Today's edible- 'Pussy Riot'
Why punk matters
The problem with news is, it’s too temporary.
We seem to have lost the ability to find time to step back. I know it’s hard, there are only so many hours in the day to make Tik Tok vids but please take a moment, put down your your Impossible Whopper, maybe grab a cuppa, and lets all learn to swim backwards again.
Pussy Riot are still at it, whatever that is, they haven’t given up. I was curious to know what has happened to them. Thankfully they haven’t changed a bit from those good old days in a Russian prison. One of most poignant things about being locked up (I thank Barrett Brown for these observations) are the letters you write; it’s you’re only way out and the correspondence between Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Slavoj Zizek (described by British literary theorist, Terry Eagleton, as the “most formidably brilliant” recent theorist to have emerged from Continental Europe) is prophetic.
Pussy Riot continue to defy all the odds. This recent exclusive from the Daily Beast is noteworthy - a short extract:
“On Sept. 7, me, my 17-year-old sister Polina Tolokonnikova, and 14 other Pussy Riot activists were arrested when we left my apartment. We were planning to walk around Moscow with a rainbow flag and Russian Federation flag, also we had a “PUTIN YOU’D BETTER LEAVE BY YOURSELF” banner and a handful of colorful smoke cannons. Our ultimate goal was the [Russian] White House—we wanted to make an art statement in front of our government. It was a day before the elections in Moscow City Parliament; elections that put Moscow on political fire this summer, causing mass protests and crazy outrage by cops who beat and injured people.”
If you get a chance please head over to voiceproject.org and donate to help keep this type of journalism alive in places where art & activism intersect. Wow that sounded pompous. That’s what you get here on Afternoon Tea - a sense of grandeur. Seacrest out. For more on punk go here: 6 min read & if you want to learn Russian follow this guy. To understand more about the Russian opposition movement read NPR’s missal.