Monthly Archives for August 2008

Forest meme popping up above-ground …

To those of you who vomit in yr mouths a little whenever you read the MSM, you may wish to turn yr attention elsewhere for a spell … There’s a story in today’s online version of the NYTimes that uncannily echoes an Arthur post from last week in which we called yr attention to the importance of old growth forests.

The article focuses on Irish-Canadian scientist Diana Beresford-Kroeger, who is quoted as saying: “In a walk through old growth forest, there are thousands if not millions of chemicals and their synergistic effects with one another. What trees do chemically in the environment is something we’re only beginning to understand.”

Beresford-Kroeger goes on to advocate “what she terms a bioplan, reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions.”

Now check this out: The Magpie post, plucked from terrain.org and written by Joan Maloof, raised a nearly identical point six days prior.

“So what could be in the forest air that makes us feel better?” Maloof asks. “In a study done in the Sierra Nevadas of California, researchers found 120 different chemical compounds—but they could only identify seventy of them! We are literally breathing things we don’t understand; which also means, of course, that when we lose these forests, we don’t know what we are losing.”

What gives? Is the New York Times assigning science stories based on Magpie postings? Is The Man so bereft of original ideas that he has to plunder the underground for copy?

Based on my brutal and intimate experience with the world of print journalism, I’d say no. The panel of judges would likely rule this a happy coincidence.

But it’s encouraging to see stuff like this poking its head up where millions can see it.

Not to mention an ironic use of dead trees.

By the way, Maloof, who teaches biology and environmental studies at Salibury University in Maryland, has written a book on the topic, bits of which you can read here.

RIP Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes has left us. 

Isaac Hayes onstage at Wattstax

This note came in just now from Don Fleming,  whose Velvet Monkeys paid tribute way back in 1986, right about the time Mr. Hot Buttered Soul was guest-starring on “The A-Team.”

Please enjoy.

“Velvet Monkeys 1986 perform Shaft

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3571007907170924588&hl=en

yes, it’s the sammy davis jr version

and no, i’m not sure what he hell we thought we were doing.”

P.S. The dude in the pic above,  in case you haven’t seen “Wattstax,” is the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

-Chris Grier

TONIGHT: NO MORE BUSH TOUR 2008, organized by Byron Coley, concludes in NYC

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NO MORE BUSH TOUR 2008

Curated by BYRON COLEY (Arthur Magazine “Bull Tongue” columnist)
Presented by Ecstatic Peace and Arthur Magazine

Five years ago, in a time of woe for the underground, the country and the world, the members of the Ecstatic Yod Collective organized a tour called More Hair Less Bush. Including a variety of musicians and writers, the tour brought the flame of hope to cities cast into darkness by the hideous secretions of the Bush Twins.

Now, in 2008, as we prepare to enjoy the long-promised fruits of regime change, we felt it was time to bring our show on the road again. But this time, rather than offering balm and apologies to the psychically wounded, we would like to celebrate the pre-dawn of a new day — a day when the word “cheney” is once more an empty phrase we use to terrify youngsters.

To this end, we have assembled a revolving cast of musicians and writers, all of whom honk the horn of freedom with both hands. We trust it will be a gas.

Trinkets will be available.

MONDAY AUG 11, 8:00 PM sharp
Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, NYC 212-219-3132

50 FOOT WOMEN is a San Francisco-based duo with Jessi Leigh Swenson and Elaine Barry Kahn. Swenson is known for her trance-forming work with the Believers and Duck, Kahn is a wild card. Combined, they create and destroy small forms with the ease of kettle fish. They promise to have several secret weapons up their sleeves.

AXOLOTL is the ghost-wolf of New Jersey and all points west. Currently resident in the head of Karl Bauer, this ghost takes many forms, and uses many tools to do its jobs. On this tour, there is a functional involvement with several things. Psychedelic? You bet!

BYRON COLEY is a writer from Western Massachusetts. His organizational abilities are dwarfed by his capacity for letting a participle hang. He is a veteran of the More Hair tour.

LOREN CONNORS is one of the great string inventors of our age. Precision stellar blues, played in the Martian style, for the pleasure of all. A veteran of More Hair.

MV+EE will be a stripped-down duo this go-round. Matt, Erika and Zuma, caterwauling into the dark jug of night. As only veterans of the More Hair tour can.

GARY PANTER is best known as a visual artist, but his additions to the shelves of writage and music-making are not insubstantial. Not sure tonight if he’ll be whistling or playing or reading or what. He is no timorous bloke. He is a vet of the More Hair events.

CHARLES PLYMELL is a one of the great writers of our age, and a ferociously talented/opinionated editor, publisher and reader as well. Based for the last few decades in Cherry Valley, NY, Plymell’s evil eye and exquisite grasp of language and image are a deadly combination. It’s always an extreme pleasure to hear him read. A veteran of More Hair.

JACK ROSE is one of the pre-eminent geniuses of acoustic guitar creation and dissemblage. In the years since he left Pelt, Jack has toured and recorded incessantly, inventing moves that would make past masters blush. His fingers are magic fever generators.

ZAIKA is a duo comprised of Marcia Bassett and Tom Carter. Both are long-time and very active members of the American underground scene: Marcia with Uns, Double Leopards, Shackamaxon, Hototogisu, GHQ and others; Tom with The Mike Gunn, Charalambides, Badgerlore, Friday Group, Kyrgyz, Spiderwebs, etc. Together, they create very special kinds of silver cloud eruptions.