's definitely why I said it.

Sean: Not like quick pickling with vinegar in the fridge. That's not an active fermentation process. And I do that too, like quick pickled red onions are like...those go well on everything. But no, like actual, like long term pickling. Hot sauces are a big one. You know, I did a batch of...I grew a bunch of jalapeno peppers. And then I went to like a restaurant supply type grocery store and they had like three or four pound bags of jalapenos for like, you know, they were starting to go off, right, I got them for like, under $1. So I fermented about 40 pounds of jalapenos in a five gallon bucket. And you just make a make of salt brine. Right. Like you can you can look up the levels. I think I did a 3.5% or 4%. saline brine in there.

Margaret: I'll ask you the more specifics about how to do it in a bit.

Sean: But yeah, so peppers you can do. You can do any kind of...anything that has an naturally occurring sugar usually can be fermented and emits....And when you have high levels of naturally occurring sugar, like the classic example is grapes, you usually are, you know, suspending that sugar and solution, water. Right. And you're making a beverage. Like that's the most classic example. That's, you know, wine, that's beer, that's, you know, fruit wines. You know, there's a lot of rural cultures throughout the world. There's, you know, non-grape wines, right, it's very common mead is another one, right, and probably the oldest. You know, we talked about the, you know, anthropological aspects of fermentation earlier. And, yeah, that's almost certainly we've, you know, a lot of evidence suggests mead,

Margaret: Okay. So, when you ferment stuff, how long? What kind of shelf life are you able to get on something like hot sauce or sauerkraut or pickles and things like that? The like food stuff.

Sean: Yeah. So you've definitely there are two dates at play here, which is the this is going to, you know, this still tastes really good and this is still a safe source of macronutrients and, you know, and things like that. I've had no decline in flavor with fermented hot sauce. And I usually package the fermented hot sauce in beer bottles with like a beer cap over the top or in a, like, sometimes mason jars as well. B

Episode Summary

This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Emily and Margaret talk about organizing against fascists while the Eye of Sauron is upon us. Emily breaks down the history of some far-right groups in the US as well as the history of opposition to them. She talks about how to organize against neo-Nazis, the interconnections of antifascism and transness, the perils of seeking asylum, and how to hunt Nazis and win.

Guest Info

Emily (she/her) can be found out in the world winning. Or, she can be found on Twitter @EmilyGorcenski or at www.emilygorcenski.com

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

Live Like the World is Dying: Emily on Antifascist Organizing & Hunting Nazis

Margaret: Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcasts what feels like the end times. I'm when your host, Margaret Killjoy, and today I'm excited. I guess I say that every single time that I'm excited. But it's actually true. I really...I wouldn't interview people if I wasn't excited about it. Today, we're going to talk about antifascism. There's going to be a couple of weeks--I don't actually know what order they're gonna come out--And maybe you've already heard me talking about antifascism recently, but nothing feels more important in terms of community preparedness than stopping fascism. So, that's what we're going to talk about today. And today, we're going to talk with someone who was involved in organizing the counter protests in Charlottesville, the anti-Nazi side of Charlottesville, and has had to deal with the ramifications of that. And I think you'll get a lot out of it. But first, we're proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network da da duh da da. [humming a made up melody]

Margaret: Alright, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then I guess, a vague overview of who you are and why I had you on today.

Emily: My name is Emily Gorcenski. She and her. And I am an activist from Charlottesville. I had called Charlottesville my home for about eight years before the infamous Unite the Right rally happened. And that sort of called me to anti- fascism. In the wake of all of that, I also started initiatives to digitally hunt Nazis and track them down, expose them, and understand how their networks operate, how their movements form and grow and evolve, and have been involved in sort of organizing against fascism for the last several years.

Margaret: Awesome. This is going to be good stuff that we're going to talk about. Well, bad stuff, I suppose. So the Unite the Right rally, what was that? I mean? It's funny because it feels like it was either yesterday or 15 years ago.

Emily: Yeah, both of those. It was both of those. Unite the Right was what a lot of people call "Charlottesville." It was the big neo-Nazi rally in August of 2017, August 11th and 12th to be precise, and it was one of several neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville. It was the biggest and got the most news coverage. During that summer...Locally, we call it the "summer of hate." We don't like to use the word "Charlottesville" to describe the moment in time because we are still a community, but it was the moment that you saw everything from the neo-Nazis marching with the swastika, to the terror attack, to Donald Trump saying there were very fine people on both sides.

Margaret:Yeah, kind of it feels like the moment that sort of kicked off the modern Nazi-right. Like it feels like their big coming out party, their gender reveal--if Nazis a gender. I don't know if it's...Nazi might not be a gender. I hate to disrespect people's gender, but that might be not on the list. And I don't know what color they would use for fireworks. But it... Okay, so it feels like their coming-out, right, like it was this thing. And I'm kind of curious what your take on it is because from where I'm at it seems like kind of a little different than stuff had gone before and a lot of bad things happened. A lot of very bad things happened and we can talk about some of those things. But, it felt like kind of this like aberration. Everyone was like--I mean, except the president the US--everyone was like, "Oh fuck, that's bad. We don't like this. This is bad when Nazis march down the street with torches chanting, 'Jews will not replace us.'" Clearly this is bad. But it feels like...it does feel like it kind of worked for them to kick them off into the mainstream. Like it. It doesn't feel Like their movement has shrink since then, I guess I will say.

Emily: I think it's a complicated. Yeah, that's a complicated topic. If you look at the history of what led up to Unite the Right, there were a number of neo-Nazi rallies, sort of the ascendance of the alt-right throughout the country, right. So we had Richard Spencer growing in prominence and forming the alt-right movement. We had these groups like Identity Europa and Vanguard America, and Traditionalist Worker Party. And all of them were sort of, they're holding these rallies all over the country, right. There were some in Pikeville, and there are some in in Huntington Beach, California, and there was some in in Berkeley, right, the the sort of infamous battles of Berkeley. And all of these events were sort of in the months around, I don't know, anywhere from one month before or two months before to a year, year and a half before, right. And this is sort of aligned with the ascendance of Donald Trump, the sort of hard shift right in American politics, the reaction to a lot of things, including Obergefell, the court case that legalized gay marriage, and two terms of a black man being president, right, there are a lot of factors that kind of started to swirl together and formed this vortex of the alt-right. And what happened in Unite the right was, this was...it was almost like that moment in an orchestra where everything was tuning up beforehand, right? You know, there was like the smaller rallies, there was some violence, there were some, you know, definitely some things that are fairly scary, but it was isolated. And it was easy for people to ignore. What happened in Charlottesville, everything came together. And when we saw on the night of August 11th, at the University of Virginia, the Nazis marching with the torches and chanting, "You will not replace us," and eventually, "Jews will not replace us," all of that started to come together to be like that moment that the orchestra starts playing, right. And I think ironically, August 11th was also their high watermark. Because even though we have seen fascism grow in power since then, the dynamics are much more complicated because those groups that organized and participated in Unite the Right have essentially been destroyed and that movement has essentially been destroyed. And so what we see is actually something that's morphing. And I think that's a much more important thing to understand.

Margaret: Okay, that makes sense. That does kind of--because I don't hear people talking about the alt-right anymore, right? And a lot of the individual groups that made up yeah Unite the Right like, died, like the part of the Lord of the Rings, where the orc grabs the barrel of dynamite and runs towards the wall and blows up--maybe that...I think that was Lord of the Rings--to bring down the wall or whatever. Like because we don't talk about the alt-right anymore. We talked about the right wing. And now but it does seem like the right wing is now doing the things that the alt-right used to do. Like, why is it--I'm asking this like half earnestly and half to get a an answer from you--but like, why is it we got rid of, we voted out the far right politician and now things are going further and further right, even though he's gone. Does that relate to all of this?

Emily: I think I think it does, right? So it's all about movement and counter-movement. We defeated the alt-right. We killed the alt-right. The alt-right didn't die. It didn't die of its own accord. it was killed. it was killed through through antifascist organizing, it was killed through through criminal charges being brought against key players, it was killed through alt-right people committing mass shootings and the movement being unable to recruit, and it was killed through civil court cases even. So there was a number of factors that killed that movement, but

Margaret: I take back my comparison the to the Lord of the Rings guy.

Emily: The thing about the alt-right, though, is that it doesn't need to exist anymore. Its purpose was simply to set an anchor point that everything else can be sort of tied around, right? And so actually what you see if you look at, over time. at these dynamics, you kn

Episode Summary

This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Emil talks to Margaret about life on Svalbard. They talk about hiking in the Arctic, staying warm, gear, the unfortunate realities of climate change, and the rising conflicts between humans and polar bears.

Guest Info

Emil (He/they): a masters student on Arctic Outdoor life.

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Transcript

LLWD: Emil on Arctic Hiking

Margaret: Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcasts for what feels like the end times. I'm one of your hosts, Margaret killjoy. And this week, we're going to talk about snow and ice and moving across them. And I'm probably gonna ask about glaciers. And we're gonna talk about all that stuff. And I'm really excited because we're gonna be talking about how to move over Arctic terrain, which might be everywhere in the future. I mean, everything's getting warmer, but like, you know, everything's getting wackier. So things might get different. Do you need crampons? I don't know. I'm gonna find out. And that's what we're going to talk about. But first, we're proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's another jingle from another jingle...Here's a jingle from another show on the network. [Makes noises that sound like singing a melody]

Margaret: Okay, we're back. So, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then a little bit of your background as to why I'm having you on the show.

Emil: Yeah, sure. So, my name is Emil. I go by he/him or they/them. I have a bachelor's degree in Arctic Outdoor Life and Nature Guiding from the University of Tromsø in Northern Norway. And I'm currently doing a master's degree, also in Outdoor Life, at the University of Southeastern Norway.

Margaret: Okay, so this means that you spend your time with a sledge and fighting polar bears? And penguins. Is that correct? [Said with dry sarcasm. Emil laughs] Emil: There have been sledges and polar bear guard standing involved. But the penguins are on the other side of the planet unfortunately. We don't have penguins up here. [Laughing] Would be cool, though.

Margaret: Yeah, I mean, because then you can have the polar bears and the penguins hanging out and the Far Side comics would be complete. Okay, so yeah, so you're a guide, or like, you know, so this is one of the things that you do is you take people out and show them how to move over this terrain and show them how to explore. Like, is this like tourists? Is this like, scientists? Is this people who got lost in the snow on their way home? Like, I don't really know what...I've never been in Norway. This is gonna come across.

Emil: Yeah, no, it could be, it could be all those things. It could be guiding on scientific expeditions, it could be taking tourists on trips, or it could be more like, you know, like summer camps and things of that nature. Which, is more like...not as hardcore. So you have sort of, it's a broad range of sort of different levels from summer camps with kids that's really sort of safe to the two week long expeditions in the Arctic, skiing, where you really have to sort of take care of yourself and the people around you and you have to be sort of on guard.

Margaret: Okay, yeah. And so I kind of want to ask you about...I mean, basically a lot of my questions are just like how do you move over Arctic terrain? Like what is involved? How do you get...how do you practice? Like, is it...is everything like snowshoeing? Is it cross country skis? Is it like, dogs and sleighs? Is it reindeer pulling the sleighs? Like what's...I'm making jokes, but I also know there's reindeer up there.

Emil: Actually, actually, you can. You can actually do reindeer sledding. Some people do that.

Margaret: Whoa.

Emil: But yeah, really, in Northern Norway, the northern most county, there is a yearly reindeer sledding competition, actually. So that is the thing that some people do. But it's...Yeah, dogs sledding and skiing, I think, are the most common for long distance. If you're moving, sort of in forests, then snowshoes can be advantageous. But if you're moving any sort of distance, it's going to be cross-country skis, or we call them mountain skis. They're a bit broader. They're a bit wider than normal like racing skis, or dog sledding. Yeah.

Margaret: So, like for my own selfish reasons--it's unlikely that I will specifically need to be moving...escaping an apocalypse in Northern Norway--like that seems not incredibly likely but something that does, like, within my own selfish...when I think about it, I'm like, "Well, what if I had to move over some mountains?" Right? Like, what if? And that seems like, the kind of thing that could theoretically come up in my life or just could be fun, right? What's involved in starting to learn that stuff? Like both, like, how does one? Like when you take someone out and you're like, "Here's some snowshoes?" Is it like a? Does it take people hours to figure them out? Is it like, pretty quick? Like...

Emil: It's...I think it's pretty intuitive often. A lot of the outdoors sort of pedagogy or the philosophy of learning is learning by doing. So, it's getting hands on experience and just sort of trying it, obviously, putting people in an environment that's challenging enough that they feel a sense of accomplishment and mastery but not so challenging that they die.

Margaret: Okay, that's seems like a good way to learn. Yeah.

Emil: Yeah. So it's...What's involved in learning it? I think a lot of it does come from from childhood, at least if you live in the north, sort of something you grew up with. But I think it's kind of just like, getting out there. And then I know, there's skiing courses and stuff that you can take if you want to learn, like technique.

Margaret: Yeah. Okay. Well, if I like had to, like, Lord of the Rings style cross a mountain pass, do I want skis? Or do I want snow shoes? Or do I want the Ring of Power? Like? Like, like, if I'm just crossing a mountain...Like, obviously, if I'm going to be like moving overland in the far north, it would be way better if I had skis, it seems to be the case. But like, if I'm just trying to like cross a mountain pass, do I need skis?

Emil: Well, I think it depends on the...I think it's going to depend on the time of year and the snow depth. So you don't necessarily need skis. You can walk through the snow with just your normal shoes, not even snow shoes. But, it's probably going to be faster on skis. And additionally, you would probably want, at least if if you're going to be out for more than a day and you're going to be out for several days, you'd want something called a pulk instead of a backpack. A pulk is just a sled. So you pull the sled after you instead of carrying a backpack. It helps with stability. You can carry more, which typically, winter equipment is heavier. So it is advantageous to pull the sled.

Margaret: Okay. Yeah, cuz one of the reasons...I think, I think that you commented, like, we posted an episode recently with an ultralight through hiker, right, and I think your comment was something like, "Whoa, things are different in America," or something like that. And, and so that's why I reached out to you. So, it's like, I'm curious, your reaction to concepts of like weight and ultralight and stuff like that. And I guess when you're carrying a pulk you, like...weight probably still matters, but in a very different way?

Emil: Yeah. At least when it comes to when it comes to winter in the Arctic, you want equipment that sturdy. It's quite often specialized equipment as well. So, on average, it's going to be a bit heavier. So doing ultralight isn't necessarily feasible. So I think it's going to depend on sort of the environment you're in. Moving ultralight in a temperate forest, I think is probably more feasible. Like in, I don't know, the Appalachian Trail or the parts of the PCT, right? But, it's it's also a thing where the arctic environment is kind of inhospitable in the sense that there isn't a lot of available energy in the environment. So if you think about walking through temperate forest, right, you have firewood and there might be some food and stuff that you can forage, right. So energy both in the sense of fuel for heat and in the sense of calories, right? If you think about moving across a snowy mountain plateau, it's sort of a barren, it's kind of like an ice desert. You have to carry all of that energy with you, the fuel, the gasoline, the food, everything. So, it's necessarily going to be heavier.

Margaret: Wait, what's the gasoline for?

Emil: The gasoline is for stoves for burning. Yeah.

Margaret: Oh, okay.

Emil: Both for heating food and heating the tents.

Margaret: Okay. Okay, so then...this is so much to think about. Obviously the way people do this now is probably very differently from the way people did this a hundred years ago or something, right? Like, I assume that a hundred years ago people probably bringing like--well, actually probably they were still bringing oil stoves a hundred years ago, actually, now that I think that through--rather than, like...people aren't hauling t

Episode Summary

Bex and Inmn talk about first aid and why it's super important for everyone to know a little. They talk about different trainings you can take, different situations you might need to know first aid for, what the world of street medics is like, and when to seek higher levels of care. They also talk about a really helpful zine by Riot Medicine called Basic First Aid for Emergencies.

Host Info

Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery.

Guest Info

Bex can be found nowhere. However, Riot Medicine, the writers of Basic First Aid for Emergencies, can be found at riotmedicine.net where you can find a lot more resources on learning about first aid, and responding to emergencies and all sorts of situations. You can read Basic First Aid for Emergencies here.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

Live Like the World is Dying: Bex on First Aid

Inmn Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host Inmn Neruin and I used to them pronouns. This week we're talking about something super important that we've covered in bits and pieces in other episodes and that is first aid. This episode was used on our other podcast that I host called Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. On that podcast we have a voice actor narrate our monthly zine and I do an interview with the author. This month we chose to use our zine Basic First Aid for Emergencies by Riot medicine and invited our friend Bex to talk about first aid. Bex is not the author of the zine but does know a lot about first aid. And since this is a very much a Live Like the World is Dying topic, we decided to feature it over here. Content warning, we talked about blood and bodies. I mean, the precious light that fills our bodies. There's no blood in us. Bex has been on Live Like the World is Dying before to talk about treating gunshot wounds and it was one of the first episodes. So, go back and listen to that one if you haven't already. But first, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network. And here is a jingle from another show on that network. Doo doo doo doo.

Inmn Real quick. We just launched a Kickstarter for Penumbra City, the TTRPG that we've been writing--we being Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. The Kickstarter launched on June 1st, which might have been yesterday or might have been a long time ago. Watch the game that inspired the short story Confession to a Dead Man come to life. We also have an actual play recording of us playing that game that just came out on this feed right before this episode. So give it a listen. And check out the Kickstarter at kickstarter.com/projects/penumbra-city/penumbra-city. Find your friends. Kill the God King.

Inmn And we're back. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and for talking.

Bex Woo!

Inmn And for talking to us about this thing that is just so important and something that we will...a topic that we absolutely can't cover in a single podcast episode but we're gonna try to get through the basics of. Would you like to introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about your background in first aid and like responding to emergencies?

Bex Yeah, my name is Bex, thanks so much for having me on the podcast. Stoked to be here. I first got involved with doing first aid or like emergency medical response in 2010 when I took my first street medic training with the Rosehip [Collective] medics out of Portland. Previous to that I, you know, was like a youth lifeguard and things like that. But, I feel like that's that training in 2010 kind of kicked me off on a different path and I've been sort of running as a street medic since then and running medic trainings and street medic trainings for the last 10 years. And, now work professionally doing wilderness first aid trainings as well. I'm having...I'm not like an expert medical practitioner, but I do have a bit of experience and I'm extremely passionate about education and sharing knowledge and making this skill set accessible to folks who are interested in it.

Inmn Yeah, yeah. And it's funny because I feel like people who...like there are a lot of people who are like, extreme experts in a field or something, but are like, maybe not as excited about teaching or education or finding ways to introduce people to those worlds as much. So.

Bex Yeah, and especially in the sort of medical industrial complex, I feel like it's a place where people often feel extremely alienated both from their own bodies and also from being able to access information about how to take care of themselves or take care of people around them. And, I feel like trying to break that down and make that...change emergency medical response from something that is, like, highly specialized and professionalized to something that is available and accessible for everyone is tight.

Inmn Yeah, yeah, it is a very, very cool thing. And, you know, that's part of what this zine is supposed to do, it's supposed to kind of break down the barriers to just, you know, people who have no medical training to have some kind of foothold in responding to different emergencies. But to kind of back up from that--although listeners, we are probably not going to like go through this zine, page by page in this interview because that would, one, take way more time than we have on this podcast to talk about all the topics and, two, because it is possibly not the best way to learn about the minutiae of these topics. So, we're gonna focus mostly on talking about what first aid is and why it's important and how you can learn more about it outside of an hour long podcast. But, Bex, Could you could you tell us kind of like what...what is first aid? And what is kind of the scope of first aid?

Bex Yeah, the like, general gist of first aid is: it's the very first care or intervention that someone receives, or gives to themselves when a illness or injury occurs. So, this is usually what's happening by a layperson, someone who's not a professional, and is happening in, you know, where the injury or illness is happening rather then in a clinical setting. And this can range from the everyday first day that we give ourselves at home, like, "Oh, I got a cut. I'm gonna wash it out in the kitchen sink and put a band-aid on it." Or it could also be in a protest scenario or it could be in a wilderness scenario or it could be anywhere. Anywhere there are people doing things there is first aid happening.

Inmn Cool. That is a very great explanation for first aid. And, for folks who are kind of like less knowledgeable--maybe they're hearing these phrases for the first time--what is a street medic? And what do street medics do?

Bex What do street medics do. [inflected as more of a statement] Yeah, so a street medic is basically someone who has some amount of emergency medical response training, who goes out in a protest or demonstration sort of scene, whether that is mobilization in the street, or whether it's hanging with their affinity group, or whether it's place based, sort of like encampment type of protest, or anything like that, and responding to the types of illnesses and injuries that we might see in those settings, including things like dealing with police munitions, chemical weapons, or potentially gunshot wounds, as well as like, "Ah! The bike brigade hit me and I fell over and now I'm scraped up," or whatever, but it's basically doing some emergency medical response in a protest setting.

Inmn Well, cool, and what kind of training do street medics usually have? Or like could that vary? I'm asking you leading questions I know the answers to.

Bex Well, there's controversy here actually. I would say that the gold standard for street medics is to have a twenty-hour training. In that twenty hours, you can really cover the depth and breadth of how to do a basic patient assessment system to make sure that you are really understanding the full picture of what's going on with a person that you are supporting and you learn different types of interventions, whether that's wound care, eye flushes for chemical weapons, how to tell if someone has a spinal injury, all kinds of things. You get to practice in a bunch of like fun hands on scenarios. People do shorter trainings as well. There's like bridge trainings for folks who are already coming from a professional medical background but want to get involved in sort of street medic stuff. And then there are also much shorter trainings, like just "stop the bleed trainings" or things like that where you're just dealing with major hemorrhaging bleeds.

Inmn So...Oh, and like, sometimes, you know, street medics obvious

Summary

This time on Live Like the World is Dying, we’re talking about something crucial to surviving the apocalypse: playing games with your friends. And Killing God Kings. That’s right, we have an actual play recording of us playing Penumbra city, the TTRPG that we’ve been working on over at Strangers for…a very long time. We are sharing this session of us playing the game in order to get you excited about our KICKSTARTER for the game, which is currently live. Right now! Unless it’s no longer June 2023. So, before you listen to this recording go to

www.kickstarter.com/projects/penumbra-city/penumbra-city

Join a Doggirl, an Occultust, a Rat King, and a Patchworker as they investigate a string of disappearances including someone’s missing date. 

Find your friends. Live like the God King is dying.

We will have a normal Live Like the World is Dying episode out this week as well.

Guest Info

Margaret Killjoy: World Designer. On Twitter @magpiekilljoy or IG @MargaretKilljoy Jamie Loftus: Host of Ghost Church. On Twitter @JamieLoftusHELP of IG @JamieChristSuperstar Bea Flowers: The Voice of Penumbra City. On IG @Crimebrulee Robin Savage: Game Ilustrator on IG @Missrobinsavage Inmn Neruin: Game Designer on IG @shadowtail.artificery

Publisher

This podcast is published by Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org or on Twitter @tangledwild. You can support this show by subscribing to our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness

Our Kickstarter for Penumbra City can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/penumbra-city/penumbra-city

Host

The Host is Inmn Neruin. You can find them on instagram @shadowtail.artificery

Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co

Episode Summary

Margaret talks with Sprout and Charyan from Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective about organizing in rural areas and how that can be different from organizing in more urban areas. Sprout and Charyan talk about the different projects that Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective work on, supporting unhoused people, the importance of having a music scene, and the unfortunate state of fascism.

Guest Info

Sprout (they/them) and Charyan(they/them) work with Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective. Those projects can be found on Twitter @Blackflowerllc, @Aberdeenlocal1312, or Instagram @Blackflower.collective or @Aberdeenlocal1312, or on their websites https://sabotmedia.noblogs.org/ or https://blackflowercollective.noblogs.org/. They can also be found on Mastodon @Aberdeenlocal1312.

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

LLWD – Sabot Media on Rural Organizing

Margaret 00:15 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy. And I'm excited to talk this week about a subject that is very near and dear to my particular heart. And it might be near and dear to your particular hear or it might just be a subject of idle curiosity. I have no idea. I don't know where you live. You're in my head. I'm in your head. Something. Today we're going to talk about rural organizing, and we're gonna talk about some of the differences between rural organizing and urban organizing, and we're going to be doing that with Sprout and Charyan from Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective and we're going to talk about that. First, we're gonna talk about the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Bah duh duh duh dah [Margaret makes melody noises like she's singing] Okay, so if you all could introduce yourself, I guess with your your name and your pronouns and then like maybe a little bit about what Sabot Media and The Blackflower Collective are.

Sprout 02:32 Yeah, hello, I'm Sprout. Pronouns are they/them.

Charyan 02:37 I'm Charyan. They/them.

Sprout 02:40 We're here to talk about our new project in Grays Harbor County called The Blackflower Collective. And we're here also representing Sabot Media and our podcast Molotov Now.

Margaret 02:55 Where's Grays Harbor?

Sprout 02:58 It's on the coast, Western Washington. The main town is Aberdeen where most people have probably heard of it is because that's where Kurt Cobain was born and grew up.

Margaret 03:12 Oh, one of my favorite trans women in history. That is my contentious belief. Anyone who's ever wonder that. Yeah,

Charyan 03:24 I've heard the theory.

Margaret 03:26 Yeah. One of my friends was friends with Kurt and was like...and when I first started coming out was like, "Wow, you talk about your gender the same way that Kurt did." And so that's why I hold on to this particular theory so hard. But I'm not trying to...no one has ever been more mad at me on the internet as people were when I said this once on Twitter. So whatever, I'm not trying to specifically claim or not claim dead people...whatever. Anyway, that's definitely what we're here to talk about today. So, I guess really quickly, like what is Sabot Media? What is Blackflower Collective?

Sprout 04:09 Well, Sabot Media is a media project that we started because we saw a need for our own reporting of certain stories around the homeless and the mutual aid efforts that were going on in our town. The local paper record the Daily World and the other local stations out here were just not covering the stories at all that needed to be told. And so we stepped up to start talking about that stuff in our own community. We've got a website on No Blogs. Sabotmedia.noblogs.org, where people can go check out our articles. We've got comics, we've got columns, we've got a podcast as I mentioned. Yeah, so The Blackflower Collective was born out of another project here on the harbor that's been going for a couple of years Chehalis River mutual aid network. And the organizers for that project did a lot of talking to the community and discussing internally about what needs there were and how to meet those needs. And the solution came out as The Blackflower Collective. So our goal there is to have a piece of land, just outside the city limits, where we can have a sustainable ecovillage to house low income and unhouse...currently unhoused people, as well as pairing that with a social center and makerspace where we can have a business incubator and people providing social services.

Margaret 05:53 That's really...Okay, one of the things I got really excited about when I first heard about this project that you all are working on about it is because I think about how much...how impactful social center type spaces can be in smaller communities. Like it just seems to me...like off the top of my head, at least I think of like...I mean, a makerspace and, you know, social center space and stuff like that in a big city rules and is great, and I'm really excited when they exist, but it seems like a much higher percentage of the town's socializing or something...like it seems like a bigger deal in a smaller place. Am I like...Am I off base about this? Like, what are your kind of aspirations around that?

Charyan 06:34 Not at all. That's actually kind of one of the dichotomies that we talked about in our article. And on our interview on It Could Happen Here is like the modes of socialization feel a lot different from big city and large population big city communities and, you know, smaller rural towns and whatnot. For example, like in the bigger city, the way you meet people is like, you know, you have your job, or, you know, you go out to the club or, you know, what have you. There's lots of different groups and classes you can take part in. Like you walk into any building or storefront and there's going to be a wall filled with fliers for different events and classes and all sorts of stuff. A place like here in Aberdeen, you have to hunt and dig for that kind of stuff. And even when it does happen, you're more than likely not even going to hear about it. The mode of socialization in smaller places is usually through friends and family you already have. You know, you're hanging out at somebody's house and somebody comes to the door. It's like, "Oh, hey, here's my buddy, Paul," or What have you.

Margaret 07:44 Yeah, it always sort of occurred to me that, you know, living in a small town--I'm probably not going to do it, but I'm like, "Man, if I opened a punk venue, it would be the only place to go see music," you know? But that's also...maybe no one would come because there's like a tiny handful of punks in this town, you know.

Sprout 08:04 Well, that's actually what we're thinking about starting to do with Blackflower to raise some funds and get our name out there is hold some benefit punk shows. There's, again, there's just not really much in the way of music venues out here. And so what we're doing is just trying to find needs and then meet them. And that's a huge...you know, coming from a city--I wasn't born here, I moved here from a big bigger city area--so, you know, having a music scene was huge. That's what got me into political organizing in the first place. So, I think it's a good subculture to cultivate to try and get people on board.

Margaret 08:47 No, that makes sense. I mean, around where I'm at, like people go, people drive a long way to go to the punk show in the small town in the mountains, you know, that happens to be throwing that particular punk show or whatever thing it is. People go a long way to see live music because you have to. On the other hand, like, do y'all have the phrase "Country close?" Like where it's like, to go anywhere takes about 45 minutes, right, because it's all back country roads. I just think about how far people have to go to go get to places

Sprout 09:20 Yeah, no, I haven't heard that term. But I know the concept for sure.

Margaret 09:24 Okay, so the other thing I was thinking about when you were first talking about this is, you know, homelessness and mutual aid in a small town, you know, you're saying that the the mutual aid network i

Episode Summary

On this week's Live Like the World is Dying, Margaret and Inmn finish their talk about go bags. They talk about important documents, knives, tools, sleeping systems, shelters, coping with isolation, food, water, firearms, specific situations you might need a go bag for, and of course, DnD.

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

Live Like the World is Dying: Margaret on Go Bags Part II

Inmn 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host Inmn Neruin, and this week we're continuing to talk about go bags. We have the second part of an interview with the founder of this podcast, Margaret Killjoy, where we continue our conversation from last week at literally the exact place that we left off. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Doo doo doo doo doo. [Making noises like a song]

So Margaret, we've gone through hygiene kit, survival kit, and... I immediately forgot the third part of it.

Margaret 01:39 First aid.

Inmn 01:39 First-aid kit. And so that wraps up kind of like an emergency pack?

Margaret 01:44 Yep.

Inmn 01:44 What what what else goes in a bug out bag.

Margaret 01:47 So, now that we get to the bag itself, I would say the next most important thing is a water bottle. Specifically, I like--and I give to all my friends--single wall steel canteen style water bottles. And the reason that I like these is that you can boil water in them. The double wall vacuum sealed canteens, they rule for a lot of purposes, like actually, they're really good for like putting hot soup in your bag. If you're going out hiking for the day and you get to the top of the mountain you get to--as if I've ever climbed a whole ass mountain. By my standards where I live, the mountains are very short. And so when you climb up a whole ass Appalachian mountain, you can have your warm soup up at the top even when it's snowing and shit, you know. But overall, I use 32 ounce steel wall canteens. I like them a lot. And then you're also going to want to make sure that you have food in there, protein bars and other snacks. So that's the core. But then for the bag itself, it's really going to depend on what you're doing. So, I guess I'll go over the not camping stuff first, the kind of like...the stuff that is like...Okay, because there's all the camping shit. And that's really useful depending on your situation. But, things to put in your go bag: your passport. If nothing else, if you don't want your actual main documents in here, you're going to want to put photocopies and digital copies of your stuff in here, which is of course somewhat of a security risk. If someone steals your bag, they get this stuff, right. But for me, the threat model is that my passport is more useful to me in my backpack than it is at home in a safe when I'm 1000 miles away. So, your passport, which I would push anyone who was capable in the United States of making sure that they have an updated passport, especially these days. You want your important documents backed up. This could be some of your medical records. It could be your dog's medical records. It could be your children's medical records. And, you might want the deed to your house. You might want some of the vehicle registration stuff. You want your like stuff--not necessarily the originals in this particular case--but you want the documents of it in case you're like coming back later and need to prove some shit. You know? Because a lot of crises might disrupt a lot of the institutions of bureaucracy. And you would think that in times of crisis, bureaucracy will be like, "I guess we kind of get in the way of human freedom." But no, in times of crisis borders will still be like, "Oh, I don't know about you. You don't have the right document. I don't care that the road you're on is literally on fire." or whatever the fuck you know. Another way to back these up is to literally just to take pictures of them on your phone and have it on your phone. But I think it's actually a good idea to have a USB stick with these documents as well and you might want to consider encrypting that, which I don't know if all computers can do easily but at least my computer can do easily. And you probably want...you might want more of an expanded first-aid kit in this. I guess I gets into the other thing thing. And then the other thing that I think you're gonna want in your go bag is you want fucking entertainment. Like this gets over overlooked so much. But, when when Covid hit, the way that my mental health works I was very isolated, right? I could not put myself at risk to Covid because of my mental health. And so, I lived alone in a cabin without much electricity. And the best purchase I made was something called a Bit Boy, and I highly recommend it. It is this tiny...it looks like a tiny Gameboy and it has all of the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and everything else games like on it. And it uses almost no battery. It's rechargeable. It's a little finicky. If you like turn it off it like fucks it up because it's like a it's like a $30 thing full of pirated shit, right? So it's super finicky. But, I swear that this thing had a better mental health effect on me then like almost anything else during that time. And the other thing that got me through it was I had legally purchased downloads of TV. And so even though I didn't have internet, I once a week, once a day, like sat down and ate my cold soup and watched fucking Steven Universe, and that she got me through it. And so like a USB stick full of like movies, TV, also, specifically, a USB stick full of like survival guides and information about how to build things, fix things, all of that shit. I think it's a super useful thing for a bug out bag. And I leave it up to...

Inmn 06:32 It's funny because I feel like this episode is something where we're covering a lot of stuff that--and I just want to start flagging things--we did a whole episode on how you can build a mesh network essentially to have things like libraries of entertainment, or Wikipedia downloads, or like survival bits. So, if you want to learn more about that then go check out that episode. I believe it's called Andre on Solar Punk.

Margaret 07:08 Oh, yeah. I forgot we talked about some of the mesh network stuff. That shit's fucking cool. And yeah, so have a library with you. You know, keep a download of Wikipedia on your computer. My computer bag is an example of the kind of bag that theoretically I should be a little bit smarter and kind of keep next to the bug out bag when it's not in use, right? Because I'm going to throw my laptop into my bug out bag if I'm running, right? And so it's like people are like, "Oh, but where's your like giant knife." and like, don't get me wrong, I have a giant knife on my bag. But. I also now have a Nintendo Switch in there, which is an upgrade from the Bit Boy. And like, I am proudest of that of all of the things in my bug out bag. I see that as the most likely for me to use. And I remember before Covid, I remember thinking to myself as I was preparing a library hard drive. And as I was preparing--well I didn't have the Switch yet--but I was like, "Man, what kind of Apocalypse leaves you with free time?" And I'm like, "Oh, Covid." or the next pandemic or fucking hanging out in a refugee center for trans people in Canada or whatever the fuck horrible shit we're gonna have to deal with, you know?

Inmn 08:24 Yeah, and just sorry, just to clarify, free time for a lot of people and an incredible amount of not free time for a lot of people.

Margaret 08:33 Well, yeah, no, I I think I mean more about isolation. It's not like I like...maybe I'm just being defensive. But it's like at the beginning of the pandemic, my cabin did not sustain life. And so I had to put all of my work into plumbing it, solaring it, you know, washing all my clothes by hand, like doing all this shit, right? But, I think that especially in times of isolation there's like downtime that people don't expect. And I could be wrong, but I suspect that this would be true almost no matter the crisis is that there's like downtime you don't expect where turning your...where not thinking about the crises that are happening is incredibly important. No, it is funny. You're right because I think in my head there's like the beginning of Covid a lot of especially middle class people were like, "Oh, fuck, I'm stuck in my house and bored." Right? Versus a lot of working class people who are like, "Well, now I'm still working in the middle of this nightmare," you know? I think that like...but I would guess that...I

Episode Summary

On this week's Live Like the World is Dying, Margaret and Inmn talk about what goes in a go bag, or bug out bag as they are sometimes called, and how being oogles might have set them up for being preppers. They talk about the different purposes one might make a go bag for, the different smaller kits that make them up, as well as other kits that are helpful to build alongside go bags. Tune in next week for part two.

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Transcript

LLWD: Margaret and Inmn on Go Bags

Inmn 00:15 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I am your co-host today, Inmn Neruin, and I use they/them pronouns. I'm obviously a new host, and today I have with me Margaret Killjoy who is, you know, the normal host, and we're gonna do some fun role reversal here. Instead of me teaching Margaret something about prepping, because I don't really know much about prepping--well, I mean, you know, I know generally about prepping, but a lot of the specifics I'm newer to, a lot of the technical stuff I'm newer to. Strong ideology. Low tech. But, Margaret is going to teach me about how to put together something that has daunted me a lot, but that I understand the importance of, and that is go bags. This podcast is also a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts and before Margaret talks to me about go bags, we're going to hear a jingle from another lovely show on that network. Doo doo doo doo, doo.

Inmn 02:35 Okay, we're back. Margaret, could you introduce yourself on your own podcast that you started,you know, with your name and your pronouns and just a little bit about what you're here to teach me about today?

Margaret 02:50 Yeah, my name is Margaret Killjoy. I use she or they pronouns. You might know me from such podcast as Live Like the World is Dying. But, maybe this is your first episode. In which case, welcome. We have many hosts now on Live Like the World is Dying, which is very exciting. So, I'm going to be talking today about go bags, sometimes called bug out bags, or as I first heard them called, oh shit gear or OSG. No one really calls it that anymore. But some of the first anarchist preppers I ever met like 20 years ago called it OSG. And my background for this is that well, I'm sort of a prepper. I also have lived off-grid more years as an adult than I've lived on-grid. I do currently live on-grid. Before this, I lived in a cabin. Before that I lived in a barn. Before that I lived in a van. Before that I lived in a minivan. Before that I lived out of a backpack. And so I do feel like I have a fairly strong basis in what you need in a backpack to live out of because I did that for about 10 years. But it is a different context, right? And we're going to talk a lot about that today, the context of being traveling crust punk versus having to go bag and all the other different contexts. Yeah, that's my background.

Inmn 04:11 Wonderful, and we're also trying to connect it, I believe to this lovely new book that you just put out through our publishing collective Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness and the importance of go bags, you know, not only in our completely real tangible lives and these very fictionalized versions of our lives like Mankiller Jones', to which there are absolutely no similarities. There are no similar threat models. Nothing. Nothing like that.

Margaret 04:48 Yeah, for anyone listening, I my most recent book is called "Escape from Incel Island" and the protagonist is a nonbinary afab person, named Mankiller Jones, who's trapped on an island full of incels--thus the name--and needs to escape using their wits and the help of friends.

Inmn 05:09 And their go bag?

Margaret 05:11 Yeah, although okay, I'm actually going to argue that there is a difference between a go bag--I'm going to talk about some different types of bag systems you might have for living out of, right. So there's the go bag, and I'll get to that last I would argue that most...a soldier or mercenary or someone in a tactical situation, the primary objective of their thing is combat or evasion or, you know, something in a very militaristic setting. Usually, that might be called a rucksack. And it might be called like rucking. And you're going to have a very different load out of gear for, you know, your tactical situation. You're going to use probably a different type of bag. You're going to use it a lot of different stuff. So, that's like one context. It is a context to consider in these United States of America that are considering a national divorce, and there's a lot of people who want to murder all the trans people and you know, people color and all that shit. So, it is worth considering that and we'll talk a little bit about that. Okay, some of the other contexts that are not go bags, but are in form all of this, you have backpacking bags, right? And within that, basically like, I'm going to go and camp for a couple nights and hike, right? A backpacking bag is designed for two things. It's for hiking, and for camping. And within that you've traditional backpacking, and you have ultralight backpacking. Traditional backpacking, you're going to be carrying like 20 to 50 pounds of stuff. Whereas like rucking, you might be carrying 30 to 80 pounds of stuff, you know. And then there's ultralight backpacking, which is defined as less than 10 pounds before you add like food and water and shit to your bag. And that is like to make the hiking easier, right? But those have a specific purpose and it is not bugging out. It is not going. It is backpacking, right? And then you would have something called a bushcraft pack and I'm making that term up. And this is closer to the tactical bag because it is going to be very heavy, probably, and a lot larger. And bushcraft would be like "I'm going out into the woods to go live in the woods," right? If you need to build shelters, you're going to need different equipment, right. For example, in ultralight backpacking certainly and most traditional backpacking, you're not bringing a saw or an ax. However, if your goal is to survive in the woods for an indefinite period of time, a saw and an ax. are very important tools to have available. Okay, so those are, I'm gonna-go-spend-a-lot-of-time-in-the-woods bags--or desert or whatever. And then you have a go bag. And it's really easy to kind of conflate these things. But they really are a very different purpose. I would argue that your primary goal with a go bag--this is the bag that is in the closet by the door, or is by the door, or lives in your vehicle, or is packed and ready to go at all times in case an emergency takes you out your door for an unknown length of time, or even unknown length of time. And so this is the one bag you grab when your house is on fire. This is a bag that you grab, or you already have in your car, in case you need to spend your night in the car. Like, you know, it's these...people tend to think of go bags as like 'the world has ended' bags, and that's not...the world is always ending and it ends and fits and starts, right? And so it's for disasters. It's for crises. If you need to spend a night in the car, you're going to be very glad that you have a toothbrush and toothpaste, you're gonna be very glad that you have your medications, you're going to be very glad that you have your Nintendo Switch. And, if you suddenly have to flee the country, which frankly a lot of us have to think about as a possibility. It's not in an inevitability and it's not crazy likely that all LGBTQIA+ folks will have to flee the country or whatever. But, it's something that's on a lot of our minds, right? And so, in which case that bag is going to need your passport, it's going to need the rabies identification for your dog, you know, the vaccine identification for your dog. It's going to need a lot of really specific stuff that if you have to run out your door right now this is the bag you would pack and you just keep it already packed. But, most of the time your go bag is sometimes in your car, if you go to your friend's house for a surprise weekend because, you know, there's a hurricane coming, or the boil advisory for your town keeps getting deeper and deeper and you're starting to get really distrustful, or a train derails and there's toxic chemicals in the air, or your ex is in town and he's scary, right? You know, it's just the like...or wildfires sweeping through and there's an evacuation call, right? That is what a go bag is. There might be camping stuff in it, depending on your situation, how much you feel like carrying, how you expect to carry it. If it's gonna mostly live in your car, have some fucking camping stuff. Or, if like me, you live in a fairly isolated place, you know, you live rurally, like, if I