Anarchist Bookfair Amsterdam

The Anarchist Book Fair Amsterdam will be organized in November 2019. This is the 3rd year in a row that we have organized this anual book fair. The first two years were so succesful that we had a taste for more. So this year you can come to the Dokhuis again for all your anarchist books, zines, stickers, posters, buttons, clothing and much more!

The specific date still has to be confirmed, but we are going to organize it at the Dokhuis in November. Keep an eye on our website and facebook for updates. As soon as we have confirmed the date we will let you know there.

Do you want to run a stand, give a workshop or help out at the book fair? Let us know!

Plantage doklaan 8, Amsterdam

November

anarchistbookfairamsterdam@riseup.net
Anarchistbookfairamsterdam.blackblogs.org

There are 9 Comments

less bookfairs, more uh...hmm...maker spaces, group aerobic sessions, and dance parties?
i dunno, something that's more than people buying consumable goods to take back to their homes and read in isolation

also, FEWER bookstores, if you need to make that point...
but yea, more dance parties regardless

you're right.

i'll still wiggle in protest, look: it is a false binary, in the sense that one is not opposite or cancel out the other. also, people interested in organizing/going to a bookfair are not necessarily those that would like to do the other things. plus, me complaining does not change anything.

now...are bookfairs done out of an irresistible impulse to do them, an overwhelming demand for them, or a desire to have a big meet-up and mingling plus a lack of creativity which causes them to fall-back to easier to replicate go-to models of things overdone? i truly do not know.

i went to a tiny bookfair (not an anarchist one) once, i sped by the books in each table, i flipped through the pages, none interested me, then left. everyone seemed to be doing the same thing, not much mingling or interaction. someone was later brought in to shout bad poetry on a microphone, i'm guessing that made some people leave faster, but it also made a group stay gathered around the poet, listening like spectators, not talking among each other.

when the music is loud at a dance club people don't chat much either. bar with loud music do host some conversation, though the music doesnt help. who the fuck goes to coffee shops except yuppies during working hours (non-young urban professionals, i guess?

i don't know. maybe i shouldn't have shit opinions. but i have internet and keyboard!

i do hear you. and i also wish that there was more obvious social interaction, and your shit analysis is almost as valid as my shit analysis.
just for the fuck of it it i'll point out that people not interacting with each other immediately at an event doesn't mean that they don't/won't follow up with each other later (must SM stalk each other to see if they are safe/compatible, right?)
but i'm just guessing. and your complaint is a marker that something important (socializing f2f) is, if not not-happening, then at least changing dramatically, though maybe *just* [sic] in rhythm and/or pacing.

profound. thanks for reminding me i should look beyond the surface, there's more going on that meets the eye at first. this makes me think i should regularly go to these type of things (with no expectations except exposure, "scouting", and openness for potential) instead of offhandedly outright discarding them from the get-go. something could still happen "behind the scenes", bookfair just being the "stage".

Yes, but what if interpersonal "safety and compatibility" is only checked through NOT using social media? I have a hard time relating to people who connect to "progressive" others through channels run/exploited by exclusive cliques of White male billionaires who shit on all of us with a personal sense of heroism. That doesn't look to me as a precedent for deep thinkers.

"who the fuck goes to coffee shops except yuppies during working hours (non-young urban professionals, i guess?"

I go to coffee shops attended by yuppies when it's not too busy and I got no better source for decent coffee & wifi... What's the deal? Could be a food court, an academic campus, a park, even some fast-food chain if I'm out of better solutions... Places don't make people, it's the opposite. Looking forward to more wifi cafés run by anarchos, that are actively inclusive to OTHER PEOPLE than yuppies.

Other than that, your experience of bookfairs pretty much represents their inherent problem(s). You can't be having a very efficient meet-up and agitation space around the practice buying books over a table. It's just a variation on the over-the-counter relation... Of course anarcho-left liberals never went as deep as to be questioning themselves about this structure. As long as it makes them money for their distro or (yuppie) workers' coop...

haha, no offense meant to you. excuse my snobbery towards coffee shops. a large pack of (albeit cheap, though good enough) grounded coffee costs the same or less than a cup at those places. when hustling for wifi and shelter, the price might be worth it, or no other choice available, so i understand your situation.

imagine an anarcho café that's a speakeasy, secret because it serves donated coffee (maybe even stolen from other places lol) for dirt cheap, so yuppies would not be in the known of location, or if they come, they must donate a coffee pack at entrance. a fair price to be allowed inside this top secret cool place.

"...anything that goes against the mainstream."

Whelp! I like swedish hipsters much better than i like wisconsin semi-eco-extremists! Sign me up and far-fet-nugen! hehehehehe...

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