On the 17th Anniversary of his passing, original collaborators and friends of Arthur Russell will be playing his songs in a tribute to his life’s work. Performances will span from dance tracks such as “Go Bang!” to more experimental and minimal compositions for cello and other instruments. Read more below.
Date & Time: Saturday, April 4th, 10:30PM (Doors at 10PM) Venue: Le Poisson Rouge Location: 158 Bleecker St. / New York, NY 10012 Price: $12 in advance / $15 at the door (This show is 21+) Buy tickets here.
Le Poisson Rouge presents a tribute to the composer Arthur Russell, who established himself in New York’s vibrant downtown music scene of the 1970s as an eccentric chameleon, creating across and playing his cello in a wide variety of experimental and popular genres. When Russell died in 1992 at age 40 due to AIDS-related illness, his most celebrated output was the collection of leftfield disco records he produced under monikers such as Dinosaur L and Loose Joints, although he left a huge body of work behind him—minimalist chamber music; country-tinged rock from his band the Flying Hearts; meditations for solo voice, cello, and electronic effects—much of which has been posthumously released on record labels such as Audika, introducing Russell’s brilliant, gentle sound to new audiences across the globe.
This concert of live music, held on the anniversary of Russell’s passing, will bridge the gaps between the extremes of his practice, and will include instrumental works, dance tracks, and songs played by an ensemble of Russell’s original collaborators in addition to a few special guests. A dance party follows with DJs and a special late-night performance. Continue reading →
MARCH 31 — JULES DASSIN
Blacklisted, exiled American film noir director.
MARCH 31 holidays and festivals:
* Ancient Babylonia: SACRED DRAMA DAY, in which the King, in the role of Marduk, re-enacts the conquest of Tiamat, the watery chaos.
* Islamic: MAWLID AN NABI, Muhammad’s birthday.
* BUNSEN BURNER DAY.
ON THIS DATE:
1492 — Ferdinand and Isabella expel all Jews from Spain.
1809 — Russian fantasist writer Nikoloi Gogol born, Sorochinetz, Ukraine.
1855 — Charlotte Bronte dies, age 38 and pregnant, Haworth, Yorkshire.
1926 — British novelist, essayist John Fowles born, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.
1959 — Tibet’s Dalai Lama, fleeing Chinese repression, seeks asylum in India.
1968 — U. S. Prez Lyndon Johnson announces that he will not seek re-election.
2008 — Blacklisted American film noir director Jules Dassin dies in Athens, aged 96
It could have been an anchor I pushed into you, but the pull was something like a lighthouse. Perhaps we’re a wildfire “because of what happens between ellipses and the continuation that we make love so well we recover our virginity.” I see the city, but we can exist here all-knowing and unconscious, because we’re moving. We mystery: man and wom(b)an(d) vice and never versus – a reversal. Who has the authority to push and pull heaven and hearth from both sides of variability? If only it was like a book with cylindrical binding in the center – pages inside and out, an author given peace to please – light room on a dark horse – a shape in shadows exists while you enter and by no means exit; an image speaks with no prevention, only echo fire. Jump off a building holding hands –what’s the chance you’ll fall on someone you love like an eclipse? Would you recognize sex from a print of my fantasy palm? (My son’s line; my head line; my archer and flame and mineral line) Perception is the story of destiny; how we’re always right on time, stumble and discover we’re home, wiping stroboscopic genitals with sun-dried rags to prepare for free will. So breathe into my character, give me an overabundance of names to balance all those unnecessary superlatives on the exclamation points of a first kiss that happens every day. Circles are the only Lord of Light; they draw all possible combinations back and forth together and feather in orbit. A universal magnetism, desires tamed through indulgence vis-à-vis how blood bleeds: causal, astral, fizzle, stop and repeat. In essence, I would use your face…a photo of your grace…to describe what and how I’m feeling, but some people are out of love, so out of wearing skin that up is down and nothing moves anyway. We have become a most-favored instrument, a means of expression. Do this harmony on my hereafter, because the common gender is obsolete:
Love, Adam Perry
Adam Perry will graduate this year from Naropa University. His first book No One Knows was published by Richard Denner’s D Press several years ago. You may have heard his music with the bands Whitford and Love X Nowhere. The quoted remarks in “Dear Horizon” are from his SO Irene Joyce and the poem is from his forthcoming collection on Monkey Puzzle Press (monkeypuzzleonline.com), entitled fotographs of bones.
For anyone with a “thing” for old records in languages other than English, Jon Ward’s Excavated Shellac blog is the best site on the web, hands down. Every Sunday night, he posts a side of a lovely 78 rpm disc, recorded during the first half of the 20th century from various places across five continents. And it’s made available as free downloads in a spirit of open-hearted sharing. (There’s a fabulous mid-20s Syrian fiddle record featured this week.)
Recently, the dublab site has posted a great two-hour mp3 of Ward himself playing some great stuff, most of which hasn’t been included on ES before and best of all, he chats between tracks about the records and his interest in them. Just wonderful.
Four gallons of homemade, homegrown (last season) posole was never slurped so fast. Experienced growers shared their seeds and carefully picked through the collection, taking the most rare and unusual. The inexperienced came empty-handed and stuffed their pockets. As my friend Erik said: “Wait until they have 200 radishes to harvest and have to figure out what to do with them.”
Particularly exciting arrivals to the SEED ARCHIVE were blue lotus, mandrake and white alpine strawberries.
A public-access seed archive relies on its PUBLIC, which to me means a broad, diffuse network of folks growing seeds out and bringing them back. Completing this cycle is essential to not just the seed’s continued life but the vitality of the archive as a community resource.
Seeds require care and discipline. Many seeds can only be stored for a short period of time. Potatoes need to be grown out every year to remain viable. Lettuce seeds last only a year or two before they reach the end of their shelf-life. We can’t just stuff seed away and we can’t just grow things out willy-nilly.
Taking an informal poll here (in case any of you wish to respond, you are invited to): Why were people taking so much seed—far too much to grow and use?
The latter question came to mind as Vandana Shiva stepped up to a podium of a packed auditorium in Chicago a few days later. Here’s a picture…
Shiva comes from a farming, conservation and teaching family and as an environmental activist has a PhD in quantum physics. She is a GRANDMOTHER WARRIOR fighting Monsanto and the other four transnational corporations that control our global food supply—pushing GMO’s, toxic pesticides and herbicides affecting our seed and therefore farmers and their families, rural communities and ecosystems of plants and animals, soil quality and even us urban consumers. She uses an old form of resistance—inspiring a dedicated (read: strategized) and devoted (read heart-solid) group of people, mostly women to put their bodies on the line. Besides writing over 15 books, she has brought down the likes of Monsanto and Cargill on seeds and Coca-Cola on water rights. Shiva travels the globe extensively inserting toothpicks between our eyelids so we can see what the heck is going on. And like the toothpicks, it ain’t comfortable.
Four years ago I had the privilege of serving her on her week’s teaching residency in England. She was puffy, her breathing heavy, full of congestion. She was so unhealthy that it made me question the ability of a human, any human to hold such a large public identity and still remain whole and vital.
She looked better in Chicago, speaking about the Chipko movement of the early ’70s, an organized resistance to the destruction of forests in India. Village women organized the Chipko. It was thousands of women hugging trees that stopped the destruction, and popularized the action and use of ‘treehugging’ around the world. Chipko’s position was simple: forests support food, fuel and fodder, and stabilize soil and water. In other words, forests are integral to subsistence. That is: Ecology = Economy.
Press coverage of the Chipko movement:
Vandana Shiva also spoke about the great Bengal famine of the mid-1940s, when hundreds of thousands of Indians died due to the maldistribution of rice. Finally, women armed with broomsticks confronted the British East Indian Company to demand a lessened “tribute” of their rice crop so they could actually feed their families. Their message being: Let us keep more of the rice we grow or kill us now. Women and broomsticks, mind you. Witchy farmers, but not witches.
Crowdsourcing the Bank Recovery by Douglas Rushkoff
March 27, 2009
I don’t believe Tim Geithner’s toxic asset auction plan will work to change the basic problem of bank insolvency, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating the sheer brilliance and post-partisan nature of the approach.
Most commentators and economists are focusing on the way the plan distributes risk, perhaps unfairly—with the government guaranteeing most losses while giving hedge funds and investors half of the gains. But that misses the point of the whole thing.
The underlying problem with the toxic assets currently on the books of most banks is that no one knows quite how to value them. (Their market value is very low right now—lower than most believe it should be. This is what is meant by “mark to market.” In time, when things are better and the world is generally less risk-averse, they should be worth more. Most banks need their balance sheets to look better now, and they can’t while they have these—perhaps artificially—deflated securities on their books).
MARCH 30 — PAUL VERLAINE
Radical French decadent symbolist poet.
March 30 Holidays and festivities:
LIMITED LIABILITY DAY
FESTIVAL OF REALITY FABRICATION
On this date:
1842 — Anesthesiac drugs first used successfully in medical operation.
1844 — French symbolist, decadent writer Paul Verlaine born, Metz, France.
1853 — Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh born Groot Zundert, Brabant, Netherlands.
1867 — U.S. buys Alaska from Russia, for two cents per acre.
1870 — Black men win the right to vote, U.S.
1925 — Anthroposophist Rudolph Steiner dies, Dornach, Switzerland.
1981 — U.S. Acting President Ronald Reagan shot in chest by John Hinckley, Jr.
1990 — Radical labor organizer Harry Bridges dies, San Francisco, California.
Arthur Magazine 
