film screening: The Gentleman Bank Robber

from O.R.C.A.

6:30 PM
April 3
O.R.C.A.

The Gentleman Bank Robber delves into the life of bo brown, an ex-political prisoner, a white working class butch, and a former member of the George Jackson Brigade. Journey through recollections of bank robberies and life underground, alongside the day to day life of an unrepentant former guerrilla. Queer, witty, and serious all at once.

We’ll have copies of Queer Fire, a zine of writings and interviews with bo brown and other George Jackson Brigade members, available to $0-$99 sliding scale to raise money for the space.

46 mins
Directed by Julie Perini
English with subtitles

The Language Of Violence

from O.R.C.A.


How do we define violence, and who gets to decide? What is terrorism and what is harm? Language is not just a tool for communication between individuals, but a tool for social control under systems. Language shapes how we understand things like harm, justice, and oppression in general. The words we use influence policy, media narratives, and even the way we respond to acts of violence. But what happens when certain harms are dismissed, obscured, or legitimized through language?

This interactive workshop delves into the power of framing, drawing on George Lakoff’s work on cognitive linguistics and Johan Galtung’s theory of direct, structural, and cultural violence. We will examine how language constructs meaning, dictates public discourse, and reinforces or disrupts systems of power. Participants will engage in critical discussions and real-world case examples (Yes, we’re gonna talk about our boy Luigi) to explore key questions:

  • How does the framing of violence influence public perception, policy decisions, and shape a carcerality?
  • What forms of harm are ignored or minimized due to linguistic choices?
  • How do terms like “crime,” “terrorism,” and “security” shape narratives around state and interpersonal violence?
  • How can we harness linguistic awareness as a tool for social change?

Through group activities and reflective dialogue, attendees will learn to critically analyze the ways language frames violence in media, politics, and everyday conversation. Join us for an engaging and thought-provoking conversation on the intersection of linguistics, violence, and cultural perception.

  • Date: 2025/03/23 15:00

Book Release and Film Screening

from O.R.C.A.

  • Date: 2025/03/16 18:15

`The Unexpected Guest and a Section of Palestine, Mon Amour’ brings together a new, rough translation of L’Ospite Inatteso, written by Sicilian insurrectionary anarchist Alfredo Bonanno, with mostly previously untranslated sections from his book Palestina, Mon Amour. Diary-like, it’s a remembrance of his deadly armed struggle during the 60s and 70s, along Palestinians in the Levant (where he was tortured by Mossad in 1972), in Greece, Ireland, and Africa. Written during later-life prison stints, these poetic, intimate stanzas grapple with suffering, monstrosity, normality, death, killing, the quantitative and qualitative. Messy, flawed, but occasionally critical, clandestine warfare is considered along memory, knowledge, and the word. An accompanying pamphlet, “A Mano Armata (Excerpts)” collects topical sections from that book of his.
¡G.A.R.I! (2013, 1h 23 min., French with English subtitles), by Nicolas Réglat, is a documentary about `70s French and Spanish anarchists (the `Revolutionary Internationalist Action Groups’) in solidarity with Spanish anti-authoritarians threatened with execution. Kidnapping a banker among many other actions, GARI embraced armed struggle, situationism, and the autonomous movements, resisting vanguardism, fetishization, and campism. Réglat aims to save these stories, which include his family’s, from `the dustbin of history’. Through archival footage, present-day conversations, and expired statute of limitations, it’s a refreshingly human look into complex experiences which still ripple strongly today.

For more info and copies/free pdfs after event, visit reekingthicketspress.noblogs.org

Zine Prep + Open Write

from O.R.C.A.

  • Date: 2025/03/06 19:00 – 21:00

The cutty slutty queer anarcho spellbook you’ve been seeking is accepting submissions through mid-March 🔮 This thursday from 7-9pm we’ll gather to talk a little bit about this upcoming zine and enjoy some leisurely open writing time. Optional prompts including the chaos magic of militancy and the 5-year-plan of frivolity // Autonomous sharing and feedback groups encouraged.

`The Unexpected Guest and a Section of Palestine, Mon Amour’ Book Release Event and Screening of ¡G.A.R.I! (2013) – March 16

from Reeking Thickets Press

Join us on March 16th at 6:15pm at ORCA for the release of the book `The Unexpected Guest and a Section of Palestine, Mon Amour’, the pamphlet “A Mano Armata (Excerpts)”, and a screening of the film ¡G.A.R.I! (2013, 1h 23 min, French with English subtitles), by Nicolas Réglat, followed by a discussion if the mood strikes us. For location and accessibility info, email orca.philly@protonmail.com (note that ORCA is not wheelchair accessible and heating in the space can be spotty). There will be free books (somewhat limited quantity, somewhat crudely printed and bound) and pamphlets and the event is also free, with no RSVP necessary. Masking is encouraged and expected, and there will be an air filter running. There will be a box you can drop contributions to Reeking Thickets and ORCA in, but only if you really feel like it. After the event the full reading and printing pdfs will be uploaded, and a somewhat limited further quantity of physical copies will be available (email reekingthickets@proton.me) for $5 each to cover some of the costs of production, or, possibly, for slightly more at local radical bookstores.

`The Unexpected Guest and a Section of Palestine, Mon Amour’ is a 266pg. book from Reeking Thickets Press bringing together a new, rough translation of the 2010 book L’Ospite Inattesso by influential Sicilian insurrectionary anarchist, robber, poet, and philosopher Alfredo Bonanno (and as he reminds us, former motorcycle racer, professional poker player, and business executive) with similar, mostly previously untranslated sections from another book of his, Palestina, Mon Amour, and some relevant excerpts from his essay, “E noi saremo sempre pronti a impadronirci un’altra volta del cielo: Contro l’amnistia” (trans. – “And we will always be ready to storm the heavens again: Against the amnesty”).

An accompanying 51pg. pamphlet, “A Mano Armata (Excerpts)” collects more topical sections from that book of his (the title of which translates as `with armed hand’, or `at gunpoint’ and is part of the Italian legal name of offenses analogous to armed robbery or assault with a deadly weapon, with `a mano‘ also having the sense of a tool ready and available for use, or of `hand-made’, `manually’).

To our knowledge, The Unexpected Guest, A Mano Armata, and many of the included sections of Palestine, Mon Amour haven’t been properly translated into English, and this primarily machine-based translation – though we feel is sufficient for some purposes – certainly can’t be considered as such. Translation was carried out by Nim Thorn, a non-speaker of Italian, using various translation programs with the results then checked for apparent mistakes or divergences and the offending passages re-translated in context with dictionaries and using other translation programs. Short stanzas (such as the section “Untitled” in Palestine, Mon Amour) or metered sections (such as the Faust excerpts in The Unexpected Guest) were also translated word by word using comparisons of multiple tools. The introduction to the second edition of A Mano Armata is a particularly bad translation, of a difficult text in the first place, though some parts of it still shine through quite clearly, and the subject matter – in part about the desire to engage with the word backwards by constructing semio-cognitive labyrinths to reflect absence and help bypass the recuperating tendency of the will and language – feels ironically relevant.

Footnotes, selections, typesetting, back cover text for the book (the back cover text of the A Mano Armata pamphlet is taken from excerpts of the text), and cover designs are also by Nim Thorn. No authorization was sought for this project and, for our part, further printing or distribution is welcomed.

The sharply echoing, often numbered and diary-like stanzas that make up much of the book are a remembrance of the deadly, pro-liberatory armed struggle Bonanno took part in during the `60s and following decades, including alongside Palestinians in the Levant (relating also his experience of torture for this by Mossad in 1972), in Greece against the junta, in Ireland, Algeria, Uganda, and Italy. Written mostly during various later-life prison stints in Italy and Greece for robberies and seditions (both real and fabricated), these poetic, searingly honest tracings of formative, difficult memories grapple with suffering, monstrosity, humanity, and ghostly normality, the silent, irreversible and all-transfiguring singularities of death and of ending the lives of others, and the irresolvable tension between the quantitative and qualitative. The paradoxical, messy engagements with the often deeply flawed, recuperative, and quixotic but sometimes critical aspects of clandestine revolutionary warfare come deeply into play, alongside those with the projects of memory, theoretical and personal understanding, and the word itself. He refuses to shy away from the stark insights and puzzling question marks born of having closely shadowed and struck at torturers, informers, provocateurs, traitors, cops, and soldiers, and does so without hiding behind either moralism or trite anti-moralist cliches. Reaching us like an esoteric, late medieval folk heretic, Bonanno in these texts feels perfectly attuned to apprehend his and our current moments (in particular their real incomprehensibility), even through such unlikely lenses as his highly ambivalent exegeses of Saint Augustine or Goethe’s Faust.

¡G.A.R.I! (2013) by Nicolas Réglat is a documentary about the affinity groups of French and Spanish anarchists who briefly gathered under that acronym (trans. – `Revolutionary Internationalist Action Groups’) in France from 1973-1974 for revolt and to join with Spanish anarchist and autonomous rebels in combat with the far-right dictatorship of Franco and the broader capitalist, authoritarian order, who were then under real threat of judicial or extra-judicial execution. It included the participation, alleged in some cases, of many influential figures including Jean Weir, Lucio Urtubia, Floréal Cuadrado, Jean-Marc Rouillan, and Octavio Alberola. Operating between various regions of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and coordinating with rebels in or exiled from Spain, and with groups across Europe, GARI carried out a kidnapping of a Spanish banker and numerous non-lethal arsons, bombings, acts of infrastructure sabotage, machine-gunnings, robberies and fraud, while carrying out creative counter-information and aiding in the smuggling of arms and fighters to and from Spain. In the ambit of groups like the Angry Brigade or the First of May Group, GARI embraced an aggressive and strategic transnational armed struggle while remaining in touch with the spark of situationism and the autonomous movements, and resisting the vanguardism, organizational fetishization, and authoritarian variants of anti-imperialism so prevalent then and now. Though only existing as such for a short period before diffracting in countless directions across the constellation of struggle in Europe (including some arguably non-anarchist directions, such as the later path of Action Directe) which they contributed to spreading, GARI was an important node and precedent in the experimenting millieu from which contemporary insurrectionary anarchism was then emerging. Taking as point of departure a never-published comic book created by the GARI kidnappers in 1976, Réglat sets out to `save from the dustbin of history’ the stories of those involved, which includes that of some of his own family members. Consisting of archival footage and present day conversations with people involved in the events, and made possible by the expiration of statute of limitations, the film is a refreshingly human look into complex experiences from a chapter often glossed over, yet the consequences of which still ripple strongly in our struggles today.

One Year Of O.R.C.A.!

from O.R.C.A.

O.R.C.A. has officially circled the sun! We’re celebrating a year of aquatic anarchy by hanging out, and screening a fun feminist deep cut, Girls Town (1996).

It’s been an interesting journey running the space for a year and we’ve learned a lot, feared a lot, and felt immense joy! Thanks to everyone who has made this space what it is, hauled trash, painted walls, booked events, held meetings, attended an event, hung out, sent us emails, gave zines, or threw cash or supplies our way. We appreciate you all! <3

We’re looking forward to continuing to hold down our strange little water world for another year. Unfortunately O.R.C.A. isn’t free to run (anymore 😉 and we do have to cover the cost of rent ($525/month). If you, too, want to see O.R.C.A. stick around, consider sending us some $$ and/or sharing our fundraiser. Or for our friends in the cash business, come in and check out our irl donation box.

https://givebutter.com/LPm7Na

Girls Town (1996) is a cathartic and underrated feminist coming of age story that’s sooo 90s. The film follows four girl best friends in their senior year of high school as they wrestle with loss, smash misogyny, and show everyone who underestimates them just how powerful a girl gang can be. (90 mins)

March 9th
Doors 5PM
Film 7PM

Love In A Fucked Up World Reading Group

from O.R.C.A.

Love in A Fucked Up World
A valentimes reading group

 

Sunday 2/23
noon-2pm @ O.R.C.A.

Sunday 3/2 @ O.R.C.A.
noon-2pm

An affinity group of lovers cannot lose!     ….right?

Join friends, comrades, exes, & crushes at O.R.C.A. for a two-part discussion of Dean Spade’s book, Love In A Fucked Up World: How to build Relationships, Hook up, and Raise Hell Together.

Too many projects and resistance groupls crumble under interpersonal conflict. No matter how radical our politics may be, we often treat each other poorly. Here’s to unlearning our messed up patterns and navigating desire, breakups, jealousy, and friendship better– leveling up so we can throw down together.

Children’s Liberation: The Liberation of Us All

from O.R.C.A.

  • Date: 2025/02/09 13:00

No matter who you are or where you come from, in one way or another, the boot of adult supremacy is unavoidable.

This conversation is one for all ages, as we all struggle to remove the boot from all our necks. Let’s imagine a world where the inner child doesn’t need to be healed, but can flourish from the beginning.

Discussion will include the universality of adult supremacy, the history of the movement, and how we can start to give the youth their autonomy back.

Leila Khaled: Hijacker Screening

from O.R.C.A.

  • Date: 2024/12/17 19:00

A screening of documentary film Leila Khaled: Hijacker. The film profiles the first woman to hijack a plane, Palestinian fighter Leila Khaled. After the film we’ll have a discussion.

2006
58 Minutes
Directed by Lina Makboul
Leila Khaled was the first woman in the world to hijack an aircraft. As a member of the Popular front for the liberation of Palestine, PFLP, she hijacked an American Boeing 707 in 1969. This is the story told by a young Palestinian who grew up in Sweden about what made Leila Khaled become one of the world’s most famous terrorists and the most famous Palestinian Woman of all.

Free Jazz, Afro-Futurism, and Decolonial Struggle: A Musical Exploration

from O.R.C.A.

Join us for an enlightening talk that delves into the revolutionary intersections of free jazz, Afro-Futurism, Afro-Presentism, and their deep connections to decolonial struggles in the United States. This discussion will explore the musical contributions of legendary artists like Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor, Max Roach, and Sun Ra, focusing on how their innovative sounds serve as both a cultural response to Black oppression and a powerful assertion of Black power. We will examine the origins of jazz, its evolution into free jazz, and its role as a vehicle for pro-Black and anti-colonial activism. Drawing from the frameworks of Afro-Presentism and Afro-Futurism, we will discuss how Black artists have used music to respond to the socio-political moment, imagining new possibilities for Black futures. Special attention will be given to how free jazz emerged as a cultural statement during the Black Power movement, with commentary from influential figures such as Amiri Baraka on the role of art and artists in revolutionary change. Throughout the talk, we will listen to select tracks from pioneering free jazz musicians, offering a blend of live discussion and music to enhance the experience. Additionally, we will touch on works like Free Jazz Communism, which examines a communist jazz festival in Helsinki, and Free Jazz Black Power, which further contextualizes the connection between jazz and Black liberation movements.

Decisiveness & Communication Under Pressure M.A.S.T. Mutual Aid Social Therapy

from O.R.C.A.

This workshop will introduce tools to build emotional skills to further anarchist struggle and insurrection. It is crucial to approach emotional well being, constructive conflict resolution, and personal mental health as something that is not a private matter but a skill foundational to security and resiliency. We can only collaborate together if we can maintain respect for one another long term. Solidarity and affinity are our major weapons as anarchists, and like other skill, they must be honed and maintained with intention, rather than something we attempt to learn at a crisis point or when everyone is too burned out to do well or consistently.

The first half of this workshop series will discuss tools to help us better communicate and make better decisions under pressure and do mental health action support planning for before, during, and after being on the ground, and the second half will give us a structure to practice these skills and practice supporting one another so they are more accessible during times of high pressure. We view our collective emotional well being as a material limitation to deeping of combative anarchy. We seek to develop tools, an ongoing practice, and a constructive culture around addressing the intense conflicts, trauma, and joys which are inevitably part of a serious struggle against domination.

💿💻DⒶTA CARE MEET-UP🪛🖨️

from O.R.C.A.

Anarcho-Feminist Tech group meeting up at O.R.C.A. Monday 11/18 7-10pm

Data Care is a coworking group that comes together to independently work on deleting files, tightening digital security, troubleshooting & researching. Bring your own project, spitball with other nerds.

A few of us will be working on deleting extraneous internet accounts & burning gmail. 

We’ll be using hot spots. 

Film Screening of “Frauen Bildet Banden” (Women Form Gangs)

from ORCA

11/07/24 @ 6 P.M.
ORCA (Email below for location)
orca.philly@protonmail.com

More info on Rote Zora (use TOR)

https://anon.to/1rYpa8

Film is 1hr 15 min.

45 min – 1 hr discussion following film.

CW: Mention of SA and Trafficking

“Rote Zora” – Red Zora – was a German militant group of women, clandestinely organized in the 1970s and 80s within radical left circles. Its activities were directed against the everyday violence against women, against biogenetics and reproduction technologies, and worldwide exploitation of women as an expression of patriarchal rule. The group promoted female self-empowerment and a break with the peaceable, conciliating role attributed to women by society.

In reviewing the radical left, the role of women’s groups is often neglected. The documentary “Women for Gangs” not only makes up for that, it also shows that the groups’ main issues are highly topical. The film encourages women to form their own gangs today.

A Discussion on Subculture, Organization, and Race in the Anarchist Space

from ORCA

A Discussion of Subculture, Organization and Race in the Anarchist Space

There’s been a lot of discussion and critique of subculture within the anarchist space over the past few years in Philly. Our goal with this discussion is to think about and maybe come up with some answers about what subculture means for the anarchist space. Is it good? Is it bad? Who knows? Subculture relates to how people are socialized in capitalist society. Furthermore, our conversations about subculture often have an underlying critique about the whiteness or insularity of the anarchist space. Despite this, subcultures can often help anarchist organizational efforts that are oriented towards revolt. For instance, in recent years, anarchists in Philly have successfully utilized Muay Thai training and raves as spaces for people to connect with anarchist politics. What other subcultures can we build that create more on-ramps to anarchy? Or should we abandon subculture entirely? Who knows? Let’s figure it out together. Come prepared to have a real discussion and brainstorm about what we need to do to get organized, build affinity and fight back! Bring some food, some zines, and your homie!

Some texts that might be useful to read to prepare
-Towards Insurrection: Anarchist Strategy in an Era of Popular Revolt
-The Social and Survival: On Becoming a Threat from Anathema issue 8 volume 2
-Balagoon Boxing Club: A Social Insurrectionary Project
-The Secret is to Really Complain from Anathema Volume 10 Issue 2

  • Date: 2024/12/01 15:00

What I Did On My Summer Vacation: Report Backs From the Balkan Anarchist Bookfair And The ACAT International Gathering In Hambach Forest

Submission

Discussion on internationalism, the role American anarchists can play in borderless insurrection and the growing threat of global conflict.
Oct 14 @ O.R.C.A. 6pm
https://orcaphilly.noblogs.org/events/event/what-i-did-on-my-summer-vacation-report-backs-from-the-balkan-anarchist-bookfair-and-the-acat-international-gathering-in-hambach-forest/
O.R.C.A
Anarchist Social Space in Philly
https://orcaphilly.noblogs.org/