Pre-order "POWR MASTRS 3", "IF 'N OOF" – get free silkscreen prints and personalized copies!

Exciting news from our friends at Picturebox, new books from C.F. and Brian Chippendale!  Observe this growing trend in small press publishing – smaller print runs, but also an awareness that just about every new art comics that comes out these days is essentially a limited edition.  That in itself is worth noting.  These are increasingly the best books on the shelves, but small press seems to be getting smaller and smaller distribution-wise.  Publishers like Picturebox recognize that this also allows more precious hand made details to go into the products.  It’s the equivalent of seeing your favorite musician in a small, intimate setting.  Vinyl and comic books, you’re an art collector/supporter and you didn’t even realize it.

We have two amazing graphic novels scheduled for November 2009 and February 2010. They are fantastic, vital works of art and we need your help to release them.

Powr Mastrs 3 (104 pages, 5.75” x 7.75”) continues CF’s visionary narrative about the complex relationships between mysterious beings in a place called New China. If ‘n Oof is Brian Chippendale’s 650 page, 5” x 7” magnum opus, a sprawling, hilarious tale of two pals wandering through a desolate, hostile landscape.

These two books are among the best graphic novels of our time, but they need your support. Like a lot of publishers, PictureBox is looking for new ways to navigate the current terrain. To that end, we are attempting to raise the money for these books ahead of time. It’s all an experiment these days.

So we are looking to you, as a community of readers, to help make these books a reality. Everyone that orders advance copies of one or both of these books (up until August 1) will receive the book itself and a signed silkscreen print upon the books’ releases. Everyone that orders in advance by June 20, 2009 will have their names hand-lettered in the book with their corresponding level of support (see below). We need about 400 of you per book to step up and help make this a reality. Let’s come together as a community.

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ifoof

This weekend in Cleveland…

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As mentioned in last week’s “Bull Tongue”….

From clevelandpoetics blog….

in celebration of the poetry community small press books has forged among poets all over the map, local (but not necessarily Greater) Cleveland Area poets will party down with poets tres versing from CO, NM, NYC, WA, RI, PA, MONTREAL, TX, and ELSEWHERE. take your vitamins!!!

Friday Night, May 8 6 pm (++Free)
Travis Catsull & Dirk Michener of the Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band will perform at The Barking Spider Tavern located on CWRU campus, 11310 Juniper Rd., Cleveland with the poets Ben Gulyas, Jim Lang, Wesley Eisold, Valerie Webber, George Wallace, Charles Potts, Bree, Maj Ragain, Tm Gottl, Eric Paul & Adam Brodsky

Saturday Afternoon, May 9 1 pm (++Free)
Gathering at the Daniel Thompson Memorial Plaque (outside the Lincoln Inn, 75 Public Square, Cleveland)/followed by TBA: readers will include Alex Gildzen, Jack McGuane, Jeremy gaulke, Eric Paul, Jim lang, Kisha foster, Valerie webber.

Saturday Night, May 9 7 pm (++7 dollar admittance, includes Goodie Bag)
Ray McNeice and Tongue and Groove will play, and Alex Gildzen, Angela Jaeger, Byron Coley, Charles Potts, George Wallace, Jesus Crisis, Emma Young, Mary Weems, Michael Henson, Russ Vidrick, Wesley Eisold & Bree will read at The Lit in the ArtCraft Building 2570 Superior Avenue Suite 203, Cleveland 216.694.0000

Sunday Afternoon, May 10 3pm (++Free)
Musician Adam Perry will perform his poems followed by Alex Gildzen, Angela Jaeger, Bree, Michael Salinger, Ben Gulyas, George Wallace, Eric Paul, Phil Metres & Wendy Shaffer at the Coventry Library, at Coventry Rd. & Euclid Hts. Blvd., Cleveland Heights, followed by a dinner break on Coventry Road.

Sunday Evening, May 10 6pm (++Free & Open)
An Open, Round-Robin Style, Read From Where You Sit Soiree Will Take Place At Mac’s Backs~Books On Coventry, At 1820 Coventry Rd., In Cleveland Heights. All Are Invited To Read, As Local Poets Meet Tres Versers.

CELEBRATION videos and news…

Above: “video tarot card for The Fool created by the Baltimore band Celebration for their experimental self released free music art magic ritual website: celebrationelectrictarot.com

Above: video tarot card for The Shaman/Magician


Also:

Friday May 8th – Celebration + Psychic Ills
@Le Poisson Rouge http://lepoissonrouge.com/events/view/84
158 Bleecker St. NYC

doors 11pm
Psychic Ills – 11:30pm
Celebration – 12:30pm

djs Hiro Kone and Call the Doctor before, in the middle, and after

FORGET WOODSTOCK, PART ONE: "ARE YOU READY, BLACK PEOPLE?"—NINA SIMONE's all-time knockout performance at the Harlem Festival, 1969

Following are five YouTube clips which appear to form the whole of NINA SIMONE’s blazing knockout masterpiece set at HARLEM FESTIVAL ’69.

Other performers at the Harlem Festival—six free weekend, outdoor concerts held at the Harlem end of Central Park in the summer of 1969—included Stevie Wonder, the Staples Singers, Sly and the Family Stone (click here to watch on YouTube), B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, The Chambers Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Max Roach…the list goes on and on. It’s a host of magnificent artists, many at the peak of their powers, playing to a predominately black audience at a super-charged, awful-yet-hopeful moment in American history.

Makes you wonder: Why do we all know about Woodstock, but not about Harlem, which took place the same year?

After all, all of the performances were filmed by a professional crew led by director Hal Tulchin. But aside from four songs from Simone’s set, released in fall 2005 on a little-noticed dual-disk entitled The Soul of Nina Simone, which Arthur’s pseudonymous reviewers C & D went apeshit for way back in Arthur No. 20, none of this footage has ever been made commercially available in the United States.

Which is sad. Watch Simone’s remarkable, incendiary heart-soul-voice performance, especially the stunning “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” and the closing “Are You Ready, Black People?” and you’ll see why…

Today's Autonomedia Jubilee Saint – Vera Zasulich


May 8 — VERA ZASULICH
Russian anarchist. Direct-action assassin.

MAY 8, 2009 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
*England: Furry Day, A day of mischief, revels, entering houses by windows, Morris dances & the Furry Dance. Bands of rogues prevent anyone from going to work or to school.

ALSO ON MAY 8 IN HISTORY…
1880 — French writer Gustave Flaubert dies.
1891 — Theosophical kingpin Madame Helena Blavatsky dies.
1903 — Drop-out painter Paul Gauguin dies.
1904 — Photographer Eadweard Muybridge dies, Kingston upon Thames, England.
1919 — Vera Zasulich, anarchist assassin, dies, Petrograd, USSR.
1937 — Reclusive American novelist Thomas Pynchon born, Glen Cove, New York.
1988 — Science fiction great Robert Heinlein dies.

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

May 9: Spring Record Fair Fundraiser at New Flywheel Space in Western Mass

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After a few years on hiatus, the legendary Flywheel Arts Collective in Western Massachusetts is back on the map with a brand new home at Easthampton’s historic Old Town Hall. Founded in 1999, Flywheel is a non-profit, volunteer-run community arts space that hosts everything from live music to traveling theater troupes and is home to one of the most comprehensive zine libraries in New England. Whether Flywheel already holds a sentimental place in your heart–perhaps as the site of your first exposure to the Pioneer Valley’s burgeoning noise and weird folk scenes as a college student–or you’re simply interested in checking out one of the area’s first (and last) true all-ages public meeting spaces, May 9 is a great day to come out and show your support. Saturday marks the second installment of the Flywheel’s biannual Record Fair Fundraiser, which is a perfect opportunity to satisfy those nasty record cravings with the knowledge that you are contributing to a worthwhile cause.

Details from the Flywheel website, which also provides some useful information on how to get involved:

Hey kids! It’s spring and you know what that means, it’s time for our twice annual record fair fundraiser. This one is taking place on Saturday May 9th 2009 in the scrappy under-construction confines of our new home at the OLD TOWN HALL in the center of Easthampton. Come by from 10:00am-3:30pm.

17+ dealers will be on hand give you the wax fix you so desire with the usual eclectic selection of vintage vinyl. As we always say, your ATM will hate you, your turntable will love you. Don’t miss it.

Also, get a chance to check out the progress on our very-soon-to-be-operational home.

Flywheel Spring Record Fair Fundraiser
Saturday, May 9, 10:00am-3:30pm
Flywheel Arts Collective
Easthampton Old Town Hall
43 Main Street
Easthampton, MA 01027
Directions

Ginormous MARC BELL monograph coming soon….

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From former Arthur comics editor Tom Devlin, of the highly esteemed Drawn & Quarterly :

Okay, so I’ve mentioned it a few times already because I’ve been working on this book for what seems like FOREVER except now it’s almost done and I’m trying my best to create an other-publishers-should-be-jealous-and-comics-buyers-need-to-start-saving-their-disposable-income series of posts this week–Marc Bell has a 272-page monograph of his fine art and fine aht and foin ART and even some comics coming out soon. Is Marc Canada’s finest young artist working today? Of course, he is! Eat your heart out, Marcel Dzama.

More pages here…