America still doesn't have a president. Al Gore still doesn't have a personality. Dubya still doesn't have a brain. If you take a gander at the two goons still squabbling over who gets to sit behind the big desk next year, you get the sense that maybe there's a need for change in this country. And if you strolled down the Bryan Center walkway in recent months, you saw that somebody else at Duke was thinking the exact same thing-and scribbling it on the walls in colored chalk.
Until now, the phantom kook responsible for those pastel anarchist chalkings has been an enigma-like Zorro, only not as cool. But we here at Recess aren't afraid to give radical ideas space in our mag. So here it is, folks, an exclusive chat with Chalkman, whose identity remains a secret even to us.
Let's talk about this year's election. Does this go anywhere toward legitimizing our democracy, or is the country still going to a corporate-financed Hell?
Whatever the outcome, a corporate-sponsored candidate will be in the White House in January. All the anger about the electoral system we see right now would have been more useful if it had been directed against the corporate-financed elections before they actually took place.
Is the Bryan Center walkway your preferred medium of political discourse? Why not just send an irate letter to The Chronicle?
We're trying to create more political space on campus. We want a discourse not limited to classrooms or The Chronicle.
Some dude wrote into The Chronicle saying that chalk removal comes at great expense to the University. Do you think the University should consider your work an art form?
If the University wants to clean it up, it can. So far nothing has been removed so I don't see where this people get off saying that we're raising their tuition. We're currently looking into University funding for more chalk.
Are there more like you out there at Duke, maybe just "searching for their inner chalk?"
Since our first chalking, there's been more and more stuff showing up. We don't know who these people are. They're as anonymous as we are. This just proves that people have been inspired, that people find this to be a valid and empowering means of political participation.
Do you object to the gender-specific moniker "Chalkman?" How about Chalky? BC McChalk-A-Lot?
There are a lot of people who've taken up this form of expression, males and females alike. Of course patriarchy exists not only in our social system but within each person's mind as well. That's why when the image of one person tagging the BC walkway with chalk was created, that person was a male.
"Chalkman" sounds like a pretty wussy superhero. What would your superpowers be?
We have the power of our voice. People hear what we have to say. That's a powerful thing in a country where most powerful, influential speech is bought and sold in the corporate media.
Anarchist Fashion Quiz: What's your preferred wardrobe for your utopia-the rags 'n' loincloth aesthetic or post-apoc Mad Max biker chic?
Style and fashion have little meaning in an anarchist society. People choose what they will wear not based on social pressures like advertising, but rather based on their own individual preferences. Comfort and practicality would certainly take precedence over "looks." I also imagine that clothes would be worn only when necessary-as protection from the elements for instance.
What's the first rule of Fight Club?
There is no Fight Club.
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