Category Archives for Arik Roper

PREVIEW: Longtime Arthur contributing artist ARIK ROPER's mushroom book—in hardcover!

mmagick

Mushroom Magick: A Visionary Field Guide
by Arik Roper
Hardcover: 144 pages
Abrams
ISBN-10: 0810996316
List Price: $19.95
Amazon Price: $13.57

Here’s some promotion blurbage from the publisher:

For centuries hallucinogenic mushrooms have participated in a sublime relationship with humankind, thanks to their psychoactive chemicals that shift and modify the human mind. Arik Roper’s exquisite painted portraits of magic mushrooms illustrate more than 90 of the known hallucinogenic species from around the world. He captures their powerful auras, adding to a tradition of Mushroom art that stretches back more than 400 years.

Popular culture critics [and sometime Arthur columnists] Erik Davis and Daniel Pinchbeck provide background and testimony in elegant essays, and mushroom expert Gary Lincoff contributes notes. This beautifully designed and profusely illustrated mushroom bible will appeal to nature lovers, mushroom hunters, and enthusiasts of all things psychedelic.

Some pages from the book:

ropergalactic

foreshroom

shroomwithaview

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The Way of The Riff: Contemplators Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and Al Cisneros (Om) discuss roots, rock, rhythm and chess (Arthur, 2007)

Originally published in Arthur No. 27 (Dec 2007)

Artwork by Arik Roper
Introduction by Daniel Chamberlin

My favorite story about Om, the bass and drum duo of Al Cisneros and Chris Hakius—the rhythm section of now defunct drone metal icons Sleep—takes place on the back patio of Los Angeles club The Echo. It’s a cool winter night in 2007 and we’re all gathered here—hippie goners, young punks, indie rock squares—to take in a few breaths of fresh air before the band takes to the stage inside. One group stands out from the crowd: two women and a guy who are having a whale of a time, gesticulating wildly and laughing like crazy. At one point the dude approaches a hipster who’s nervously dragging on a toothpick joint. Our man offers his flask to the young fellow and a confusing exchange takes place: I can tell that he’s looking to swap quaff for toke, but for some reason he’s having trouble communicating this. I catch on about the same time the stoner does, giving up the doobie to the guy and his gal pals: They’re deaf, this happy trio of Om heads. That’s how deep the band’s sensual, mantra-like music goes.

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TRIGGER HIPPIES AND TRIMMER GIRLS: Life on a Humboldt cannabis farm during harvest season, by Dave Reeves with artwork by Arik Roper

illustration by Arik Roper

What can I tell you about going to work on a weed farm that the Grower, The Trimmers and The Landowner won’t kill me for? Soft criminals are especially tense about getting put in cages by men with guns….


A very special edition of Dave Reeves’ “Do The Math” column in Arthur 32/December 2008. Illustration by Arik Roper. Photos by Daniel Chamberlin.

In 1996 Californians passed a Proposition called 215 that allowed a citizen to go to a doctor to get certified as demented enough that a federally banned vegetable substance known as a “Joint” is the only remedy. The Doctor gets a hundred dollars. The Citizen gets a number, a little patch, and if things go a certain way during the Bush Obama changeover, a free ride to a Special Federal Camp.

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NO MONEY DOWN: Rushkoff on the rigged credit system (Arthur, 2008)

NO MONEY DOWN
by Douglas Rushkoff

Illustration by Arik Roper

from Arthur Magazine No. 31, Oct 2008

I poked my head up from writing my book a couple of months ago to engage with Arthur readers about the subject I was working on: the credit crunch and what to do about it [see “Riding Out the Credit Crisis” in Arthur No. 29/May 2008]. I got more email about that piece than anything I have written since a column threatening to defect from the Mac community back in the Quadra days.

Many readers thought I was hinting at something under the surface—a conspiracy, of sorts, to take money from the poor and give it to the rich. It sounded to many like I was describing an economic system actually designed—planned—to redistribute income in the worst possible ways.

I guess I’d have to agree with that premise. Only it’s not a secret conspiracy. It’s an overt one, and playing out in full view of anyone who has time (time is money, after all) to observe it.

The mortgage and credit crisis wasn’t merely predictable; it was predicted. And not by a market bear or conspiracy theorist, but by the people and institutions responsible. The record number of foreclosures, credit defaults, and, now, institutional collapses is not the result of the churn of random market forces, but rather a series of highly lobbied changes to law, highly promoted ideologies of wealth and home ownership, and monetary policies highly biased toward corporate greed.

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It all started to make sense to me when I attended Learning Annex’s Wealth Expo earlier this year—a seminar where teachers of The Secret, the hosts of Flip This House, George Foreman, Tony Robbins and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan [pictured above in banner from Learning Annex website] purportedly taught the thousands in attendance how to take advantage of the current foreclosure boom.

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ARTHUR BEST OF 2007 LISTS No. 16: Arik Roper

12 good things of 2007, in no particular order
by Arik Roper

-Habibiyya –If Man But Knew.The reissue with bonus tracks plus a lotta liner notes. Awesome.

–Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets. Serious knowledge from a man who could help save the world by showing us how to use fungi to repair the land. This should replace the bibles in hotel rooms.

– Boredoms 77 Boa Drum -Perfect weather, amazing outdoor festival. (If you couldn’t get in the park after waiting in line for 6 hours, this may have been one of the worst days of the year.)

– The Source Book – More than you ever expected to know about Father Yod , his restaurant, and what exactly the deal was with all the girls.

– Om –Pilgrimage. Return of the heavy innerspace album.

– Pan’s Labryrinth . Great symbolism and message.

– Eastern Promises. Intriguing characters and tattoos.

– Jodorowsky box set. I finally have a legit version of Holy Mountain now.

– The Japanese art wing at the British Museum. Inspiring.

– Led Zeppelin reunion. I wasn’t there, but it happened and I like knowing that.

– Successfully growing mushrooms in my apt. Magic can happen in a plastic tub.

– Steve K’s Golden Age of VHS at Anthology Film Archive in NYC. Beautiful grainy vhs action blown up to cinema-size entertainment. Like flipping through cable channels with 250 other people in the room.

Arik Roper is an artist, designer and major contributor to Arthur. He did the still-available ArthurFest poster, the still-available Comets On Fire/Growing tour poster, the still-available No Neck Blues Band tour poster and the much coveted “Tuff Wizard” Arthur t-shirt design. His illustration work has appeared in Arthur No. 12 (Pinchbeck column), No. 13 (Pinchbeck column), No. 14 (Pinchbeck column), No. 16 (Pinchbeck column), No. 17 (Pinchbeck column), No. 18 (Pinchbeck column), No. 20 (post-Katrina New Orleans), No. 22 (Jeremy Narby painting), No. 23 (Belong painting) and No. 27 (Om and Six Organs of Admittance painting).