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The stuff about musician nonpayment/payola is interesting and well-documented here (including efforts to unionize/resist/subvert it by musicians). Getting paid for music isn't something i personally care about, but the book does a good job and tying it to broader problems that exist right now wrt labour and the gig work economy, which is very relevant to the types of work I do (and as a participant in all this). HOWEVER, as a punk the real brain-breaker was solidifying my understanding of the tech end of how big data analysis and playlist curation shape broad understandings of genre and shape how people make (and consume) music. The example explored in the book was hyperpop but I can see exactly how hardcore and punk slot in. All the evils of the regular ol music industry plus unhinged levels of digital surveillance and squeezing every possible drop of money and attention out of both consumers and artists (who, spoiler alert, are also considered as consumers). Evil genocide-mongering billionaires. Everything is bad about Spotify. I knew it was bad bad but actually learning how the sausage gets made is truly horrifying. I am so upset. Preemptive apologies to everyone I will punish about this topic in the near future. I hope people who use the platform (in both senses) will read this.

This book was a bit of a punishment to get through. I just really hate Stephen King's writing and not gonna try another book. I have liked some film adaptations and was hoping for easy reading from his works but they drag, they aren't scary, they do not age well. I shouldn't expect much but every women is intellectually dumb and every man is emotional dumb and they are all so two dimensional.

Listened to the '87 CBC audio drama of it and it was such a time capsule to audio productions from another era. The specific seductive feminine voice, the music, the way shevek sounds like he is the voice actor for some favourite Canadian children's cartoon.

To start off 2025, I wanted to read a gelderloos essay because I find his writing usually focuses on posi, optimist, and big picture topics and I had just got my hands on this pocket book.

The title essay is broken into 3 sections, starting off with a look at formal and informal formats and trying to suggest when and how these different forms support a struggle, and when adherence or critique of any one form will hinter an expansive struggle.

Second section looks what keeps people going, keeps people around and in the scene, and has people burning out. Mostly it focuses in the ideas and dynamics that create that inner fire people have to push forward against opposition and resistance.

The third section looks at community, which in this content really is an exploration of power dynamics -- formal or informal -- within a scene, how they play out, are acknowledged or ignored. It is definitely an argument for the inevitability of power and specialization but that there is so many direct or nuanced ways to confront toxic dynamics if they begin to do harm.

Overall I liked the essays, the parts that get really granular about organization were alright, and there was references without explanation to lessons learned and experiences from Barcelona social struggles that I wish had been worked into the essay.

There was little bits that didn't jive with me, a section on spirituality, a new term for privilege called "zones of whiteness" and generally interesting discussions of informal power and gender dynamics, as these seem to be bigger contradictions on the Barcelona scene than race, sexuality, class or ability. (I am sceptical this is the case, but rather that it's a certain uniformity on these other topics that has the essay delve into the less.)

There is a second essay, which puts forward a critique of equality, in a similar vain to critiques of democracy, justice which groups like crimethinc or other Anglo authors have written more extensively about. The main thing in that essay was the specialisation in some tasks was useful, and generalization of reproductive labour was necessary.

My final thoughts -- on the design and publishing side of things -- was just that it looked beautiful, very legible but there was desperate need of a copy editor or second set of eyes before publishing the first edition. There is some were italicized "compa" text that comes up every time those string of letters appears in the text. The footnotes lack numbers for most of the book and one of the section titles was copy and pasted and is wrong. I found all this kind of distracting while reading it and can't not mention it here.

Would recommend, check it out. Not for the purest of any sectarian anarchist persuasion but perhaps they could benefit from reading with an open mind.