Author Archives for Jay Babcock

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – JORGE AMADO


August 10 — Jorge Amado
Brazilian peopleʼs novelist, one-time communist.

August 10, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Huesca, Spain: FIESTA OF SAN LORENZO.The charred bones of Lorenzo, in a
reliquary shaped like his head, are carried through the streets amid
giants, moors and hobby horses. Festive dances and bullfights held.

Wiltshire, England: TAN HILL FAIR is held on the highest peak of
Wiltshire Downs, miles from any town, a survival from ancient times.
Salt beef and beans eaten.

ALSO ON AUGUST 10 IN HISTORY…
1815 — Senecan prophet Handsome Lake (Ganioda’yo) dies, Onondaga, New York.
1912 — People’s writer Jorge Amado born, Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.
1981 — Reagan approves work orders for the Neutron Bomb.

'CHAMELEON CITY' by Léo Quiévreux

Léo Quiévreux’s Chameleon City recalls the inky pleasures of early Kaz, Charles Burns, or Max Andersson.  Maybe this is that amalgam, vaguely European city I find myself dreaming in from time to time?  Always changing, but undeniably familiar…  Recently published in a Latvian magazine, Léo is happy to share this story with readers from other countries.  His new book, La Prothèse HRZ, is available from Le Dernier Cri.

chameleon 1chameleon 2 Continue reading →

'44 PRESIDENTS' by MZA & Maria Sputnik

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Forty Four Presidents by MZA & Maria Sputnik.  Pre-order now 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.

Today's Autonomedia Jublilee Saint – CHARLES FORT


August 9 – Charles Fort
Investigator of the paranormal. Poet of the damned.

August 9, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
China: FEAST OF THE MILKY WAY.
Gloucestershire, England: CRANHAM FEAST. Parade, feasting, bowling for pigs, coconut shying, dancing.

ALSO ON AUGUST 9 IN HISTORY…
1483 — Sistine Chapel first opens to public, St. Peter’s, Rome, Italy.
1874 — American paranormal chronicler Charles Fort born, Albany, New York.

'TOTEM PILL' by Marc Ngui

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjIFL0pcwjQ

Really digging this animation sent over by Marc Ngui (music is “The Grand Elixir” by Ocote Soul Sounds).  Read more about the ideas and inspiration at Marc’s site:

Totem Pill is inspired by Robert Anton Wilson’s description of Timothy Leary’s Eight Circuit Model of Human Consciousness.

The model addresses the question of how and why the mind evolved into an organ of consciousness. Beginning with a single celled organism, each system of consciousness is created as an emergent phenomenon of the previous system in an ever more complex networking process, leading towards a godlike state existing in all time-space with the possibility of engaging with other time spaces. The model is a creation myth, a cosmic blueprint, and fertile territory for the imagination.

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – EMILIANO ZAPATA


August 8 – Emiliano Zapata
Heroic military figure in the first Mexican revolution.

August 8, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Scotland: BURRYMAN FESTIVAL. A man in tight-knit suit and mask is cov-
ered from head to toe with burrs and strolls the streets of Linlithgow,
collecting tribute from housewives. No one knows why.

ALSO ON AUGUST 8 IN HISTORY…
1449 — Portuguese slaver Henry the Navigator delivers 6 ships of human cargo.
1876 — Thomas Alva Edison gets patent for mimeograph.
1879 — Revolutionary hero Emiliano Zapata born, Anenecuilco, Morelos, Mexico.

Sunburned Hand of the Man's "uniquely squelchy bottom end" music

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Stream: [audio:href=’http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/09-Serpents-Wish.mp3%5D
Download: Sunburned Hand of the Man — “Serpent’s Wish” (128kbps)

The above “punishingly rhythmic heart-punch” is taken from from Sunburned Hand of the Man’s No Magic Man, the band’s 2005 release on Arthur’s own Bastet imprint. The colorful quotes are from The Wire‘s review, which you can read in full down below.

Chambo the Arthur Vaultkeeper would like to chime in and say that it looks like there’s only about 150 of these suckers left, so click here to stop by the Arthur Store and get your copy before this second edition is sold out …

Sayeth The Wire:

“We’ve got the closest thing to a high fidelity release here from the confirmed kings of the under-the-counter-culture, Sunburned Hand Of The Man. No Magic Man comes courtesy of Arthur magazine’s new audio imprint and it bundles a selection of some of Sunburned’s most punishingly rhythmic heart-punches to date. There are pieces here that sound like Pete Cosey-era Miles cut up with Lhasa street song and stand-up stonerskits, while others make out like the logical Heavy Metal extension of Tony Williams’ experiments with electricity as part of Lifetime alongside guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young. Guitarist Marc Orleans can generate kandy korn cartwheels as well as The Magic Band’s Jeff Cotton and combined with Rob Thomas’s bass, the two provide a steam-rolling backline that various drummers — John Moloney, Phil Franklin — work to bolster and undermine. Much of No Magic Man is possessed of a uniquely squelchy analog bottom end and between tracks there are some wowing cut-ups from various found sources that add a beautiful veneer of mystic shit to the already precariously dosed proceedings.”
— David Keenan, The Wire (May 2005)

It’s 2009. Do you know what Sunburned Hand of the Man is doing? Go here — http://www.myspace.com/sunburnedhandoftheman — to find out.

'ENSIGN SMURF' pt. 1 by Stanley Lieber

Stanley Lieber is a comics factory, a house of ideas, a bullpen bullet, a Herzog documentary.  His 21st century comic, Massive Fictions, peers unflinchingly into Prince’s vaults and returns with maps of the sun.  You can download MF at his site.  He’s compiling a comics anthology called FAKE which may contain the secrets of the internet’s true birthday.  FAKE also includes work by fellow artist, Pete Toms, who did the colors for Ensign Smurf pt. 1, which you are about to read.  Here’s part 2!

ENSIGN_SMURF_page_01(2) Continue reading →

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN

“The Rebel Girl” of Wobbly fame.

August 7, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Egypt: FEAST OF ‘AUT-YEB, Personification of Female Joy.

ALSO ON AUGUST 7 IN HISTORY…
1890 — “Rebel Girl” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn born, Concord, New Hampshire.
1958 — Emilia Newcomb spontaneously combusts, walking to a party.
1959 — Explorer VI sends back first picture of Earth from space.
1978 — Love Canal, upstate New York, declared toxic disaster area.
1791 — Slave uprising leads to revolution in Haiti.
1809 — American utopianist Albert Brisbane born, Batavia, New York.
1908 — Anarchist photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson born, Chanteloup, France.
1948 — Black American griot poet Sekou Sundiata born, Harlem, New York City.
2006 — International Astronomical Union demotes Pluto from “planet” status.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

"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