A hatchback pulls up to a bus stop in central Auckland on Monday morning. Reams of paper, shopping bags full of food and a big printer are hurriedly loaded on to the pavement, then relayed through a door, down a set of stairs into a small, spartan gallery space. Two huge leeks teeter on top of the pile.
For the next week Fuzzy Vibes, a gallery on K Rd, will become a newsroom of sorts, humming with a team of urgent writers.
The group works to a set of egalitarian values and although Emil Dryburgh seems to be co-ordinating this first day on the job he can't speak for The Pamphleteers. They're strictly non-hierarchical and the windowless basement they're writing in enhances the Orwellian atmosphere of these young, well turned out revolutionaries. If Dryburgh had a moustache he'd almost resemble Orwell. He certainly sports the same short back-and-sides.
The first publication, titled Gestures, hits the streets right on time. As the writers return to their respective corners of Auckland they distribute the pamphlet as widely as possible.
You might find one on a bus or a train. Perhaps it will appear at a cafe or in your letterbox. Best of all, you may be personally handed one by a pamphleteer in the most traditional style. "This character was common enough 300 years ago, but their presence seems to have dipped now," laments the first essay, Appealing from the Commons. "Little talked about these days, the pamphleteer seems to belong in secret cellars, tucked away with analogue printing presses. Perhaps they're all bloggers now."
