Author Archives for Jay Babcock

ECO-REVOLUTION

The first few minutes of “The Coconut Revolution” documentary…

This is an incredible modern-day story of a native people’s victory over Western globalization. Sick of seeing their environment ruined and their people exploited by the Panguna Mine, the Pacific island of Bougainville rose up against the giant mining corporation, Rio Tinto Zinc. The newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) began fighting with bows and arrows and sticks and stones against a heavily armed adversary. In an attempt to put down the rebellion the Papua New Guinean Army swiftly established a gunboat blockade around the island, backed by Australian Military personnel and equipment. With no shipments allowed in or out of the island, the People of Bougainville learned to become self-dependent and self-sustained.

The 52-minute documentary is viewable here:
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=9073157933630784238

“IT’S COMING DOWN, BABY!”: Sir Richard Bishop interviewed by Erik Davis (from Arthur, 2007)

Originally published in Arthur No. 27 (Dec 2007)

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It’s Coming Down, Baby!
Erik Davis catches up with SIR RICHARD BISHOP—gypsy picatrix, ex-Sun City Girl and guitarist extraordinaire
Illustration by John Coulthart

Superlatives can be lame, but Richard Bishop is one of the few post-punk guitarists who came of age in the 1980s to have achieved the incendiary prowess of a true Guitar God. Though largely unknown outside the underground, Bishop plays and improvises with an uncommon and original power. He can tantalize in a myriad of styles, he has a global jukebox in his head, he can shatter the walls of sleep and chaos, and he can turn on a dime. He loves the guitar and mocks it: he plays like an absurdist and a romantic at once. He studies the occult and travels the Third World fringe and you can hear it. He plays guitar to save himself and fails in the endeavor and you can hear it. He can scare the shit out of you sometimes, and he can make you giggle and grin.

For decades Bishop played with his brother Alan and the Charlie Gocher in the Sun City Girls, where his ferocious and inventive exploration of psych-rock, punk spew, idiot jizz, Indo-Arabic fantasias, and jazzbo abstraction was often shadowed by the madcap antics, acerbic lyrics and general air of arcane weirdness that surrounded that impossible act. Gocher passed away in February this year at the age of 54, and the Girls are no more.

But over the last half decade, Bishop has also been playing and recording solo instrumental music as Sir Richard Bishop, and the effort is really starting to flower. This year SRB released two great albums. While My Guitar Gently Bleeds features three long pieces that triangulate his essential territory as an improviser: a North African arabesque, a noisy electronic nightscape, and a modal neo-raga on the tantric tip. Polytheistic Fragments is a more accessible and varied work, featuring a dozen tunes that also stretch into Americana, gypsy rag and Lennon-McCartney charm. As always, the recordings are packaged with strange and mystic images that speak to Bishop’s longtime study of esoterica.

Earlier this fall Bishop toured with labelmate Bill Callahan. I called him while he was taking a break in Seattle.

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Muntader al-Zaidi named Arthur Magazine "Man of the Year" 2008; Charles Potts salutes al-Zaidi with new poem, "Balls Out."

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For slinging truth directly to despotic criminal power in a heroic, selfless act of CONTEMPORARY conscience and righteousness, an act that many others could have done but none dared, Iraqi journalist/shoe-thrower Muntader al-Zaidi is the clear choice for Arthur Magazine’s coveted “Man of the Year” award for 2008.

In honor of the occasion, Charles Potts has composed a new poem, “Balls Out,” which we proudly present here:

Balls Out
for Muntader al-Zaidi

We’ve found Hitler’s missing testicle
Lodged in George W. Bush’s nose.
Yes ladies and gentlemen
George Bush was snorting Nazi Nuts
When one of them got stuck in the cocaine.

Muntader al-Zaidi attempted a seasonal variation on
Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Sweet
With his shoes.

He really wanted to hit the visiting fascist in the face
The lame duck occupational Caesar of the colony of Iraq
To crack the American crackpot empire
With his shoes.

George Bush ducked al-Zaidi’s flying shoes
Just like he ducked
Every single other responsibility of the office he stole.

Duck this George:
Since the nefarious democrats didn’t have balls enough to
Impeach you,
al-Zaidi impeached you with his shoes.

The Muntader al-Zaidi College of Journalism at Yale
Now open for admission.

We owe you a pension al-Zaidi.
We are all in prison
Until you are set free.

—Charles Potts

BACK IN STOCK: "THE INVASION OF THUNDERBOLT PAGODA" DVD

We have 75 copies left of Arthur Magazine’s

IRA COHEN & ANGUS MACLISE’s
“The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda”
DVD

for $29.95 (USA), $34.95 (Can) and $39.95 (World), postpaid.

(Sorry, no bulk order discounts available. These are meant for individuals only.)

Director Ira Cohen says: “It was in 1968, the year before Woodstock, between the giant bottle of liquid mercury Tony Conrad found in a doorway on 42nd St. and the Mylar chamber, we experienced a shared voyage conceived in three parts: The Opium Dream, Shaman and Heavenly Blue Mylar Pavilions, an alchemical journey born of out common consciousness — culminating in the akashic bindu drop swirling in the sky’s reflected azure. No minimalism here, but a maximalist adventure. . .”

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS, DVD ORDER INFO and YOUTUBE PREVIEW

WINNERS: John Adamian reviews Holy Modal Rounders doc dvd

Winners
Lunatic folk-poet pranksters The Holy Modal Rounders get their own documentary

Bound to Lose…The Holy Modal Rounders dvd
directed by Sam Wainwright Douglas and Paul C. Lovelace
boundtolose.com

Reviewed by John Adamian

originally published in Arthur No. 32 (Dec 2008)

It’s hard to imagine a music scene more in a need of subversive humor, half-crazed irreverence, and a swift attitudinal kick in the ass than New York’s folk scene in the early 1960s. The folkies in the Lower East Side circa 1963 called out desperately for jesters to deflate their over-serious pieties and do-good earnestness. But when Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, a pair of hard-partying absurdist folk poet-pranksters, gave the scene just what it needed in the form of the first Holy Modal Rounders record, the effort was met with puzzlement or offended condescension by the established order. As music critic Robert Christgau says early on in Bound to Lose—a loving, engaging and sometimes painful documentary about the group —the Holy Modal Rounders were folk geniuses on the order of Bob Dylan, because they had internalized the founding documents of the movement, most notably Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, and they’d approached the business of making folk music with the zeal and experimentation of the abstract expressionist painters and beat poets who partied at the same bars.

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NANCE KLEHM on cougars, weeds and mugwort…

Invite the Wild Neighbors to Dinner
by Nance Klehm
from her Weedeater column, originally published in Arthur No. 30 (July 2008)

Charismatic mega-fauna are really taking it on the chin these days. They look great on posters and t-shirts, but don’t let them walk untethered through town!

I was quite upset when, in April, a mountain lion showed up in Chicago, and was shot seven times by the police. I too have always felt a bit conspicuous and unwieldy in the city.

This cougar traveled hundreds of miles to get to Chicago. Perhaps it knocked out a few slow squirrels or stray cats when it touched on the interminable sprawl of Chicago, or Milwaukee, or even Rockford, Illinois, but there were no human attacks. Of course, there could have been—but there wasn’t.

Last year, also in Chicago, a coyote showed up in the refrigerated beverage section of a downtown sandwich shop. After 45 minutes, and after several people-customers took pictures of it with their cell phones, animal control showed up. The coyote was given an overnight stay at a suburban wildlife rehabilitation center and released—probably back into the suburbs.

Most people around here are asking why these animals show up in huge metropolises. I think a better question to ask is this: Don’t you ever feel like one of these animals?

Mountain lions are both protectors and nurturers. They are loners and independent types. They stand for something quite formidable. Heck, they’re lions! It doesn’t seem like city folk are ready to live with such animals. Most have fear rather than respect for them. Lots of fear. Some reasonable. Some not so much.

So, if you feel like you’re a big cat in the big city, how do you protect yourself from being shot?
Perhaps it would be better to adapt the strategy of a weed.

Weeds are plants that were once valued and cultivated but now have escaped cultivation. Some have been further domesticated into a more mild form now recognized as food. For instance, our lettuces are domesticated variations of wild lettuce.

Weeds are really good at hiding in the open. Their secrets are kept close in their invisibility. Their numbers are always spreading.

Be a weed:
thrive no matter where you are
make your own food and oxygen
make soils better for the next inhabitants
send out a gazillion seeds
reincarnate frequently in unexpected places

I want to introduce you to mugwort—Ms. Artemesia vulgaris. She is widespread in the United States. Mugwort pops up in both our urban and rural settings. She is downright plentiful and ready for you to use. (Note: if pregnant, please do not use this herb. Read more about it first.)

Artemis, the Queen of the Beasts, was a wild one. She was an extreme hunter and friend of forest beasts. Artemis found mugwort and delivered it to the centaur. Forever after, it has carried her name.

I recommend you look for Artemesia vulgaris. And when you find her, gently trim a piece and dry it, then simply burn it in a saucer and inhale the smoke. This plant is a protector from evil as well as an aide to communication with the plant world.

Native Americans, Asians, and Europeans have used this plant medicinally and as a healthful culinary herb for hundreds of years. In Europe it was used as the main bittering flavor for ales until cultivated hops took over. My friend, Tree, just shared some of his herby mugwort ale with me while we munched on some homemade cheese. Sweet. Mugwort is used in moxibustion. In acupuncture, this is the smoking punk they hover over your acupuncture points. It draws blood to the skin’s surface and unblocks your body’s meridian points of stuck energies.

Fresh or dried mugwort also repels insects, cleanses your blood of toxins, promotes sweating, and reduces tension. Lastly, you should know it has some of the same properties of its mysterious cousin of a different species (any guesses?).

Mugwort is also used for lucid dreaming. Cut a sprig and put it under your pillow or tuck a sprig into your pocket for protection. Burn some before you settle into an evening outside. Smoke some before you go foraging or before you lie down in a meadow for a nap.

Maybe it is time we invite these charismatic mega-fauna and not-so-charismatic weeds to the table. Set a place for them. I am not talking about putting them on the menu at some upscale restaurant so we can create a demand. I am simply proposing we let them walk through town. They can take up shelter under our porches or feed off the extra bunnies.

Speaking of weeds, please do serve them up, drink them, smoke them, learn about them and love them. Find an overarching but examined respect for them. You should, because the mega-fauna and weeds are already here or on their way.

While riding my bicycle by the train line recently, I saw the ghost image of the big cat out of the corner of my eye. It emerged from the alley and then ducked back in. In other words, the cat’s spirit hasn’t left.

Nance Klehm is a radical ecologist, system designer, urban forager, teacher, artist and mad scientist of the living. She has worked in Australia, England, Scandinavia, the Caribbean and various places in the United States and Mexico. She is a promoter of direct participatory experiences.

ARTHUR Exclusive – MYTHTYM: TRINIE DALTON – EXCERPT 3/4

MYTHTYM: TRINIE DALTON – EXCERPT 3/4
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 MYTHTYM: TRINIE DALTON
Buy the book here…. now!


Trinie Dalton has long made popular zines on variety of subjects. She brings together artists, musicians, critics, novelists and cartoonists in one gorgeous stew. MYTHTYM compiles the best work from her previous zines on Werewolves, mythical beings, and the natural world. But best of all, this volume includes an entirely new, 100-page body of work on the theme of mirrors.Contributors include: Aurel Schmidt Folkert De Jong Takeshi Murata Jim Drain Andrew Leland Aura Rosenberg Sue De Beer Leif Goldberg Matt Greene Francine Spiegel Derek McCormack Jesse Bransford Shamim Momin Amy Gerstler assume vivid astro focus David Altmejd Sammy Harkham Rachel Kushner Marnie Weber Bjorn Copeland Paper RadAbout her zines, Trinie Dalton has said: ‘I don’t want my books to be cliquish, but at the same time I don’t see them as communal free-for-alls. Of course, many people I invite to participate are my friends, and are friends with each other, but I deliberately include not only established artists and writers but also young people who are relatively unknown in their field. The idea of introducing and contextualizing artists by hanging their art on the same wall is a fundamental one in the art world. To me, my zines are literary/art/music history anthologies, following the group-show or salon style. They’re like parties on paper, and I want to be an exquisite host.’