Books I read in 2021

Hello, hi, heyo,

It’s been a while.

I took a lot of time off from this site, but I’m still here, sort of.

2021 was a strange year (for lots of reasons) but especially for my reading habits. I went through bursts of reading, and then long periods of not reading, at least not books. The books I did read fell into a different category than what I’m traditionally accustomed to. There was a majority of non-fiction, but the fiction I did read really captivated me.

The books I read essentially fall into 3 categories with a few falling into multiple categories:

• Science based books about drugs and consciousness
• Literature by trans and non-binary authors
• "Self-help" books about understanding oneself and relationships

Books

• We Will Not Cancel Us - adrienne maree brown
• Emergent Strategy - adrienne maree brown
• All About Love - bell hooks*
• Detransition Baby - Torrey Peters
• Dream of a Woman - Casey Plett
• Little Fish - Casey Plett
• This is Your Mind on Plants - Michael Pollan
• DMT: the Spirit Molecule - Rick Strassman
• Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars - Kai Cheng Thom
• I Hope We Choose Love - Kai Cheng Thom
• Beyond the Gender Binary - Alok Vaid-Menon

Workbooks & PDFs

• Boundaries 101: Beginners Guide to Ethical Non-Monogamy & Consensual Alternative Relationship Structures - Sam Cat (AKA Shrimpteeth)
• Mastering BAES: Intermediate Guide to Boundaries, Agreements, Expectations and Support for Polyamory & Ethical Non-Monogamy - Sam Cat (AKA Shrimpteeth)
• The Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Workbook - Matthew McKay

I thoroughly enjoyed all the books on this list, probably because I didn't include books that I may have read the first parts of and then discarded due to a lack of interest.

The standouts were definitely both books by Casey Plett; Detransition Baby; and I Hope We Choose Love. They were all written by trans women and really resonated with me at the time of reading.

Both Dream of a Woman and Little Fish had me hooked because they're both set or partially set in Winnipeg / Manitoba and include scenes describing my current and former neighbourhoods. Both describe the experiences of trans women that parallel some of my own personal experiences (including specific medical providers). Plett's writing captures elements of the trans experience, such as the internal dialogue and contradictions that only a trans person could really understand and articulate.

I also had the pleasure of seeing Casey Plett read a section of Dream of a Woman at McNally Robinson here in Winnipeg back in October. This experience felt somewhat surreal. I realized that I existed within some of the spaces she describes at the time they take place during the book (Cousin's and the Good Will) and made me wonder how I hadn't met any of her characters. A friend later pointed out that I probably had indeed crossed paths with the real life people Plett had drawn inspiration from.

Detransition Baby was notably for some of the same reason's as Plett's work. Not because of relatable geography, Detransition Baby takes place in NYC, but rather because of the trans experience described within its pages. Peters isn't shy to tackle topics that are often considered taboo in trans discourse. The topic of detransition being the most obvious as it's right there in the title, and if I'm being honest was an initial source of hesitation for me. The topic of detransition is often used by Terfs and anti-trans bigots to invalidate trans people's existence, and as a result the word has become something of a trigger. But Peters expertly reclaims the word and gives the process and experience of detransition the nuanced approach that it deserves.

Peters also tackles the topic of queer parenting and forces readers to question preconceived notions of gender roles and monogamy within parental units.

Finally, Kai Cheng Thom's I Hope We Choose Love came to me at a time I really needed it, when I was becoming disillusioned with “Left” discourse and online social justice movements. Her critiques of contemporary movements both validated my own frustrations and also allowed me to re-evaluate my knee-jerk reactions and embrace a more empathetic approach to my own relationships. Kai Cheng Thom’s work was and continues to be a catalyst for deeper conversations with close friends. I find myself continually returning to her text and look forward to reading more from her.

*This is still in progress, because I keep putting it aside to contemplate what I've read so far before continuing to read the rest.

Books, Lectures, Longreads & Zines I Read in 2016

As has become a sort of tradition, I've taken the time on this lazy New Year's day to catalog the stuff I've read, or perhaps listened to, over the course of the past twelve months.

2016 furthered the trend of consuming literature in audio form, as audiobooks are eaier for me to listen to while accomplishing other tasks. I've decided to include the lectures I either personally attended, or listened to online, as well as some of the longer reads and zines I stumbled upon (send me more zine suggestions!).

Looking at some of the other trends I notice that whereas Chomsky dominated the list last year, Michael Parenti seems to have taken up that mantel this time around. Where Anarchist principles have traditionally been the way in which I approach the world, Marxism has increasingly become the lense from which I look through.

I don't think I read any fictional novels this year (I was going to write I didn't read any fiction, but I did subject myself to a few Margaret Wente, Jon Kay, and Scott Gilmore columns, so... that's not completely accurate.) I should really make an attempt to change this in 2017. I love fiction, especially speculative and science fiction and really ought to read more of it.

Books

The Declarations of Havana - Fidel Castro / Tariq Ali

How I Became a Communist - Fidel Castro

Who Rules The World? - Noam Chomsky (You can read my review in the Winnipeg Free Press )

Queering Anarchism: Addressing and Undressing Power and Desire - C. B. Daring (Editor); J. Rogue (Editor); Deric Shannon (Editor); Abbey Volcano(Editor)

Rainbow Solidarity in Defence of Cuba - Leslie Feinberg

The Ethical Slut - Dossie Easton & Janet W. Hardy

Wages of Rebellion - Chris Hedges

Japanese: Ultimate Getting Started - Innovative Language Learning

The Conquest of Bread - Peter Kropotkin

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution - Peter Kropotkin

Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism - V.I. Lenin

“Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder - V.I. Lenin

Queer Beats: How The Beats Turned America On To Sex - Regina Marler

Visual Impact: Creative Dissent in the 21st Century - Liz McQuiston

Fascism: A Very Short Introduction - Kevin Passmore

Orientalism - Edward Said

Marx: A Very Short Introduction - Pete Singer

Constructing Ecoterrorism - John Sorenson

Militant Anti-Fascism: A Hundred Years of Resistance - M. Testa

Where Do Correct Ideas Come From? - Mao Tse-tung

Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction - Colin Ward

Lectures

A Marx for Our Times: Who Can Speak to Race, Class and Colonialism - Kevin Anderson

Marx and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat - Brian Bean

Socialist & War: Two Opposing Trends (Lecture) - Brian Becker

Bolshevism and National Liberation Revisited - Eric Blanc

Che Guevara - Sam Farber

Unite and Fight: The Politics of Solidarity in the Anti-Racist Struggle - Anton Ford

Lenin and Bukharin on Imperialism - Phil Gasper

Are the Métis Treaty People? - Adam Gaudry

Reading Marx's Capital Vol. 1 with David Harvey (Series of Lecture) - David Harvey

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State - Lucy Herschel

The Arabs in Israel: The Inaudible Cry for Full Citizenship - Sayed Kashua

After Neoliberalism: Can the Working Class Still Change the World? - Paul Kellogg

Eugene Debs and the U.S. Socialist Tradition - Marlene Martin

Reaction, Reform and Revolution - Meredith McIntyre

1917 | How The Bolsheviks Came to Power - Alpana Mehta

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense - Donna Murch

A Critical Assessment of the New World Order - (Lecture) - Michael Parenti

Contrary Notions (Lecture) - Michael Parenti

Lies, War & Empire (Lecture) - Michael Parenti

Reflections on the Overthrow of Communism (Lecture) - Michael Parenti

From Civil Rights to Black Power - Haley Pessin

Labor in the Digital Age: How New is the New Capitalism? - Makund Rathi

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation - Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Marx and Nature - Elizabeth Terzakis

Constructing Ecoterrorism - John Sorenson

Dissertations, Thesis & Articles of Note

Resettling the City? Setter Colonialism, Neoliberalism, and Urban Land in Winnipeg, Canada - Owen Toews

Theorizing Neoliberal Urban Development: A Genealogy from Richard Florida to Jane Jacobs - Brian Tochterman

The Revolutionary Distemper in Syria That Wasn't - Stephen Gowans

Decriminalising Bashar: Towards A More Effective Anti-War Movement - Carlos Martinez

Zines

Dear Journal issue 2 (Zine)

the everyday (Zine)

Confessions of a Queer (Zine)

Books I read in 2015

Today is December 31st, so it's time for another rundown of the books I read (or mostly read, or listened to) throughout the past twelve months. As has been an increasing trend of mine the majority are audio books or audio versions of published lectures, and the list is once again dominated by Chomsky. PM Press published new audio versions of many of his older lectures this year, so I binge listened to these while working. The list also includes some local works, such as my friend Sheldon's book about Winnipeg's music scene, Red River College graduate Adam Campbell's short graphic retelling of the Winnipeg General Strike, and the University of Winnipeg Institute of Urban Studies' study of income inequality (which I contributed photos to). While composing this list I realized that I only read two works of fiction, Animal Farm, which I reread after seeing some reference to it in a movie or something, and Aurora, which admittedly I haven't actually finished though I'm loving it so far.

Missing Like Teeth: An Oral History of Winnipeg Underground Rock 1990-2001 - Sheldon Birnie

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel - Max Blumenthal

Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper's Assault on Your Right to Know - Mark Bourrie

Bloody Saturday - Adam Campbell

Masters of Photography: Henri Cartier-Bresson - Clément Chéroux

Fateful Triangle - Noam Chomsky

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Domination - Noam Chomsky

Intervention - Noam Chomsky

Magna Carta: Then & Now - Noam Chomsky

On Iran - Noam Chomsky

On Palestine - Noam Chomsky & Ilan Pappé

Terrorism: The Politics of Language - Noam Chomsky

The Threat of Democracy - Noam Chomsky

The Tyranny of Corporations - Noam Chomsky

U.S. Media as Propaganda System - Noam Chomsky

When Elites Fail - Noam Chomsky

Year 501: The Conquest Continues - Noam Chomsky

Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Meaning of Freedom - Angela Davis

The Prison Industrial Complex - Angela Davis

The Divided Prairie City: Income Inequality Among Winnipeg's Neighbourhoods, 1970-2010 - Jino Distasio & Andrew Kaufman

War, Journalism and the Middle East - Robert Fisk

Howl and Other Poems - Allen Ginsberg

Roots - Alex Haley

Power to the People - Fred Hampton

Direct Action: Reflections on Armed Resistance and the Squamish Five - Ann Hansen

Now This War Has Two Sides - Derrick Jensen

Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs - Johann Hari

Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib - Seymour M. Hersh

The Anthology 1957 - 1968 - Martin Luther King Jr.

LSD - Timothy Leary

Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, A Radial History of Plants, Drugs and Human Evolution - Terence McKenna

Animal Farm - George Orwell

Collected Essays - George Orwell

Indigenous Nationhood: Empowering Grassroots Citizens - Pamela Palmater

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinen - Ilan Pappé

Aurora - Kim Stanley Robinson

Revolts & Rebellions - Arundhati Roy

Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice - Rudolph Rocker

Culture and Imperialism - Edward W. Said

Blackwater: Mercenary Army - Jeremy Scahill

Undoing Border Imperialism - Harsha Walia

Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion - Gary Webb

The Case of Sacco & Vanzetti - Howard Zinn

Confronting Government Lies - Howard Zinn

Democracy, Dissent and Disobedience - Howard Zinn

Emma Goldman, Anarchism and War Resistance - Howard Zinn

History Matters - Howard Zinn

Just and Unjust Wars - Howard Zinn

Three Holy Wars - Howard Zinn

My Year in 1,676 Photos

I've been mulling over this idea for a while. It's something that came to me while quickly scrubbing through several months of Lightroom archives. I realized that if you play through the photos quickly it's sort of like a hyperlapse of my life, or at least of what I saw through the lens of my camera over the past twelve months. 

The video includes many concerts; a few book launches; 2 weeks in Japan; a photoshoot with a professional wrestler; a couple bomb threats; a memorial for missing and murdered indigenous women; my 4 cats; a lot of Winnipeg architecture; my beautiful partner, Melissa; some disgustingly cutesy photos of my parents; a bunch of self-portraits and promo shots for my favourite band (Propagandhi).

In the end I'm very excited about how much I got to do this past year and hope that things will continue at a steady pace going forward.

Propagandhi announce new guitarist

A few weeks ago Propagandhi invited me over to their jam space to take photos of them and their newest member, guitarist, Sulynn, who will be replacing Beave on tour.

Sulynn is from Tampa, Florida, and was in town briefly to practice with the band and learn the ropes. You can read the band's statment and her introduction on their website.

I was thrilled to get the call from Chris to shoot their latest band photo and learn what was in store for them. I got to hear them go over a few older songs, and can attest to the fact that they sound amazing! In addition to her guitar work, Sulynn's backing vocals work really well against Chris and Todd's voices.

I can't wait to catch them next time they play in town.

Best Shows of 2014

As a music fan and a live music photographer I go to a lot of concerts. I grew up going to basement shows and seeing bands play gymnasiums, curling clubs, and Knights of Columbus halls, so I've always had an appreciation for small venues and bars. These medium to small venues make for a more intimate evening, and often bring out the best in musicians who are comfortable playing without the glitz associated with stadium shows.

In the grand scheme of things, 2014 was a terrible fucking year. The news was dominated by death and destruction, poverty and racism, colonial repression, decease, environmental catastrophe, and misogyny. Reviewing the year in news clips is enough to induce a permanent aversion to the exterior world, as impractical and priviledge as that may be.

But. BUT. Music has always served as both a reprive from and a commentary on reality, and the music that surrounded my life in 2014 was no exception.

Inspired by my annual list of books read, I've compiled a list of my favourite concerts of the last 12 months.

Propagandhi - The Windsor Hotel - Jan 1st

Though it was New Years Eve 2013 Propagandhi didn't grace the stage at the Windsor until just minutes after Midnight. This was one of the best evenings ever. Propagandhi, though Winnipeg locals, only ever play in their hometown once every couple years, usually in much larger venues to bigger always sold out crowds. The New Years Eve show was announced with practically no notice and tickets sold out within minutes. I stood in line on a cold December morning in the Exchange waiting for Into the Music to open their doors and pick up the hottest ticket in town. But like many others I was left in the cold, ticketless and irritable. But thanks to the kindness of friends Melissa and I, along with many of those faces behind me in line, got to ring in the New Year with some of the raddest dudes around.

Metz - Union Sound Hall - Jan 23rd

I couldn't believe how intense Metz stage presence was. Their post-punk noise rock assaulted my ears and and body. I came home from this show with giant bruises on both thighs from being repeatedly slammed into the stage.

B.A. Johnston - The Windsor Hotel - Jan 25th

This was one of the funniest, grossest, most engaging performances I've ever seen. His performance teeters somewhere between standup comedy and punk. Without a band, Johnston is accompanied by an old Discman with recordings he probably put together in Garageband. While playing songs about fast food, his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, and his mother's cat, he belched and perspired up and down the stage. Firing snot rockets with apologies that he had a cold, and hurling self deprecating insults like boomerangs. He capped off the evening by playing his encore in the bathroom.

Against Me! - The West End Cultural Centre - April 3rd

From the moment Laura Jane Grace walks onstage she steals the show. Her booming snarling voice filled the West End Cultural Centre, sending shock waves through the crowd. Especially notable was the lack of dude bros, with a huge female and trans presence in the crowd. After the show Matt Williams and I stood around hoping to get an interview with Laura. We waited near the exit for nearly an hour, talking to a 15 year old girl and her dad who brought her to the show. They told us that they'd been to every Against Me! show in the prairies, even driving down to Minneapolis to see the band that held a special place in her heart.

Killer Mike - Union Sound Hall - June 20th

*Cover of R.A.P. Music used under fair use license

One of the few shows I went to that I didn't shoot, but was incredibly memorable. One of my favourite moments was when he had the entire crowd chanting "Fuck Ronald Reagan!"

Russian Circles - The Pyramid - September 19th

It's hard to describe the feeling this show left me with. It was one of those rare performances where the people on stage almost seem to disappear under the weight and ambience of the sound they create. The whole crowd was shrouded in a cloud of fog that seemed to pulse and explode with each note.

Fucked Up - The West End Cultural Centre - September 23rd

This show was fucking bonkers. Damian Abraham's dynamic performance is like an emotional breakdown that tears through the crow.  His pantomime performance had him shedding his shirt, jumping down from the stage and into the crowd, to the very back of the venue where he grabbed someone's draft beer and doused himself, crumpling the cup and suctioning it to his forehead, leaving it there for the next several songs, then removing it and drinking the perspiration that accumulated. Also notable was his overwhelmingly inspiring attitude, imbibing the crowd with at least a temporary sense of hope.

Fred Eaglesmith - The Park Theatre - October 2nd

I'll admit, I had never heard Fred Eaglesmith prior to Exclaim! hiring me to shoot his show at the Park Theatre. My friend and fellow Exclaim! contributor Sheldon assured me that we were in for a good time. Eaglesmith's merry band of pranksters are like a psychedelic roadshow that set out on the open road sometime in the 60's and still haven't run out of gas. 

The Smalls - The West End Cultural Centre - October 24th

I didn't truly understand how special The Smalls were until I stood among the aging prairie punks. Someone standing next to the stage put his arm around me and yelled into my ear "I'll be the first to buy one of those prints." I could tell that The Smalls were one of those bands that really spoke to him. He's probably heard these songs a thousand times.

Greg McPherson - The Good Will Social Club - November 9th

GMac has a voice like no other. Perfect for belting working class rock 'n' roll and giving inspiration talks to a room full of friends and neighbours. A show highlight, as seen in this photo, was when Hailey Primrose joined him to sing "Tourists" from his latest album Fireball.

The Flatliners - The Park Theatre - November 27th

I probably should have also included Slates and The Greenery here as well seen as all three bands that played that night played solid sets.

A Tribe Called Red - Union Sound Hall - December 11th

*This photo was actually taken in September of 2013 when A Tribe Called Red played a free show a the University of Winnipeg. I didn't bring my camera to the show at Union Sound Hall. 

Seeing A Tribe Called Red on Treaty One Territory is always an incredibly powerful, especially in a packed crowd that includes the Grand Chief of Manitoba, Derek Nepinak and Anishinaabe singer songwriter Leonard Sumner.