Loompanics, R.I.P.

Jesse Walker | January 17, 2006

Loompanics Unlimited, the self-proclaimed "lunatic fringe of the libertarian movement," is going out of business. That's sad news for those of us who always enjoyed perusing the company's catalog, which reads like a D.I.Y. guide on crystal meth -- the list of titles published under the Loompanics imprint ranges from How to Start Your Own Country to How to Rip Off a Drug Dealer. I'll certainly miss it: As a publisher and as a bookseller, Loompanics was the go-to joint for tomes on radicalism, survivalism, and what the catalog itself described as "weird ideas."

They sold my book, too. Make of that what you will.

Comments

|1.17.06 @ 6:26PM|#

That's because they are horrible at advertising and self-promotion. We haven't received a catalog in years.

fyodor|1.17.06 @ 6:27PM|#

We need the government to step in and protect businesses like this!!

Ha ha.

|1.17.06 @ 6:39PM|#

Targeting a never growing .0001% of the population is a rough way to make a living. I feel for Reason that way, too.

|1.17.06 @ 6:41PM|#

That's because they are horrible at advertising and self-promotion. We haven't received a catalog in years.

Seems like an opportunity for an enterprising individual.

|1.17.06 @ 6:44PM|#

Market failure!

|1.17.06 @ 6:47PM|#

Hmmm. Looks like my Roadkill Cookbook is going to be a collector's item. Ebay here I come.

|1.17.06 @ 7:26PM|#

I wonder who is going to buy the rights to publish their books

|1.17.06 @ 7:50PM|#

Maybe you could trying selling your book at church meetings--the Church of Satan, that is.

|1.17.06 @ 7:52PM|#

This is crazy. A recovering adict/dealer friend of mine once gave me their information because they gave him tips on how to bake better (he was wasted out of his mind at the time). But the information he gave me never worked. Now I see all the misspellings he slipped in. Might have helped me discover libertarianism about 6 years earlier.

|1.17.06 @ 7:58PM|#

This is your last chance to get Principia Discordia!

Hail Eris!

tomWright|1.17.06 @ 8:02PM|#

A good thing, IMHO.

If Libertarians are ever going to be taken seriously, we need to dump groups like Loompanics, and candidates like Badnarik, as nice a guy as he may be.

We need to get back to candidates with some chops, like Hospers, MacBride, Clark, Berglund and Paul. It has been all downhill since then.

The problem is, I suspect the LP is damaged goods at this point, and is a lost cause.

Jesse Walker|1.17.06 @ 8:17PM|#

If it makes you feel any better about them, Tom, Loompanics also published a book called Against the Concept of a Libertarian Party (or something like that).

|1.17.06 @ 8:27PM|#

Happily, however, AMOK is still in business. I believe I read somewhere that copies of The 4th Dispatch were selling online at multiples of the original price.

|1.17.06 @ 8:36PM|#

Heh. I remember when San Francisco's only libertarian bookstore went out of business and thinking that they picked a pretty tough locality to serve.

Still a shame, though. I loved those catalogs.

|1.17.06 @ 8:54PM|#

Loompanics and bradford dead -- things may be looking up for the non-crank/human yet still decently radical wing of the libertarian movement -- now Vinny S. needs to croak...

|1.17.06 @ 10:08PM|#

Anyone know whether they accept e-gold? I mean, they should and all. But I don't get paid till Friday and I don't use credit cards (can't get my head around the concept of paying extra to spend money you can't guarantee you'll have when the bill comes).

|1.17.06 @ 10:45PM|#

"This is your last chance to get Principia Discordia!"

Yeah. And your last chance to get my very favorite: How To Break Into Pro Wrestling.

Ken Layne|1.17.06 @ 11:31PM|#

Small booksellers (online or off) have a hard time going it alone when Amazon offers pretty much everything online and people (like me) prefer to one-click buy on a site I know without having to enter billing and shipping and credit card info again and again.

But there are lots of little booksellers I frequent through the Amazon merchants thing. I maybe didn't know about the individual merchants at first, but after a few years of finding so-and-so in Las Vegas or such-and-such little store in Colorado often has the out-of-print stuff I seek, I've learned to go to those merchants first.

It was great to learn Alibris actually shipped from a warehouse about 3 miles from me in Nevada, btw. The 10-day ground shipping takes about 24 hours, free.

amazingdrx|1.17.06 @ 11:37PM|#

There's always http://www.edenpress.com/

Pure evil.

|1.18.06 @ 12:10AM|#

Ah Loompanics! They published my very favorite book on ethics: The Myth of Natural Rights.

|1.18.06 @ 12:38AM|#

This is your last chance to get Principia Discordia!

Ahem, you can buy it from Steve Jackson Games.

|1.18.06 @ 12:45AM|#

Poor Man's James Bond, Anarchist's Cookbook, Nuclear War Survival Skills...Loompanics rocked. Sail on, oh ship of state...

The Wine Commonsewer|1.18.06 @ 1:26AM|#

I have an original 1st edition of the much maligned Anarchist Cookbook.

I always assumed that Loompanics was somehow tied to Bradford. Jesse?

It's been years since I've seen a Loompanics catalogue but didn't they also carry stuff like:

Vice is Nice But Incest Is Best (put your sister to the test)

Mike Laursen|1.18.06 @ 1:41AM|#

San Francisco still has an anarchist bookstore, Bound Together. It's a collective (of course!) and located on Haight Street (where else!). They carry quite a few Loompanics-worthy books.

The Wine Commonsewer|1.18.06 @ 2:03AM|#

I was just wondering if Laissez Faire Books counts as a San Francisco libertarian book store.

|1.18.06 @ 3:44AM|#

That's a drag, I bought a few books from them and always got some entertainment value out of their catalogs. Kind of reminds me of when the Factsheet Five faded away...

Jesse Walker|1.18.06 @ 8:51AM|#

I always assumed that Loompanics was somehow tied to Bradford. Jesse?

Mike Hoy (founder of Loompanics) and Bill Bradford were friends back in Michigan, and Hoy followed Bill to Port Townsend after the Bradfords moved there and reported it excellent. Then they had a falling out. During the time I worked for Liberty (and living about a block and a half from the Loompanics headquarters), they weren't speaking to each other. I'm told that changed a few years after I left.

|1.18.06 @ 11:36AM|#

They sold my book, too. Make of that what you will.

Posted by Jesse Walker at January 17, 2006 06:25 PM

"Don't Touch That Dial, or, The Triumph of the Grumps: One Reason Why People Tire of Freedom"
by Tim Virkkala

so, is your real name Jesse Walker or Tim Virkkala?

The Wine Commonsewer|1.18.06 @ 11:51AM|#

Thanks Jesse.

Tom, good points all. I also got that greasy ewwwwwwwwww feeling whenever I touched the Lommpanics catalogue. It eventually stopped showing up years and years ago. Never asked why.

The saving grace with respect to your points is that very few have ever heard of Loompanics let alone seen it. And to further identify it as explicitly libertarian might have been difficult for the non-believers (although, those same people didn't have any trouble connecting--falsely--Lyndon LaRouche to the LP).

Libertarian ideas have gained a respect that they never had thirty years ago. Part of that respect has come because the outside world now sees us as ordinary people with mortgages & families and not as long-haired, drug-crazed, gun-toting, anarchists with no visible means of support.

Mike Laursen|1.18.06 @ 11:52AM|#

I think Laissez Faire Books may have moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. I just called their old San Francisco phone number and it's out of service.

|1.18.06 @ 12:00PM|#

"Don't Touch That Dial, or, The Triumph of the Grumps: One Reason Why People Tire of Freedom"
by Tim Virkkala is as near as I can tell a review of Jesse Walker's Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America.

From the article:

"....I was reading a new book, Jesse Walker's Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America."

The Wine Commonsewer|1.18.06 @ 12:34PM|#

Mike, thanks. I really need to get out more. I can see why LF books might have moved, last time Mrs TWC stopped in, as she went to get in her car she was confronted by a guy taking a dump in the street.

The Wine Commonsewer|1.18.06 @ 12:40PM|#

Just went to the LFB site and sure enough, they've moved to Little Rock. But, I digress, there's a nice write-up at the site about Roy Childs. Worth a read (scroll down when you get there).

tomWright|1.18.06 @ 1:30PM|#

Well, I just took advantage of the sale and ordered a bunch o' stuff cheaper than B&N or Amazon would have sold it. History of Gunpowder, Jacob Sullums book, lots more.

LFB was bought a few years back, but I originally thought it had been boght by F.E.E., but not so. Read the history at the link TWC just posted

|1.18.06 @ 2:36PM|#

So, TWC, how exactly does one confront someone while taking a .. um .. dump.

I'll take the response off the air.

Dax|1.18.06 @ 9:26PM|#

Loompanics may be going bye-bye, but the venerable DAX remains at www.daxfax.com. Use PIN #556616 when asked.