In Denver,
Colorado, another undercover keystone kop inquired if the Bookmobile
had any literature about making bombs or bathtub meth. In Long
Beach, California, a guy came up and said "You have anarchist
stuff, don't you? You're anarchists. You shoot people, right?"
In San Diego, the truck was visited by a vice cop who ordered
that the book Teach Yourself Fucking by Tuli Kupferberg
be taken off of the outside table or it would be confiscated.
What had ired the officer was the front cover, which depicts Tuli
holding a banana and two plums in place of his genitals. The officer
was duly informed by the law abiding Mr. Dingle that there was,
at that very moment, an obscene display of a similar nature at
several nearby produce stores. Similar reactions to Bookmobile
literature have occurred before. In '97, when the B.F.C. was crossing
over into Canada for a show, border cops went through three crates
of books, photocopied each book cover, then denied entry to the
books (as well as a case of condoms). One officer was overheard
saying to another, "They have an agenda, and the circus is their
medium."
Both Dr. Flummox
and Mr. Dingle have worked in anarchist, collectively run info-shops,
and see the Bookmobile as an extension of this interest, as basically,
it is an info-shop on wheels. There are some advantages to this
type of rolling autonomous zone. While many info-shops struggle
to pay storefront rent and utilities, purchase stock and find
enough volunteers to keep the store open all for a venture
of a decidedly unprofitable nature a bookmobile needs only
to make insurance payments and gas to the next town. Although
there are other expenses as well (the Bookmobile is currently
well into the red and is always seeking tax deductible donations),
they fall considerably short of the yearly budget of renting a
space. Ultimately, the Bookmobile hopes to convert a diesel engine
for using bio-diesel fuel, trading literature and sideshow antics
in exchange for deep fryer oil from greasy spoons along its tour
route. There's a certain irony in that the Bookmobile brings literature
which critiques both the states right to power and the established
structure of social relations, in addition to providing a context
for grand spectacle and play which in itself is an amplification
of the notions contained in the literature, all in settings not
normally associated with such notions and to folks who might never
step foot in an info-shop. The Bookmobile in effect becomes a
Trojan horse, smuggling impossible situations into a context made
predictably, mind numbingly, possible by order imposed at the
point of a gun.
As Dr. Flummox
and Mr. Dingle see the Autonomadic Bookmobile, it is a splinter
in the paw of the death culture, delivering revolt at 65 miles
an hour.
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