Hi!
A few quick notes
This has been a rather intense few weeks for me. And it looks like it will get even more intense, and I’m pretty happy with that. It’s also meant my writing has been a little scant at the moment, but that will change oh-so-soon.
In the meantime, I wanted to tell you what I’ve been up and what’s coming up.
First of all, Here Be Monsters will be released 30 days from now, and we have a date and a location for the UK release event. It'll be Friday, 22 September at Hoxton Books in London, so save the date! More events will be announced soon, and more information for that event will be posted once it’s all settled.
Secondly, I’ve been invited to several podcasts to speak about the book, but I don’t have release dates for those episodes yet. And if you run a podcast and want to invite me on — or if you’d like to co-ordinate getting me on others — I’m absolutely open to this.
Much of the last few weeks has been busy for several reasons, but especially on account of the upcoming release of a second edition of True To The Earth: Pagan Political Theology, by Kadmus. It’s such a damn good book, and I’m happy we’re getting a new (and corrected) edition out.
Also, I’ve spent a lot of time working on a needed transition for A Beautiful Resistance, the journal of Ritona // Gods& Radicals Press, to Substack. Substack is by far superior to Squarespace’s “members areas” feature, and our previous way of publishing supporter-only essays wasn’t working for our writers or for our supporters.
We’ve just published our first paid-supporter essay there, by the lushly prosaic Slippery Elm, and it’s brilliant.
The State may garb itself in the ceremonial dress of palaces, parliaments and podiums; of crown jewels and military parades; of patriotic carnivals or the heroism of international sports contests; and may seek legitimacy in fear-mongering and the grandeur of national literatures. However, upon dispelling the inebriating effect of these cheap stage-magic tricks, the State is nothing but a self-styled elite who extract taxes per force, who govern through hollow legalism upheld by violence. The emergence of the State is not based on agriculture, but on the throttling of agriculture.
This week, I’ll have the pleasure of the company of my dear friend Felix Marquardt for a few days, and we’ll be hosting an in-person Black Elephant dinner parade. I’ll let you know how that goes, and I’ll also record an in-person conversation with him for The Re/al/ign.
Two more quick things. You can still purchase all books from Ritona (including mine!) at 25% off until 1 September with code “SUMMER.” And you can also become a paid subscriber to my substack for 20% off at the link below.
More writing coming soon!
Much love,
—Rhyd
Read Revolutionary Agrarianism with interest. In the two rural areas I have deep familiarity with - Southern Wisconsin and the Central Valley of Fresno, California, there are Grange Halls, remnants of the agrarian populist movement in the later 1800’s and early 1900’s. Now rented out for community use for various events, dance classes and such. Both areas in the 70’s and 80’s saw the collapse of the economic viability of small farms and a whole generation of farmer children did not follow in their parents’ lifestyle. An agrarian culture died. In my own family an unbroken farming tradition that went back to the 1600’s starting in New England and moving to the Midwest in the 1850’s was broken. Of my five siblings and four cousins, only one farms, not a small farm but huge monocultures of corn and soybeans on thousands of acres of rented land utilizing huge machines, chemicals galore and Monsanto seeds, no animals anywhere. How to restart and regenerate a healthy version of a landed agrarian culture is a real conundrum.