"Command Performance" No. 156
The Arthur Magazine Email Bulletin
July 21, 2009
Arthur on paper: magazine resumes publication Autumn, 2009!
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Hey you lovely loons,
The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century takes place tomorrow (Wednesday, July 22). The path of totality crosses many major cities, setting the stage for possibly the best-observed eclipse in human history, or so we're told by spacewather.com. More on the totality here:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/20jul_longestsolareclipse.htm
Whoa: is it possible to not be interested in unreleased PINK FLOYD jamming in BBC studio during Apollo 11 lunar landing coverage in 1969??? Hear "Moonhead" on YouTube (with visuals from later lunar landing) and read the story behind it via recent David Gilmour interview at The Guardian and a piece on NYT blog here:
http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/20/pink-floyd-jamming-in-bbc-studio-during-apollo-11-coverage
"Dance is a bodily mantra. It was once the way people reached godliness. And we still do."
—Yoko Ono on twitter last week
People want to dance, they just need permission sometimes. Check this video, filmed during M.I.A.-alike Santigold's recent set at the recent Sasquatch festival, where a single liberated goofball on good drugs is able to get a good time happening up in the nosebleed section: http://bit.ly/16bQaX
"The yeti loves to drink Schnapps too": check out this 50-minute video of a lecture by brilliant German psychonaut/ethnobotanist Christian Ratsch on “Psychoactivity: The Fountain of Culture”: http://bit.ly/Lnv4Y
Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein is blogging about her ongoing, honest attempt to get into Phish. (Maybe Schapps would help? Or that awesome gay yoga instructor just back from Sasquatch? Just typing aloud here...) http://www.npr.org/blogs/monitormix/
"Early Persian": Arthurmag blog contributor Ian Nagoski on 78rpm-era Iranian music on the web: http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/19/early-persian-78rpm-er-iranian-music-on-the-web/
Retrospective for *extremely* political radical filmmaker ROBERT KRAMER is on now now NOW at Anthology in NYC. Amen. Info: http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/17/nyc-the-films-of-robert-kramer-retrospective-begins-tonight-at-anthology/
Arthur is now on Facebook and kinda digging it. Our Page is here: facebook.com/thearthurmag
"Life, Inc" author and Arthur columnist Douglas Rushkoff was on Colbert last week attempting, in his words, "to argue for alternatives to a corporatist society." Did he succeed? Watch it here: http://bit.ly/ui6DR
"Unemployment for American 16-19-year-olds is 24 percent, up from 16.1 percent two years ago.... Internships available to college students have fallen 21 percent since last year." Recent report in the New York Times:
http://bit.ly/eu41t
"When we have nothing to say, it is very hard to say nothing.
When we have nothing to do, it is very hard to do nothing."
—Robert Fripp
How to easily exploit corporations — a conversation with Danish corporation SUPERFLEX from Arthur's Jan 2005 issue: http://bit.ly/d2mMy
New York City apartment buildings becoming rent-free (squatter?) zones as landlords go into foreclosure, stop maintenance, stop collecting rent... Read the NYT article here: http://bit.ly/jqyj0
"This is the size of my reality”: short doc on the life and art of super-inspiring innovator/visionary/life-force Gemma Taccogna, by her granddaughter: http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/14/short-doc-on-the-life-and-art-of-gemma-taccogna/
Tons of stuff is being posted regularly on the Arthurmag blog now. Each day, Arthur contributor Andy Folk does a post adapted from the Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints, spotlighting important counter-culture heroes born or died on the day, as well as historical events, the day's holidays-festivals around the world and what have ya, outfitted with approprioate links and vid clips and so on. So, fer instance, if you were to visit our blog (or be alerted to it via the Twitter feed or the Facebook page), you'd know that today's Jubilee Saint is HART CRANE, gay American modernist poet and cultural pariah, who was born this date in 1899. You'd learn that today is Cap Breton in Canada, when Scottish Clans gather for festivities and the election of chieftains for the next year. Yesterday's Saint was NAM JUNE PAIK, Korean Neo-Dadaist video artist and Fluxus member.
Also now, daily, on the Arthur blog: we're posting essential, foundational documents produced by and about the San Francisco Diggers, who were in many ways the epicentral actors in the Haight-Ashbury during the epic, wildly imaginative period from late '66 through '67. The Diggers' ideas and activities are essential counter-cultural history, sure, but they are also especially relevant to the current era, for reasons that should be obvious to the gentle Arthur reader. Most of the documents that we are presenting are broadsides originally printed on a Gestetner machine owned and operated in the Haight by the novelist Chester Anderson and his protege/sidekick Claude Hayward, using the name "Communication Company," or more commonly, "ComCo." These sheets were then distributed along the Haight on telephone polls, walls, and in windows. Here's what we've posted so far:
Diggers Papers No. 8 (Jan 1967)—TRIPS tips: "Sequoias as old as the moon and as tall as Jesus. Drop acid before the bus leaves the station. Go in the morning. Stay all day. Bring lunch, but not incense. Pray and be joyous there." http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/21/diggers-papers-no-8-the-air-smells-green/
Diggers Papers No. 7: Two posters advertising the January 14, 1967 “Human Be-In” at Golden Gate Park, which featured a principal Digger—poet/dancer/visionary Lenore Kandel—on the stage, plus a write-up for the event by journalist/novelist/poet Chester Anderson, an evocative piece of writing about the day, and representative of how the Diggers were thinking about the free, public events they were bringing into reality: http://bit.ly/fQJl5
Diggers Papers No. 6—"Busted": http://bit.ly/PumpT
Diggers Papers No. 5— “The Digger Office Is Now Open”/Historical Diggers, a double-sided mission statement doc: http://bit.ly/cmlFK
Diggers Papers No. 4: "Second Notice," regarding an impending "festival of busts" by The Man...: http://bit.ly/13sdMb
Diggers Papers No. 3 "Storm Warning": http://bit.ly/3zhGRo
Diggers Papers No. 2: "The Diggers state simply...": http://bit.ly/49lqN5
Diggers Papers No. 1: "The Communication Company announces its presence/mission in Haight-Ashbury, 1967": http://bit.ly/SHCBU
Arthur comix editor Jason Leivian writes: "Matthew Hawkins is a UK based illustrator who has done work in the music, fashion, and design industries. He has been published in various art magazines and has also produced limited edition prints of his work. The following illustrations are from a 2008 series of post apocalyptic narratives titled First Aid For The Injured....
http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/16/first-aid-for-the-injured-by-matthew-hawkins/
"Chiu Kwong Man is an artist living in the UK who has been published in a number of international anthologies. Flood’s A Coming was originally published in issue 2 of Ink Soup. His abstract narratives often take on allegorical meanings, rich with surreal and mythological symbolism...
http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/14/floods-a-coming-by-chiu-kwong-man/
"An excerpt from Bwana Spoons' new Forest Island book—a monograph of paintings, comics, mushroom hunters, bagel eating vampire bats, exhibitions and illustration work":
http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/10/new-release-welcome-to-forest-island-by-bwana-spoons/
New untitled poem by Angela Jaeger: http://bit.ly/Sqf8t
Alia Penner's poster for this past Sunday's KENNETH ANGER at HOLLYWOOD FOREVER cemetery film screening that Cinespia put together in a super-stroke of brilliance: http://bit.ly/dMKt7
"Techgnosis" author/Arthur "Analog Life" columnist/esoteric historian ERIK DAVIS now has a weekly internet radio show "Expanding Mind" streaming live every Thursday 2pm EDT at Progressive Radio Network online, co-hosted by Maja D'Aoust. First one was last week, real transifxing trialogue with another guest all about the I Ching. You can check it out in the archive, we think. INfo: http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/vcalendar/event_view.php?event_id=2607
Receiving heavy reports about the "Ed Sanders: Glyphs 1962-2009" show on at The Arm in W'burg, up on the walls til July 31.
http://bit.ly/TRgZE
RE-LEGALIZE IT: Californian marijuana smokers say "Tax me please" to CA state politicians in new TV ad: http://bit.ly/hVqiw
Save the date: Arthur "Weedeater" columnist Nance Klehm will be in Philadelphia on August 9 to conduct one of her legendary urban forages.
And save this one too: August 30, 8 & 10pm: Jean-Jacques Annaud's 1988 film "The Bear" with live score by NO AGE at Cinefamily in L.A.: http://bit.ly/OjKcf
25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom, with text by Alan Moore, edited by Eva Prinz, will be out in hardcover from Abrams October 1, 2009. It is adapted from Alan's 12,000-word essay on the subject from the sold-out Arthur No. 25, "Bog Venus Versus Nazi Cock-Ring: Some Thoughts Concerning Pornography." http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/07/21/coming-soon-2/
"There's clearly a great deal of care and thought gone into the sequencing of this ace new mixtape on Arthur Magazine's record label, and that's down to the estimable taste and selection skills of Al Cisneros (known for his work in the bands Om, Sleep and Shrinebuilder)..." —Boomkat. Whole spiel here: http://bit.ly/hVqiw. This CD is not generally in stores, but it is available directly from Arthur for the nice price of $12US, postpaid. All proceeds benefit ye old Arthur Mag...
Ta,
Arthur Magazine Timedwellers
1899 * 1967 * 1988 * 1977 * 2011 * whatever date/time you're reading this