At 10:26pm on Thursday February 13 Aragorn! walked on. After a debilitating stroke he baffled his doctors by dying and self resuscitating twice, then finally passed peacefully in his sleep.

A memorial will be held at a date to be determined. Watch here for more information.
If you have photos we would like them. You can send them to

He requests that memes be made about his death.

There are 227 Comments

Holy shit. Rest in peace A! We may have had our grievances between beliefs and scene drama but myself and others wouldn't have been where we are today without the work he's done through little black cart. We lost a good one today


really difficult to process. i barely knew him, but his projects had a big impact on my way of looking at anarchy and individuals. I have an inkling of what he meant to the people around him. It would be difficult to imagine me having a life even remotely the way its panning out without the intellectual shove from LBC, Anews, Abang, and (very occasionaly) The Brilliant. The loss that's difficult to overstate is the way he tried hard to bridge the gap with anarchists of different generations on the level of ideas. To call Aragorn "old guard" seemed tongue-in-cheek when he was around as the bogeyman of the social anarchists, but if he's gone right damn now at the start of 2020? words are failing me...

anarchy forever



What a loss. A force to be reckoned with.

pretty inspirational intellectual for me, really hammers out ideas, has dry explanations and good questions. I was also kinda bothered by some of things he said, but naturally that's punk. Felt like a lot of things he said in regards to "race" and id-pol could have been said in a different way, but I don't have anything bad to say about what he was and what he did during his time alive.

I mean, i wouldn't have fucking gone to an anarchist bookfair and brought up uhhhh...that book. I've always wanted to get to know him better, but yeah he died young, didn't really seem to be afraid of a whole lot. Almost died pretty close to 2020 as well.

Rest in peace old friend. It was a pleasure knowing and collaborating with you.

Still processing this. To be honest I was in denial at first. I fb messaged him asking if he was just fucking around. Now that things have started to set in, I just wanted to say, despite the public spectacle of the few disagreements we had, privately our conversations were warm and friendly. As I mentioned in a podcast, LBC was one of the first distros I came across that challenged social anarchism. I barely knew him, but I enjoyed the pleasant conversations we had privately the last couple months. RIP dude...

i thought, "no, must be a fucking troll who said this", i just fucking made, i think a few days ago, a topic about him specifically on the forums. Damn. Just goes to show, to be a hippy idealist, it's all connected, it's all unbelievable.

Oh man, RIP big A.

I know we disagreed on a lot but we also agreed on a lot too and had lots of common preferences in art and aesthetics, etc.even if my bantering at you u never got and thought i was a cunt i still <3 u.. Im gon seriously miss you man. you were a boi and one of the few good fuckin yanks..

RIP. Feed those worms, brother.

a new trickster god rises to the heavens

may his contributions to the anarchist galaxy multiply after his passing

Rest in power friend.

I remember all the times he made me laugh, all the book recommendations, the way he challenged my ideas, the nights he and L let me crash at their house when I came through Berkeley, his snarky wit, his adorable pit-bulls, talking me through & giving me advice on scene drama I was going through, his massive "anti-organizationalist" library, the movie screenings at the Long Haul, introducing me to other amazing people, the talks he gave at events, when he tried (and failed) to teach me drupal, when he stopped my kids mom from getting arrested for shoplifting a crate of juice, all of his many contributions to the Beautiful Idea: this website, Ardent Press & LBC, the podcasts, Black Seed, Green Anarchy, AJODA, the BASTARD conference & so much more.

But above all, I'll remember the way he made me laugh. I'm so grateful for so much that he did in his time on Earth & I'll miss him. The sandbox just lost an important playmate.

-A friend from Olympia


Everyone do something! Aragorn would hate it.

but at the same time he was crazy active about the things he believed in, i almost feel someone should make a meme with that picture, "crazy nihilist", but yeah was always sarcastic, enough to write about the subject matter of hostility in black seed and completely mean it. I congratulated him personally on that one i think. Such obscure subject matters he brought up, sarcastic among his crazy moralitarian-hipster subculture, i can't even begin to even say what an influential guy he was to so many people.


Aragorn first reached my radar with his essays in Green Anarchy, and later I became more acquainted with his thinking when LBC was founded and took over AJODA. He's been hugely influential for me over the years. I only met him a handful of times and we never exchanged more than a few sentences, but somehow this feels like losing a friend.

I think my favorite writings of Aragorn's were his Stories of the Bear People and Stories of Raccoon People.

Oh my gosh! I will miss his challenging leadership

How old was he?

late 20s

He was in his late 20's in the 1990's, maybe. Honestly not even sure but I am 50 and he was definitely around my age when I met him a few years ago.....

Aragorn was 49

The lbc site and the brilliant page are also down. Sad to see his work disappear.

Are there people who are gonna keep LBC running or is it dying alongside him?

i can be sure that LBC has been changed by this, but i'd be very surprised if they dropped it, i have been buying their books for years.

however, dot has insinuated that he was one of the few people who read every single manuscript, so yeah they might decide to close shop. I guess i wonder if they are going to throw a black flag over his remains.

What was aragorn's preferred body disposal?? He probably didn't even talk to anyone about it, lol. I mean, maybe he wanted the mostly quickly dissoluble given that he was a green anarchist, but, yeah i'm just really curious...death is certainly a very interesting part of the human emotional psyche, i mean i only met this guy IRL once.

there are ppl like myself who are willing to volunteer to help keep the site up.

I've been making sure every episode of The Brilliant gets archived as they've been posted (other than the ones intentionally removed). Even if the site doesn't go back online for some reason, you can find every episode by starting at the latest[1] and hitting the "previous post" link until you find it, or by just putting the link directly into if you have it.


i'm listening to episode #57, the discussion with the jewish new yorker about exclusion politics, homosexuality, anarchism.

I have to say, it's strangely fitting that the last episode of The Brilliant was one of the rare episodes with A! and Bellamy, and the first episode of a new season.

give us a chance to catch up. chances are very high that both the brilliant and lbc will be back up.
if you think it's easy to deal with him dying, mourning, figuring out everything he was doing, and then how to keep it running, then... well, just don't think that.
also, lbc might take a break since the hospital will be getting all the money for a while.
one of the remaining LBC people

Precisely disss.. <3

I'm so sorry for your loss! This hit's many of us hard too but we outsiders are not saddled with the task of recuperation. Best to you all!

I'm local to the east Bay area (though out of town until Sunday). Is there someone I can reach out to to volunteer some time to help?

you can always send us an email. let us know what you're good at and what you want to do, and we'll see if we can suit each other.
nothing will be happening too soon, but we'll get back to you as we can, when we know what we're doing.

an lbc person

Wow, I met Aragon back in the 90's. Great writer and loved chatting with him during the time our paths crossed in L.A.. This is a surprise to learn of his passing.

rip, a!

Fill the days with significant waste
Fill the days with meaningful refuse
Fill the days with interesting things to say
Fill the days with a gradual decay
Fill the days with habitual ways of being
Fill the days with ingrained ways of seeing
Fill the days inhaling and exhaling
Fill the days counting to one million
Fill the days with a day's worth of events
Fill the days with a time earned and spent
Fill the days these are our next to last
Move through the days on autopilot
Blessed, blessed oblivion

Anybody with an ounce of radical credibility wouldn't be seen dead being accepted into heaven.

I bet he'll do a podcast from inside the cremating oven just before his spirit dissipates out into the eternal cosmos!

His directness and sometimes almost interrogational conversation style was at first jarring but almost immediately became actually quite refreshing and a bit addictive. Sad I can't look forward to more. He built a really beautiful life for himself, spent minimal time employed and maximum time doing the things he loved.

If help with any expenses is needed, please don't hesitate to reach out and make it known.

A! was unrelenting, yet I still benefited from it. He would turn over every rock, attack every idea, and so many people got the benefit of there being an iconoclast around without suffering the social consequences of being one.

i mean, the stuff in his books are not easy to grasp with, the road of being a crazy lifestyle anarchist is just as hard as being normal, quite frankly. If people are zombies, then they are, but they are zombies, they don't get the wonderful experiences of being actually crazy.

But yeah, very brave advocate of all the things he wanted to do and say. Quite frankly i wouldn't even know about this website if it wasn't for LBC.

Well shucks. I met him a few times. We were not super acquainted with each other,, but I appreciated his uncompromising attitude, devil-may-care provocations & challenge to every orthodoxy even if we disagreed on some things. Take care, Aragorn.

I don't want to write this eulogy. I have so much more to say than it could ever hold or words aspire to express. I don't want to accept this loss or the reality to which it beckons, a world that is colder and more banal than that in which I already reside.

I learned of Aragorn's passing yesterday afternoon, and had to leave work early. After spending the evening in conversation, remembrance, and acknowledgment of the deep significance he held for so many of us -- on a human scale, as well as through his work -- I sat slumped over upon the edge of my bed, disconsolate, vertiginous, angry, and wept sheets of tears, like a beast ensnared; like a little boy trapped in the bottom of a well. Sounds which until then I had never before uttered arose from the depths of my stomach, after which my hands began to tremble uncontrollably, despite my efforts to still them.

Over the past eighteen odd months, I have isolated myself from nearly everyone I know or care for, with precious few exceptions, leaving the house only to go to work, to buy groceries, or to see films. This meant that aside from some back and forth on FB or the IRC, A! and I hadn't spoken or seen each other in over a year. How I now wish that I had found it in myself to reach out while there was still time... time for more conversations, more laughter, another of our ultimately too rare walks through Berkeley or road trips to places we weren't wanted.

I think back on the missed opportunities I had to work with him on projects he'd encouraged me to be a part of and how upset he'd be to hear me lament as much now, after the fact. I don't want to be condemned to this regret over the feeling of our having grown apart, or to the recognition the role my own failure to swallow my pride when I felt criticized or alienated played in that distance. But I will never have the opportunity to feel I've made things right... not any more than I will to see where else Aragorn's thought may have taken him, or through his sheer tenacity and charm, the rest of us, too.

Trickster, my friend, I will miss you so much. Thank you.

Good bye.

shocking and difficult. he was a vibrant influence on my writing and thinking and will continue to be. i'm saddened that we never got to meet. i'm gonna miss him.

you were a voice when anarchists seemed so afraid of anarchy.

you stayed at my house, because i welcomed unpopular ideas.

i have not found a way to live the Beautiful Idea, but you and your publishing projects endlessly inspired me to question, strive, and believe in the Beautiful Idea against all odds and no matter how silly.

whatever capacity i can help to move that forward i will in whatever pathetic and humorous way.

in the words of severino di giovanni facing a certain firing squad:

“long live anarchy!”

it endures, forever, because human control is an illusion.

long live anarchy!

It's hard to overstate Aragorn!'s influence on me both personally and politically. He showed me both through his projects and by example what an active, creative and engaged anarchism could look like beyond idealism and activism. In the four months I was lucky to spend as an intern at the 'bolo and beyond he was always encouraging me to do better and engage with the world. He is a large part of the reason Viscera exists, and it's because of this infectious energy and occasional prodding that you can find me on so many anews podcast discussions with him.

A! told me once that LBC started publishing books for an audience that wasn't necessarily ready for them, but that would find them or appreciate them in the years to come. As much as I can say he's influenced me already, his ideas and presence are things that I think will be felt all the more deeply in the years to come.

Walk on, friend, we'll catch up with you eventually.

i am so sad- it is very sudden- long time I had to loose a beloved friend in sudden death and I almost forgot it how sad it is. I just think that all of us we hope to die after we offer a lot of things to Anarchy and Aragorn even though he dies so sudden- he is going away from here after he offered so so much for the revolution.
Aragorn was a great person and I really had the feeling that he will stay with us much much longer. Now I realize that I was feeling like that because he was so dedicated to anarchism like almost having a dialogue with the long long future of Anarchy. If all of us and each one of us would dare to offer even 10% of the time that Aragorn spent for organizing and spread revolutionary anarchism during his lifetime we would destroy capitalist civilization in one summer for ever. All of us from Void Network and Exarchia we express our deepest and sincere respect for this amazing revolutionary and great friend.

" lose ourselves far, far away in the greenery... to walk arm in arm at dawn towards an intangible and unattainable horizon, forever as one, forever tightly linked like two ivy plants each drawing nourishment from the other, and to sing the heroic rhapsody of a life of difficulty..."

S. Di Giovanni to `Fina’, September 10 1928

We continue to live our lives. Not as if nothing happened, but sitting mired in grief, anger, from some I might even expect revelry, it flattens the plane of what Aragorn! contributed to the North American anarchist milieu. I want to offer my reflections, not in the interest of hagiography, but as a remembrance of someone who pushed me to think about things from perspectives I hadn’t, who challenged some of the assumptions of our shared social space, and as someone who made me laugh, unrelentingly,

Aragorn! was an antagonist (as we all should be) and a lightning rod. There is no denying that. He pissed a lot of people off, whether by his choices (which, despite the hype were never his alone) to publish shit people didn’t like, sometimes shit he disagreed with, as provocation sometimes, but also to further discourse in anarchist circles with the intent of sharpening our collective weapons in our war against the existant.

Aragorn! hated war/killing analogies, so I say that with some irony, just as I had a whisky and another whisky when I heard he had died. Aragorn would’ve given me shit and hated my turning to booze at his death, but I also think he would’ve appreciated me grieving him how I grieve, and fuck his values.

I recall the first time I visited LBC, and the glee he had in showing me how they made books which, frankly seemed magic. A few years later I watched him gleefully give my partner the same tour. He cared a lot about what LBC published, even when he published shit he didn’t agree with.

That is the thing, what seems to be lost on a lot of folks, Aragorn! always looked to challenge staid thinking and assumptions, sometimes to a point that was beyond making a point. I want to be clear, Aragorn was not an angel, he was a fucking asshole, and he could be a vindictive piece of shit. I saw that side of him many times in interaction with other people I also care about. He had a clear vision regarding his projects, woe to all of us that fell outside that.

But what I really remember and will miss is sitting at a picnic table with him and other loved ones eating burritos. or Thai food, or spaghetti. Debriefing whatever event, or maybe just shit talking.

There was always a personality that would bring acerbic humor sitting there next to me. That spot at the table will always be empty.

Is good to see you're still around, ingrate. This has just made me sadder I didn't use this website more whilst he was still alive. Just good vibes from the south pacific!
Much love and support, shin

I'm not online the way I used to be, and I haven't seen him in idk how many years. Feels pretty shit, because I've been realizing how much who I am was influenced by him, and thought we might get along better than back then with the sort of projects I've started working on. Guess we'll never know. Thanks for everything A!, you will definitely be missed.

After just losing my mom less than a month ago, this has been very difficult to swallow. Aragorn! and I had a falling out about 5 years ago, which left me devastated and deeply hurt, and while my understanding of him had forever shifted I never lost my respect and gratitude for his commitment to the Beautiful Idea and the tenacity and courageous force with which he unapologetically created his own anarchist path. Like him and so many others, I had been viciously attacked and called out, and he was key in keeping me from leaving anarchy altogether, showing me there were different people, ideas, and ways to be an anarchist.

I would not be the anarchist I am today without Aragorn!, and there are probably many thousands who could say the same. I will never forget the beautiful moments we shared nor the many teachings and lessons I learned from him. He grappled with the most complex dynamics of our time and had a particularly adept wisdom for navigating them.

Though we have not talked in many years, I send warm embraces to those I know who are still at the compound (yes, I know you hate it...).


He was my kindred spirit, and I revelled in his nihilist deconstructions and Stirnerian attitude. Old nihilists don't die, they fade into the Abyss,,,,,,,,,,,, ;(

Damn this sucks...RIP A! We met a few times and had pleasant chats. I vised the LBC HQ and A! along with some other cool housemates welcomed me in and showed me around. I appreciate all the various things he did and maintained. My condolence to all his loved ones.

Very sad news. The Anarchist universe feels as if it has gotten a lot smaller now. Wasn't a fan of some of Aragorn!'s ideas over the last couple of years, but then anarchism has always been about disagreements and going against the flow even it meant clashing with other anarchists, and that is one of the things that is so great about anarchy / anarchism - not being constrained by rigid doctrines etc. I like the idea of doing actions dedicated to Aragorn! He might have hated it, but a part of him probably would have liked it as well! RIP.

It really does feel a lot smaller without him. That was my first thought/reaction upon hearing the news.

, would respond to IRC during the program to humor us even if it was all infantile shitposts.

He used to log in a bit to chat in the IRC after Anarchy Bang. I don’t I ever said anything meaningful to him, but he always replied and continued the conversation as if it was normal. I think it was kind of him to tolerate bad conversation from a complete stranger.

He showed me some music that I ended up liking a couple of times.

He gave us a steady supply of snark.
He frequently served as a figure to contrast against, to oppose, to disagree, to challenge, to mock, taking for granted the agreements, the inspirations, the many things brought to our attention, the lessons.

Though many were frustrated at his responses, he did listen and did not ignore and always responded. There may be all the disagreement and critique of his hot takes, but he didn’t think he was above having a conversation with just about anyone, while being his snarky self in conversations, some may see that as arrogance, but it was actually humility. There can be such a thing as a humble, admirable, noble, asshole and dick.
Glad he went to GABF, an example of humility.

Glad he got to presence and be part of IAC, seeing now how if the timing had been off.

In a recent Anews Podcast he remarked how he felt fortunate to be able to do the things he loved and be surrounded by the people he loved and found interesting.
I’m glad he not only lived this, but got to appreciate it and express his gratitude so explicitly.

There were still many specific things he still wanted to do.

If he does requests that memes be made about his death, please do your best. It’s so typical, people that have so many haters, then all the sudden everyone crying at the funeral. One could imagining him laughing at anews trolls giving these earnest eulogies.

absolutely. also smart, funny, generous, determined, surprising, inspiring, gaslighting, creative, infuriating, loud, short-sighted, long-sighted... but yea. humble wasn't something that most people realized. when he talked about humor, he was also talking about humility...
gdm i'm going to miss him.

Didn't know you personally but through your presence in podcasts you felt like a good, yet distant friend. Like any real, good friend you were not scared to be frank and criticize us.

Conversations, never enough conversations!

Also that'd be great project if some kind of bio of him be published sooner or later, from the pov of his friends & fam. Written and/or filmed.

While we never met I will miss his presence immensely in the world. His many projects have largely shaped my anarchist worldview and forced me to engage more critically with the beautiful idea. My heart goes out to all those grieving especially those who knew him directly. I hope that we can all bring his challenging spirit into the projects were apart of.

What a way to start a decade... I remember calling the phone number for little black cart a few times to ask questions about books, but other than that we have never talked. That being said I have been reading LBC books for several years now and Its painful to see him go. I was just listening to an old interview with him about Little Black Cart a few minutes ago in his honor. He was certainly a controversial figure and people seemed to butt heads with him often, but he certainly will be missed immensely. I am still processing this and It may take some time to set in. Sending love to those left at LBC. Take some time off and do self-care. Rest in power Aragorn! Anarchy Forever (A)


it was through the Brilliant that I found a world of ideas I had been looking for,, little did I realize what I was getting into (in the best way). the many texts read and conversations excitingly listened to over the years seems so fresh, yet so distilled. I would have loved to hang, and was looking forward to the day. impactful is an understatement.

I didnt know you personaly and Iv never chatted to you.
Your projects had an effect on my life particularly the anarchist library. The anarchist library was the first place I read anarchist writings, when I was banged up I came across it via a smuggled phone. It definitely helped me towards becoming a conscious anarchist.

RIP Aragorn!

I never met Aragorn! Our limited and mediated interactions were a mixture of brief wisps on IRC, him confusing me with someone else, and emails telling me the email I was using wasn't the one best used for the subject matter.

We were an ocean and a continent away from one another, yet Aragorn! had a fucking sweet, sweet tone that landed home and, despite the lauding of the snark, I found him bang-on-the-level and detached from celebrating bullshit.

I realise in this moment I held a hope we might meet at some point in the future, but that's the game with hopes and futures. Still, I hope all his pals remember their joys and find laughter and a smile. A world has ended, but from it many are born. We never met, but I'll miss you Aragorn!

Thanks for all the production (content creation? both bad terms) and distribution of your own and others' interesting/necessary/unnecessary words. Fuck oppression, live and die free.

Rest in peace jerk. You were one of the good ones, even when you were being a total dick. I'll be pouring a little root beer out on the curb for you.

and the landscape is forever changed

i think he would feel deeply seen by it, and i agree with ever word.
an lbc person

edit: except for the banksy picture! ;)

I have only read his works, I never talked to him but the loss to the community will be great. I can only hope that LBC will keep putting out items that he would approve of.

Aragorn was a turd in a toilet bowl of a scene.

But everyone is a turd in a bowl of comprom8sed relationships. A! would probably agree with you haha, from the existential perspective. I'm a turd also, no big deal or offensive, no stigma or moral shame attached. All we can strive for is to rise above the mundane objectivity of materialist drudgery and find our inner freedoms, which is what A! had attained, turdness or not.

He was incredibly patient, attentive and supportive of me. I will miss him very much.

I never met you. I listened to you, read your work. This news has deeply saddened me. You will be missed. I appreciated you when you were with us, still I will miss your humour and critical analysis. You made me think. You challenged my views. You said you had plans to travel... I hope you're travelling right now. Stay Free.

Arcs. Crazy punk dancing in the midst of selling zines. Racoon people. Nihilism's splendour. Laughing from balconies. Hard-headed insistence. Driven by...

So many thoughts and ideas in one tough strong being. I listened to your voice just the other day on the answering machine before I erased it, not knowing you just left for your last road trip. I hope there was some joy in that last parting.

My kindest, most compassionate thoughts to the beautiful people close to him...I cannot imagine your pain. He always had lots to say, but the words that have stuck most with me over the years resonate clearly today, though I'm not sure I can heed them: if we start crying now, how will we ever stop?

"if we start crying now, how will we ever stop?"

no words ever hit home better

Whateverinthefuck! is a phrase he used a lot and I've never heard anyone else say it. Folks usually say Whateverthefuck. Idiosyncrasies.

I used to like you a lot, but you're such a bitch.

I liked you so much I want you forever, but you're just counting our days.

What have we done against you?

And why take Aragorn and not some wanker like ME? I mostly do Jack Shit and got zero irl friends to mourn me. Or why not Chomsky, Bezos or Giuliani? Aren't Boomers supposed to be dead, by now? Again, FUCK YOU! You suck, BIG TIME, you self-entitled despotic piece of shit.

I'm done liking you, for a while. And NO, hell fucking no, I won't kill myself, coz that'd please you too much. And I'm neither going to get more life, coz anyways you'll just painfully take it back since I haven't got billions for you, right? FUCK YOU, LIFE!

as if living a long life is something to be desired. My grandmother was miserable/rich and lived to 96, i don't envy her at all, aragorn lived to be 50 and look at what an awesome life he lived. Look at that picture, like a joyous marsh mellow.

Our enemies want us to envy them! To be honest I envied A! a little bit, but mostly i just saw him as being from a different planet.

as already stated above, he mostly did what he wanted to do, he had people close to him who adored him and made those choices possible/easier, and he was able to make an impact that he could feel. he didn't have enough people who pushed his thinking, but he had a few important ones, and that's really the best we can ask for, unfortunately.
i think part of him leaving was him not wanting to get old. he loved old people, it was one of the early things i noticed that was different about him, but his own capacities failing him, not being able to ride his motorcycle (wish we could give it to you, anon), etc, would've been very hard on him. fuck him for leaving us so early, but good for him for doing it before life became a chore.

a! introduced me to bolo'bolo, in a talk he did at the sf bookfair back in '02 or so. he helped me understand (his ideas about) nihilism in ways i never would - or cared to - have otherwise. he taught me how to make his fry bread at the oregon feral visions gathering. he one time shut me down pretty good (rightly so) when i had had a bit too much red wine. shit, i remember being blown away when he first casually demonstrated his muy tai moves in the back yard of a house in eugene one summer night over 15 years ago; that big motherfucker was quick and agile as shit!

in my experience, he was smart, funny, critical, abstract, confusing, contradictory, condescending, prudish at times, harsh at times, loved to "hold court", and got off on a certain kind of celebrity. his personality was huge, and i usually found him fun as fuck.

yes, a! will be sorely missed. he definitely added a great deal to the soup of anarchic thought and discussion. RIP aragorn!

my sincere condolences to those close with him in the bay and elsewhere. especially to two strong women whose names i won't mention in this context. much love.

First Paul Z Simons two years ago, now Aragorn! We are starting to lose some of our long serving thinkers and activists.

I never met A!, but I had corresponded with him a few times. I also have friends on the West Coast and Vancouver Island whom he visited. I hope A!'s publishing legacy carries on.

R.I.P. Aragorn. Can I have your motorbike?

damn! look at these tentacles reaching all around the planet. impressive!
may the iconoclastic snark keep echoing for decades to come

when she sees this page... WOW
and adds

Weary Warrior
Lie down and rest
You've earned your colors
And worn them well
Your voice is heard no more
Yet your words are etched in our minds
And we hear them still
Too early you are gone from us
We mourn your passing
But like legends of old
You will live forever in our hearts and minds
Goodbye, son, lover, brother, friend
Rest now in the arms of those gone before
Who welcome you, Weary Warrior

There is a special joy in outliving one's enemies! I think even Aragorn would have to admit to that.

but disagree with your understanding of what an enemy is.
also a! wanted really good, strong enemies, as a way to make himself (as a way we all make ourselves) stronger.
so if you consider a! an enemy, who are you going to get to make you stronger now?

This was incredibly well put. Aragorn was often portrayed as a villain to the anarchist scene while simultaneously doing so much for it. Through his works you can have access to a wide variety of anarchist thoughts and ideas. He also opened up a large space for indigenous anarchy in a scene that talks a big game about decolonization. If you truly see him as a villain I’m afraid to hear who you think of as friends.

Or a friend that kinda annoyed you.

Aragorn sent me a chunk of black seeds with my last order. I will spread them around in his honor! Im gonna also continue to rep the fight for turtle island and his other works because they’re so good.

with your order. he had nothing to do with sending stuff out. that was all those invisible elves who weren't up for the vitriol and so stayed in the background but also made things happen.

So important to remember in our grief and sadness, in our desire to laud an unquestionably unique and beautiful anarchist individual and very public powerhouse behind these many circle-A projects, a LOT of people make those projects happen. And if those projects are still important, others will make sure they continue. Thanks to all of you and condolences (what a shittily inadequate phrase) for a great loss.

No pedestals, no thrones.

I only met him in the flesh the one time. (Not counting the time I talked to him for a minute maybe at the table at the Montreal bookfair in 2012 I guess.)

We went to a Vietnamese restaurant and I order a lime soda on ice, and it was in a plastic cup and I was annoyed about it, and he said it was "postmodern" or something. And that's I guess the impression he had of me in the flesh, lol. Not super typical of who I am, or maybe it is

There was a minute when I was thinking of doing the compound internship. We even had a chat on the phone about it. Regrets. I think he would have annoyed the shit out of me, probably, but I think it would have been a good time

this is an incredible loss to the north american anarchist space, and more generally to those in love with the Idea everywhere. the time I spent around Aragorn! was brief but it's impossible to overstate his significance in my life and trajectory. His efforts and vigor, his willful embodiment of contradiction and conflict, his attempt to connect with other people of the book, all of these things helped me through a deep distrust of politics and into something much more beautiful and vastly interesting, something untouched by 'anti-politics' or 'nihilism' or any other buzzword that he chose to grapple with or was endlessly smeared with. I say this with tremendous respect, the man was a titan delivering puzzles and grand jokes, the gristle earned by grandiose efforts, to be collected by those of us too inspired and too damaged to live comfortably within this society. He was a giant carrying some of the weight of the impossibilities and provocations that keep me interested. I'd like to write more but I'm a bit beyond articulation. Rest in peace & conflict, you beautiful, mad punk you.

To think that I listened to the podcasts of his final year.You may not always agree with him. But he was passionate about anarchism and was always doing new projects. He will be missed. Hope someone puts together a podcast with best of snippets. RIP

I love this idea.

Just learned of this today.
I, too, first learned of Aragorn! through his columns in Anarchy magazine. I somethimes found his writing style frustratingly oblique, but always sincere and passionate. I met him twice, years ago: first at an anarchist conference in Indianapolis, and later at the Mercury Cafe in Chicago, where he had come as part of an Anarchy magazine tour. His politics, as I understand them, seemed to gravitate more towards the post-left or nihilist end of the anarchist spectrum, which was just fine with me. I believe he was involved with the Bay Area Anarchist Studies Group, and a fan of Bob Black's writings, as am I.

Aragorn! has gone to that big anarchist bookfair in the sky.

So long, you old B.A.S.T.A.R.D.


I'm just at a loss as to where the antagonism goes. The USA is in a bad bad place with this loss. All I can personally think about is the huge chasm anarchy has to fill in order to not get swallowed by the vultures that circle constantly. This just hits hard in so many places. Going to skip the eulogy and try my best for anarchy and maybe if I make it to later years live some time away from the city like our friend would have enjoyed.

agree with this wholeheartedly. i am so on board with the conversations the brilliant had. i wanted them irl in daily life, but my existence is such a dandy-on-budget-normie one that while i live podcasts like the brilliant and projects like lbc i don’t really have the means or the experience to offer anyone no matter how much of a regular joe i look on the outside.

but, whatever i can do to spread seeds...

R.I.P. A! You were one of the biggest influences in my life. I cherish the few times we got to hang out and wish there had been more. I always enjoyed our conversations and appreciated your snark and sense of humor. You will be greatly missed.

This is the first time since it started that I have seen A News so full of love, all compassionate, thoughtful, supporting comments. (That's gonna be the opening bell for the shit talkers, innit?) He's gotta be chuckling his head off over that.

Making a zine out of all these comments would be a beautiful tribute. Plus a gold-embossed edition of Stories of the Bear People.

The struggleistas salute you, Aragorn! Just kidding. When thinking of you, I will renounce the imperative of struggle in favor of the reality of contradiction.
Here's to a humble, loving asshole!

And so much love to dot, the LBC people, and the doggies.

it could also very well because it’s a lot of folks who read don’t post.

To the many people on this site loved, cared for, and respected Aragorn!, I am sincerely sorry for your loss. That said, I can’t imagine that A! himself would want to be remembered in such an unequivocally positive light (token acknowledgements of his assholishness notwithstanding). I presume, on the contrary, that he would welcome or even courage stories that complicate this view of him. Whatever else may be said about A!, it is a fact that he could be and often was *extremely* cruel and abusive to people who didn’t begin to deserve that kind of treatment—myself included. His habitual displays of irrational hostility, pettiness, mean-spiritedness, and dishonesty earned him a less than favorable reputation even among those who were otherwise sympathetic to his politics. I do not doubt any of the nice things that have been said about him here nor presume to assert that my and my friends’ experiences of him were in any way representative of who he “actually was.” I didn’t know him nearly well enough to make such a determination. Still, I do think that any praise for his virtues needs to be given alongside a full and accurate acknowledgment of his flaws. Whatever else can be said about him, he was often needlessly and recklessly hateful, abusive, and cruel to scores of people he barely knew—people who never did anything to him but criticize or disagree with his views. This happened; whether large or small, it is part of his legacy too. Many people he hurt are glad he’s gone; it would be heinously dishonest to assume that none of them have legitimate reasons to feel that way.

and also obviously, you are not being completely honest about a lot of stuff either. hiding behind anon while you take potshots. fantastic tell about your character.
sure a! would've been amused at the love fest. he would also have appreciated it. he understood that timing is part of context, which is a huge part of things that happen. the idea that he was "abusive" is just bullshit, or is defining "abuse" in such a way that totally trivializes it.
your half-assed weigh-in about "the people who hated him" is no more reflective of who he was, and is more mean-spirited, than the comments from people who are just mourning him.
nice that the haters have you to represent them though.

i went back and looked at the emails we exchanged, definitely tried to be about as nice as he could be, i've always suspected him of being arrogant as a lot of the people on here seem to, but "abusive" makes him sound worse than he was. A lot of his style was the use of his own hostility. If he was really overall such a nasty person, then people wouldn't be saying so much about what he added, even if only a little, to their lives.

I certainly can't blame people for not liking him. Nothing wrong with being glad or apathetic someone is gone, I mostly just find this to be a pretty monumental event for everyone who was involved in his projects. I told him that i was more interested in the people who are anarchists rather than anarchist philosophy, he seemed to feel the same way, was such a huge fan boy. I'm gonna just stop talking about him now out of respect for the people who knew him more closely as friend, family, enemy.

My experiences are my own. Yours are yours. Even A! was civil or even kind to most people most of the time, this does not change the fact that he was fucking monstrously awful to some people some of the time. If abusive means going out of your way to harm someone for no good reason, then he was definitely abusive in that sense, even if it was a deviation from his character. What people choose to make of that fact—including denying it—is up to them. I’m not a “hater” and I’m not trying to
invalidate other peoples’ feelings and experiences. If you want to invalidate mine, please be my guest. I’m still sorry for your loss.

He would have made an excelĺent troll.RIP


what is it that compels a person to enter into a conversation, where people are mourning/sharing mostly fond memories of someone who just died, and be a complete dick about it?

sure, your experience is your own, but perhaps there's a time and place for being a total dick about things and now/here is definitely not it.

Why not? It is precisely the sort of thing A! would do.

It is very much not. He's talked about this sort of thing before publicly, about how despite his reputation he did not throw sucker punches. That A! was an undoubtedly a jerk at times does not mean that he believed in a carte blanche to engage in any sort of behavior. Just listen to the last episode of The Brilliant if you want to hear it from his own lips. And there's a world of difference between ribbing and poking fun, and bad faith attacks on someone who is unable to defend themselves.

i am one of those who are indifferent to his passing. i can attest that on many occasions he was indeed needlessly cruel, and while i too cringe at the cavalier invocation of "abuse" when no specific examples are offered, i can also attest to his cruelty going overboard. this is perhaps what 14:03 means by "abuse." irrational hostility? yep. pettiness? definitely. mean-spirited? you bet. dishonesty? not too much of a stretch. i've been on the receiving end of all of that from the big man. he behaved that way to people he barely knew, and to people he had known for years. and guess what? i'm guilty of those things as well. as you probably are 14:03. he was generous with his time and attention, and cruel with his unnecessary hostility, and could turn from the former to the latter at the speed of light. but that doesn't take away from his influence on american anarchism from the 2000s. so celebrate his generosity but also remember his petty vindictiveness. like i said, i'm indifferent to his passing; he was dead to me years ago.

I'm just glad that i still have a bunch of episodes of "The Brilliant" so i can listen to one today while they archive his -- BRILLIANT work!

Conflict is not abuse, being snarky or a dick in a podcast is not abuse.

We should talk about Aragorn! as the full person that he is, but also know a lot of people are mourning right now and not be so reckless with the words we throw around.

Indiscriminately hurting or harming people for no good reason is abuse. The people he did that to probably aren’t mourning.

just offering my thoughts and reflecting, however, when you say that "this person is abusive", you are neglecting that human relationships are a two way street, so leveling that accusation puts the whole burden on the "perpetrator", and you are relieving it all from the "victim".

Don't be mistaken though, there are certainly times when someone is a dickhead abuser, i reserve that for some pretty monstrous and disgusting behaviors. Like for example, the other night i was hanging out with some street urchins from town for the hell of it, there was one couple, the guy just kept calling her fat repeatedly, obviously as a form of mind control and domination, that to me is abuse, not someone said something mean once or hostilities were exchanged.

There is that spot between good and evil, and that is real life. I have abused people before with my sharp tongue and hatred, but it was a way for me to learn not to do that in the future.

Well, any real nihilist would regard their own passing as an insignificant microscopic event on the broad cosmic canvas of Time and Being. I myself would expect my body to be unceremoniously placed under a log for the eternal worm or lowered into an infinite sea, with maybe a short sentence uttered, --- He was born, he lived, and he is gone.

you can’t one-up a nihilist, you can’t one-down either, because they are zero

fuck. rarely am i speechless. wrapping my head around emotions this intense takes me time. i’m sure i’ll eventually distill my feelings into something more meaningful, but for now. fuck. i cannot even imagine how deeply ravaging this is for those of you who had Aragorn! in their daily lives. i love Aragorn! the hole will be huge, personally, and his voice and activities in the larger anarchist world. sorry for my emotional bluntness, the anarchist space didn’t deserve him, his time and energy, his dedication…..and i can’t help but feel resentful towards it and how it treated him. for me, he pushed me to be more critical, taught me that passion and intuition can not be the only motivation, that critical analysis and historical context were vital, and that morality and ideology were as much our enemy as the state and capitalism……yes he was anti-leftist…..without apologies. and despite what most claim, there are not many of us remaining who are authentically anti-left, or that truly take this reality for the non-reformable horror that it is. he wasn’t running in a popularity contest, he was trying to flesh out what it means to be an anarchist at the end of the world. i wish more people could see this, without becoming dishonest and defensive, maybe in time they will. i wish i was able to spend more time with him, but i’m glad we had more occasions over the past few years, and especially his last visit here this winter. i wish he was able to carve out more time for himself and those he loved. i wish he was better able to disengage from those not worth his time…..and to those who will use this devastation as a way to push their fucked up agendas and petty issues…..fuck off!

Aragorn!, your black mark has been made in a huge way on anarchy….and i loved to laugh with you. thank you.

with love and respect

well said, rotn.

Some of this comment section reminds me of the people that got super upset when others mentioned kobe bryant was a rapist after he died. They were like "reeeee stop being a dick and a hater" and engaged in a lot of mental masturbation for why mentioning it is being a dick. Same thing happening here. The hero worship of Aragorn here is just weird.

Are you seriously incapable of seeing the difference between "hero worship" and grief, and understanding the distinction between talking about a public figure in your own circles vs. jumping into a discussion where people are mourning someone they cared about to tell them "Well, actually...!"? Or is your head just shoved so far up your ass that you care more about being Right(tm) than the well being of actual people involved in the discussions happening?

i'm still indifferent to his death, but i don't see any hero worship. i see people struggling with their feelings of loss and grief. they prefer to remember the best parts of when and how they learned something important from him about themselves and/or about the world. they are expressing what they are already missing and won't be able to recapture. it's usually called appreciation, honor, and love, and even though it's not for me, it's natural and understandable. it's the beginning of an acceptance of loss.

is totally fair.
people bringing up conflicts with him as if they were all his fault, as if that's all they got from him, as if they have to represent the nameless masses who were bullied, when that IS NOT TRUE, is bullshit.
he hurt people's feelings, and he was sometimes mean, he had an amazing ability to pinpoint people's softest spots. some people felt incapable of learning from his skewers. but how one frames those interactions is just as (more?) significant than whatever he did, as if he acted in a vacuum.
he wanted people to be strong. he acted like they were strong. sometimes they understandably didn't feel like being strong. easier to blame him than to accept their own agency, their own capacity to frame events.

He was around for a long, long time, in a milieu that tends to eat people up. And he put up with us, while we put up with him. Maybe nobody involved s a hero, but taking a few days to talk about one of the @ constants of the last few decades probably isn't that weird.

I didnt believe it when I first read it. It didn't register. I thought it was some kind of prank.
This is all very sad. I am sorry for those who were close to him.
I met him on a number of occasions and found him quite warm. I never quite understood what he meant when he declared that people didnt like him because he was mean. I found him annoying and immature when it came to political differences. But I will always be grateful for his presence even if I wished he had stepped back a bit to make his contributions and conflicts clearer and to allow people to make their own mistakes.
Some years ago I wrote an essay criticizing him amongst others. I have moved on from some of what I wrote in that essay while sticking to other parts of it. I often had a bad feeling that I might have somewhat unintentionally contributed to the wave of leftist purge that came some years later with the attassa drama even though I think he made a terrible mistake getting involved with that nonsense.
RIP aragorn!
May we one day produce the kind of cultural shifts and devastating blows you hinted towards as your inspiration.

This is so sad, I remember staying at his place way back in the 00s talking about queer theory and nihilist feminism. I'm really torn up by this.

I'm to the point of starting to think about what is already not getting done because A! isn't here doing it, even if it's just making sure that the shit is properly stirred. That's probably a stage or something...

you had plenty of time while he was alive to work out your shit with him, to call him names, to say what you had to say, to get over being butthurt, whatever.
waiting until now to come here is shitty. go celebrate with your friends that he's dead. this is not the space for that.
thecollective member .4

I would have liked to reply to Matt Lucas' moral lesson on how you don't have lasting friendships when you live a life of abuse and alienation, because that doesn't make you right. But then I look at several people I've know personally in my life who were completely dishonest, power-hungry, abusive and alienated people, and they got sooo many friends that last for long, and this made my faith in humanity reach new lows.

So I think you're wrong, Matt. What makes someone good is what they do... their behavior are revealing of their personal flaws and problems.

Manipulative and deceitful cowards are a thing, too.

RIP Aragorn.
I never actually spoke to you, but I will miss the public fighting-by-proxy we had, and I'm sad that we'll never have the ceasefire I had kinda hoped we might someday. You probably don't know how much you influenced us fake nihilist, cliquey oogles, and if you did, you probably wouldn't be happy about it.

I remember that time when Aragorn opened the pod bay doors for me -- when HAL wouldn't.

But seriously, a lot of people may not realize how important Aragorn's publishing projects were. He gave the most obscure, off-beat, marginalized anarchist authors a chance to be read. Just look at the LBC titles, it's a who's who of who's that? No name authors plucked from obscurity and given a voice, probably for the first time in their lives. Aragorn also distributed books and pamphlets you can't find anywhere else (like Desert). Aragorn even helped several anarchist books get translated into English, or given updated newer versions (like Wolfie's translation of Stirner). There must also be a treasure trove of old anarchist posters, pamphlets, literature, buttons, stickers, etc of historical value from the Bay area in Aragorn's possession. Someone with knowledge of the value of this stuff needs to carefully go through it and preserve what they can.

I also hope someone will carry on the legacy of LBC.

RIP Aragorn.


At first, this made me lol at the idea of a "Bay Area Museum of Anarchy", with Aragorn's collection as the starting collection... but then I realized it's a great idea! Is there a space in the area where this could be done?

And DO IT.

A!'s projects have been so important to me. They gave me a feeling of community when I had none, and have been immensely influential in my anarchy. The time I met him at a bookfair he was kind and curious, and in subsequent interactions I always appreciated his way of teasing out ideas and not relying on jargon and obscure contexts.
I have spent the past couple days collecting all the Anarchy Bang and The Brilliant episodes I could locate, which you can find at and I'm still uploading some episodes and I need to edit the metadata but the collections are mostly complete. Hopefully they can be of use to people. Rest in peace Aragorn! you will be missed.

thank you. would you be able to do the anews podcasts too? a!'s TOTW discussions on there were always great.

if anyone knows any other podcasts that a! appeared on regularly please let us know

still tryin' to figure out this meme.

damn. it's been a while and tons of stuff that has your footsteps.
nway, thanks for the friendship from oceans apart.
will definitely miss making fun of the lefties & laughing hysterically.

onward to a! projects! long live anarchy!

As a general rule, I don’t do death on the internet, but you were very much a man of the internet, for all your luddic anti-civness so much of your life was lived on screens and in code. You lived tension and contradiction. You reveled in it. You showed me new ways to embrace tension, to live with it and overcome the pathological desire for resolution, to own it so it can’t own me, that life is madness and we’re all broken and of course the things we read believe and imagine and the physical cultural social realities we inhabit are in conflict, they will always be in conflict, and we are always in revolt. Let the religionists struggle, let us heretics revolt! Destroy everything! You showed me new ways of engaging deeply with texts rather than simply reading them. You showed me new and exciting ways into the situationist labyrinth, and how their project still lives on. You helped me to craft a vision of nihilism divorced from the 19th century western european enlightenment ideology that was rebranded in an eastern european context, or from the modernist pessimism of cigaret smoking frenchmen, one that rejected that article of faith that a revolution was possible or even desirable, and recognized that the same monolithic order that gave us such notions as justice and morality also gave us prisons and nukes, that total freedom means we must destroy everything. You occupied a role in my psyche the way you did for all the other lost twenty somethings that found our way to the reading group and the publishing project, all the fatherless hot headed theory nerd fuck bois who made our home somewhere in your orbit, a role that was never comfortable to acknowledge much less talk about, but you did, despite any pretense of being peers and collaborators and accomplices you were always a father figure, and as such you helped us grow in some ways and stunted us in others, cause you were also just a grown up latchkey kid yourself, an adult child of alcoholics, a man who’d also learned to be a man from some contrived image cobbled together from the men you encountered, living and historical. Your mentorship helped me learn to be driven, to set goals and see them through, and how to think about and conceptualize problems and ideas in ways that interrogate the language and presuppositions with which one frames them. You also represented a living example of a person who could quit the straight edge subculture while retaining the lifestyle. I’d never seen anyone do it before, they all just drank, but probably what you saw on the res impacted you more than any Judge record. The way I think about my own sobriety has been largely impacted by the example you lived, and it’s been almost five years since the last time I lost my mind and shot dope. In a milieu full of sheltered rich kids I like that you and I could bond over being poor kids who knew how to fight. You taught me the right way to wrap my hands, you showed me how to hook off my jab, and how to throw a proper muay thai roundhouse kick, for years i’ve been unable to ever kick a heavy bag without hearing you telling me again and again ‘turn your hip over, more, all the way over’. Last year I cried when I read your new book. I cried cause you write like you speak, and the way you speak is beautiful, and i missed hearing you speak, i missed being with you, i cried because i love you and i worried we might just continue drifting, a process i always thought of as temporary, like we’d meet up again to do more than just drink coffee and talk, that there’d again be some tangible project we could share after such a long interval of our lives existing on such different trajectories. Someday when I stopped being too busy to do sound for the podcast, or too busy to help edit books by that weird mystical iconoclastic pedophile. Because for you, friendship was only real if it was projectual. I wish that you’d gotten to be the contemplative old man sitting on a porch in a rocking chair you described when you were talking about your guys’ plans for your post city life, that you had gotten to ‘make southern oregon your project.’ I wish my kids could have known you, that they could have benefited from knowing you the way i have, I wish you could have told little Audrey stories about the woman from whom she got her name. I wish you’d have been more capable of distinguishing between criticism from people who love you and people who don’t, you were so good at protecting yourself by routinely dismissing the one and at sabotaging yourself by reflexively dismissing the other. Your faults and flaws are many, and your strength and brilliance is humbling and intimidating. Even in your absence your specter would loom over me, when I wrote said and did things it was almost always judged against the question of whether or not you would think it’s dumb. It still does, your specter. It always will. Your impact on me is and has been significant, and I’m grateful for that. Thank you for being in my life. I love you.

when you say this:

"...that total freedom means we must destroy everything."

That's anarcho-nihilism! Something i would have never known about if it wasn't for aragorn's efforts! Down with prison society, up with new connections and friendships!

"help edit books by that weird mystical iconoclastic pedophile" You have no entrance into the world of the individualist nihilist if you keep up this morality.

i think he's talking about hakim makes me so curious about who he is, whether he actually hurt any children, how his other intellectual wu-shu played out in a world that's so fucking hostile to people who can't play by the rules so easily

but i can kinda relate to the other stuff the anon was saying, i was saddened by the distance of my love of the people who wrote stuff that inspired me, kinda the problem with books in general, kinda the problem with having an emotional connection to a body of ideas and reaching dead ends of how to let those autonomous ideas continue improving your life. But there is this website, where we can even make nasty and stupid comments during the e-funeral, something i truly respect.

I try to keep it funny, laugh or weep at the comedy and folly of life, Hakim Bey never harmed anyone, rather, he set them free from the restrictions of X-tian morality.

Love and respect.
Heartbroken too.

We fell out about divisive garbage and in our confusion and hatred lost this friend we never really knew but had loved a great deal from the moment we met.

In one of the raids against our collective the cops seized a copy of Aragorn's first zine about nihilism. This took place 15 years ago. In a squat full of zines and books this little pamphlet had been considered dangerous enough to form evidence of conspiracy. After the cops couldn't bring charges we got the zine back in a sealed evidence bag. It didn't stay long inside the bag.

Fuck this world. Burn it all down.
Fuck it all.

expect a large volume of orders when the site returns.

my heart is still hurting. a! you will never be forgotten, not as long as i live.

“If a nazi stabs you, well, freedom of speech” -Aragorn Bang

is your point that he was contradictory or unexpected? that he could almost die from being stabbed by a nazi and still stand by freedom of speech (for lack, as he usually said, of better terminology)? or is it that he mostly only used jargon to mean things that other people didn't expect? or that he consistently challenged activist assumptions and associations (like that talking about stuff is the main/only thing to attack about our enemies)?
or did he actually say those words, and you want someone to explain what he meant?


-The manic poet.

just wondering' coz he would have liked me to have it ;-)

if you want to try coming over in a week, we'll hand you whatever we find.
he'd probably be more embarrassed by a poem collection, anyway. ;)

Aragorn! sure was a kind of villain, but one who did good shit for us the anarcrowd over the years. And it hurts when a good villain dies, just like when heroes die. Now, there's still nice people doing good shit out there, elsewhere in the US, and younger trees will grow out of the fallen tree rotting in the grass. And as usual the DNA will remain forever. Perhaps one day we'll come up with a tech that'll confirm Xian prophecies of everyone being brought back at the end of days using our DNA fingerprints in the Book of Life.

But life still sucks for killing off important "achievers" people when least expected, tho. Life kills! ;)

believe the operative word you were looking for is trickster.

the world is much more complex than marvel movie otherizing (good v bad, or whatever the hell a ‘good villain’ is (can one be a ‘bad’ villain part of the time they’re a ‘good’ villain? what if they don’t even know they’re a villain? frankenstein’s monster didn’t and the mob came anyway), and other reductive logic.

Well said. I'm saddened and drained from observing feeding frenzies on other anarchists.

I met Aragorn in Berkeley on May 2007. I was visiting the U.S from Athens, Greece. A friend had arranged for me to meet him, in order to have a talk on the struggle and exchange ideas. He was so friendly from the beginning! He took me to the Long Haul where I met his comrades and found out about what they were doing there and more generally on the movement in the U.S. He took me to his home and I enjoyed his and his partner's hospitality. We met again after a few years in Athens. He visited us with his partner in Exarchia. They were both amazing.We did together some really great night sessions. We were always discussing passionately. I loved his sense of humour. I appreciated the richness of his ideas even when I disagreed. He dedicated his life to the cause. All those things he did. All those things he was planning to do. For Anarchy. Our times produce a life of fragmentation. I think he was fighting for a unity of experience in our everyday life. He knew that our world is becoming a prison. He wanted us all to be free.

I promised him summer holidays on a beach in a Greek island. There we would have the time to talk about everything. He never came back and I didn't keep my promise. I'll never forget his enthusiasm. I'll never forget his smile. He was a comrade, but mostly I felt him like a friend.

Goodbye my friend. We'll meet again.


you were special to him. a vision of his future. a reminder of his best friend from high school. if i had your contact info, i'd have told you this directly.

RIP from an old friend and comrade... much love..

It was Aragorn! who convinced me to gather up the essays I had published in Green Anarchy, Oystercatcher, etc and compile them into a book. I didn’t know him at the time. He said that my ideas were “very fresh”. An enormous compliment from someone who, I later discovered, was such an original thinker (and one who could effortlessly juggle a multitude of difficult ideas).

The fact that he put so much effort into getting my book organized and prepped for publication and travelled a great distance to experience first hand the intentional community and related projects I was involved with, when he only shared some of my perspectives and probably found my optimism a little difficult to take, contradicts the claim that he was arrogant or intolerant of ideas and practices he disagreed with.

He visited me a few times, most recently last autumn for an episode of ‘the brilliant’. We spent eight or ten hours a day for several days just talking, exchanging ideas, laughing, assessing the contemporary anarchist milieu(s), finding common ground, learning from each other. He was humble, patient, wickedly witty and had a formidable intellect. His passion for the Beautiful Idea was obvious and he was what I call a lifer, someone who is an anarchist for life, not just as a passing phase.

I think that he enjoyed conversation as a sort of martial art - deflecting, attacking, retreating, sometimes tough but often with the graceful fluidity of an experienced opponent, and always in the same joyful spirit of comrades who are just having a spontaneous wrestle in a dojo.

Something that hasn’t come up in these comments was his interest in exploring indigeneity as it relates to anarchy. I believe that he told me he was part of the Anishinaabe family of peoples, so this had an important personal aspect as well.

Thanks for the inspiration and for sharing all those dangerous ideas! RIP Aragorn!

great post!

i, for one read your book sometime around the coldest part of occupy after various camps tried to take buildings and failed. and the conversation around my part of the rust belt shifted into an idea of taking land right in the heart of an all-but-failed city.

the garden is still there, till-free, cobb kitchen (with a roof that collects rain into a filtering drum) and all. it’s not much, but we’re trying to shift the conversation into regenerativism. other little gardens by various folks (including radical priests), and free lending libraries have popped up in the most unpredictable of places.

thanks for the inspiration! and thanks to A! & the LBC crew for publishing such great content!

The last time I got to hang with A! he was selling books in a certain rundown city where I live in the south. After the day's events, I invited him over to have dinner with local comrades at the very large and decrepit collective house we'd spent years fixing up. It was his first time there; we were excited to show it off. When he walked through the front door he took in a deep breath and on the exhale said "Aaahhhh, the olll shithole."

I could praise a lot more than his dry wit, but I'll just leave it at that. RIP to a real one.

Only knew him back in the Mid-West in Michigan, when we were just about out of High School and for sometime after that. Both ended up out in SF Bay Area and thanks to the Book of Face, we made contact (virtual) again. We were not close, we were mostly friendly, but it was those years when we all cut our social skills and I am sure I annoyed him in some way as he was able to annoy me. Never anything personal, just personality clashes and they were low level (I am easy going and have thick skin). I could see that he had a fast and furious brain and I respected that. Besides some conversations one on one in my car driving him home from a show or hanging out at Denny's we didn't know each other on a personal level. No regrets. I think it would have been nostalgia if we had connected out here. Maybe the men we grew into could have connected in a different way and saw what time has done to us. Humm.

I am glad to see many posts here to hear about the ways he touched others lives. Not surprising how many there are and the stories jive with what I knew of him. Thank you all for sharing. Peace be with you.

I wish I could do a Novatore and write something beautiful, but I, like others, am still processing, at a loss for words...

I first learned about Aragorn! when the red anarchists I was around dismissed him and all of AJODA, for predictable red anarchist reasons. This was in the time when Red vs Green seemed to be the big fight and dividing line. Today the language has shifted but I feel a lot of things at the heart of that schism remain. Anyway, it was through his reviews and writing in AJODA, which at times I couldn't fully grok, that I first engaged with his words. He had a voice all his own. In person, it was probably the vegan potluck where I first got a feel for his sense of humor which I will miss. Who was this guy with the best (only good?) straightedge tattoo I have ever seen?! At the study group I found him to be a helpful teacher. As a lifelong quiet person in bigger group settings I think it might have frustrated him and others that I didn't pipe up more. And I appreciated this challenge and subtle prod to participate, whether what I had to say was silly or not. "I've seen this motherfucker around for years and never had a full conversation with them! must be a cop!" lol. I laughed out loud then, and I do now. In the desert we finally had a more full conversation and it was really worthwhile for me. His insights into the social world I was involved in were valuable and I am better for it. He had respect for people doing prisoner support and he and others at LBC were generous with resources for our local group, even if he may have had beef with some of them. In my view he was one of the best minds to come out of the early 90's hardcore (fuck nostalgia though!!!) crucible that spit out some extremely driven, passionate, and committed radicals. I always looked up to you as an oldhead straightedge brother who lived in a way that truly made use of all that undead time.

I want to echo rotN in saying that the anarchist space didn't deserve him and his time and energy, especially these past few years. To the new managers of revolt, the control freaks of anarchist discourse: you can not control anarchy! Disagree, conflict, but you can not dress it up without watering it down!

Mad respect to you for helping to carry the torch of an anarchy that is earth-centered. And for lighting the way to an indigenous anarchy that many of us would do well to consider, grapple with, and take seriously. Just as much respect and love to all those close to you who challenged you as much as you did them, who put in untold amounts of work on shared projects and projectuality. Fuck, I looked forward to all the projects you had in the pipeline, but I am sure they won't all vanish.

When the sun sets Raccoon Fortune meets with the other Raccoon people and says "I could never do it alone. I collect your stories, the stories of our friends, and I share them with strangers. Some of these strangers join us, some of these strangers learn to appreciate the moonlight but the rest are not our enemies. We must tell them that they are because they are gray or sluggish or unhappy but every one of them could join us, could be our friend. This is our time to take what we can, live well, and wait and see what happens." - Stories of the Raccoon People

Live anarchy now! For a world beyond the gray!

and i even want to apologize if there's any way i've insulted you and the people you care about. Clearly your words didn't die at all.

With great respect for the projects (that has meant a lot for me), and sincere condolences to those close to him.

A mutual friend suggested to me that A! must just be fucking around, and I see he's not the only one to think/hope that. But I think that (as I read into others' comments), I'm also not the only one who ultimately thinks that despite his fierce brilliance, he was actually way too kind to keep it up this long. He could embrace his own violence, but he was really into love. I'll miss you even more now, Aragorn.

How do we trick the google search algorithm so the first result when you Google Murray Bookchin is this picture?

Good riddance. He outed me publicly, after I asked him not to, and he was a patronizing prick.

but yes, he was sometimes a condescending prick, and he frequently disagreed with people about their security concerns.
so i'm leaving this up.
also, you're an asshole and probably stupid, but so are many people.

thecollective member .4

We hung out a few times and saw each other in passing a few more. He was a fun, intense, and amazing person. I'm mourning both the loss of A!, and for the great loss (and failure?) of the milieu. It is such an utterly bizarre situation that I cannot explain to normies these feeling of losing not just a friend, but also a mentor, not to mention the tremendous significance he had as a semi-public figure. My last message to him was to express my disappointment at LBC's absence at a recent local book fair. They were banned, and I gather from A!'s comments on the matter that perhaps I cared too much about all that (it still pisses me off, especially now!). Anyways this loss is devastating! RIP A!

So sad to get this news. He dedicated his life to anarchy, freedom, and love, and I honor him for that.

and a!'s death certificate--the hoaxes of the century...

one way or another, the anons deliver.
but maybe these trolly anons are the real a!-istas, refusing to believe that he could end at all.
i hear that.

what was his legal name?

Right now, I'm just so infuriated with this comment. But in a few months, I can see us laughing about it: "remember when an undercovered cop decided to use A! obituary to demand his documents? Such a stupid asshole"
Of course, because I can not imagine what kind of being would ask these questions besides a cop.

Ok sorry I won't bother you anymore with these silly investigations. As I might be just attacking people who're my friends or could be.

If Aragorn's not real and this was the conclusion of some psyop or whatever, then any evidence will be equally fake by default, so... Shroedinger's Cat.

Let's say I did't know Aragorn personally, just like, probably, any other contributor to this site. People I "meet" or chat with online are to me just assumed, imagined characters.

survival skill, but then asking people online to verify something is somewhat contradictory, especially for anarchists, maybe?
and yes, his parents were hippies and named him aragorn. he eventually embraced it, and claimed the bang. anyone who knew him would recognize that in him. just like his friends understand that asking for memes about his death is entirely consistent with his world view. i'm sorry you never met him. he probably would've enjoyed your stubbornosity.

And thus became the first person in medical history to ever do this? BULLSHIT.

i'm not sure why i'm trying to convince you. silly me.


While we came at life from somewhat different perspectives, I collaborated with Aragorn! on several projects over the last two decades. It was through these that we found affinity and common purpose. My entry to anti-politics was the S.I., which was one of those overlaps. I'm a little older than him and we connected after both of us had been in the Bay for a while.

One of the most fun collective events was a fairly large 2-day meeting in the East Bay in 2003 between post-left anarchists and anti-state communists. There were more shared ideas than differences and it opened the possibilities for even more interactions. My friends and I participated in the BASTARD conferences regularly after that. As mentioned on this threat, another mutually shared passion was humor. Despite our differences and occasional disputes, those could easily be bridged with a collective laugh.

Then, in 2013, the San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair got kicked out of Golden Gate Park and the organizers moved it to the Armory in the Mission District. Many of us found that the mainstream anarchist publishers (like AK and PM) were wielding too much control, so myself, Aragorn! and a few others worked cooperatively to hold an alternative anarchist book fair at several sites nearby. Our events were autonomous and fully inclusive and were the opposite of the orthodox book fair's panels with quasi-celebrity activists schlepping their ideological (usually leftist) commodities. It was another deeply gratifying series of situations.

I will miss Aragorn!'s wicked sense of humor and the connection I had developed with him over the years. I wouldn't call it friendship, as we were never that close, but it was based on mutual respect.

He will be sorely missed.

R.I.P. Aragorn!

A bunch of abuse claims. I’ve seen first hand seen him challenge people when they brought up a book or idea. I’ve seen people lose their shit about it. He was intense, sure. I pride myself in challenging lip service. Y’all weak af.

for the list.

If all these comments ever make it into a book I want the world to know that I taught Aragorn how to use Google AdWords. He thought he was bidding on anarchist book titles but accidentally was having lbc come up for just "anarchy."

pssst, shouldn't the mods start pretending to be sireinzige so nobody catches on that he was one of aragorn's sock puppets?

thx! I try. This is my meme contribution

I think you're onto something, and why A! obviously NEVER mentioned Stirner, but by NEVER mentioning him, actually attracted suspicion of being a crypto-Stirnerian, and the only diehard Stirnerian is Sir Einzige. Makes sense.

WOW, heavy accusation that bears some plausibility. Haven't heard from Leway either, he could have been the lowlife dirty side of a stirnerite anarchist politic?

10/10 best pillow talker. Dammit A! I hate that you're gone. I'd have loved to hear you laugh one more time.

As I said on the twitter the man was a big part of driving niche anarchism and anarchy as an alternative to Reverend Chuck and Ian McKay and his leftist brand of anarchism. Many in the more radical parts of anarchism are not the most organized in terms of bringing information together aragorn was different.

I didn't care for the censorship decisions at the end in regards to anews policy but there are other @sites that would just as well cancel the likes of me. This place has been something of a virtual home for me for 7 years and beyond.

I like to talk about how anarchism and anarchy need a 21st century rebirth beyond 1968 talking points. I'd really hoped that Aragorn would be part of this new discourse and I always egged him on to just break with the current milieu as it exists right now in its activist form. If/when these new developments happen it will be a shame that he will not live to see it as he had represented the better parts of anarchism/anarchy at a low point in the beautiful idea's history. If these new libertarians anarchists and anarchs arise they will probably have read a book or two from LBC.

I and others will see to it that anarchy will have a new and better age beyond this decadent downer period.

Happy travels Aragorn wherever the psychic sentient trail takes you.

Just been chewing the fat with Guy Debord. At last, I'm free and truly being the anarchist I always aspired to be. Now get them memes done.

Nice eulogies to A! don't make you look nicer, IC. You're a bunch of collectivist cowards and the enemy of everything either egoist, anarcho-nihilistic, anti-civ or just freely autonomous.

The line has been marked in the sand, a while back.... Like you know in the ZAD.when your robots facilitated its collapse and snitched, beat up anarchists. You are the State.

Never forgive, never forget.

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