Pranks, Punk and Industrial Culture from V. Vale

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WELCOME TO V. VALE’s RE/SEARCH NEWSLETTER #77, November 2008
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RE/SEARCH | 20 Romolo #B | San Francisco CA 94133 | 415.362.1465
www.researchpubs.com | http://www.myspace.com/researchpubs | info@researchpubs.com

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
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1. Sat Nov 8, 6:30pm: RE/Search Counter Culture Hour (with host V. Vale) featuring GEORGE KUCAR. S.F. Cable Channel 29, live streaming video at http://www.accessf.org - “ACCESS SF 1″ button
2.. MAL SHARPE on OBAMA PRESIDENCY
3. V. VALE RE/Search founder gets SFBG GOLDIES Lifetime Achievement AWARD
4. V. VALE in BARCELONA / LONDON for JG BALLARD CONFERENCE/MUSEUM SHOW Oct 25-26
5. OTHER FORTHCOMING EVENTS
5A. Stephane von Stephane - next time!
6. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening to/What We’ve Been Sent..
7. RECOMMENDED LINKS - thanks to our friends Phil G, Ferrara, James McN-, Derek B. & Others
8. Quotes
9. Feedback from Readers
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() BURNING MAN LIVE! $24.99 - preorder only $18 plus $5 domestic shipping ($15 overseas)
This is a 13-year collection of “P*ss Clear” zine, which was actually produced, printed and distributed right there on the playa during Burning Man! The sarcastic wit the editor/producer guides you through the sand-filled cacophony of over-stimulation. Fun, sexy, and “real.”
() LEARY ON DRUGS $19.99 - preorder only $15 plus $5 domestic shipping ($15 overseas)
Years after his death, Leary’s writings are still insightful and refreshing. Leary writes on freedom and liberty in the guise of writing on drugs.
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+PRANKS 2 deluxe paper $25 plus $4 ship - AUTOGRAPHED BY YES MEN  (upon request)
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1. Sat Nov 8, 6:30PM Cable Channel 29: RE/Search Counter Culture Hour (with host V. Vale) featuring filmmaker GEORGE KUCHAR (over 600 films made). S.F. Cable Channel 29, 2nd Saturday of month. George Kuchar also deserve a lifetime achievement award. Please write us if you’re interested in collecting CCH episodes on DVD - $10 per episode or subscribe and get 7 for $60. (Note: very small production run, just for you)
The show is broadcast on-line as well as on public access television in San Francisco. 6:30-7:30 PM Channel 29 AND http://www.accessf.org - “ACCESS SF 1″ button
This show will also be shown live and free at New Nothing Cinema in San Francisco - tent. date Dec 15, 730PM, 16 Sherman St (off Folsom bet 7th-6th St). Free treats. Hard-to-find R/S books available.

2.  Mal Sharpe and J.G. Ballard on OBAMA PRESIDENCY. Mal Sharpe, master prankster featured in our PRANKS book (google Coyle and Sharpe) called us this morning to offer congratulations on the Goldies Lifetime Achievement Award, and we took notes on his post-election outlook, redacted  (inaccurately) below.

“Congratulations on your Goldie Lifetime Achievement Award — it’s not every day that you wake up and read Good News: that TWO men get celebrated who deserve it — you and Ferlinghetti.  And the Obama victory  -  most of the world is glad to get rid of the whole George Bush vibe. A bunch of crooks finally get their comeuppance. That footage on TV last night of all those crowds in New York City  in the streets — all that youthful optimism. McCain was really stupid — a h0rny old man — to have picked Sarah Palin. What a stupid lowlife. If you watched the body language of Cindy McCain, not once did she even look at Sarah Palin or acknowledge her.  In four years from now, if Palin runs for office, she’ll have put on ten pounds and won’t be quite the sexy babe…
“With Obama elected, it would be nice if some kind of across-the-board intelligence will come back. Katie Couric observed that politicians used to be able to speak in complete sentences with correct grammar. Maybe most of America doesn’t care whether speakers are coherent, or whether “thinking logically” matters.
[RE the Great Prank on Sarah Palin — BTW, the below URL includes the TRANSCRIPT –  very important as it “decodes” certain names not recognized by Palin, etc - such as, there is a Hustler fake pr0n documentary called “Nailin’ Palin” featuring a Palin lookalike! This is one of the great pranks  of the decade, and its perpetrators ought to become household names: ‘A Canadian comedy duo called The Masked Avengers from CKOI 96.9 FM in Montreal, Quebec pranked Sarah Palin, convincing her (and her team) they were receiving a call from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In the interview, which lasts about six minutes, Palin and the pranksters discuss politics, pundits, and the dangers of hunting with current vice-president Dick Cheney. Their website must be getting slammed because it isn’t loading for some.  Here is the YouTube (h/t NegSpin), & be sure to see the TRANSCRIPT:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/151958/557/831/649050
“Mal commented, “I think she handled it pretty well. She was just kind of nice to them. She didn’t come off as badly as people thought.”  Mal then thought that the two “pranksters” Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross got what they deserved when they got fired recently for the obscene phone calls they made to 78-year-old Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs. Brand had left a message on his  answering machine claiming he had had sex with his granddaughter, Georgina. Sachs, according to The Mail, “was left deeply upset by the crude calls — which were also broadcast to about two million listeners to Brand’s Radio 2 show.” Mal said, “Jim Coyle would never have done that.” There’s a real difference in the level of pranks in our PRANKS book and this kind of malicious, unfunny, unpoetic call. [Recommended: Coyle & Sharpe boxed set]

This morning we received an email from J.G. Ballard’s companion, Claire Walsh:  “Dear Vale, Many thanks. And congratulations America! We’re all just delighted – all over the world. We stayed up to see the results.”

3. V. VALE, RE/Search founder gets SFBG GOLDIES Lifetime Achievement AWARD. Kimberly Chun, SFBG scribe (and quite an original prose stylist herself) interviewed V. Vale and boiled down 2 hours of verbiage into a concise feature, reprinted below. It’s also at:
http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7452&catid=85&volume_id=398&issue_id=404&volume_num=43&issue_num=06 - we’ve reprinted it here because, out of paranoia, we’ve seen many features “disappear” from websites, and we don’t want this feature to vanish into the ether. Thanks, SGBG & Kimberly!

“Call him the monkish punk elder of counterculture in the Bay and fringes wherever they may fray. Behind a monochromatic, black-clad, black-banged façade and unassuming demeanor, V. Vale is a man of so many interests and accomplishments that it’s hard to know where to start. How about with Vale as Punk Showman?

“In 1984 I’m sure I put on one of the greatest shows ever to celebrate our J.G. Ballard book,” the 50-plus publisher says. He’s tucked beside a thermos of tea in his book- and collection-crammed office-apartment in a North Beach edifice that, legend has it, Janis Joplin, Odetta, and Paul Robeson once dwelled in. Survival Research Labs and an S-M group were on the Fort Mason bill, and in honor of the occasion Vale visited the junkyard and had them deliver two cars that he selected. “I’m sure people had died in them — there was so much blood in the interior — and they were all crushed down. There’s no way you could survive that!”

Naturally, Vale and SRL [Survival Research Laboratories]  rigged up the two bloody junkers to simulate a sex act — doggy-style — while yet another car with square wheels and a huge battering ram attacked the humping death-mobiles. The, ahem, climax: a performance by Public Image Ltd.

If that’s not punk — in the classic, highly original, high-low San Francisco style, full of hard-scrabble high spectacle and an edge you can lacerate yourself on — who knows what the f0ck is?

It’s just one of many tales — about shooting pistols with “Uncle Bill” Burroughs or watching exotica innovator Martin Denny field a $25,000 royalty check — that emerge during an interview with this lifelong interviewer. His own narrative is just as riveting: he grew up, as part of a minuscule Japanese American minority, in a small town in Riverside County, raised on welfare by a mother who suffered from mental illness. The young Vale read voraciously, from the kitchen table to the bed, which led to his acceptance at Harvard, though an antipathy toward ivy made him choose to attend UC Berkeley instead. In the ’70s, he worked at City Lights, and in 1977, while ripping off the covers of unbought magazines and returning them, he formed the idea to start his own zine about the punk scene combusting right around the corner at Mabuhay Gardens. Search and Destroy was born, with $100 seed money from Allen Ginsberg and matching funds from his boss Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Now lauded as an invaluable document of early punk and a graphic design rule-breaker (”We’d do a layout meeting: ‘Here’s the text. Here are the pictures. Your job is to make this interview as rad as you can’”), Search and Destroy also became a way for Vale to make critical connections between the work and thoughts generated by punk groups and those formulated by artists in other media, as interviews with Vale’s mentors Ballard and Burroughs made their way into the zine.

When the Mabuhay scene turned toward servicing a younger, violent hardcore audience, the zine-maker’s interests shifted as well. Tapped to start a stateside headquarters for Rough Trade in 1980, he convinced founder Geoff Travis to fund a new tabloid, RE/Search, during an all-nighter. Three issues later, Vale moved on to launch a typesetting business, RE/Search Typography, which he ran in North Beach until he sold it in 1991 when he saw that the home computer had finally arrived.

In the meantime, the RE/Search series had become the equivalent of an ever-unfolding countercultural bible: essential reading not only for punks — all the books, Vale swears, are informed by that revolution — but artists, musicians, cultural fire-starters, and trouble-makers of every nonconformist stripe. In turn, Vale built a bridge with his paperbacks between the cultural movers around him and the world of books that has succored him. “I learned long ago that reading is not a passive process,” says Vale. “I like to mark up my books. My books are heavily interacted with. I look at books not as books, but as conversations.”

The RE/Search volumes Vale is most proud of, on Burroughs and Ballard, resuscitated the former author’s career and threw a proper coming-out party in America for the latter. Vale went so far as to help organize Burroughs’ tour with Laurie Anderson. Meanwhile, RE/Search’s sibling compendiums, Incredibly Strange Movies (1986) and Incredibly Strange Music (1993, Vol. 2 1995), were pivotal in placing filmmakers like Russ Meyer and Herschell Gordon Lewis and music-makers such as Yma Sumac and Ken Nordine in a new canon for culturally conversant hipsters, leading to crucial reissues and reappraisals of their work.

And then there’s RE/Search’s biggest hit. “The most influential of all the books is Modern Primitives [1989], which sparked the whole mainstream mass interest in piercing and tattoos and body modification,” says Jello Biafra, who first met Vale in 1978 when Biafra was simply an admirer of Search and Destroy and the vocalist for a then-new band called the Dead Kennedys. “There was very little of that going on compared to what happened after that book came out. Of course, now even secretaries and bank clerks and Bush administration bureaucrats have tattoos, and who knows how many pierced penises are on the Republican National Committee!”

With a new publication, pr0nnovation? P0rnography and Technological Innovation, just out, and books on Timothy Leary, Burning Man’s P0ss Clear newspaper, and steampunk on the horizon, Vale doesn’t have time to be bitter that so many have grabbed ideas from his tomes and run with them. “I would say I’ve had a disproportionate amount of influence,” he says. “People tell me, ‘Your Pranks [1987] book inspired Jackass, Punk’d, and god knows how many other TV shows.’ You just keep thinking of your next project and never look back.” www.researchpubs.com [end]

4. V. VALE in BARCELONA / LONDON for JG BALLARD CONFERENCE/MUSEUM SHOW Oct 25-26

Because we’re barely over jet lag,  we offer links to some photos taken at the CCCB Kosmopolis 08  museum show in Barcelona, which was so futuristic and high-tech, it deserves a detailed write-up. A bit strange that SPAIN is the first country to offer such a complex, detailed tribute to J.G. Ballard, the man who has predicted the future more accurately than — who else is there? The folks who collaborated to bring about a  Mercedes-class event and installation deserve utmost thanks.  We asked J.G. Ballard why he didn’t move to Barcelona — he had been considering it — and it was partly the language barrier and other details.

() from Jordi Costa, JG Ballard Museum Show Curator: http://la-biblioteca-de-vorbarr.blogspot.com/2008/10/kosmopolis-08.html

()  http://www.flickr.com/photos/31517319@N08/page5/  — vale portrait
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31517319@N08/page6/  — vale in photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31517319@N08/page2/  –  lydia lunch photos

() from Mike Bonsall: “Have got round to putting my pictures of the exhibition etc on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_b/sets/72157608562049916/

() From Rick McGrath to Tim Chapman: “One thing that’s changed is the arrangement of the ‘Project for a new  novel’ - http://flickr.com/photos/2ubh/2981467778/
http://flickr.com/photos/rick_mcgrath/2714502866/

” One thing that struck me when reviewing the photos is the attention to detail - things like the place names inscribed on the watch faces  in the ‘Day of Forever’ installation, which I didn’t notice at the time - http://flickr.com/photos/2ubh/2980609581/

What follows are written reports:

() Tim Chapman reports: “Message from J.G. Ballard to Barcelona: “Hello Barcelona. I hope everyone there is enjoying the show, if I’m  allowed to call it that. Vale is taking charge of everything, and I  leave him to represent me.” Short but sweet. He sounded in fairly good voice, at least.
“I’ll do a transcription of the Sellars/Sterling/Vale panel sometime  this week, if time permits. In the honorable tradition of ‘Answers to a Questionnaire’, there’ll have to be gaps where the questions would be, at least until Jordi can provide a potted translation of his Spanish [or was it Catalan?]  inquisition.”
“…the exhibition was excellent - extremely well and very  creatively designed, with something new for even the hardcore  Ballardians. I don’t recall seeing the paintings from the other  Lunghua inmate before, so they were particularly interesting as I’d  been in the neighbourhood the previous week - the place really did  look like a holiday camp. Big congratulations to Jordi and the team.”

() from Mike Bonsall: “Jordi: “I’m finally at home in Madrid, after 5 intense days at Kosmopolis. Have a well-deserved rest Jordi, as far as possible, after your  exertions. I am back at home also and have had time to take it all in.  I must say a heartfelt thank-you to you and your collaborators for the  exhibition and events.  The whole thing was put together with such knowledge, care and imagination.  You have earned a permanent place in the ‘Ballard Museum’! It would be wonderful if you could tour the exhibition; more people need to see it. All the best - Mike B.”

() from Jordi Costa, curator of the J.G. Ballard Museum Show at CCCB:
” I’m finally at home in Madrid, after 5 intense days at Kosmopolis. Yes, I’ve talked with Mrs. Claire Walsh and Mrs. Bea Ballard and provided for each of them a guided tour through the exhibition. They are two extraordinary kind, generous and gentle persons and visited us on behalf of Mr. Ballard who, as you know, cannot travel due to health problems. I didn’t want to seem intrusive and I didn’t ask much about that, but they told that he is as well as a person in his state could be right now: it’s a kind of understated information that tells me that they prefer to be discreet about the subject and I respected that.

“They gave me the impression that J.G. Ballard was not only the visionary writer that we read, love and admire, but an extraordinary person (longtime partner for Claire, Bea’s loving father) as well: a one-of-a-kind human being…

“Now we’re trying to tour the exhibition outside Spain, but it’s not an easy deal. Through the British Council we’re now negotiating some different possibilities, but there’s an important problem: The exhibition is a little bit expensive to move. Then, it’s possible that Barcelona has offer the only chance to see it. Best regards,Jordi”

“From Mike Bonsall: “Another glorious day in Barcelona. During the day I did the obligatory Gaudi hunt.  Had a distinctly Ballardian moment at La Sagrada Familia, thinking that when the magnificent cranes are finally removed, people will become disenchanted and no longer visit. The main event, with Simon, Jordi, Vale and Bruce Sterling was very impressive, more details to follow.  Again I lacked a translation earpiece but Jordi promised later he would translate our recording of the session.  The whole thing was also being videoed by the Kosmopolis people.

The big surprise was that Claire Ward and Bea Ballard were in the audience!  They didn’t speak and we didn’t feel able to approach them, but it was great to know they were all interested (Fay Ballard is also due to visit). We had a drink with Jordi afterwards and congratulated him on a great success — he looked tired.  Then on to tapas and, finally, an absinthe bar — can’t remember much after that! All in all a magical experience. 24 C here, now back to flooded England.”

() from Kosmopolis 08 Organizers:  “Kosmopolis 08 has succeeded in consolidating the literary meeting that puts the printed word, the oral word and the electronic word on the center stage in dynamic relation with the arts and sciences…. [Here’s] our website (http://www.cccb.org/kosmopolis/en/index.php), images of the Fest (http://www.flickr.com/photos/31517319@N08/) and the diary of K08 in our videoblog (http://www.cccb.org/kosmopolis/blog/).Juan Insua, Bàrbara Roig, Teresa Rosell - Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), Montalegre, 5 (08001) Barcelona, Spain - Phone: +34 93 306 4100 - Fax: +34 93 306 4101 - www.cccb.org

5. OTHER FORTHCOMING EVENTS:

() Legendary Pink Dots Fri-Sat Nov 14-15 at Du Nord, S.F. Prepare to attend! New album out, too: Plutonium Blonde, which we are preparing to review. Miss this show at your peril!

() Dirk Dirksen Alley hearing: Thur Nov 13, 11AM, SF City Hall Room 263 (Van Ness/Hayes), Rules Committee Hearing. plaque installation. If you want to help by making a tax-deductible donation towards the installation,  go to: www.hearnet.com/auction - Thanks, Kathy Peck

() Wed Nov 19-Sun Nov 23 7pm Blixa Bargeld’s Execution of Precious Memories featuring Nanos Operetta and Yannis Adoniou’s Kunst-Stoff at the Project Artaud Theater, S.F.

() SAT Nov 29, 9pm, Ginger Coyote’s White Trash Debutantes w/Lani Lithman’s Girls with Guns (Snakefinger’s daughter), Bottom of Hill, S.F.

() SUN Nov 16, 2pm-2am, at Echo (1822 Sunset) & The Echoplex (1154 Glendale) in Echo Park.: THE 1st ANNUAL PART TIME PUNKS FESTIVAL! A CERTAIN RATIO, PYLON, MEDIUM MEDIUM, LOVE IS ALL, VIVIAN GIRLS, THE NIGHTINGALES, SAVAGE REPUBLIC, NERVOUS GENDER, ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI, THE URINALS, THE WILD STARES, MAGIC BULLETS, GRIMBLE GRUMBLE, THE MUSLIMS, WARPAINT, SOFTBOILED EGGIES, NODZZZ. . . plus . . . Guest DJs DAVID J (Bauhaus/Love & Rockets) & DAVE NEWTON (Mighty Lemon Drops) & CHUCK WARNER (Messthetics/Hyped 2 Death) & DAN SELZER (Acute Records). ALL AGES! Tickets on sale now at www.ticketweb.com. (And the first 100 tix are only $14! So buy now!)
PLUS… the first-ever band-sanctioned public screening by Throbbing Gristle (videos, live performance & never-before-seen material) AND screenings of rare & unseen Post-Punk videos, films & live performances by Joy Division, New Order, Section 25, Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget, Suburban Lawns, The Films Of Bruce Licher & Savage Republic AND the DVD-release-premiere of Decoder (featuring Genesis P-Orridge, William S. Burroughs, Christiane F and members of Psychic TV, Soft Cell, Talk Talk and Einsturzende Neubauten). www.mobilization.com, www.parttimepunks.com

5A. Stephane von Stephane’s column. - next time! (This newsletter was done in one afternoon - blame jet lag)

6. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening To/What We’ve Been Sent:

()  From RICHARD MODIANO: “Below is a collaborative review of Lola Montes by Gail and myself for the RE/Search newsletter. We’re signing it as by “Tharpa.” I don’t know if it’s opened in San Francisco, but the movie is playing in New York City until the end of this month. It already finished its one week run in LA, and there’s sure to be a DVD release for Christmas.

“What Lola Wants, Lola Gets

“I just saw the restoration of Max Ophuls’ 1955 Lola Montes, it was fantastic, I loved it, sort of Fellini BEFORE Fellini!  I don’t think I ever saw the original - it was not well received in 1955 and was truncated by its original producers - they even hacked up the original negative.

“Ophüls’ Lola, his first movie in color and widescreen was the biggest-budgeted French film to date, but after the producers re-edited the movie, it was a flop. They eventually went bankrupt, and Pierre Braunberger acquired the rights and commissioned a restoration from the elements available in 1969. Because of the improvement in restoration technology and the discovery of several missing elements - including the innovative original stereo sound mix - Braunberger’s daughter Laurence and the Cinémathèque Française, with the support of the Thomson Foundation, the Franco-American Cultural Fund, and Ophüls’ son Marcel, embarked on a state-of-the-art restoration.Scratches, tears and missing frames were fixed and the full stereophonic magnetic track restored, with the vibrant colors as conceived by production designer Jean d’Eaubonne and cinematographer Christian Matras replacing incomplete and faded prints.

“The at-long-last “definitive restoration” of Lola Montes was a sensation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. ( “In my unhumble opinion, the greatest film of all time,” Andrew Sarris.)  Don’t miss it. The restored version was so captivating I don’t see how they could have adulterated the film. The only set back was Lola as a child, the actress looked like a middle age child.

“In a surreal garish-carnival setting, the suckers line up, and line up at a dollar a kiss with the celebrated courtesan and Countess of Landsfeld, Lola (French sex symbol Martine Carol).  Ringmaster Peter Ustinov starts his spiel and the flashbacks begin. Ustinov almost steals the movie, and he spoke his own dialog in French!   (But the biographies do not include Lola in a circus, so this was Ophuls’ idea.) Amidst a fantasy circus of dreams of faceless color-coded midget bellboys and rising and falling chandeliers and royal crowns, the story shifts between the symbolic tawdriness of the circus and the romanticism of the flashbacks. Each flashback has its own color scheme. For Lola’s youth, black-blue-gray; for her affair with 19th century “rock star” Franz Liszt, red and gold; and for her affair with the King of Bavaria, white, blue, silver and gold. Lola Montes touches on deep emotions, an architecture of the heart.  But it wasn’t depressing, it was cathartic escapism!” [end]

7. RECOMMENDED LINKS - thanks to our friend Phil G, Ferrara, James McN-, & Others who sent us the below:

() RE/Search’s Marian Wallace’s promotional page for “After Crass” on the RainDanceTV website: http://www.raindance.tv/watch/film/after-crass

() YMA SUMAC Obituary: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/11/03/entertainment/e021514S47.DTL

()  from Phil G: “Contraption: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=942_1192754913
()  Palin pranked: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/151958/557/831/649050

() Alan Drake intv  http://www.sustainabletucson.org/

() from Alan Brooks, article on Allen Ginsberg: http://acid-trip.org/secure/ginz.htm

()  Rob Gretton (Joy Division manager, et al) notebook published: http://www.1topclassmanager.co.uk

()  From Chris T: “Norway was incredible. I had a blast there. The film I produced, “Guest of Cindy Sherman” [w/Paul H-O] did really well! While I was there, I met the greatest new punk rock band from China.They were amazing! This is the sort of thing that Jello Biafra would like.At any rate, here’s a video I took of them in Bergen Norway.  No one in America is hip to them, but they are so good. They went on a train tour of China, traveling 12-14 hours between gigs, doing their sound checks, eating, doing the gig and then hopping back on the train to the next stop on the tour. Now that’s punk!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZeDWxJd7lc

() from Bruno R:”sexy people”:  http://renz-o.blogspot.com/

8. QUOTES:

() from Umberto Rossi: “This is the title of Chapter 14 [J.G. Ballard’s COCAINE NIGHTS], where Charles finds his rented Renault  burnt (well, I’d call that an ethical action… I can’t see no reason why  such disagreeable cars should exist). However, here is a brilliant idea  by [J.G. Ballard:]

“One of the modern world’s pagan rites was taking place, the torching of the automobile…” (p159)

“Well said. Here in Rome it’s getting a bit too frequent (a bit too  frequent for someone like me who must park his car in the streets):  last time they almost burned down a block of flats by setting on fire  the cars in the underlying parking.

“Every summer there are burnt cars in the streets. It is not like the  burnings in Paris. It doesn’t take place only in certain parts of the  city. It may happen everywhere. I am not talking of hundeds of cars,  but it’s quite frequent. It also happened where I live, a neigborhood  where you mostly have old people, young university students from  other parts of Italy, and people who work at the Sapienza University  like my wife, teachers or technicians or clerks. Surely a very different  place from the banlieus of Paris. Yet–some cars were burnt. It happens at night, and it seems that the culprits are bored young  men–well, looks like an effect of the boredom of transgression, but  Ballard’s remark casts some light on its roots, doesn’t it?”

() “There’s no authority but yourself” –  CRASS

() [On living in expensive San Francisco] “You shouldn’t live in a place because it’s cheap; you should live there because you WANT to.” — Charles Gatewood

() “If you want to be truly subversive, do something for free.” — Kurt Vonnegut [?]

() “Your language IS your soul.” — V. Vale

() “The point is not to make political films but to make films politically.” — Jean-Luc Godard

9. FEEDBACK FROM READERS:

() “I saw you at the PAHfest “creativity” discussion and was very interested in all that you had to say (even through all the interruption). I’ve also listened to your version of “Mongoloid” with Gerald Casale about a hundred times. The piano work is wonderful. - Anthony Marchitiello on facebook” - THANKS ANTHONY, couldn’t figure out how to reply! - v

() “Saw you with Jello Biafra at Gilman Street and hope you will do more public interview events like that one.” — Berkeley resident

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() A set of 8 SEARCH & DESTROY tabloids from 1977-79 are STILL AVAILABLE for only $40 from www.researchpubs.com - info@researchpubs.com, or 415-362-1465. Complete set of 11 issues (a few left) are $100 plus shipping. (C’mon; they’ve been archived for 30 years; imagine those storage charges alone!)
NOV 2008 RE/Search eNewsletter written by V. Vale & contributors. Newsletter and website powered by http://www.laughingsquid.com.
DISCLAIMER : If you’re receiving V. VALE’s newsletter, it’s because you **or someone you know** has sent your address to us, or signed our mailing list at an event! To unsubscribe, reply to this newsletter with “unsubscribe” in subject line
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WELCOME TO V. VALE’s RE/SEARCH NEWSLETTER #76, October 2008. HERE’S THE NEWS FROM SAN FRANCISCO… ALL READERS ARE INVITED TO SEND CONTRIBUTIONS AND FEEDBACK! And subscribe to our blog at www.researchpubs.com and MySpace

**IF YOU LIVE IN San Francisco BAY AREA, PLEASE **REPLY** TO THIS NEWSLETTER IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE LAST-MINUTE LOCAL NEWS OF RE/SEARCH-recommended EVENTS! In subject line please write “local subscribe”

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
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1. Sat Oct 11, 6:30pm: RE/Search Counter Culture Hour (with host V. Vale) featuring WINSTON SMITH. S.F. Cable Channel 29, live streaming video at http://www.accessf.org - “ACCESS SF 1″ button
2. TONIGHT & TOMORROW: JILL TRACY w/PAUL MERCER at HYPNODROME.
3. FRIDAY OCTOBER 17TH A LITTLE TASTE OF J.X. IN THE NIGHT AT ODDBALL FILMS (a presentation of the work of J.X. Williams)
4. Wed Nov 19-Sun Nov 23 7pm BLIXA BARGELD’S Execution of Precious Memories featuring NANOS OPERETTA and YANNIS ADONIOU’SA KUNST-STOFF at the Project Artaud Theater.
5. OTHER FORTHCOMING EVENTS - Counter Culture Hour party Thurs Oct 30, 730PM, NEW NOTHING CINEMA, 16 Sherman St, S.F.
5A. Stephane von Stephane on Classical Revolution.
6. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening to/What We’ve Been Sent…featuring an interview of the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds show from Sandra Derian
7. RECOMMENDED LINKS - thanks to our friends Phil G, Ferrara, James McN-, Derek B. & Others
8. Quotes
9. Feedback from Readers
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IN STOCK NOW: PrOnovation?Pornography and Technological Innovation: monochrom’s Arse Elektronika Anthology edited by Johannes Frenzfurthner, Gunther Friesinger, Daniel Fabry. Beautiful 8×10″ 196-page anthology, coated stock paper, some color & B&W illustrations. Provocative! $24.99 - order from our website: www.researchpubs.com or write: info@researchpubs.com
PRE-ORDER OUR NEXT 2 RE/SEARCH BOOKS AND RECEIVE A DISCOUNT - 1st Copies hot off the press sent to you ASAP:
() BURNING MAN LIVE! $24.99 - preorder only $18 plus $5 domestic shipping ($15 overseas)
This is a 13-year collection of “P*ss Clear” zine, which was actually produced, printed and distributed right there on the playa during Burning Man! Gives a great feel for the event, whether you’ve ever been there or not. The sarcastic wit the editor/producer guides you through the sand-filled cacophony of over-stimulation.
() LEARY ON DRUGS $19.99 - preorder only $15 plus $5 domestic shipping ($15 overseas)
Years after his death, Leary’s writings are still insightful and refreshing. This is a fully-authorized, from-the-official-archive collection of writings and transcribed presentations. It was edited by Hassan I. Sirius, under the guidance of Leary friend and sometime co-conspirator, R.U. Sirius, who also wrote an introduction. Over a dozen seldom-seen photos from Leary’s life also included.

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() To order: info@researchpubs.com, call 415-362-1465, or order on-line from http://www.researchpubs.com. V. Vale will autograph/inscribe/personalize upon request.

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1. Sat Oct 11, 6:30PM Cable Channel 29: RE/Search Counter Culture Hour (with host V. Vale) featuring montage artist WINSTON SMITH. S.F. Cable Channel 29, 2nd Saturday of month. Winston shows his artworks and narrates the story of his life. Please write us if you’re interested in collecting CCH episodes on DVD - $15 per episode or subscribe and get 6 for $75. (Note: very small production run, just for you)
The show is broadcast on-line as well as on public access television in San Francisco. 6:30-7:30 PM Channel 29 AND http://www.accessf.org - “ACCESS SF 1″ button
This show will also be shown at New Nothing Cinema in San Francisco on Thur Oct 30, 730PM, 16 Sherman St (off Folsom bet 7th-6th St; Winston Smith IN PERSON. Free treats.

2. TONIGHT AND TOMORROW NIGHT ONLY! JILL TRACY unveils her traveling Musical Seance, featuring cult violinist Paul Mercer and master percussionist Randy Odell 7:30pm. Hailed by critics as a “femme fatale for the thinking man,” sultry San Francisco pianist/vocialist Jill Tracy has audiences worldwide captivated by her “elegant netherworld.” Just awarded the prestigious Best of the Bay 2008, Jill Tracy returns home to the Hypnodrome for her latest incantation — A Musical Seance, an intimate collaboration with Atlanta composer/violinist, Paul Mercer.
Since joining forces, Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer are becoming widely known for their astonishing duets on piano and violin, mostly improvised or channeled. The pair affectionately refer to their duets as “spontaneous musical combustion.”
The Musical Seance harnesses the energy of the audience, a synergistic summoning of what dwells within each of us. Audience members are asked to bring small objects of special significance to them, such as a photo, talisman, jewelry, token, etc.
The evening will also feature songs from Tracy’s brand new release The Bittersweet Constrain.
For more information go to http://www.myspace.com/jilltracymusic
To buy tickets, go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com or call 800-838-3006

Jill Tracy kicks off the Shocktoberfest — a must-experience for RE/Search readers. Go to thrillpeddlers.com to catch up and plan for attending future events.

3. Fri Oct 17 10pm “A Little Taste of J.X. in the Night” at Odball Films. “A Little Taste of JX in the Night” is a screening of rare, surviving films from the legendary 50s and 60s pulp director JX Williams with curator/archivist Noel Lawrence in person.
J.X. Williams was a legendary, bottom-of-the-barrel director, pushed to an even lower status due to his Commie leanings. On the skids, he drifted around the continent making cheap features and the occasional nudie reeler, like the infamous parody “The 400 Bl*w Jobs” In the late fifties, he fell in with the Chicago mob, helming a number of shakedown films used to extort dough from debauched politicos and celebs.
At this presentation, film curator and archivist Noel Lawrence will share a few of the surviving artifacts of Williams’ tawdry career. He will also be previewing excerpts from his forthcoming documentary, which chronicles the misadventures of the mad auteur in Hollywood.
Films include:
1) Psych Burn (1968)
2) Satan Claus (1975)
3) The Virgin Sacrifice (1969)
4) Sex Crimes of the 21st Century (1973)
5) The Showdown (1975)
6) J.X. William’s L.A. - Directed by Noel Lawrence and Chris Manz
For more information go to http://oddballfilm.com/resources/events_parent

4. Wed Nov 19-Sun Nov 23 7pm Blixa Bargeld’s Execution of Precious Memories featuring Nanos Operetta and Yannis Adoniou’s Kunst-Stoff at the Project Artaud Theater. Composer, author, vocalist, musician, actor, Einsturzende Neubauten founder and former Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds guitarist, Blixa Bargeld will collaborate and star with the ensemble Nanos Operetta and award-winning choreographer, filmmaker and artist director of Kunst-Stoff, Yannis Adoniou, on the San Francisco version of a world-wide project, following it’s debut in Berlin and culture specific runs in Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Stockholm, London, New Delhi and Krakow.
Execution of Precious Memories collects anonymous recollections from individuals living in the city of performance by distributing questionnaires at a variet of distribution points, through mailings, posting online and other methods. Once the 50-question forms are complete, they are compiled together by the collaborators who pull out specific lines, situations, descriptions of physical feelings, associations with animals, childhood and sensual experiences along with other ephemera to produce a cohesive single work. In this case, that means a much anticipated music, dance and spoken word performance that mixes its global lineage with local DNA, all performed live by the collaborators for five days only. The online survey can be filled out and submitted online at http://www.blixabargeld.com/vkesf. The survey cut off date is November 1st. You can purchase tickets for this event at brownpapertickets.com or kunst-stoff.org

5. OTHER FORTHCOMING EVENTS:

() TOMORROW, Sat Oct 11 7pm The Endless Escape at the Garage. Your FINAL chance to see the Endless Escape. The Endless Escape is an image filled maze, with a sequence of sights and sound sensations, located downstairs in the Garage’s basement.

() Wed Oct 15-Fri Oct 17 The 2008 Anti-Corporate Film Festival Features Food, Fuel and Folly at the Brava Theater Center. The CounterCorp Anti-Corporate Film Festival returns to the Bay Area for it’s third consecutive year of films and discussions that explore the power and influence that corporations have on our daily lives, communities, environment, culture and psychology. These three nights will include documentary and “narrative” (fictional) feature-length and short films, post-screening discussions with directors and issue experts, and audience Q&As. The theme for this year’s festival are food, oil, and the ubiquity of corporations in our societies and personal psyches.
The festival opens Wednesday, October 15th at 7pm with “Growing Awareness,” which offers an unvarnished look at a more sustainable alternative to the current corporate-controlled, government-subsidized global food system: small, organic, local farms. Director, Jade Ajani , and local organic farmer, Jesse Kuhn of Marin Roots Farm, will speak after the film.
The opening night film is “The World According to Monstanto,” a detective story that follows the trail of deception, devastation and death left by a corporate ser*al killer whose weapons include PCBs, herbicides/insecticides/defoliants, bovine growth hormone, dioxin, genetically-modified crops, and seed patents and other so-called “intellectual property.”
The festival continues on Thursday with a program called “The True Cost of Oil” that coincides with two pending civil lawsuit trials in San Francisco against Richmond, CA-based Chevron. It includes previews of two works-in-progress: “The Naked Option” and “Sweet Crude,” and one short film “Justicia Now!” All of these films are about Chevron’s exploitation of people and the environment in Nigeria and Ecuador. A panel discussion including Cindy Cohn - an attorney from one of the Nigeria lawsuits - oil industry expert Antonia Juhasz - author of “The Tyranny of Oil” - and Mitch Anderson of Amazon Watch will follow the films.
The theme of oil carries over into “Gashole” the same night, which tells the history of US oil consumption, oil prices, and the economic, political, and cultural effects of being the world’s largest consumer of oil. What is impeding efforts to change that fact, such as the development of alternative fuels? Co-director Scott Roberts will be in attendance.
The festival concludes on Friday with two films about how the pervasiveness of corporations affects people’s daily lives. “The Big Sellout” documents the real outcomes of the privatization of basic public services such as water, electricity, transportation and health care on four continents: essentially, higher prices for fewer services, or, if you’re poor, no service at all. Shannon Biggs of Global Exchange’s rights-based activism project will speak after the film.
This year’s screenings will close with the California premiere of “Visioneers,” a satirical look at the effects of corporate culture at the largest and most profitable corporation in the history of the world. Starring rising comic talent Zach Galifianakis of the Sean Penn film “Into The Wild,” NBC’s “Boston Common,” and cable’s Comedy Central.
For more information go to http://www.countercorp.org

() Sat Oct 11, Sat Oct 25th and Sat Nov 8 Cabaret Lunatique performs in Teatro ZinZanni Tent 11pm. Cabaret Lunatique, an edgy late night series of “saucy burlesque, music and mischief” will be presented in the Teatro Zanzinni Tent. Hosted by the one and only Mexican Elvis, known as El Vez, the irreverently hip and boldly decadent show will feature a constellation of wild and wacky talented performers ranging from magicians to singers, and from clowns to contortionists, complete with music and dancing, special cocktails and delectable bar menu. The line up for October 11th is: Kitten on Keys: singer/burlesque performer, Suzanne Ramsey, Sam Payne and Domitil Aillot, Chinese Pole artists, Circus Finelli, a four-person female clown troupe presenting slapstick Slavic cabaret, Fleeky Franco, hand-balancer and contortionist Scarlett and Axelrod, a mesmerizing duet on the aerial hoop.

() Sat Oct 25 7:30pm San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman reads from his new book “Look A Hear: Jazz Poems” accompanied by saxophonist Liam Furey at Bird and Beckett Books and Records. FREE.
For more information, call Eric Whittington at (415) 586-3733 or go to http://www.birdbeckett.com

() Legendary Pink Dots Fri-Sat Nov 14 & 15 at Du Nord, S.F. Prepare to attend! New album out, too: Plutonium Blonde…

5A. Stephane von Stephane’s column. - 10/5/08 Classical Revolution (chamber music collective) performance. Revolution Cafe, 3248 22nd St, S.F.

My first experience of Chamber Music was as a teenager while visiting my family in Ireland. We went to a beautiful famous old house where everyone was particularly still and quiet and reverent. It felt like church — not a great association for me.

My next experience of listening to classical music was probably when the Irish relatives came to visit and we went to the S.F. Symphony. This time I was really getting into the symphony and practically dancing in my seat, but I got stern looks and ’shush’s from the patrons.

Well, if you are the type who is moved to move during a classical music performance, then there is now a ’scene’ just for you! The Classical Revolution, a chamber music collective started by violist Charith Premawardhana, performs every Sunday night, 8PM-midnight, at the Revolution Cafe at 3248 22nd St, off Mission.

Apparently this has been going on for two years. The crowd was mixed in age, race and attentiveness to the music. The musicians sat in a circle around the music stands, closely grouped together. They all do it for FUN and to get the music ‘out there’. This was a fabulous treat! I loved watching the musicians — their faces rapt, yet also smiling if one of the group made a small gaffe. Charith was jamming so hard on Brahms near the end of the show that he severed a string on his bow. Talk about your ‘wall of sound’ — five string instruments in unison, wow! And how is it the acoustics are so good in this cafe?

I will definitely be back. They also play Wednesday nights at Socha Cafe at 3235 Mission St. Sunday’s performance included Mozart Flute Quartets, Beethoven String Quartets, Mozart Viola Quintet in C, Brahms Viola Quintet in G.

The rotating musicians were: Jory Fankuchen, violin (playing with us for about 1 year), Baker Peeples, violin (4 months), Megan Sherlock, violin (1 year), Charith Premawardhana, viola (2 years), Gordon Thrupp, viola (first time), Lauren Elledge, viola (1 year), Shain Carrasco, cello (1.5 years), Samsun van Loon, cello (2 years), Nick Anton, cello (4 months), Gillian Clements, violin and viola (6 months) and Ariel ?, flute (first time)!
Check www.classicalrevolution.org for more info. ~ Stephane von Stephane (a.k.a. Lovely Chopin). PS: Mon Oct 27, Makeout Room, will be “experimental” and contemporary classically-influenced music.

6. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening To/What We’ve Been Sent:

Saturday, September 20, 2008
Review of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
The Warfield (now owned by Goldenvoice Concerts so goodbye to souvenir Bill Graham posters!)
Opening act: Red Sparrowes

Review by Sandra Derian

Our spot was on the main floor, just below the balcony. The soundboard is now located downstairs, so we were excited that the sound would be better in the lower area, where we could also have a perfect view.

We decided to splurge and treat ourselves to drinks - well, we each had one drink, since one beer with tip is $8. Looking past this extravagance, we settled in for the opener, Red Sparowes. The Red Sparowes don’t have a vocalist. Instead, they create intricate, instrumental rock music that, thankfully, lacked machismo guitar solos. Projected behind them was depressing film stock of corpses with a smiling Chairman Mao. The set felt like one entire song, and we concluded that the soundboard move was a good thing.

Next, the roadies set up two drum kits on the stage; time to get serious with some heart-pounding music! Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds began with a new song from the latest album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! called, “Night of the Lotus Eaters,” whose lyrics - “Get ready to shield yourself/From our catastrophic leaders” - shows how timeless Odysseus is; the people running our economy have snacked on the fruits of our labors for too long, have grown lazy and we need a revolution! Tracks from Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! peppered the set list, yet they gave us a nice share of the classics. “The Ship Song” was slightly re-arranged but refreshing. The songs had a rawness to them that was not as present on versions on the studio albums. Nick slinked and hopped through the air, knocking down mic stands, throwing picks, towels and owning the stage like he lived on it all his life. We enjoyed him enjoying it. Someone shouted out, “I love you!” and, in reply, Nick said “I love you too, wherever you are, whoever you are, whatever you are.” Nick introduced “Hard On For Love” saying, “This is an old song…you know…from that record…the one with the beautiful picture of me on the cover…with hair…and a top lip.”

The most blatant example of the conspiratorial, sexy, roughness that each band member brought to the stage was in Warren Ellis, guitar picking his violin until we’re in a trance.

Favorites were saved for the encore: the delicate “Jesus of the Moon” and the harsh “Stagger Lee,” which ended the night in which we had momentarily let go of our worries of the world that continues to stumble into chaos.

Setlist:

1. Night of the Lotus Eaters
2. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
3. Tupelo
4. Today’s Lesson
5. Nobody’s Baby Now
6. The Weeping Song
7. Midnight Man
8. The Mercy Seat
9. Deanna
10. Moonland
11. The Ship Song
12. We Call Upon the Author
13. Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry
14. More News From Nowhere

Encore:

15. Love Letter
16. Jesus of the Moon
17. Get Ready For Love
18. Hard On For Love
19. Stagger Lee

Review of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds by Emily Rose

Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds slunk on stage one by one, assuming their respective positions, adjusting their instruments, some stroking their moustaches and scratching their ratted, untamed hair. They were truly a sight to behold: a band of rogues, garnished in immaculately fitted suits, but still appearing wild and shabby and mysterious. The Seeds hung about, with furtive stares and slightly mischievous grins forming on their lips, anxiously awaiting the arrival of their cabalistic front man, who lurked somewhere in the shadows of the Warfield stage. Suddenly Cave’s thin frame emerged from the darkness, you could sense that everyone in the massive concert hall had an uneasy, yet thoroughly exhilarating, sensation running through their bodies. Cave, too, was sharply dressed in a fitted suit, partially unbuttoned at the collar, with his hair slicked back, a black handle-bar moustache framing his thick lips. Without hesitation, the group launched into “Night of the Lotus Eaters” from Cave’s newest release with the Bad Seeds, “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” The song is a commentary on the ever-so-human inpulse to surrender to the chaos that surrounds you, instructing the listener to “Get ready to shield yourself” for when the rapidly approaching, inevitable Downfall transpires.

The second song of the set was also new; the title track from “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” The track serves as a frame for the entire concept of the album, which according to Cave, is a re-telling of the story of Lazarus with a seventies, urban twist. The song is a narrative of Lazarus, or Larry, and his travels through the big cities of America, indulging in all of the decadence and excess that the modern age has to offer until meeting his downfall. Shivers ran down my spine and I smiled to my fellow Los Angeleno native comrade as Cave shouted “He thought even the pale-sky stars were smart enough to keep well away from L.A.,” with a cunning grin on his face. “Lazarus” is also an incredibly powerful song in that it deals with a question that all people wonder about: what really happens once you pass on. It is a commentary on death and resurrection and whether or not something does in fact go on “upstairs” once your body ceases to function and therefore, whether or not it could actually have been possible for Jesus to bring someone back from the grave.

The band continued to plow through the set, which consisted of older songs such as “Tupelo,” “The Weeping Song,” “Deanna,” “Mercy Seat,” etc., though the set was largely focused upon the eight songs from the new album which were scattered throughout the set. Each song was performed with such effortless passion and vigor that it created an uber-energy — a synaesthetic experience that could only be compared to making love; each member of the band was participating in something and expressing themselves in a way that was so raw and natural and organic and absolutely breathtaking.

Upon reflection, while waxing poetic with V. Vale and John Law, we dissected why it was that Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, universally, had this profound effect on people. We started to wonder if, perhaps, the way he affected his audiences had to do with the mythology that seems to have been constructed around Cave himself. It seems, in dissecting this idea, that, in a similar manner as people such as Aleister Crowley, Cave is in fact one of few people who, while living, appear to others as existing outside of what it conventionally means to be human and has become something else all together. Whether this was intentional on the part of Cave is uncertain, but one cannot deny that he has transcended people’s concepts of normality and become something of a myth, an icon … perhaps even some sort of morbid, yet undeniably attractive hero?

Cave and the Seeds concluded their epic, nineteen-song sonic foray with the unbelievably powerful and menacing song “Stagger Lee,” Cave’s perfectly ghastly homage to Stagger Lee, the archetypal tough-guy, murderous thug. The eerie bass line echoed through my bones and Cave’s voice shook as he embodied Stagger Lee at his fiercest and most feral. It almost felt as though Cave was channeling Lee, or something so deep and dark within himself that he could really feel the words he was saying, whether he liked it or not; whether you liked it or not. Stagger Lee ends his wild night, ending Billy Dilly’s life and “fill[ing] him full of lead” — you could just feel the weight…

Our minds swirling with beautifully sinister thoughts, we reluctantly poured back onto the wild streets of San Francisco, the whole of the moon dancing across the darkness, catching the gleam in our eyes and the permanent grins painted across our faces. — Emily Rose

Sept 30, 2008: Brief review of seeing MY BLOODY VALENTINE at S.F. Concourse with Naut Humon: “The loudest band I’ve ever heard in my life. Despite wearing earplugs, I was (and may still be) hearing white noise in my ears for days. The sonic hurricane emanating from the stage took virtually the entire audience on a trance-state-like transport into some other dimension where — were we hallucinating? — beautiful melodies and harmonies constantly arose and disappeared. Yes, I would go experience them again. Still trying to “process” the ramifications of the entire evening. And Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine Flicker Effect plays a role here somehow, too.” - V. Vale

7. RECOMMENDED LINKS - thanks to our friend Phil G, Ferrara, James McN-, & Others who sent us the below:

() Re/Search’s Marian Wallace’s promotional page for “After Crass” on the RainDanceTV website: http://www.raindance.tv/watch/film/after-crass
() Rick McGrath’s “Tour Guide” version of the Ballard Exhibition at the CCCB in Barcelona: http://www.ballardian.com/letter-from-barcelona-exquisite-corpose
() Photos of Winston Smith’s 24 foot-long collage called “Fed Up,” based on a one-to-one reproduction of Leonardo’s “The Last Supper.” http://gallery.me.com/artcrime/100025
() http://www.Kunst-Stoff.org
() http://www.Blixa-bargeld.com
() Video from Jean-Jacques Perrey’s performance at the Montreal Pop Festival: http://www.danacountryman.com/not%20yet.html and some preview tracks from his new CD with Dana Countryman, Destination Space: http://www.myspace.com/jeanjacquesperryanddanacountryman
() http://countercorp.org
() Here’s a link to a site with a series of radio broadcasts from WJFF 90.5 FM in Jeffersonville, NY from July 27, 2008. The four-hour radio broadcast was a celebration of Michael Bloomfield’s 65th birthday anniversary. It includes hard-to-find performances by Bloomfield, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Bob Dylan and others. (Thanks to Ike Taylor (http://www.iketaylor.com) for the info!) http://www.mikebloomfieldamericanmusic.com/mbshow.htm
() Jon Fromer’s song for change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZQRRkf7jog
() Some links forwarded by Bruno: http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlSAJ6Yc8g and http://lsont2sortie.free.fr
() Robert Turman’s WOBC radio show, “Spirals of Everlasting Change,” featuring industrial, experimental, and noise from the past to the present. http://wobc.org and http://robertturman.com
() no problem here, no siree: http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html
() from Graham Rae: “your brain scan says you’re guilty: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/world/asia/15brainscan.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
() featured in our PRANKS 2 book: The Yes Men: http://theyesmen.org/becausewewantit/prof.php?e=info@researchpubs.com&x=131656602
() from Switzerland: http://www.moju-video.com/lufftrailer.html or here http://www.youtube.com/moju-video
() Gonightclubbing.com - Pat Ivers & Emily Armstrong’s new website
() Mucca Pazza - File under: Punk Circus Marching Band Or Nerd-Core. See slide trombones, marching drums, accordions and other romantic icons wielded by musicians with the purpose of making music, instigating spontaneous dancing, loss of bladder control, and horn
honking. You may find it sexy if you like uniforms or anything dorky. http://www.mucca-pazza.org http://www.myspace.com/muccapazza

8. QUOTES:

() “Language is a virus from outer space.” - William S. Burroughs

() “As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.” - Oscar Wilde

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.” - Oscar Wilde

“All authority is degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and it degrades those over whom it is exercised.” - Oscar Wilde

“Whenever a community or a government of any kind attempts to dictate to the artist what (s)he is to do, art either entirely vanishes, or becomes stereotyped, or degenerates into a low and ignoble form of craft!” - Oscar Wilde

“People are eager to share in your profits, but not your debts.” - Unknown

“There is no thought in the absence of the dialectic: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.”

9. FEEDBACK FROM READERS:

() * A good history of the early Goth/Punk/Industrial scene, as well as creepy one shots can be found in RE/SEARCH Publications.” — Goth website

() “Hi Vale!

I’m about to go on the US tour with the Legendary Pink Dots starting mid-Oct and ending up in SF Fri-Sat Nov 14 & 15… playing at Du Nord in San Francisco both nights).

They’re about to release a new album called Plutonium Blonde and it’s quite stunning and primal (I will have the label send you a copy). For the past couple of months, I’ve spent almost all of my spare time working on the new website for the Legendary Pink Dots: www.legendarypinkdots.org … I built the site using all free, open-source software. And get this, I posted all the things I was looking for help with on the website (http://www.legendarypinkdots.org/get-involved) and had fans respond with offers for every single thing!!! I have to say, LPD fans are amongst the nicest people on this planet. It’s weird.

The discography is powered by Freebase so that anyone can contribute and the change is reflected on the site immediately (like wikipedia - the Pink Dots have over 250+ albums out - isn’t that insane?). It’s all very exciting… and a ton of work! But man… there is nothing I’d rather be doing - and that’s really what it’s all about I think The insane frenzy of bliss!

All the best, Lisette S.”

() “Hiya Mr. Vale:

Latest newsletter is, as always, food for the inquisitive, artistic soul. One minor correction, however, is in order.

The Warren Ellis who contributes to Nick Cave’s projects (in addition to putting in quality time as part of Dirty Three) is, in fact, a different Warren Ellis from the writer and graphic novelist.

On the up side, you’re not the first person to make that inaccurate deduction; even I had to be set straight on that myself.

Great recap of the Punk Leg Ends Fillmore event from Mme. von Stephane too and I’ll further second your emotion regarding the appeal of Bibliohead Books.

Waving not drowning from here - ML Heath”

() “Wrong Warren ELlis. The one in the Bad Seeds is an Australian musician. The one who wrote Crooked Little Vein is an English Writer.

- Warren Ellis, English writer”

Oops!!! Sorry to both Warrens for the mix-up! And thanks to Mikel/Danielle for giving RE/Search the Warren Ellis book, which we passed on to the musical maestro!

() ‘Vale, Your writing has a very personal and easy flow.

A welcome addition to “the letter” … I wanted to tell you about a movie I saw in Hong Kong that I think you should give attention to. The English title is “Help Me Eros”…Chinese is “Bang Bang - Wo De Ai Shen” - “bang” means “help.” It reminds me of the midnight movies played at the Palace??? by the park. The actor in the film is also the director. Has this been played in SF? - Billy H.”

() “Hi Vale, Although I share Kunstler’s outrage over the aesthetic decline of American architecture and urban planning, this post just seems like the outcry of a conservative culture warrior: http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore_200808.html

Sorry, Jimmy, but you’re totally wrong in this case.

First, do you blame prostitutes for their chosen profession and not the greater (and supposedly less barbarous) culture that surrounds them? Is there some as-yet-unknokwn malfeasance lurking in the heart of every sailor? And aren’t the REAL cannibals the ones running the economic swindles from their Wall Street thrones, eating the lives of the underclass for their own gross profits?

Of course, that’s not even touching upon the subject of tattoos and their current trendiness - if tattoos are now available on Main Street, it’s NOT because the old marginalized hordes are usurping societal roles. It’s because the same capitalist cannibals have gotten their greedy jaws into yet another subculture and turned it into a flat, meaningless fashion that can be sold to the vanilla mainstream. The bland world has ruined tattoo culture, not the other way around. The Visigoths aren’t overrunning the streets of Rome — the Romans have simply decided that Visigoth imagery is haute couture and thus have turned culture into commodity once again. - JOHN G.

() “Vale, Hey, thanks for the shout on JX. By the way, I just shot Don Bolles for my new film “J.X. Williams’ L.A.” He talks about how The Germs hired J.X. to shoot a music video for “Lexicon Devil” and the mad auteur ended up directing the band at gunpoint…I’m doing a JX presentation and screening at the Speakeasy in El Cerrito on Thur October 16. Will be sure to send you info about that soon - Best, Noel Lawrence

() “Hi Vale,

Nice to hear from you. Guess Barcelona’s CCCB is giving J.G. Ballard a lot of attention recently with their exhibit and all. Good luck w/ the conference…

I’m finishing an associates degree in computer science and working at a place called Toxics Targeting. I just helped them revamp their web site (http://www.toxicstargeting.com/). There’s a section of the site where you can search for addresses within New York state and then see all the places where there are potential or current toxic pollution problems: http://maps.toxicstargeting.com . (Full disclosure: I just provided some of the layout on the map page, we hired an experienced programmer to implement all the map functionality on that page.)…

Current read: The Road by Cormac McCarthy — even though it is an Oprah book (why?), within the first few pages of this post-apocalypse I’m finding great poetic passages and the same type of heaviness, tension, wonder, and dread found in the film version of No Country for Old Men

Current artist: I am pretty sure I’ve seen this guy’s stuff (or people imitating him) around San Francisco, and you probably already know about him: Banksy - http://www.banksy.co.uk/

Last good movies I’ve seen: Burn After Reading, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, all the Curtis Adams documentaries (Power of Nightmares, et al), The Devil’s Backbone (dir. Guillermo del Torro, almost as good as Pan’s Labyrinth), Juliet of the Spirits, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (the movie and all the individual episodes), Control, La Vie en Rose

See ya, Mike Ryan”

() A set of 8 SEARCH & DESTROY tabloids from 1977-79 are STILL AVAILABLE for only $30 from www.researchpubs.com - info@researchpubs.com, or 415-362-1465. Complete set of 11 issues (a few left) are $100 plus shipping. (C’mon; they’ve been archived for 30 years; imagine those storage charges alone!)
OCT 2008 RE/Search eNewsletter written by V. Vale & contributors. Newsletter and website powered by http://www.laughingsquid.com.
DISCLAIMER RE: V. Vale’s eNewsletter - If you’re receiving this newsletter, it’s because you **or someone you know** has sent your address to us, or signed our mailing list at an event!
RE/Search Publications, 20 Romolo #B, San Francisco, CA 94133. Tel (415) 362-1465 Email: info@researchpubs.com website: http://www.researchpubs.com MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/researchpubs
–

WELCOME TO V. VALE’s RE/SEARCH NEWSLETTER #75, September 2008. HERE’S THE NEWS FROM SAN FRANCISCO… ALL READERS ARE INVITED TO SEND CONTRIBUTIONS AND FEEDBACK! And subscribe to our blog at www.researchpubs.com and MySpace

**IF YOU LIVE IN San Francisco BAY AREA, PLEASE **REPLY** TO THIS NEWSLETTER IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE LAST-MINUTE LOCAL NEWS OF RE/SEARCH-recommended EVENTS! In subject line please write “local subscribe”

CONTENTS:

___________________________________________
1. Sat Sep 13, 6:30pm: RE/Search Counter Culture Hour (with host V. Vale) featuring monochrom’s Robëxotica. S.F. Cable Channel 29, live streaming video at http://www.accessf.org - “ACCESS SF 1″ button
2. Wed, Sep 24, 730PM: Meet RE/SEARCH at Million Fishes, 2501 Bryant/23rd St. FREE! A party featuring a Counter Culture Hour episode of monochrom (members may be present live, too?). Guaranteed fun! Beverages; RE/Search books/T-shirts on sale, too.
3. Sat Sep 27 10-6PM, EXPO FOR THE ARTIST, Dolores Park, SF. FREE. RE/Search will sell books there; meet us and “hang out”!
4. Fri-Sat Sep 19-20 NICK CAVE & BAD SEEDS: One of the only major venue concerts worth attending this year. Warfield, SF.
5. OTHER FORTHCOMING EVENTS - San Francisco: Arse Elektronika, London: Raindance Film Festival, and more!
5A. Stephane von Stephane on Pioneers of Punk show; Ted Falconi (Flipper) intv.
6. What We’ve Attended…
7. What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening to/What We’ve Been Sent…
8. RECOMMENDED LINKS - thanks to our friends Phil G, Ferrara, James McN-, Derek B. & Others
9. Quotes
10. Feedback from Readers
————–
please add info@researchpubs.com to your ADDRESS BOOK. If you change your email, update us (and give us your “old” email address to delete). Lastly, forward this to your friends! If you are on aol, please make sure you can receive our newsletter; we get the most returns from addresses at aol, hotmail and yahoo!
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PRE-ORDER OUR NEXT 2 RE/SEARCH BOOKS AND RECEIVE A DISCOUNT - 1st Copies hot off the press sent to you ASAP:
() BURNING MAN LIVE! $24.99 - preorder only $18 plus $5 domestic shipping ($15 overseas)
This is a 13-year collection of “P*ss Clear” zine, which was actually produced, printed and distributed right there on the playa during Burning Man! Gives a great feel for the event, whether you’ve ever been there or not. With sarcastic wit the editor/producer guides you through the sand-filled cacophony of overstimulation.
() LEARY ON DRUGS $19.99 - preorder only $15 plus $5 domestic shipping ($15 overseas)
Years after his death, Leary’s writings are still insightful and refreshing. This is a fully-authorized, from-the-official-archive collection of writings and transcribed presentations. It was edited by Hassan I. Sirius, under the guidance of Leary friend and sometime co-conspirator, R.U. Sirius, who also wrote an introduction. Over a dozen seldom-seen photos from Leary’s life also included.

SUPPORT US & BUY A RE/SEARCH **GIFT FOR SOMEONE! (bring happiness to others, while your dollars lend us direct support!)
() RE/Search LOGO T-shirt - Two styles: Red Logo $25, and Red/White Logo $25.
() NEW: PRANKS **HARDBACK beautiful yellow endpapers LIMITED EDITION $30 special only for newsletter readers, not $40)** - Paperback on glossy paper $25
() NEW: BURROUGHS, GYSIN, TG beautiful w/red endpapers, HARDBACK 500 made $30 (special for newsletter returns; not $40 regular price)
() NEW: INDUSTRIAL CULTURE HANDBOOK beautiful w/purple endpapers $35 special
() To order: info@researchpubs.com, call 415-362-1465, or order on-line from http://www.researchpubs.com. V. Vale will autograph/inscribe/personalize upon request.

() NEW RELEASE! Our AUSTRALIAN NOIR SATANIST PAL JIMMY VARGAS’s CANCAN HELL MAMBO: MOVIE, MUSIC, PEEP VIGNETTES, BOOK, VOTOS. By St. Cyr Productions. $16 + $4 shipping from RE/Search - www.researchpubs.com or call 415.362.1465.  It’s hot off the pressing plant!

——————————————————-
Sept 13, 2008 - A hastily-written letter from your editor, V. Vale:

I have been intermittently disturbed by the thought (printed in an earlier newsletter) that during one’s entire lifetime, one may only have time to read about 6,000 books — that’s all — about one a week. Actually, I read that most people in America don’t even read one full book every YEAR, now. Yet, I also read that last year some 415,000 books were published in America alone. (How many of them are truly worth reading? How many will endure 100 years?)

Sometimes it takes days to read through a thick book — I’m still working on Franklin Rosemont’s “Jacques Vache & the Roots of Surrealism,” which I started a couple months ago. Last week the sun was pouring in through the living room window and I spontaneously decided to shirk duty and just read this book — nobody else was around. Ah, silence — no wonder William Burroughs said, “It can’t get too quiet for me.” Concepts and ideas seemed to literally leap off the page, and thumbing through the book seemed an airy and light task, like listening to Mozart in the morning. Since no pencil and post-it tape was nearby, I resorted to turning down the corners of the pages to mark important quotes, such as this one from deceased mentor Philip Lamantia: “The mind is a black hole of beautiful chance encounters.” (p. 201) Another quote by “Angus C. Graham” leaped out: “We are not yet accustomed to thinking of ourselves as primarily spontaneous beings.” (p. 241) How about, “To laugh is suddenly to find oneself disregarding laws. –  Marcel Schwob” (p.168) How about, “Ecstasy is the active element which transports us beyond space and time.” — Hoene Wronski (p. 146)

You could troll the Internet for hours and not find quotations (like the above) which set the mind to thinking and speculating…

Changing the subject: I liked the archetype of “Fantomas” on page 245: “Shadowlike, a master of disguise, ‘everywhere and nowhere at once,’ Fantomas is the Lord of Terror, the Genius of Evil, the very personification of Crime. Supremely calm, self-assured, always in control, dressed (whenever it pleases him) in the finest clothes, equally at home in the lowest dens of iniquity and the poshest palaces of the ruling elite, he also exemplifies dandyism at its zaniest and blackest. For Fantomas and his gang, the most fantastic improbabilities are the order of the day. ‘Nothing is impossible for Fantomas!’ ”

Now, it was at a used bookstore that I found a mass-market paperback containing some of the Fantomas short novels in translation. And I realized that one of the greatest pleasures of living in a city was: being able to walk to various used book stores as well as stores selling a variety of international magazines and newspapers. I used to walk once a week to Tower Records at Bay and Columbus and spend hours looking at the magazines, books (yes, they distributed RE/Search all over the world) and records. I used to walk to Harold’s Newstand and Cafe de la Presse and “devour” the magazines in foreign languages, deploying a kind of schoolboy French, Spanish, Italian and German — and often these magazines were much more politically critical, and even shocking, in their presentation of un-censored news photos of airplane crashes, celebrity deaths, or politicians unmasked. There were at least two used bookstores in North Beach — the Discovery, Black Oak Books, and a small store on Vallejo near Columbus — they’re now all gone. It should seem obvious, but used bookstores provide a kind of serendipitous discovery not possible (as far as I know) on the Internet — plus, you can thoroughly inspect your discovery immediately and decide To Buy Or Not To Buy. (I know, there’s “Search Inside the Book” now on certain despicable Internet Borg websites, but — it’s still Not The Same.)

Used bookstores are rapidly disappearing, as are small shoe repair stores, and I realized that both should be given FREE RENT — they’re community services having to do with cultural elevation and conservation, rather than the profit motive. Books are now so devalued that I regularly find them abandoned on the street — yesterday I found a bag containing, in perfect condition, The Scarlet Letter, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, How to Be a Wicked Witch, and a book by Frank Rich. Anyway, I urge readers to consider the surviving USED BOOKSTORES in San Francisco as Local Treasures, and patronize them regularly.

Today I recommend:
() Ocean Avenue Books, 1735 Ocean Ave, SF 94112. 415.587.2665 - the owner, Jeff Goodman, has promised to give me a preview copy of one of the best movies of the 20th century - Boris Karloff’s last film, “The Sorcerers.” Any fan of the Brion Gysin Dreamachine ought to check out THIS film! Talk about the Control Process, the Flicker Effect, and also, a unknown great U.K. mid-sixties garage band …
() Bibliohead Books, 334 Gough/Fell Sts, 415.621.6772. How brave, to start a tiny USED bookstore in the 21st century. (They have a few hip new books, too.)
() McDonalds Books, 48 Turk St near Market. If you think a book is priced too high, take it to the counter and make an offer: “Will you take a couple bucks for this?” This classic store may not be long for this world.

Now, I remember taking walks in this city and being fascinated by a number of small, disorganized stores selling a veritable cornucopia of puzzling “merchandise.” Not any more. Modernism has triumphed, with its neat, squeaky clean, shiny, designer, minimalist “aesthetic,” and it is very hard to find a dusty shadowy store crammed with potential “treasures.” Even thrift stores — especially Goodwill - seem oppressively over-lit and far too neat and tidy. Fortunately, Fri-Sun Sept 26-28 Fort Mason holds its yearly huge book sale — and many of the most interesting souls in San Francisco will find their way there. Once you’ve been, you’ll probably want to pilgrimage back annually. Now THAT could be a contemporary conceptual ideal for a huge “SINGLES BAR”!

Awhile back when Nick Cave was in town with GRINDERMAN, a group of us went to one of the hip downtown “speakeasies,” which featured a (faux) library room. Sadly, most of the books lining the shelves turned out to be pure drivel — almost nothing worth reading! We had a glimpse of the Orwellian 1984 future, in which an old-looking room filled with worn antique furniture conceals the highest-tech surveillance gear. Can it be that everything is truly becoming only SURFACE, with virtually no real depth behind?? Like TV studio sets, in which the books on a shelf turn out to be just large photographs of a bookshelf used as a backdrop. Reminds one of the famous photograph of George W. Bush standing in front of a warehouse filled with boxes — except that it was a photorealist backdrop used to conceal the fact that the real boxes in the warehouse were all stamped “Made In China.”

But back to that morning of reading the book on Jacques Vache. For not the first time, I thought about how everything in our society seems to be valued quantitatively (how much $$ can it sell for?) but not qualitatively. But if memory is any kind of reliable index, the most pleasurable moments in one’s life (vacationing in Hawaii or Paris) — do they not reflect a kind of quality of time which seems vastly superior to, say, one’s “daily grind” involving working to pay the rent.

It’s time to work on an essay exploring how time can be qualitatively valued. Or maybe one can Google and find out there are dozens of such essays already written…

1. Sat Sep 13, 6:30PM Cable Channel 29: RE/Search Counter Culture Hour (with host V. Vale) featuring monochrom’s RoboExotica, Dec 2006. S.F. Cable Channel 29, 2nd Saturday of month. Various members of monochrom and other international robot-makers demonstrate their cocktail robotic-oriented theme installations, machines, and philosophies behind their creativity. Please write us if you’re interested in collecting CCH episodes on DVD - $15 per episode or subscribe and get 6 for $75. (Note: very small production run, just for you)
Tonight! the show is on: on-line as well as on public access television in San Francisco. 6:30-7:30 PM Channel 29 AND http://www.accessf.org - “ACCESS SF 1″ button
Roböxotica 2006 - Counter Culture Hour crew and staff “on the road” in Vienna, Austria. Interviews with a dozen or more cocktail robot makers and a look at the robots and the party they wrought.
This show will also be shown at Million Fishes Gallery in San Francisco on Wed Sept 24, so watch for an update about that event.
(NOTE: it’s now Sat Sep 13 9PM, and you’ve already missed the above Counter Culture Hour! But, tomorrow morning, Sunday, watch and see if it airs! The station often re-broadcasts shows Sunday early AM. And if it does, and you see it, please shoot us an email at info@researchpubs.com - thanks!)

2. Wed, Sep 24, 730PM: Meet RE/SEARCH at Million Fishes, 2501 Bryant/23rd St. FREE! A party featuring a Counter Culture Hour episode of monochrom’s Roboexotica (monochrom members may be present??). Guaranteed fun! Beverages; RE/Search books on sale, too.

3. Sat Sep 27 10-6PM FREE: EXPO FOR THE ARTIST, Dolores Park, SF. RE/Search will sell books there; meet us and “hang out”!

4. Fri-Sat Sep 19-20 NICK CAVE & BAD SEEDS: One of the only major venue concerts worth attending this year. Polymaths Nick Cave & Warren Ellis just keep getting better & better! (Did you know Nick Cave wrote a Western movie, “The Proposition”?) Warren Ellis’s CROOKED LITTLE VEIN is one of the best novels we have read — one with a true post-Internet consciousness. Clear and accessible, yet mysterious and haunting. Writing like this is the Future of Fiction. Warfield, SF.

5. OTHER FORTHCOMING EVENTS:

() THUR-SUN SEPT 25-28. monochrom’s ARSE ELEKTRONIKA 2008. Be there or be…! Theme: “Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep?”  http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/ A conference dealing with sex, technology and science fiction. Featuring the Prixxx Arse Elektronika 2008 Awards Ceremony (an unobjectionable award for sex machines, orgasmotrons and teledildonics), the presentation of the Arse Elektronika Anthology “pr0nnovation?”, a curated erotic reading about sex in SF/speculative/alt-reality fiction and — of course — a three day conference about critical perspectives on sexuality and pr0nography in science and social fiction (with keynote speeches by Rudy Rucker and Constance Penley).  Registration: http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/bookings.html

+++ THUR Sept 25 / 8PM, Prixxx Arse Elektronika 2008 Awards Ceremony, CELLspace / 2050 Bryant St/18th St, SF / doors open at 7pm) An unobjectionable award for sex machines, orgasmotrons and teledildonics. Hosted by monochrom’s Johannes Grenzfurthner and info maniac David Dempsey. Featuring Annalee Newitz, Jonathan Mann, etc. The winners will be honored with the “Golden Kleene”(*). Prixxx Arse Elektronika 2008 will be a dignified occasion — and so we invite you to dress up properly. Surprise us with sex and science fiction related costumes… and maybe win a “Golden Kleene”(*) yourself!

Also, monochrom will showcase a few advance copies of the first Arse Elektronika Anthology: “pr0nnovation?” Edited by Johannes Grenzfurthner, Günther Friesinger, Daniel Fabry. This book is being published by RE/Search (San Francisco) in cooperation with monochrom, spring 2009. Featuring: Michael Achenbach, Timothy Archibald, Peter Asaro, Thomas Ballhausen, Binx, Violet Blue, Jonathan Coopersmith, Mark Dery, Thomas Edlinger, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Ema Konstantinova, Tina Lorenz, Stefan Lutschinger, Kyle Machulis, Aaron Muszalski, Annalee Newitz, Carol Queen, Thomas Roche, Autumn Tyr-Salvia, Frank Apunkt Schneider, Katie Vann, Rose White, Amanda Williams, Katherina Zakravsky.

+++  FRI-SUN Sept 26-28 / 1PM-8PM, Arse Elektronika Conference (@ CELLspace / 2050 Bryant St, San Francisco / doors open at 12 noon)  “Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep?” This year’s conference will be structured around three day-long talks and discussion panels, each devoted to a specific theme. Featuring: Rudy Rucker, Constance Penley, Richard Kadrey, Simone Davalos, Daniel Fabry, Violet Blue, Jason Brown, Reesa Brown, Simone Davalos, Daniel Fabry, Karin Harrasser, Richard Kadrey, Verena Kuni, Isaac Leung, Mela Mikes, Susan Mernit, Chris Noessel, Kit O’Connell, Jens Ohlig, Bonni Rambatan, Bonnie Ruberg, Mae Saslaw, Nathan Shedroff, Viviane, Rose White, Sharing is Sexy (Scruffy Eudora, DJ Lotu5, J Bird), and many others.

+++  FRI Sept 26 9PM, doors open at 8 pm) Arse Elektronika Reading (@ Center for Sex & Culture / 1519 Mission St/11th St, SF / Carol Queen, with the support of the Center for Sex & Culture and co-sponsorship of San Francisco’s premiere SF/fantasy bookstore Borderlands, presents a curated erotic reading evening. Readers include Rudy Rucker, Richard Kadrey, M. Christian, Steven Schwartz, Charlie Anders, Carol Queen, Thomas Roche, and more.

() WED SEP 17, 7:30PM. PHILIP LAMANTIA memorial, Unitarian Center, Franklin/Geary Sts, SF, $5. V. VALE will pay homage, along with many others. Philip’s new book available! http://www.sfsu.edu/~poetry/

() MON SEP 22, 8PM, CSC, 1519 Mission/11th St, SF - Screening of “SICK” - Bob Flanagan film. V. VALE will sell copies of the RE/Search “Bob Flanagan: Super-Masochist” book, plus a few other RE/Search books. $5.

() THUR OCT 2, 7PM “Punk, Presidential Politics, and Art”
A conversation between V. Vale of RE/Search and Jello Biafra All ages, $7-$10 sliding scale plus $2 annual membership. 924 Gilman St, Berkeley. Benefit for the progressive Berkeley Rent Board slate
http://www.researchpubs.com
http://www.alternativetentacles.com/bandinfo.php?band=jello
http://www.berkeleyrentboard.org
http://www.myspace.com/berkeleyrentboard

() SEPTEMBER 2008 TOUR: The Films of Dean Snider, an anarchist wild man proto-Surrealist erotic rebel (R.I.P.)
East/West Coast Tour. Presented by Douglas Katelus and New Nothing Cinema. Please come out to see a program of rarely screened 16mm/35mm films. None of which are in distribution beyond the LIMITED edition DVD set that will be available at all shows.

9/12   Echo Park Film Center , Los Angeles CA   8pm
www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/
9/13   7 Dudley Cinema, Venice CA  7pm
www.myspace.com/sevendudleycinema
9/23   Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo NY   8pm
www.squeaky.org
9/25    Rutgers University, NJ
(email me for info)
9/26   Jefferson Presents, Pittsburgh PA   9pm
(outdoor show with BBQ)
www.geocities.com/jeffersonpresents
9/27   Braddock, PA  (location TBA)  (outdoor show)
please email me for more info.
9/28   Anthology Film Archives, NYC  7:30pm
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org

() Thur SEPT 25 Naut Humon/Li Alin group play SEATTLE, UOMO’S as part of the DECIBEL FESTIVAL

() Fri-Sun Oct 3-5 “1st Annual International Ambient Industrial Music Festival Lots of great acts for three days. Winston Tong is playing, also Illusion of Safety, Kwisp, Nux Vomica, Troum, and Voice of Eye.”-Walter Funk. Doors 7PM – Show 8PM until late. Orbis Nex, 851 81st Ave - Unit 217 (Dial 200 for gates), Oakland. 3-Day Package- $69 Single Ticket - $25/night  http://www.iamindust.com

() Sat SEP 20, 7PM. FREE. Expressions Gallery’s Visual Music series presents ExoTV: Enigmatic Vision, Improvised electro-acoustic music with kinetic ambient animations by Mika Pontecorvo (Flute, Live electronic prcessing/Max MSP) and Adriane Pontecorvo (Cello). Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94703 (Near theAshby BART Station). 510-644-4930, www.expressionsgallery.org
Contact: Loren Means, lorenmea@pacbell.net

() Fri Sept 26 5-9PM. Sat Sep 27 1-5PM. FREE. ART AT THE DUMP, 503 Tunnel Ave, SF CA 94134 - Reception for Artists in Residence at the San Francisco Dump. Re(F)use by Barbara Holmes and Tell Me Your Story by Casey Logan Re(F)use and Tell Me Your Story is the culmination of a four-month residency in which artists Barbara Holmes and Casey Logan made art from San Francisco’s discards. Go south on 101, EXIT “Candlestick Park / Tunnel Ave”. After the stop sign, continue forward on Beatty Road until you reach Tunnel Avenue. Turn right on Tunnel Avenue. Go a half block to 503 Tunnel Avenue. These events are fun!

() Sat Sept 13, 8PM, ODDBALL CINEMA, 275 Capp St, S.F. Here’s a rare program of Czech Visionary cinema: Karel Zeman’s (“The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”) “The Fabulous World of Jules Verne” is in a visual world all its own. It’s screening with famed animation/puppet maestro Jiri Trnka’s acclaimed short “The Hand.” –(Sorry this has already happened! But please watch for oddball cinema’s future film shows.)

() Sat OCT 11, 6PM “After-Crass” by Marian Wallace at the Raindance Film Festival, London, U.K.
http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?id=299,2524,0,0,1,0
38 minute video featuring Gee Vaucher and Penny Rimbaud’s trip to California early in 2008. Includes piece from Penny’s performance, Gee’s artwork, and the screen prints from “Yo What Happened to Peace?” a traveling anti-war exhibit, instigated and curated by John Carr. Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher and Marian Wallace will be there in person, so come and say hello if you’re in London-town! The film is playing with a Japanther documentary and a party with Japanther and Penny Rimbaud will follow at 8PM.
http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?id=309,2670,0,0,1,0

() DEAD CHANNELS FILM FESTIVAL (sent by Bruce Fletcher): DEAD CHANNELS: THE SAN FRANCISCO FESTIVAL OF FANTASTIC FILM
October 2-10, 2008: San Francisco, Oakland. For FULL INFO: www.deadchannels.com  www.FantasticAlliance.org

5A. Stephane von Stephane’s column.

Pioneers of Punk, Fillmore July 26, 2008:

Target videos opened the evening early. I talked to Jill Hoffman, now living in Florida, and that was nice. Negative Trend went on first with a new vocalist, Paul Casteel; new bassist was Paul Hood. Early members were Craig Gray gtr and Steve Depace, drums. Roz was around and some of us wondered why he didn’t perform with them, but he seemed happy and the new singer was energetic and fit in well. In between acts there was a comedian, Neil Hamburger, whose entire schtick was to challenge people’s sensibilities. But, it wasn’t in a creative enough way to bother paying attention to — it was just like a pile of vomit, so that was a waste of time. When the Avengers played, Penelope mentioned that the guy seemed to be channeling Dirk Dirksen, but she was being “kind” with that statement. Dirk was actually endearing in HIS provocativeness.

Next up were The Mutants, and they were fabulous. “Colorful” was always a good word to describe them — I always thought of them as the West Coast’s B-52’s, only lyrically more talented. They had go-go dancers — Sally’s brother performed in drag. They had a guy in a revolutionary war outfit shooting streamers and confetti into the crowd out of a giant tube “gun.” They had films of Bruce Conner (photographer extraordinaire) who passed away recently. Best of all, they had Ruby Ray (also a great photographer) sitting on the side of the stage in a bathrobe at a “breakfast” table, reading the newspaper as the show went on. There were loaves of bread on the table and she was making endless toast, stacking it up once it popped up out of the toaster. Then Sue would toss it out to the audience. Sally, Sue, Freddie, John, Brendan, Paul and Dave were all in good form and good voice. My favorite all-time Mutants song is “Opposite World” and so I was happy to hear that, along with all the other standards, “Insect Lounge,” “New Dark Ages,” etc.

Way too much time between sets with this Hamburger guy doing “comedy.” Then the Avengers came on and put on one of the best shows they’ve ever done. A mosh pit formed almost immediately in the front of the stage and the younger attendees got to pogoing. The last time I seriously endured a mosh pit was for Jane’s Addiction sometime in the 90s. But back in the day in S.F. the pogoing was communal and gentler. The L.A. style was the out-of-control, intent-to-maim stuff. Way more angst in L.A. and it’s too bad that that is the lasting legacy of the mosh pit experience. Anyway, Penelope was striking, and the band was brilliant. I’ve always loved the song “Corpus Christi” and they played that. Great versions of “Escapee,” “Paint it Black,” and “We Are The One.” I finally got Avengers merch: the T-shirt with the Marcus Leatherdale photo is now my favorite attire.

Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, the headliners, Flipper, appear. Seems several people had to leave; maybe their baby-sitters weren’t allowed to work late. Those who stuck around were treated to a great set. Bruce stal-ked the stage as usual, Ted kept his back turned almost the whole time. Steve drummed up a storm, and Krist Novoselic (ex of Nirvana) worked his magic. The overall feeling was almost trance-inducing, and I mean that in a good way. I was so tired though, after 5 hours of Punk Rock, that Kurt Cobain could have been resurrected and joined in on the encore of “Sex Bomb” and I still would have just wanted to get home. In my defense, I had spent the afternoon at The Madrona Lounge on Divisadero listening to some excellent ambient music by SpaceTime Continuum and others, so it was a unusually long day of music for me. Glad I did it all, though. ~Stephane von Stephane

Excerpts from Interview with Flipper guitarist, Ted Falconi, August 13th.
Ted picked the noisiest outdoor corner cafe in the known universe, the Can’t Fail Cafe in Emeryville, where trucks and helicopters abound.
Back in the original punk rock days of the late 70’s, Ted used to pop over to my house on Coronado in Oakland out of the blue and hang out and draw the Flipper logo on walls and tables, etc. Whenever I feel a tad lazy, I think of the time Ted was telling of his army days and proclaiming a method of incentive for propulsion:  “You may not think you can drop and do 50 push-ups right now, but if you can do 10 today, and add one tomorrow and one more each day, before you know it, you WILL be doing 50 push-ups.” I tried it, and it’s true.
S.v.S.: How did that Flipper fish logo get invented? It’s almost as iconic as the Screamers logo in punk graphic lore.
T.F.: Our first show was in ‘78, Golden Gate Park in the band shell near the Aquarium. The King Tut show was going on at the time, we were looking at  the exhibit and all the people in line. At the time the band name was John Doe, literally — that was the name. Then later we were shut down, and we were cleaning up, and then all these kids came running out of the aquarium and saying “Flipper, Flipper, we wanna see Flipper again!” And Will thought, “Wish we had that kind of an audience.” Plus, all of Ricky Williams’s pets were named Flipper and so we thought it would be an easy name for him to remember. It was the anti-punk name, not like ‘Kill Your Mother’, ‘Millions of Dead Cops’. And the fish logo — well, we weren’t some smiley face like the Darwin fish; so stick some teeth in there, and drunk?, yeah; so cross the eyeballs out.  So you’ve got some f-cked-up piranha running around. That was us.
S.v.S.:  Were you guys on tour in Europe recently?
T.F.:  Yeah, last year — it was great. We were in England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. We played this show at a seashore resort that Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth put on with Live Nation. The resort was closed during the winter, so they put on these shows. The bands started at 3 o’clock and went on till midnight on 3 stages. Thurston Moore had like a week of programming on a local channel and he picked a theme and it was “the history of film,” so he picked a bunch of films to play the whole time it was going on, from Nosferatu  to John Cage to B-movies. There were also pinball machines, and arcade games, and tents set up with giant sports bars and big screens with soccer games on. So, it was like a whole center where you could go for 3 days and never not be entertained. There were 4000 people there.
S.v.S.: Who were some of the other bands?
T.F.:  The night we played, a techno band opened, then we went on, Melvins went on, Iggy Pop went on, then Sonic Youth closed the first night. MC5 headlined the last night. This year I think the Melvins are gonna be doin’ it, so we’re trying to get on the bill. We’re going to be over there anyway in Austria a few days before that, so we want to go do it again. We’ll be in Czech republic, Serbia, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, England.
S.v.S.:  So, how was it in Ireland (the land of my people)?
T.F.: It was great; we wished we’d had a day off. We drove by the Guinness factory on Sunday and they were closed, unfortunately. But there were so many great seafood places on the Atlantic coast. These places had like 40 different kinds of fish. I’ve been into eating fish on the nights of a show because it’s light and has lots of protein. So I’ve been collecting all these fish recipes in the different cities we’ve been in. I analyze the flavors and try to figure out how they make them. There’s gonna be a Flipper cookbook coming out soon!
S.v.S.: So no days off, no down time?
T.F.: Well, the best couple of tours we went on, Steve and I brought our bikes and before sound check we’d take off and ride all over town and go back to do sound check, then have dinner and then go riding again till the show. We got to see more of Europe than some Europeans ever get to see. We had bike boxes and bikes that you put together, so they fit on the tour bus well.
S.v.S.: So, tell us about the new album.
T.F.: Seven or eight months ago we started recording up at Krist’s place up in Washington, then came down here. Steve and I went into the studio and spent a week mixing, then went back up North — the guitars weren’t loud enough. Because of the incompatibility of the program, we started over again. Jack and Dino, who did a bunch of the stuff for Nirvana, listened to what we had done and tried to make the same moves based on what we had to deal with — based on the same types of sounds, so the levels are a little bit changed, and we changed a few other odds and ends, and finished mixing up there.

The title I’ve been wanting to do is “Red Moon,” because when we recorded it there was a big lunar eclipse. When you get an eclipse, it doesn’t block it out completely; it just makes a big red spot that goes over the moon. Then the next idea I came up with was the idea of the Myth of the Eternal Return. You know, “We’re b-a-c-k!”  The snake with the tale in his mouth, so I was gonna take a fish and elongate it, and then call it “Spawn and Die.” Also, I asked Bruce for all the lyrics and maybe they’ll be an overlap in words, and that’s what we’ll want to use.
S.v.S.: Have you ever written any lyrics for Flipper?
T.F.: No, I’m not a poet…and ya know, lyrics are….superfluous babblings.
S.v.S.: Yeah, who needs words? All guitar, all the time! [end]
Flippers’ American leg of the Tour starts sept. 4th  in Washington. Look up the MySpace page for the entire schedule.

6. What We Did (reverse order): See V. Vale’s blogs at www.researchpubs.com and MySpace.com - Did we mention that V. Vale and Cliff Roman, WEIRDOS guitarist, played (4) songs at Queens Nails Gallery back in July 25, with a great improv vocalist named Bee? (The video is very funny). Watch for more “comeback” “concerts”! Also, Mon August 1, 8-midnite, V. Vale played piano at one of the best bars in S.F., the Homestead (Folsom/19th St), owned by Raub Shapiro.

7. What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening to/What We’ve Been Sent: see V. Vale’s blog at www.researchpubs.com

() Camerawork Magazine, a beautiful local production from Chuck Mobley & Associates. Thought-provoking. www.sfcamerawork.org

() J.G. Ballard Autopsia del nou mil-lenni. This museum catalog, containing an essay on Ballard by V. Vale, boasts superior production values that make us envious. There is an exhibition/conference celebrating J.G. Ballard in Barcelona right now. For more information go to http://www.cccb.org

() The Germs docu-drama titled “What We Do Is Secret” — we saw an advance screening of it in August at Dolby Labs, courtesy of Steve Indig. A couple weeks ago we went to a concert by Meri St. Mary (who has a son by Bruce Loose, Flipper vocalist), in the basement of the Li Po lounge (Grant Ave near Washington St, SF) and afterwards Meri and some of her friends came over, including her accompanist, guitarist J. Neo Marvin, videographer Davis Jones (www.earcandleproductions.com), and Subterranean Records founder Steve Tupper. The topic of the Germs movie came up and Meri remarked, “I heard it was a piece of s–t.” My reactions were more, well, “complex.” I had heard from Cliff Roman, Weirdos guitarist, that the film director had talked to a lot of the original people from “back in the day,” in an attempt to make his film as “authentic” as possible, and had bought Punk posters from Cliff. Nevertheless, the director had a huge roster of people to pay as listed in the ending credits, and each person had to “do something” to get their paycheck.

Nobody “back in the day” could afford clothes as brand-new-looking, and hairstyles as perfectly coiffed, as the film depicted. But the wardrobe people and hairdressers had to “earn their keep.” We never really know about the inner life of the allegedly highly intelligent person who called himself “Bobby Pyn” and then “Darby Crash.” We never really know WHAT Darby Crash’s “Five Year Plan” really contained. Back in the day it was whispered that his philosophical ethos was based on the highly taboo “Mein Kampf,” mixed with input from Nietzsche, Charles Manson, Aleister Crowley and who knows who else.

Docudramas can certainly mess with one’s personal memories. For example, I remember Darby Crash as being about five foot two, with exceptionally “bad” crooked teeth (which made him seem vulnerable and “cute”), quite shy, soft-spoken, not confident, and obviously very thoughtful. Pat Smear seemed about a foot taller than Darby. Lorna Doom smiled a lot and seemed very focused and intent on trying to play her bass lines as accurately as possible. Don Bolles was exactly as depicted in the film (well, skinnier in real life); whoever played Rodney Bingenheimer just “nailed” him, with his voice. Brendan Mullen in real life was blonde and a lot better looking, and Kickboy Face/Claude Bessy — wasn’t quite right, somehow, and neither was Black Randy. Penelope Spheeris — yes, that was how she looked back then. The concert room at the Masque — I don’t remember ANY room in the Masque being THAT LARGE. They really were tiny rooms in a basement off a long hallway, all painted in dark or garish colors. In 1977, there wasn’t even that much graffiti on the walls — the rise of graffiti everywhere came a bit later.

Someone else suggested that the film should have been made in black and white, like “Control,” the docu-drama on Joy Division. That sounds promising, like another film could still be made… Aaron Rose pointed out that “the best thing about the movie is that the GERMS reformed and are touring live again, with actor SHANE WEST (who played Darby in the film) as Lead Singer! Now THAT’S Punk Rock!”

() Filmmaker James Clauser visited us from Nashville, TN and gave us a DVD of his somewhat shocking documentary, “The Aluminum Fowl” — about a small group of young African-Amercans who took up co-ck-fighting. Big Animal Rights protest when it aired at the Sundance Film Festival. Google him.

() Had a great talk with a filmmaker/publisher/artist/gallerist Aaron Rose whose documentary film “Beautiful Losers” chronicles street artists who’ve kind of “made it big”: Shepard Fairey, Chris Johanson, Mike Mills, Geoff McFetridge, and the deceased Margaret Kilgallen, Barry McGee’s wife. His film is playing RIGHT NOW at The Lumiere Theater — see it! Aaron Rose also co-edits the ANP Quarterly/RVCA, a large, free, kind of “edgy” art/pop culture color “magazine” — http://www.rvcaanpq.com . Among his many witty observations: “You can Google your way to the information, but you can’t Google your way to the experience.” “The experience is when life lives…” “All great movements of the past have been D.I.Y. Thomas Edison was D.I.Y. So was Marie Curie, and Einstein. The Cave Painters were D.I.Y.” Another idea (which I question): “You no longer need Manifestoes nor a body of Theory. All you need… is To Connect! (through the Internet)”

() Kenny Goldsmith, creator of perhaps our favorite website, “ubuweb” telephoned us and said he “had been inspired by RE/Search’s work since the early 80s, when he did a radio show at WFMU.” He said, “You put uncompromising, risky material in a design that looked beautiful and elegant. I thought, `Why does everything “edgy” have to be ugly? Why can’t something be both edgy AND beautiful?’ You figured this out before anyone else. And in ubuweb we try to have extremely edgy content in an open, extremely elegant, beautiful, uncluttered, unadvertised space. Minimalism..” He ordered copies of our PRANKS and our PRANKS 2 books for a college class he will be teaching… I asked him who the “new Zizek” is (in terms of academia, theory, and “hipness” and he replied, “Jacques Ranciere.”) Hmmm…

() James Rugg (jimrugg.com, jimrugg.livejournal.com) sent us two rather disturbing chapbooks: “The Dick Troutman Handy-Dandy Pocket Guide to Successful Suicide (Get It Right the First Time!)” written by Dick Troutman and Brian “James” - the back cover lists about a dozen other titles such as “Killing Big Game with a Small Caliber.” The other book was titled “Ultimate James” - from www.awefulbooks.8m.com - you can write dick_troutman@hotmail.com — these are definitely provocative little books (about 3×5 inches).

() We had an interesting conversation with Marc Greuther, who is the curator of industrial collections at the Henry Ford Museum. He sent us some very interesting essays he wrote on topics like “The Persistence of Memory” and also sent us an article in the New Yorker (7-28-08) “The Eureka Hunt: Why do good ideas come to us when they do?” Most amazingly, he later sent us a copy of “BUCKMINSTER FULLER: Starting with the Universe” (based on a show in NYC at the Whitney, **NOW through Sept 21). As a longtime Bucky Fuller fan, I am delighted at the prospect of hours of study of his DRAWINGS, PLUS the privilege of reading an essay by CALVIN TOMKINS (our favorite living “art critic”) on Bucky Fuller. I need to read about Fuller’s relationship with Isamu Noguchi. Of course, we feel that any book on Bucky Fuller is worth reading…

() JOHNNY & GISELLE BREWTON sent us another incomparable art package titled “BAGAZINE 3.” Anything Johnny does is evocative of the era of Victorian handmade quality. If money possibly equated justice, we recommend you send a neatly folded twenty-dollar bill to X-Ray Book Co, PO Box 2234, Pasadena CA 91102. You will be more than delighted with whatever you receive. Or go to www.xraybookco.com and prepare to be dazzled.

() “What if the Greatest Story Ever Told was a lie?” Go to www.bloodlinethemovie.com Robb Wood has produced both a film and a documentary-compilation book, “The Priory of Sion Dossiers,” which could be the next “Da Vinci Code.” Contact 1244 Films, 15335 Morrison St #306, Sherman Oaks CA 91403 if you know of a theater in your town or city which would be interested in exhibiting this film. www.1244films.com

() Our longtime friend Kent Beyda sent us “Don Bolles on KPFK” - a CDR, plus a mystery book by Colin Cotterill, “The Coroner’s Lunch.” We can’t wait to read this one. For some reason, this gift package was misfiled and we just discovered it and it made our day…

() We highly recommend you order ANTIBOTHIS Vol. 2 (magazine and the CD package) from www.antibothis.com — www.myspace.com/urculture  — po box 2274, 1107-001 Lisboa, Portugal. contact thisco@thisco.net  — this contains contributions from Andrew McKenzie of the Hafler Trio, Carl Abrahamsson, Erik Davis, and others. “ANTIBOTHIS is a collection of book anthologies featuring texts, interviews showcasing a variety of ideas that are a genuine alternative to the dogma of conformity, the commitment to disconnect the cables of corporhate coolonization, disinverting cultural reality through the dissemination and dispersion of alternatives, vortices of information and infinite chaotic propaganda, speculation, simulation, stimulation, to revolutionize the dynamics of life in a total process of cultural transformation, reclaiming our guts and revolt in the name of imagination in opposition to a toxic life of low awareness, herd mentality and programmed thought…”

() Thanks to the Hypnodrome, we met Noel Lawrence just before he moved to Los Angeles. He is the curator of the J.X. Williams Archive. Noel was kind enough to gift us with a copy of “The Atrocity Exhibition” film, plus copies of “Peep Show & Selected Shorters and “Sex Crimes of the 21st Century” from www.jxarchive.org — we hope to give a “review” of all of these cinematic offerings, in the future.

() In August 2008 we attended the Awards Ceremony at S.F. Art Institute for Christopher Coppola’s “PAHFEST” (Project Accessible Hollywood) and saw some award-winning films made especially for the Pahfest Competition. Google “PahFest” and you can see hours of other independent films. This is truly an amazing yearly event — next year, don’t miss it! It’s FREE, too. We talked with legendary sound designer Richard Beggs and met the one man filmmaking dynamo and local treasure ROB NILSSON, who has been making films with near-homeless folk from the Tenderloin for decades — don’t understand why we were unaware of his existence. He recently released a 9-DVD Box Set of some of his films, and had retrospectives at the Roxie Theater in S.F. and the Rafael Theater in San Rafael. Google him…

8. RECOMMENDED LINKS - thanks to our friend Phil G, Ferrara, James McN-, & Others who sent us the below:

() V. Vale appears - go to iTunes, find “Record Geek” then “Episode Four” - download and watch. FREE! Thanks to Oscar Arce, formerly of Amok Books, now producing “Record Geek Show.” Also check out: http://www.recordgeekshow.com/

() “Hi Vale - It looks like Time Magazine just profiled the installation I’m working on out here in Massachusetts…. Chris Cobb” http://time-blog.com/looking_around/2008/06/sols_little_acre.html  also, CRASS covers: http://measureformeasure.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/rip-off-artist/

() from phil g: prank calls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI&NR=1 naive art: http://www.andythomas.com/02linkpage.aspx
http://www.andythomas.com/04linkpage.aspx  museum chaos: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/12/2332079.htm  quotes from alfred: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/alfred_hitchcock.html  bath costs man job: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1iyN7Y-jJQ  paintings by Fred Einaudi: http://paintalicious.org/  http://fredeinaudi.blogspot.com/

() http://www.Gonightclubbing.com - website of Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong!

() Gregory Crewdson website: http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=66#

() new yorker: http://www.ep.tc/intro-archive027.html

() those little books: http://www.ep.tc/intro-archive024.html  http://www.ep.tc/mccain-bible/mccain-bible.pdf

() from James Stark: Photos: http://www.jamesstark.com/pelicans_web/
YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH8rZraax14   http://www.jamesstark.com/Pelicans.mov

() from Johnny Strike: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4557935.ece  rudos and rubes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de47DsC9P_8

() snailman: http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/08/math-strange-dr.html

() from Binky: Century of the Self:  http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=140

() from Elliott S: very good breakdown of McCain’s LIES about Barack Obama. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH0xzsogzAk

() James Howard Kunstler intv:  http://www.thisishell.net/rss.xml

() from SM Gray: tattoo photos: www.pbase.com/lautreamont, or www.telepoetic.com and click on MORE PHOTOS.

() from Graham Rae: Tom Cruise  http://raincoaster.com/2008/01/26/the-tom-cruise-scientology-constipation-video/  also see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U___xvZYsK8&feature=related  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5KeUMxyAwM and then this rap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqh5O9LbjhY - It’s from a Philippino midget James Bond parody starring the 2.5-foot dwarf Weng Weng.

() Iggy Pop’s stolen gear (Aug 4, 2008, Canada) still missing: http://www.hootpage.com/stoogesstolenstuff/stoogesstolenstuff.html

() Does a felon live near you? http://www.felonspy.com/search.html

() semiotics? http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html

() from J. Neo Marvin & Davis Jones: http://www.earcandleproductions.com/Hardv3.mov … /The_Slits.swf … /Get_Out.mp3  … /Democracy.mp3 — also, check out their CDs “X-tal: Who Owns Our Dreams?, J. Neo Marvin & The Content Providers: “What Is Truth?” and “Freedom Fried” and “Slowly I Turned.” Free radio programs, films, photographs, interviews, and other content!! (I must have met J. Neo Marvin back in 1978, when he was a student at U.C. Santa Cruz.)

9. QUOTES:

() “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science.  He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dea