Slingshot Collective

2010 Slingshot Organizer

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

It warms my heart that the Slingshot Collective is still producing this legendary anarchistic day planner. Although this is the sixteenth year that the Slingshot organizer is in print, I am pretty sure that the first time I ever saw one was after the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle. Unfortunately I didn’t go to the protests (because I was in high school and my parents wouldn’t let me). Luckily, my boyfriend at the time brought one back for me as a protest souvenir. While I would have preferred to have been in Seattle getting tear-gassed with the White Overalls and Sea Turtle Defenders, it made me feel a little less left out. I am pretty sure that I had a Slingshot Organizer every year after that until the last couple of years.

There is something comforting to once again hold the classic pocket-sized Slingshot in my hands again. I love how almost everything is written and illustrated by hand. I also love that there are reminders of radical activist history, a menstrual calendar, a list of info-shops across the world, and an address book in the back.

The cover this year features a giant mushroom in a forest with a group of people overturning and destroying a car in the background. One improvement from past years is that the cover now comes slightly laminated. I remember in the early years when we would all laminate them ourselves using clear packing tape in order to preserve their utility. 2010 Slingshot Organizers come in about a dozen colors ranging from Smash the Pumpkin State (orange) to Food Not Lawns (light green). Proceeds from the sale of the organizers all go towards making sure that the Slingshot newspaper stays in production. I highly recommend the slingshot organizer, whether this is your first or your sixteenth.

Written by: Liz Simmons, January 28th 2010

2010 Slingshot Desk Organizer

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:08:00 +0000

By Slingshot Collective

AK Press

I am an INFJ, which means that among my other characteristics is the somewhat innate desire to plan. Since discovering them several years ago at the Lucy Parsons Center, I have been hooked on Slingshot planners. They’re an affordable, radical way to keep my Type A tendencies balanced with my subversive sensibilities.

In addition to radical historic dates and holiday listings, Slingshot planners contain a multitude of information and artwork, including unusual and beautiful drawings, quotes, and tips on every page. For the third week of June, for example, I am told to “exploit code, not people,” “learn hexadecimal,” and directed to hackbloc.org, a website that is the homepage of Hack This Zine and offers an IndyMedia feed and hactivist information about Tor, for starters. A section of November dates include drawings of a still and admonish, “Fuck Corporate Beer! Brew it Yerself.”

Each planner is handmade, and since I'm running two businesses of my own this year, I need more space to write than ever before. A previous supporter of the pocket planner, I took it up a notch for 2010. Thankfully, both editions carry the same basics: a measurements conversation chart (perfect for my expat self), a global radical contact list, and blank recycled paper in the back for additional notes, doodles, conspiracies, and action plans.

One page encourages activists and organizers—with graphics of a gourd and street sign, respectively—to “squash patriarchy” and “stop driving.” (Every Slingshot shipment to a distributor is taken to the post office on bicycle, after all.) I have stopped driving in the past year, despite the fact that my 1987 Mercedes is parked in a garage in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Until my partner and I move back to the States, I join forty percent of my current home’s population and get everywhere on my Danish bicycle.

Their yearly section on dealing with police is also invaluable information—from what to do about cop harassment to how to avoid problems for non-citizens. I happen to be hitched to one of those for the rest of my foreseeable future. Gotta know our rights, and so do you!

The Slingshot reading list, dubbed “Discover the Romance of,” offers suggestions from Bayard Rustin and Susan Sontag to Diablo Cody and George Orwell to fiction titles for children and young adults.

Best of all, Slingshot planners are full of pro-lady health tips. Included every year is a menstrual calendar, and this year, the booklet closes with acupressure points. Two full pages explain the subversive nature of great sex, complete with tips for navigating personal boundaries and why laughing is important during intimacy.

My large desk organizer came with a pre-laminated cover to withstand inevitable wear and tear. It offers important reminders as I put my personal and professional commitments in order: The revolution will not be spontaneous. Better get ready to pencil it in.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, November 28th 2009

2009 Slingshot Organizer

admin — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:01:00 +0000

By Slingshot Collective

It all started for me in 2007. That was the first time I put my daily activities in order with the help of the Slingshot Organizer. We're coming up on year three of my making use of this invaluable resource (produced thanks to the efforts of Berkeley, California's Slingshot Collective volunteers), and I cannot imagine going a day without it. The Slingshot Organizer has become an integral part of my life, and I anticipate the release of each new one with the glee of a child counting down the days to her birthday.

My first organizer was their squat perfect-bound day planner, described in a number of places as “pocket-sized.” I'd say you could wedge it in to the back pocket of your pants, or perhaps a jacket pocket. Most t-shirt pockets are going to be too small, though. Per advice offered on the Slingshot website, I plastered the front and back covers with clear packing tape to protect them. For the rest of the year I filled it full with every one of my many obligations. There were so many of them, in fact, that in 2008, I upgraded to the larger spiral-bound day planner. Before I continue, please know that, while this review is based on the spiral-bound day planner, I think they're both great, so buy yours based on your own needs.

Day planning pages are divided with Monday through Thursday on the left page, and Friday through Sunday on the right. Some pages have image themes, and if you look closely you'll find nifty hints and inventions doodled in the margins of certain days. My favorite suggestion involved a charcoal grill, a hairdryer and some bricks to create a fire-free BBQ grill; use caution. Every day includes important dates from traditional, radical, and anarchist histories; for example, on my birth date (6 September) in 1974, “Housing occupations and barricades in Rome lead to legalized squatting.” There are also mentions of holidays both religious (Kwanzaa, Easter, etc.) and secular (Buy Nothing Day).

Every organizer is the same, but different; that is, there are certain elements repeated that nonetheless vary from year to year. Right at the beginning there's something that you won't see in any of the day planners you'd find at your local corporate office supply superstore: a menstrual calendar. That's right, folks. Monitor your menses at the same time you're scheduling your next monthly mountaineering meeting!

Items specific to the 2009 Edition include Critical Mass riding guidelines, “Basic Sewing Stitches,” “Self-Defense Tips,” “How To Start a Food Not Bombs Group,” and my personal favorite, “Know Your Trannies.” Other features are a worldwide radical contact list, an annual reading list, a measurement conversions table, a phone directory, as well as blank pages just itching to be filled. The Slingshot Organizer is chock full of so much radical advice and knowledge that you'll wanna keep it—and learn from it—long after the planner's year has passed.

Written by: M. Brianna Stallings, December 27th 2008