Outside Agitator

Naomi Klein and the new new left.
by Larissa MacFarquhar

The marquee outside the Bloor Cinema, in Toronto, advertised “The Last Mistress” at four, “Naomi Klein—the Shock Doctrine” at seven, and “Little Shop of Horrors” at nine-thirty. It was a warmish night. The falafel shop next door was doing a brisk business. A line of people holding tickets to the Naomi Klein event stretched to the end of the block and around the corner. Outside the entrance to the cinema, a middle-aged man and an elderly woman paced up and down selling copies of Socialist Action for a dollar. (The September issue included articles about capitalism’s contradictions, class war in Bolivia, and a commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal—a regular feature.)

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Shakespeare and Company

by : Ernest Hemingway

In those days there was no money to buy books. I borrowed books from the rental library of Shakespeare and Company, which was the library and bookstore of Sylvia Beach at 12 rue de l’Odeon. On a cold windswept street, this was a warm, cheerful place with a big stove in winter, tables and shelves of books, new books in the window, and photographs on the wall of famous writers both dead and living. The photographs all looked like snapshots and even the dead writers looked as though they had really been alive. Sylvia had a lively, sharply sculptured face, brown eyes that were as alive as a small animal’s and as gay as a young girl’s, and wavy brown hair that was brushed back from her fine forehead and cut thick below her ears and at the line of the collar of the brown velvet jacket she wore. She had pretty legs and she was kind, cheerful and interested, and loved to make jokes and gossip. No one that I ever knew was nicer to me.

Seorang Sahabat, Wiji Thukul

Oleh: Linda Christanty

15.34, Selasa, 23 Juni 1998

MARCEL tidak kembali juga. Dia seperti serpihan dari pesawat luar angkasa yang meledak di ruang hampa, lepas dari jangkauan grafitasi bumi. Hilang. Begitu pula, Sadeli. Kata H, menurut Mulya Loebis, Sadeli mungkin sudah dieksekusi. Jati dan Reza sudah kembali. Nezar, Aan, dan Mugi bebas bersyarat. Kata beberapa kawan, Marcel disembunyikan para pastor di Filipina. Tapi, aku tidak percaya. Menurut kawan-kawan, dia hilang di Tangerang (setelah bertemu A). Aku pernah sekali melihat ibunya muncul di televisi. Sepasang mata perempuan itu redup berair. Bagaimana ia bisa memahat sepasang mata yang selalu bersinar dan terus-terang pada wajah putranya? N sempat bercerita tentang 103 mayat korban penembakan serta penganiayaan yang mengambang di Kali Bekasi, beberapa waktu setelah kasus penembakan 12 mahasiswa Trisakti. Berita ini ditayangkan Horison. Apakah mereka berdua ada di antara mayat-mayat itu?