Kopkind Colony

In a year of celestial wonders, August brought two supermoons. Stargazers would have most recently awaited the Blue Moon, which rose on August 30, and is in its last quarter this Labor Day weekend. That’s the waning Sturgeon Moon in the photograph above, taken on August 5, the last night of Kopkind’s ‘camp’ with political journalists and activists. The full moon had risen on August 1, and every night, it seemed, campers were out on the grass behind the house, heads to the sky.

The Sturgeon Moon is named for the giant fresh-water fish that populated the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain for ages and was especially profuse in late summer, when it was a major part of the regional Native American diet. It is rarer now, a casualty of industrial overfishing in the 19th century and habitat degradation. Endangered, it persists, plying the waters, stirring the lake bottoms with its whiskers for food. The name sturgeon derives from several old European languages, meaning ‘the stirrer.’

An apt name for a moon during a gathering of people who stir it up. Marlon Becerra was one of them. Jeff Sharlet took this picture as some of us sat around a fire after Jeff had given a public talk about his latest book, The Undertow. Based mostly on reporting on the grassroots militarized right, the book is an act of witness and a warning. The talk was as well, but it also honored persistence on the left: the certainty of conflict, the tradition of struggle, the good fight. We will have more to say down the road about this year’s cohort, which collectively was remarkable for both its gamesome spirit and adamant determination to shape a humane future. And also about our wonderful film camp, with the Center for Independent Documentary, which ran July 16 – 23.

On August 6, people headed home. Marlon, a recent graduate of Harvard Law, drove back to Queens to be in time to meet with his class of Heroes Academy, a school he started in a public park during the pandemic, which teaches local kids math, SAT skills, life skills, chess, first aid… The subject of Freedom Schools had come up frequently during the week of discussions, their history of enhancing practical skills and political consciousness, the contemporary possibilities. Marlon got to ponder these things on the highway home.

Much gratitude to everyone who made the summer possible! And greetings of solidarity on Labor Day!