featuring…

Chris Ziegler and Kevin Ferguson visit veteran sui generis pop duo SPARKS in L.A. as they prepare to perform their entire 20-album, 240-song ouevre in a single three-wek London engagement in May. “We’re actually better than we thought,” reveal the brothers Mael. Plus: an appropriately outsized ‘Listener’s guide to Sparks’ by Ned Raggett. With photography by Jeaneen Lund.

ENDARKENMENT MANIFESTO: “The last agreeable year for us was 1941, the ideal is about 10,000 BC, but we’re not purists. We might be willing to accept steam power or hydraulics.” Arthur proudly presents poet/scholar Peter Lamborn Wilson‘s half-serious proposal for a political movement to uphold and propagate the ideals of Green Hermeticism–the “coherent spiritual movement that constitutes the only imaginable alternative to unending degradation of Earth and humanity.” Wilson, using the pen name Hakim Bey, is the author of the Temporary Autonomous Zone concept, introduced in 1990…

The debut of “Advanced Standing,” a new column by Greg Shewchuk which asks, What if we thought of SKATEBOARDING as a mind-body practice? Illustration by Joseph Remnant.

Joe O’Brien has a drink with RUDY WURLITZER, the legendary author (Nog, Quake, Flats), screenwriter (Two Lane Blacktop, Walker) and aimless wanderer.

New columnist NANCE KLEHM explains how to make dandelion wine and what to do with human pee. Illustration by Aiyana Udessen.

DAVE REEVES on why we can’t let the President kill himself, with an illustration by Sharon Rudahl.

TWO PAGES OF FULL-COLOR ARTHUR COMICS, edited by Buenaventura Press, featuring new comics by Anna Sommer, Matt Furie, Kevin Huizenga, Jeffrey Brown, Anders Nilsen, Al Columbia, Tim Hensley, C.F., Ted May, Souther Salazar, Tom Gauld, Jonathan Bennett, Helge Reumann, Lisa Hanawalt, Dan Zettwoch, P.W.E. and Simon Evans.

“The Day Is Long”: SPRING FASHION on a Los Angeles afternoon, with photography and styling by Molly Frances and Mark Frohman.

Why you’ve always wanted to TALK TO PLANTS, and some of the best ways to do it, according to the Center for Tactical Magic.

Artist Arik Roper on the art and inspiration of animator RALPH BAKSHI.

“Bull Tongue” columnists BYRON COLEY & THURSTON MOORE review choice finds from the deep underground including work by Jackie O Motherfucker, Cookie, Times New Viking, “Guitar Army” by John Sinclair, “Eye Mind: The Sage of Roky Erickson” by Paul Drummond, “Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue” by Robert Scotto, Uneven Universe, Mors Ontologica, Hall of Fame, Egypt Is the Magick #, Baretta, Log and Toilet, Toylit, Bill Nace, Daniel Higgs, Mouthus, Hive Mind, Aaron Dilloway, Psychatrone Rhonedakk, WFMU’s “The Best of LCD,” Ashtray Navigations, Slurp Dogs, Wally Shoup/Nels Cline/Greg Campbell, Wally Shoup/Chris Corsano/Paul Flaherty, Ghidra, “Ugly Things” No. 26, “Like, Misunderstood” by Rick Brown and Mike Stax, Sunburned Circle, Testicle Hazard, Trash Ritual, Chrome, “Duplex Planet” No. 180, San Francisco Water Cooler, Jorge Boerhringer/Core of the Coalman, Take Up Serpents, Usputuspud, Henry Kuntz, Opeye, “People Take Warning!” comp, Robert Martin and Bobb Trimble reissues.

The Magik Markers’ ELISA AMBROGIO waxes enthusiastic about Blake Bailey’s Richard Yates bio, Alex Nielson & Richard Youngs, Evolution of a Cromagnon by John Joseph, Joshua Burkett, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Spectre Folk, Joan Acocella, VizUSA, Donovan Quinn, Luc Sante, Mick Turner, Colossal Yes, Mick Barr (Ocrilim), Buckingham/Nicks, Tony Rettman, Jason Wambsgans, Joe Carducci, Mick Flower, and Falk, California. Plus other stuff.

The fake economy’s parasitical relationship with the real economy isn’t going to last much longer, says columnist DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF. Illustration by M. Wartella.

The government is obsoleting analog television in February, 2009. ERIK DAVIS examines what we are losing. Illustration by Chris Rubino.

PLUS: Noisician/author Gabe Soria reports from New Orleans, singer-songwriter-bandleader Stephen Malkmus updates us on OLIGARCHY ’08 and Plastic Crimewave memorializes the late great KLAUS DINGER.

The magazine is out now in Los Angeles, and this coming weekend in the rest of the country.

You can download the complete 64-page magazine as a PDF in three parts:

Part 1 (8.1mb)

Part 2 (7.3mb)

Part 3 (9.5mb)

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