“Anti-social behavior – the new lycanthropy

The concept of Society had been getting into trouble for some time, then late one evening – as the shadows lengthened across the playing fields – Society vanished on her way home. The police couldn’t find her, neither alive nor dead (but Society had always got on their nerves).

Cheeky though she was, and Society was always answering back, she was never really bad. […] Society’s body was never found. […] In her place, goody-goody Community was creeping around the parents and teachers, repeating all of her lessons as if they were true…”

I’m a bad bad correspondent, this came out in July but I’ve only just found it in a pile of mail. The EPA were one of the strangest and strangely compelling of the “groups” haunting the 1990s small press underground. Along with the Neoist Alliance, the London Psychogeographical Association (East London Section) and countless others, they’d disseminate excellent newsletters which would rip a hole in your preconceived notions of space and time – all over breakfast.

Their earliest newsletters concerned themselves with the disappearance of a certain Dr Mintern who was last seen investigating the concept of landscape in the construction known by some as “Wessex”. Mintern had found that the landscape was actually on stilts and had then vanished into the underchalk. His discoveries were used as a way of attacking various poets in “Wessex” who were attempting to shield people from the fact that the landscape was entirely artificial by romanticising it.

The latest issue concerns itself with childhood vs adulthood (which is to my mind the key factor in the current furore about “anti-social behaviour”). Adulthood is seen here as loss. The subject is examined through the prism of the psychogeography of Camberwick Green and its residents’ commitment to “the old ways” of witch burning.

There are some great sideswipes at Gerald Gardner and the “serious” wiccans of The Pagan Federation – although these could actually be read as celebrations by people who don’t take themselves too seriously.

This is the best thing I’ve read in ages and if this review has even slightly interested you, then I would urge you to get hold of your own copy.

Copies of the Listening Voice are available for an SAE from The EPA, 33 Hartington Road, Southampton SO14 0EW. You are strongly recommended to subscribe by sending 6 2nd class stamps to the same address.