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Be Gay Do Crime
Among the discordant chorus of anons who penned the defining texts of the queer anarchist network Bash Back!, none was more fervent in its glorification of criminal desire, decadent hedonism, and social undoing than the Milwaulkee-based Mary Nardini Gang. Their fiery “Towards the Queerest Insurrection” still circulates as an integral manifesto of riotous queerness, while the “Criminal Intimacy” and “Whore Theory” have made their more subterranean way into innumerable conversations and correspondences.
Ten years later, the secretive group supplements these collected writings with a subtle retrospective. Carefully unlocking the hidden layers of their theses on insurrection, they face up to what they got wrong, concede that the world ended somewhere between the Greek insurrection of 2008 and now, and insist upon the vital task of ushering new worlds into being as we live amid the decomposition and cataclysmic death throes of the old one. To their theses on insurrection, they prepend a new arcana tooled for opening onto the queerest of outsides.
Dedicated to their friends among the dead, this pocket edition is a necromantic mirror, an encrypted message to old loves, and an invitation to those finding these words for the first time.
Ten years later, the secretive group supplements these collected writings with a subtle retrospective. Carefully unlocking the hidden layers of their theses on insurrection, they face up to what they got wrong, concede that the world ended somewhere between the Greek insurrection of 2008 and now, and insist upon the vital task of ushering new worlds into being as we live amid the decomposition and cataclysmic death throes of the old one. To their theses on insurrection, they prepend a new arcana tooled for opening onto the queerest of outsides.
Dedicated to their friends among the dead, this pocket edition is a necromantic mirror, an encrypted message to old loves, and an invitation to those finding these words for the first time.
125 pages
Published January 1, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
January 23, 2019
fucking incredible. the best anarchist shit. lots of crying, lots of being ready to riot like literally right now, a not insignificant amount of salivating.
March 10, 2021
Incredible writing on imagining a new world and living in the margins of present to ensure our future. Great text on how rejecting straight time/the present isn’t just a nihilist dream but calls for the destruction of what exists to build something new. I also really appreciated their essay on the value of vengeance and how it can be useful when not only understood through government institutions (like the law).
I’m a big fan of queer utopia (“Crusing Utopia” by Muñoz is my fav book) and this book def uses hope and potentiality as praxis which is incredible!
I’m a big fan of queer utopia (“Crusing Utopia” by Muñoz is my fav book) and this book def uses hope and potentiality as praxis which is incredible!
March 26, 2019
The two stars omitted above don’t properly reflect my appreciation of the Mary Nardini Gang, as their writings have been an integral part of articulating an anti-political, criminal queerness that, herein and elsewhere, rarely fails to excite me. Qualifiers aside, I was a little disappointed to find that this thin volume includes many texts which heads for this kind of queer nihilism will almost certainly have come across before. The gang’s seminal document, Toward the Queerest Insurrection, reappears here (naturally) alongside the less-widely read but still memorable texts “Criminal Intimacy” and “Whore Theory” and the Gang’s letter to the editors of the journal Hostis. The new material supplementing these familiar documents comprises a lengthy introduction reflecting on the ideas presented by these texts and how the authors have diverged from them over the last decade along with a brief biographical sketch of their namesake. I would have loved to peep more new material but the quality joints we get along with Contagion’s consistently fantastic design and assembly make it worth picking up. For readers as yet unfamiliar with the Mary Nardini Gang, this is the best introduction imaginable to their writings.
October 23, 2021
I would like the entirety of “Whore Theory” tattooed on my back, please and thank you.
June 24, 2019
[to review]
January 25, 2019
in the parlance of our times, you already know what it is.
i have proliferated the texts contained in this collection for a decade and i shall continue to do so for many more, no matter how many friends i lose, no matter how lacking the affinity from supposed "comrades."
what we do in life echoes in eternity.
nothing is over.
i have proliferated the texts contained in this collection for a decade and i shall continue to do so for many more, no matter how many friends i lose, no matter how lacking the affinity from supposed "comrades."
what we do in life echoes in eternity.
nothing is over.
January 11, 2020
Wow. So many dog ears. I feel simultaneously implicated inspired relieved reviled amused & amassed with a great deal of conflict at everything I’ve just read. Queer anarchist writing theories essays on the need for insurrection, a commitment to the world that’s becoming rather than the world that is & its tyrannical normalcy. How, in these pages, justice looks like punching the fag basher squarely in the jaw and/or setting the murderer’s house on fire with him inside it. My privilege asks, isn’t there another way? The twentieth century laughs, cruelly.
August 10, 2019
I think it's a weird thing to say, but after reading this I felt less lonely. That my queerness is a political statement is clear to me. I know others who have been clear on that longer than I have, but somehow there is a separation I never quite know how to get past. Maybe it's awkwardness, maybe it's just my own non-neurotypical brain. I dunno. But I loved it. I think its my new wholly writ.
March 27, 2020
this should be required reading
August 3, 2020
A small but important piece of queer history
May 30, 2024
beautiful manifesto on the queerness of crime + anarchism, whore theory, and the destruction and rebuilding of our current world. i especially loved the sections on the moral machine and communal vengeance. i just wish it were a bit longer + more elaborative in some sections, hence the missing star.
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September 28, 2019Someone came up to me on the street while I was reading this and asked me if it was a joke. I didn't know how to respond. Absolutely not, but also, kind of, yes?
I told them "no." They looked confused and offended as they walked off. Then I saw them turn and walk into a bank.
In short: this book was good, but I had already read all of the pieces in it elsewhere. Not sure who this is for, as I assume most people who will actually pick it up will have the same experience I did.
I told them "no." They looked confused and offended as they walked off. Then I saw them turn and walk into a bank.
In short: this book was good, but I had already read all of the pieces in it elsewhere. Not sure who this is for, as I assume most people who will actually pick it up will have the same experience I did.
April 12, 2024
I think I would have loved this as a teenager, but it reads as something written by cis and white queer academics.
Shelved as 'dnf'
December 14, 2021I saw this at a little radical cafe and decided to give it a try. I don't really think this is for me, but I'm glad I had a flick through.
Some of what was said was interesting, but the whole thing felt like it was being shouted at you, so it was rather exhausting to read.
Some of what was said was interesting, but the whole thing felt like it was being shouted at you, so it was rather exhausting to read.
July 9, 2024
this is some of that real good hoe-scaring ideology, i kinda fuck with it and reading brought me great joy and inspiration. however i ultimately find a lot of the text pretty psychotic and disorganized.
May 24, 2019
I’m fully aware of the irony of rating an anarchist manifesto on a website owned by Amazon, an enemy of everything the book preaches. But damn this is a good read.
August 14, 2021
Pure anarchic poetry. I want to get this into as many people's hands as possible.
September 5, 2023
Foundational to queer anarchist theory, excellent from the first word to the last.
November 12, 2023
Great book. Easy to pick up and then put down for a few months and pick right back up. Pretty cover and very well written. Queer Rage and queer anarchy. Informative and exciting. Page turner.
December 26, 2023
"If only we had already internalized Diane di Prima’s insistence that “you can have whatever
you ask for” so “ask for everything.”"
you ask for” so “ask for everything.”"
December 30, 2020
this was a cute, comforting little collection. i liked the compact size and the texture of the cover. some of the essays were a little trite for my taste but overall i liked it.
July 27, 2023
listened to audiobook ver ! very emotionally driven and emotive and wonderful !!!
May 15, 2020
Goodreads is part of the Normal, part of the Totality, and I really shouldn't be here.
February 14, 2022
Among the most inspiring anarchist works of any era.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews