BOOK CLUB ~ autumn 2007 ~ PLANET OF THE HUMANS ~

~ We will meet in the dome from 7 – 10pm Thursdays from October 4th to December 6th. Each week a visitor will lead the conversation about the weekly book they have selected. Discussions and debates will go from there. Anyone may participate. Read the book* and come prepared to talk and listen. The topic this season is “Planet of the Humans”. Contact matt@fritzhaeg.com to let us know which weeks you would like to attend.

Books include: TENDING THE WILD: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources, CROWDS AND POWER , REFUGE: An Unknown History of Family and Place , THE WORLD WITHOUT US, POSSIBILITIES: Essays on Hierarchy, Rebellion, and Desire .

For a complete list of books and facilitators go here.

Arthur No. 26 will be available later this week.

featuring…

Old folks cry, young lovers smile and cynical hipsters get confused when she’s onstage. What is Lavender Diamond’s peace-love-and-ecology frontlady BECKY STARK up to?

Thurston Moore & Byron Coley have an audience with YOKO ONO. Discussed: the Peace industry, Fluxus, Sarah Lawrence and her life/art before Lennon. Plus: “Yoko Tanka,” a review of Ono’s recordings in tanka form. With photography by Eden Batki and a selection of vintage Ono photos.

Ever been harassed by a cop? Then you know how suicide bombers get made, says DAVE REEVES, PhD.

Columnist DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF says 9/11 CONSPIRACY THEORISTS are distracting many of our brightest minds from the ongoing horror show in plain view.

Journalist Joel Rose visits 80-year-old Zen humorist/media innovator HENRY JACOBS. Plus, an appreciation of Jacobs’ radio and TV work by filmmaker Mike Mills.

DEERHOOF dude Greg Saunier spiels on the joy of all-ages gigs. Plus photos of DC’s early punk scene, from by photographer Susie J. Horgan’s Punk Love book.

Fashion!!! Fringe knitter TINA MARRIN works off the grid in her cozy, color wonderland. Click here to download Tina’s how-to on making your own miniature knitted skunk!

Byron Coley remembers the SUN CITY GIRLS.

Columnist MOLLY FRANCES hops on Miranda July’s time machine to visit a land of seeded fruit.

Soon the State will have Hummers with cannons that can heat up people’s skin half a kilometer away. The Center for Tactical Magic has some more evolved ideas about mobilizing vehicles for change. Plus: what to do when cops really want to search your car.

New “People Are Talking” columnist Brian J. Davis on what SIMON COWELL, Secretary of Defense ROBERT GATES and KELLY CLARKSON have (respectively) been up to this summer.

PShaw’s “Strings”: full-page comics in full color.

“Bull Tongue” columnists Byron Coley & Thurston Moore review the latest emanations from the deep underground.

C &D drink beers and check out new records by Alan Vega, Magik Markers, Blues Control, Celebration, White Rainbow, Devendra Banhart, Daniel A.I.U. Higgs, Angels of Light, Wolves in the Throne Room and Marie Sioux. They also share their feelings about the Faust IV reissue and The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13 and The Source Family book.

You can download the complete magazine as a PDF in two parts:
Part 1 (6.5mb)
Part 2 (10.6mb)

Subscribe now via PayPal and receive Arthur for a year, shipped directly to you from the printer. Or, order Arthur No. 26 direct from us. Use PAYPAL:

USA – $6 postpaid

Canada – $8 postpaid

World – $11 airmail

found via Stephen O’Malley

upland breakdown

Sat. 25, Beartree Tavern, Centennial, Wyoming
Souled American, Michael Hurley, Stop & Listen Boys, Ralph White, Birgit Burke

Sun. 26, Swing Station, LaPorte, Colorado
Souled American, Michael Hurley, Stop & Listen Boys, Spot, The Places

curated by Joe Carducci and David Lightbourne

from the Rocky Mountain News:

“I formed my first band in the mid- to late-seventies, ’78 for the sake of argument,” [David Lightbourne] says. “And in 1978, the only venues available to you were NHL arenas. There were no bands that didn’t have a stack of 27 Marshalls on top of each other for every instrument.

“They were putting drummers in cages. And I said, ‘No. Give me an acoustic guitar, one microphone, a washboard and a mandolin, and I’ll show you what rock ’n’ roll is supposed to sound like.’ And it’s just my reaction against the arena-rock era. I tried to take it all the way down to Elvis and Sun Records in ’53 with just a Martin acoustic bluegrass guitar. He didn’t have a synthesizer. They couldn’t punch in and punch out bad notes. That’s rock ’n’ roll. Not Sting saving the hummingbirds.”

The New York Times

August 23, 2007

Scientists Induce Out-of-Body Sensation

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

Using virtual reality goggles, a camera and a stick, scientists have induced out-of-body experiences — the sensation of drifting outside of one’s own body — in healthy people, according to experiments being published in the journal Science.

When people gaze at an illusory image of themselves through the goggles and are prodded in just the right way with the stick, they feel as if they have left their bodies.

The research reveals that “the sense of having a body, of being in a bodily self,” is actually constructed from multiple sensory streams, said Matthew Botvinick, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Princeton University, an expert on body and mind who was not involved in the experiments.

Usually these sensory streams, which include including vision, touch, balance and the sense of where one’s body is positioned in space, work together seamlessly, Prof. Botvinick said. But when the information coming from the sensory sources does not match up, when they are thrown out of synchrony, the sense of being embodied as a whole comes apart.

The brain, which abhors ambiguity, then forces a decision that can, as the new experiments show, involve the sense of being in a different body.

The research provides a physical explanation for phenomena usually ascribed to other-worldly influences, said Peter Brugger, a neurologist at University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. After severe and sudden injuries, people often report the sensation of floating over their body, looking down, hearing what is said, and then, just as suddenly, find themselves back inside their body.

The new research is a first step in figuring out exactly how the brain creates this sensation, he said.

The out-of-body experiments were conducted by two research groups using slightly different methods intended to expand the so-called rubber hand illusion.
Continue reading →

From Steve Aylett:

Here’s an animation based on my story “The Man Whose Head Expanded”
(which was in the story anthology ‘Perverted By Language’)

http://www.playstationseason.com/PBL_kondo.html

Aggrolites on Nickelodeon…