Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

You can paint a backlit mural on the illuminated surface of a beverage machine, if you lightly sand it jfirst to remove the grafEti-proof coating.

For do-it-yourself, environmentally friendly spray paint, thin out acrylic paint with pure grain alcohol and apply it with a spray bottle.

In certain cases in which all you need to do to accomplish your objective is make a big mess?if a city is hosting a fascist rally or capitalist summit and you want to make this expensive for them, for example?it may be sufficient just to carry a few full cans of house paint to dump out everywhere or throw off a high place. Be careful not to spread it in such a way that it's hard for you or others you care about not to step in it?^you wouldn't want to mark yourselves as the culprits!

To make an oversize stamper, you can cut foam into the desired shape, mount it on a board, dip it in a paint tray, and press it to the surface of your choosing. This method could be used for stamping sidewalks through the false bottom of a box.

To airbrush on the fly, carry a compressed air tank in a hip pack with the coiled airbrush hose running inside your sleeve to the airbrush in your hand; at the first sign of danger, release the airbrush so the tension of the coiled hose piiUs it inside your sleeve.

Graffiti 268

Cuerrilla Performances

A BAND, SPEAKER, OPEN MIC CIRCLE, DANCE PARTY, MASKED BALL, ETC.

A LOCATION DESIGNATED FOR USES THAT DO IligFedientS

NOT INCLUDE THE ONE YOU HAVE IN MIND

Perhaps you've heard of guerrilla theatre, in which vigilante thespians hit the streets Instructions

to drive their message home. Guerrilla theatre is dangerous because it takes drama off the stage and deploys it in everyday life, where it has the power to unnerve and unmask in ways that cannot be shrugged off as mere art. A guerrilla performance is similar: a concert or party, which would normally take place in a carefully controlled, socially-designated area, occurs instead in an environment that is totally unprepared for it.

A guerrilla performance is essentially a Redoim the Streets event (pg. 421), with two distinguishing characteristics: first, there is a main act, and second, it may not be the streets that you are reclaiming. Set your objectives: is your event for passersby, or for a handpicked circle who will follow coded instructions to rendezvous at a secret location? Is it worth risking arrest? How wiU you deal with the police or owners, should they attempt to interfere? How will you protect equipment from them?can it be used from a vehicle that could be started up and driven away at the first sign of trouble, for example? Where are the escape routes, if there are any? Select your location carefully for the perfect ratio of danger to potential. Subway stations, laundromats late at night, rooftops and basements, public parks and parking lots, empty warehouses, all of these have qualities to recommend them, and risks or shortcomings to bear in mind. 26$

Account

GuerrUta Performances 2ja

Some well-known recent applications of this tactic include underground raves, dance parties held in warehouses squatted for the night; the Boston "T" parties, in which people occupy tram cars and throw parties in them; and the Rage Against the Machine concert in front of the Democratic National Convention in summer of 2000, a permitted event that all the same ended in streetfighting with police. Set up a punk show on a boat to disrupt a riverside public event (like the Sex Pistols did), put on subversive puppet shows for the children of the bourgeoisie gathered at some wine and cheese event in the park, hold weekly games of Capture the Flag downtown?just do what it takes to get entertainment out of the cage and into spaces where it can be vital again!

The fliers read, simply in huge letters, "USA IS A MONSTER 2:00 A.M." For months, J-- had been supposed to book a show for this noise band, and never got around to thinking about it until a week before the date he'd promised them, when he realized he was in trouble and started trying to come up wdth a solution. He hit upon Z?, the devil-may-care graveyard shi(f)t worker at the Handy Pantry, the all-night convenience store in our neighborhood.