Documentary screenings
Oma (16mm short) portrait of Daphne Hellman (Sandy Bull’s mom)
Sandy Bull: No Deposit, No Return Blues (45 min)

Live musical performances
Colin Langenus Acoustic Guitar Orchestra
D Charles Speer
Ramble Tamble

Free admission!

Monday, November 23rd, 8:30pm
18 Java St. / Greenpoint, Brooklyn 11222
(View map.)

A candlelight music show in celebration of the crepuscular descension of fall, featuring nebulous electronics combined with classical components and an element of the barely perceptible unknown… hot cider and whiskey will be served, binaural beats will be played live on didgeridoos between sets.

Musical performances by

DORON SADJA | MARIO DIAZ DE LEON DUO
http://doron.sadja.com
http://www.myspace.com/mariodiazdeleon

ABLEHEARTS (Tom Arsenault)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNCaRELa-eg

LA BIG VIC (Emilie Friedlander + Toshio Masuda)
http://www.myspace.com/labigvic

$5 at the door

Saturday, November 14th, 8:30pm
Perfect Wave Gallery
184 West St. #2 / Brooklyn, NY 11222 (See map.)

If you’re in NYC tonite:

RADAR EYES, an exhibition of hallucinogenic prints curated by Canadian printmaking duo Seripop, Chicago gallerist Reuben Kinkaid, and The Space L.I.C. will open Friday, November 6th, 7pm at Fardom Gallery, 25-17 41st Avenue, Long Island City. Around the corner, a secret space will stash many more prints and a new installation by NYC artist Sakura Maku. Gallery goers will enjoy an exciting dual-opening of hundreds of works evoking altered states, perpetual distortions, and outright hallucinations.

Including works by Le Dernier Cri (Marseilles, France), Xander Marro and Lief Goldberg (Providence, RI), Dutch Illustrator Zeloot, Minneapolis-based Danimal, and Seripop (Montreal), this show offers a mind-expanding aesthetic experience for all.

Get the full scoop here.

Boing #3 by Andy Rementer, A J Purdy, Ben Jacques, Mike Perry, Luke Ramsey, Ron Regé Jr and Jim Stoten.

SUPERFUNSEXYTIME by BANG & Jon Boam

Live Free Or Die Harder by Leif Parsons

Daught by Stephane Prigent

Luke Ramsey came down for the Portland Zine Symposium this past July to represent the Islands Fold art collective that he started in Pender Island, British Columbia.  One day after the fest he was hanging out and participated in a drawing session with local artists: Blaise Larmee, Kinoko (from Seattle), Sean Christensen & Theo Ellsworth.  Little did they know, the collaborative jam session would result in a zine of ultimate greatness, Negative Bulge!  For the month of November we are very pleased to present original art from the jam session here at Floating World Comics, as well as a selection of new zines from Islands fold.

WHO: Islands Fold, Blaise Larmee, Kinoko, Luke Ramsey, Sean Christensen & Theo Ellsworth
WHAT: Negative Bulge zine release + art exhibit
WHEN: Thursday, Nov. 5th, 6-10pm; exhibit ends Nov. 30th
WHERE: Floating World Comics, 20 NW 5th Ave #101

Islands Fold™ is an independent publisher and artist residency created and operated by Angela Conley and Luke Ramsey.  It’s about inviting artists into our home, supporting creative identity, collaborating, promoting health and well being and producing unique art.  Established on Pender Island B.C, Canada in the Spring of 2006.

We decided to move from the city to enjoy a simple lifestyle on Pender Island. It’s easy to travel to Pender by ferry from Vancouver or Victoria. Islands Fold collaborates with artists, as well as supporting solo projects. We personally invite artists to our residency. We want to remedy the term “starving artist” by feeding artists whose hunger we admire and respect. In a competitive consumer culture, being an artist is a commitment that some people don’t understand. We are inspired by the people that aren’t always motivated by money, but are motivated by the work itself. As much as Islands Fold needs money to survive, we are about people, not profits. In a world motivated by money and greed, we want to embrace a world of sharing and peace. At Islands Fold, art is a labor of love. We want to create an environment where artists don’t have to concern themselves with daily chores. We want our guests to relax, make art, and eat good food. The most important thing in our home, is to be comfortable, have fun and be creative.

For the first two years, Islands Fold has offered residencies to artists at no charge. Due to rising expenses and no grant funding, we now offer the residencies by donation to any amount an artist feels comfortable with. Our residencies are also sustained from public support by purchasing the art and publications made available online. We are also supported by generous art donations from artists who believe in our cause.

Basil Valentine, Practica cum duodecim clavibus in Musaeum hermeticum reformatum et amplificatum (Frankfurt, 1678)

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Gold, Elixirs and Books of Secrets: A Brief History of Alchemy
An Illustrated Presentation By Dr. Anke Timmermann

Lecture at 5:30 PM in the Institute’s historic lecture hall
Museum open from 4:00 – 7:00 PM

Wagner Free Institute of Science
1700 West Montgomery Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19121
Telephone: 215-763-6529

Alchemy, the ancient art of transforming matter, fueled the imagination of scholars, doctors and nobleman for hundreds of years. They believed that a truly worthy alchemist could produce the philosopher’s stone, a legendary substance that would make him wealthy, wise and near immortal. The experiments, books and events that paved the paths of alchemists throughout the ages not only make good stories, but also document a part of early science that is often misunderstood.

This talk will decipher the story of alchemy from its ancient beginnings through its medieval heyday to its eventual demise in the shadow of modern chemistry. Showing some beautiful and symbolic images from rare books, Anke Timmermann will explain how alchemists thought and worked, and why even they often had trouble figuring out what it all means.

Dr. Anke Timmermann is a historian of alchemy and the current Associate Director of the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include the history of alchemy and medicine in medieval and early modern Europe. This program is part of the Year of Science.

Opening Reception: Saturday November 7, 6-9 pm

Please join Hermitage in celebrating the opening of its new home this saturday between the hours of 6-9.

Come look at books, talk amongst each other, and view a surprise film that will be screened at some point in the evening.

35 Meadow Street Suite 307
Brooklyn NY 11206
347-422-0395
http://www.hermitagebeacon.com

Directions:

-By subway, take the L train to the Grand St. stop (4th stop into Brooklyn).
-You will exit the station at the intersection of Grand St & Bushwick Ave.
-Head down Grand St. in the direction of the large school on the corner,
this is away from the business district.
-Walk 3 minutes and take the first right on Waterbury St.
-Walk 3 short blocks and take a left on Meadow St.
-Hermitage is located at the end of the first block in the building on the corner
of the left hand side of the street.
-Enter the building and go to the 3rd floor where you will easily find your way.

UPDATES:
1. Neal Casal (Ryan Adams and the Cardinals) playing bass and singing harmonies…
2. Jennifer Maerz of SFWeekly reviews the SF gig: “[M]inds were melted, new musical ground covered, and a special sort of concert was cultivated, one that merged the thrill of surprise with the sure bet of solid songwriting chops.”

Show Dates
Sun Nov. 1: Santa Barbara, CA — Soho
Mon Nov. 2: San Francisco, CA — The Independent
Wed Nov 4: Nevada City, CA — The Nevada Theatre
Fri Nov 6: Sonoma, CA — Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) fundraiser
Sat Nov 7: Caspar, CA — Caspar Inn

Press release from Farmer Dave:

(((( News Flassssshhhhh )))))

There’s a musical expedition heading to Northern California the first week of November:

********* The Emerald Triangle Tour 2009 *********

Starring

* Andy Cabic * Farmer Dave Scher * Johnathan Rice * Jonathan Wilson

Living in Los Angeles fairly amazed by the results of the current Green Rush, and knowing the fertile regions of Northern California between San Francisco and Oregon to be bountiful this time of year, Farmer Dave Scher decided an investigation was in order. With the idea of getting to know more about that beautiful part of the state often referred to as The Emerald Triangle, Scher reached out to his musical friends Andy Cabic and the Jo(h)nathans Rice and Wilson about going on a musical trip to check the whole thing out, make new friends, and clear the way for future traveling and playing in the great Northern part of the state…

…. So now, a reality! Please join us for The Emerald Triangle Tour 2009, in which the Gentlemen combine musical forces to groove on Nature, the bountiful harvest, neighbors, family, friends, and friends-to-be, and most importantly, lay down some good sounds up in Northern California. Please pick a town or two and join them. Shoot to the stratosphere…..the sky’s the limit!

The Players

Andy Cabic is a San Franciscan who releases acclaimed records with his group Vetiver. The most recent, “Tight Knit”, is on the Sub Pop label from Seattle.

Johnathan Rice is a California resident by way of Virginia and Scotland who plays, writes, and sings. His self-titled releases “Trouble Is Real”, and “Further North”, are on Warner Records. Mr Rice also plays and sings with Jenny Lewis.

Farmer Dave Scher is from Southern California. He plays steel guitar and organ in the group Beachwood Sparks, and released the All Night Radio record on Sub Pop. His new album “Flash Forward to the Good Times” was released by Kemado Records of New York this year…

Jonathan Wilson is a singer, writer, guitar player, guitar builder, producer, and all-around steezer. His records “Frankie Ray”, and “Gentle Spirit” can be found on Pretty and Black Records…

Musical Links
http://www.myspace.com/emeraldtriangletour
(you can also hear the individual artists on iTunes etc.)
……. or just howl at the moon on a good clear night )))))))))))))))))))
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( OWWWWWOOOOOooooooo ))))))))))))))))))

Press release:

Motown had one, so did Stax. Three soul-deep acts and one smoking hot band to back them up. The triple-header of R&B: the soul revue. Once a mainstay of theaters, gymnasiums and VFW halls everywhere, the soul revue ultimately vanished in the late seventies as recorded sound pushed live performance out of the limelight and onto car stereos and refrigerator-sized boom boxes. The performers returned to their day jobs and the world was the poorer for it.

That is, until April 4th, 2009, when your Numero Group mounted the first Eccentric Soul Revue, packing Chicago’s Park West Theater with soul-hungry acolytes, satisfying them and then some with the real thing: a 17-piece band backing The Notations, Renaldo Domino, The Final Solution, Nate Evans, and Syl Johnson, putting on a show that combined 70s slick with revival-meeting fervor.

It was a magical evening, as the past lived and breathed and got on down, right here in the present. Those in attendance went home that night knowing they’d seen something that just wasn’t done anymore. And wanting more. If you live in Columbus, Ohio, New York, Brooklyn, or Washington D.C., the wait and the want is over. The Numero Group is taking this show on the road.

Eccentric Soul Revue hits the East Coast in November with the totally explosive Syl Johnson, the silky smooth Notations, and the man with the voice like Domino sugar, Renaldo Domino, plus special guests, a slide show, and an autograph line.

There is absolutely nothing else like The Eccentric Soul Revue. A ticket is a time machine. Be there.

November 7th 2009
Lincoln Hall
Chicago, IL

Special Guest:
Sharon Clark | Linda Ballintine
T.L. Barrett

18+ / Doors at 8PM
Tickets:
Lincoln Hall

November 8th 2009
Crofoot Ballroom
Pontiac, MI

Special Guests:
Velma Perkins
Bobby Cook

All Ages / Doors at 7PM
Tickets:
Ticketweb

November 9th 2009
Lincoln Theater
Columbus, OH

Special Guests:
Marion Black | Four Mints

All Ages / Doors at 7PM
Tickets:
Lincoln Theatre | Ticketmaster
Tickets in person at Wexner, CAPA boxoffice or Ohio Theatre are much cheaper than via Ticketmaster
November 10th 2009
9:30 Club
Washington DC

All Ages / Doors at 6PM
Tickets:
930 Club | Brown Paper tickets

November 12th 2009
Grand Ballroom, Manhattan Center
New York, NY

Special Guests:
Missy Dee

All Ages / Doors at 7PM
Tickets:
Grand Ballroom | Ticketmaster
Tickets (CASH ONLY) in person at the Mercury Lounge are much cheaper that via Ticketmaster

November 13th
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY

Special Guests:
Missy Dee

18+ / Doors at 8PM
Tickets:
Music Hall of Williamsburg | Ticketmaster
Tickets (CASH ONLY) in person at the Mercury Lounge or Music Hall of Williamsburg are much cheaper that via Ticketmaster

Press release from the organizers…

Montague Phantom Brain Exchange #21
Wednesday, October 28th, 9pm Five Bucks!
at the Rendezvous
78 3rd St
Turners Falls, MA 01376

Sord
Erin Schneider
video by Torsten Zenas Burns + Darrin Martin
lecture on OULIPO by Laura Duetsch
DJ Scott Seward

Hello! Please forgive our badly-needed, two month pause, but Phantom Brains are back with this stack of wild cards, greasy with the excitement of french fries. I implore you to read on:

Sord:
Brattleboroan bad-deal-sufferers Sarah and Zach are turning their
lives around with music, stage-play, and antic participation games. Of
the two, Sarah suffers the worst. Their debut cassette “REBUKING THE
DESPOILER” on the OSR/Dax Bills imprint is a flush with panic-rock and
crumpled postcards from faded ecuadoran villas. When i think of
telling you to look at myspace or say anything about Gerty Farish, i
become despondent. Build your own models of utopia & stick to them.
Zach did a wonderful job curating the September MPBE Replacement
Night, so expect nothing more than excellence.
http://www.myspace.com/sordord

Erin Schneider is a westcoast accordioniste who rips inna northern
swedish folk stylee, occasionally banking into doowop/gurlgroup
vocalese & improvising over spilt flower vases. Last year, she was
subjected to stereoscopic visions of life in Northern Sweden while
living an actual life in Northern Sweden. She also happens to be half
of the driving force behind the Snaps & Claps phenomenon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYk-pVwjFV0
http://www.myspace.com/snapsnclaps

Video artist, curator, & emerging local troublemaker Torsten Zenas
Burns is coming upstream from Holyoke to share with us what appears to
be a pleasantly processed gob of process video. If the tongue ain’t
in the cheek, then it’s definitely making some unsettling slurping
noises, from his spiel:
“‘Learning Stalls: modular syllabi and organic exchange’ A unique
edit of the artists’ 33 chapter installation Learning Stalls: Lesson
Plans, modular syllabi… utilizes video as a trans-disciplinary
curriculum exploring diverse speculative fictions and reimagined
educational practices. Psychic surgery meets physical therapy as
matter and anti-matter merge under the guidance of astral professors.
In the search of new mind/body experiences, Burns, Martin, and other
workshop participants enact paranormal interactions, intersexual
dynamics, pseudo-testing methods, and staged quasi-therapy sessions.”
http://holyokeresearch.blogspot.com/
http://www.darrinmartin.com/recallathon.html

Part-time Grey Matter Scholar Laura Deutsch will be delivering a
sure-to-be-rousing lecture on ‘Potential Literature.’ She told me
this: “The OULIPO, or Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle, is a group
founded in France during the 1960s, which produces strict constraints
that writers may use to construct their literary products. These
logical constraints are used to generate creative pieces, which end up
leaving the final piece with multiple ways of being understood. The
infinite potentiality of literature lies at the heart of this
combination of logic and chance. What systems are authors forced to
follow when they attempt to extract a piece of fiction from the
continuum of universal literature? Is it truly possible to experience
creative freedom when applying constraints constructed in a
mathematical paradigm onto the process of creative writing? As an
Oulipo member has said, the drive behind this sort of work is “to
build the maze from which we will attempt to escape.” And, in my
opinion, it is only in the escape that true freedom is felt.”
http://lauradeutsch.com/

Our esteemed guest DJ this month is Scott Seward, a complicated man
who recently moved here with his family to escape some horrible
honky-and-tick-infested island. He ha been improving the vibes in
Greenfield by setting up the best damn record (and flotsam) store
north of Rte 116: John Doe, Jr. He also writes a column reviewing
noise releases in a glossy metal magazine called Decibel. (bring/send
him your tapes!)
http://www.johndoejunior.com/

It’s good to be back & husbanded.

Montague Phantom Brain Exchange is a place where bodied & disembodied
brains & nonbrains can safely gather to deconstruct solutions & create
problems while soaking in an envigorating bath of provocative
entertainments. Last wednesday of every month, 9pm to midnight, at the
Rendezvous (bar with food!) 78 3rd St Turners Falls, MA. A typical
evening will include 2 – 3 performing acts, a 15 minute lecture and a DJ.

http://phantombrainexchange.suchfun.net/

Tony Martin is a founder of art works using light, and has created seminal new media works since the 1960’s. Light Pendulum is a new work that is controlled by site-specific environmental conditions including light, sound, and motion. Light Pendulum functions both as a stand-alone kinetic sculpture as well as a temporal instrument used in a performance-based setting. Light Pendulum is comprised of a six-inch diameter glass pendulum suspended with nylon line from the installation space ceiling. An LED pin-light is installed at the top of the line. The pendulum’s motion is caused by the earth’s rotation and conditions of air movement. A large parabolic mirrored dish is installed directly underneath the pendulum. Receptors and sensors are positioned at the center of the dish. These receptors function as photocells, photovoltaic cells, and other signal and current producing and regulating components.

Michelle Nagai utilizes sound, physicality and concept to create site-specific performances, installations, radio broadcasts, dances, walks and other interactions that address the human state in relationship to its setting. These works and activities explore the exchange of perception between performer and audience/viewer. Nagai recognizes transmission, reception and “limbo” as continuously shifting, highly interactive states of being. She engages these states in her working process in order to open up the field of perception and action beyond that which she is herself capable of comprehending, making or doing.

Soundscape by Michelle Nagai w/ Projections by Ursula Scherrer:

Saturday, October 24th -- Wine & cheese at 8pm, performance beginning at 9pm
Ontological-Hysteric Theater at St. Mark’s Church
131 E. 10th St. / New York, NY 10013
Free admission!

From The Center for Tactical Magic:

The CTM presents a new interrogation of power dynamics. Existing at a technological crossroads where torture, recreation, magic, and self-liberation merge together, Witches’ Cradles (2009) are an interactive public installation based on a contemporary re-envisioning of a medieval torture device.

“During the witchcraft persecutions in Europe, Inquisitors are said to have sometimes put an accused witch in a bag, which was strung up over the limb of a tree and set swinging. When witches’ learnt about this punishment they experimented with it themselves and found that the sensory deprivation or confusion of senses induced hallucinatory experiences. A similar swinging motion has long been used by shamans and dervishes and is sometimes known as ‘dervish-dangling’.”
- Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology

Devised initially for interrogation and torture, the witches’ cradle was eventually reclaimed by its potential victims for flights of fancy and inward journeys to altered states of consciousness. Since then, the past 100 years alone have shown us an array of antecedents that cast both shadows and light on the witches’ cradle, ranging from backyard tire swings to mob lynchings; from New Age sensory deprivation tanks to the haunting images from Guantanamo Bay. Even Houdini’s famed illusion, Metamorphosis (in which he freed himself from a locked and tied canvas sack), promised “self-liberation” and “change in 3 seconds.”

The Center for Tactical Magic’s re-envisioning of the witches’ cradle plays on these historical notes while suggesting a present-day desire to conjure positive transformation. Each cradle consists of a large 5-pointed star designed to simultaneously evoke its magical origins, imperial state power, and a cosmic source of light amidst darkness. After sitting in the center pentagon, the points of the star close overhead as the cradle is hoisted off the ground, allowing the participant to swing gently in the darkened center of the collapsed star. Like a black hole, a holding cell, or a metaphysical amusement ride, the Witches’ Cradles distort time and space. It is at this event horizon that the Witches’ Cradles create a place where one can begin to realize an altered state and contemplate the next course of action.

The Witches’ Cradles can be experienced at the Shift Festival of electronic arts and new media in Basel, Switzerland running from Oct 22 – 25, along with our collection of contemporary Wands. This year’s theme for Shift? “Magic. Tech-Evocations and Assumptions of Paranormal Realities”… Enough said.

For more info:
http://www.shiftfestival.ch/en/shift-2009/home-news/

From MaybeLogic Academy website:

The Magickal Realism of H.P. Lovecraft

Once an obscure figure, H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) is now widely recognized as a pulp visionary of the highest order—a prophet of the darkside imagination that everywhere surrounds us now. In this six-week course we will unpack Lovecraft’s unique blend of fantasy, materialism, and meta-fictional play. Linking the revolutionary “outsideness” of Lovecraft’s brand of horror to his scientific materialism, we will also explore the occult potentials of his fictional universe, and its relationship to his own rich dreamlife. The class will close with a group web research project devoted to tracking the “magickal reality” of Lovecraft’s so-called “Mythos” and its central grimoire: the Necronomicon.

WEEK ONE: Meet the Man
An introduction to Lovecraft through a selection of his fascinating letters.

WEEK TWO: The Moldering Past
HPL’s relationship to the past, both literary (the Gothic; occult lore), regional, and genetic.

WEEK THREE: Mad Reason
How HPL fused and contrasted modern scientific rationality and supernatural horror.

WEEK THREE: Writing the Dream
HPL had a remarkable dream life that seeped into his fictions, which often engage the parallel world of dreaming.

WEEK FOUR: Fictional Magick
What elements within Lovecraft’s texts allowed later occultists to turn his fictions into magickal material.

WEEK FIVE: The Meta-Mythos
How the mythos has spread beyond HPL, into other fictions and a widespread subculture of fandom.

WEEK SIX: The Dread Tome
We will spend our last week tracking the magickal reality of Lovecraft’s ultimate grimoire.

Erik Davis is the author of TechGnosis: Myth, Magic & Mysticism in the Age of Information (Five Star Paperback) and The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape. Besides his popular Maybe Logic classes, Erik has taught courses at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Pacifica, and the California Institute of Integral Studies.

More course info: http://www.maybelogic.org/courses.htm

From the Gnostic Society website:

October 23, 8pm: Special Lecture on Jung’s Red Book
Reflecting upon the first glimpses into the freshly published Jung’s Red Book, Dr. Stephan Hoeller (pictured above) will preview the forthcoming series in November on this subject entitled “The Holy Grail of the Sacred Psyche”.

Lectures are free and open to the public (free-will donations are appreciated). Refreshments are offered following the lecture. Further information is available by calling 323-467-2685.

The Gnostic Society, 3363 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039

Solid Sept. 16, 2009 New York Times Sunday Magazine feature on Jung’s Red Book: click here

seedy sunday is THIS SUNDAY!

it’s autumn and seedy business is all around us!
you’ve been growing and now it’s time to swap seeds!
sooooo…
__________________________________
sunday OCT 25th, 3-8pm
SEED ‘SWAP N STORE’ potluck!
—————————————-
please bring your home grown, viable seeds that you have gathered, stories about growing, and
a beverage or dish to share!

THE SEED ARCHIVE
2446 south sawyer avenue
chicago 773.762.0277

***for more info about seed saving***
http://www.salvationjane.net/seedarchive.php

Arik Moonhawk Roper has become one of those artists whose album cover artwork is as dependable a way to select the listening material for tonight’s speaker-worship session as the band personnel listed on the back of the slipcase. Earth. Sleep. Howlin Rain. Sunn O))). Black Crowes. But the expansively naturalistic imagery he provides for these artists is only an entry point to his work: from his many editorial illustrations as a contributor to Arthur; to his most recent book, Mushroom Magick, a “visionary field guide” of botanical illustration that serves as an excellent companion piece to revolutionary mycologist Paul Stamets‘ Mycelium Running.

“The Hidden Dimension” is a survey of Roper’s recent paintings and drawings at New York’s Fuse Gallery, and an ideal next step for those looking for further vistas onto his mystical landscapes. From the press release:

“The Hidden Dimension,” drawings and paintings by Arik Roper runs October 24 through November 28, 2009, at Fuse Gallery, 93 2nd Ave (between 5th & 6th Sts, 2nd Ave stop on the F), NYC, NY. The opening reception, on Saturday October 24, from 7 to 10 pm, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Fuse Gallery at 212.777.7988 or fusegall@fusegallerynyc.com.

A selection of images from the show can be found below, after the jump. To see more of Roper’s work, you can visit his website, www.arikroper.com as well as the Fuse Gallery website. For more about Roper’s Mushroom Magick, take a listen to his recent interview with Gnostic Media by clicking here. And if your local fungi emporium is sold-out, copies of the book are of course available from Amazon.

Mighty Chris Goss will be joining Steve Winwood, Jonas Hellborg, Eric Clapton, Jon Lord, Charlie Watts, Courtney Pine, Kofi Baker, John McLaughlin and of course Ginger Baker at Ginger’s 70th Birthday Party Jam on November 4 at London’s famous Jazz Cafe.

Chris sez: “We’ll be covering 45 years of musical selections that span the career of one of the centuries most influential musical geniuses. It looks like we may be including a song or two from Masters of Reality’s ‘Sunrise on the Sufferbus’ as well.”

The night before the jam Ginger will be honored at a dinner hosted by Classic Rock Magazine.

Goss adds: “Since Ginger has been living in South Africa, this is a rare, mindblowing occasion to reunite with a dear friend and musical mentor that taught me so much.”

Shivastan Press presents the “Small Press Revolution!”
book release & readings for “wildflowers- a Woodstock mountain poetry anthology”
featuring Lee Ann Brown, Donald Lev, Janine Pommy Vega, Andy Clausen, MJ Lamontagne
(+ special guests! – hopefully Ed Sanders)
followed by a celebration of the new release of “Atlantis Manifesto”
featuring Robert Kelly & Peter Lamborn Wilson.
hosted by Publisher Shiv Mirabito, info 679 8777
admission only $5

Cult 60’s singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan takes a break from recording her new album with Andy Cabic from Vetiver to perform a one-off, exclusive acoustic set at the 92YTribeca venue in New York on Friday, October 16, in support of the screening of the critically acclaimed documentary Vashti Bunyan : From Here To Before.

“A gorgeously shot, achingly intimate portrait.” Time Out

For many cult artists, rediscovery comes too late, they never live to know their art has been reappraised, is being loved by generations not even born when they were at work. In the case of Vashti Bunyan, the “Godmother of Freak Folk” and muse to artists such as Devendra Banhart and the Animal Collective, 30 years of obscurity ended with the rediscovery in 2000 of her lost classic album “Just Another Diamond Day” and her subsequent reintroduction into a mainstream she was never part of in the first place. The fact that the record was inspired by a very British road trip – an end to end journey across the country by horse and carriage – has only helped mythologise Vashti’s life and career. Ben Ratliff of The New York Times describes it as “a 700-mile journey [that] took two summers. Her story — or what is known of it from her interviews and her songs — is a perfectly preserved hippie tale, full of ideals, heartbreak and sleeping outdoors, and not arriving on time.”

From Here To Before is a wonderfully evocative film that retraces Vashti’s extraordinary journey across the British Isles, setting it against the backdrop of Vashti preparing for her first ever high profile London concert. It also features rare interviews with music luminaries Andrew Loog Oldham, Joe Boyd and the recently deceased Robert Kirby who provide an honest and informative insight into the most creative period of recorded popular music and Vashti’s place within it.

Following the screening on Friday, October 16, Vashti Bunyan and director Kieran Evans will take questions from the audience and then later that evening, Vashti will grace the stage at 92YTribeca for a rare acoustic performance. It promises to be a very special night. Support on the night will come from folk experimentalist Matteah Baim.

Additionally, following the screening of From Here To Before on Saturday, October 17, Vashti Bunyan and director Kieran Evans will be in attendance to answer questions from the audience.

Film (two screenings): Friday, October 16th – 7:30PM & Saturday, October 17th – 7:30PM
Music: Friday, October 16th, Doors 9:30PM
92YTribeca
200 Hudson Street / New York, NY 10013
$12 for film screening, $15 for music, $22 for both.

Buy tickets here.

Skeletons play music that doesn’t fit into its own skin – it is tapping into something out of this time, place, solar system, galaxy. Tomorrow is their last performance before a European tour, with a live light show by Ivy Meadows.

Thursday, October 15th, 9PM
Zebulon
258 Wythe Ave. / Brooklyn, NY 11211
Free as always.

Tuesday, October 13th – Doors at 8PM
Bowery Ballroom
6 Delancey St.
New York, NY 10002
$15

Buy tickets here.

Remember … The Second Annual Frisco Freakout Psychedelic Dance Party is THIS SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2009, 2 to 2 at Thee Parkside in San Francisco …

THEE SCHEDULE:

Thee Parkside: 1600 17th St San Francisco, CA 94107
Tickets are only $15 and available now from thee venue
Proceeds go to Creativity Explored! http://www.creativityexplored.org

MORE INFLOW:
http://www.friscofreakout.com
http://www.myspace.com/friscofreakout
http://www.secretserpents.com

The official poster for this year’s Frisco Freakout is entirely hand drawn and inked by the legendary Alan Forbes.

Forbes and Secret Serpents are working with Monolith Press to hand-silkscreen a limited run of this mindwarping poster in a large format, hand-numbered and signed by the artist, which we will have available at the festival.

HEAVY LODE is also proud to present “FRISCO FREAKOUT 10-11-08″ – a LIVE compilation of the best of the First Annual Frisco Freakout Psychedelic Dance Party – featuring all your favorites from those golden days of your misspent youth: Earthless, Wooden Shjips, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Crystal Antlers, Greg Ashley, The Bad Trips, Art Lessing & The Flower Vato, Sequin Trails, and Ascended Master – 60 minutes of the First Annual Frisco Freakout LIVE on limited edition bootleg cassette. Also available at this year’s festival.

The Frisco Freakout is brought to you by the letter F … and by the good people at the following fine establishments:

KUSF-FM http://www.kusf.org
ARTHUR MAGAZINE http://www.arthurmag.com
AQUARIUS RECORDS http://www.aquariusrecords.org

in conjunction with
HEAVY LODE

From Marc Bell:

Drawn and Quarterly is sending me off on a book tour this Fall in support of the HOT POTATOE. I’ll post this again later with the times for all of the events but here we have it….

Thursday, October 15th
Adam Baumgold Gallery
60 East 66th St, New York, NY 10065 (6-8 pm, ALSO: HOT POTATOE EXHIBITION!)

Saturday/Sunday, October 17th-18th
Alternative Press Expo
The Concourse, 620 7th St, San Francisco, CA

Monday, October 19th
Lucky’s Comics
3972 Main St, Vancouver, BC

Wednesday, October 21st
Family
436 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA

Sunday, October 25th
Desert Island
540 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Friday, November 20th
Magic Pony
694 Queen St West, Toronto, ON

Friday, November 27th
Librairie D+Q Bookstore
211 Bernard Ouest, Montreal, QC

PROMOTIONAL TEXT:
“On October 16-18, the folks at Circle of Hope in Philadelphia will host activist theologian and author Ched Myers for a biblical exploration of nature, civilization and feral faith. The conference will focus on Sabbath/hunter-gatherer economics, rewilding and resistance, and engage our biblical origin stories for signs of hope in the midst of the current economic and environmental crises.Additional speakers will also present on a range of topics, from primal parenting to practical rewilding…
The cost of this event is free.”

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16
Noon
Intro and welcome—Jay Beck
Griot Ancestral Lineage Litany—Blew
Opening Ceremony with Altar, Fire lighting ritual, acknowledgment of the elements and the four directions and invocation of the Holy Spirit — led by Ched and worship band

12:30-2:30pm
The Ecological Endgame of Industrial Civilization as a Crisis of/for Faith — Ched Myers
Nothing in the conversation about Anarcho-Primitivism and Christianity makes sense unless and until we face squarely not only our culture of Domination, but the specter of environmental collapse that haunts our history. The ideology of Progress has been an article of faith in modernity, deeply shaping North American Christianity (both conservative and liberal) for the last three centuries. How might we “monkeywrench” this bankrupt paradigm, and how might old biblical stories help us reimagine faith, culture and politics?

Regathering — Charity

3:05-4:30pm
“A Woman’s Faith Journey into Anarcho-Primitivism — Miranda Duschack
No language!? No gardening or menstrual pads!?! How does anyone embrace the liberating and brilliant truth of anarcho-primitivism? This address is one woman’s story of radical discipleship. Miranda will discuss her emotional and intellectual journey to the merging of Christianity and AP into practice. A report of the Women’s Circle at Plow Creek will also be given; Miranda was an originator and co-organizer of this important 3 day event. Women have a place in this Movement; learn how we define our role within radical community.

Regathering — Tim Reardon

4:50-6:15pm
How deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go? The Gospel of Social Darwinism and the Biblical Account of Origins — Ched Myers
This talk will summarize and contrast the Enlightenment narrative of “civilization as ascent” and the Genesis Creation/Fall tale of “civilization as decline.” What are the implications of this divergence for Christian thought and practice, and what are the touch points with emerging “primitivist” perspectives?

6:15-6:50pm: Q&A (talk back)

7:00-8:00pm: Dinner

Regathering — Seth Martin

8:00-9:15pm
Camden Labyrinth prayer walk led by Andrea Ferich

9:15-11:00pm
Informal acoustic songshare, fellowship, closing ceremony including communion at bread oven fire pit in Eve’s Garden in Camden.
————————

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17
9:00 am: Opening ceremony (relighting the fire, litany, gathering song)

9:15-10:45am
Naming God as Mother, Rediscovering the Divine Feminine — Andrea Ferich
Certainly there is a correlation between feminine god imagery and sustainable living. Throughout history when women are confined to the household or treated as property with no feminine goddess in that society, the earth becomes tamed, destroyed, and commodified. The indigenous wisdom of our ancestors holds two principles in common; feminine deities and the care for all Creation as brothers and sisters. The age of nomadism and pastoralists gave rise to patriarchy and the domination of women. This age laid the foundation for the monotheistic faiths and the perpetuation of patriarchy, vilifying indigenous wisdom and goddess imagery. Through an eco-feminist lens we will explore the feminine side of God through the Bible as naming God as Mother and the great liberation of all of Creation that labors and waits in eager expectation to be revealed. Please bring your wisdom to share.

Regathering — Aimee Wilson

11:05am-12:35pm
Native Tradition and Neo-colonialism — Jenn LeBlanc
This presentation will be a general overview of the historical effects of colonialism on traditional knowledge and how this has laid the foundation for neocolonial exploitation. It is Jenn’s understanding that neo-colonialism continues to pervade the relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. By way of the overview, obvious examples of colonialism will be pointed out to the audience; moreover, less obvious examples of neo-colonialism, even unconscious utilization of traditional knowledge without permission, will be brought to the fore. As a result of colonial and neo-colonial behaviors, indigenous peoples have had to struggle for the reclamation of their traditional knowledge and life ways. Part of this presentation will be a discussion of the ways in which the North American Institute of Indigenous Theological Studies and iEmergence (iE) and the World Christian Gathering of Indigenous Peoples are attempts at this reclamation for indigenous people globally.

12:35-1:35pm: Lunch

Regathering — Powwow worship led by psalters and theillalogical spoon

1:35-3:05pm
“Jesus’ Vision Quest and Abel’s Primal Cry: Indigenous Blood and Feral Faith in the US and the Philippines.” — Jim Perkinson and Lily Mendoza
In this talk Jim Perkinson will examine Jesus’ time in the wilderness—using it to push the idea that return to the land is through the history it carries on its back. That is to say, going feral requires coming to grips with who has been there before us and what happened to them: indigenous experience and/or disappearance as a requisite engagement for responsible “re-wilding.” Jesus returned to the land and “heard” history. He had to get clear on how his people came to be in that geography historically, at whose expense, and figure out his response to the deepest moments of gifting and wounding that history encoded. Then Lily Mendoza would share some of her experience in struggling to recover from colonial history by working to retrieve/reinvent some of the indigenous practices and orientation co-opted or shattered in the colonial project.

Regathering — Lesser Beggars

3:25–4:00pm
“Rewilding Panel”
A panel presentation of folks who have been learning practical skills and “rewilding” including:

* Neil Gynther — braintanning clothes and making tools from roadkill
* Joel and Charity Cimarron — Goat walking
* Amanda — herbal medicine
* Daniel and Billy — identifying edible wild plants
* Rachel Summerlot — Doula and midwifery
* Andrea Ferich — urban gardening, soil reclamation, seed saving, rain water
catch systems
* Melissa Delong — loomweaving
* Abigail Kahler–blacksmithing with scrap metal from a home forge and anvil

Regathering — Jon Felton

4:20–5:20pm
Resistance is Fertile-Following the Path of Primal Parenting — Charity and
Joel Cimarron
In our hyper-civilized, pathologically adolescent society, how do we go about raising the next generation of resisters? Drawing on the wisdom of indigenous cultures and affirming our own ‘primitive’ instincts, primal parenting offers the possibility to rewild our own domesticated selves and, in turn, become the parents that the children in our lives need us to be. We’ll be tracing the steps that have taken us down this particular path of resistance, offering resources and ideas to help others on their own journey.

5:20-5:40pm
Q&A with Charity and Joel

5:40-6:40pm: Dinner

Regathering — Lesser Beggars

6:40-8:00pm
Attend to the Wildflowers and Birds!” Primitive Jesus — Ched Myers
The New Testament reasserts the prophetic tradition, clear-eyed about the Fall and fiercely hopeful about a reinhabitory Eschaton. We’ll reflect on Luke 12:13-34’s teaching about earth cosmology and Sabbath Economics. Then we’ll consider Paul’s intriguing notion of Christ as the “eschatological ‘adam” in Rom 5:12-19.

8:00-8:40pm: Q&A (talk back)

9:00-11:00pm
All Out apocalyptic mystic feral exorcistic worship release to the God of Liberation — psalters and theillalogical spoon
————————

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18
9:00am: opening ceremony —psalters and theillalogicalspoon

9:15-11:00am
It’s a Long Way Back: Concerns about Presumption, Privilege and Political Marginalization among Putative Primitivists — Ched Myers
A Christian hermeneutic in conversation with anarcho-primitivism contains far more questions than answers. Paradigm shifts don’t happen in a generation, and there are lots of contradictions in the practices of primitivism. Nor can we afford to ignore the lessons of past social movements of resistance and renewal as we struggle to re-vision what it means to be a feral church.

11:00-11:45 am
Closing Meditation: “There we saw the Nephilim—and we seemed like grasshoppers to them…” (Num 13:32f) — Ched Myers
Industrial civilization is a Goliath, and we are armed only with the slingshot of David. Resistance is not futile and renewal is not a pipedream—but we must be in it for the long haul. Anarchist and Primitivist Christians are also called to a discipleship of the Cross, which is about improvisational creativity, revolutionary patience and longsuffering grace in the face of long odds.

11:45-Noon: Closing Ceremony — led by Ched and worship team

Noon to 1:00pm — Clean up
Everyone must be out of building by one–so that Circle can prepare for its evening worship meetings. Ched will be giving the sermon at both the 5pm and 7pm meetings.

Linda Perhacs and Friends
World premiere
Wed 10.07.09 8:30 pm
at REDCAT

Co-presented with Draw Pictures and dublab

Stream:

Download: “Parallelograms” – Linda Perhacs (mp3)

“[Parallelograms is] one of the most mystifying and beautiful moments of the psychedelic era, on par with any outré work of the time.” LA Weekly

“This evening of experimental exploration is the first-ever public performance by enigmatic folk singer Linda Perhacs, whose legendary 1970 album Parallelograms is an uncanny, ruminative masterpiece of psychedelia. She is joined by an eclectic mix of artists, who chime in with projected artwork, film, dance and musical interpretations of her work. Perhacs and her collaborators also highlight ideas from the book that inspired Parallelograms: the Theosophist manifesto Thought-Forms, written by Annie Besant in 1901…”

NEW interview with Linda Perhacs by Daiana Feuer at LARecord: http://larecord.com/interviews/2009/10/07/linda-perhacs-interview-we-have-great-powers/

Important Records presents:

Sun Boxes are an environment to enter and exit. It’s comprised of twenty speakers operating independently each powered by solar panels. There is a different guitar sample in each box all playing together making the composition. The guitar samples are all of different lengths so the whole piece keeps evolving.

Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers. It sounds different inside of the array. There is a different sense of space inside. Certain speakers will be closer and louder therefore the piece will sound different to different people in different positions throughout the array. Creating a unique experience for everyone.

There are no batteries involved. The Sun Boxes are reliant on the sun. When the sun sets the music stops. The piece changes as the length of the day changes. Making the participants aware of the cycle of the day.

This piece will be presented Saturday, October 17th on the North Shore of Boston, Noon til sundown. Rain date: October 24th, same time.

E-mail john at importantrecords dot com for address and directions.
Visit the project online here.

(click flyer to enlarge)

Arthur presents

Wildcrafting Magical Elixirs
a workshop with Aemen Bell

Sunday, October 18
3pm

Just in time for Halloween…

Learn how to create and use your very own simple and edible potions! Using beautiful crystals, moon cycles and magical plants from your own backyard, herbalist Aemen Bell will show you how to play with the friendly energies of Mother Nature, and you will leave with your own Magical Elixir! We will explore and explain recipes to enhance Love, Dreaming, and more. Don’t worry: you don’t need to have any witchy experience—just come with an open mind, a little common sense, and a willingness to use your own very powerful imagination.

Space is limited to 24 attendees. Workshop tickets are available for $10 in advance, $12 day-of-workshop, as space permits. Reserve space in advance by

* sending $10 per guest via PayPal to editor@arthurmag.com, or
* handing cold hard cash to Jay or Brooke at 2037 Frankford; arrange ahead of time via email to editor@arthurmag.com

This workshop will be held indoors at 2037 Frankford Avenue in Fishtown (Philadelphia, PA 19125).

Aemen Bell is a Brooklyn-based herbalist, artist, writer, and unlicensed pet detective. She has been making potions since she first took an empty shampoo bottle out of the bathroom trash at age 4 and filled it with mud, rocks, and cat hair. She apprenticed under the lovely, patient and eternally knowledgeable Lata Kennedy of Flower Power Herbs and Roots in New York City’s East Village.

She has been showing her art publicly in New York City since 2000, and her photographs were recently featured in the art book They Be We.

Lovely Daze is a curatorial journal of artists’ writings and artworks published twice a year in limited editions. We are pleased to launch our 6th Issue: A Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose at this year’s New York Art Book Fair at P.S.1. with music by Mark Borthwick & Bow Ribbons (Pete + Willow) & WITH SWEETS BY LOVELY DAZE DESSERTS!!

Friday, October 2nd – 5pm til 6:30pm
P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Ave / Long Island City, NY 11101 (View map)
Free!

This event is hosted by Printed Matter as part of the annual NY Art Book Fair.

José Antonio Sistiaga: Ere Erera Baleibu Icik Subua Aruaren
(w/ new live score by Savage Republic)

“Basque abstract artist José Antonio Sistiaga painted directly onto film with homemade inks to create this silent 1970 feature. But Sistiaga’s strangely titled work… is different from the films of Stan Brakhage, who didn’t come to film from painting and had his own rhythm. […] [I]ts combination of color and 35-millimeter ‘scope (with about half an hour in black and white) yields the kind of spectacle one associates with musicals and [science fiction] epics.” — Jonathan Rosenbaum

A hand-painted masterpiece of the 1970s; a legendary band of the 1980s. Sistiaga’s rarely-screened ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren is a work of uncompromising beauty that absolutely deserves a wider appreciation. Savage Republic, one of the unrecognized godfathers of post-rock, formed roughly three decades ago in the midst of the Los Angeles punk rock scene and abruptly disbanded in 1989. In recent years, they’ve reformed and their unique sound (somewhat akin to a Middle Eastern surf band backed by the rhythm section from Joy Division) is as compelling and inexorable as ever. Original members Ethan Port and Thom Fuhrmann, joined by Alan Waddington and Kerry Dowling, will perform their newly commissioned score to Sistiaga’s prodigious work (presented in a stunning 35mm print from Paris.) DJ Michael Stock of Part Time Punks will be on-hand to man the decks, spinning tunes during the pre-show!

Sunday, September 27th – 7PM
The Cinefamily Silent Movie Theatre
611 N Fairfax Avenue / Los Angeles, 90036
$14

Buy tickets here.

Above: Stills from Nathaniel Dorskys’ film Sarabande

Hermitage is very pleased to announce the screening of Nathaniel Dorsky’s films Sarabande & Winter this Friday at The Arm in Brooklyn. Both of these films were completed in 2008, and shot on 16mm kodachrome.

“The films of Nathaniel Dorsky blend a beauteous celebration of the sensual world with a deep sense of introspection and solitude. They are occasions for reflection and meditation, on light, landscape, time and the motions of consciousness. Their luminous photography emphasizes the elemental frisson between solidity and luminosity, between spirit and matter, while his uniquely developed montage permits a fluid and flowing experience of time. Dorsky’s films reveal the mystery behind everyday existence, providing intimations of eternity. The latest films of this master filmmaker—Song and Solitude, Winter and Sarabande—continue his development of these profound traditions.” (Steve Polta, San Francisco Cinematheque, 2009)

Friday, September 25th – 9pm sharp (running time is 35 minutes)
The Arm
281 North 7th St. / Brooklyn, NY 11211
$7

“Light sculptures hover in space, slowly growing and merging into primitive, but at the same time, futuristic forms. The present, the rational world, is erased. Hypnotic, entrancing and unpredictable, they awaken the unconscious mind, and evoke primordial, inchoate existences pre-dating H. P. Lovecraft’s ancient Cthulu gods. The dreamer journeys into numberless spaces, worlds beyond comprehension which change and merge, collapse and grow into archetypes of a primeval, timeless connection with the fetal mind.” — Peter Mays

Alongside artists such as Nam Jun Paik and Yoko Ono, Jeff Perkins was a member of the Fluxus group in the mid-1960s and later in the early ’70s, an innovator and practitioner of psychedelic light shows as a member of California’s Single Wing Turquoise Bird (who played live along with rock bands like The Velvet Underground and The Grateful Dead). First performed in the late ’60s and early 70’s in Venice, CA, his light projection pieces are highly minimal but not at all static. This evening, Jeff will be performing a live set (with a special musical guest), using hundreds of slides and four projectors. The slow flickering dissolves, from patterns to minimal shapes, will optically trick the mind into thinking it’s a constant moving image — a show not to be missed.

Lights by Jeff Perkins with music by Taketo Shimada and Tres Warren:

Sunday, September 20th -- 8PM
The Cinefamily Silent Movie Theatre
611 N Fairfax Avenue / Los Angeles, 90036
$13

Buy tickets here.

Here’s the lead loper off MV & EE’s new album “Barn Nova” (pictured above), out October 13, 2009 via Ecstatic Peace Records of Massachusetts…

Stream:

Download: “Feelin Fine” – MV & EE (mp3)

Arthur welcomes

Ecstatic Peace! recording artists
MV &EE
accompanied by Willie Lane

plus

Blood Like Mine
(Geoff Bucknum & Rosali Middleman)

Thursday, September 17 8pm
Frankford Gardens/ The Compound
at 2037 Frankford Avenue (map)
(enter from Sepviva)
music promptly at 8:30
$5
all ages encouraged
this is a home, not a bar
so remember to bring your own locally brewed beverage

MV & EE: http://www.ecstaticpeace.com/mvee
Willie Lane: info, mp3

Canadian country-folk musician Doug Paisley’s debut album was released late last year through No Quarter Records, its understated beauty capturing the admiration of Arthur’s C and D, who were scheduled to review it in their column in the tragically unpublished Arthur No. 32. The album’s been kinda underheard since, but whatever, that’s the underhearers’ problem, right?

In any event, this month Mr. Paisley (who is now being “managed” by Arthur’s Jay Babcock) will be traveling to California to perform as a solo artist for the first time ever in the Golden State at a bunch of affordable, all-ages shows. (Some folks may have seen Paisley before as one-half of the Dark Hand and Lamplight duo with artist Shary Boyle when they opened for Bonnie Prince Billy on a California jaunt in 2006.)

Catch this rich-voiced Torontonian troubadour, mustachioed or otherwise, at the following time-space coordinates:

Mon Sep 21 2009 8:00P at The Echo w/ Leslie & Badgers Los Angeles (free!) (see poster above) (presented by Arthur, put together by the great When You Awake blog)
Tue Sep 22 2009 8:00P The Crepe Place Santa Cruz
Wed Sep 23 2009 8:00P Rickshaw Stop San Francisco
Thu Sep 24 2009 8:00P Cafe Coda Chico
Fri Sep 25 2009 8:00P Henry Miller Library Big Sur
Sat Sep 26 2009 8:00P McCabe’s Guitar Shop w/Stan Ridgway Santa Monica
Sun Sep 27 2009 8:00P Che Cafe San Diego

Doug Paisley myspace: myspace.com/dougpaisley

Friday, September 25, 2009 @ Lo-Fi Performance Gallery 21+, doors at
7 pm, show at 8 pm $12
Lumerians
Jackie-O Motherfucker
Kinski
Purple Rhinestone Eagle
Treetarantula

Saturday, September 26, 2009 @ The Vera Project all ages, doors at 5
pm, show at 6 pm $15
Wooden Shjips
Eternal Tapestry
Prince Rama of Ayodhya
Lord Jeff
Midday Veil
Geist & the Sacred Ensemble
oKo yOnO
Cloaks
The Slaves
Story of Rats

A limited offer of 50 advance passes for both nights are available on the ESCALATOR festival website through PayPal.

Invisible-Exports is proud to present a 30-year retrospective of collage works by performance artist, writer, musician and provocateur Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV). Genesis is also known among underground circles for he/r affiliations with Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs, both of whom greatly influenced he/r work. In recent years, P-Orridge began “an ongoing experiment in body modification aimed at creating one pandrogynous being,” received breast implants and started going by “s/he.” This retrospective will showcase the breadth of conceptual imagery (i.e. the “cut-up” technique of the early 20 century Surrealists and elements of Dada-ism) that P-Orridge has been working with in h/er collages over the course of the past three decades:

“30 Years of Being Cut Up” is a three decade retrospective of photomontage and Expanded Polaroids, which includes many works never exhibited before, as well as a sampling of P-Orridge’s early Mail Art. The show will mark the culmination of a new, re-emergent phase in BREYER P-ORRIDGE’s life. He/r career — and most particularly he/r recent pursuit of pandrogyny — tests the limits of transgression and traces the tragic fate of the underground, proving again the expressive power and pervasive influence of those artists who take the world not as it comes to them — sensible, orthodox, predictable — but as they would like it to be.

INVISIBLE-EXPORTS
Opening Wednesday, September 9th, 6-8PM.
14A Orchard Street, just north of Canal / New York, NY 10002
Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 11- 6:30pm, and by appointment.
For more information, call 212 226 5447 or e-mail.

IN THE ARTHUR ARCHIVES…
Genesis P-Orridge in conversation with Douglas Rushkoff, photographed by Shawn Mortensen: Arthur No. 2 (sold out)
Genesis P-Orridge’s ten favorite psychedelic folk songs: Arthur No. 13

Above: Stills from the documentary Taiga by Ulrike Ottinger

Above: Still from Apocalypto Now by Jonathan Horowitz

Light Industry presents a series of films and lectures ranging from an eight-hour documentary by Ulrike Ottinger which follows reindeer nomads as they migrate across Mongolia (Taiga), to a screening of a mock-50s disaster movie that artist Jonathan Horowitz made entirely from found documentary and TV footage (Apocalypto Now), to a lecture by film critic Ed Halter on a small film company whose inspiring low-budget documentaries explore “Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, the Bermuda Triangle, life after death, UFOs” and the possibility that “extraterrestrial travelers came to earth in prehistoric times to teach technology to our ancestors and create civilization.”

220 36th Street, 5th Floor / Brooklyn, New York 11232
$7 at door

See below for show times:

Taiga
Ulrike Ottinger, 16mm, 1991/2, 501 mins
Presented by Ginger Brooks Takahashi
Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 1:00pm

“Taiga is Ulrike Ottinger’s eight-hour documentary film on life in Northern Mongolia, a journey to the yak and reindeer nomads. For this presentation at Light Industry, we will watch the film in its entirety. Food will be served, but please also bring things to share. Attempts and interpretations of the region’s cuisine are encouraged–yak butter and various ferments? English translations of the transcript will be provided to the audience to read along.

Next year, I will travel to the Mongolian wild steppe with an entourage of women tracing the tracks of Ottinger’s journey in Johanna D’Arc of Monglia. This screening will be an introduction to the trip.” – GBT

Stations:
The Oul Pass with holy Obo relic – Guards of the Darkhad Valley
The valley of the Darkhad Nomads
Nomads along the Altrag River
The shamaness Baldshir lives alone in the Höjen Valley
With the Yura – the wedding
With the Yura – the white food
The Jura’s neighbors – The singer and smith Dawadschi
Sacred tree
Suren Hor narrates the fairty tale of the naked boy in the hole in the ground
The hunter and boot maker Ölziibajar
The Öwtschuunii-Naadam-Festival of the sheep breast bone
Wrestlers and Singers of Praise
The nomads prepare to move to their winter camp
On the way to Tsagaan Nor (white sea)
The hunter Tscholoo
Tsagaan Nor City
Hero of work
Tree cutter Sanji
Örgöl reliquary
How the old bears hunted
On the Shishgid on the way to the reindeer nomads of the taiga
Large Tsaatan meeting on the Tingis
A Christian delegation has arrived
Departure for the autumn camp, 5-days-trip away
Trip to the southern taiga
The shamaness Bajar and her family
Back with the Jura – preparations for the winter camp
The Jura’s move to winter camp in Ulaan Uul
The Jura’s neighbors in Ulaan Uul
Flour and tea seals have arrived at the store
The dignitaries of Ulaan Uul host a farewell party
Nomads on the Oul Pass
First school day in Hadhal
From Hadhal to Hanch, two forgotten trading centers
Chöwsgöl Nor – Lake of Clear Water
Ulaanbaatar – marriage palace
Amusement park – epic singers

Ginger Brooks Takahashi (b. 1977) lives in Brooklyn, NY, maintaining a social, project-based practice. She is co-founder of LTTR, a queer and feminist art journal, and projet MOBILIVRE BOOKMOBILE project, a traveling exhibit of artist books and zines. She received her BA from Oberlin College, attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, and is a resident artist at Smack Mellon, 2008-9. Her work has shown in the following exhibitions recently: Shared Women at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 2007; Exile of the Imaginary at the Generali Foundation, Vienna, 2007; and Locally Localized Gravity at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, 2007. She has presented public projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London, 2008; documenta 12, Kassel, 2007; Art Metropole, Toronto, 2007; and with Ridykeulous at The Kitchen, NY, 2007.

Jonathan Horowitz
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 7:30pm

In an evening exploring the subject of documentary genres, from cinéma vérité to reality TV, Jonathan Horowitz screens his new video, Apocalypto Now (2009), along with an early, rarely seen video, Making Pharaoh’s Red Flag Video (1988). The videos will be presented within the context of a prerecorded “live” introduction/monologue. The artist will be present to answer questions afterward.

“The work of the American artist Jonathan Horowitz (*1966) employs the technique of montage much like a music DJ samples bits and pieces of songs. Scenes from classic movies are combined with obscure bits of media detritus to make critical connections between disparate narratives. At the same time, Horowitz presents singular and incisive new narratives, which powerfully reflect on important issues of the day.

Apocalypto Now is made entirely from found documentary and narrative movie and TV footage. Its primary structure is taken from a documentary on the history of the Hollywood disaster movie. Footage from documentaries on climate change and scenes from movies reenacting the 9/11 World Trade Center attack are intercut. Connections are drawn between disaster as entertainment, real life catastrophe, and the apocalyptic beliefs of religious fundamentalists.

The central figure connecting these strands is the actor/director Mel Gibson. In interview footage, Gibson talks about his personal struggles with addiction, which led him to a renewal of his Catholic faith and to making the movie The Passion of the Christ. As with other players in Apocalypto Now, (self)destructive impulses are channeled through religion and art, to a variety of often disturbing ends. Gibson, however, is not always successful in containing these impulses, as his public relations catastrophes attest.”
- Exhibition brochure, Museum Ludwig

In Search of Sunn
a lecture by Ed Halter
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at 7:30pm

In the 1970s, the financial decline of Hollywood and the increased popularity of pseudoscience and parapsychology led to the unlikely rise of tiny Utah-based independent distributor Sunn Classic Pictures, who released a film adaptation of Erich von Däniken’s best-selling book Chariots of the Gods? in 1974. Purporting to explain how extraterrestrial travelers came to earth in prehistoric times to teach technology to our ancestors and create civilization, Chariots grossed nearly $26 million, spawning a series of scrappy Sunn titles exploring Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, the Bermuda Triangle, life after death, UFOs, and the search for Noah’s Ark, along with two more documentaries on “ancient astronauts.” Sunn’s success inspired other outfits to distribute cheaply-made movies and TV shows about such topics as Nostradamus, psychic phenomena, end-times theology and catastrophe theorist Emmanuel Velikovsky. Critic and curator Ed Halter presents an illustrated lecture and clip show on the curious success of Sunn and its numerous imitators, revisiting a markedly different era of film distribution, and analyzing the longstanding appeal of fringe metaphysics in the information age.

The event concludes by screening a former elementary school library 16mm print of In Search of Ancient Astronauts, a television re-edit of Chariots of the Gods? narrated by Rod Serling.
Tickets for all events – $7, available at door.

Hi-res stills available upon request.

Since launching in March 2008, Light Industry has brought you over 60 shows at our space in Sunset Park, not to mention a five-day marathon of free events at X-initiative in June 2009. We’ve presented works by hundreds of artists during this time through our regular series of screenings, lectures, discussions and live performances.

Aided by our band of tireless interns as well as the generous in-kind support of Industry City, so far we’ve been able to produce more than a year of weekly programs funded largely by ticket sales.

Last month we launched our first fundraising campaign for the Summer of 2009, aiming to raise $10,000 by the end of August. Additional resources will allow us to reach our goals of expanding our modest operating budget, supporting more travel for out-of-town guests, and increasing our fees for artists and curators.

We proudly run Light Industry on a lean, no-nonsense budget, so this means that donations of any size can make a considerable impact. All contributions are tax-deductible, and any individual who donates $100 or more will receive a very special perk: free admission to all Light Industry shows for a year!

Donate now securely online via Paypal or credit card.
Have questions? Email us!

Above: Hundertwasser

Every Sunday the farmers open their rooftop to the community and set up a stand to sell their produce (eggplant, kale, lettuce, beans, tomatoes and more). Read on below for more info, and check their website for updates on weekly events.

Hello,

Visit our Farm Stand on Sundays, from 10am-4pm.  To find the Farm,
walk down Eagle past Franklin towards the East River, and look for
our sign (and open door).

Volunteers: On Sundays from 9am-4pm, we accept volunteers on our
Rooftop.  Once you’re on the mass email list (with our address),
you’re good to go!  We can only take a limited number of people on the
Roof at a time, so be prepared to take a break in the shade while
everyone gets to farm.  Your support is much appreciated!

Sundays, free 2pm workshop: Learn more about our green roof and how to
grow your own vegetables in the city.  Topics change with the season,
but the session is always free & open!

Farm Education: If you’re a school, organization or group, contact
growingchefs@gmail.com to schedule your visit.

Thanks!
Annie N. & Ben F.

www.RooftopFarms.org

Allen Crawford (aka that guy “Lord Whimsy,” pictured below) will host a workshop on building terrarium environments for the coming cooler months. He will show you how to set up your terrarium, as well as explore the different kinds of containers and plants one can use: classic leafy houseplants, desert succulents, and local wild mosses.

Space is limited to 20 attendees. Workshop tickets are available for $10 in advance, $12 day-of-workshop, as space permits. Reserve space in advance by

* sending $10 per guest via PayPal to editor@arthurmag.com, or
* handing cold hard cash to Jay or Brooke at 2037 Frankford; arrange ahead of time via email to editor@arthurmag.com

This workshop will be held, rain or shine, at 2037 Frankford Avenue in Fishtown (Philadelphia, PA 19125).

Lord Whimsy (full name: Lord Breaulove Swells Whimsy) is author of The Affected Provincial’s Companion, Vol. I, published in 2006 by Bloomsbury. More information on the book is available from lordwhimsy.com; his lordship’s blog, The Affected Provincial’s Almanack: inept smatterings of a wood-tramp, is updated with alarming regularity.

Does this fall breeze put you in the mood for some fuzz-laden psych boogie, or sweet guitar-driven crooning? If so, you’re not alone. Come join the others at Bruar Falls for some serious jams from Sadhu Sadhu, Pure Horsehair, and Smith Westerns with a live DJ set from members of Lights. Expect nothing less than outer-body sonic traveling.

Heavy Hands was originally billed for this show, but had to cancel due to sickness.

Download a free live album by Sadhu Sadhu.

Friday, September 4th – Doors at 8pm
Bruar Falls
245 Grand St. between Driggs & Roebling / Brooklyn, NY 11211
$6 (21+)

Stream:

Download: “Motorbike” – Wooden Shjips (mp3)

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Here’s “Motorbike” from Wooden Shjips’ latest album Dos brought to your ears byone of America’s finest record labels, Holy Mountain of Portland, Oregon. Buy Dos from a local LP vendor. If you don’t have one, they’ve got it at Amazon

Wooden Shjips are tourin’ the East Coast in October. Dates here:
http://www.myspace.com/woodenshjips

And then there’s the second Frisco Freakout benefit concert, on October 10, 2009, which Arthur is proudly presenting. Info here:
http://www.myspace.com/friscofreakout

From the pictured-above Lord Whimsy:

Just a quick announcement: I’ll be doing a bog garden workshop this Sunday, August 23rd at 2PM in historic Whitesbog Village. We’ll go over the needs of popular bog plants like Venus Flytraps, Pitcher Plants and Sundews (care sheets will be available), and I’ll do a rudimentary demonstration on how to build a small container garden for these plants.

I’ve also heard rumors that friend and bog man extraordinaire Bill Smith (of JAWS Ltd. and Rarefind fame) may be attending! The man has the largest and most diverse bog garden I’ve ever seen, so with luck we can look forward to Bill lending his own invaluable advice on how to care for these plants.

If you have a spare couple hours on Sunday, come on out. Hope to see you there!

A $5 donation is requested. Reserve by phone: 609.893.4646 or email: programmanagerwpt@comcast.net

More info/links at Whimsy’s site here

Oh my. Brooklyn’s night sky will be shimmering tomorrow from the combined fuzzy yellow and peach-colored summer vibes being sent out by Woods, Ducktails and Dungen playing at The Bell House in Gowanus. You’d better cancel this weekend’s beach vacation/camping trip/outdoor frolicking and high-tail it over there before you miss it!

Friday, August 14th – 8PM
The Bell House
149 7th Street / Brooklyn, NY 11215
$15 (Bring an Animal Collective ticket stub and get in for $10!)

SATURDAY AUGUST 15, 2009
ALL NITE ALL AGES DIY DISCO DANCEPARTY!!!
PUBLICIST live! with guest vocalist IAN SVENONIUS!
Plus DJs Ian Svenonius, Justin Miller (DFA)
& Jacques Renault (Runaway)
Video installation by Alison Childs (Donuts!)
Free vegan spacecakes!
Market Hotel
1142 Myrtle Ave. @ Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11206
Midnite – 6am
$10

ARTHUR MAGAZINE & GALAXIE are excited to present a rare live appearance (THE ONLY U.S. DATE!) of TRANS AM drummer Sebastian Thomson’s solo electro project called PUBLICIST this coming Saturday at Market Hotel. His set features guest vocalisms by Ian Svenonius (Soft Focus, Chain & The Gang, Scene Creamers, Make-Up, etc.). You may recognize Sebastian from other acts such as Weird War. He loves making music with his friends but he also loves to make music on his own. As he once said “I love making music with my friends but I also love making music on my own.”

Ian will be DJing for the first hour or so from his collection of soul, funk, boogie & disco 45s. Galaxie residents Justin Miller & Jacques Renault will join Ian on the decks for an all-night, all-ages afterhours disco danceparty at Market Hotel in Brooklyn. We’ll also have a laser-like video installation courtesy of Galaxie resident video artist Alison Childs and free vegan spacecakes. Doors are at midnite and we’ll go til 6am!!

FYF Fest, Arthur Magazine and the Eagle Rock Music Festival Present

Sunn O))), Eagle Twin and The Accused
Tuesday August 11, 2009
7:00pm
$16.50 Advance // $18.00 At The Door
All Ages

A sunset show with Sunn O))) in the intimate setting of a historic 1914 library.

Please take note that Sunn O))) will hit the stage at 9:00pm sharp.
Limited tickets available.

2225 COLORADO BLVD.
LOS ANGELES CA 90041
323.226.1617

Arthur goes back a way with Sunn 0))). We featured a beautiful photo of them to accompany the editorial in Arthur No. 3 (January 2003). Our second release on the Bastet (now Arthur) label was a Sunn o))) live recording in an edition of 500 entitled “The Libations of Samhain” with a cover by Savage Pencil, specially pressed by the genius W.T. Nelson, released in 2004. Long sold out, it now fetches $100-plus on internet auctions. Here’s the cover:

Sunn o))) at the September 2005 ArthurFest at Barnsdall in Los Angeles was one of the weekend’s most anticipated sets, and was easily the weekend’s biggest fiasco—as the set was climaxing, with vocalist Xasthur about to emerge from his coffin, the sound cut out. Totally. Not to return. Frustrated Sunn o))) members felled speaker towers, resulting in near-injuries to audience members and minor damage to the stage, which in turn led to near-arrests of Mssrs O’Malley and Anderson by on-location LAPD. Yikes. Plus, their van got towed! It’s funny now, but it was pretty harsh at the time. Here’s the poster by Arik Roper, now sold out, for ArthurFest:

Anyways. The guys ended up on the cover of Arthur No. 20 (below) and now they’re international weirdstars. Go figure. Actually, go see them. Actually, go feel them in Eagle Rock next week. We will be.

Above: Nance Klehm during an urban forage last year in Los Angeles. Photo: Suzie Lectenberg

The public is invited to join us for a two-hour urban forage in Fishtown with Arthur Magazine “Weedeater” columnist/ecologist/artist NANCE KLEHM.

We will walk and explore the plants along the way—both intentionally planted and ones that have simply arrived, the cultivated and the wild, the choice and the weeds—keeping an eye out for those with medicinal and/or culinary uses, and telling some of their stories.

Find out about the riches that are literally underfoot—the so-called weeds and other plants, trees and bushes whose leafs, blades, branches and/or roots may be safely prepared in homemade elixirs, infusions, decoctions, energetics, pestos, pates, dips, spreads, salves, tinctures, infused oils, flower essences, vinegars and wines.

Bring paper and pen for note-taking/drawing. Discreet photography and video recording is cool.

We will meet at 2037 Frankford Avenue, Philadelphia, 19125

Day-of-forage tickets are available for $10 cash, per person, as space permits. Young kids are FREE. We had a couple very late cancellations, so there’s still room for 8-10 more people. The group maxes out at 30.

FURTHER INFORMATION:
Nance Klehm’s “Weedeater” columns for Arthur Magazine:
http://www.arthurmag.com/contributors/weedeater-by-nance-klehm/

Photos and video from Nance Klehm’s urban forage last May in Chicago:
http://backyardharvester.com/blog/2009/05/foraging-wild-food-in-douglas-park.htm

Nance Klehm’s website:
http://spontaneousvegetation.net/

A podcast by American Public Media on Nance Klehm’s 2008 urban forage in Los Angeles:

Due to the high demand for tickets for our sold-out Muppet History 101 + Muppet Music Moments double feature at 8pm tonight, we’ve added a second show — of Muppet History 101 only — tonight at midnight!

Tickets will be available at the box office from 7:30pm onwards, on our website starting now…

Tickets -- $12

Friday, July 31st at MIDNIGHT
The Cinefamily Silent Movie Theatre
611 N. Fairfax Avenue / Los Angeles, CA 90036

Buy tickets here.

an⋅i⋅ma /ˈænəmə/ –noun
1. soul; life.
2. (in the psychology of C. G. Jung)
a. the inner personality that is turned toward the unconscious of the individual (contrasted with persona).
b. the feminine principle, esp. as present in men (contrasted with animus).

ANIMATED ANIMA is an exhibition of artwork by Cadence Pearson and Lucinda Trask, two artists who explore the undefined area between your physical body and the anima. The opening reception will feature a performance installation by Genevieve Belleveau of the Queen Frostine Ice Cream Girls and live music by the soulful experimental folk duo Bow Ribbons.

Opening August 1st, 8PM – Music at 10PM
PERFECT WAVE GALLERY
184 West St. #2 / Brooklyn, NY 11222
Free admission

On view through August 7th, 4-9PM and by appointment.

The Arm
281 North 7th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
thearmnyc.com

(photo copyright Fred Burkhart)

Info courtesy The Arm:

“A rare exhibition of nearly half a century of Ed Sanders’ glyph-poems produced between 1962 and 2009 will be on display at The Arm from July 10 through July 31.

“Gallery hours will be Wednesday to Sunday from Noon to 6PM until the end of the month.

“Building on a long history of utilizing a highly visible language that continues into the present, Sanders’s glyph-poems fuse image with text, and image as text. Political, personal, ephemeral, historical, uncanny, and humorous— the glyph-poems on display at The Arm appear in several different mediums, including original drawings, collages, mimeographed pages from Fuck You/ A Magazine of the Arts (1962-’65), plus a number of collages, and an artist’s book. Over 200 Glyph-works will be featured in the show.

“In addition, Glyphs 1962-2009 will feature new letterpress prints and a limited edition catalogue produced on location at The Arm.

“Edward Sanders is a poet, historian and musician. He is at work, since 1998, on a 9-volume America, a History in Verse. The first five volumes, tracing the history of the 20th century, have been completed and published in a fully indexed CD format, over 2,000 pages in length, by Blake Route Press.

“Another recent writing project is Poems For New Orleans, a book and CD on the history of that great city, and its tribulations during and after hurricane Katrina. He has been granted a Guggenheim fellowship in poetry, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in verse, an American Book Award for his collected poems, and other awards for his writing.

“Other books in print include Tales of Beatnik Glory (4 volumes published in a single edition); 1968: A History in Verse; Poetry and Life Allen Ginsberg: A Narrative Poem; The Family, a history of the Charles Manson murder group, and Chekhov, a biography in verse of Anton Chekhov. Sanders was the founder of the satiric folk/rock group, The Fugs, which has released many albums and CDs during its 45-year history.

“The Fugs have recently completed a CD, Be Free, The Fugs Final CD (Part I), featuring 14 new tunes. Be Free will be released in late summer.

“Two of Sanders’ books, The Family and Tales of Beatnik Glory, are under option to be made into movies.

“His selected poems, 1986-2008, Let’s Not Keep Fighting the Trojan War will be published by Coffee House Press in the fall of 2009.

“He lives in Woodstock, New York with his wife, the essayist and painter Miriam Sanders, and both are active in environmental and other social issues.

“Sanders will perform a section of America, the 17th Century, tracing the voyage of Henry Hudson up the Hudson River in 1609, at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony in Woodstockon August 8, as part of the 400th anniversary celebration of Hudson’s discoveries.”

More info: http://www.woodstockjournal.com/

Deep-space excursions that reveal the dark matter of pop culture, absurdist mythologies that transcend into tear jerking dramas…all can be found in Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite.

This forthcoming show at Synchronicity Space opens on July 31st with a video screening including 19 unique artists. 2-D and 3-D artifacts from the videos will accompany the screening and be on display throughout August. Those looking to travel through a black hole and keep your boots on: look no further. Curated by Ben Bigelow

Opening Friday, July 31st at 7PM, with video screenings from 9-10PM
Synchronicity Space
4306 Melrose / Los Angeles 90029
Free

Come out to celebrate the release of “You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!” by Fletcher Hanks, edited by Paul Karasik.

Thursday, July 23, 2009
7:00pm – 9:00pm
Discussion at 7:30 with signing by Paul Karasik to follow
Desert Island
540 Metropolitan Ave btwn Union and Lorimer
Brooklyn, NY

Karasik will speak with comics historian and publisher Dan Nadel about Hanks’s legacy, and both will take questions.

Fletcher Hanks, who worked under pseudonyms such as Henry Fletcher, Barclay Flagg or Hank Christy, is one of the more mysterious comic book artists active in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His work stood out for its weirdness and themes of brutal vengence, but little is known about the artist himself. Among his comic book heroes are ‘Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle’, the lumberjack hero ‘Big Red McLane’, and the cosmic superheroes ‘Stardust, The Super Wizard’ and ‘Space Smith’. ‘Fantomah Mystery Woman of the Jungle’, is often called the First Female Superhero.

Hanks’ work appeared in Fox, Fiction House and Timely Publications for three years (1939-1941) before he abruptly stopped making comics. What little is known about the artist’s fate is outlined in two collections of his work both edited by cartoonist, Paul Karasik. ‘I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets’ won an Eisner Award and the second volume, ‘You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation!’, when combined with the first, comprises the Complete Fletcher Hanks.

also: Fletcher Hanks coloring books (with Charles Burns cover!) FREE with purchase of the new book at the event.

plus: a limited edition Hanks screenprint will be available at the event, and is now available for preorder here: http://tinyurl.com/fantomah

Above: a still from Ice (courtesy: Kramer Ink)

We don’t often run straight press releases here on the Arthur blog, but we’re gonna make an exception here. From our friends at New York City’s great Anthology Film Archives:

RETROSPECTIVE: THE FILMS OF ROBERT KRAMER
July 17-23

* First NYC retro in a decade devoted to committed radical American filmmaker
* Prime mover behind Newsreel movement

BRAND NEW 35MM PRINT of 1975’s MILESTONES will be shown!
The circulation of a new print of Robert Kramer’s 1975 film MILESTONES provides the perfect impetus for the first NYC retrospective in almost a decade devoted to one of the greatest and most committed of all radical American filmmakers. Among the prime movers behind the Newsreel movement, an underground media collective which produced some sixty documentaries and short films about radical political subjects and the anti-war movement, Kramer’s own early films are remarkable reports on revolutionary struggles in Latin America and Vietnam. Increasingly turning his attention to the state of the radical movement in the United States, he developed a highly distinctive approach, an intermixing of fiction and non-fiction filmmaking, which he would continue to pursue following his departure for Europe in the early 1980s. Based in Paris for the rest of his life (he would pass away in 1999), he nevertheless maintained a dialogue with the U.S., most memorably in his epic masterpiece, ROUTE ONE/USA.

Along with the new print of MILESTONES, this series will include all of his early American films, as well as ROUTE ONE/USA.

Special thanks to Adam Sekuler (Northwest Film Forum), Keja Kramer, Audrey Hilaire (Capricci Films), Kitty Cleary (MoMA), Richard Copans & Gaya Jiji (Les Films d’Ici), Marie-Pierre Lessard (Cinémathèque Québécoise), and Haden Guest & David Pendleton (Harvard Film Archive).

To be screened:

IN THE COUNTRY
1966, 65 minutes, 16mm.
During the Vietnam War, a young revolutionary, isolated with his lover in a country house, struggles to comprehend his self-inflicted inactivity and his alienation from former political associates. In what is essentially a two-character psychological drama, Kramer first articulates a theme – the need to reconcile private life with public commitment – that is central to his work.
“The film is a reflection of the way people use words to hide, to use them as masks and anti-truth. The real influence behind the film is [Dreyer’s] GERTRUD. I love that movie so much.” –Robert Kramer
–Friday, July 17 at 6:45 and Thursday, July 23 at 6:30.

BRAND NEW 35MM PRINT!
MILESTONES
1975, 195 minutes, 35mm. Co-directed by John Douglas.
A many-faceted portrait of those individuals who sought radical solutions to social problems in the United States during the 1960s and 70s, MILESTONES cuts back and forth between six major story lines and more than fifty characters, and across a vast landscape to explore the lifestyles and attitudes of those survivors of the American left who faced both personal and historic transitions in the period following the Vietnam War. Shot in a documentary style, the film ends with an actual childbirth, which serves in part to symbolize the birth of new forms of cultural resistance and of renewed faith in the possibility of progressive action.
“MILESTONES is as carefully arranged as a piece of music. …[U]sing images, emotions and, most frequently, words as themes, it bursts with unexpected life.” –Vincent Canby, NEW YORK TIMES
–Friday, July 17 at 8:30, Saturday, July 18 at 3:15, and Thursday, July 23 at 8:00.

ICE
1969, 135 minutes, 16mm.
This pioneering work is the first of Kramer’s films to blur the boundaries between fiction and documentary, an approach Kramer would pursue throughout his subsequent career. An underground revolutionary group struggles against internal strife and stages guerilla attacks against a fictional fascist regime in the U.S. Kramer intercuts rhetorical sequences that explain the group’s philosophy of radical action and serve to restrain the melodrama inherent in the thriller genre. Shot in the gray landscape of NYC in a gritty cinéma-vérité style, ICE is reminiscent of Godard’s ALPHAVILLE. Jonas Mekas wrote that ICE was “the most original and significant American narrative film of the late sixties.”
–Saturday, July 18 at 7:00 and Monday, July 20 at 8:45.

FALN
1965, 25 minutes, 16mm. Co-directed by Peter Gessner.
A straightforward account of the birth of the revolutionary organization FALN. It traces the history of social and political unrest in Venezuela, which was aggravated by the interventionist policies of the United States and led to a split in relations between peasants and the forces in power.
&
THE PEOPLE’S WAR
1969, 40 minutes, 16mm.
Shot in North Vietnam in the summer of 1969 and narrated by the people themselves, this documentary creates a vivid portrait of the countryside and ways of life during the war. It focuses on the Vietnamese tactics of survival and resistance – their educational system, military training, industrial and cultural institutions, and forms of entertainment.
Total running time: ca. 70 minutes.
–Saturday, July 18 at 9:30 and Tuesday, July 21 at 7:00.

SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN PORTUGAL
1979, 85 minutes, 16mm.
Combining newsreel footage, still photographs, interviews, and analytical narration, this documentary focuses on the anti-fascist, anti-imperialist efforts of labor groups, peasants, and working-class soldiers to liberate Portugal from the control of the Salazar government. Shot from April 1974 to November 1976, it relates the conflicts in Portugal to the liberation movements of the United States and South Africa in these revolutionary activities.
–Sunday, July 19 at 2:00 and Tuesday, July 21 at 8:30.

THE EDGE
1967, 102 minutes, 16mm.
A troubled antiwar activist plans to assassinate the President of the United States. His resolve forces others in a fragmented and disillusioned group of political allies to face the threat of government counterintelligence and the temptations of middle-age security, and to reexamine their commitment to radical action.
–Sunday, July 19 at 4:15 and Monday, July 20 at 6:30.

ROUTE ONE/USA
1989, 255 minutes, 35mm.
In the magisterial ROUTE ONE/USA, Kramer and his long-time friend and alter-ego Paul McIsaac travel along the East Coast of the U.S. Through this extraordinary piece, Kramer attempts a film portrait of “a people, but not the masses”, focusing on particular people in particular circumstances to get beyond generalizations about “the American public”.
“Route 1 is a highway that runs from Canada to Key West, Florida, along the east coast of the USA. In 1936, it was the most traveled roadway in the world. In 1988, it runs beside super highways and through suburbs, a thin stretch of asphalt cutting through all the old dreams of a nation. But as the Doctor and I went down that road for five months, I had the impression that we were not driving through the past at all, but through a much more honest and dynamic revelation of the present. We were in the shadows of highways and great glass downtown centers, we were far from the movie images, we seemed to be on the edge and slipping fast into obscurity, but we were really in the present, surrounded by big trouble and hard times.” –Robert Kramer
–Sunday, July 19 at 6:30 and Wednesday, July 22 at 7:00.

Layered Orders: Crowley’s Thoth Deck and the Tarot
(a personal narrative by Jesse Bransford)

Date: Friday, July 17th
Time: 7:30pm
UPDATE: Please note, that due to popular demand, a second time slot for this event has been added. Jesse will be giving this talk at 7:30pm and again at 9:00pm on Friday, July 17th. Seating is first come, first served.
Admission: Free

A deck given to his brother by his mother in 1986 sat in Jesse Bransford’s childhood bedroom from the early 90’s until recently, delivering itself into Bransford’s possession at an opportune moment…

The Tarot in general and Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot in particular represent a miasmic confluence of image and thought into a single structure that is both liberating and overwhelming in its scope. In creating the deck, Crowley (in collaboration with painter Lady Frieda Harris) sought to integrate the mythological structures of the major mystical systems of both Western and Eastern occult traditions and to bring them into line with contemporary scientific thinking. The symbolism of the cards blends Kabbalah, Alchemy, Astrology, Egyptian mythology, quantum physics and even the I-Ching in ways that are at the same time clear and utterly confounding.

In an image-soaked personal narration Bransford, whose research-based artwork has delved into many of the territories Crowley sought to unify, will discuss some of the basic concepts of Tarot symbolism, returning to Crowley’s deck as among the most total example of the cards’ syncretism and as the most controversial.

Jesse Bransford is a Brooklyn/Queens-based artist whose work has been exhibited internationally. He received a B.A. from the New School for Social Research, a B.F.A. from Parsons School of Design, both in 1996, and an M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2000. He is currently a Master Teacher with the post of Undergraduate Director at New York University where he has been teaching since 2001, as well as a member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.  His work is represented by Feature Inc. in New York, Kevin Bruk Gallery in Miami, Galerie Schmidt Maczollek in Köln, and Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art in Cleveland. Images of his work, a complete bio and related articles can be seen at www.sevenseven.com, a website he has continuously maintained since 1997.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Directions:  ***PLEASE USE NEW ENTRANCE (see below)***

Observatory is located at 543 Union Street at Nevins.

Please enter Observatory via doorway on 543 Union St.

R or M train to Union Street in Brooklyn: Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right.

F or G train to Carroll Street: Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on the left.

For more information, see observatoryroom.org

Via Phantasmaphile.

“Expanding Mind with Erik Davis will be streaming live (and archived) at the Progressive Radio Network starting this Thursday, July 16th, at 2pm EST and 11am Pacific time.

www.progressiveradionetwork.com

“Tune into a hour of mind-blowing galactic chat about consciousness, technology, and spirituality. And please consider calling in your comments and questions! 888-873-4643.”

From Progressive Radio Netwrok:

“This weekly hour-long radio show hosted by award winning author, lecturer, [Arthur Magazine "The Analog Life" columnist] and San Francisco native Erik Davis explores the many dimensions of mind and consciousness. From meditation to parapsychology, from the effects of art and technology on our souls to the abiding mysteries of religion and spirituality, the show’s discussions are designed to expand our understanding and experience of ourselves while casting a critical and often humorous eye on the twists and turns that consciousness takes as it tries to make sense of itself and the world.”

If you’re in Portland check out the book release party at Grass Hut (the gallery that Bwana co-runs) Saturday night!

Portland Release Party:
July 11, 6-9pm
Book Signing, Pencil Fighting, Fart Knocking!!!

Grass Hut
811 E Burnside.
Portland, Oregon

From Cinefamily:

8/30 @ 8pm & 10:30pm
The Bear
(w/ live score by No Age)
L.A.-based, world-renowned experimental noise pop duo No Age will appear live at the Cinefamily to perform their brand-new score for Jean-Jacques Annaud’s majestic 1988 film The Bear, a near-wordless cinematic expedition deep into the savagery and tenderness of the animal kingdom. Told from the titular species’ point of view, The Bear chronicles the journey of an orphan bear cub and a lone adult bear banding together to avoid two human hunters. Along the way, director Annaud has great fun with the storytelling possibilities from a non-human perspective, including dream sequences and an unforgettable psychdelic mushroom bear trip! With nearly no (human) dialogue, the film easily lends itself to live scoring, and No Age drummer Dean Spunt and guitarist Randy Randall have crafted a shimmering 90-minute set of sonic blasts and delicate textures that perfectly complement the peculiar, touching and altogether unique experience that is The Bear.

Tickets/info at Cinefamily website

Transfigurations 2009, August 13-15
The Grey Eagle, Diana Wortham Theatre, & Fine Arts Theatre
Asheville, NC
Festival Schedule

The filmmaker— K.C. Bull, Sandy’s daughter— will be in attendance.

From the Glasslands site:

Monday July 6th 8:00pm FREE

Sandy Bull: No Deposit, No Return Blues

“Deposit No Return Blues” is a documentary K.C. Bull made about her father, psychadelic rock legend Sandy Bull. He played the role of the outsider, writing meditations on his instrument and bringing classical music to the cosmic happening. He was many things, but the way the film remembers him is through his instrument and how it connected him to the outside world.

In the early sixties, before such six-string heroes as Ry Cooder, Leo Kottke and Richard Thompson impressed with their ability to hop among and fuse musical genres, Sandy Bull glided from classical and jazz to ethnic music and rock & roll with grace and verve. Incorporating elements of folk, jazz and Indian and Arabic-influenced dronish modes, Bull’s ethereal, psychedelic folk-rock recordings , which looked beyond American roots music for its inspiration, and performances made him a cult-hero to a generation of musicians and adventurous audiences. In 2001 Bull died of lung cancer, but not before his daughter began to fashion a personal portrait of a gifted musician and moving ode to a father and daughter relationship. The film is KC Bull’s understated way of saying, “Have you heard of my dad? No? Oh, you should.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bull
Sandy Bull on myspace

Music:
P.G. Six: http://www.myspace.com/pgsixband
and Angkor What?

We were hipped to this by Sandra Izsadore. Not much more info than the above poster—sorry. Dr. Carlos Moore’s official website is here. His 1982 book, Fela: This Bitch of a Life, a semi-biography of the great man and his retinue, is finally back in print, and available from Amazon here.

Also, Sandra is the first to inform us of this genuinely huge news: FELA! A New Musical, the sensational off-Broadway production that Arthur reviewers C & D had double conniptions for for last year (Arthur No. 31/Oct 2008), is moving up to to Broadway this fall at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. October 19, to be precise. Hot damn! Here’s the trailer:

This will be the Philadelphia debut of New York City’s PETER STAMPFEL AND THE ETHER FROLIC MOB who, Stampfel promises, will “stick our hands up the ass of American music, grab it by the throat, and pull it inside-out. It’s 21st century 19th century American music played in a vast variety of 20th century styles.” We’d expect nothing less—Mr. Stampfel is a founding member of the Holy Modal Rounders and the Fugs, and Frolicker JOHN COHEN is a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers. (That’s them in the photo above.) Two sets from the Mobsters, who, tonight, will be:

* Peter Stampfel/ vocals, banjo, fiddle, guitar, ‘juke (steel strung National Steel Ukulele tuned like a banjo), assorted percussion
* Jeannie Scofield/ vocals, percussion
* John Cohen/ vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin
* Hubby Jenkens/ vocals, guitar, percussion, ‘juke, ukelele
* Eli Smith/ vocals, banjo, harmonica, fiddle, ukulele
* Jane Gilday/ vocals, banjo, harmonica, fiddle
* Walker Shepard/ vocals, banjo, guitar, fiddle, ‘juke
* Annabelle Lee/ vocals, guitar, percussion

Get a swig of the Mob via this live performance and interview from 2006 on the Down Home Radio Show

BROTHER JT (pictured above) will be playing a mix of psychedelic spirituals on acoustic guitar, accompanied by Steve Gigante (Dark Inside The Sun).

“For the past twenty years Brother JT has made records that exemplify the ‘freeness’ and dark-green/blood-red hazy warmth of true psychedelia. As a songwriter, he is so proficient that no one takes notice; as a guitar player, he subtly outshines any slinger around (besides the Cheaterslicks’ Dave Shannon) with riffs, leads and solos that are consistently bewildering; as a rock star…well, he was just born for the job, regardless if anyone ever figures it out. He writes one-liner bits of philosophy that are as memorable as those of Yogi Berra, H. L. Mencken, or Will Rogers. JT is, in short, the most hidden of greatest treasures.” —David Katznelson, Arthur No. 8 (available from Arthur store)

Baltimore’s IAN NAGOSKI (compiler of “Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Musics 1918-1954″) will play recordings from the 78 rpm era including pieces from his new collection of music from the first half of the 20th century, “A String of Pearls” (Canary/ Mississippi Records), including music from Constantinople, Milano, Bucharest, Uttar Pradesh, Armenia, Sunda, Thrace, Jamaica, Serbia, Cairo, Huilotita, Seville, Hue, Aleppo, Rajastan, the Carpathians, a Zuni reservation and much more.

Ian on Baltimore public radio, playing and discussing his 78rpm music finds from around world:
http://bit.ly/130m0w

Ian blogs on Arthurmag.com:
http://www.arthurmag.com/author/ian-nagoski/

Friday June 26–
Thee Plastic Crimewave Vision Celestial Guitarkestra will be happening at the Cake Shop 152 Ludlow St., New York, NY–with openers Prince Ruperts Drops, Samara Lubelski and the Bubble Electric, and Puffy Areolas (from Ohio–they rule and are on Siltbreeze now). Hope you are down with helping lift us to the sonic heavens –if you or someone you know wants to join in the ruckus, load-in is at 8pm (it’s a first come, first-serve/play sorta deal, as the space is small) and please bring a guitar/amp/powerstrip/extension cord (if possible) and get ready to drone out in “E”.
Special guests include members of Oneida, Charalambides, Espers, Metalux, Tower Recordings, Bunnybrains, White Hills, La Otracina, Vetiver and more!

Sunday June 28–
New York Night Train’s Tripped-Out Happening, Santo’s Party House, 96 Lafayette St Manhattan, NY–9pm-4am, $10 – DJs Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers), Plastic Crimewave (Plastic Crimewave Sound, GZD), Josh Styles (Smashed! Blocked!), Jonathan Toubin (New York Night Train) – live performances by Psychic Ills and Soft Circle (ex-Black Dice). Projections by Mighty Robot AV Squad, Spencer Bewley, and Larry 7…
http://www.newyorknighttrain.com/2009/06/22/4016/

here’s way too much info:
PSYCHIC ILLS, named “Best Psychedelic Rock Band” by the Village Voice Best Of NY Issue, since ascending into stratospheric global cult popularity with their canonical 2006 Social Registry LP Dins (the finest psych rock album since the 1970s. Hands down!), remain uncompromising in their artistry and continue to blaze new sonic trails every day of their relentless touring and recording schedule. Still one of the supreme mind-melting acts in the world!
SOFT CIRCLE is the ambient/tribal/electronic musical project of Black Dice’s Hisham Akira Bharoocha who releases records on the Eastern Developments and PPM labels. Hisham takes a seat behind the drums and proceeds to record and loop sounds in front of your eyes then adds layers of drums and singing to create a cyclical symphony of rhythm and sound. Soft Circle, regularly touring with Boredoms, No Age, High Places, and a number of other subcultural notables, is also the musical director for Boredom’s 77 BOADRUM and 88 Boadrum performances featuring 77 and 88 drummers respectively. Hisham’s exquisite soulful percussive mantras need to be seen and heard live to be believed
LARRY 7 has been a huge force in a variety NYC underground scenes and mediums for years. From his musical work with everyone from Jarboe to Tom Verlaine to Can’s Michael Carlioli and Malcolm Mooney to his visual work with Warhol’s Factory, Matthew Barney, etc., to his longstanding mobile multimedia +/- night and live performances at galleries, museums, and live events all over Canada and Europe, though he’s a secret treasure at home, Larry 7 is a household names in the international avant garde. Larry, whose performances are all distinct, always makes the nature of his live work a surprise (last time Einstuerzende Neubauten’s Alex Hacke turned up to join him!).
ANNA COPA CABANNA, the sexy Australian showgirl icon who performs her choreography, plays her xylophone, and roller-skates in venues around the world, is equally well-known as the official go go dancer of the New York rock and roll underground.
DJ’S: GIBBY HAYNES is of course the gargantuan cultural force and musical talent best known for leading innovative Texas acid-punks Butthole Surfers as they changed the way underground music was played and presented throughout the 1980s and 1990s and reunited to much acclaim last year. Outside of his thousands of noteworthy exploits with the Butthole Surfers, Gibby also sang on Ministry’s MTV mega-hit “Jesus Built My Hotrod,” played in a band with Johnny Depp, and acted in a number of major motion pictures. More importantly for our purposes tonight, Mr. Haynes has become a popular DJ and successful visual artist the last few years – spinning and exhibiting for a growing fanbase around the world.
PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE is the one-man empire of Chicago artist/musician/DJ Steve Krakow. Leader of hallucinogenic sonic adventurers Plastic Crimewave sound, author of Drag City’s incredible hand-drawn zine Galactic Zoo Dossier, and the DJ behind WGN radio’s Secret History of Chicago Music show, Krakow is an international psychedelic cult-of-personality.
MR JONATHAN TOUBIN, New York Night Train’s Conductor and Soul Proprietor, has shattered the face of nightlife in the wormy apple, and lately, around the world, w­ith his revolutionary parties and wild and wooly approach to his trademark 45rpm “maximum rock and soul” sets!
JOSH STYLES, Smashed! Blocked!’s DJ/conceptualist, who also moonlights as the drummer for Stalkers, is internationally celebrated as one of the world’s most prominent freakbeat DJs – throwing down the most choice 45s chock full o’ heavy duty beats, flipped-out guitar sounds, shimmering Hammonds, catchy riffs and choruses – plus loads of bounce and energy!
VISUALS: LARRY 7 (see above)
SPENCER BEWLEY, the English projectionist who has wowed crowds everywhere the last few years on the road with the likes of Death In Vegas, Warlocks, and A Place to Bury Strangers, manipulates found, purchased, and assembled loops on dueling 16mm projectors to blow peoples minds
MIGHTY ROBOT AV SQUAD, operating the multi-media visuals for years not only at their Mighty Robot and Secret Project Robot art spaces, discos, rock venues, museums, and other elsewhere on both sides of the Atlantic, employ an infinite overlapping juxtaposition of motion collages to form a kinetic visual feast! ambient, the symbolic, and the thematic!

and then running back to Chicago for this excitement……

Wed July 1–
Sandy Bull film screening at the Chopin Theatre–1543 W Division St, 8pm. Performing will be DRMWPN, 500MG (Mike Gibbons of Bardo Pond) and Ultimate Vag (Members of Kahoutek and To Live & Shave in LA), and Drag City DJ’s. Here’s a description of the film from the filmmaker:
“No Deposit No Return Blues” is a documentary K.C. Bull made about her father, psychedelic rock legend Sandy Bull. He played the role of the outsider, writing meditations on his instrument and bringing classical music to the cosmic happening. He was many things, but the way the film remembers him is through his instrument and how it connected him to the outside world. In the early sixties, before such six-string heroes as Ry Cooder, Leo Kottke and Richard Thompson impressed with their ability to hop among and fuse musical genres, Sandy Bull glided from classical and jazz to ethnic music and rock & roll with grace and verve. Incorporating elements of folk, jazz, Indian and Arabic-influenced dronish modes, Bull’s ethereal, psychedelic folk-rock recordings– which looked beyond American roots music for its inspiration–and performances, made him a cult-hero to a generation of musicians and adventurous audiences. In 2001 Bull died of lung cancer, but not before his daughter began to fashion a personal portrait of a gifted musician and moving ode to a father and daughter relationship.
The film is KC Bull’s understated way of saying, “Have you heard of my dad? No? Oh, you should.” I agree, you should.

Floating World Animation Fest 2009 Trailer – Holocene, June 25th from Floating World Comics on Vimeo.

“The 3rd annual Floating World Animation Fest features mind melting video art and psychedelic animation from the secret world of motionography. “Secret” meaning these are the geniuses that make your music videos, on air graphics, commercials, credit sequences, and movie fx by day… but a closer look at their resumes reveals a true passion for artistic expression and creativity in their short films and experimental personal work. This year’s fest screens at Holocene, Thursday June 25th, with a special bonus program curated by Show Cave Gallery (Los Angeles). Trailer features: Nicolas Djandji, David O’Reilly, Mato Atom, Carolina Melis, Justine Ashbee, Nofun, Steve Scott & Will Sweeney, Peppermelon, Kaliptus, Rohitash Rao, Yoshi Sodeoka, Robert Seidel, Superbrothers, Eve Duhamel, Bruno Dicolla, Erin Dunn, Throne Boogie, Dale Hayward. Music by: Nola. Poster by: Psilo Design”

“Join us at Holocene for the full Floating World Animation Fest lineup: Show Cave Best of Videocation, & Floating World Animation Fest 2009 present 3+ hours of mind melting, soul loving psychedelicanimation… this summer’s ultimate videocation! Plus live music from: Deelay Ceelay and Flaspar!”

Floating World Animation Fest 2009 – Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison, Portland OR – June 25th

I attended dozens of Dr. Stephen Hoeller’s lectures in the early 00s at both the Philosophical Research Society and the Gnostic Society. He has a delightful accent, a mischievous sense of humor and, when he stays on track, a Joseph Campbell-like command of the world’s religio-spiritual-mystical-magical traditions. A living Angeleno treasure, fer shure…

From the Gnostic Society’s website:

June 2009: Alchemy: Its Stages of Transformation

In the past, Dr. Hoeller has periodically returned in his lecturing schedule to the subject of Alchemy. For several years, the topic of the three stages of Alchemical Transformation has not been used by our speaker. This month this vital subject will be discussed utilizing previously not used material. No previous knowledge of Alchemy is required to enjoy this series.

June 5: Alchemy, the Great Art: An introduction to Alchemy, utilizing magical, religious and psychological material of past and present. How may one prepare for one’s own Alchemical Process.

June 12: The Black Stage (Nigredo): The breaking down of the consensus reality. The forming of the original substance of being (Prima Materia).

June 19: The White Stage (Albedo): The dawning of the light of higher consciousness; the arising of enlightenment. Envisioning the heavenly light (Lumen Dei) and the natural light (Lumen Naturae).

June 26: The Red Stage (Rubedo): The melting of all realities in the red-hot Alchemical fire. The ultimate fusion of the opposites. The unifying of reality (Unus Mundus).

Lectures are given at The Gnostic Society of Los Angeles, California (3363 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039). These programs are held every Friday evening at 8:00 PM. Lectures are free and open to the public (free-will donations are appreciated). Refreshments are offered following the lecture. Further information is available by calling 323-467-2685.

Established in America in 1928, The Gnostic Society is dedicated to advancing the study, understanding, and individual experience of Gnosis. “He who has ears, let him hear!”

http://gnosis.org/gnostsoc/gnostsoc.htm

Hi all — My new book, “Operation Bite Back” is out today (June 23) and I want to let you all know about the first reading, this Saturday, June 27, 5 p.m. at Book Soup,8818 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. Email info@booksoup.com

A far cry from the farcical and easily ignored rhetoric of green-capitalists, indigenous eco-activist Rod Coronado’s zine Strong Hearts, written entirely while imprisoned for an arson on a Michagan State animal-testing facility, is written with enough inteligence and compassion to remind any passive mind that our culture’s treatment of animals and the Earth is an undienable attrocity, and urges real action. Operation Bite Back details Coronado’s life, how his direct action against the vivisection, fur, and trapping industries helped spearhead the notoriety of the ALF and ELF, and how the movement he helped build “was ultimately forced to turn its back on him.”

(Above video starts at 43 seconds)

Kuiper continues his West Coast tour in July:

7/8
SEATTLE, WA
Town Hall (Seattle Science Lectures series) / reading / 7:30 p.m.
1119 8th Ave
Seattle, WA 98101-2738
(206) 652-4255

7/9

PORTLAND, OR
Powell’s (on Hawthorne) / reading / 7:30 p.m.
3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
Portland, OR 97214
503-228-4651

7/10

OLYMPIA, WA
Orca Books / reading / 6 p.m.
509 E. 4th Ave.
Olympia, WA 98502
360-352-0123

7/11

EUGENE, OR
Cozmic Pizza / reading / 5 p.m.
199 W 8th Ave
Eugene, OR 97401
(541) 338-9333

7/12

ASHLAND, OR
Stillwater / reading / time t.k.
1951 Highway 66
Ashland, OR 97520
541.482.6113

7/13

SAN FRANCISCO, CA
The Green Arcade / reading / 7 p.m.
1680 Market St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 431-6800

7/14

OAKLAND, CA
Diesel Bookstore / reading / 7 p.m.
5433 College Avenue
Oakland, CA 94618
510-653-9965

7/16-7/20

LOS ANGELES, CA
Animal Rights 2009 conference / details tk
Westin LAX Hotel
5400 West Century Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90045
310.216.5858

7/28

PASADENA, CA
Vroman’s / reading / 7 p.m.
695 E. Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91101
626-449-5320

Jordon Wolfson, The Forest From Above in Reverse, 2006 (Image courtesy of Johann König, Berlin)

MERMAIDS VERSUS UNICORNS
Curated by Byron Coley and Jo Robertson
June 25 – August 14, 2009

I-20
557 West 23rd Street in West Chelsea

http://www.i-20.com

Opening: Thursday, June 25, 6-8pm

Rachal Bradley
Peter Coffin
Byron Coley
Martin Creed
Cyprien Gaillard
Manuela Gernedel
Celia Hempton
Shana Moulton
Sav X
Jo Robertson
Eduardo Sarabia
Lucy Stein
Jordon Wolfson

In the Year of the Swine Flu, this Decade of the Cur, there is no longer such a thing as Good Taste. Even things that please the semiotic tongue are rank. If that’s even possible. And it is.

Over the last several years, Jo Robertson in London and Byron Coley in rural Massachusetts have kept up a running dialogue discussing what happens when you get beyond Good. They have found that that we seem to ache for art that creates and fulfills a person narrative, no matter how fractured.

A conversation about the girlish swagger of Ted Hughes and the nawhale-like compression of Sylvia Plath acted as the driving force behind the evolution of Mermaids vs. Unicorns. This idea recurred and eventually developed into the explorative concept that would facilitate this show to venture across geographical and stylistic borders.

On June 25th, I-20 debuts their second collaborative exhibition. The show is comprised of thirteen artists from Berlin, Guadalajara, London, New York and Paris. The artists all contribute an open dialogue between archetypes, relating to the differences between earth and sea.

Mermaids vs. Unicorns presents the viewer with a number of mediums ranging from photography to ceramic installation to oil painting. The theme allows for a variety of interpretations, from the literal to the extreme. Frolics are enjoyed, identities are stolen or obliterated, communication breaks down, and the mammals will lie down with the fish.

- Byron Coley

Saturday, June 20, 2009, 7 -- 11 pm
PS1/MoMA
In celebration of the summer solstice, Frank Haines has organized an evening of ritualistic, mysterious, and mystical performances, music, film, and spoken word. Four performers—the trio Blanko & Noiry; 16mm filmmaker Rose Kallal and curator Mark Beasley; psychedelic metal band Miracle of Birth; and poet Cedar Sigo— will perform in a different corner of a single gallery. ARP (DFA/Smalltown Supersound) will provide musical transitions between each performance.
In a reference to his artistic relationship to the cult filmmaker Kenneth Anger, Haines borrowed this event’s title from Hugh Kenner’s novel The Pound Era, in which the author notes that Pound “came to think of translation as a model for the poetic act: blood brought to ghosts…essentially creating new life from old texts.” Anger’s current P.S.1 exhibition will be on view throughout the evening.
Ticket information here.

Haines, who currently has a show at the Lisa Cooley Gallery, is a visual, musical, and performance artist. His performances are rare and reportedly not to be missed, filling the entire space with energy in a manner consistent with the occult rituals, such as the gnostic mass, that link Haines with Anger. The performance is $10 and 21+, but it sounds like there will probably be free Grolsch!

Thursday, June 18th: Book reading and launch party

Blue Stockings, book reading 7pm
172 Allen St, New York, NY 10002

Sutra Lounge AfterParty – 8:30p onward
16 1st Ave, NYC.

Short films range from a watercolor animation showing the director’s thoughts while riding her bicycle (Thoughts On My Bike), to a documentary about a group of friends from Trinidad who built “enormous stereo systems jerry-rigged onto ordinary BMX bikes” so that they could throw their neighborhood “an outrageous impromptu music and dance party on wheels” (Made in Queens).

Feature-lengths of note include Keirin Queen/Onna Keirn, a classic Japanese film about a girl from a small fishing town who trains to become a Keirin track queen, and Where Are You Go, a documentary about a cycling adventure across Africa:

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
32 Second Avenue (at 2nd St.)
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org/

Tickets are $10 per program.

Learn more about the festival and buy tickets here.

This month at Parker’s Box, artist Steven Brower’s Brower Propulsion Laboratory stages a three-week “Pre-Launch Operations Test” for its third large-scale space voyage, lovingly christened “Moranic Mission to Montana.” A pioneer and market leader in the field of one-man, penniless “corporate” aerospace companies, BPL is unique for conducting its exploratory research missions entirely on the planet earth, and, in an industry typically fueled by a desire for financial, political, scientific, and geographical conquest, for undertaking all of its projects in a spirit of “disutility.” “The basic goal of each mission at BPL,” the company’s official website states, is simply “to do something”– and, through, the acquisition of knowledge and technical expertise linked to the demands of each operation, to develop a “parallel universe of pseudoexpertise,” applicable only to BPL operations.

The company’s third mission, scheduled for late August, 2009, will mobilize three handmade robotic spacecraft (a lander, a rover, and a hot air balloon) to retrace the path of Hudson River School painter Thomas Moran in his historic 1871 expedition to Livingston, Montana, near Yellowstone National Park. Until that landmark expedition, which people worldwide will be able to follow on the “Interweb,” people interested in learning more about BPL can drop by Parker’s box for a look at some of Steven Brower’s (patented?) inventions–including, but not limited to, the three spacecraft, a “cheap ass” laser night vision system, water color “surveys” of the Yellowstone terrain, and BPL souvenir merchandise. A bake sale fundraiser will be in effect through all of the gallery’s open hours, with delicious pies, cupcakes, and cookies baked daily by the company CEO himself.

Steven Brower, BPL Mission 003 : Pre-Launch Operations Test (PLOT)
Friday-Monday, 1-7pm, through June 21, 2009
Parker’s Box
193 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Map

The Montague Phantom Brain Exchange, a monthly art and thought happening in the slightly world weary old New England mill town of Turners Falls, seems to have become a prime destination for all things “weird and unusual” on the Western Massachusetts cultural front. Curated by “Mr. Cloaca,” whose use of a pseudonym here jibes perfectly with the “phantom” vibe, the MPBE describes itself as “a place where bodied and disembodied brains & nonbrains can safely gather to deconstruct solutions & create problems while soaking in an invigorating bath of provocative entertainments.” While Western Mass is positively overflowing with energetic brain-swappings of this kind (and you can check out the Happy’n'in’Valley blog calendar here if you doubt it), Cloaca’s series is unique for always pairing live performance, DJ transports, and moving images screenings with a fifteen minute lecture–that is, the MPBE’s signature “music-book-report-series-within-a-series,” founded by Bull Tongue co-mastermind Byron Coley last year.

Below is the missive for this month’s offering:

June being the month of stretched time & light, and with time being
this concept that may or may not exist within the next couple of
years, and light being impossible to capture, i couldn’t think of a
better, brighter moment that of the auspicious day of June 24th to
unleash these talents. read on:

Epicureans are a hot nu jazz trio from East of Beanville featuring
David Gross (sax/voice), Ricardo Donoso (drums),
& Ryan Mcguire (bass). Cultivating their quiet riot on a fertile plot
of hurt, The Epicureans grow their own delectables utilizing a wide
improvisational vocabulary from lower case insinuation to full-on
tumultuous bombast. Their debut CD is out now on Semata Productions.

Lyn Goeringer sculpts invisible rube goldberg machines of glitchy
goodness triggered & manipulated by theremin, computer, glitterbox, &
other hand made electronics. The Providence-based artist keeps busy
with a bunch of collaborative projects including East of Borneo, K +
M, and in a duo with Brandon Vaccaro. She has an excellently
entrancing solo release on noisician Shawn Greenlee’s IYNGES web
label. Check it out here.

Local DJ hero Bex Taylor will be continuing our
music-book-report-series-within-a-series (started last year by Byron
Coley), lecturing on a book about the Riot Grrl movement. Taylor DJs
under a fake last name to protect the innocent. Back in the day, she
was the record buyer at Main St Records ( in Northampton) & burned
minds on the FM dial with her awesome show, the Ludovico Technique.
As a pimply teen, i fondly recall nervously buying my first Minutemen
LP from her intimidatingly badass self! Her current music gig is
co-DJing Rockitqueer – the monthly Rendezvous dance party. She
sometimes moonlights on 88.5 WFCR, but that’s only to keep up her punk
rock street cred. Nothing says punk rock more than NPR. Lucky for us,
she’ll be spinning righteous selections of grrl powered postpunk & the
like.

Overture Brown’s sumptuous psychedelic forrest creatures will dance
upon our screen in a batik-y swirl of magnificently rendered pixels.
The wildly colorful Overture B universe comes from the heads/hands of
Aya & Jason Brown, who will be present to absorb your adorations.

Lastly, remember, the door to submit material for the MPBE Paper
Program is always open – writings, images, & the like are always
welcome & usually get somehow added into the collaged product. Get up
in it!

Montague Phantom Brain Exchange #19
Epicureans, Lyn Goeringer, DJ/Lecturer Bex Taylor, Overture Brown
Wednesday, June 24th, 9pm Five Bucks!
The Rendezvous
78 3rd St
Turners Falls, MA 01376
Map

Thursday, June 11

Arthur presents…

A soiree at Frankford Gardens

8pm

featuring four solo musicians…

DOUG PAISLEY

GREG WEEKS (Espers)

WILLIE LANE

SONDRA SUN-ODEON (Silver Summit)

2037 Frankford Avenue (enter around back on Sepviva Street)
Philadelphia, PA 19125

suggested donation $5 * bring your own whatsits

inappropriate weather moves show indoors to the music parlor

DOUG PAISLEY
This will be the Philadelphia debut of the Toronto-based country-folk songwriter best known as half of the Will Oldham-championed Dark Hand and Lamplight, a live performance collaboration with visual artist Shary Boyle which features Boyle creating live drawings and animating pre-drawn images on an overhead projector while Mr. Paisley sings and plays guitar.

Tonight, Doug will be playing songs from his gem of a debut album, released late last year on No Quarter Records, as well as new songs. Doug’s first LP, an enduring favorite at Arthur Philly HQ , garnered four stars from Andrew Male at Mojo magazine, who saluted its “lilti​ng melod​ies,​ comforting​ Guy Clark​ drawl​,​ and lazy Bears​ville​ arrangemen​ts… ​ [There's] nagging details within these love songs​ of union​ and division—great​ fireb​alls,​ waves​ risin​g up, birds​ falli​ng from the sky, unima​ginab​le thing​s burie​d in the groun​d,​ deeds​ that can’t​ be undon​e,​ cold,​ sound​less rain and somet​hing on the horiz​on ‘we will surel​y see coming/​in the wide open plain​.​’ This mood of proph​esy and foreboding​ lends​ Paisley’s debut​ an eerie​ power​ and stren​gth,​ meani​ng that as you retur​n to his charm​ing and encha​nting​ country melod​ies—and you will —they’​ll continue to throw​ up their​ weird​ detai​ls,​ glint​ing symbo​ls of doom on the horizon of the Ameri​can west.​”

And here’s Mike Wolf in Time Out New York: “Comparisons between musicians usually do a disservice to all involved, but ignoring the minor detail of one sui generis decades-long career, Doug Paisley and Neil Young share many key traits. Both are Canadian and have a grasp of American roots-music traditions so deep you’d think it comes from their bones. More important, Paisley, like Young and few other singer-songwriters, has the power of immediate communication: When he opens his mouth, you believe him utterly—that he has crossed the rivers, climbed the mountains, come through the fires, lived every molecule of what he sings.

“Paisley’s self-titled album is last year’s most extravagantly unadorned piece of music: plain as dirt and direct as sunlight, and no less elemental. “Frost leaves a sign on your window/Now you know the summer’s been and gone/You wonder when you’ll see another one/Where did the sweet love go?” he sings on “A Day Is Very Long,” fan-dancing the profound behind the mundane. There are few highs and lows in Paisley’s economical songs; he’s whittled out his space in the middles, where all the forethought and aftermath that sandwich life’s big events go on, though gravity and shadow loom toward the edge of the sky.

“While his album is gorgeously spare—bass, drum and backing vocals on some songs, plus his guitar and keyboards—Paisley will be playing solo at these shows, which is only fitting for the purest voice to come down the pike in ages.”

GREG WEEKS
The Espers guitarist, producer and record label mogul makes a rare local solo performance. “Prolly acoustic guitar,” he sez. “Simple and straightforward.”

WILLIE LANE
“Epic martian love call transmitted by steel strings & flanger” is how this frequent MV & EE collaborator and Child of Microtones scene member, now based in Philadelphia, describes what he’ll be playing tonight. Willie’s just-out LP, Known Quantity (Cord Art), is a favorite in many houses. Arthur Magazine “Bull Tongue” columnists Byron Coley and Thurston Moore call it “a total blast. Willie’s mostly solo (save for some licks by Samara Lubelski) and his playing ranges from Wizz Jones power-pluck at its cleanest to Michael Chapman electro-smear at its phasingest. But Willie knows his stuff cold and this instrumental slide through the gates of Neverland is one of this year’s great rides.”

SONDRA SUN-ODEON
This New York City-based singer/writer/guitarist, best known for her work in Silver Summit, will open the evening with what she calls “a loosely fingerstyle guitar & vocal set conjuring rain…big sad drops of water with dark, hazy, haunting song clouds that speak of death, love, parting, and paradise. ”

Celebrated Norwegian Cartoonist Jason Appears at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on June 13 for Launch of LOW MOON Graphic Novel

SEATTLE, WA. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is honored to host an exhibition and book signing by internationally acclaimed comics artist Jason on Saturday, June 13 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. This event marks the debut of Jason’s LOW MOON collection, published by Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books.

Norwegian alternative cartoonist Jason is among the most prolific and influential cartoonists of his generation. His economical narrative approach, clever rendering technique, and singular color sensibility distinguish his sophisticated yet populist style.  LOW MOON features Jason’s recent comic strip of the same name originally serialized in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Also included are four new stories which display one of the world’s most admired graphic novelists at the absolute peak of his powers.

Fantagraphics Books has published no less than 10 volumes of Jason’s work in English. In addition to the display of his stunning original artwork, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery will also offer several rare European editions in his native language.

The public of all ages is invited to meet this wonderful artist on Saturday, June 13 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. DJ Russ, former proprietor of Fallout Records, will spin platters. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale St. (at Airport Way S.) only minutes south of downtown. This event coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring lively visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic neighborhood.

JASON: LOW MOON

Artist reception and book signing Saturday, June 13, 6:00 – 9:00 PM

Exhibition continues through July 8, 2009

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale St.
Seattle, WA 98108
(206) 658-0110
Open daily 11:30 – 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM
www.fantagraphics.com

Pat D writes:

Wedz, June 10 : @ Union Pool

pollution : http://www.myspace.com/pollutionpollutionpollution – aggressive seasickness with nasty volume.

Medusa : http://www.myspace.com/rainunthunder – off-kilter sludgey core, on tour from bloomington, indiana. members of Racebannon.

Bloodhorse : http://www.myspace.com/bloodhorse – modern heavy rock power trio. ex-members of Converge. REC. RELEASE SHOW (Translation Loss Rec’s)

The good folk of Portland are in for a treat this month with two in situ sound soirées by FEE, which founders Tigerlilly Holyoak and Larissa Hammond describe as “a travelling music venue focused on integrating music and design.” Following an “opposite igloo” in Oregon’s temperate rainforest and a fushia-colored sight and sound extravaganza at Portland’s Together Gallery (check out the duo’s FLICKR page here), FEY will be unveiling a mysterious new “earth space” venue on the sixth and the nineteenth, the nature of which surely has to be seen to be believed: a tunnel? A firepit? A gargantuan mound of earth?

After a magical show with artists Diane Cluck, Anders Griffen, Malcolm Rollick and The Unwin-Dunraven Literary Ecclesia last fall, FEY is back for the summer. And after much ado, the earth space constructed by FEY founders Tigerlilly Holyoak and Larissa Hammond is open, restored and ready to channel s i l e n c e through the exploration of sound, space and sight in totality; including their v o i d . In the wake of chanting trees, constellations and the moon, t r a n s i e n c e is key- don’t forget your cleanest jacket and sunday hat; it’s going to be a glorious ride.

The month of June promises to be a gentle one, with Sunset and Castanets kicking things off. The shows will also feature visual art in conjunction with the Together Gallery of the Alberta Arts District in Portland, Oregon and photographs by Macaul Johnson. Show goers are encouraged to bring their own art for display, as always. The earth space is located at 8335 NW Whitney St in Portland, Oregon and each show will begin at 9pm. Cost is on a sliding scale of 5-7 dollars. To learn more about this month’s artists and co-conspirators, please navigate the links below, and feel welcome to contact this email address with any questions, comments or desired clarification (contact.fey@gmail.com). More to come very soon!

Saturday, June 6, 9pm: Sunset (Austin, TX) + friends

Friday, June 19, 9pm: Castanets (Brooklyn/PDX/San Diego) + friends

the earth space
8335 NZ Whitney Street
Portland, OR
map

Come to Paris London West Nile on Saturday to be enveloped in a curious medley of pulsating waves and beats, courtesy of experimental guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Mario Diaz de Leon, ethereal Berlin-style electronic duo Blondes, Porkchop (Jon Nicholson of Excepter) and Freddy Niteliker.

Saturday, June 6th, 9:30PM
West Nile
285 Kent Ave b’tween South 1st and 2nd / Brooklyn, NY 11211
Free (By donation)

SUBLIME FREQUENCIES Film Screenings
Rare and unseen Sublime Frequencies films, director in attendance (so you can blame him)

INDIA AT 78rpm
Folk and classical music in India through the lens of the largest private collection of 78rpm records and dusty ephemera on the sub-continent.

MY FRIEND RAIN
Decay and rebirth and death through the endless Asian monsoon cycle. A collage of musical segments and tropical ambiance from Robert Millis and Alan Bishop.

PHI TA KHON: GHOSTS OF ISAN
A traditional Buddhist ghost festival from Thailand’s Isan province that features beautiful handmade masks, outrageous wooden phalluses, ceremony, ritual, dancing, and endless music.

performances by Climax Golden Twins

at the Suoni Festival in Montreal on June 13th and 14th

also at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn on June 16th

A university-wide “Call to Action” (as opposed to “Call for Entries”):

The Free Skool, at The University of Trash
Sculpture Center
44-19 Purves Street
Long Island City, NY 11101
Thursday-Monday, 11am-6pm
$5 requested donation

Media-Squat Radio airs every Monday at 7pm EDT
Listen on WFMU, iTunes, or Media Squat

WizardFest will be held on Saturday, May 30th 2009 at Locomotive Springs in north western Utah. This is a free musical event in an open desert setting. There are no services at Locomotive Springs and there will be nothing for sale at WizardFest, so bring the basics: food, water, appropriate clothing, etc. We ask that you please leave your dogs at home. Look at the map and read the directions linked to this site so that you don’t get lost and miss it! The music will start at 3:00 o’clock and will continue until the sun goes down. This year’s line up will consist of Get Stakerized! Dos Hombres Van A Morir, Sunday School, Ben Thunderblood, the mysterious magic of Matt Bruce, a Dracula in the old west puppet show, After The Party, Antelope Island, and Reciprocal Redux. This year we are happy to present the Boxcar gallery featuring prominent and obscure painting, printing, photography and..? The museum will display geography, local history, and some incredible authentic Voodoo artifacts. We are holding this event in the spirit of fun and freedom, and we sincerely hope to bring people together for a very unique and memorable time, so come and join us for Wizard Fest!

Directions: You can access Locomotive Springs from I-15 by taking the Corinne exit and traveling west on Hwy 83 towards Thiokol, then west at Lampo junction (Promontory), past the Golden Spike National Monument, Howell Valley junction (end of paved road) and staying on the county gravel road traveling west for about 25 miles. Signs are present to help direct you on the county road.

WizardFest
Saturday, May 30, 3:00-sundown
Locomotive Springs
FREE, but bring water and vittles

This Saturday, come to Printed Matter to rejoice among various ephemera created by the members of Michigan’s legendary music collective Destroy All Monsters including flyer art, posters, photos, magazines, records and drawings made over the course of the 1970s and after their reunion in 1996.

Here’s an anecdote to familiarize you with Destroy All Monsters’ steez, if you’re not already super excited about this show:

Formed at a house party in 1973, Destroy All Monsters’ original line-up [Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, Niagara, and Jim Shaw, among others] played their first gig at a comic book convention—where they were asked to leave after ten minutes—using prepared guitars, a drum machine, tape loops, and various other instruments to create an unorthodox sound of suburban dystopian psyche music that was equal parts Stooges, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Velvet Underground, and Sci-Fi B-movie shtick.

The opening will also feature a special musical performance by C. Spencer Yeh (Burning Star Core), and the release of a limited edition of Destroy All Monsters’ lost LP SEXTET, available to the public for the first time ever. So whether you’re an avid fan who first experienced Bored/You’re Gonna Die as an angsty teenager, or a curious head who just wants to see what it’s all about — don’t hesitate, this is gonna be a good time.

Opening Saturday, May 30th from 5 – 7PM (closing August 29th)
Printed Matter
195 Tenth Avenue / New York, NY 10011
Free

If Haines’ style reminds you of Kenneth Anger, you’re not alone. Haines will present a new performance entitled Blood Transfusion for a Ghost at the Anger exhibition at PS1 June 20th.

The show runs from tonight to July 3rd. More of Haines’ art is featured here and here.

FolkYeah and Arthur Magazine proudly present the debut of Sir Richard Bishop’s new band…

SIR RICHARD BISHOP AND HIS FREAK OF ARABY ENSEMBLE

AT THE HISTORIC BROOKDALE LODGE

IN THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS

* ALL AGES * FULL BAR * HAUNTED VENUE *

ALSO PERFORMING: Oaxacan and Bachelorette

Tickets available at the door

Doors 8pm
Show 9pm

Advance tickets and more info at:
folkyeah.com

Erik Davis interviewed Sir Richard Bishop in Arthur No. 26 (Dec 2007), available for $6 from the Arthur store. You can read the article online here.

Windy & Carl’s “Undercurrent” from their 2001 album, Depths.

Los Angeles hosts some of the best bands in the country this weekend (if one were to judge such things based on the soundsystem at Arthur’s Atwater office and distribution center) creating a real stumper when it comes to Friday night. If you forgot to snatch tickets for the Animal Collective/Grouper show at the Wiltern and you’re sitting out on the Brightblack show in Eagle Rock for some reason, then might we suggest you consider Windy & Carl along with White Rainbow on Friday at Synchronicity Space? Local avant-dub banana-peelers Sun Araw are also on the bill, which is good news. Here’s the details:

Who: Windy & Carl, White Rainbow, Nudge, Fantastic Sleep, and Sun Araw
Where: Synchronicity Space
4306 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
When: Friday May 29, 8pm to 12am
How much: $5
More info: www.syncspacela.com

Adam “White Rainbow” Forkner explains his music to Pauly Shore.

And in case you’re going to be at either the AC or BBML happenings on Friday (or if you’re coming down from Dublab’s Tonalism up in Big Sur), you can still gorge yourself on gentle granola drones as Windy & Carl and White Rainbow will be playing on Saturday afternoon at Echo Curio.

Who: Windy & Carl, White Rainbow, Nudge
Where: Echo Curio
1519 Sunset Blvd.
Echo Park, CA 90026
When: Saturday May 30, 3pm to 6pm
How much: $5 donation
More info: www.echocurio.com

Floating World Animation Fest 2009 -- Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison, Portland OR -- June 25th

From Grady Runyon (Monoshock, Liquorball), who runs a great record shop up in Ventura…

WHAT: Cave and Jealousy and special guests
WHEN: Wednesday, May 27, 8-10pm
WHERE: Grady’s Record Refuge, 2546 E. Main St.., Ventura, 805-648-5565

The stalactites have been falling from club ceilings across the country in the wake of Chicago psych/rock instrumentalists CAVE’s summer tour. The band is supporting their new album Psychic Psummer (Important Records), other California stops have included The Hemlock Tavern and The Smell. Tour partner JEALOUSY creates a one-man Spaceman 3 vibe. And don’t miss a very special group of local like-minders who will be making their debut at 8pm sharp. Come refresh your midweek with this psychodelically-charged musical event!

CAVE: myspace.com/realreelpro
JEALOUSY: myspace.com/jealousychina
GRADY’S RECORD REFUGE: myspace.com/gradysrecordrefuge

Also, there is a new LIQUORBALL LP out—a live recording of the show in my store last year with Steve Mackay. Ordering info/audio excerpts on the Bad Trips myspace page:
myspace.com/theebadtrips

“

*Devin & Gary Go Outside*
(featuring Ross Goldstein)

with *Angela Jaeger and [Arthur columnist] Byron Coley*

The #1 Hit Record “Devin & Gary Go Outside”

will be for sale, along with special collage package,

housemade by Gary and Devin.

Silkscreened poster by Chris Capuozzo, above, will also be for sale.

Friday, May 29, 8PM

Back by Popular Demand

Issue Project Room
At the Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215

$10

issueprojectroom.org/

Friday, May 29th
Brightblack Morning Light
Rio En Medio
William Fowler Collins
@ the Center for Arts, Eagle Rock
2225 Colorado Blvd
LA, CA 90041
$12 / 8:00pm / All Ages
Advance ticket link: http://bit.ly/HghCW

Brightblack Morning Light were interviewed by Trinie Dalton in Arthur No. 31 (Oct 2008), with photographs by Lisa Law. The magazine is available for $10 from the Arthur store. The article is available online here.

Brightblack were also interviewed by Daniel Chamberlin in Arthur No. 23 (July 2006), with photography by Eden Batki. Were almost out of copies of that issue, so it’s going for $100 from the Arthur store.

Smoke Signal #1 cover by Travis Millard

From our friends at Desert Island:

Desert Island is starting a free all-comics newspaper called SMOKE SIGNAL, which will debut in June.  The paper will have a circulation of 1000 and will be available at a few choice locations in Brooklyn (and via mail-order through our website).

In an effort to raise funds for this community-based project, we are hosting a fundraising concert at Union Pool on Memorial Day, May 25th, featuring performances by Uninhabitable Mansions, Boogie Boarder, Darlings, and Ambergris.  All proceeds will go towards the printing costs for the newspaper. PLEASE COME AND HELP MAKE THIS NEWSPAPER A REALITY!

Smoke Signal fund-raising concert
Memorial Day – this Monday!
Union Pool
484 Union Ave Brooklyn, NY
8 pm – $8 admission

For more information and links to the bands, please view our blog at http://tinyurl.com/smokecomix

This Saturday, experimental sound-collagists and noise-makers Lucky Dragons and asDSSka will be performing a live score to the classic The Red Balloon at The Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles (co-presented by Dublab and L.A. Record). Recent performances I’ve seen by Lucky Dragons have been nothing less than magical, unifying experiences where audience members left with smiles beaming from ear to ear. Give yourself the treat of reflecting on this childhood film as the duo taps into your heart and mind in this special musical collaboration with the classically trained pianist Aska Matsumiya and David Scott Stone (The Sads, The Melvins). The film will be followed by a sing-a-long with the L.A. Ladies’ Choir.

The Cinefamily Silent Movie Theatre
611 N Fairfax Avenue / Los Angeles 90036
7:30pm
$12

Buy tickets here.

From the 192 Books site:

Thursday, May 28, 7PM

Rudy Wurlitzer and Gary Indiana
Nog and The Shanghai Gesture
(Two Dollar Radio, 2009)

Originally published in 1969, Nog became a universally revered cult novel and symbol of the countercultural movement, famously inspiring Thomas Pynchon to declare that “the Novel of bullshit is dead.” In Wurlitzer’s signature hypnotic and haunting voice, Nog tells the tale of a man adrift through the American West, armed with nothing more than his own three pencil-thin memories and an octopus in a bathysphere.

The Shanghai Gesture is internationally acclaimed author Gary Indiana’s sixth novel, and his first since 2003- Do Everything in the Dark. While the signatures of Indiana’s prose style are at play in this work- his aggressive satire and the astounding poetry of his language- they are turned to an altogether new frequency, that of the notorious, the diabolical, Fu Manchu. The Shanghai Gesture is a clever, hilarious, and daringly perverse new tale in which Gary Indiana reasserts himself as a true original.

Seating is limited, please call 212.255.4022 for reservations.

192 Tenth Avenue at 21st Street, New York City

Rudy Wurlitzer was interviewed by Joe O’Brien in Arthur No. 29 ( 2008).

Read article online, here.

Purchase actual mag here.

From Cinefamily…

6/9 @ 8:00pm
PFFR Night
“Wonder Showzen” and “Xavier: Renegade Angel” are simply two of the funniest and most psychedelic shows to have ever aired on American television. Their creators are the team known as PFFR, and the Cinefamily is havin’ them on down to present a night of their high-voltage, slap-happy stuff, including the theatrical premiere of their psychosexual porn prank film, Final Flesh!. From the desk of PFFR: “Multi-hyper shine collective, and thrice acclaimed electro funk outfit PFFR (Vernon Chatman, John Lee, Alyson Levy, and Jim Tozzi) are the award-caressing creators of such comedical zaz as MTV’s Wonder Showzen, [adult swim]’s Xavier: Renegade Angel, Snoop Dogg’s Doggy Fizzle Televizzle and production entitty behind Jon Glaser’s Delocated and Ben Jones’s (Paperrad) Neon Knome, among other laughular atrocities. On this night of wonderment, the belly of their colossus will be sliced open, allowing the hilariously writhing guts of their yucks to sluice out and stick your visual ribs. Good luck.”

Jozef Van Wissem & Guy Blakeslee, with a slideshow by Jeremy Rendina
Sunday, May 17, 8pm
Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90027
$8, BYOB

Arik Moonhawk Roper (a longtime Arthur contributing artist) will be celebrating the launch of his new book Mushroom Magick this Friday in New York. In creating this book, Roper has added his own indelible mark to the long history of mushroom art, presenting over 90 of his original portraits of hallucinogenic species of mushroom alongside educational writings by friends and scholars Erik Davis, Daniel Pinchbeck and Gary Lincoff. Learn more about and see images of Roper’s richly water-colored illustrations of these mysterious fungi in this blog post.

Be warned: If you are not wary of the importance of the mushroom’s existence on earth, after reading this book you will no doubt be conscious of the fact that fungi are communicating with our world in ways that are nothing less than mind-blowing…

Friday, May 15th, 6-8pm (on view through May 30th)
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
620 Greenwich St. / New York, NY 10014
Free admission

From Matthew Thurber:

Hi, Rebecca and I have started a gallery in our living room. It opens tomorrow with a group show of Eamon Espey, Carlos Gonzalez, Haisi Hu, Jenni Knight, and Jonny Petersen. Come by and have a beer with us tomorrow!
http://www.ambiguousmass.org/interesting/interesting.html

MUSIC YOU CAN SEE:  Eamon Espey / Carlos Gonzalez / Haisi Hu / Jenni Knight / Jonathan Petersen

Opening Reception Friday, May 15, 6-9pm

Interesting Gallery

33 Crooke Avenue #2B

Brooklyn, NY 11226

Showpaper, the free, biweekly foldout of DIY, all-ages concert listings in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, has revolutionized (or, more aptly, de-virtualized) the way a lot of us find out about shows. Rather than spend hours clicking away on the internet, music lovers can now walk into favorite comic store or falafel joint and pick up a single sheet of newsprint that lists all of these events in one place. Better yet, Showpaper is also its own physical souvenir–each issue doubles as a limited edition poster print of an original artist’s work, which you can tack up in your living room for all to see or simply revisit once in a while to remind yourself of a good week in musical time gone by. Perhaps you were too busy concert-hopping to notice, but this month marks the publication’s two-year anniversary, as well as a handful of fun Showpaper benefits to help keep the publication going strong. Showpaper is 100% advertising free, and relies on the public sponsorship and volunteered labor-time of readers like you in order to stick around in your neighborhood.

If you are not already booked up with other Showpaper listings, kindly check out these two awesome fundraiser events in Brooklyn this week:

MVT: MUSIC VIDEO TIME
(videos curated by ARTICLE / Nick Chatfield-Taylor)
Ninjasonik “Somebody Gonna Get Pregnant” (PREMIERE)
Titus Andronicus “Upon Viewing Brueghel’s ‘Landscape and the Fall of Icarus”
by Mike Reynolds (PREMIERE)
Japanther “Radical Businessman” (PREMIERE)
Animal Collective “My Girls”
Matt and Kim “Lessons Learned”
Screaming Females “Bell”
by Biz Lynch
Future Islands “Beach Foam”
by Joe Stakun
Len Lye’s Swinging the Lambeth Walk (From 1940)
Punk Tree (Japanther Documentary)
by Chad Van Nau
2 short docs on The Eskalators’ Subway Show
by Charlie Ahearn and Flip Switch Productions
more vids tba / q&a after each vid

ALSO obscure and hilarious advertisements in between music videos curated by FREE DANGER / Jay Buim

8PM / $5-20 (sliding scale) / ALL AGES (duh!)
Wednesday May 13th @ Monster Island Basement (map)
[ G > Lorimer / L > Bedford / JMZ > Marcy ]

========

From Benefit Posters
NOISE @ SILENT BARN
(music/media curated by Nick Nauman)
IN
Holy Spirits
The Derelicts
Visual Projections by Ivy Meadows and Ashley May

8PM / $5-20 (sliding scale) / ALL AGES (duh!)
Thursday, May 14th @ The Silent Barn (map)
[ L > Halsey / M > Myrtle-Wyckoff ]

Also performing at the Silent Barn show on the 14th, the mighty psych-rock outfit Behavior, who, after appearing basically out of nowhere, have been eliciting ear-to-ear grins all over New York City with their inspired mix of taught melodica and high-gravity jam outros that are messy as all hell.

For more information on upcoming benefits, sign up for the Showpaper mailing list here

Now’s a better time than any to start tracking solar patterns and moon phases. In fact, we are about to enter one of the most intense solar cycles of the last 400 years, which will produce some of the most unreal aurora borealis to be seen in record-keeping history. The next few years should be interesting to watch as our atmosphere changes, and keeping a calendar is a good way to slow down and notice the changes as they happen over the course of a year’s time.

Anonymous Monk Records has just released a poster-sized calendar beginning March 2009 and ending February 2010, including shadowy greyscale illustrations and a compilation of gentle folk songs made by their musician friends, one song for each month of the year:

March by Viking Moses
April by Ben Kamen
May (Mayday) by Spenking
June by Golden Ghost
July (Juli) by Ashley Eriksson
August (Arco Iris Alrededor de la Luna) by Karl Blau
September (Month #9 (Shining the Moon)) by Paleo
October (Apple Pies & Apple Juice) by Ruth Allison
November by Eleanor Murray
December by Twig Palace
January (New Days) by Karrie Hopper
February by Eli Moore

Learn more about this project, download music by the artists and order the calendar here.

Above: Close-up of calendar, beautifully designed by Eric Sarai (eris)

As mentioned in last week’s “Bull Tongue”….

From clevelandpoetics blog….

in celebration of the poetry community small press books has forged among poets all over the map, local (but not necessarily Greater) Cleveland Area poets will party down with poets tres versing from CO, NM, NYC, WA, RI, PA, MONTREAL, TX, and ELSEWHERE. take your vitamins!!!

Friday Night, May 8 6 pm (++Free)
Travis Catsull & Dirk Michener of the Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band will perform at The Barking Spider Tavern located on CWRU campus, 11310 Juniper Rd., Cleveland with the poets Ben Gulyas, Jim Lang, Wesley Eisold, Valerie Webber, George Wallace, Charles Potts, Bree, Maj Ragain, Tm Gottl, Eric Paul & Adam Brodsky

Saturday Afternoon, May 9 1 pm (++Free)
Gathering at the Daniel Thompson Memorial Plaque (outside the Lincoln Inn, 75 Public Square, Cleveland)/followed by TBA: readers will include Alex Gildzen, Jack McGuane, Jeremy gaulke, Eric Paul, Jim lang, Kisha foster, Valerie webber.

Saturday Night, May 9 7 pm (++7 dollar admittance, includes Goodie Bag)
Ray McNeice and Tongue and Groove will play, and Alex Gildzen, Angela Jaeger, Byron Coley, Charles Potts, George Wallace, Jesus Crisis, Emma Young, Mary Weems, Michael Henson, Russ Vidrick, Wesley Eisold & Bree will read at The Lit in the ArtCraft Building 2570 Superior Avenue Suite 203, Cleveland 216.694.0000

Sunday Afternoon, May 10 3pm (++Free)
Musician Adam Perry will perform his poems followed by Alex Gildzen, Angela Jaeger, Bree, Michael Salinger, Ben Gulyas, George Wallace, Eric Paul, Phil Metres & Wendy Shaffer at the Coventry Library, at Coventry Rd. & Euclid Hts. Blvd., Cleveland Heights, followed by a dinner break on Coventry Road.

Sunday Evening, May 10 6pm (++Free & Open)
An Open, Round-Robin Style, Read From Where You Sit Soiree Will Take Place At Mac’s Backs~Books On Coventry, At 1820 Coventry Rd., In Cleveland Heights. All Are Invited To Read, As Local Poets Meet Tres Versers.

After a few years on hiatus, the legendary Flywheel Arts Collective in Western Massachusetts is back on the map with a brand new home at Easthampton’s historic Old Town Hall. Founded in 1999, Flywheel is a non-profit, volunteer-run community arts space that hosts everything from live music to traveling theater troupes and is home to one of the most comprehensive zine libraries in New England. Whether Flywheel already holds a sentimental place in your heart–perhaps as the site of your first exposure to the Pioneer Valley’s burgeoning noise and weird folk scenes as a college student–or you’re simply interested in checking out one of the area’s first (and last) true all-ages public meeting spaces, May 9 is a great day to come out and show your support. Saturday marks the second installment of the Flywheel’s biannual Record Fair Fundraiser, which is a perfect opportunity to satisfy those nasty record cravings with the knowledge that you are contributing to a worthwhile cause.

Details from the Flywheel website, which also provides some useful information on how to get involved:

Hey kids! It’s spring and you know what that means, it’s time for our twice annual record fair fundraiser. This one is taking place on Saturday May 9th 2009 in the scrappy under-construction confines of our new home at the OLD TOWN HALL in the center of Easthampton. Come by from 10:00am-3:30pm.

17+ dealers will be on hand give you the wax fix you so desire with the usual eclectic selection of vintage vinyl. As we always say, your ATM will hate you, your turntable will love you. Don’t miss it.

Also, get a chance to check out the progress on our very-soon-to-be-operational home.

Flywheel Spring Record Fair Fundraiser
Saturday, May 9, 10:00am-3:30pm
Flywheel Arts Collective
Easthampton Old Town Hall
43 Main Street
Easthampton, MA 01027
Directions

A description of the event from the I.D. Project Website:

Alternative currency systems naturally encourage cooperation, reciprocation, self-reliance, and mutual aid. These four elements are the foundation of social interdependence and socio-economic solidarity. Come learn about starting a complementary currency and how new forms of exchange build value in your community.

Join us for a panel discussion featuring Alex Gordon-Brander, Charles Eisenstein, and Douglas Rushkoff. Q&A to follow introductions and explanations.

Friday May 15, 2009, 8pm-10pm
Lila Center, Interdependence Project
302 Bowery @ Houston St., 3rd fl.
F/V, D, 6, R/W trains all nearby
$10 or $5 (students/unemployed/monthly IDP donors)

Money should not keep you away!
Let us know if you can’t afford the cost and would like to attend.
Contact info@theidproject.com

The I.D. Project also has a group in Portland, Oregon!

This Monday, people in the New York area (lucky ducks!) can get the ALI_FIB experience in their very own backyard. Or, more specifically, at Matchless in Brooklyn, with a killer evening of music by raga guitar legend Peter Walker (and one-time musical director under Dr. Timothy Leary), David Daniell, and Carter Thornton. Wow.

Peter Walker + David Daniell +Thornton
Monday May 11th – 9pm – $8
Matchless
557 Manhattan Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11222
Nassau Ave. (G) / Bedford Ave. (L)

poster by Zeloot

If you can’t make it out the show, check out the Ali_Fib-curated “Err on the Good Side” compilation, recently released on the Swiss-French micro-label, Three:Four. Featuring Amen Dunes, Ben Nash, Duane Pitre, El-g, Sus & Jakob, Hellvete, Illitch, Liberez, Mike Wexler, Sir Richard Bishop, and Steve Gunn.