The great Peter Kuper offered this to Arthur for publication in our anti-war/empire issue, No. 5, published in June 2003: 50,000 copies distributed free across North America.
We had it in layout format—I can’t remember if it was going to take up the centerfold spread as well as one more page—but my partner-in-Arthur at the time, publisher L**** K******, overruled me and Arthur art director W.T. Nelson. Dang! It was probably the most succinct piece—and certainly the most prophetic—that was contributed to the mag. The piece never ran. Here it is, several years too late. Read it and weep.
We’ve uploaded the pages at the largest size possible so that you can print ’em out in high-res. Just click on each page to engorge, I mean enlarge.
ARTHUR NO. 5 (with David Cross on the cover as crazed jingoist god-blessed S.U.V.-driving soccer mom) IS SOLD OUT.
This was the issue we published back in June 2003 when 90% of the USA was in favor of invading Iraq.
Well Arthur No. 5 is now gone forever, peacenik fanboy.
BUT! you can download the entire issue in PDF (11mb) here:
FILE GONE MISSING
Contents:
Photographer Lauren Klain captures DAVID CROSS on his way to a Clear Channel war rally…
KRISTINE MCKENNA on the Tower of Protest, a Vietnam-era action on Sunset Blvd by celebrated artists. With photos by CHARLES BRITTIN…
Jonathan Shainin speaks with CHRIS HEDGES about the truths not being told about war…
ALAN MOORE comments on what the US and UK governments have been up to lately….
DAVID BYRNE writes about his life during wartime.
Righteous poetry by MICHAEL BROWNSTEIN, CHARLES POTTS and AMY TRUSSELL…
Art and comics by Steve Andersen, Tauno Blisted & Mac McGill, Robbie Conal, John Coulthart, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Bill Griffith, Megan Kelso with Ron Rege, Peter Kuper, David Lasky, Sharon Rudahl, Patti Smith & Jem Cohen, art spiegelman and Carol Swain.
MICHAEL MOORCOCK on the fate of empires
DANIEL PINCHBECK on why he’s glad George Bush is president
Arthur film columnist PAUL CULLUM asks “Is George Bush addicted to cocaine?” as he examines “Horns and Halos,” “Journeys with George,” “Uncle Saddam,” “What I’ve Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy: The War Against the Third World” and “Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election.”
And — the fabulous GLAMericans are spotlit by Steffie Nelson…
In any event, this month Mr. Paisley (who is now being “managed” by Arthur’s Jay Babcock) will be traveling to California to perform as a solo artist for the first time ever in the Golden State at a bunch of affordable, all-ages shows. (Some folks may have seen Paisley before as one-half of the Dark Hand and Lamplight duo with artist Shary Boyle when they opened for Bonnie Prince Billy on a California jaunt in 2006.)
Catch this rich-voiced Torontonian troubadour, mustachioed or otherwise, at the following time-space coordinates:
Mon Sep 21 2009 8:00P at The Echo w/ Leslie & Badgers Los Angeles (free!) (see poster above) (presented by Arthur, put together by the great When You Awake blog)
Tue Sep 22 2009 8:00P The Crepe Place Santa Cruz
Wed Sep 23 2009 8:00P Rickshaw Stop San Francisco
Thu Sep 24 2009 8:00P Cafe Coda Chico
Fri Sep 25 2009 8:00P Henry Miller Library Big Sur
Sat Sep 26 2009 8:00P McCabe’s Guitar Shop w/Stan Ridgway Santa Monica
Sun Sep 27 2009 8:00P Che Cafe San Diego
Arthur Magazine proudly presents PARADISE NOW: The Living Theatre in Amerika, a DVD/36-page booklet/double-sided poster featuring rare, never-before-distributed films from The Living Theatre‘s historic and influential ’68-’69 American tour.
Here is the trailer preview teaser, which may not be safe for work but is Totally Safe For Life:
In 1968 the The Living Theatre, an anarchist collective theater troupe led by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, triumphantly returned to America from years of self-imposed exile in Europe. Their new production, which has already taken Europe by storm, was Paradise Now, an intense, challenging distillation and enactment of every principle that the Living Theatre held dear.
“Life, revolution and theater are three words for the same thing: an unconditional NO to the present society,” said Julian Beck. The staging of Paradise Now—a series of provocative scenarios involving group nudity, ideological declamations and the like—attempted to dissolve the boundaries of human interactions, forging a new harmony between the actors and audience. Of this process, Beck wrote:
“Collective creation is the secret weapon of the people… This play is a voyage from the many to the one and from the one to the many. It’s a spiritual voyage and a political voyage, a voyage for the actors and the spectators. The play is a vertical ascent toward permanent revolution, leading to revolutionary action here and now. The revolution of which the play speaks is the beautiful, non-violent, anarchist revolution. The purpose of the play is to lead to a state of being in which non-violent revolutionary action is possible.”
The result of this shared voyage was the visionary, flamboyant creation of a temporary anarchist collective—free from the enslavements of war, violence, the State, money and the self. Audiences and critics were alternately enraptured and repulsed, radicalized and shocked. Was this the end of theater? Or the beginning of something else? Whatever it was, it was unforgettable, and it rippled into the increasingly volatile culture of the time via the subsequent work of people like the Doors’ Jim Morrison, who famously followed the Living Theatre’s “Paradise Now” around California and helped fund their work.
Director Marty Topp’s film of “Paradise Now,” produced by Ira Cohen, featuring music by the MC5, the Sun Ra Arkestra, Apache Indians and others, is an intense, unforgettable 40-minute film that documents what happened when the Living Theatre staged Paradise Now in America. We have packaged it with “Emergency!”, director Gwen Brown’s excellent but little-seen 30-minute 1968 documentary on the Living Theatre; a double-sided poster; an elaborate 36-page booklet of Living Theatre archival materials; exclusive video interviews with Living Theatre members Judith Malina, Julian Beck and Hanon Raznikov; the complete Paradise Now! script; and much more.
Arthur, together with the DVD’s producer Universal Mutant, is making Paradise Now available to all at the lowest price we can afford: $29.95 in the USA, and its equivalent for overseas customers. We printed an edition of 1000. To order via PayPal, click here to go to the Arthur Store.
MIND VOMIT.
WEIRD TILL I DIE.
AMERICA WILL NEVER FORGET.
IF YOU A FIGHTER, RIDER, BOUTHER, FLAME IGNITOR, CROWD EXCITER, OR YOU WANNA JUST GET HIGH, THEN JUST SAY IT.
BUT IF YOU A LIAR-LIAR PAINTS ON FIRE, WOLF CRY AGENT WITH A WIRE IM GONNA KNOW IT WHEN I PLAY IT.
WAVES OF ECSTATIC ATTUNEMENT TO THE SOUND CURRENT , THAT REVERSE ECHO THE DEMONIC WAVES OF ANXIETY REVERBERATING IN THE UNDERWORLD.
WAVE AFTER WAVE CRASHING UPON CONSCIOUSNESS.
EVER INCREASING INTENSITY.
NO SENSE MAKES SENSE.
KOWABUNGA.
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD/JUSTICE AGAINST/FOR ALL.
A brief illustrated history of the U.S. presidency told by the presidents themselves in the style favored by modern social networking web sites, Forty Four Presidents imagines 220 years of presidential succession pancaked into a single moment — documented simultaneously by each commander-in-chief in status updates designed for easy consumption by their Facebook friends. Each status update is accompanied by a jaunty, high-contrast profile picture intended to reflect something of the essential personality (and hotness) of the president.
SEPTEMBER 15 — HRANT DINK
Armenian-Turkish journalist, editor, columnist, martyr.
SEPTEMBER 15 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
China: MOON’S BIRTHDAY. Offerings of fruit are left on rooftops and in open courtyards, with lanterns burning all night on houses, pagodas, ships and river boats. Children get special candies and moon cakes. Flowers and seeds fall from the moon.
ALSO ON SEPTEMBER 15 IN HISTORY…
1782 — Congress adopts a Masonic emblem as the Great Seal of the U.S.
1889 — Writer Claude McKay born, Sunny Ville, Jamaica.
1943 — Paul Robeson gives 296th performance of Othelloin New York City.
1954 — Armenian-Turkish journalist, martyr Hrant Dink born, Malatya, Turkey.
1959 — Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev denied right to visit Disneyland.
1963 — Bomb in Black church in Birmingham, Alabama kills four young girls.
1973 — Victor Jara killed in massacre after overthrow of Salvador Allende.
Michael Deforge just got his very first comic book back from the printers! It’s called LOSE #1 and it’s published by Koyama Press. Contact Michael for ordering information! Here’s a three page sample that will punch your god in the face and leave you asking begging for more.
Arthur Magazine 