Direct Action: An Historical Novel
changing the world – one arrest at a time!
Rumor: Halliburton equipment worth $7 million was found in the nefarious hands of our mortal enemy, Russia!!
Truth: The cache was two old Navy toilet seats and a used Bible missing all the best parts. The $7 million was the amount Halliburton had charged the US Govt for said equipment.
UK Guardian Story – click here
Image courtesy Home Depot – the nation’s #1 news source!
Russia’s Roscosmos space agency reported this week that its Luna 25 lunar mission had “ceased its existence as a result of a collision with the lunar surface.”
Phew! For a moment there I thought it had crash landed.
The whole thing reminded me of the Monty Python Parrot Sketch.
Mr. Praline: ‘Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
Roscosmos Owner: We’re closin’ for lunch.
Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this Luna 25 rocket I purchased not half an hour ago from Roscosmos.
Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Luna 25… What’s, uh… What’s wrong with it?
Mr. Praline: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. It’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!
Owner: No, no, it’s uh,…it’s resting.
Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead rocket when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.
Owner: No no it’s not dead, it’s restin’! Remarkable rocket, the Luna 25, isn’t it? Beautiful landing gear!
Mr. Praline: The landing gear don’t enter into it. It’s stone dead.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! There, it moved!
Mr. Praline: No, it didn’t, that was you hitting the launching pad!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Owner: I never, never did anything…
Mr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the launching pad repeatedly) ‘ELLO LUNA!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o’clock blast off call!
(Takes rocket and thumps it on the launching pad. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
Mr. Praline: Now that’s what I call a dead rocket.
Owner: No, no….. No, it’s stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Owner: Yeah! You stunned it, just as it was starting up! Luna 25 stuns easily, sir.
Mr. Praline: Um…now look…now look, mate, I’ve definitely ‘ad enough of this. That rocket is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not ‘alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein’ tired and shagged out from all its testing!
Owner: Well, it’s…it’s, ah…probably pining for the Kremlin!
Mr. Praline: PININ’ for the KREMLIN?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did it fall flat on its nose the moment I got it home?
Owner: The Luna 25 rests on its nose! Remarkable rocket, isn’t it, squire? Lovely nosecone!
Mr. Praline: Look, I took the liberty of examining that rocket when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been standing on the launch pad in the first place was that it had been NAILED there.
(pause)
Owner: Well, o’course it was nailed there! If I hadn’t nailed that rocket down, it would have instantly blasted off! VOOM! Feeweeweewee!
Mr. Praline: VOOM?!? Mate, this rocket wouldn’t “voom” if you put four million volts through it! It’s bleedin’ demised!
Owner: No no! It’s pining for the Kremlin!
Mr. Praline: It’s not pinin’! It’s passed on! This rocket is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it’d be pushing up daisies! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-ROCKET!!
Monty Python Parrot Sketch – click here
Image courtesy SpaceFlightNow.com
My long-labored Tarot novel – A Fool Such As I – is complete at last!
A Fool Such As I is a loving deconstruction of all things magical. Imagine a world where everything from the police to the amusement park is pagan!
Click here for links to print and kindle versions – or get a free PDF of the book!
Signed/inscribed copies ($25 US, $50 outside the US) benefit Reclaiming Quarterly and support copy-editing and chants production.
Here’s the back-cover blurb of A Fool Such As I
The owner of Arcane Wisdom Magicke Shoppe is dead. His revolutionary new deck, the Trismegistus Meister Tarot, is missing.
Could the culprit be one of the locals on Oracle Street? Perhaps gnostic sage Madame Bluebloodsky? Self-promoting raconteur Alabaster Crockley? Or maybe feminist maven Wendy Womansdaughter, owner of the Wiccan Wonderland?
Did the shifty mountebank from the esoteric street faire have a hand? And what about millionaire Cornelius De Roquefort, founder of the Headstone Eclectic Metaphysical Outlet chain?
Will the Universal Pan-Pagan Interfaith Council – UPPIC, the highest authority in the brave new Pagan world of the Great Return – succeed in hushing up the affair?
Worse yet, is UPPIC looking for a convenient scapegoat?
Join detective and resident custodian Jeff Harrison as he immerses himself in the minutiae of Tarot, taxing all of his intuitive and janitorial skills in a desperate attempt to clean up the messy affair – before he faces trial by ordeal!
Click here for links to print and kindle versions – or get a free PDF of the book!
Six-week Creative writing class with Luke Hauser & Friends, via zoom.
Next class begins Saturday February 6, 2-4pm California time. Cost is sliding scale $99-299, with some scholarship assistance available.
Register by emailing MagicalWriterSF@gmail.com
Course booklet and more info – click here
We just posted several new issues of the original Direct Action newspapers – namesake of Luke Hauser’s novel and source of many of the stories contained therein.
Free downloads of a dozen original issues as PDFs, along with activist handbooks and a PDF of the book.
Direct action has a long and honored place in American history – from the revolution itself through abolitionists, suffragists, union organizers, civil rights advocates, feminist and gay rights activists, and on to today’s vibrant climate and social justice organizing.
Click here for A Brief History of Nonviolent Direct Action
Join author Luke Hauser for a profusely illustrated 25-minute journey through our past. We’ll focus especially on nonviolent organizing from 1980 to the present, with sections on the 1980s anti-nuke movement and 2011’s Occupy actions.
Originally created around 2000, the show has been updated with a revised text and many new images.
So make a big bowl of popcorn, pull up your beanbag chair, and get ready for a journey through our history!
Photo by Janet Delaney.
Several thousand Bay Area activists shut down the central financial district of San Francisco, known as Wall Street West.
Click here for photos by Luke Hauser
The September 25, 2019 actions were part of international climate justice events, including the global student strike on September 20.
Reclaiming’s Bay Area Pagan Cluster – Witches Invoking Creative Climate Action, or WICCA – organized a ritual for mid-afternoon. The cluster processed down California Street singing We Are the Rising Sun, then did a short Equinox ritual in the middle of the “mural district” of Montgomery Street, ending with a spiral dance to Our Hands Will Work for Peace and Justice (Harvest Chant).
Click here for photos by Luke Hauser
