Concord, Massachusetts

A Journal of Literature, Democracy & Dissidence

In the Samizdat Tradition of Writing against the Machine

Transcendental Trinkets—Concord Today—Free Speech in Peril
I have traveled a great deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.
—Henry David Thoreau

Consult Transcendental Trinkets, an unpublished literary manuscript, for excerpts from the editor's highly critical open letters to Henry David Thoreau, poems, essays, broadsides, watercolors, and cartoons all pertinent to today's Concord.

Once upon a time, Concord was home of revolutionary patriots and dissident writers Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Today, however, it is home of the Concord Chamber of Commerce, Concord Visitors Center, Concord Cultural Council, Friends of the Concord Free Public Library, Concord Poetry Center, Concord Festival of Authors, Concord Museum, Concord Bookstore, Thoreau Institute, and Emerson Umbrella for the Arts.

It saddens the editor, who has lived in Concord for over a decade, to witness first-hand the hostility those entities tend to manifest towards dissidence today and how successfully they've managed to castrat Thoreau and Emerson, rendering them PG-safe for bourgeois consumption.

The photo on the right is of a Concord town clerk examining The American Dissident flyer. One must suppose she was looking for naughty vocabulary words, sex-act descriptions, and/or who knows what else. She didn't tell me when I asked. And I took her photo without asking. Such pre-approved speech is not, of course, free speech at all. It is approved speech, which serves to encourage self-censorship. Flyers must be pre-approved prior to being posted at the Town Hall and at the open-air Milldam bulletin board, which used to be a free-speech bulletin board, until Van C. Smick, president of the Concord Chamber of Commerce, had it replaced with a new lock-and-key display case, which seems to summarize the reality of Concord today.

It has been a long, continuous uphill battle for The American Dissident in Concord. Rejection after rejection has been the norm. However, dogged persistence over more than a decade has resulted in a few positive outcomes in the town and vicinity. The Concord Free Public Library, Lincoln Public Library, Gleason Public Library, and Newton Free Public Library, for example, have all become subscribers, whereas Bedford, Acton, Groton, Lexington, and Maynard adamantly refuse, preferring instead to subscribe to Yankee, Mademoiselle, GQ, In Style, Decor, Ladies Home Journal, Martha Stewart’s Living, Just Cross Stitch, Men’s Journal, Self, People, Red Book, Threads, Upscale, Vanity Fair, and Woman’s Day, Weight Watchers, Vogue, Yoga, Marie Claire, Cat Fancy, Dog World, Elle, Cottage Life, Cosmopolitan, Brides, Better Homes, Black Belt, Wood, and even Air.

As for Thoreau Society, it finally permitted The American Dissident to be stocked in its Shop at Walden and even allowed the journal to set up a display as part of its exhibit on Civil Disobedience at the Tsongas Gallery in February, 2008. Moreover, the Concord Free Public Library permitted the editor via jury (evidently not of my peers) to set up a display of highly dissident watercolors in its Art Gallery for August, 2008. CTV, Concord's public television, interviewed the editor several times. The Concord Journal published several of the editor's commentaries, as well as press releases for The American Dissident, and even put the editor's face on its front page, regarding the Art Gallery display. For those open-minded organizations, the editor is grateful and even hopeful. The following links provide detailed accounts of my struggles to distribute The American Dissident and/or participate as a dissident author.

—Concord Bookstore once stocked The American Dissident (copies were sold!), then decided to reject it, probably due to complaints by a patron or two
—Concord Chamber of Commerce (see watercolor on the right and also Milldam Bulletin Board)
—Concord Cultural Council refuses to accord the editor grants because of the political nature of The American Dissident

—Concord Festival of Authors refuses to respond to the editor's correspondence and invite me as a published author (page to be created)
—Concord Journal has proven at times closed and at times open

—Concord Museum (Its curator, David Wood, refuses to respond to the editor's requests that it stock copies of The American Dissident with other journals and books it stocks (see cartoon of Wood below). For an open letter to Henry David Thoreau with this regard, see Transcendental Trinkets)
—Concord Poetry Center is closed to dissidence and dissident poetry (read director Joan Houlihan's amazing comment with that regard!)
—Concord Town Hall (In the watercolor to the left, the town manager Chris Whalen is depicted as the puppet on the left, while his assistant Doug Meagher is the puppet on the the right.)
—Friends of the Concord Free Public Library refuse to respond to the editor's queries regarding the criteria used for choosing invited poets & writers
—Thoreau Institute refuses to respond with regards the editor's simple request to stock American Dissident flyers on its premises
—Walden Pond State Reservation (This page includes an account of the editor's arrest and incarceration in Concord as a result of a non-violent argument with a park ranger, subsequent harassment by state and city police on Reservation grounds, and a statement by a constitutional lawyer that the public park legally must permit the editor to place a flyer on its premises.)