New Books and Sundry

We just got the newest edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves for our library collection so you don't use the old edition and actually try leeches as a cure for the vapors.

We got in several books about the Israeli/Palestinian Apartheid in honor of the 60th anniversary of Al-Nakba:
- Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarships and the Palestinian Question by Christopher Hitchens and Edward Said
- New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid, Edited by Roane Carey with a Foreword by Noam Chomsky
- Peace Under Fire: Israel, Palestine, and the International Solidarity Movement edited by members of the International Solidarity Movement

We also got a bunch of other great new books, so come by!

In stock now:
Abolition Democracy by Angela Davis, All Power To The People by Nuh Washington, Anarchism: Arguments For and Against, Are Prisons Obsolete?, Assata, Breaking Free: The Adventures of TinTin, Carnival of Fury, Chomsky on Anarchism, Detroit I Do Mind Dying, Doris: An Anthology, Free Women Of Spain, Government in the Future by Chomsky, Living My Life Vol. 1 by Emma Goldman, No Surrender by David Gilbert, On The Justice of Roosting Chickens by Ward Churchill, Possibilities by David Graeber, Race Treason Behind Prison Walls, The Revolution of Everyday Life, Situationist International Anthology, The Subversion of Politics, What is Anarchism? by Alexander Berkman, Wild Fermentation, Hatred of Capitalism: A Semiotext(e) Reader, Whores and Other Feminists, Society of the Spectacle, and The IWW Little Red Song Book.

Those are all new books, and there's even more. SO.... come buy a book for you or a friend!

A Short 1-Act Play that Extends an Invitation to You

(artistic license appropriately taken)
-- OPENING - Girl walking bike looking lost and sort of dazed near the state criminal court --

Phone: Ring ring ring

Girl: Hello
Person: Hello! I'm an Americorps volunteer - could I come in and help at the Iron Rail this Sunday?
Girl: Yes - you can come in and label books and alphabetize them.
Person: Great! I really want to be put to work - do you really need me?
Girl: Yes!
Person: Is it ok if I bring some of my friends too?
Girl: Yes! You know what? I'm going to plan a whole labeling party around you and your friends and their Americorps program.
Person: OK that would be great!
Girl: Thank you for calling - you've really made my day.
-- Girl puts phone in backpack and starts riding towards downtown cheerily --
----- End -----

Consensus be damned - I'm having a labeling party THIS Sunday - we're going to label and alphabetize and if either of those two things suit your fancy or if you missed the last one (and you know who you are) then think of the fun you will have at the Sunday Labeling Blowout, where we spell catalog without a 'u', and we listen to Buddy Holly all the time!

DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THE FUZZY CREATURES - The will not be there this time.

CATALOGUING PARTY THIS SATURDAY

The Iron Rail is volunteer-run. We're here because we CARE, and one of the things we care about passionately is finding the best method for cataloguing our library. Finally, we have arrived at that method. We've sorted it all out, every detail of it, and will never have to address the issue in any capacity whatsoever at any time in the future ever again. To celebrate this, we are having a CATALOGUING/LABELING PARTY this Saturday afternoon at 1:30 PM.

WHAT IS A CATALOGUING/LABELING PARTY?
We are gonna go through our whole library and label each book with its category and shelve it alphabetically and catalogue it by hand

WHERE'S THE FUN IN THAT?
Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. This is librarianism at the fringe. Didn't you read that clipping your mom sent you about how it's cool to be a librarian? She was right. Not right about you going to library school, but definitely right about it being cool.

Tintin, Snowy and the cast of sesame street will be there. Fat, fluffy goblins, their dreddy gnarls combed out and their fur gently, organically shampooed, will be there, be-ribboned, dispensing loving hugs. You may cry into their absorbent, fleecy nap, and the internal pressure that's been building up for weeks will dissipate, leaving you cleansed and calm. This will be a deeply healing cataloguing party.

BUT IT WILL ALSO BE FUN.

July Films @ the Iron Rail Book Collective

all films Tuesdays at 8:00PM
511 Marigny Street, corner Marigny and Decataur

July 1: THE TRAP: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, Pt. 1 (Adam Cutis, UK, 2007, 60 min.)
Individual freedom is the dream of our age. It's what our leaders promise to give us, it defines how we think of ourselves and, repeatedly, we have gone to war to impose freedom around the world. But if you step back and look at what freedom actually means for us today, it's a strange and limited kind of freedom.

Politicians promised to liberate us from the old dead hand of bureaucracy, but they have created an evermore controlling system of social management, driven by targets and numbers. Governments committed to freedom of choice have presided over a rise in inequality and a dramatic collapse in social mobility. And abroad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempt to enforce freedom has led to bloody mayhem and the rise of an authoritarian anti-democratic Islamism. This, in turn, has helped inspire terrorist attacks in Britain. In response, the Government has dismantled long-standing laws designed to protect our freedom.

The Trap is a series of three films by Bafta-winning producer Adam Curtis that explains the origins of our contemporary, narrow idea of freedom.

It shows how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today's idea of freedom. This model was derived from ideas and techniques developed by nuclear strategists during the Cold War to control the behaviour of the Soviet enemy.

Mathematicians such as John Nash developed paranoid game theories whose equations required people to be seen as selfish and isolated creatures, constantly monitoring each other suspiciously always intent on their own advantage.

This model was then developed by genetic biologists, anthropologists, radical psychiatrists and free market economists, and has come to dominate both political thinking since the Seventies and the way people think about themselves as human beings.

However, within this simplistic idea lay the seeds of new forms of control. And what people have forgotten is that there are other ideas of freedom. We are, says Curtis, in a trap of our own making that controls us, deprives us of meaning, and causes death and chaos abroad. (summary from IMDB)

Join us on Tuesdays for each one hour episode of this fabulous series from the same filmaker who brought you Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares!


July 8: THE TRAP: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, Pt. 2

July 15: THE TRAP: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, Pt. 3

July 22: La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995)
French director Mathieu Kassovitz's jolting drama traces a fateful day in the lives of alienated ghetto youths Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Hubert (Hubert Koundé) -- a Jew, an Arab and an African, respectively. When their friend Abdel ends up comatose after a police beating, Vinz -- who's come into possession of a gun -- vows to dispense rough justice, sealing the destiny of all three. Benoît Magimel also stars.


July 29: Breathless (Jim McBride, USA, 1983)
This underrated corker of early-eighties action cinema stars Richard Gere as a gangster with a heart of gold, trying to pull one last big score before he mends his law-breaking ways. From the chase scenes through the casinos of Vegas to the glitzy poolside parties in Los Angeles, this movie was shot largely on location, in actual casinos and next to actual pools. Gere has big poofy hair, the ladies have big poofy hair, all the cars look the same, and Ronald Reagan has declared it "The Year of the Bible". That actually happened in 1983, look it up. Anyway, one IMDB commenter said that Gere for this movie "seems to model himself on The Silver Surfer." Baffling. In brilliant color with a soundtrack featuring Dexy's Midnight Runners.

Oh wow! So much wonderful whimsy!

We have gotten in so much good new stuff, it's impossible to even start to cover it all. Here's a few highlights:
-The new Left Turn magazine, who have put out an amazing issue with #29.
-The new Truth Universal CD, Self-Determination, which is really good for $10
-The new Spread Magazine
-Many new zines and pamphlets including TAV Comics, The Expansion of the American Prison Cell, On Pacifism by Derrick Jensen, N30: a WTO Protest Memoir and Analysis, and more
-Dozens of new AK Press books, including Free Comrades, a book about Homosexuality and Anarchism during the revolutionary days of the late 1800s and early 1900s
-The Cunt Coloring Book
-SO MUCH MORE! SERIOUSLY! GET DOWN HERE!

June Films @ the Iron Rail

ALL FILMS TUESDAYS @ 8:00PM

June 3: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
McMurphy, a man with several assault convictions to his name, finds himself in jail once again. This time, the charge is statutory rape when it turns out that his girlfriend had lied about being eighteen, and was, in fact, fifteen (or, as McMurphy puts it, "fifteen going on thirty-five"). Rather than spend his time in jail, he convinces the guards that he's crazy enough to need psychiatric care and is sent to a hospital. He fits in frighteningly well, and his different point of view actually begins to cause some of the patients to progress. Nurse Ratched becomes his personal cross to bear as his resistance to the hospital routine gets on her nerves.

June 10: La Voie Lactée (The Milky Way) (1969)
In this satiric French comedy, two men (Paul Frankeur and Laurent Terzieff) on a time tripping spiritual pilgrimage find their faith put to the test by the zealots and apostates they meet along the way, including God, the Devil, an insane priest, the police, prostitutes, and a group of revolutionary anarchists who execute the Pope. Bernard Verley and Edith Scob provide first-rate support as director Luis Buñuel -- with his trademark absurdist touches on full display -- lampoons his favorite targets: organized religion in general and Catholicism in particular.

June 17: Orwell Rolls in his Grave (2003)
Documentary filmmaker Robert Kane Pappas presents a riveting argument for his theory that America is under an Orwellian watch with the rise to prominence of the radical, right-wing Republican party, an ascent aided, unwittingly or not, by the mainstream media. Here, Pappas interviews an impressive roster, including Center for Public Integrity director Charles Lewis, legal analyst Vincent Bugliosi and liberal filmmaker Michael Moore.


June 24: Was Tun, wenn's brennt? (2001)
What To Do In Case of Fire? tells the humorous and touching story of six former creative anarchists who lived as house squatters in Berlin during its heyday in the 80s when Berlin was still an island in the middle of the former eastern Germany. At the end of the 80s they went their separate ways with the exception of Tim and Hotte, who have remained true to their ideals and continue to fight the issues they did as a group. In 2000, with Berlin as Germany's new capital, an event happens forcing the group out of existential reason to reunite and, ultimately, come to grips with the reason they separated 12 years ago.