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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 3d

You're free to express yourself as an artist sure, but if you're coming to read in Toronto, maybe consider how a poem like this will land with an audience in a city full of refugees from colonial violence and the children of those refugees

Hannah Black: I’ve noticed, especially in poetry, but elsewhere as well, an existential question coming up around how to go on with everyday life while genocide is happening. “A genocide is happening and I’m eating breakfast”—that kind of thing. In some moods, it strikes me as fundamentally trivial or even kind of narcissistic. But then in other moments, I think, well, it might be an important question. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Mohammed El-Kurd: It’s good to talk to your friends about these things, but I think these are conversations you keep to the group chat. I don’t think this is for the stage or for the page. I think our role is to shift the lens from how we feel about what’s happening to what’s happening.

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Reposted by Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻

CUPW @cupwsttp.bsky.social · 6d

CUPW Picket Line Locations
https://bit.ly/3UXqpRc

#SupportCUPW #canlab #cdnpoli @CanadianLabour

CUPW Picket Line Locations | Lieux de piquetage du STTP

CUPW Picket Line Locations

bit.ly

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Reposted by Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻

Kickstarter United @kickstarterunited.org · 6d

‼️🚨KICKSTARTER WORKERS ARE ON STRIKE🚨‼️

As of 8am this morning, the workers of Kickstarter United/OPEIU Local 153 are on strike.

WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR A BOYCOTT! Creators and allies, please continue using and supporting the platform.

Kickstarter United is on strike!
We are not asking for a boycott! Creators & Allies: Please continue to support & use the platform
swipe for ways to show your solidarity

Why We're Striking
A codified 4-day work week.
We simply want to protect the way we've been working for over 3.5 years. The 4dww has proven benefits, such as increased productivity and improved employee satisfaction. It's part of what makes Kickstarter a special, innovative place to work.
Fair pay for our lowest-paid workers.
We're fighting for livable minimum salaries for roles that are undervalued by the market but crucial to keeping Kickstarter running. We believe none of our workers should struggle to make ends meet.

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 6d

Recently finished reading this collection of interviews and saw that Miss Major is fundraising for hospital fees: fundly.com/missmajor

Cover of Miss Major Speaks by Toshio Meronek and Miss Major, photograph of a young Miss Major in a shimmery cold shoulder dress under a disco ball.

Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 6d

This definition of class has been successfully cultivated since the 70s in part to drive a wedge between private sector unions (mostly men, then mostly yt) and public sector unions (mostly women, including WOC, more likely to have post-secondary education) in a rift that still exists

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 6d

the going definition of "working class" seems to be whether or not one went to college. look I know we're not going to agree on here about what "working-class" is but can we all agree it's not that?

New York Magazine @nymag.com · 6d

Trump’s 2024 coalition has already fallen apart. Polls show Trump has lost the young, Black, and Latino supporters he attracted in 2024, leaving him with the same old white working-class base.

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 7d

I really wish that I'd been assigned to read this, Hartman's Scenes of Subjection, and other such books in my undergrad.

Cover of Christina Sharpe's Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects ft a black and white photo, "Missing Link, Liberty" by Carrie Mae Weems. A figure in a tux with white gloves, tipping a top hat towards something outside the frame. Completely obscuring their face and head is the mask of an elephant.

Excerpted text from Christina Sharpe's Monstrous Intimacies: "The legal captivity of Africans and their descendants was central to the codification of rights and freedoms for those legally constituted as white and their legally white descendants. That is, freedoms for those people constituted as white were and are produced through an other’s body legally and otherwise being made to wear unfreedom and to serve as a placeholder for access to the freedoms that are denied the black subject."

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Reposted by Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻

Tenebrous Press @tenebrouspress.bsky.social · 7d

SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN!
...for BRAVE NEW WEIRD Vol. 4, our annual collection of the best **PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED** New Weird Horror of the year.
Eligibility window: stories published between 31st October 2024 and 31st October 2025.
All the deets here:
tenebrouspress.com/blog/2025/10...

Submissions open for Brave New Weird volume 4 — tenebrous press

REMINDER: THIS IS FOR ELIGIBLE REPRINTS ONLY Tenebrous Press presents the FOURTH (!!!) Annual Brave New Weird Awards—to reward and promote this unique blend of genres—and its accompanying antholog...

tenebrouspress.com

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 7d

Thank you for sharing - I've no affiliation to the publication but it does print great food writing!

Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 7d

Those who liked this thread might be interested in this article by Borsook. "...the average geek espouses a world where the only art would be that which has withstood the test of the marketplace..."

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 8d

Anyway, another article on the topic which I don't entirely agree with but it taps into this shift in how social power and control are changing.

I’m sorry, but you do not have enough coins for democracy | 032c

When Trump 2.0 began, he invited some of the world's most powerful technocrats into his court of jesters. Many didn't last long but the foundations were set: the US government would try to run the cou...

032c.com

Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 8d

For certain populations (e.g. incarcerated), punishment and the sovereign's right of death and power over life, never really went away. This should have made clear the alliance between pre-modern punishment with today's tech could come to dictate the conditions of everyday life. And now, here we are

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 8d

Foucault wrote about a historical shift from the "punishment" of pre-modern society to the modern panopticon - I think what we're seeing is how various forms of punishment will return to western societies, a tech-driven fusion of pre-modern and modern apparatuses of power.

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 8d

I think we're going to see many instances of overt, external coercive forces for population control return alongside the more internalized "manufacturing consent" forces I mostly grew up with. I don't just mean fascism (which I consider a modern phenomenon), but pre-modern conditions.

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 8d

I'd discounted how little biopolitical fitness or productivity (via services like rolling out a basic vax program) is required by a ruling class to maintain power/hoard resources.

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 8d

- given the sheer amount of resources and admin infrastructure/workers required to properly maintain a biopolitically fit labour force. Like, corps don't want to pay for healthcare, etc. It wasn't that I didn't see how much more concentrated wealth would become but -

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 8d

I once wrote this comic about a dystopic world where the nation state was an empty container for tech/corp-controlled psuedo-city-states, a bit like the company town but with the feverish branding of national/brand identity. At the time, I thought this was a stretch - 🧵

Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 11d

If anyone has read this Varoufakis book and the Cédric Durand book on the same topic, is it worth reading both?...

Cover of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism by Yanis Varoufakis. Bold white and purple sans-serif text with a black background.

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 8d

Cake Zine's next call for pitches is for a rogue 🥩 issue: www.instagram.com/cake_zine/p/...

Writer's rates:
Shorter pieces (350 words or less), poems, and recipes: $125-$175; Mid-length (500 to 1K words): $200; Longform (2K words - plus or minus): $300

Visual art: Rate based on commission

Cake Zine on Instagram: "And now…something completely different. After three years and seven issues in the pastry case, Cake Zine is going rogue with a one-off, medium-rare special issue: Steak Zine. ...

Steak Zine, a one-off publication from Cake Zine, takes an in-depth look at the cultural significance of steak and the steakhouse experience. From historical deep dives to personal essays, this specia...

www.instagram.com

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 9d

The Unseen Bookclub is back 🎧 unseenbookclub.buzzsprout.com/1743875/epis...

RELAUNCH: The Unseen Book Club returns! - The Unseen Book Club

The Unseen Book Club returns! Max and Dan do some light bibliomancy, reflect on the past and cast our gazes to the horizon and discuss the future of the show.

unseenbookclub.buzzsprout.com

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 9d

The linked article is bleak but that bleakness also presents a massive opportunity. Right now, the hunger for something different is so keen, it feels like a great time for people in the margins to connect and create together. No accident Toronto's indie lit and zine scenes are getting interesting

Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 11d

Reading this in conjunction with Liz Pelly's Mood Machine and Will Tavlin's Casual Viewing n+1 article, gives a broader view of how pervasive cultural rot has become... Support indie artists, small press, booksellers, critics, zine fairs <3

Tajja Isen @tajjaisen.bsky.social · 12d

I spent the summer reporting this essay on why it seems harder than ever to sell a book right now—especially if it isn't a debut and comes with the dreaded "sales track." I'm grateful to the writers, agents, editors, publishers & experts who spoke to me for this piece: thewalrus.ca/the-publishi...

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 11d

Reading this in conjunction with Liz Pelly's Mood Machine and Will Tavlin's Casual Viewing n+1 article, gives a broader view of how pervasive cultural rot has become... Support indie artists, small press, booksellers, critics, zine fairs <3

Tajja Isen @tajjaisen.bsky.social · 12d

I spent the summer reporting this essay on why it seems harder than ever to sell a book right now—especially if it isn't a debut and comes with the dreaded "sales track." I'm grateful to the writers, agents, editors, publishers & experts who spoke to me for this piece: thewalrus.ca/the-publishi...

The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem | The Walrus

Companies keep betting on the next bestseller. Literature is poorer for it

thewalrus.ca

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 11d

If anyone has read this Varoufakis book and the Cédric Durand book on the same topic, is it worth reading both?...

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 11d

Generally speaking, for London art, I'd recommend Tate Modern, Barbican Centre (which has a fashion exhibit on atm) and Whitechapel Gallery. I'd also research which venues in those cities are booking the artists, musicians, etc you love for exhibits and tours.

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 12d

I don't know when nightlife changed for me from being about exploration and new experiences to becoming such a balm - to be with people enjoying themselves, people not working toward any goals, meeting beautiful randos with no other purpose than to share a little honesty, one feels restored

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 12d

Was notified by a vendor that it's now using AI for data entry and is asking its own paying client$$$ to contact them when they find errors 🤡 You're a private company. You do not get to crowdsource free labour. If you cannot pay staff to ensure basic quality control, your biz model is broke

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Kawai 加鬼 Shen 👻 @kawaishen.bsky.social · 13d

Thank you for everything. Please take care 🖤

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