Autonogram #11, "We Are Destined to Fail"

ben at autonomedia writes:

Two Autonomedia Nominees for Firecracker Alternative Book Awards

Please Help Them Out with Your On-Line Vote!

Greetings --

Please pardon the alarmist tone of the subject line, but: imagine a game of three-sided football in which the Critical Art Ensemble (our good-natured critical theorists of tech and the body) take on the heavyweight Arundhati "Book'er" Roy and the even-heavierweight Noam "is to lovam" Chomsky, with Christopher Hitchens in the bullpen as a quickchange fill-in! We'd get creamed!

Fortunately, three-sided football is never played to win, but just to further the surreal beauty of the game, and likewise, the "Politics" section of the 2002 Firecracker Alternative Press Awards is a good exhibit of the strength and necessity of the alternative press. Chomsky's "dissident" voice has been riding the waves of the Times' Bestseller list for a while now, and Roy's "Algebra of Infinite Justice" was one of the most-forwarded emails in the months following 9-11; these voices may have marginal representation in the major media outlets, but they're voices that travel!

Our candidate in the field, Digital Resistance by the Critical Art Ensemble, develops the principles of tactical media, the "molecular interventions and semiotic shocks that collectively could negate the rising intensity of authoritarian culture," and never has the need for such negation been stronger. More on the book can be found at Digital Resistance and more on the Critical Art Ensemble at Critical Art Ensemble.

But that's not all! Our book Grass, the "paged experience" of the film documentary by Ron Mann, was also nominated for a Firecracker Award in the "Drugs" category. It's a fun-but-serious examination of the development of pot-prohibition laws in the U.S., graphic-heavy but rounded out with amplifying essays on drug laws and marijuana in popular culture. More online at Grass.

so, get online and VOTE! These aren't the Academy Awards; the winners are determined by popular vote. The Firecracker Alternative Book Awards web site is at Firecracker Awards and as they say, vote early and vote often! Thanks!