Monthly Archives for August 2009

"Yes We Cannabis" by Sonia Sanchez

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A poster by by Sonia Sanchez for the 2009 NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) Conference.

NORML is a nonprofit lobbying organization working to end marijuana prohibition and stop arrests of smokers. The NORML Foundation sponsors educational, research, and legal programs about the costs of marijuana prohibition and alternatives.

So far as Obama and co. is concerned, for now his “drug czar” Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, peddles the same undeviating line as his predecessors: “Legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary, and it’s not in mine.”

Related: Furor Over an Obama Puff Piece

Thursday afternoon rejuvenating wake-up blast rock music: DINOSAUR JR

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[audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/iwantyoutoknow.mp3%5D

Download: “I Want You to Know” (mp3)

Perfect guitar tone. Two verses, cool, then they give you the big chorus–and a ear-blistering solo that the next cubicle will enjoy emanating from yr podlings. Get some ointment from HR. From the album with the year’s greatest cover, Farm, issued recently by the clearly fine folks at Jagjaguar. Acquisition info here.

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint: Scott Nearing

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AUGUST 6 — SCOTT NEARING
Back-to-the-earth political radical, social drop-out.

wikipedia excerpt: “As the Vietnam War took center stage in the mid-1960s, and as a large back-to-the-land movement developed in the U.S., a renewed interest in Nearing’s work and ideas occurred. Hundreds of anti-war believers flocked to Nearing’s home in Maine to learn homesteading practical-living skills, some also to hear a master radical’s anti-war message.”

August 6, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
* Feast of Everything Green Except Money

Also on August 6 in history…
1637 — British comic genius and satirist Ben Jonson dies.
1774 — Religious-protesting Shakers arrive in New York.
1883 — Back-to-the-earth rebel Scott Nearing born, Morris Run, Pennsylvania.
1890 — First electric chair execution in U.S.
1945 — U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
1969 — Frankfort School theorist Theodor Adorno dies, Visp, Switzerland.
1970 — Yippies invade Disneyland. Social chaos in wonderland. (See AP account below)

yippieland

DENNIS MCKENNA! ERIK DAVIS! ALEISTER CROWLEY!

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Ethnopharmacologist Dennis McKenna, brother of the late great Terence, will be doing a rare live interview/conversation today on Erik Davis’s new weekly commercial-free online radio program, EXPANDING MIND—the perfect name with the perfect host and perfect guest, really, as the McKennas’ work in the ’80s and ’90s really expanded the cultural dialogue about what altered consciousness was telling us, (or, for Terence, what the Plants are telling us), what the historical record and scientific studies could tell us about entheogen (or: psychoactive substance) use, and so on…and on…and on… Should be interesting to hear what Dennis is up to, and his current thoughts on all things entheogenic. The show is on at 2pmEDT/11amPDT TODAY (Thursday, August 6) at Progressive Radio Network, and then will be archived. Here’s the link:
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com

In other Erik Davis news, he sez: “I will be giving a presentation on Aleister Crowley and the movies at the Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave in Capital Hill. That particular rite will go down on Thursday, Aug 13, at 9pm.”

Here’s the description for the night:

“Though he died in obscurity in 1947, the renegade magician Aleister Crowley has come to exert an enormous influence on popular and sub-culture alike. Join Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and the 33 1/3 volume on Led Zeppelin IV, for a clip-heavy “performance lecture” on occult film.

“Sampling rare footage, experimental shorts and documentary clips, Davis will use cinema to trace the development of postwar magick and Crowley’s apocalyptic religion of Thelema, with special attention given to the work of Kenneth Anger and the rise of magic in the 1960s and 70s. Numerous obscurities will be sampled, including Curtis Harrington’s Wormwood Star, Rex Ingram’s The Magician and the Jimmy Page version of Anger’s Lucifer Rising. Also included are excerpts from Crowley: The Other Loch Ness Monster, Joe Schimmel’s Christian expose Rock ‘n’ Roll Sorcerers and cut-up wizard Craig Baldwin’s recent Mock Up On Mu.”

Tickets and more info here:
http://www.nwfilmforum.org/live/page/calendar/942

Wednesday music: a 56-minute Grateful Dead Mix by Greg Davis

gratefuldeadmix

Download: Grateful Dead Mix, Vol 1 by Greg Davis mp3 (large file!)

the grateful dead
vol.1 mixed by greg davis
june 28th, 2005

1. feedback (live-fillmore west – 08/21/68)
2. china cat sunflower (from ‘aoxomoxoa’)
3. seastones (live-palace of fine arts – 11/28/73)
4. the main ten (from mickey hart’s ‘rolling thunder’)
5. ripple (from ‘american beauty’)
6. spidergawd (from jerry garcia’s ‘garcia’) + its good to be god rap (live-SF state acid test – 10/02/66)
7. that’s it for the other one (from ‘anthem of the sun’)
8. seastones (original fe. 1975 version) + what’s become of the baby (from ‘aoxomoxoa’)
9. new potato caboose (from ‘anthem of the sun’)
10. late for supper (from jerry garcia’s ‘garcia’) + nirvana army rap (live – SF state acid test – 10/02/66)
11. uncle john’s band (from ‘workingman’s dead’)
12. prankster sound collage #2 (live – SF state acid test – 10/02/66)
13. attics of my life (from ‘american beauty’)
14. prankster sound collage #3 (live-SF state acid test – 10/02/66) + fire on the mountain (mickey’s barn 1973)
15. st. stephen (live – harpur college – 05/02/70)
16. rolling thunder / shoshone invocation (from mickey hart’s ‘rolling thunder’) + seastones (live – 06/06/75)
17. we bid you goodnight (live-berkeley community theater – 08/15/71)

GREG DAVIS is a working musician. Here’s what he’s up to:

out now : ‘mutually arising’ cd on kranky
out now : ‘primes’ cd on autumn records
out now : sun circle ‘s/t’ lp on lichen / autumn

http://crystalvibrations.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/gregdavismusic
http://www.myspace.com/suncircle
http://www.myspace.com/cwgd

New from EcoShack: WeCommune

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We get email. This one’s from our friend Stephanie at EcoShack…

Ever read the classic 1975 utopian novel Ecotopia? People in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest break from the US to form their own country. We love the book because in Ecotopia, everybody lives in a commune!

With Ecotopia as inspiration we’re visiting as many ‘communal hotspots’ as possible in an 8-day period: Ojai, Big Sur, Santa Cruz, Oakland, Bolinas, Sonoma County and beyond… from Aug 12 – 20, or so.

Know of any must-sees? Should we visit you? Post your ideas (and invites) to the ‘Wanna Start a Commune?’ Facebook wall at http://tinyurl.com/my3dfn.

These are the stomping grounds of counterculture’s forward-thinkers: The Merry Pranksters, The Diggers, Ant Farm, and the “hippies who built the internet.” (Don’t believe it? Read ‘From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism‘).

We’re gonna honor what’s old, experience what’s new, and spread the word about what we’re up to with WeCommune. We’ll Tweet from the road. Follow us at: http://twitter.com/WeCommune.

Check out the WeCommune site at http://wecommune.com (be sure to click on ‘visit our commune’ to get a feel for how the system works).

Happy communing!
Stephanie

http://wecommune.com
http://ecoshack.com