Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,
Speaker 2: your weekly podcast that reminds you that when there's bad things,
Speaker 2: there's often good things that people try to do in
Speaker 2: response to the bad things, like, for example, the bad introduction.
Speaker 2: But I then try to be good by saying the
Speaker 2: rest of it, which is that my name is Margaret
Speaker 2: Kilsroy and I'm your host, and my guest today is
Speaker 2: Courtney Cossack. Hi. Hello, just trying to jud it up
Speaker 2: a little, No, I appreciate it. Our producer is Sophie Hi,
Speaker 2: Sophie Hi. Our audio engineers Rory Hi, Rory Hi, Ri
Speaker 2: Hi Ri, and our theme music was written for us
Speaker 2: by own woman. And this is part two about the
Speaker 2: orange alternative, the thing that I hate as a name
Speaker 2: because I wonder if it's Do I think that orange?
Speaker 2: Do I not like the word just because nothing rhymes
Speaker 2: with it? Or is it just like, am I wrong
Speaker 2: in this?
Speaker 3: You're wrong?
Speaker 2: Do you like the word?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: You're wrong?
Speaker 5: Because there's like a viral clip of Eminem talking about
Speaker 5: how everybody's wrong about things not rhyming with the word orange.
Speaker 2: What are some of the examples that he provides?
Speaker 5: He does like a whole thing where he's like, uh, orange.
Speaker 4: Orange you glad?
Speaker 5: I you know he does like a whole thing where
Speaker 5: it's like I want to like bring it up, like
Speaker 5: I want to print. Hold on, Rory, we're gonna we're
Speaker 5: gonna put this clip in because I'm just like having
Speaker 5: a mood where I'm like everyone needs to know this.
Speaker 2: Cool, let's do it.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Enjoy this clip of me proving Margaret wrong about the
Speaker 5: word orange, thanks to eminem from like, I don't know,
Speaker 5: this was a long time ago. I remember it from
Speaker 5: maybe like twenty years ago.
Speaker 4: I don't know. Deep cut hell. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Like people say that the word orange doesn't rhyme with anything,
Speaker 6: and that kind of pisses me off because I can
Speaker 6: think of a lot of things that rhyme with orange.
Speaker 6: You could say, like I put my orange four inch
Speaker 6: orange in store ridge an eight porridge with George. You
Speaker 6: just have to figure out the science to breaking down words.
Speaker 4: It's so dumb, it's so dumb, nobody.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of sold.
Speaker 4: I'm so glad.
Speaker 7: Yes, he could rap to it, but those were not
Speaker 7: one word.
Speaker 4: No, but I buy it. I buy it like that
Speaker 4: we can just manipulate language.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, totally, and I admit I can see defeat
Speaker 2: doorhinge and here I was just making it worse by
Speaker 2: But I still don't like the way the word sounds,
Speaker 2: and I don't know why. I don't think it's the
Speaker 2: rhyming thing. Do I just not like the color? Who knows?
Speaker 2: But what I do like is the movement called the
Speaker 2: Orange Alternative that was in Poland from well, I guess
Speaker 2: they technically restarted in two thousand and one, but like
Speaker 2: they did, the main thing that they did is between
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one and nineteen eighty nine, and that's what
Speaker 2: we're covering today. If you want to hear the beginning
Speaker 2: of it, you have to go back and listen to
Speaker 2: the other episode. What are you doing? Why would you
Speaker 2: start with part two?
Speaker 4: Ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I don't even understand. And so where we last left
Speaker 2: our heroes, they are living in communist Poland and they're
Speaker 2: not particularly excited about it, and they just learned how
Speaker 2: On May first, in nineteen eighty one, there was a
Speaker 2: big to do in Warsaw and.
Speaker 4: They're probably high.
Speaker 2: Yes, they are almost certainly high, and so they do
Speaker 2: their own street fighting in a big rebellion in ROTSWAF
Speaker 2: in June thirteenth, nineteen eighty one, and that city broke
Speaker 2: out in rebellion. But the Orange Alternative they're not against
Speaker 2: the street fighting, but that's not their thing. They're not like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's totally what's going to bring down everything. They're like, no,
Speaker 2: it's going to be weirder than that. So they developed
Speaker 2: a strategy, and they actually did think very strategically, even
Speaker 2: if their strategy had a lot of like question mark
Speaker 2: question mark then revolution in it, you know, they developed
Speaker 2: a strategy that was actually kind of smart. It was
Speaker 2: called a stay home strike. Because sit down strikes where
Speaker 2: you like refuse to work and you go sit in
Speaker 2: front of the factory and stuff like that. The cops
Speaker 2: had just come and beat you up, right, but they
Speaker 2: couldn't go door to door to make everyone work. So
Speaker 2: it was just get everyone to stay home completely, which
Speaker 2: is like counterintuitive because usually you want everyone in the
Speaker 2: streets to have the big movement, you know. And so
Speaker 2: the Orange Alternative movement started going around the country promoting this,
Speaker 2: and the major who's still underground, he's still on the list,
Speaker 2: the poster list of people who've been arrested. He starts
Speaker 2: going around the country saying, hey, what if we all
Speaker 2: stay home from work. It's probable that the government knew
Speaker 2: what he was up to and was following him with
Speaker 2: undercovers the whole time. But also he is very paranoid,
Speaker 2: so he could just be saying that I don't know.
Speaker 2: And again it's reasonable to be paranoid when you are
Speaker 2: actively being followed by the secret police of a communist government.
Speaker 2: We'ren't on communist government, and the secret police had set
Speaker 2: themselves up observing the headquarters of the Orange Alternative, and
Speaker 2: so the radicals got creative. They decided to use that
Speaker 2: to their advantage. They put up posters around town saying
Speaker 2: automatic washing machines for sale and then put their own
Speaker 2: address on it. And automatic washing machines were a hot
Speaker 2: commodity in Poland at this time. Oh so every time
Speaker 2: a store got a new shipment and they were gone immediately.
Speaker 2: So by putting up these ads, they got a ton
Speaker 2: of people to come over to their house. So the
Speaker 2: secret police watching saw all the suspicious activity happening, right,
Speaker 2: So then they had to follow every single person who
Speaker 2: came over to try and buy a washing machine, which
Speaker 2: meant they ran out of agents. Brilliant and they told
Speaker 2: each person who came over, they were like, oh, we
Speaker 2: don't have a washing machine, but did you know you
Speaker 2: could do a stay home strike with us?
Speaker 4: I love it. They're educating the people I know.
Speaker 2: And they're also like one of their big things is
Speaker 2: to like force people to become radicals by like putting
Speaker 2: them in danger, you know, not like in front of
Speaker 2: the CoP's gun or whatever. But like, for example, another
Speaker 2: thing that they did everywhere they went, the regiment would
Speaker 2: squirt toothpaste into the ticket machines on public transit. So
Speaker 2: people would come with their ticket and they put it
Speaker 2: into the ticket validation machine and it would come out
Speaker 2: covered in toothpaste and it wouldn't work, and so they'd
Speaker 2: be like, well, I guess I'm still going to get
Speaker 2: on the public transit, right. So now they've turned everyone
Speaker 2: into passive resistors of martial law because for anyone who
Speaker 2: can't see, Corney is making a I don't like the
Speaker 2: idea of toothpaste on my ticket face still.
Speaker 7: Okay, the idea has legs, But holding my grubby toothpaste
Speaker 7: card makes me ill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's fair. It might eve been gritty, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't know what kind of toothpaste they used. Sure,
Speaker 2: it's not better. And so they felt that resistance to
Speaker 2: authoritarianism takes two paths at the same time. There is
Speaker 2: active resistance, like when workers and students go on strike
Speaker 2: or thromolotovs at cops, sorry militia, and there's passive resistance
Speaker 2: like people do a stay at home strike or when
Speaker 2: they go on public transport without pain. A lot of
Speaker 2: their tactics were to transform passerby and observers into members
Speaker 2: of the passive resistance, and they were good at it
Speaker 2: by nineteen eighty two. By spring of nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 2: they started a counter university and the major taught a
Speaker 2: class called tactical painting, which is surrealist anarchist graffiti. And
Speaker 2: he had this idea and he was convinced this idea
Speaker 2: would bring down the regime. And he was kind of
Speaker 2: like both right and wrong about it. The idea was
Speaker 2: simple and nonsensical and effective. All over the city, there
Speaker 2: are these paint spots, right, And you can see this
Speaker 2: in the US, you know where like when they buff
Speaker 2: out graffiti or when they pay over graffiti. Especially you
Speaker 2: can see the like the paint spots. There's some documentary
Speaker 2: that someone saw me about years ago, called the Accidental
Speaker 2: Art of Graffiti Removal, And it's about the like esthetic
Speaker 2: qualities of these paint spots. You know, I always wanted
Speaker 2: to do this thing where I would go to it.
Speaker 2: I never actually did it where I would go to
Speaker 2: a really big building and put tags in such a
Speaker 2: way that whenever someone painted over it, they would then
Speaker 2: spell out my name.
Speaker 4: Oh good way to get caught, but also cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the cost benefit analysis. Wasn't working out
Speaker 2: for bringing out big enough of a ladder for that.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously I would never do illegal crime. That's
Speaker 2: terrible and immoral. And so there's all of these paint spots,
Speaker 2: tens of thousands of them all over the city because
Speaker 2: people had been painting over the anti government graffiti because
Speaker 2: people would go and write down with the regime, and
Speaker 2: you know, and he's like, he's not anti people writing
Speaker 2: down with the regime, but it's boring, right, So he's
Speaker 2: going to paint dwarves on paint spots. That's his idea.
Speaker 2: Here we go, and I'm you know, gnomes elves. Dwarves
Speaker 2: small people with big red hats, and he uses the
Speaker 2: translation dwarves another thing I read an academic paper I
Speaker 2: read used elves. I'm using noomes, but I guess I'm
Speaker 2: using them interchangeably here. And I know I've already.
Speaker 4: Talked about this with the hat. It's gnomes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. If a mill he said about this, If
Speaker 2: a million dwarves get painted on a million patches, people
Speaker 2: will find strength and the government will fall. Later, armies
Speaker 2: of dwarves will appear on the street. There will be
Speaker 2: dwarves and the militia aka the cops. The general will surrender,
Speaker 2: if not to the Cardinal, then I'll come out with
Speaker 2: a white flag and surrender to the dwarves. And yeah,
Speaker 2: they are like trying to do this thing. One night,
Speaker 2: Major and a friend went out and spray painted some dwarves,
Speaker 2: and another friend painted the third one the next morning,
Speaker 2: and the first person to paint a dwarf during the
Speaker 2: day was a woman named Kaisa, who did it during
Speaker 2: the street fights in August nineteen eighty two. Basically was like, ah,
Speaker 2: it's a riot on, I can probably get away with
Speaker 2: this soon. The whole regiment went out with their regimental
Speaker 2: orchestra in tow I think they had like a marching
Speaker 2: band with like probably drums and a trumpet. I know
Speaker 2: Major played trumpet. I feel like they all played music
Speaker 2: and then they just went out with their marching band
Speaker 2: and painted dwarfs everywhere all over the city on paint spots.
Speaker 4: Did you get a look at some of these gnomes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're They're all different. It's cool. Like I was
Speaker 2: thinking to just be like kind of like most people
Speaker 2: when you're replicating, like a tag, you just kind of
Speaker 2: do the same thing over and over again. Now they're
Speaker 2: they're creative. They're multi colored. Some are hand painted, some
Speaker 2: of them are spray painted, all different styles. They're cool.
Speaker 2: There's a not zero chance I'm getting one of these
Speaker 2: things tattooed on me. I really liked this.
Speaker 4: They should do an exhibition. This does sound cool.
Speaker 2: I know, I know. Actually some of it ended up
Speaker 2: in this book of the like fifty the most Important
Speaker 2: Surrealist Pieces of Art or whatever book that I don't
Speaker 2: I didn't write the name down into my script, and
Speaker 2: the Major wrote that the goal here was threefold. One
Speaker 2: to encourage citizens to paint graffiti in order to increase
Speaker 2: the number of paint patches and by doing so, change
Speaker 2: the city's visual identity. Two One ought to expect an
Speaker 2: increase in the number of dwarves in the city's visual identity,
Speaker 2: consistent with the convention of the aesthetics of socialist surrealism,
Speaker 2: causing a transformation of quantity into quality. So eventually people
Speaker 2: will get good at it. Three to bring about the
Speaker 2: appearance of three dimensional dwarves in the streets and start
Speaker 2: a total surrealist social revolution in the factories. And so
Speaker 2: he's like, yeah, all right, we're gonna go.
Speaker 4: Or smokeboar weed.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, where was I Yeah? And it didn't generalize
Speaker 2: the way that he wanted. He was like, everyone's gonna
Speaker 2: do this, and it wasn't. It was him and his friends.
Speaker 2: But they went all over the country and they painted
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of dwarves. It was cool as hell.
Speaker 2: And one day the major and a friend were caught
Speaker 2: painting dwarves or gnomes or whatever because they were painting
Speaker 2: on the Militia officer cadet school in the middle of
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 4: Oh come on, guys, I know.
Speaker 2: The cop asked what they were doing and they were like, oh,
Speaker 2: we're painting a pomp palm on a hat. And they
Speaker 2: were like, do you have permission? And he says yes,
Speaker 2: they say, from who? Well, from God? Okay, And so
Speaker 2: the COPU interrogated him. I'm gonna he does a lot
Speaker 2: of these pieces of dialogue in his work that are
Speaker 2: some of the more some of the things I think
Speaker 2: are a little bit more embellished. But this one's good enough.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna include it. The cop who interrogated them was like,
Speaker 2: all right, why are you painting dwarves? And here's the dialogue?
Speaker 2: What do these dwarves mean? I'll tell you under one condition.
Speaker 2: What's that? No one can know about it. It's a secret.
Speaker 2: Very well, can you keep a secret? Yes? Word of honor,
Speaker 2: Word of honor. All right, I'll tell I want a revolution,
Speaker 2: a revolution of dwarves. It's a great secret.
Speaker 7: I love it.
Speaker 2: And so he convinced them he was crazy and they
Speaker 2: let him go.
Speaker 4: But the thing is, it was all real. You don't
Speaker 4: want a revolution of.
Speaker 2: I know, it's fucking brilliant.
Speaker 4: Just tell the truth, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know. And it just sounds so weird, and yeah,
Speaker 2: because arresting people for painting dwarves with red hats and
Speaker 2: shit just looked bad. And the serious revolutionaries of Solidarity
Speaker 2: were like annoyed by it at all. They were like,
Speaker 2: you're making our serious down with regime graffiti looks silly,
Speaker 2: and they're like, eh, whatever, like you paint that, I'll
Speaker 2: paint this, Like what do you want?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 2: And it's confusing because most of what you read talks
Speaker 2: about Orange Alternative as part of solidarity and as one
Speaker 2: of the most important parts in terms of creating the
Speaker 2: visual atmosphere and the sort of lutic the playful element
Speaker 2: of it all. But it was also if you read
Speaker 2: the people who were involved, it was antagonistic to solidarity
Speaker 2: in that it refused to be top down. It always
Speaker 2: wanted to be bottom up, and it also wanted to
Speaker 2: be playful, and it wanted to be direct and be democratic.
Speaker 2: Martial law was eventually lifted and the Dwarfs didn't cause
Speaker 2: a revolution, and for a couple of years the major
Speaker 2: was depressed. It's always hard when social movements recede, which
Speaker 2: is why whenever I'm in a social movement that recedes,
Speaker 2: I fill that hole with goods and services. I just
Speaker 2: go out and buy, especially swords. Actually, this podcast is
Speaker 2: brought to you by swords and how you would be
Speaker 2: happier if you owned a sword and actually coordney. Are
Speaker 2: there any medieval weapons that you would like to get
Speaker 2: a Sophie to get us sponsored by.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, are you serious? Is it? Is it
Speaker 4: a sword sponsor? No? No, it could be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if there's any you know, we could we
Speaker 2: could probably figure it out. What's your favorite medieval weapon?
Speaker 4: I would just like a guillotine. Does that count? Yeah?
Speaker 2: That's yeah? I love that.
Speaker 4: Great choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Brought to you by the guillotine, the symbol that
Speaker 2: contains its own contradiction.
Speaker 4: Can I tell you really quick?
Speaker 7: My husband tried to tell me that that was like
Speaker 7: a merciful death.
Speaker 4: We were talking about.
Speaker 7: This the other night and he was like, no, actually,
Speaker 7: that was like really a great way to die.
Speaker 3: And I was like, hard disagree. It beats drawn and quartered.
Speaker 3: I'll give your husband that, but I much prefer being alive.
Speaker 4: I'm me too, love it.
Speaker 2: I want to get put to death by old age
Speaker 2: in a bed surrounded by people I care about, amen,
Speaker 2: or even in a fight. Honestly, it's still better. Let
Speaker 2: me have adrenaline, let me have a chance at hurting them.
Speaker 2: Give me a sword.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Anyway, His podcast brought to you by various weaponry of
Speaker 2: antiquated styles and also whatever comes after this and we're back.
Speaker 2: So our hero, the major Waldeck, He's like, I just
Speaker 2: want to get out of here. The social movement's dying. Like,
Speaker 2: I don't like living in communist dictatorship. I need the
Speaker 2: state's permission to leave, right because it's a communist dictatorship.
Speaker 2: So he tries to get the state to let him
Speaker 2: emigrate to Jamaica for fairly obvious reasons that have to
Speaker 2: do with marijuana. But you need permission from the state
Speaker 2: to leave. So he writes the state, and he writes
Speaker 2: them a long letter, and his core argument is like
Speaker 2: I don't want to be here, you don't want me here.
Speaker 4: You guys hate me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like fucking let me go. He wrote the
Speaker 2: government and said, quote, I know that as an anarchist,
Speaker 2: authentically endeavoring to free society from the shackles of the
Speaker 2: bureaucratized state, I am enemy number one for any government
Speaker 2: which makes emigration an obvious choice. I believe that neither
Speaker 2: I nor the state authorities should squander this opportunity.
Speaker 4: Good argument.
Speaker 2: I know. The government just didn't respond. They didn't reject him,
Speaker 2: they just didn't let him go. And he does some
Speaker 2: soul searching, and look, he's a hip. He will not
Speaker 2: be surprised by his next steps. He well, he quit
Speaker 2: spoking weed, that one you might be surprised with. Oh,
Speaker 2: he replaces it with Buddhism and meditation.
Speaker 7: Was he worried about lung cancer like myself or did
Speaker 7: he have other fears?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Interesting? The impression I get is that he found I
Speaker 2: think it seemed to like dull his spirit in a
Speaker 2: way that like meditation ground him in a similar way,
Speaker 2: but in a way that he felt didn't fuck with
Speaker 2: his like revolutionary activities. He like, for a little while,
Speaker 2: he was on this kind of anti smoking kick where
Speaker 2: he's like the state wants he stoned, you know. But
Speaker 2: a few years go by, movements in a lull, and
Speaker 2: then Chernobyl blows up in nineteen eighty six, Oh shit,
Speaker 2: and everyone is like, it's probably not good that the
Speaker 2: communist government is covering this up, and a social movement
Speaker 2: kicks back in. And I don't know entirely how much
Speaker 2: it's exactly just Chernobyl, but that is the impression I
Speaker 2: get that that is one of the primary things that
Speaker 2: brings people back out in the streets is they're like,
Speaker 2: we really got to do some about this government that's
Speaker 2: trying to kill us all. And the Orange Alternative gets
Speaker 2: back up to its antics. Antics antics is spelled I
Speaker 2: always expect more season it never mind anyway, I swear
Speaker 2: I'm not the Stone. And it starts off low key,
Speaker 2: but they escalate rapidly. And this is where you get
Speaker 2: what you asked for and I promised at the beginning
Speaker 2: of it. All crazy weird flash mob style shit.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They start with like they do like what appears to
Speaker 2: be like smoke bomb parties in public where they pass
Speaker 2: out these like cardboard tubes with colorful things that burn bright.
Speaker 2: And then they also like are like, let's all wear
Speaker 2: paper hats in public and see what the government does.
Speaker 2: They just do weird shit that the government doesn't want
Speaker 2: you doing, but it looks really foolish if it tries
Speaker 2: to stop you, like, how dare you all wear paper
Speaker 2: hats in the public square?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: And Okay, my best version of something like this I
Speaker 2: ever did. We organized a pirate parade in Manhattan once
Speaker 2: during kind of the peak of like kind of like
Speaker 2: during an anti war period in like two thousand and
Speaker 2: three or four, and so cops were following us, and
Speaker 2: we're all dressed up like pirates and we're going around
Speaker 2: and yelling you are and you know whatever, and the
Speaker 2: cop finally at one point is like, what is this about?
Speaker 2: And I broke one of my rules, which is we
Speaker 2: talked to cops and pot and like things like this.
Speaker 2: But I was like, it was about pirates. And he
Speaker 2: was like, this is like an anti war thing. And
Speaker 2: I was like, no, no, like we're it's about pirates,
Speaker 2: like y'all. And he was just so confused, and I
Speaker 2: loved it, and it was one of my favorite actions
Speaker 2: I've ever been on. And it was all the same
Speaker 2: people who did do anti warshit all the time, so
Speaker 2: we just you know, but.
Speaker 4: Was it explicitly anti war what you were doing.
Speaker 2: No, it was just weird public theater strangeness. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'd love it.
Speaker 7: So wait, these people that studied theater, they probably had
Speaker 7: like twenty years of pent up. Yeah, like this is
Speaker 7: where it's coming out in the flash mob.
Speaker 2: Yeah. On April Fool's Day, they had a huge march
Speaker 2: with a giant paper mache centipede puppet weaving its way
Speaker 2: through the city where everyone's like under the centipede puppet
Speaker 2: like moving through the city. And they really hit their
Speaker 2: stride when a group of women among them from a
Speaker 2: dorm called xx Latka, which I get the impressions sort
Speaker 2: of like sorority ish or something, but it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: a group of women's students. They started distributing red dwarf
Speaker 2: hats for demonstrations, and the idea was simple. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is literally the thing that they'd all been dreaming of.
Speaker 2: We're gonna make the dwarf's three dimensional. We're going to
Speaker 2: call for a big demonstration where everyone wears dwarf hats,
Speaker 2: and we're going to make the government run around chasing
Speaker 2: us and stealing our dwarf hats. And that is our plan.
Speaker 2: And these hats soon became a major symbol of the
Speaker 2: surrealist revolution in Poland. They started off red, but by
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight they were orange to represent the Orange Alternative.
Speaker 2: And everything that I'm going to talk about today is
Speaker 2: all stuff in Rodswaft, by and large, but the movement
Speaker 2: Orange Alternative did start spreading to other cities around the country.
Speaker 2: I just don't know as much about what happened in
Speaker 2: those cities. Also, some of it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: I read the whole piece by the guy who was there,
Speaker 2: and then I like later read an academic piece that
Speaker 2: was also like and look, they were also like burning
Speaker 2: cop cars and shit.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, you know.
Speaker 2: That part isn't included as much, but they are absolutely
Speaker 2: also like getting up to more traditional.
Speaker 4: Memorizing the government.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The first let's wear hats in public protest or red
Speaker 2: hats they've done the paper hats before was June first,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six. Xx Latka created an auction of enchanted objects,
Speaker 2: and that was like one of the things they did,
Speaker 2: and so many times on this podcast there are single
Speaker 2: sentences in history books that I would read a book about.
Speaker 2: All I know is that they had an auction of
Speaker 2: enchanted objects, like this is where we all could have
Speaker 2: gotten our swords.
Speaker 4: Fascinating. Yeah, I would read that book.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then they also the women distributed hats to people
Speaker 2: all the while cops looked foolish trying to snatch people's
Speaker 2: hats and arresting people dressed up as dwarves. Cops started
Speaker 2: arresting people, but more people came. Major was arrested pretty off.
Speaker 2: He's a very recognizable figure. He always walks around in
Speaker 2: that like coat and with the shiny buttons, and he's
Speaker 2: a huge beard and stuff.
Speaker 4: Like, dude, take your suit off for a second.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gonna learn that eventually, actually, But he's busted
Speaker 2: out of the rest van by the crowd and he
Speaker 2: like gets out starts throwing candy everywhere, and then they
Speaker 2: arrest him again and they throw him back at it,
Speaker 2: gets driven off the jail, and cops are screaming take
Speaker 2: off your hats through megaphones, and everyone is just laughing
Speaker 2: at them, like people are just coming out to laugh
Speaker 2: at the government. It's kind of like how like actually
Speaker 2: people talk about how to deal with the right wing
Speaker 2: right now, where we're like, oh, it's remind them that
Speaker 2: they are laughable, right because Nazis hate being like the
Speaker 2: authoritarians hate being laughed at. They want their authority respected
Speaker 2: more than anything. And all the laughing and screaming take
Speaker 2: off your hat's attracted more onlookers and people started singing
Speaker 2: some song called We Are the Dwarves that I think
Speaker 2: is probably some kind of kids song, and this made
Speaker 2: press all over the nation. On October one, they met
Speaker 2: up in public to distribute necessities that are hard to
Speaker 2: get in Poland, including toilet paper and menstrual pads. Major
Speaker 2: was arrested for distributing menstrual pads. This is not the
Speaker 2: last time he is going to get arrested for distributing
Speaker 2: menstrual pads for free.
Speaker 4: Feminist King, thank you Major.
Speaker 2: I know I was a little bit nervous when I
Speaker 2: first started reading the book because at the very beginning
Speaker 2: the book is called The Lives of the Orange Men,
Speaker 2: and it's about some of the men involved, and in
Speaker 2: the introduction he says like, he lists a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of women who are really important and involved, and he's like,
Speaker 2: but I didn't feel like I could tell their story.
Speaker 2: And at first I was like, oh, this seems like
Speaker 2: a cop out, and it's still not how I would
Speaker 2: recommend to him to do it, right, But after reading
Speaker 2: more about him, I'm like, oh no, he like legitimately
Speaker 2: probably as part of the feminist may Louis was part of.
Speaker 2: He probably was like as a man, I shouldn't be
Speaker 2: telling these people's.
Speaker 4: Stories, you know, all right, I could respect that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like again, I think you to put women in
Speaker 2: your book, you know, but yeah, No, it's a very
Speaker 2: actively feminist movement and this makes the government look like idiots.
Speaker 2: They're arresting a hippie for giving away menstrual pads because
Speaker 2: also it keeps pointing out that, well, no one can
Speaker 2: get these, and like the feign press is always like, wait,
Speaker 2: what do what do people do if they don't have them?
Speaker 2: And it's just kind of this like everyone's like the
Speaker 2: joke that apparently everyone was saying is like, oh no, no,
Speaker 2: good communist women doments rate not problem.
Speaker 7: That's ridiculous. I'm reading this book Mother Winter. It's actually
Speaker 7: really fucking good. But they're in some Soviet block country
Speaker 7: in the eighties and they don't have toilet papers, so
Speaker 7: they're wiping their asses with newspapers and that's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a rough reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in more ways than one. Yes, good old
Speaker 2: butt puns. Yeah, no, it's it's a it's it's a
Speaker 2: fucking problem that they can't get their shit, get their shits.
Speaker 2: God damn it.
Speaker 4: You're good.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, thanks, I totally did that on purpose, absolutely,
Speaker 2: And so a few weeks later they all went out
Speaker 2: and it's okay if they didn't dress like cops. Instead,
Speaker 2: there was like certain colors that the militia used. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure what they were, and they painted themselves like
Speaker 2: their bodies in those colors like red or whatever, you know,
Speaker 2: and then went out and acted like cops, and they
Speaker 2: gave away fake tickets because one of the main things
Speaker 2: the cops would do is traffic. They would like stand
Speaker 2: in the middle of intersections and tell everyone where to
Speaker 2: go whatever, and then yell at people for jaywalking. So
Speaker 2: all of the Orange Alternative just acted like cops while
Speaker 2: in weird body paint and were like giving out fake
Speaker 2: tickets for jaywalking to people. And when they all got arrested,
Speaker 2: they were like, what, no, We're just trying to help,
Speaker 2: Like you seemed overwhelmed, so we're just out there doing
Speaker 2: your work for you with you, you know, and soon
Speaker 2: they're out of jail again. They the fact that they
Speaker 2: get out of jail fairly quickly, rightly, is why I
Speaker 2: think that they weren't like machine gunning crowds at this point,
Speaker 2: right you know, yeah, yeah, and soon Okay, So next
Speaker 2: time they all go out and everyone wears tails and
Speaker 2: bows made out of toilet paper, and the cops arrested
Speaker 2: sixty eight adults, one child, and two dogs for wearing
Speaker 2: toilet paper bows and then you get to my nerd
Speaker 2: history hearts favorite of their actions, which is okay. In
Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen, during the Russian Revolution, which I did a
Speaker 2: six parter about because I'm that kind of girl, anarchists
Speaker 2: and communists stormed the Winter Palace in Russia and did
Speaker 2: the Second Russian Revolution of that year. This led to
Speaker 2: a major civil war where the Bolsheviks crushed all their
Speaker 2: former allies, turn on the anarchists and all the other
Speaker 2: leftist socialists. And because of this, because of the civil war,
Speaker 2: the symbol of the anarchist movement in Russia, the black flag,
Speaker 2: was not flown since that guy with the nice beard
Speaker 2: that he liked named Peter Kopak and the zoologist. His
Speaker 2: funeral in nineteen twenty one was the last time that
Speaker 2: the Bolsheviks allowed a public anarchist procession. So the black
Speaker 2: flag was off flown in public in any kind of
Speaker 2: major way until the Orange Alternative. Because on the seventieth
Speaker 2: anniversary of the storming of the Winter Palace, which is
Speaker 2: like a big holiday right in USSR and stuff, the
Speaker 2: Orange Alternative was like, how can we just like really
Speaker 2: fuck with them? And the answer was to kind of
Speaker 2: become more communist than the Communist government. They were like,
Speaker 2: we're going to recreate the Storming of the Winter Palace
Speaker 2: with like cardboard battleships and hobby horses that were going
Speaker 2: to ride as like our horses for the cavalry, and
Speaker 2: huge red banners and also black flags. And it's going
Speaker 2: to be one part protest, one part theater, all surrealism,
Speaker 2: and they're going to outread the reds. How could the
Speaker 2: Communists be if they all wore red and recreated the
Speaker 2: Storming of the Winter Palace. And so they put out
Speaker 2: a proclamation that was like everyone come wearing red, red lips,
Speaker 2: red nails, a baguette covered in catsup, whatever you feel like,
Speaker 2: just bring something red. And they had a special dog
Speaker 2: costume competition as part of it. There's so many dogs
Speaker 2: in the story.
Speaker 4: I have to say I love the hobby horses, I know,
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: I love that they're like, to me, this is a
Speaker 2: kind of important emotional thing where the black flag rises again.
Speaker 2: They're like riding hobby horses with me, you know, like
Speaker 2: into it. It's so weird.
Speaker 4: I'm like two into those girls on TikTok. The hobby
Speaker 4: horse stuff.
Speaker 2: I've seen some of it. Yeah, yeah, so they uh,
Speaker 2: there is part of what they're recreating too. Is this
Speaker 2: like one of the last times that socialists tried to
Speaker 2: have a pluralistic, democratic, communist revolution in Russia, right, And
Speaker 2: so they're like recreating that through theater. But it also
Speaker 2: sort of weirdly becomes, from my point of view, kind
Speaker 2: of true because the Bolsheviks tried to kill socialism in
Speaker 2: communism and anarchism by branding authoritarianism as communism, and for
Speaker 2: seventy years they succeeded, and then playfully, this rebellious spirit
Speaker 2: rises again and fucking destroys them and I love it.
Speaker 4: Wait, it works.
Speaker 2: So this isn't what brings down the government, but things
Speaker 2: are coming to a head during this time. They are
Speaker 2: within a year of bringing down the communist government at
Speaker 2: this point. Oh, this is like part of the revolution
Speaker 2: that ends communism in Poland. And I really like that
Speaker 2: guy Peter Kropockin and a zoologist. He went to his
Speaker 2: grave depressed because he was his old man and he
Speaker 2: thought the revolution was going to happen, and then the
Speaker 2: Bolsheviks took over and made everything a nightmare, and he
Speaker 2: went to his grave really sad, and he gets the
Speaker 2: last fucking laugh because people that he inspired fucking brought
Speaker 2: down the Bolsheviks, and it just makes me really happy,
Speaker 2: awesome and yeah, and they also have hobby horses and
Speaker 2: cardboard battleships, and the Major in a brilliant tactical thinking
Speaker 2: thinking about all the times he constantly gets arrested immediately
Speaker 2: because everyone knows he's there. He shaved his head and
Speaker 2: his beard, and he didn't wear his signature long black
Speaker 2: coat with shiny silver buttons. Oh and so we didn't
Speaker 2: get arrested.
Speaker 4: I would have told him to do that like ten
Speaker 4: years ago.
Speaker 7: But I.
Speaker 2: And the cops arrived and they started arresting everyone wearing red,
Speaker 2: and they'd be like, get that old lady with a
Speaker 2: red scarf, and everyone's running around and it looks real
Speaker 2: bad to be the communists arresting everyone wearing red. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the event gets international press. The Communist cops shouting
Speaker 2: arrest the reds makes him look like fucking idiots. I
Speaker 2: think the orange alternative is unparalleled in history and making
Speaker 2: the state look bad, like looking like fools, you know, amazing.
Speaker 2: The next big action they do, Major goes in drag
Speaker 2: and he talks about this for like a page or
Speaker 2: so and I can't totally get like exactly what it
Speaker 2: means to him, but he goes in drag and he
Speaker 2: like later he's like, I think I understand a little
Speaker 2: better about how women are treated by society. He's also
Speaker 2: convinced that breaking gender norms is part of bringing down authoritarianism.
Speaker 2: And he gets arrested and like, as someone who you
Speaker 2: know looks like a man wearing a dress, it is
Speaker 2: extra scary to be arrested as a was anyone wearing
Speaker 2: a dress, but like, you know, m And then their
Speaker 2: next action they throw a Saint Nicholas Day action where
Speaker 2: everyone wears Santa Claus outfits. All the Santas tie themselves
Speaker 2: to each other so that they're harder to arrest, and
Speaker 2: the press just eats up cops arresting Santa Claus. And
Speaker 2: because of Saint Nicholas's Day, professional Santa Clauses are like
Speaker 2: out about anyway, right, oh, because it's just.
Speaker 4: You know, a different holiday for them, right, They're like, shit,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to work, man.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And they're all getting arrested too, which makes them into
Speaker 2: passive resistors, right. And the major goes dresses the devil
Speaker 2: because I guess why not I don't know. If you
Speaker 2: want to dress like the devil, you can buy a devil. No,
Speaker 2: we're probably not sponsored by spirit Halloween, it's.
Speaker 4: A commercial holiday.
Speaker 2: Christmas, Oh yeah, we're sponsored by Christmas. Go buy things.
Speaker 5: Is it Christmas or is it on the feast day
Speaker 5: of Saint Nicholas.
Speaker 2: Oh it's on the fast December six or something.
Speaker 5: So then it's my birthday.
Speaker 7: So oh oh by Sophie birthday present from one of
Speaker 7: the brilliant sponsors.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, think think of me, young listeners.
Speaker 2: Buy Sophie's swords. Yeah, and buy whatever comes next because
Speaker 2: it will obviously be good because we individually vet every
Speaker 2: single ad and can speak to all of them being
Speaker 2: good and moral. That part's a lie I've learned from
Speaker 2: this book, The Surrealist Thing. Here's an ad or two
Speaker 2: and we're back, okay. After the Saint Nicholas, they're like,
Speaker 2: we're going to call for a huge festival and it's
Speaker 2: gonna be a public ballet. Here's where we get real
Speaker 2: fucking what's that word flash, mobby? Yes, and so everyone's
Speaker 2: learning ballet to get ready for the Proletario Festival, which
Speaker 2: is like Rio is capitalized. At first, I thought it
Speaker 2: was gonna be was like a misspelling because if it
Speaker 2: was like my Friends, it would have they would have
Speaker 2: capitalized riot instead of Rio, you know, but it's actually Rio,
Speaker 2: like Rio de Janeiro, where they're like, oh, it's gonna
Speaker 2: be carnival, you know.
Speaker 4: Ah yeah, And.
Speaker 2: The handbill said it was going to be so fabulous
Speaker 2: that the cops wouldn't touch it. Quote, let's do a
Speaker 2: little bit of hocus pocus and either the militia will
Speaker 2: disappear or they'll join the carnival.
Speaker 4: That's cute.
Speaker 2: And this time the cops they're like, we're like really
Speaker 2: getting into like the regime is like starting to collapse
Speaker 2: at this point, right, They're getting less and less capable
Speaker 2: of holding onto power, and they are looking more and
Speaker 2: more ridiculous. And so the cops try arresting their organizers
Speaker 2: ahead of time. But the secret Police is actually fairly infiltrated,
Speaker 2: I think by the Orange alternative. I think that they
Speaker 2: actually have friends in the Secret Police who are tipping
Speaker 2: them off to stuff. And I do know that they
Speaker 2: had also broken the code that was used over the
Speaker 2: radios by the Secret Police. So everyone went and slept
Speaker 2: elsewhere and no one was arrested beforehand, and on the
Speaker 2: day of huge crowd arrives these you know, the things
Speaker 2: that they're they're happenings that they're called are getting bigger
Speaker 2: and bigger, and people are dressed in all sorts of costumes,
Speaker 2: including what I would not recommend, which is a bunch
Speaker 2: of people came dressed as KKK.
Speaker 7: No, guys, yeah, you have so many other options.
Speaker 2: I know. I think if you're on the other side
Speaker 2: of the iron curtain, you're probably thinking, like, this is
Speaker 2: basically the same as dressing up as a devil or something.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I don't recommend it. It's one
Speaker 2: of those things where I was like, man, my story
Speaker 2: would be easier if I don't put in that they
Speaker 2: dressed like the I'm like, I should be honest, only
Speaker 2: a couple of them. But then it's annoying because then
Speaker 2: all the KKK people get arrested, and then I think
Speaker 2: makes the cops look great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, were they just lazy? Were they like
Speaker 4: I have? All I had was a white sheet?
Speaker 2: So I think that they are not on top of
Speaker 2: avoiding cultural appropriation, And yeah, no, I'm sure that that's
Speaker 2: part of it. Like I think so, I think that
Speaker 2: they're just like we're just going to dress up in
Speaker 2: like costume, like weird exotic things from foreign lands, you know.
Speaker 4: Bad call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the major was not wearing a KKK outfit. He
Speaker 2: was arrested while playing trumpet as part of the marching band. Okay,
Speaker 2: and supposedly again, all of his interactions with secret police
Speaker 2: are the parts that I'm like, really, I don't know.
Speaker 2: He got so used to hanging out with the secret
Speaker 2: police because he got arrested all the time. They always
Speaker 2: interrogate him that he brought two dwarf figurines in his
Speaker 2: pocket to give them as presents for when he was
Speaker 2: going to be in their custody, and they gave him
Speaker 2: a little toy car in return. Oh, and he promised
Speaker 2: that he would organize a new holiday just for them,
Speaker 2: Undercover Agent's Day, And so that was their next action.
Speaker 2: They all trust them. Like undercover agents was like fucking
Speaker 2: just like slicked back their hair and wore like a
Speaker 2: specific style of suit that every like guy wore when
Speaker 2: they would being an undercover agent. And then they would
Speaker 2: go around and like pretend to like take pictures clandestinely
Speaker 2: of people and like check people's papers and like look
Speaker 2: inside people's shoes and just be really obnoxious.
Speaker 4: That is so funny, I know.
Speaker 7: Also kind of like they're bad undercover agents if people
Speaker 7: know what their style is.
Speaker 2: I know, well, okay, yes and no, because one of
Speaker 2: the points of undercover agents, it's twofold. One you need
Speaker 2: the real undercovers who no one knows who are, and
Speaker 2: two you actually need the obvious ones because part of
Speaker 2: the point of Clindestine operations against revolutionary groups is to
Speaker 2: make them paranoid, so you actually want some of your
Speaker 2: agents to be seen. They did this a lot in
Speaker 2: the US against groups in the sixties and seventies, where
Speaker 2: like part of the whole point of disruption is to
Speaker 2: get everyone thinking, oh, that guy's a cop. Oh, that
Speaker 2: guy's a cop. You know, oh interesting, yeah, and so
Speaker 2: this is a way to like deflate that a little bit.
Speaker 2: And Okay, a thing happened that probably happened where they
Speaker 2: knew before they did this, they to have even more
Speaker 2: handbills than usual, right, because otherwise they're actually just being cops,
Speaker 2: you know, They like really need everyone to be in
Speaker 2: on the gag. So they needed hella fucking handbills printed.
Speaker 2: But they're like printing spot had just gotten blownup because
Speaker 2: handbills are totally illegal too, right, So they like have
Speaker 2: to go find an underground printer or whatever, and they
Speaker 2: show up it's like the night before, and the secret
Speaker 2: police surround the building and are like going to shut
Speaker 2: them down, and then they all left. And the major
Speaker 2: likes to think this happened because the Secret Police were
Speaker 2: touched that the Orange Alternative had finally included them directly
Speaker 2: in one of their art projects. I think that part's mythologizing.
Speaker 2: I bet they had some other reason they left, but
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I'm visualizing this and it looks like a mister Being
Speaker 7: kind of situation with the like going around opening up people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's hilarious.
Speaker 4: It is hilary. It is so good.
Speaker 2: I had a friend who grew up or her dad
Speaker 2: was an ambassador to Russia during the USSR, and at
Speaker 2: one point the family lost their cat. So the ambassador
Speaker 2: of goes over to the potted plant and is like, man,
Speaker 2: isn't it crazy we lost our cat of the following description,
Speaker 2: And about an hour later, a man just like shows
Speaker 2: up at their door, being like, I found this cat
Speaker 2: for some weird reason. I think it might be yours
Speaker 2: gives them their cat back.
Speaker 4: Oh crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Communist society was like full of undercovers. It was
Speaker 2: that stuff's real.
Speaker 4: I don't like it.
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't like it either. A couple weeks later,
Speaker 2: they went out to go distribute menstrual pads in public again,
Speaker 2: and it was International Women's Day, which is an important holiday,
Speaker 2: especially actually in the communist era, because that's the day
Speaker 2: that the Russian Revolution started, because women actually started that revolution,
Speaker 2: because we get written out of history constantly and everyone
Speaker 2: talks about Lenin and no one talks about whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I didn't know that. Yeah, you know, some women who
Speaker 2: went on strike and then a bunch of people were like, oh,
Speaker 2: we should do that too, And that was the February
Speaker 2: Revolution that brought down the czar. And so they arrest
Speaker 2: the major for distributing menstrual paths in public, and this
Speaker 2: time they're like, what if we put him on trial
Speaker 2: and keep him in jail, because we keep arresting him
Speaker 2: like every week. You know, they're like, okay, I think
Speaker 2: he spends two months in prison for making a mockery
Speaker 2: of the state before his trial, So the Orange Alternative
Speaker 2: used his incarceration and his trial to make a mockery
Speaker 2: of the state. He becomes an instant martyr, intellectual sign letters,
Speaker 2: student stage protests, and the government looks dumb as hell.
Speaker 2: And at his trial, all of his witnesses Okay, there's
Speaker 2: two versions of this, one in an academic article and
Speaker 2: one in his memoirs, But either way, it's funny. Everyone
Speaker 2: who came to the trial pretended to be dating him,
Speaker 2: both men and women. That part's true either All of
Speaker 2: the witnesses when they went on the stand were like, Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm his boyfriend, or oh, I'm his girlfriend and then
Speaker 2: proceeded to say what they were going to say, or
Speaker 2: you weren't allowed into the trial unless you were his fiancee,
Speaker 2: and so every single person was like, I'm engaged to
Speaker 2: be married to that man.
Speaker 4: Amazing.
Speaker 2: And his version as everyone was my boyfriend and girlfriend
Speaker 2: on the stand. And I don't know which one's true,
Speaker 2: but either way, it's funny as hell and queer as hell,
Speaker 2: and I love it because this would have been crazy
Speaker 2: radical in the eighties in the US. Yeah, you know, like.
Speaker 4: No one knew polyamory. This is a new.
Speaker 2: Thing, and like boys dating boys, you know, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: he was acquitted. Hey, awesome. Did they let him go
Speaker 2: to Jamaica. No, he was never allowed to go to Jamaica.
Speaker 2: And then on June first, nineteen eighty eight, they finally
Speaker 2: had what they'd wanted this entire time. They had the
Speaker 2: Revolution of the Dwarves. It was their largest happening that
Speaker 2: they ever did. Thousands of people and dwarf hats came
Speaker 2: out for it, and so the city were trying to
Speaker 2: be clever. They were like, oh, we're going to overwhelm
Speaker 2: it by calling for our own demonstration at the same
Speaker 2: time and place right. Instead of the city taking over
Speaker 2: the Dwarf event, it went the other way around, and
Speaker 2: everyone who came out for the city's event joined the
Speaker 2: Revolution of the Dwarves. And it like ten thousand people
Speaker 2: marched behind a giant dragon puppet with everyone wearing orange
Speaker 2: gnome hats.
Speaker 4: Amazing. How big is this place that you've been telling
Speaker 4: us about.
Speaker 2: It is a big city now. It currently has one
Speaker 2: point two five million people, so it's not like the
Speaker 2: entire city came out.
Speaker 4: It's a chunk of people. It's a chunk of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then they had like one more weird action
Speaker 2: that I can't find more information about and his account
Speaker 2: of it does not explain what happened, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to do my best anyway, because it's really interesting. For
Speaker 2: at least a couple decades now, people in Europe, especially anarchists,
Speaker 2: as I understand it, have thrown what are called no
Speaker 2: border camps where they go to especially at the borders
Speaker 2: of the EU. They'll go and people from both sides
Speaker 2: of the border will come to the border and hold
Speaker 2: it as one big protest area so that people can
Speaker 2: move freely back and forth across. And I think they're
Speaker 2: really cool. I think that they threw one of these
Speaker 2: between Poland and Czechoslovakia, or they were trying to go
Speaker 2: to Czechoslovakia to inspire the Czech radicals to also rise
Speaker 2: up because Poland was way ahead in terms of like
Speaker 2: how much they were fighting the Communist state, or some
Speaker 2: combination between the two. I don't know. All I know
Speaker 2: is that they dressed up in like full anarchist battle
Speaker 2: regalia from like the equivalent of like they're like costs.
Speaker 2: I think their costplane is like nineteen tens Russian revolutionaries
Speaker 2: right with black flags and then marched on Czechoslovakia and
Speaker 2: has freaked out. The border guards of both sides, the
Speaker 2: armies are like fully mobilized, like and it happens in
Speaker 2: like snowy mountains, and at one point the major he's
Speaker 2: dressed up like a samurai and he's on a ski lift,
Speaker 2: but he's only a couple meters in the air, and
Speaker 2: then they like get stopped and so he drops down
Speaker 2: and he's like trying to get away, but they arrest him.
Speaker 2: And while he's in jail, he looks out over the
Speaker 2: hills and he sees the black flag rising in the
Speaker 2: snow as the army marches towards his position, and the
Speaker 2: secret police have to whisk him away before his comrades
Speaker 2: can come rescue him. Oh that's all I can figure out.
Speaker 2: I don't know how it went. I don't know what
Speaker 2: his purpose was. I'm so annoyed.
Speaker 4: But wait, you know that major is still alive, right, yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you know that? Uh? Well, okay, his
Speaker 2: Wikipedia doesn't have his Wikipedia uses the present tense, and
Speaker 2: he got his PhD in twenty twelve, and but like
Speaker 2: there's not any updates from about the past ten years.
Speaker 4: But you know, yeah, let us know, Major, I.
Speaker 2: Know, if you're listening what was that one about. Please
Speaker 2: explain slightly more. I appreciate your surrealist to take on things.
Speaker 2: Please talk to someone who's less, who's more of a historian,
Speaker 2: and let them write it too. And then in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine the Communist government gave into pressure and engaged
Speaker 2: with talks with Solidarity, and there were free elections and
Speaker 2: the Communist government fell.
Speaker 4: Amazing, Wait, what year was that nineteen eighty nine? Nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty nine, yes.
Speaker 2: Okay, within a year of the Big Revolution of the Dwarfs.
Speaker 2: And of course the anarchist dreams of the Orange women
Speaker 2: and men were never realized. They didn't create a stateless
Speaker 2: socialist society. Capitalism hit the country, but the specific despotic
Speaker 2: authoritarian state was crushed, and no small part thanks to
Speaker 2: the laughing stock that surrealists turned it into an academic name.
Speaker 2: Luciana Romanico argues that quote declining state capacity was further
Speaker 2: paralyzed through the theatrical device of street level demonstrations involving humor. Furthermore,
Speaker 2: because of the intensity of the absurdity of humorous devices
Speaker 2: employed in resistance messages, the Soviet apparatus was unable to
Speaker 2: fragment Polish opposition through the standard course of tactics typically
Speaker 2: used by the regime, spontaneous collective comprehension of humorous nuances,
Speaker 2: unified polls on both sides of the ideological battle, thus
Speaker 2: preventing the exogenous state actors in Moscow from mandating violence
Speaker 2: to quell uprisings. And so basically they're like, all of
Speaker 2: the polls found this funny, and so they couldn't divide
Speaker 2: this movement the way that they would normally divide this
Speaker 2: movement along ideological lines because everyone thinks it's hilarious. You
Speaker 2: can't just go beat up the dwarfs. And there's like
Speaker 2: other things that that same academic argues about how it's
Speaker 2: an interesting piece, but it's you know, the tone of
Speaker 2: it is fairly academic, which is its purpose. But it
Speaker 2: argues that it basically made it harder for the government
Speaker 2: to like shoot people and shit in the streets because
Speaker 2: the soldiers don't want to because they're like, oh, that's great,
Speaker 2: because it reminds everyone that these are just people and
Speaker 2: they're playing, you know, they're doing something interesting. You don't
Speaker 2: feel like you're the good guys when you repress them.
Speaker 4: No, it shouldn't be illegal to play, No, so what
Speaker 4: and you're.
Speaker 7: Probably going there, But so Poland since then, I mean, yes,
Speaker 7: it's like capitalists, but is it freer?
Speaker 2: So it's I believe, and I am not an expert
Speaker 2: on this, I believe overall it would be safe to
Speaker 2: refer to it as a freer place in the way
Speaker 2: that like, I don't believe the US is truly a
Speaker 2: free country, right, but there are things that people can
Speaker 2: do here that you can't do under communism in the
Speaker 2: twentieth century in Eastern Europe, right, And you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: like there are still a lot of problems that people
Speaker 2: have with the state, and you know, a lot of things,
Speaker 2: and capitalism is a major problem, right, But I am
Speaker 2: operating under the idea that like ending communist rule and
Speaker 2: Poland and allowing to democracy, allowing people to vote to
Speaker 2: see what happens, you know, even though again, like representative
Speaker 2: democracy is and this true democracy and money votes every
Speaker 2: day and we only vote every now and then, and like.
Speaker 4: It's not a perfect system, but it's like way fucking
Speaker 4: better than whatever was happening before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the vibe I am getting from the stuff
Speaker 2: I'm reading about it, you know, and telling the story
Speaker 2: about the fall of you know, the communist regime and
Speaker 2: pull and through the lens of the Orange Alternative is
Speaker 2: downplaying the ten million members of Solidarity to focus on
Speaker 2: the women and men of the Orange Alternative. But it's
Speaker 2: also like there's that meme that goes around where people
Speaker 2: are like, oh, if you go back in time, you're
Speaker 2: always worried about how one tiny thing can change everything.
Speaker 2: And yet we don't live our lives as if one
Speaker 2: tiny thing we do now can change everything. Yes, and
Speaker 2: yet people have done this without the same effect time
Speaker 2: and time again. Right, but sometimes it does happen. When
Speaker 2: we throw sparks, sometimes they catch. And you know, even
Speaker 2: the like I'm going to get everyone to draw dwarves
Speaker 2: on walls didn't work, but it laid the groundwork for
Speaker 2: something that did. Yeah, you know, and it kept up
Speaker 2: people's morale.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: No, I love how playful it was. And I am
Speaker 7: a big believer in the butterfly effect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And it's like nice to remember we have agency,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, fuck yeah.
Speaker 2: And the major he ran for president in the upcoming elections.
Speaker 2: He did not come anywhere close to winning. He got
Speaker 2: enough signatures to get on the ballot. He came in
Speaker 2: like at least fourth, good for him. The communist did better,
Speaker 2: the capitalist did better. The Yeah, for some weird reason,
Speaker 2: the playful anarchist who probably wasn't going to take it
Speaker 2: seriously didn't win. He moved to Paris for a while
Speaker 2: and started writing about everything he'd seen, and then eventually
Speaker 2: he moved back to Poland. There's a statue of a
Speaker 2: dwarf still in roque cloth, and the city has adopted
Speaker 2: the little Guy's a bit of a symbol driving tourism,
Speaker 2: which actually makes the major Madison because he's anti communist,
Speaker 2: but he's also anti capitalist and now his you know,
Speaker 2: symbol is being used for things he doesn't like. But
Speaker 2: it's still kind of cute that the city is like,
Speaker 2: there's our guy, you know, the little gnomes. We like
Speaker 2: the gnomes. He got his PhD in Warsaw in twenty twelve.
Speaker 5: Do you know what?
Speaker 4: He studied.
Speaker 2: Art with a fucking long ass title about how I mean,
Speaker 2: he studied his own movement, you know, he studied like
Speaker 2: how art interacts with like playfulness and social change or whatever. Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I honestly it's probably really interesting stuff. And the Orange Alternative,
Speaker 2: which was inspired in part by the Dutch Cabuters, which
Speaker 2: actually cabalter the people I mentioned way at the beginning
Speaker 2: from the nineteen seventies in the Netherlands who came before
Speaker 2: all this, Kubouchers are also gnomes right, and the Orange
Speaker 2: alternative spread to Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and then in Ukraine
Speaker 2: they had the Orange Revolution of two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: I don't know a ton about, but it was fought
Speaker 2: against rigged elections that had were trying to hand Ukraine
Speaker 2: over to a pro Russian party. So it continues to
Speaker 2: have a wild legacy.
Speaker 4: That's a life well lived, good job major.
Speaker 2: I know. And there's a way other you know, he
Speaker 2: was like the some ways the leader, the central figure,
Speaker 2: but in otherwise he just like completely wasn't and but
Speaker 2: like but he did good. Yep, that would be I
Speaker 2: would be happy were I him. That would I would
Speaker 2: look back upon my life and be proud.
Speaker 4: Amazing, what a fun story.
Speaker 2: And if people want to look at your work and
Speaker 2: be proud, how should they do that?
Speaker 7: Oh so I joked in part one that I'm trying
Speaker 7: to start a cult, and I legit am trying to start.
Speaker 4: A writing cult.
Speaker 7: I'm teaching this writing intensive it's called back.
Speaker 4: To School Pitch Party.
Speaker 7: I did a version called Midsommer Pitch Party in July
Speaker 7: and it was so fucking fun. My students wrote like
Speaker 7: twenty seven to forty thousand words and they have got
Speaker 7: bylines in the Huffington Post and The Sun and it
Speaker 7: was just everyone had a really good time. So anyway,
Speaker 7: I'm doing that again in September. All the info is
Speaker 7: on my website, Cornycosac dot com. So if you're a
Speaker 7: writer who would like meet a be your dominatrix, I
Speaker 7: will do that.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, awesome. And if you want to hear more
Speaker 2: cool Zone media podcasts, you should listen to Weird Little Guys.
Speaker 2: It's not about cabalters or dwarves or gnomes, but instead
Speaker 2: about weird little annoying Nazis. If you want to read
Speaker 2: more of my writing, I have a substack post every Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Half of the posts are free. The posts that are
Speaker 2: more like important or political or often like reflections on
Speaker 2: the history that I write about, those are all free.
Speaker 2: And then the ones that are more personal. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can. You can subscribe to my substack if you
Speaker 2: want to hear me write my memoirs and shit like that.
Speaker 2: Just search Margaret Kiljoy substack and you'll find it great substack. Thanks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I have one more thing to plug, if that's
Speaker 5: all right with you, mac Bie Fine, Yeah, what's up? Fine?
Speaker 5: Behind the Bastards is now on YouTube with video behind
Speaker 5: the Bastards. Channel is YouTube dot com slash at behind
Speaker 5: the Bastard. So if you want to see Robert's.
Speaker 4: Face and Sophie's face and your face, sure that is there.
Speaker 4: The art is so excited, the artwork is great. Enjoy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, we'll see you next week when we
Speaker 2: talk about more cool people the cool Stuff.
Speaker 1: Bye bye, cool People Who did Cool Stuff is a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 5: For more podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 5: Coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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