Kopkind Colony

“Before we can build a new world, we must untether the system from our own heads,” Tony Eskridge wrote before coming to Kopkind this summer. At 24, he was deeply involved working on the Poor People’s Campaign as an organizer with the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice in Memphis, Tennessee. What is the conventional frame around the realities of this world and the range of possibilities on offer? What does that frame confine? What does it omit? How to broaden it, break the frame, see differently? A fresh sense of possibility. A new horizon. Untethering the system from our own heads. That is a big part of Kopkind’s work.

This Giving Tuesday, please remember Kopkind if you can. We feed the future — for solidarity, for liberation.

Tony joined nine other activists or journalists from around the country for a week of seminar discussions, informal talks, special guests, rejuvenating vistas and activities. Our theme was The War on Youth. But along with sharing experience and analysis, we stoke freedom dreams. Before he left, Tony wrote us a note:

“It’s hard to capture in words what a wonderful week this has been. My fellow campers, in such a short span of time, feel like comrades and real connections that we can always draw from. They are such brilliant, loving and committed people; they’ve brought out the best in me. It almost feels like a snapshot of the beloved community we are trying to build. Endless appreciation to everyone who worked so hard so I could spend time being present … We are in a Kairos moment, a time of grand crises but also a time of grand opportunity. I look forward to continuing to build this movement with you all. Forward Together, Not One Step Back!”

Endless appreciation to all friends, supporters, alumni, guests, collaborators, fellow workers and other interlocutors as Kopkind enters its 25th year.

The Donate button is above. You can also send a check to Kopkind, 158 Kopkind Road, Guilford VT 05301. Thank you!

Fierce, funny, brilliant, argumentative, perceptive, pioneering, sharpening, gentle, greathearted, gay, radically original … Today we honor John Scagliotti, our founder and administrator, 75 years on the planet this November 14.

His trail-blazing work in lgbtq media is well-known, beginning with The Lavender Hour (radio), on to Before Stonewall (documentary film) and In The Life (television), with many more films, from the earliest, Stuff of Dreams, to the most recent, Before Homosexuals. His analyses of (and anecdotes from) the 1960s antiwar and early gay liberation movements, of cultural politics, of the possibilities for a left that is ‘multi’ in all the ways that real life is experienced and a generous freedom imagined, have enlivened kitchen tables and group meetings; the pages of magazines, the lecture halls of colleges and the work of so many who for so long have had the pleasure of his conversation. His understanding of visuals and sound and the relationship between emotion and meaning — and his crystallization of those in constructive advice — has encouraged younger filmmakers for decades. “I will forever be John’s mentee!”, Desireena Almorade, a wonderful documentarian who got her start at In The Life, wrote in our book after participating in this past summer’s Kopkind/CID Film Camp.

On this day, we also honor the beauty of love, which, as manifest in John’s union with Andy Kopkind, moved so many of us. And the power of an idea which, whether conveyed in media or blossomed in the magic of Kopkind’s summer project, has inspired countless people to say, “You have changed my life.”

Here’s to the example of a lavish love, a memorable phrase, a joke when you need it most, an imagination to the stars, a life-so-far that contains multitudes. Happy Birthday and thank you, John!

To everyone reading this: you are most welcome to remember John’s 75th birthday with a gift to Kopkind (the Donate button is on the top bar here). And because we all need a moment of joy, however hard the times, here is a song to lift every internationalist, rococo, fabulous beating heart.