Locust Radio

In Locust Radio episode #30, Tish Turl interviews fellow Locust comrade, Adam Turl, on their new book, Gothic Capitalism: Art Evicted from Heaven and Earth (Revol Press, May 2, 2025). You can order the book from Revol Press, Amazon, or find it at other booksellers.Artists, ideas, books, writers, artworks and other stuff discussed in this episode: Adam Turl, Gothic Capitalism: Art Evicted from Heaven and Earth (Revol Press 2025); Ernst Fischer, The Necessity of Art (Verso, 2020); Boris Groys, “The Weak Universalism,” e-flux (2010); Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936); Walter Benjamin, “Theses on History” (1940); John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972); Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative (2009); Mark Fisher, Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction (2018); Donna Harraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848); Rena Rädle & Vladan Jeremić; Joseph Beuys; John Heartfield; Anupam Roy; Richard Hamilton; R. Faze; Born Again Labor Museum; Amiri Baraka; Omnia Sol; Sister Wife Sex Strike; Dada; Judy Jordan; Bertolt Brecht; Claire Bishop; The Sublime; “Third Places;” Fluxus; Abstract Expressionism; The Sopranos; The Wire; Surrealism; Charlie Jane Anders; Emily St. John Mandel; Pier Paolo Pasolini, La Ricotta (1963) and The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966); Boots Riley; Federal Arts Project; Luis Buñuel, The Exterminating Angel (1962); The Artists Union; Voltaire, Candide (1759); Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967); Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet (1989); Beethoven, Symphony #9 (1822-1824); Sam Esmail, Leave the World Behind (2023); David Cronenberg, Videodrome (1983); Richard Seymour, Disaster Nationalism (2024)Produced by Tish Turl, Adam Turl, Omnia Sol and Alexander Billet. Theme by Omnia Sol, Drew Franzblau and Adam Turl. Hosts include Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz and Adam Turl.

In this episode of Locust Radio, Adam Turl interviews R. Faze, author of the My Body series published in Locust Review. This is part of an ongoing series of interviews with Locust members and collaborators on contemporary artistic strategies. R. Faze's My Body series in Locust Review: R. Faze, “I Live an Hour from My Body,” Locust Review 4  (2021) R. Faze, “My Body Got a New Job,” Locust Review 5 (2021) R. Faze, “My Body Planned Something,” Locust Review 6 (2021) R. Faze, “My Body, Interrogated,” Locust Review 7 (2022) R. Faze, “My Body's Long Term Plan,” Locust Review 8 (2022) R. Faze, “My By Body's Revenge Plan,” Locust Review 9 (2022) R. Faze, “My Body Found a Portal to Another Dimension,” Locust Review 10 (2023) R. Faze, “My Body's Claims, Verified,” Locust Review 11 (2024) Some other writers, artists, texts and artworks discussed: Mikhail Bahktin, Rabelais and His World (1984); Bertolt Brecht; Raymond Chandler;  Jefferson Cowie, Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working-Class (2010); Rene Descartes; W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903); Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009); Karl Marx, The Philosophic and Economic Manuscripts (1844); Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics (1993); Pablo Picasso and Cubism; Edgar Allan Poe, “William Wilson” (1839); Francois Rabalais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (1564); Don Siegal, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); Sister Wife Sex Strike, “From the River to the Sea (2024); Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) Locust Radio hosts include Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. Locust Radio is produced by Alexander Billet, Adam Turl, and Omnia Sol. Opening music and sound elements by Omnia Sol and Adam Turl. 

In episode 28 of Locust Radio, Adam Turl is joined by Anupam Roy – an artist based in Delhi and member of the Locust Collective. This episode is part of a series of interviews of current and former Locust Collective members and contributors. It is being conducted as research for a future text by Adam Turl on the conceptual and aesthetic strategies of the collective in the context of a cybernetic Anthropocene. Locust Radio hosts include Adam Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Tish Turl. Producers include Alexander Billet, Omnia Sol, and Adam Turl. Related texts and topics:  B.R. Ambedkar, see also B.R. Ambedkar, The Annihilation of Caste (1936) (pdf); James Baldwin (writer/author); Geroges Bataille, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939 (pdf); The Bengal Famine (1943); Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936); John Berger (artist and critic), see also Ways of Seeing (video) and Ways of Seeing (1972) (book); Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (artist); Pieter Bruegel the Elder (artist); Claire Bishop, Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today (2024); Bedatri D. Choudhury, “The Artist Who Sketched a Famine in India,” Hyperallergic (April 30, 2018); Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation; Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy (2022); Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009); Antonio Gramsci; Institutional Critique (art); Marshall McLuhan (philosopher); Fred Morton (author); Pier Paolo Pasolini (poet and filmmaker); Platform Capitalism; Lionello Puppi, Torment in Art (1991); Kohei Saito, Capital in the Anthropocene (2020); Shulka Sawant, “Cultivating a Taste for Nature: Tagore's Landscape Paintings,” Economic and Political Weekly 52, no. 19 (2017): 57–63; Songs for Sabotage, New Museum Triennial (2018);  J.W.M. Turner (artist); Adam Turl, Dead Paintings (2010-); Adam Turl interviews Anupam Roy, “We Are Broken Cogs in the Machine,” Red Wedge (May 7, 2019); Vincent Van Gogh (artist).

In episode 27 of Locust Radio, Adam Turl is joined by Tish Turl – writer, editor, artist, poet and member of the Locust collective. This episode is part of a series of interviews of current and former Locust Collective members and contributors. This series is being conducted as research for a future text by Adam Turl on the conceptual and aesthetic strategies of the collective in the context of a late capitalist cybernetic Anthropocene.  Locust Radio hosts include Adam Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Tish Turl. Producers include Alexander Billet, Omnia Sol, and Adam Turl Related texts and topics: Mark Abel, Groove: An Aesthetic of Measured Time (2016); Charlie Jane Anders, The City in the Middle of the Night (2019); Valerie Armstrong, Kevin Can F**k Himself (television series, 2021-2022`); Banksy (artist); Joseph Beuys (artist); Alexander Billet, Shake the City: Experiments in Space and Time, Music and Crisis (2022);  Claire Bishop, Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today (2024); William Blake (artist and poet); The Carnivalesque; Creepypasta; Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy (2022); The Dogscape (creepypasta), Marcel Duchamp (artist); Fanfiction; Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009); Rupi Kaur (poet); Emily St. John Mandel, Sea of Tranquility (2022); Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (2014); David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks (2014); Prosimetrum; Buzz Spector (artist); Chuck Tingle (writer); Tish Turl, “Sewerbot” (2019); Tish Turl, Sound, serialized novella in Locust Review (2020-); Tish Turl, Space Goths (2019); Tish Turl, Stink Ape Resurrection Primer, serialized prosimetrum in Locust Review (2021-); Tish Turl, Toilet Key Anthology, serialized poetry series in Locust Review (2019-2021); Tish Turl an Adam Turl, Big Muddy Monster Atlas Project (2021-); Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Born Again Labor Museum (2019-).

In episode 26 of Locust Radio, Adam Turl is joined by Omnia Sol – a comic, video, and sound artist in Chicago. This episode is part of a series of interviews of current and former Locust Collective members and contributors. This series is being conducted as research for a future book by Adam Turl on the conceptual and aesthetic strategies of the collective in the context of a cybernetic Anthropocene. The featured closing music / sound art, “Overview” and “Wilhelmina,” are from Omnia Sol's forthcoming vs. Megalon. Check out their bandcamp. Locust Radio hosts include Adam Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Tish Turl. Producers include Alexander Billet, Omnia Sol, and Adam Turl. Related texts and topics: Arte Povera; Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936); Michael Betancourt, Glitch Art in Theory and Practice (2017); William Blake; Claire Bishop, Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today (2024); Stan Brakhage ; Bertolt Brecht - see also Brecht, “A Short Organum for the Theater” (1948);  Cybernetic Culture Research Unit; Mark Fisher, “Acid Communism (Unfinished Introduction)”; Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy (2022); Scott Dikkers, Jim's Journal (comic by the co-founder of the Onion); Dollar Art House; Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009); Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (2014); Mark Fisher, K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2019); Flicker Films; Fully Automated Luxury (Gay) Space Communism; Glitch Art; Jean-Luc Godard; Grand Upright Music, Ltd. vs. Warner Brothers Records (Biz Markie) (1991); William Hogarth; Tamara Kneese, Death Glitch: How Techno-Solutionism Fails Us in This Life and Beyond (2023); Holly Lewis, “Toward AI Realism,” Spectre (2024); Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (1848); Nam June Paik and TV Buddha; Harvey Pekar (comic artist); Gregory Sholette, Dark Matter: Art and Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture (2010); Grafton Tanner, Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts (2016); TOSAS (The Omnia Sol Art Show); Nat Turner; Wildstyle and Style Wars (1983 film); YOVOZAL, “My Thoughts about AI and art,” YouTube video (2024)

In this episode of Locust Radio we are flipping the script a bit. Instead of Tish, Laura and Adam interviewing someone, Tish and Adam are interviewed by Locust's own Alexander Billet. They discuss, among other things, the Born Again Labor Museum, Adam and Tish's ongoing sited conceptual art and installation project in southern Illinois. An edited and abridged transcript of the interview is available on Alexander Billet's substack. A note: The interview was recorded the weekend before President Joe Biden quit the presidential race and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris. Artworks, artists, concepts, histories, and texts discussed in this episode: Jean Baudrillard, America (1989); Walter Benjamin, “Theses on History” (1940); John Berger, Ways of Seeing (documentary and book) (1972); Joseph Beuys; Claire Bishop, Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today (2024); Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Art (1998); Bertolt Brehct, “A Short Organum for the Theater” (1949); Bertolt Brecht, War Primer (1955); “Carbondale Starbucks Employees Vote to Unionize” (2022); Anna Casey, “Museum examines workers rights through art” (2022); Class and Social Struggle in southern Illinois; Andrew Cooper; Kallie Cox, “Born Again Labor Museum Offers Free Communist Manifestos” (2022); Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture: Capitalist Crisis and Cultural Strategy (2022); Mike Davis and Hal Rothman, The Grit Beneath the Glitter: Tales from the Real Las Vegas (2002); Marcel Duchamp; R. Faze, “I Live an Hour from My Body” (2021); Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2008); Eirc Gellman and Jarod Roll, The Gospel of the Working-Class: Labor's Southern Prophets in New Deal America (2011); Francisco Goya, Disasters of War (1810-1820); Boris Groys, “The Weak Universalism” (2010); Jenny Holzer; Barbara Kruger; Michael Löwy, Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin's ‘On the Concept of History' (2005); Frances Madeson, “At the Born Again Labor Museum, Art is a Weapon for the Working Class” (2022); Karl Marx, The German Ideology (1846); Karl Marx and Freidrick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848); Pablo PIcasso, Guernica (1937); Russian Cosmism; Penelope Spheeris, The Decline of Western Civilization (1981); Stop Cop City; Leon Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours (1938); Adam Turl, “Against the Weak Avant-Garde” (2016); Adam Turl, “The Art Space as Epic Theater” (2015); Adam Turl, “Outsider Art is a Lie” (2019) and Adam Turl, “We're All Outsiders Now” (2019); Tish Turl, “Class Revenge Fanfiction” (2022); Tish Turl, “Toilet Key Anthology” (2020); Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Born Again Labor Museum; Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Born Again Labor Tracts; The Wanderers/Peredvizkniki  In other news, the call for submissions for Locust Review 12 is available on our website, check it out.  Locust Radio is produced by Omnia Sol, Alexander Billet and Adam Turl. Its hosts include Adam Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Tish Turl.

In this episode of Locust Radio, we present a sound collage composed of people speaking in solidarity with Palestine at Carbondale (Illinois) City Council meetings – as well as the city's attempts to silence them.  Community members had been lobbying the council for a ceasefire resolution as one of the council members had pledged to support Palestinian rights when she was endorsed by the Southern Illinois chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (SIDSA). Instead, the council limited and then banned pro-Palestinian speech during public comments and had police remove Palestine-solidarity speakers from meetings.  Collaged excerpts are not necessarily in chronological order. The title of this episode comes from Mayor Carolin Harvey's statement, after silencing a Palestinian-American woman, that “we've heard THE voice.” Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Omnia Sol, Alexander Billet, and Adam Turl. Music by Omnia Sol.

In this episode of Locust Radio, we hear an audio essay, “Escape from Normal Island,” by Locust comrade and author Adam Marks. Marks provides an extended exegesis of “normal island,” otherwise known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island. Discussion includes: the very normal decade-long prelude to the 2024 UK elections; the possibility that the Conservative Party might cease to exist; the political gutting of Labour; managed decline; the far-right Reform Party; the “absolute boy” – the most normal person on Normal Island; the end of the UK's extended sabbatical from history… Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Omnia Sol, Adam Turl, and Alexander Billet. Music by Omnia Sol.

In this episode of Locust Radio, we read excerpts from Bertolt Brecht's War Primer (1950); listen to readings from Locust Review (2022-2023) — R. Faze's “My Body's Portal to Another Dimension;” Adam Marks' “Rites of Obodena;” and Tish Turl's “Immortality Beaver” (Stink Ape Resurrection Primer). We also listen to music from Pet Mosquito, Omnia Sol, and Shrvg. Laura, Tish, and Adam  discuss Project 2025,  Agenda 47, and other far-right plans to roll back democratic norms, target trans persons, and implement other reactionary-to-fascist policies in the United States. We also discuss how this is related to Israel's genocidal war on Palestine, and the general authoritarian trajectory of mainstream politics — as expressed in the prosecution of the Cop City organizers in Atlanta, increasing prison sentences for climate protesters, and the recent attempts to ban Palestine solidarity in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. To get the second — patron only — portion of the episode subscribe to Locust Review or join the Locust Review Patreon. Related readings, artworks, videos include: Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History” (1940); Bertolt Brecht, War Primer (1955); Ali Abunimah and David Sheen, “Israeli Forces Shot Their Own Civilians, Kibbutz Survivor Says,” Electronic Intifada (October 16, 2023); Aime Ceasaire, Discourses on Colonialism (1950); Chauncey DeVega, “Trump Plans to Become Dictator — Denial will Not Save You,” Salon (September 7, 2023); Max Ernst, The Elephant Celebes (1921); Huthifa Fayyad, “Israel-Palestine War: What You Need to Know After 10 Days,” Middle East Eye (October 16, 2023);  David Hearst, “The Nakba that Israel Has Started Will Backfire,” Middle East Eye (October 13, 2023); Naomi Klein, “In Gaza and Israel, Side with the Child over the Gun, The Guardian (October 11, 2023); Sabrine Kriebel, “Manufacturing Discontent: John Heartfield's Mass Medium” New German Critique No 107 (Summer 2009), 53-88; Michelangelo, Moses (1513-1515); China Miéville, The Last Days of New Paris (2016); TOI Staff, “Citing Israeli Example, Zelensky Says Ukraiainians ‘Need to Learn to Live with Conflict,'” The Times of Israel (August 28, 2023); Eran Torbiner, Matzpen, Anti-Zionist Israelis, video documentary about the Israeli Socialist Organization (2003); Leon Trotsky, “The German Catastrophe” (1933); Adam Turl, Dead Paintings (2011-present); Tish Turl, Stink Ape Resurrection Primer (ongoing in Locust Review); Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Big Muddy Monster Atlas Project (2021-present). The Locust Radio theme is by Omnia Sol. Locust Radio is produced by Omnia Sol, Alexander Billet, Adam Turl, and Tish Turl. Locust Radio is hosted by Laura Fair-Schulz, Tish Turl, and Adam Turl.

Our first segment focuses on the history of socialism and science fiction (SF) in the early to mid-20th century United States, in particular the novels of George Allan England and the Popular Front SF of the Michelists in the 1930s and 1940s. Our second segment discusses the efforts of organizers in the Carbondale Assembly for Radical Equity (CARE) to help trans and queer persons — targeted by the recent wave of oppressive legislation in states like Florida, Texas, and elsewhere — relocate to the relative safety of Carbondale, Illinois.  Guests in this episode: Sean Cashbaugh, a postdoctoral lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program and author of  “A Paradoxical, Discrepant, and Mutant Marxism: The Emergence of Radical Science Fiction in the American Popular Front,” in the Journal for the Study of Radicalism. Cassandra Coffey, “a forty-year-old transfeminine nonbinary anarcho-communist redneck from Kentucky who has spent the past several years involved in queer liberation action and grassroots organization for causes that promote equity, emancipation, and challenge unjust authority.” Joe Shapiro, associate professor of English literature at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and author of The Illiberal Imagination: Class and the Rise of the U.S. Novel (University of Virginia Press, 2017). Mattie Stearns, “a nonbinary libertarian socialist J20 defendant, organizing in Carbondale for about ten years, and life-long resident of Carbondale. They are going to school to become a venture socialist. They are a general trouble-maker.”  You can reach out to CARE at carbondalecare@proton.me or by messaging the CARE Facebook page. You can donate to CARE by making a donation on the Carbondale Rainbow Cafe website and writing “CARE” in the memo box. Or you can send a check by mail to Rainbow Cafe, 118 N. Illinois Avenue, Carbondale, IL 62901, and write “CARE” in the memo line.  This episode's opening reading is “Cogita's Plan,” from the “Stink Ape Resurrection Primer” forthcoming in Locust Review 10. Music featured in this episode includes Melissa Carper, Mike Watt and the Secondmissingmen, and Omnia Sol. Locust Radio is a project of the Locust Arts and Letters Collective. It is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Alexander Billet, Omnia Sol, and Adam Turl.

In this Locust Radio “Special Report” — a preview of a segment from forthcoming episode twenty-one — we discuss organizing mutual aid and solidarity with trans and queer persons being forced to flee the increasingly draconian laws and regulations being put forward (and often passed) across the country. According to some studies, as many as 130,000 to 260,000 queer and trans people have already been displaced, with hundreds of thousands more considering relocation. We are releasing this segment early because of the urgency of the crisis and in the hope of building solidarity. The Carbondale Assembly on Radical Equity (or CARE) was formed in early 2023 in Carbondale, Illinois as a multi-tendency coalition of the different activists, organizers, and leftists in town. One of the things CARE has focused on is gender refugees relocating to Carbondale. Carbondale is, to borrow from mainstream terms, the bluest town at the southernmost tip of a blue state, jutting into increasingly hostile territory — a fact that has also led to the relocation from “red states” of gender affirming and reproductive care clinics to the city.  On Sunday, July 2nd, Tish and Adam interviewed two CARE organizers to discuss what led to the forming of the assembly, the mutual aid it facilitates, how folks can start projects similar to CARE in other relatively safe areas, how folks can reach out to CARE, and how to support the work CARE is doing. We also touch base on the overall fight against the fascist onslaught against trans and queer persons.  Our guests are Cassandra, “a forty-year-old transfeminine nonbinary anarcho-communist redneck from Kentucky who has spent the past several years involved in queer liberation action and grassroots organization for causes that promote equity, emancipation, and challenge unjust authority. Her pronouns are she/her and they/them”; and Mattie Stearns, “a nonbinary libertarian socialist j20 defendant, organizing in Carbondale for about ten years, and life-long resident of Carbondale. They are going to school to become a venture socialist. They are a general trouble-maker.”  You can reach out to CARE at carbondalecare@proton.me or by messaging the CARE Facebook page. You can donate to CARE by making a donation on the Carbondale Rainbow Cafe website and writing “CARE” in the memo box. Or you can send a check by mail to Rainbow Cafe, 118 N. Illinois Avenue, Carbondale, IL 62901, and write “CARE” in the memo line.  The closing music for this special report is “I Hate Illinois Nazis” by Pet Mosquito.  Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura-Fair Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander Billet. The opening theme is by Omnia Sol, with sound editing by Drew Franzblau. Locust Radio is a project of the Locust Arts and Letters Collective, which also publishes Locust Review and Imago. To support Locust Radio become a Locust patron. 

In this episode, recorded downwind from an increasingly immolated Canada, we interview Alexander Billet, author of the book,  Shake the City: Experiments in Space and Time, Music and Crisis from 1968 Press (2022). We discuss music, the city, cultural fragmentation and the accelerated alienation of neoliberal culture, the “blue note,” Fred Ho's concept of kreolization, the digital algorithm as capitalist standardization of music, sound as social control, music as a potential tool of social revolution, crackle and anachronism, acid communism, and getting “left behind” by the bourgeois rapture. Alexander Billet is a member of the Locust Collective who has written numerous articles and reviews for the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salvage, Jacobin, and the Radical Art Review.  Readings in this episode: “Feet Firmly Planted on the Earth,” by the late Iranian poet and Marxist Ahmad Shamlou, from the collection, Aida, Tree, Dagger, Memory (1963), republished in English in Locust Review 9 (2022), translated by Saman Sepheri; a selection from Sound, a serialized novella by Tish Turl, published over several issues of Locust Review (starting with Locust Review #2 in 2020).  Music featured in this episode: Enchanters, “Missing Mountains” and “Unlikely Windows” from Post-Harvest; Diamond Soul, “Screens,” from Maya-mi; and Omnia Sol, “Security to Section 3,” from X-Mas Miracle 2. Artists, art, musicians, books, and articles discussed in this episode: Theodor W. Adorno, “On Jazz,” Discourse Vol. 12, No. 1 (Fall-Winter 1989-90), 45-69; Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” (1936);   John Berger, Ways of Seeing (book, 1972), and Ways of Seeing (BBC documentary, 1972); Alexander Billet, Shake the City: Experiments in Space and Time, Music and Crisis (London: 1968 Press, 2022); Cynthia Cruz, The Melancholia of Class: A Manifesto for the Working-Class (London: Repeater, 2021); Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology, and Lost Futures  (London: Zero Books, 2014); Mark Fisher, “What is Hauntology?” Film Quarterly Vol 66. No. 1 (Fall 2012), 16-24 (University of California Press); Fred Ho (American jazz musician, composer and Marxist, 1957-2014); Henri Lefebve, The Right to the City (1996); Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844); Tish Turl, Sound (novella serialized in Locust Review, 2020-present); Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Born Again Labor Museum (conceptual art installation and project, 2019-present) Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz and Adam Turl. It is produced by Omnia Sol.

In this episode of Locust Radio, Tish, Laura, and Adam discuss the theme of, and editorial for, Locust Review #10, “The Monsters Are Coming,” the social construction of the monstrous, the idea of “solidarity with monsters,” differentiating between “their” monsters and “ours,” and how every accusation from the far-right is an admission of guilt.  We also touch on the obliviousness of the British ruling-class and its recent “coronation” spectacle, and the looming midnight of the 21st century.  In this episode, we also listen to music from Melissa Carper, Omnia Sol, and Kid Pixie. Please go to their bandcamps and buy their music!  Adam also interviews Nick Shillingford from the Socialist News and Views podcast, and Luke Herron-Titus from Southern Illinois Democratic Socialists of America, for the third Irrealist Worker's Survey (IWS). In the IWS interviews we discuss solidarity with AI, self-determination for Frankenstein's monsters, working-class sabotage, conspiracy theory robots designed by Oxford University “scientists,” being liminal spaces, and more. Artists, authors, books, articles, and artworks discussed in this episode include:  B. R. Ambedkar, The Annihilation of Caste (1936); William Blake, “Jerusalem” (1808); Kelly Budruweit, “Twilight's Heteronormative Reversal of the Monstros: Utopia and the Gothic Design,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts , 2016, Vol. 27, No. 2 (96) (2016), pp. 270- 289; Jeffrey Cohen, Monster Theory: Reading Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Emory Douglas (visual artist, member of the historic Black Panther Party for Self-Defense); Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch (Autonomedia, 2004); Brian P. Levack, “The Horrors of Witchcraft and Demonic Possession,” Social Research, Vol. 81, No. 4, Horrors (Winter 2014), pp. 921-939; Dave McNally, Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism (Haymarket, 2011); China Miéville (author); Anupam Roy (visual artist); Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818); Susan Stryker, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage” (Gordon and Breach Science Publishers SA, 1994); Enzo Traverso, Left Melancholia: Marxism, History and Memory (2016); Tish Turl and Adam Turl, Stink Ape Resurrection Primer (serialized in Locust Review #4 onwards, 2021-present); HG Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896); HG Wells, The War of the Worlds (1895-1897); and more… Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander Billet.

In this episode we listen to music from the Whistle Pigs, These Magnificent Tapeworms, The Flowers of Evil, and Omnia Sol, and have readings of stories and poetry from Tish Turl, Donald A. Wolheim, and Adam Ray Adkins. And Tish, Adam, and Laura discuss collective social PTSD, the public freakouts Reddit, an increasing intolerability of daily life, the indifference of the political center, the primordial soup of nihilism, the global surplus army of labor, the 2022 US elections as “liberal” World War Three abroad vs. fascism at home, the apocalyptic AI image generators that “paint the last selfie ever taken,” and the algorithm of AI image generators as a “machine of reward and discipline.” The second half of this episode is available to Locust subscribers and patrons only. Fundraisers discussed in this episode: Carbondale Union Barista Solidarity Fund, Locust Review INFLATION Fundraiser, and Annual Born Again Labor Museum Fund Drive. Music included in this episode includes: The Whistle Pigs, “I'm Broke, ” The Flowers of Evil, “Pink Llama,” These Magnificent Tapeworms, “16 Tons”; and Omnia Sol, “Vapor.” Readings in this episode include: Tish Turl reading the Michelist short story by Donald A. Wolheim (pen name: Millard Verne Gordan), “Bomb” from Science Fiction Quarterly (1)9 (1942); Adam Ray Adkins reading his poem, “Burnt Offerings” from Locust Review 9; Tish Turl reading “Rumbumble” from the Stink Ape Resurrection Primer in Locust Review 7; Artworks, artists, writers, articles and texts discussed in this episode include: “Wars Beneath: Atomization, Alienation + Excavating Futures in an Age of Conflict,” Locust Review 9 (Fall 2022); Mike Linaweaver, “The Someday Massacre,” Locust Review 9 (Fall 2022); Charles Baudelaire; Georges Sorel; “Planet Cleveland Unionizes,” from Stink Ape Resurrection Primer 6 in Locust Review 9 (Fall 2022); Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology, and Lost Futures (2014); Banksy; Lionello Puppi, Torment in Art (1991); Ben Davis, Art in the After-Culture (2022). Locust Radio is a project of the Locust Arts & Letters Collective, produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander Billet, and hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. Show music by Omnia Sol. Original credits mixed by Drew Franzblau.

This is a preview of the second half of our Halloween episode. To hear the full episode become a Locust Review patron. In the second half of our Halloween episode our digital recording system continually glitches in a gesture of solidarity to help free us from the grip of capitalist machines. In between glitches we brainstorm about gothic and hauntological irrealist gestures, including the possibility of creating an animist dollar store in which all the commodities come to life, marked with the labors that produced them. We also listen to more music from Fat JackRabbit, Omnia Sol, Hans Predator, and Worthless Scarecrow, and Tish reads from the Stink Ape Resurrection Primer. Songs featured in the Episode 17.5 include: Fat Jackrabbit, “Black Spaghetti; Omnia Sol. “I'll Stop Texting I Promise”; Hans Predator, “Young and Uninspiring”; and Worthless Scarecrow, “Water Street”. Please check out their work (linked here to their bandcamp pages) and show them some love, and buy some music. Our opening reading was Tish and Adam Turl's “Orbital Billboards” from the Stink Ape Resurrection Primer in Locust Review #8. Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl, and produced by Alexander Billet and Omnia Sol. Theme music is by Omnia Sol.

In this Halloween episode of Locust Radio, Tish and Adam discuss folk horror, folk devils, and ghosts, listen to music from Fat JackRabbit, Omnia Sol, Hans Predator, and Worthless Scarecrow, and hear poetry from Mike Linaweaver and Leslie Lea. Our co-host Laura Fair-Schulz was out sick and we look forward to their return in the next episode. Our discussion starts with the story of a spectral hound called “Old Black Eyes,” a cryptid that dissolves itself in its own tears, and more. Tish and Adam talk about the ethos of Halloween cutting against the capitalist impulse to map the entire world for profit and that UFOs are a secular visitation of “Biblically accurate angels.” We also discuss the persecution of witches, Silvia Federici's argument that magic is antithetical to capitalism, the irrealist strategy of appropriating “folk devils,” solidarity with monsters, and how the working-class itself summons the hauntological ghost of Marxism. Tish and Adam invent a new cryptid that has an anteater-like proboscis that steals children from Christian Nationalists and the worst members of the bourgeoisie to “save their souls.” Lastly: “no one wants to Sysphus anymore'' and “we are the monsters we've been waiting for.” Songs featured in this episode include: Fat JackRabbit, “Bad Dream”; Omnia Sol, “Rod Lavars”; Hans Predator, “Suck-cess”; and Worthless Scarecrow, “Not”. Please check out their work (linked here to their bandcamp pages) and show them some love, and buy some music. Poems featured includeL “Someday Massacre” by Mike Linaweaver (forthcoming in Locust Review #9); and “Spring” by Leslie Lea (from Locust Review #8). Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl, and produced by Alexander Billet and Omnia Sol. Theme music is by Omnia Sol.

For the second half of our show -- which first aired for Locust patrons on December 29, 2020 -- Tish Turl and Adam Ray Adkins share more of their work. Adam Turl, Tish Turl, and Alex Billet also talk with Omnia Sol and Adam Ray Adkins about Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and narrative conceptual art, and why the Peoria Cookie Monster mural is so much more interesting than those stupid fucking monoliths that have been appearing lately. Some additional material we reference in the second half of the show: Ilya and Emilia Kabakov's The Man Who Flew Into Space from His Apartment; Adam Turl, “Interrupting Disbelief: Narrative Conceptualism and Anti-Capitalist Studio Art,” Red Wedge (February 18, 2015); the Peoria Cookie Monster mural controversy. Check out more of Omnia Sol's work on YouTube and Instagram and support their work on Patreon. Check out Adam Ray Adkins' work at his YouTube, his Instagram, and listen to the Acid Left.

In this second half of episode three (originally posted to our Patrons in December, 2020) Adam, Tish, and Alex share some of our current writing and research, including a report on a much-overlooked group of writers who tried to claim sci-fi for communism in the 1930s, and an overview of the work of Hugo-nominated fantasy writer Chuck Tingle. You can listen to the first half of the episode, "Four Seasons Totalitarian Landscaping," at the Locust Review website. Selected works and subjects discussed in part two: Alexander Billet, "The FBI's War on Folk Music,"Jacobin; Aaron Leonard, The Folk Singers and the Bureau; Nadine Hubbs, Rednecks, Queers, and Country Music; Johnny Cash, "One Piece at a Time;" Johnny Paycheck, "Take This Job and Shove It;" Michael Hall, "Put Down That Pig;" John Michel, "Mutation or Death," (1937); Sean Guynes, "Mutate or Die: Eighty Years of the Futurians' Vision," The Pulp Magazine Archive; Los Angels Review of Books; Chuck Tingle's website; Chuck Tingle, Trans Wizard Harriet Porber And The Bad Boy Parasaurolophus: An Adult Romance Novel. Locust Radio 3.5 was produced by Drew Franzblau, hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl, with music by Omnia Sol.

From the second half of our second episode — initially made available to our subscribers and patrons on December 11, 2020 — we discuss Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death and Roger Corman's 1964 film adaptation, in light of then-president Donald Trump catching Covid. We also read a few more answers from the Irrealist Workers Survey and riffed a bit about how the goths were right about (almost) everything. Discussion includes: “The Masque of the Red Death,” by Edgar Allen Poe * The Masque of the Red Death, written by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell, adapted from Poe's story, directed by Roger Corman * “Hop-Frog,” by Edgar Allen Poe Locust Radio Episode 2.5 was produced by Drew Franzblau and hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music by Omnia Sol.

This is a preview/excerpt from the second half of Locust Radio 16. To get the full second-half subscribe to Locust or join our Patreon. In the second half of episode 16, Alex McIntyre, Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl discuss demanding our mayors fight bears, abolishing Wednesdays, mildly amusing riots, exploding the continuum of history, that Cahokia was not a hunter-gatherer society and therefore does not disprove the Marxist conception of “primitive communism,” how our anxiety rectangles symbolically take us outside of time while reminding us we are constrained materially in real life, the odd appeal of catastrophe vs. every day banality, the narcissistic comfort-alienation of emotional noise vs. ancient story-telling and art, breaking our backs by staring at screens at work, the contradictions of psychiatric pharmacology under capitalism, and more. Music includes “Robin Hood” and “Ugly” by Pet Mosquito and “Unsent Messages” by Omnia Sol. Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Adam Turl and Laura Fair-Schulz, and produced by Alexander Billet and Omnia Sol. Locust Radio theme/opening by Omnia Sol.

Our guest this month is Alex McIntyre from the Irrealist Combat League, Revolutionary Education Distro, and formerly the Cooper Point Journal. We discuss the idea of politics as theater, the irrealist rejection of the world as-is, Leninist fan-fiction, theatrical action (in a Brechtian sense) vs. a capitalist digital gesamtkunstwerk, sectariana, “paper sales,” reactionary vs. revolutionary suicide, the unity of popular front opportunism and third period ultraleftism, the organization of pessimism vs. cultic optimism, weird socialism, not being a humorless leftist, Dadaism, the disruption of order, and more. Music in this episode: Pet Mosquito's “I Hate Illinois Nazis” (2021), “Don't Shoot” (2020) and Omnia Sol's “Walking Around Money” (2022) Readings in this episode: Stink Ape Resurrection Primer's “Ello's Unheard Plea” by Tish Turl and Adam Turl, and Mike Linaweaver's “Long Hours Away from Home,” both in Locust Review 8 (Summer 2022). Check out Pet Mosquito's bandcamp and Instagram, and Omnia Sol's bandcamp and Instagram. And subscribe to Locust Review. Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. It is produced by Alexander Billet and Omnia Sol. Theme music by Omnia Sol.

Our guest for the second half of Locust Radio episode 15 is our very own Alexander Billet. Alex is a writer, artist, and editor at Locust Review. They join us in the virtual Locust studio to discuss the editorial for Locust Review 8, “The Utopia Principle,” which Alex took the lead on writing. This is a compilation of excerpts from the episode. To hear the full episode join the Locust Review Patreon or subscribe on our website. We discuss, in this episode: the materiality of utopia, love and anger, the revelatory aspects of apocalypse, an overgrowth of discourse without practice, the importance of demediating cultural and political strategies, interrupting capitalist disbelief, the primitive accumulation of a utopian imagination, the sublime differentiated totality of a future socialism, expressing the struggle in our art and writing, the social-existential reality of living without a reward in contemporary capitalism, Henri Lefebvre's heterotopia, experimenting with utopia in art and left organizing, and how come nobody who is dead wants to work anymore? Our musical break was “Demonstration” by Omnia Sol. Our reading was Alexander Billet's “Republic of Dreams” from Locust Review 8. The opening sketch was based on a story from the Stink Ape Resurrection Primer. Locust Radio is produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander Billet. It is hosted by Tish Turl, Laura Fair-Schulz, and Adam Turl. Music by Omnia Sol.

After the opening reading, a sketch based on an excerpt from the Stink Ape Resurrection Primer, Tish and Adam interview Ken LeBlanc, a rank-and-file member of the Main Street Carbondale, Illinois Starbucks union organizing committee. The Starbucks Workers United organizing effort went public in Carbondale in late May. LeBlanc discusses organizing, how to start a union, the grievances of her co-workers, making food for folks as an art, the Restaurant Organizing Project, how uncontested corporate power breeds unethical behavior, the grassroots organizing in Southern Illinois around abortion rights and reproductive justice, and speculates — at our request — on her idea of utopia. Following the interview, Laura, Adam, and Tish discuss the idea of utopia as it relates to the class struggle and ongoing capitalist-born disaster. Laura reports back from the Labor Notes conference. We also discuss the hauntological quality of “in real life” organizing and creative expression, the need to abolish capitalist time vs. the false timelessness of ca pitalist culture, the need for a a mutually reinforcing dynamic between left organization and the daily class struggle, the rabid far-right political and terroristic assault on public education and what is left of the commons, how the (re)creation of utopian imagination is necessarily collective, what it means to organize for Paradise in Hell, and socialist art as flats for the theater of the class struggle.

This is an excerpt from the second half of Locust Radio episode 14. To get the full episode subscribe to Locust Review. In the second half of the episode, we continue to talk to Crystal Stella Becerril about making art as a human compulsion vs. making art for pleasure, how pleasure is distorted by capitalism, art and community, organizing for reproductive rights and unions, making art for our communities and working-class siblings and comrades, Theresa May wearing a Frida Kahlo bracelet, poetry zines, the Bluestockings cooperative bookstore, and more. Artists discussed include Vincent van Gogh, Abigail DeVille, Damien Hirst, Frida Kahlo, and more. Readings, music and books discussed include Crystal Stella Becceril, “Untitled”; Vanessa Jimenez Gabb, Images for Radical Politics (2016); Omnia Sol, "Dead internet" Locust Radio is hosted by Laura Fair-Schulz, Adam Turl, and Tish Turl; and produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander BIllet. Theme music by Omnia Sol. Original opening produced by Drew Franzblau.

Tish and Adam are joined by our new co-host Laura Fair-Schulz, our new co-producer Omnia Sol, and our guest, poet, writer, and comrade Crystal Stella Becerril. Crystal Stella Becerril collaborated for several years with Locust Radio co-producer Alexander Billet, Omnia, and Adam at the Red Wedge project in the 2010s. She is a freelance writer, podcaster, and an organizer with the National Writers Union Freelance Solidarity Project. Stella poetry and non-fiction has been published by multiple websites and journals. She's presented several papers at the Historical Materialism conferences in London, Toronto and New York. Earlier in the pandemic she helped organize a rent strike in her apartment building in New York City. In today's episode we discuss writing poetry and theory, the relationship of poetry and photography to capitalism, how we are conditioned to understand work and time under capitalism, the anxiety of trying to take care of yourself in a class society, organizing freelance workers, the art of editing, poetry vs. the digital attention economy; and more. Some of the works discussed, read, or listened to in this episode: Crystal Stella Becerril, “What if You Had Taken the Day Off?,” Locust Review 7 (2022); Omnia Sol, “icloud fucking sucks”; Omnia Sol, “Juicy Slice”; Crystal Stella Becerril, “Wages for Housework and Other Neccessay Labor,” Red Wedge Magazine (2019); Tish Turl, “Giving Up,” Locust Review 5 (2021); Kevin Coleman and Daniel James, editors, Capitalism and the Camera: Essays on Photography and Extraction (Verso: 2021). Locust Radio is hosted by Laura Fair-Schulz, Adam Turl, and Tish Turl; and produced by Omnia Sol and Alexander BIllet. Theme music by Omnia Sol. Original opening produced by Drew Franzblau.

After Sewerbot rises into the city to take revenge on the surface meat, Tish and Adam talk to Locust collective member and artist Omnia Sol and their new album Sunshine Tapes. They discuss vaporwave, glitch art, NFTs (the “Funko Pops of digital art”), sabotage and strikes vs. scientific management/Taylorism as “glitch,” improvisation in glitch art, undermining capitalist conceptions of time, dérive and detournement in glitch and vaporwave, critical vs. fascist vaporwave, retro-futurism, the promises of utopia, the gothic vs. the nostalgic, Tik Tok music recycling, human vs. algorithm curation in digital media, anti-time travel tropes as bourgeois propaganda, the “spiritual” with and against the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit, Spinoza and animism vs. commodity fetishism, Walter Benjamin's application of theological concepts to Marxist cultural criticism, and more. Artworks, artists, and texts discussed in this episode: Omnia Sol, Sunshine Tapes, vol 1, vol 2, and vol 3 (2021) and TOSAS: The Omnia Sol Art Show (ongoing); “June 27th” and other work by the late DJ Screw; Neutral Milk Hotel; Acid Left/Adam Ray Adkins, “This is What They Took from Us,” meme (2021); Born Again Labor Museum, Don't Jostle the Water Bears (They Are Communist NRG Beings Outside of Time) - digital prints, collage, painting, drawing, mixed-media, coffee, glitter, cotton and ash on canvas (2022); Local News, “Sports Champions” (2013); Tennessee Ernie Ford, “16 Tons” (1955); Michael Betancourt, Glitch Art in Theory and Practice (New York: Routledge, 2017); Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, “The Californian Ideology,” Science as Culture, Vol 6 (1996); Grafton Tanner, Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts (London: Zero Books, 2016) Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl. It is produced by Drew Franzblau and Alexander Billet. Show music is by Omnia Sol. “Sewerbot” was adapted from a short story by Tish Turl, featuring Omnia Sol, Adam Turl, Tish Turl, and Alexander Billet.

In the second half of episode 12 — for patrons and subscribers only — Tish, Adam and Holly Lewis focus on questions of art, culture and individual subjectivity as they relate to the pandemic, the idea of the working-class seizing virtual technologies, automatic writing vs. anxiety and death, haunting the rich, revenge and utopia, the sculpting of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence, the futurity of the doomed, blockchain, video games, and the loss of texture in the virtual world. They also discuss the dynamic of collective and individual imagining and the warm stream of Marxism. Books, articles, stories and pamphlets discussed: “Alain Badiou: ‘People cling onto identities… it is a world opposed to the encounter,'” Verso blog (2014); Albert Camus, The Plague; Mike Davis, The Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu, and the Plagues of Capitalism (Verso, 2022); Hal Draper, The Mind of Clark Kerr (October 1964); Mary Shelley, The Last Man; Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Roger Malvin's Burial” (1832); Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820); Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844; Karl Marx, The German Ideology (1845-46). Artworks discussed: The Born Again Labor Museum's Communist Manifesto Redistribution Project and Cat Without a Grin; Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Triumph of Death (1562); medieval plague crucifixes; the agit-prop of Gran Fury and Act Up; exquisite corpses; David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (Buffalo) (1988); Anupam Roy's Exodus series; Labani Jangi's Exodus series; Egon Schiele's The Family (1918) Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl. It is produced by Alexander Billet and Drew Franzblau. Music is by Omnia Sol.

With the pandemic still crawling along, and with so much of the dominant narrative telling us it's over, we thought it would be helpful to have a discussion about the plague. So our good friend, philosopher and writer and editor at Spectre Holly Lewis, joins us to talk disease, capitalism, ideology, and reclaiming our cultural experiences for the sake of resistance and joy. We discuss the repeated assertion the pandemic is over, only to face another surge, another variant, and more deaths, as well as the split between the right-wing, liberal, and a left approach to the virus and what it really would mean to “learn to live with the pandemic.” Also, a faulty computer is deciding people's deaths. Good luck. Articles discussed in this episode: Daniel Sarah Karasik, “Against Pandemic Realism,” Midnight Sun. “Missing Days,” Locust Review, issue 7. (On its way to subscribers mailboxes, also posted on the Locust Review Patreon for subscribers…), Kallie Cox, “Born Again Labor Museum offers free Communist Manifestos,” The Southern Illinoisan. Shirin Ali, “'Huge, huge numbers': insurance group sees death rates up 40 percent over pre-pandemic levels,” The Hill. Book and pamphlets discussed: Albert Camus, The Plague Mike Davis, The Monster Enters: COVID-19, Avian Flu, and the Plagues of Capitalism (Verso, 2022) Hal Draper, The Mind of Clark Kerr (October 1964) Daniel DeFoe, Journal of the Plague Year Mary Shelley, The Last Man Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl, and produced by Alexander Billet and Drew Franzblau. Music by Omnia Sol.

In the second half of the episode — for patrons and subscribers only — R. Faze reads their story, “I Live an Hour from My Body” from Locust Review #4. We then continue to discuss art and politics with Laura Fair-Schulz, including her works, “Song of the Barren Tree,” “Circuit Eye Vines,”and “Dysmorph Becoming Aware.” We also discuss Laura's process in greater detail, NFTs and art world finance, Marxism and art history, “business ontology,” division on the left, Mark Fisher's “Exiting the Vampire Castle,” the contradictions of social media, colonization, and more. To hear the full episode, subscribe to Locust Review here. Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl. Locust Radio is produced by Alexander Billet and Drew Franzblau. Music is by Omnia Sol.

Why does this extraterrestrial on a talk show say the aliens want to “help us,” and why are they so interested in our water? Seems fishy… Adam and Tish speak with artist, writer, and Locust Arts & Letters Collective member Laura Fair-Schulz about her work, and how labor, identity, gender, abstraction, dysphoria, and liberation all inform it. At the end of part one, Tish reads a poem from the Stink Ape Resurrection Primer about ghosts going on strike. Also discussed in this episode: Laura Fair-Schulz, “Candyman 2021: Art Reveals Horror,” Imagojournal.com (October 25, 2021), Laura Fair-Schulz, “Writing Marxism Out of Art History,” RedWedgeMagazine.com (May 1, 2019), Mark Fisher on Magical Voluntarism, the ArtNet series on NFTs and the art world, “Inside the NFT Rush,” by Ben Davis, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 (November - December 2021), Frida Kahlo's house being dismantled for NFTs, Henry Giroux, “Jim Crow Politics Have Descended on Education,” Truthout (October 27, 2021), and more. Artists and writers discussed include Alice Neel, Mark Fisher, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, James Baldwin, Richard Hamilton, and more. Works by Laura discussed in this episode can be viewed at the Locust website. Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl, and produced by Alexander Billet and Drew Franzblau. Music by Omnia Sol.

In this episode Tish and Adam talk to the poet Richard Hamilton about his new book, Rest of Us (Recenter Press, 2021). Richard Hamilton shares a number of his poems. We also discuss, among other things, the relationship of the social and the subjective, absurdist aesthetic strategies, the afterlife of slavery, remixing time, the “MFA industry” and the Kenneth Goldsmith controversy, what it means to write or make art for the working-class and oppressed, the relationship of visual art to poetry, and the discordant will of the revolutionary subject. Poems read and discussed include Hamilton's “Alabama Inmate Notes,” “Revolting Shadows,” “Black and White (Ode to the Haitian Revolution),” “In Four,” “Palimpsest: Black Out” and “White Narratives.” We also touch on AfroSurrealism, Amiri Baraka's “The Politics of Rich Painters” (1963), Federico Garcia Lorca's “Sleepwalking Ballad,” Aimé Césaire's Discourses on Colonialism (1950), and the work of the artists Ronald Williams and Emory Douglas, among more. Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl. Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. Music is by Omnia Sol.

In this episode begin with an excerpt from the Locust anthology series, Swarm Stories, and then Tish and Adam move on to discussing art, politics, and propaganda with Locust member Anupam Roy. Anupam Roy is an artist and propagandist with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation. We also discuss Anupam's drawings, appearing in Locust Review #5, Excuse Me I Was Sharpening My Teeth and May Day; Tish's “franken-prose-poetry” series, The Stink Ape Resurrection Primer'; and Adam's painting/collage, Snek Rallies the Oil Snakes, while Aelita Beheads Elon Musk, and Possum Sings Against the Rain, and augmented digital print series, Social Resurrection Task-Prints. Locust Radio is hosted by Tish Turl and Adam Turl: https://www.bornagainlabor.com/ Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/ Discussed in this episode: Adam Turl interviews Anupam Roy, “We Are Broken Cogs in the Machine,” Red Wedge (May 7, 2019): http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/broken-cogs-in-the-machine Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks: https://abahlali.org/files/gramsci.pdf Ben Davis, “How the New Museum's Triennial Sabotages Its Own Revolutionary Mission: What's all this talk of propaganda?” Artnet (February 20, 2018): https://news.artnet.com/art-world/how-the-new-museums-triennial-sabotages-its-own-revolutionary-mission-1226768 Interviews with Nagesh Rao, Tempest, “Authoritarianism and Resistance in India,” parts 1, 2, 3: https://www.tempestmag.org/2021/01/authoritarianism-and-resistance-in-india/ https://www.tempestmag.org/2021/01/authoritarianism-and-resistance-in-india-2/ https://www.tempestmag.org/2021/06/authoritarianism-and-resistance-in-india-part-3/ From CPIMLL's English language Liberation - “West Bengal Verdict And After Lessons for the Left” https://cpiml.net/liberation/2021/05/west-bengal-verdict-and-after-lessons-for-the-left From CPIMLL's English language Liberation - “Modi Shrugs Off Responsibility As India Gasps for Breath” https://cpiml.net/liberation/2021/05/modi-shrugs-off-responsibility-as-india-gasps-for-breath Dave McNally, “What is the meaning of revolution today? Behind the New Reformism,” Spectre https://spectrejournal.com/what-is-the-meaning-of-revolution-today/

After the council of oil snakes convenes to discuss the worm spider rebellion, Adam and Tish review the theme of Locust Review's first “theory annual,” Imago. Co-host Alexander Billet was on assignment during the recording of episode eight, but will return for the second half of the episode (for patrons only). To subscribe to Imago, sign up for the Locust Patreon! https://www.locustreview.com/editorial/get-locusts-delivered Some of the work discussed in episode eight: Rochelle Spencer, AfroSurrealism: The African Diaspora's Surrealist Fiction (2020). Aaron Warner's review of the film, Feels Good Man (forthcoming in Imago #1) https://www.locustreview.com/editorial/get-locusts-delivered Alexander Billet's essay, “A Theory of the Imagination and/or an Imaginative Theory: The Case for Critical Irrealism” (forthcoming in Imago #1). https://www.locustreview.com/editorial/get-locusts-delivered Adam Turl's essay, “Their Weird vs. Ours: Critical Irrealism vs. Fascist Occultism” (forthcoming in Imago #1). https://www.locustreview.com/editorial/get-locusts-delivered Tish Turl's review of the Chuck Tingle Harriet Porber series (forthcoming in Imago #1) and Chuck Tingle's new horror novel Straight. https://www.locustreview.com/editorial/get-locusts-delivered Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie (2016). China Miéville' City and the City (2009). Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History” (1940). https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/history.htm The Born Again Labor Museum (Locust Review's ongoing sister project organized by Tish and Adam Turl). https://www.bornagainlabor.com/ Tish Turl's “Stink Ape Resurrection Primer” (forthcoming in Locust #5). “A Short Organum for the Theatre,” by Bertolt Brecht https://ia801202.us.archive.org/32/items/performanceyactivismo/brecht-organum.pdf “The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” Karl Marx https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Tish Turl, Adam Turl, and Alexander Billet. Music is by Omnia Sol. https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/

In the second part of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, Tish and Alex read some new poems. We also continue our discussion about surrealism, particularly how it might pertain to our organizations and the possibility of transformation. Can the odd and nonsensical allow us to envision our lives and cities dramatically reshaped? If you want to hear more than just the preview of this episode, then you’ll need to subscribe. Do so here: https://www.patreon.com/locustreview/posts Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Tish Turl, Adam Turl, and Alexander Billet. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/

After Salvador Dali receives a well-deserved beat-down, Tish, Adam and Alex talk surrealism! Widely known, but frequently depoliticized in our current day, surrealism is a cornerstone of the critical irrealist project for us at Locust Review. We discuss its origins, missions and goals in liberating the mind from the fetters of capitalism and empire, and its communist activism. Morning Star, by Michael Lowy Black, Brown and Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora, edited by Franklin Rosemon the Robin DG Kelley Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination, by Robin DG Kelley “Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art,” by Andre Breton and Leon Trotsky, signed by Breton and Diego Rivera: https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/works/rivera/manifesto.htm Afrosurrealism, edited by Rochelle Spencer “Claude Cahun: The Androgynous Surrealist,” by Jacqueline Martinez, The Collector: https://www.thecollector.com/claude-cahun/ “When the Surrealists Expelled Salvador Dali for “the Glorification of Hitlerian Fascism,” by Josh Jones, Open Culture: https://www.openculture.com/2018/03/when-the-surrealists-expelled-salvador-dali-for-the-glorification-of-hitlerian-fascism-1934.html Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Tish Turl, Adam Turl, and Alexander Billet. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/

In the second part of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, Mike and Leslie join us to talk about how utterly feeble most conceptual poetry and art are, and contrast it with their own vital experiences in Corpus Christi’s underground music and arts scenes. We ponder how the pandemic relief packages may have provided some breathing room for the working class to rediscover its creativity. And finally, we ramble on for a while about our own work, and we hear some more poetry from Leslie. If you want to hear more than just the preview of this episode, then you’ll need to subscribe. Do so here: https://www.patreon.com/locustreview/posts Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol.

We’ve got Locust contributors and Texan communists Mike Linaweaver and Leslie Lea as guests this episode to talk about the disaster in Texas after winter storm Uri knocked out the whole state’s power. We discuss the uneven (and deadly) consequences of the catastrophe, the venality of the state’s conservative rulers, the ineptitude of liberals’ supposed alternative, and the slow unfolding apocalypse that now faces the state and the country. We also pay a modest tribute to our dear departed inspiration Lawrence Ferlinghetti, hear some poetry from Mike and Leslie, and plant a little bug in Leslie’s ear about starting a communist resurrection cult! “Powerless in Texas,” by Snehal Shingavi, Rampant: https://rampantmag.com/2021/02/19/powerless-in-texas/ Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin’s On the Concept of History by Michael Lowy “Live Free and Die: Notes On American Exterminism,” by Alexander Billet, Historical Materialism blog: https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/blog/live-free-and-die-notes-american-exterminism “Cosmic Catwalk and the Production of Time,” by Anton Vidokle and Hito Steyerl, e-flux: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/82/134989/cosmic-catwalk-and-the-production-of-time/

For the second half of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, Alex reads a long excerpt from this massive essay in the newest issue of Salvage. Also, Tish, Adam and Alex talk about the aesthetics of the GameStop short squeeze, how capitalism presents us with the illusion of justice, and how we might see through the veneer. If you want to hear more than just the preview of this portion, you will have to subscribe. If you haven’t yet, do so here: https://www.patreon.com/locustreview “The GameStop Rally Exposed the Perils of ‘Meme Populism’,” by Eric Levitz, New York Magazine, February 3rd, 2021: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/gamestop-wallstreetbets-twitter-populism-progressives.html “The GameStop Bubble Is a Lesson in the Absurdity and Uselessness of the Stock Market,” by Doug Henwood, Jacobin, January 27th, 2021: https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/gamestop-stock-market-reddit/ Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord “The Work of Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” by Walter Benjamin Simulacra and Simulation, by Jean Baudrillard Libidinal Economy, by Jean-Francois Lyotard Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/

Lots has happened since our last episode: the storming of the Capitol, the fascists’ disorientation, and the inauguration of a new president who can’t wait for us to get “back to normal.” Tish, Adam, and Alex discuss what it is about capitalism’s obsessions with normalcy that is so detrimental to working and oppressed people. Also, an unexpected guest shows up in the form of a dead coyote wearing a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses. “The Rabble and the Door,” by Steve Edwards, Spectre, January 15th, 2021: https://spectrejournal.com/the-rabble-and-the-door/ “Keep Socialism Weird” and “Breaking the Norm,” both by Peter Frase on his blog: http://www.peterfrase.com/2018/10/keep-socialism-weird/, http://www.peterfrase.com/2018/11/breaking-the-norm/ An Essay On Liberation, by Herbert Marcuse Death and Dying In the Working Class, 1865-1920, by Michael K. Rosenow “What Is a Struggalo? Inquiry at the Juggalo March,” by Gavin Mueller, Viewpoint, September 18th, 2017: https://viewpointmag.com/2017/09/18/struggalo-inquiry-juggalo-march/ The Politics of Everybody, by Holly Lewis “Hardhats and Hippies: An Interview With Penny Lewis,” Penny Lewis interviewed by Chris Maisano, Jacobin, June 3rd, 2013: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/06/hardhats-hippies-and-hawks-an-interview-with-penny-lewis Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/ This background music for this episode's sketch is "Moment of Truth (Violin Version)" by David Hilowitz

We have guests! Artists Omnia Sol (whose music you will recognize as a regular feature at Locust Radio) and Adam Ray Adkins (a.k.a. Dirt: Son of Earth and co-host of the Acid Left videocast) come on the show to talk their own work, the impact of acid communism, and what it means to build a 21st century psychedelic reason. Each of our guests shares some of their poetry and music, and we hear some more of Tish’s ongoing novel Sounds. Plus, just in time for the holidays, we get to hear what actually happened to George Bailey that night in Pottersville, after the Angel of History intervened... For the second half of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, Tish and Adkins share a bit more of their work. We also talk a bit more about narrative conceptualism, and why the Peoria Cookie Monster mural is so much more interesting than those stupid fucking monoliths that have been appearing lately. If you want to hear this portion, and haven’t subscribed yet, do so now: https://www.patreon.com/locustreview Check out more of Omnia Sol’s work on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrNxW0hbqiBIhhwg0F_0jWQ), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/omniasolart/), and support their work on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/omniasolart Check out Adam Ray Adkins’ work at his YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4Tr6TLTW0rfXNZjBy85Z2Q), his Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/art.o.dirt), and listen to the Acid Left (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbLjoC_tct5byCV6JBoQPtA). “Acid Communism,” unfinished introduction of Mark Fisher’s book of the same name, appears in K-Punk An Essay On Liberation, by Herbert Marcuse Postcapitalist Desire, by Mark Fisher, with an introduction by Matt Colquhoun Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/ Snow footstep sound effects by ("Footsteps, Snow, A.wav" and "Running, Snow, A.wav") by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk) of Freesound.org

Adam, Tish, and Alex discuss all manner of post-election oddities, and what they tell us about an imminent Joe Biden presidency. We also talk about the prospects for anti-fascism, the tasks of radical art, and why brunch is a stupid idea for a meal in the first place. Plus, poetry from Tish and fellow Locust editor Mike Linaweaver, and the final thoughts of two very presidential severed heads. For the second half of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, we share some of our current writing and research, including a much-overlooked group of writers who tried to claim sci-fi for communism in the 1930s, and an overview of the work of Hugo-nominated fantasy writer Chuck Tingle. If you want to hear this portion, and haven’t subscribed yet, do so now: https://www.patreon.com/locustreview “The Urgency of Anti-Fascism,” by Adam Turl, Tempest, October 15th, 2020: https://www.tempestmag.org/2020/10/the-urgency-of-anti-fascism/ Starship Troopers, written by Eric Neumeier, directed by Paul Verhoeven “The Politics of the Pandemic: Panel I,” part of Historical Materialism Online, featuring Rob Wallace, Richard Seymour, Josep Maria Antentas, George Nikolaidis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZk4ZCwBKxQ&list=PLcqXhvSDf0z1_1fjg5P3KstOLswjRjk_f&index=16 “Out of the Castle and Into the Street: Art Under Trump,” editorial in Red Wedge, January 20th, 2017: http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/out-of-the-castles “‘One thinge that ouerthroweth all that were graunted before’: On Being Presidential,” by China Mieville, Salvage, January 30th, 2018: https://salvage.zone/in-print/one-thinge-that-ouerthroweth-all-that-were-graunted-before-on-being-presidential/ Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/

Happy Halloween! No surprise we love the scary season here at Locust Radio. To celebrate, Adam, Tish and Alex discuss some of their favorite artifacts of radical(-ish) horror: Larry Cohen’s Maniac Cop, Chuck Palahniuk’s Rant: The Oral History of Buster Casey, and clipping.’s There Existed an Addiction To Blood. We also check in with some spooky pals defending an asylum from gentrifiers and read some our favorite answers from the Irrealist Workers Survey. For the second half of our show, available to SUBSCRIBERS ONLY, we discuss Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death and Roger Corman’s 1964 adaptation, in light of Donald Trump’s, shall we say, health problems. We also read a few more answers from the Irrealist Workers Survey and riff a bit about how the goths are right about (almost) everything. If you want to hear this portion, and haven’t subscribed yet, do so now: https://www.patreon.com/locustreview Check out more from Locust Review: https://www.locustreview.com Maniac Cop, written and produced by Larry Cohen, directed by William Lustig Larry Cohen: The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker, by Tony Williams Rant: The Oral History of Buster Casey, by Chuck Palahniuk The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord There Existed an Addiction To Blood, by clipping. Revolutionary Suicide, by Huey Newton “Theses On the Concept of History,” by Walter Benjamin Ghosts of My Life: Writings On Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures, by Mark Fisher Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/

Welcome to Locust Radio! The weird, the eerie, the irreal, the eldritch, the fantastical and just plain horrifying; they’re everywhere today as the world seems to fall apart. In this, our first episode, Tish, Adam and Alex discuss some of these ideas and others that went into the creation of this podcast and Locust Review. We talk about the history of non-realist radical art movements, and what we can learn from them in our own struggles against fascism, immiseration, and climate catastrophe. We also read some poetry and weird fiction, hear from Karen-eating aliens and a couple of jaded cave goblins, and talk about Boomer, the ghost-dog with three legs who saved a town by peeing on a train. Check out more from Locust Review: https://www.locustreview.com/ Because this is our first episode, we are giving you BOTH halves of the show for free! But for future episodes, the second half will be available to PATRONS ONLY! So if you like what you hear, then support the podcast and Locust Review on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/locustreview Works referenced: Capitalist Realism, by Mark Fisher The Weird and the Eerie, by Mark Fisher AfroSurrealism: The African Diaspora’s Surrealist Fiction, by Rochelle Spencer “A Moonlit Enchanted Night,” by Michael Lowy I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs, and Apocalypse Communism, by AM Gittlitz The Xenofeminist Manifesto, by Laboria Cubonix “Theses On the Concept of History,” by Walter Benjamin Locust Radio is produced by Drew Franzblau. It is hosted by Alexander Billet, Tish Markley, and Adam Turl. Music is by Omnia Sol: https://omniasolart.bandcamp.com/