Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

songs by your favorite bands, and

show up to their performances to play

along with them, unannounced.

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did, and when they passed through the doors of the venue with the audience hesitantly behind them, we were already in the street, banging our improvised plastic drums and heading off down a route that had been hastily charted a couple of hours in advance.

At first the concertgoers dalHed around the front of the club?years of concertgoing had taught that the excitement ends when the show is over?but when a few of the rowdier ones joined us, the others followed, and a mass of hundreds swept into the street. A few of us walked in the front, doing our amateur best to beat our makeshift drums in time with the marching band behind; around them paraded the greater part of the former audience. The tentative remainder, not sure yet how to feel about what was happening, brought up the rear; they were soon joined by smaU groups of people who came out of the bars to investigate. We hadn't thought much in advance about scouts, an oversight we couldn't have gotten away with in a larger city, but all the same a few of us were on bicycles. It definitely helped that many of the fans of this band already had years of experience in street demonstrations and similar environments; for them, this was perhaps a welcome relief after a night in a club: the adrenaline of being out in the city, making things happen, reclaiming space with only bravado for a permit. As we proceeded, a few litde elves ran around the periphery wheatpasting posters about the events of the previous day on walls, telephone booths, and electrical boxes, so there would be a clear explanation of this event the next morning.

Soon, we reached a central intersection downtown; suddenly, there was a big heap of firewood in the middle of the street, and then?flames. From out of nowhere, street signs?"road closed," "under construction"?appeared, barricading the street. Masked figures with chains were spinning fire, people were clapping their hands and dancing, and the bars were emptying as others came out to see what was going on. Everyone who approached got a filer. The police, finally, started to show up?perhaps twelve cars in total, in two of the four streets; but there was open field on two sides that they lacked the

numbers to block, and they had no buses for mass arrests, since this was an unexpected event. Besides, the last thing they needed in the midst of their current pubHc relations debacle was a lot of news about an anti-police demonstration turning into a riot?they were at a serious disadvantage here. Some of the people here had never been in such a situation, and were understandably nervous; but others had more experience in them than any of the police officers present. It seemed, were we possessed of the desire to do so, that we could hold this intersection to dance and sing around the fire for a good part of the night?and there was in fact a precedent for this possibility: such things had happened before in this town.

But then, suddenly, the atmosphere changed. Someone grabbed a megaphone, and shouted, "Scatter! Disperse! Disappear on the four winds like the anarchists you are!" It was?did you see it coming??the vocalist from the band playing the reunion, taking charge. Many of us looked up in surprise?our sixth senses, developed through years of gauging situations like this one, told us that there was nothing to fear yet, that this was not the time to retreat. But when a crowd takes over a street or carries off some similarly "impossible" action, all their strength comes from the sense that they can count on each other, all their confidence depends on the confidence of their companions. What a group, acting together, believes to be possible, becomes possible; what some believe impossible, becomes impossible, and thus no one can believe in it to make it otherwise. And so, hearing one prominent personality loudly doubting the possibility of holding the intersection any longer, many suddenly doubted it themselves, and made ready to leave, as if taking orders.

Some of us who had more experience rebelled at this?it was ridiculous for us to leave now, when we sensed no great threat and had barely begun to make our point! This guy wasn't even from here, he had no local perspective, nor any right to make decisions for everyone?and to make things worse, his motives were questionable: "Stop drumming!

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