“Command Performance” No. 157
The Arthur Magazine Email Bulletin
July 31, 2009

Arthur on real goddamned paper: magazine resumes publication Autumn, 2009!
Arthur on Facebook is actually pretty alright: facebook.com/thearthurmag
Arthur on Twitter: twitter.com/arthurmagazine
Arthur on MySpace: who cares
Arthurmag Blog: arthurmag.com
Arthurmag Store: store.arthurmag.com/
Arthurmag Advertise: jesse@arthurmag.com
Arthurmag Donate (it’s TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!): http://www.arthurmag.com/donate/

Hiya,

Sorry for taking so long to write again! We’ve been very busy working our computer fingers to the digitbones getting the Arthur internet presence more happening whilst we prepare for the projected Autumn 09 relaunch of the Arthur magazine in a brand new format (still free! but better). This is what’s happening:

1. Facebook. We went and got on there and we kinda dig it. People comment more, discuss more, check us out more. Anything that gets posted at the Arthur website blog, gets posted about on Facebook with a link. Spiffy! If you like Facebook, this is the way you can stay in touch with what we’re grooving on: become a “fan” of our page, which is located at
http://www.facebook.com/thearthurmag

2. Twitter. Same goes for the twitterfeed — anything that gets posted on the Arthurmag blog gets a shoutout/link via our Twitterfeed. If you like Twitter, check us out at:
twitter.com/arthurmagazine

3. Arthurmag.com UPGRADE
The Tongue fellas Byron & Thurston are on fact-finding missions and will be back soonish. In the meantime we’ve been adding more stuff…like…finally:

MP3 downloads… streaming songs… and an iTunes Podcast feature that, once you subecribe to it, automatically downloads any new tunes we post, whenever you push that “refresh” button.

We started posting music one week ago, with a brand new song by Six Organs of Admittance off the forthcoming album. Since then we’ve added a bunch of songs, usually 2-4 a day, including certified-good-to-great-by-us stuff by James Blackshaw, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Willie Lane, Nathaniel Mayer, Cold Cave, Desolation Wilderness, Hush Arbors, Greg Davis, Doug Paisley, Yo La Tengo, Doug Sahm live in 1972 with Leon Russell and the Dead, Wolves in the Throne Room, Brightblack Morning Light and, of course, New Riders of the Purple Sage (Marmaduke, RIP). Go here to get caught up: http://www.arthurmag.com/contributors/mp3/

We wanna emphasize that all of these songs were picked by us. Think of them as “editor’s picks” or something fancier. They are not there as part of some paid marketing campaign masquerading as journalism, written by interns/indentured servants. (If you prefer that style of crypto-payola, you have many options: here, here, here…) You might not dig everything we dig, but at least WE dig it, ya dig? And we weren’t paid to dig it.

But wait, you ask: How can Arthur afford to not do marketing bullshit, when everybody else is? The short answer is: Arthur can’t. We’re not making any money. We’re just barely breaking even on paying our bills. We rely on these sources of revenue to keep us independent:

1. Tax-deductible donations
2. Merchandise sales
3. Paid advertising

Together, those revenue streams , if they’re flowing okay, pay Arthur’s bills. But they don’t pay us salaries. In fact, all people working on Arthur have to do other work to pay for their food and shelter. Right now, that’s the price of countercultural media independence. It’s the price of autonomy. It’s the price of building a space that doesn’t compromise itsef, doesn’t sell itself (or its audience) short, that goes for the highest common denominator rather than the lowest. It’s a price we’ve been willing to bear for years now, with the crucial help of all of our wonderful donors, merch customers, and yes, advertisers. Thank you all for helping us to do our thing — we hope we can help you do yours too.

Okay…There will be another bulletin early next week to catch all Bulletin readers up on all the stuff that’s been happening on the Arthur blog lately—the Diggers Papers, the comics, the jellyfish, Marmaduke, the disappearing languages, Nance Klehm’s urban forage in Phily on Aug. 9, new magical techniques, what to put in your pipe, post-edge socio-poltico-economic analaysis, news you can use, shows and events of interest…you can go on over there yourself right now, of course, and self-hip yourself… but right now, for your convenience… we gotta remind you about one event, happening TONIGHT, in Williamsburg, at 8pm, which, fwiw, many Arthur folks will be checking out:

Fugs leader/Peace Eye Books proprietor/”Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts” publisher/poet/historian/Pentagon exorcist/Yippie/great American/foundational-inspiration-to-us-all ED SANDERS will be making a deeply rare appearance at THE ARM, where he’s had a show on for the last few weeks, to read some of his poems and discuss the Glyph (ancient Egyptian and otherwise!) as a theme in his work. If you can be there, be there! This is SSSSSSPECIALLLLL.

The Arm is an independent letterpress studio located at 281 North 7th St., Brooklyn, NY 11211. Website: http://thearmnyc.com/

Thinking cosmically–acting locally,

The Arthur Magazine Spiffsters
Fishtown * Woodstock * Northampton * Marfa * wherever you are