Author Archives for Jay Babcock

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – MARY SHELLEY


AUGUST 30 — MARY SHELLEY
British anarchist, and daughter, wife, & mother of anarchists.

Above:  Illustration from an 1831 edition of Shelley’s Frankenstein.

AUGUST 30, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Great Britain: SUMMER HOLIDAY.
Gallup, New Mexico: INTERTRIBAL POWWOW CEREMONY.

ALSO ON AUGUST 30 IN HISTORY…
30 BC — Cleopatra commits suicide, bitten by an (on her?) asp.
1797 — Novelist Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley born, London, England.
1907 — First meeting of Society for the Study of Socialism held by Chinese anar-
chists, Tokyo, Japan. Ninety attend speeches by Liu Shih-p’ei & Shusui Kotoku.
1918 — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin shot, wounded at factory rally, Moscow, USSR.
1963 — “Hot line” telephone link established between Kremlin and White House.

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – EDWARD CARPENTER


AUGUST 29 — EDWARD CARPENTER
British poet, gay liberationist, socialist.

AUGUST 29, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Vevey, France: SWISS WINEGROWERS’ FÊTE, a revival of the Roman
Festival of Ceres, Goddess of the Earth, complete with Ceres, Pales,
Bacchus, Old Silenus, satyrs and fauns — and Swiss yodelers.

ALSO ON AUGUST 29 IN HISTORY…
1533 — Atahualpa, last Incan emperor, put to death by conquistador Pizarro.
1758 — First U.S. Indian reservation established; will serve as model for Hitler.
1809 — Breakfast autocrat Oliver Wendell Holmes born, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1844 — British gay poet, socialist Edward Carpenter born, Brighton, England.
1877 — Mormon “propheteer” Brigham Young born.
1920 — Jazz great Charlie “Bird” Parker hatched, Kansas City, Missouri.
1970 — Huey Newton offers Black Panther troops to the North Vietnamese.
1992 — Radical analyst and schizo-theorist Félix Guattari dies, Paris, France.

MAKE YOUR OWN SOIL from your poop: Nance Klehm's "Humble Pile Chicago" project

From In These Times…

sawduster

A bushel of sawdust and a low-tech composting toilet used for compost collection.

Your Crap, Our Compost: Squat and the earth shall grow
.
By Sisi Tang
In These Times

Poop. 


A generally fecal-phobic society reacts to the thought with a mix of snickering interest and fearful aversion, all dispatched in a single flush. But Nance Klehm, 43-year-old urban forager and grower, transforms human excrement into nutritious soil one bucket at a time. 


Klehm’s Humble Pile, a local do-it-yourself human waste composting project, introduces a backyard alternative to the machine-churning, power-draining waste-processing facilities tucked away in remote locations. 


“I’m not treating it chemically. I trust microorganisms to do it for me,” Klehm says. 


In early 2008, Klehm sent letters and humorous surveys to households in six Chicago neighborhoods, calling on potential participants to help “transform waste into fertility, pollution into resource, and isolation into connection.”

With no need for “Compost 101” instruction, complex machinery, electricity or water, Humble Pile asked its 22 volunteer “nutrient loopers” to opt for dry buckets with snap-on toilet seats when nature calls. 


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Music from another sphere: new AXOLOTL!

axolotl

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Stream: [audio:http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/01-Bonds-II-excerpt-for-Arthur.mp3%5D

Download: “Bonds II (excerpt)” – Axolotl (mp3)

Karl Bauer of Axolotl writes:

“This is an except from a track from my forthcoming Catsup Plate LP, Of Bonds in General. (The track is 15 minutes long in its full form…) It’ll be available in October/Novemberish as a vinyl LP with some complicated packaging courtesy of Mr. Rob Carmichael of Cplate/SEEN, and will come with a download card. It will also be available for download via Catsup Plate. No CD, the world doesn’t seem to need them anymore.

“This record has been in the works for a long time, the title coming from a text by Italian heretical monk/philosopher/magician Giordano Bruno on the doing and undoing of erotic bonds through magical manipulation of images. The record is the result of three years, two bad break-ups with Gemini women, a sample of 15th century Franco-Flemish composer Josquin Desprez, and massive consumption of Steve Reich, Theo Parrish and Metal Machine Music, all mixed in the Central Fire.

“I have also formed a band with poet and 50 Ft. Women member Elaine Kahn, who I accompanied last summer on the No More Bush tour. We’re called Coelom. We’re working on our first two records right now.”

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – E. P. THOMPSON


AUGUST 28 — E. P. THOMPSON
British radical social historian and anti-war activist.

AUGUST 28, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
FESTIVAL OF NEON REVOLUTION.

ALSO ON AUGUST 28 IN HISTORY…
1749 — Writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe born, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
1882 — Anarchist Praxedis Gilberto Guerrero born, Los Altos de Ibarra, Mexico.
1903 — Utopian nature planner F. Law Olmsted dies, Belmont, Massachusetts.
1916 — Radical American sociologist C. Wright Mills born, Waco, Texas.
1919 — Seattle mayor demands “hang or incarcerate all anarchists for life.”
1993— British Marxist historian E. P. Thompson dies, Upper Wick, Worcester.

'44 PRESIDENTS' by MZA & Maria Sputnik

44_presidents_number_24

Forty Four Presidents by MZA & Maria Sputnik.  Available in hardcover from Garrett County Press.

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.

46 Million Art Auction for Health Care Reform

ph_beasts_loRES

(via John Porcellino, Paul Hornschemier & Jeffrey Brown)

Inimitable Cartoonist and Fine Human Being Anders Nilsen has pulled together some great artwork for an even greater cause: health care reform. The participating artists are:

John Porcellino, Genevieve Elverum, Chris Ware, Ivan Brunetti, Dan Clowes, Phil Elverum (Mount Eerie), Jeffrey Brown, Paul Hornschemeier, Todd Baxter, Sonnenzimmer Print Studio, Adam Henry, Kevin Huizenga, Jay Ryan (The Bird Machine Print Studio), Lynda Barry, Lilli Carre, David Heatley, Kyle Obriot, Stephen Eichhorn, Buenaventura Press, Sammy Harkham and the organizer, Anders Nilsen.

And you can (and should) see all the artwork up for auction by searching for 46 Million on eBay.

The proceeds will go to Democracy for America Now, a national advocacy group running television ads to push the Public Option in democratic swing districts and offering support to congressional members who take a stand for the policy.

In light of recent events, this is a desperate attempt to do something rather than just sit idly by while a few giant corporations with something to lose goad a gullible few into scaring their elected representatives away from real change. We’re doing this because the richest country the planet has ever known has no excuse to not take care of its citizens. We rank 37th in the world in overall health care performance, according to the World Health Organization. Right now a million Americans declare bankruptcy every year because of lack of adequate insurance. Hundreds of billions of dollars are wasted on redundant and impenetrable insurance company bureaucracies. We spend vastly more money on health care and wind up with far worse outcomes than other comparable countries. For many of the artists involved in this auction, a real health care bill is exactly the kind of reason we voted for Obama and Congressional Democratic majorities last Fall. To sit by and do nothing while Obama’s first significant initiative twists in the wind is simply not an option.

Like millions of other working Americans, a lot of artists and freelancers in this country are denied affordable health insurance simply because they are self employed. Making access to health care dependant on a person’s employment status is arbitrary and unsustainable.

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Mitch Altman's revolutionary Trip Glasses ("a sound and light brain machine")

I was lucky enough to get a 14-minute test ride with this device a couple days ago, courtesy Mitch himself (and Scott Beibin), and can personally attest to its efficacy. Mitch says they should be available commercially soon, retailing for $40. Something like this is long overdue, especially given that Brion Gysin’s dream machine, which works on a similar principle, was developed decades ago. Experienced meditators and psychonauts will recognize the spaces in consciousness that your brain travels to with the aid of this device; others are in for a pleasant, overwhelming shock. It’s like a trailer for an actual psilocybin or LSD trip, or for what you may experience in deeper meditation. Wonderful, much needed—and totally subversive. Well done, Mitch!

Here’s some video with some other folks trying out the Trip Glasses..

soundandlightbrainmachine

Click here for Trip Glasses site

More info: Make magazine

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE


AUGUST 27 — MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE
Socially committed photo-journalist, adventurer.

Above: Photo of Ghandi by Margaret Bourke-White.

AUGUST 27, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
FEAST OF INCANDESCENT REBELLION.

ALSO ON AUGUST 27 IN HISTORY…
1587 — John White loses 110 colonists at Roanoke, Virginia. Gone to Croatan?
1665 — “The Bare and Ye Cub” first European play staged in North America.
1770 — German Idealist philosopher G. W. F. Hegel born, Stuttgart, Württemberg.
1890 — Surrealist photographer Man Ray born, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1963 — Black American radical W. E. B. DuBois dies, Accra, Ghana.
1971 — American photographer Margaret Bourke-White dies, New York City.