LLZ Tours Dispatch #1 | life in the liberated zone


	Good morning, dear Acturistas! Welcome to LLZ Tours.
	Thanks, Granny Gus. Gracias! Merci! Obrigado! Salamat! अनुगृहितास्मि, 谢谢…
,	We go on exciting thanks you for joining our Fact- and Fiction-Finding Expeditions’where we’ explore the activist experience. We visit delightful and inspiring liberated zones.
	Yeah, like the Standing Rock encampments.
	And Occupy Wall Street.


	Or the Zapatista communities.

	But some of those liberated zones don’t exist anymore!
	No worries! On LLZ Tours we move freely along on the reality<->fiction continuum. Remember those waivers you all signed? Smiles sweetly.
	Um…
	We also visit the Belly of the Beast
	And the Colonized Mind.
	Or cat racing!Or bungie jumping!
	Anything’s more fun than cat racing!
	Ready?
	Yeah! Bien sure! Claro!
	Fabulous! Lets go! Sometimes we’ll march right into the liberated zone we’re touring, to talk to the activists. Other times we’ll sort of hover in the background or just mist in a bit, like now.
	…Sounds more like the Twilight Zone than the Liberated Zone.
	Yowls the Twilight Zone theme song: Doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo…
	Nice.
	Yes, well. Let’s do intros. I’m Granny Gus, Griot, story collector, LLZ Head Tour Guide and Activist Culture Anthropologist. These are my lovely assistants, Detective Drunella and Sour Puss.
	DD and SP bow to the participants.
	I find out what’s behind and underneath things. Eyes Acturistas through magnifying glass.
	I point out conflicts, confusions and other emotional stuff. Unsheathes a claws and gives a swipe.
	LLZ Tours uses unconventional modes of travel. We move freely along on the reality<->fiction continuum by means of observer-participant misting and dialectical materializing. You’ll get the hang of it.
	For dialectical materializing I need more coffee.
	Not to worry. By amazing coincidence, our activist host JB is making coffee.
	Being in the background–isn’t that like surveillance? Spying?
	At times it might seem so, but we avoid that by sliding into fiction, see?
	Not really.
	It’ll all become clear.
	Yeah, we’ll mist right into her colonized mind!
	Surveillance! Appropriation! Mental colonization!
	Calm down, dearies. We have a literary license issued by the Ministry of Anti-Colonialist Activist Anthropology.
	Hmm…
	It’s true that Anthropology was invented as a tool to help colonizers understand and manipulate the “exotic” peoples they conquered.
	(lips pursed) Disgraceful!
	But now we’re trying to understand ourselves. That’s different.
	Who exactly is “we”?
	Nobody forced you to come on this expedition.
	Well, we’re activists. We ask tough questions.
	Absolutely! And we will think about them together, and discuss them thoughtfully and lovingly.
	Group nods grumpily. SP twirls whiskers.
	Here is our very first chance to drink coffee with an activist.

	The activist, JB, is reading the label on her bag of coffee beans. The visitors look over her shoulder and peer into her brain.
	Invasion! Spying!
	Chill, we’re way down the R-F continuum.
	Eye rolls from some acturistas, but they peer into her brain, too
	We’ve chosen this particular activist, not because she’s anybody in particular—except in the sense that EVERYBODY is somebody in particular–
	But because she’s handy.
	Duh…
	Hey folks. Here’s the thing. They lead you to believe you’re an isolated individual in charge of your own mind. But that’s an illusion. Luckily, your handy guides are here. Yeah, if you open your mind a bit these weird characters show up and start bossing you around.
	Who are you calling weird?
	It’s a compliment, Sour Puss. Actually, society is extremely weird and can make us feel and act crazy. But we’re not. No offense taken.
	Well good, none intended.
	To Acturistas. Lets fade into the background so we can observe better.
	Okay. Picks up coffee bag again. And I’ll just finish fretting about the political correctness of my coffee.
	Observe and empathize, dearest Acturistas. A big part of activist life in the belly of the beast is figuring out how to live one’s principles of fairness, equality, compassion and so on, in a system structured according to very different principles.
	Yeah, like exploitation, inequality, division and oppression.
	And meanness, disrespect and indifference.
First we’ll visit our resident llz activist JB. She’ll accompany us on our tours of the belly of the beast and liberated zones.
… But we can go places she can’t.
	Indeed. So we’ll listen in on the internal struggle of our own JB.