hey all!

so it was a whirlwind weekend for nyc icarus - it was a great success in a whole bunch of different ways. the first ever nyc anarchist bookfair at the judson memorial church was incredibly well attended by folks from all over the continent and the world. even though the nyc icarus table was in the backmost corner of the room, our eye-catching displays and alluring tablers (big thanks to brian, kyle, caprice and myself) drew tons of people in to learn more, dialogue, get resources and network.

saturday also marked the debut of the first-ever autonomously produced new york city icarus publication, a zine called "if this is loneliness, it is spectacular" with writing and art from nyc members - thanks to the folks who worked on this for doing such a great job. we sold/distro'd this zine, along with the icarus reader, a few of scatter's icarista zines (the profit from which he so graciously donated to nyc - thanks friend!), sheila's awesome book (which she donated, thanks!), posters, support manuals, stickers, and more! after recouping costs, we still made about $100! not too shabby, and it couldn't have come at a better time. fellow nyc icarista j. max stein also debuted her newest zine at her own table at the bookfair, which was pretty damn cool (and it's some amazing solid writing too.) we met folks from philly icarus (hey naas!) and the web for the first time ever, and strengthened our links with groups like support new york (supportny.org), philly's pissed (phillyspissed.net), the rock dove collective (rockdovecollective.org), the new york metro alliance of anarchists (nymaa.org), misled youth (misledyouth.org), cafety (cafety.org) and more! and of course, we connected with countless folks who had never heard of our work before but were really psyched to know that we exist.

the following day, i presented a workshop on support, sex (work), and communities of resistance as a part of support new york's second annual conference on consent and positive sexuality (unfortunately scheduled at the same time as the most recent national collective call). it went really well, and 40 folks (including a couple icaristas) came out despite the torrential downpour (aka godrain), we talked about constructive and specific ways to support each other around issues of sexual trauma and other emotional health needs. the best part for me was introducing the idea of advanced directives to folks, and encouraging participants to draw upon their underestimated current bodies of knowledge. and the coolest thing was that when we intro'd ourselves and the pronouns we use, it ran the gamut from she to he to none to ze to they. made me feel like i gotta be doin something right. also i was able to make connections there with folks around starting a radical sex worker support group in this city, so that was really personally gratifying for me.

finally i rushed across town with a few folks to catch the "New York Minute" bookfair panel on which a few of my fellow members of the rock dove collective sat. different groups gave presentations on their activities, and from the audience i did a little plug for icarus. afterwords myself and a bunch of other organizers went out for dinner and wound down the weekend at sophie's. some more great networking (also fine sportsmanship when we played big game hunter). . .

all in all i have to say that this weekend really reenergized me around doing radical health activism in this city. especially i felt like nyc icarus can really be proud of itself right now. we're autonomous, somewhat out of our financial crisis, a large group of people are stepping up in diverse and appropriate capacities, and we're building alliances with other groups doing complementary work. hell yeah. i know that i'm proud of us. so many thanks to everyone who worked so hard to make this weekend a success. bring on montreal!

x,
m
(a member of nyc icarus)