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Working Translations

Catherine Campoursy, “Joie de vivre / Joy of Living” (1933)

August 15, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur

To appreciate life, to taste with joy, even with delight all of the infinitely brief and fleeting moments, the succession of which forms the weft of our existence, to feel a pleasure in starting each new day; this is the only way of being desirable for an individual who has killed in themselves every germ of mysticism, and who scoffs at all forms of asceticism — holding this practice to be contrary to healthy equilibrium, as the prerogative of nervous temperaments and weak stomachs. If they do not possess this fund of optimism, life, for the free individual, has no reason to exist. […]

Music

Libertatia Laboratories — Archive

August 8, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur

Libertatia Laboratories was a short-lived CDR label, featuring my own work and that of various other noise-makers from the fringes of the Bowling Green, OH scene. Whatever their other merits, the recordings are, for me at least, pleasant reminders of the vibrant experimental current of which they were a part. […]

Contr'un

Fresh Summer Threads

August 3, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur

My sense is that anarchy is always related to the enormous quantities of collective force emerging from modern social organization. In otherwise archic, governmentalist societies, it manifests as an often destructive force, threatening governments but not sparing the people. […]

Featured articles

Constructing Anarchisms: Notes for a Preface

August 2, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur

If asked, I generally say that I have been an anarchist for close to thirty years. And because of all the other things that I have been for much longer—a big nerd, basically—that has translated into nearly three decades of sometimes obsessive research into anarchist history and theory, art and literature, etc. At this point, it’s hard to imagine thinking of myself as anything other than an anarchist. I have worn a large number of hats over the years and continue to do so, but few of them represent anything like an identity. I have mixed feelings, in general, about identities. “I am large, I contain multitudes”—and those multitudes don’t always get along in a particularly unified or even dignified manner. With anarchist, however, the unity and the multiplicity seem to be simultaneously implied. Je suis anarchiste—I am anarchic. […]

Featured articles

Alceste, “Louis Moreau, Engraver” (1923)

July 28, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur

A serious or charming illustrator of daily labor, wanting to bring into the life of the humble a little hope and a bit of the ideal, Louis Moreau, with a big heart overflowing with kindness and justice, strives to stylize in a few sober notations the touching environment where the workers work and live. […]

Working Translations

Albert Soubervielle, “Vivre / To Live” (1923)

July 19, 2021 Shawn P. Wilbur

Most people submit, blissfully follow the path that was laid out for them beforehand, disputing nothing and taking their place in the ranks assigned to them in the herd. They are perfect citizens, respectful of the catechisms taught and the laws imposed, but we could not see in them beings living according to nature and reason. […]