SPA RIP

When I heard about this shit going down some weeks ago, it hit me like the death of a friend - the South Philly Athenaeum got shut down?? I was waiting to post until Brandon told the full story, and he finally has - please read his moving moving account:

How Brandon and his dearest friends forever lost the South Philadelphia Athenaeum, and on the events immediately preceding and following the upheaval.
- PART ONE
- PART TWO

PHOTOS OF THE OLDE DAZE:
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE

I had the pleasure of visiting SPA on a few occasions to visit my old budz Nate and Ash as well as my new luddic pal Brandon Joyce, and it was without a doubt the greatest realization of post-political, humanist D.I.Y. that I've ever seen. Over its 1+ years of existence it played host to incredible shows (we were lucky enough to play one of the last SPA shows, without a doubt one of the most fun shows we've ever played) parties, a print shop + wood shop, classes in math and philosophy, a nascent recording studio, a game show, a skate ramp - and, mostly, the creative energy of 20 (sometimes more, sometimes less) wild and crazy homo sapiens. It was literally too good to be true - but it was true, from 2004-2005. It really happened, I saw it, and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Also, fuck the City of Philly for its ridiculous actions during this fiasco. Really unbelievable, very much inexplicable stuff, read Brandon's account, seriously. Someone should 'pay' for this, and by 'pay' I mean 'be made to suffer', I don't know how.

I realized after that evening that culture-making is, and always has been, something that happens despite governments and infrastructure. That, aside from the occasional grant, I could expect no real sympathy. The dissolution of the South Philadelphia Athenæum will be the mythic prototype for an event that will surely recur countless times in my life. My mood matched Satan's in Paradise Lost, who said after he defied and suffered against Holy Tyranny, banished from the citadel of Heaven, "Though the field is lost. All is not lost; the Unconquerable Will...And what is else not to be overcome." Like Satan, I now add to all my previous motivations, spite. I will rebuild, if for nothing else, than for spite. Spite is such a prime motivator. It burns so clean...

For the time being, I consider the eviction as very little worse than an extended Winter Break, hoping to secure a space in the spring. After some months in Argentina. Most of the Power Squad is still present, if hidden in mouseholes all over the city. It won't be long until we're on the watchlist again. You can be sure that the next incarnation will have twice the power. Ever upwards and onwards.