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The Aging Anarchist's Cookbook

metal horns!

From The New Yorker
by Reuven Perlman

About This Edition
Welcome to the newest edition of “The Anarchist Cookbook.” To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of this seminal and controversial guide, we’ve updated its contents for a maturing readership of former and aging anarchists. If you were a bit of a punk in your youth but now are the same age as your parents were when they bought their second house, this edition is for you.

Enjoy all-new chapters that will help you navigate the realities of your current life stage, including the following:

Making Actual Money

  • How to rationalize getting a real job by telling yourself that you’re going to “fuck shit up from within the machine.”
  • How to give your business-casual outfit a “punk-rock twist” (with recommended skull-patterned ties).
  • How to transition to enjoying the slow rhythm of a nine-to-five corporate gig, because while you may be “selling out” you’re also tired (so, so tired).

Obviously, all sections related to the making of drugs and explosives have been removed. I mean, my God, even putting ethics aside, can you imagine having the energy to do anything like that? We’ve replaced those parts with how-tos curated for folks like you—those who never read this book but who broadly adopted a vague, countercultural world view in their youths and are now rapidly approaching middle age. Accordingly, we’ve increased the type size by a hundred and fifty per cent to enhance readability.

Acclimating to Suburbia

  • How to broadcast your fragile punk-rock identity by making your toddler wear a Black Flag T-shirt.
  • How to prominently display your old skateboard deck without ever, ever trying to skate again.
  • How to become one of those vegan punks who channel all of their aggressive energy into self-improvement and get really into hot yoga.

In this new edition, you won’t learn how to sabotage an oil pipeline with homemade devices, but you will learn how to monkey-wrench your way to a good night’s sleep! Just turn to Chapter 7 for our recipe for the anar-sleep cocktail: a blend of melatonin, L-theanine, and magnesium citrate—served lukewarm, and paired with a playlist of the Clash’s lower-key tracks, such as “Straight to Hell.”

Other culinary content can be found in our “Anarchist Cookbook: The Cookbook” addendum, which includes:

  • How to go on a low-carb diet but call it something that sounds kinda hard-core, like “primal eating.”
  • How to make mocktails that let you maintain the ritual aspect of nightly drinking without the hangovers that incapacitate you for, honest to God, weeks.
  • How to get really into smoothies and bond with the other tattooed parents at the Whole Foods juice bar.

We hope that this new edition is helpful to you. If you enjoy it, keep an eye out for other reissued content, including a reimagined edition of Chuck Palahniuk’s “Fight Club” that skips all of the fighting and reorients the dramatic arc around the narrator’s search for the perfect kitchen cabinet.