COMMAND PERFORMANCE” -THE ARTHUR MAILING LIST BULLETIN

No. 0012

WEDNESDAY JANUARY 12, 2005

title:    “BLACK WORK”

Did you know?: “Stripping and singing and torching of public and Doukhobor-owned buildings demonstrated the [Doukhobor community’s] renunciation of the ways of the outside world. Pacifism gave way to other forms of protest called ‘black work.’ The greatest of Doukhobor taboos – violence – had become, paradoxically, a method to purge threatening influences. Their belief that schools were a primary contaminating influence led to an escalation of school burnings. ‘The cause of all this is the SCHOOL with its wrong orientation, thrusting sadism upon the youthful generation,’ a manifesto claimed. ‘Especially when a person partakes of higher education, or attends military academies, does he become a truly insane animal.’ Nude parents trying to physically remove their children from government schools were arrested and imprisoned. New schools, built to replace those destroyed, met the same fate within months of opening. Hundreds now joined the [Doukhobors’] nude parades…” (found online)

Well hello there, my Arthurlings. Welcome to 2005. Here at Arthur HQ we are working our hardest to make it a better year than the last one, which was basically miserable with brief episodes of joy, and we daresay things are looking jolly good. The new issue of Arthur is being prepped by the sous chefs and is just about ready to go in the Dutch oven. A nutritious and surprise-filled meal will be served to the first 50,000 diners starting February 15. Invite your friends over for an Arthur dinner party! Send pictures of the happy event to  editor@arthurmag.com

And now for some questions:

1. How do you feel about the Bush inauguration on Thursday, January 20? Mirror/Dash (Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon), To Live and Shave in L.A. (with Andrew W.K. on drums), Double Leopards, Nautical Almanac, Magic Markers, the Paul Flaherty/Chris Corsano duo, Metalux, 16 Bitch Pile Up, Buzzardstain (feat Nate Young of Wolf Eyes) and many other righteously pissed off musicians aren’t too pleased, and they will be greeting “GWBII: The Nightmare Continues” with a night of NOISE AGAINST FASCISM — a clear-the-sphere blow-out fandango that evening at the Black Cat club in Washington, D.C. We’ve got a poster for it up at  http://www.arthurmag.com on the News page. Know your enemy, know your friends.

2. Do you like the quiet music? Do you like to camp on the beach in the wintertime? You might wanna head up to Bolinas, California on Jan 21-22 for the Brightblack Morning Light-presented “Quiet Quiet Window Lights  2nd Annual Rural Song Event”  on those dates which will feature Michael Hurley, Women & Children, Devendra Banhart, Peggy Honeywell, Currituck County, Gojogo, Brightblack Morning Light, Daniel Higgs’ Magic Alphabet, Vetiver, Entrance and some special unannounceable but very pronounceable guests. There’s a poster and a ton of helpful info up at the Jan 11 entry of the Arthur “Magpie” blog system at

http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/

More info is available at

www.thebrightblackmorninglight.com

3. Do you want to know what’s up with Bastet, Arthur’s CD/DVD direct-from-we-to-thee imprint? Okay. Bastet’s latest release is “No Magic Man,” an all-new full-length limited-edition album by thee mighty Mass state unstuck funk combine SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN. Keep the aloe handy. And lo, in future time, probably mid-March, Bastet will release “Bread, Beard and Bear’s Prayers,” a new multi-artist compilation CD curated by Ethan Miller of COMETS ON FIRE. 13 tracks of on-one  incandescence. Only 500 are being made, in a numbered screenprint sleeve with a stitched-in booklet. And after that, there’s gonna be other stuff. Ordering info for Bastet available exclusively at

http://www.arthurmag.com/store/bastet_cds.php

4. Finally, may we inquire: Do you live in the Los Angeles area? Are you interested in attending private screenings of deep turned-on films that cannot be safely shown to the multitude? If your answers are yes and yes, then by all means email the person who reads emails at  editor@arthurmag.com

and you will be made aware of certain future happenings.

You already know the answer,

The Arthur Peace Thugs

http://www.arthurmag.com

“This site will aim to collect various leaked, declassified, or flagrantly public texts outlining the aims and strategies being deployed in the american national security state’s attempt to secure global political and economic hegemony through criminal and immoral application of military force, concentrating on the period between the end of the cold war and the present.”

::QUIET QUIET WINDOW LIGHTS::
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2nd ANNUAL RURAL SONG EVENT
hosted by brightblack
……………………………………….
BOLINAS, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
……………………………………….
JANUARY 21-22 2005 7:30 pm
……………………………………….
FRIDAY EVENING BLESSINGS BY
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
~MICHAEL HURLEY~
~WOMEN & CHILDREN~
~DEVENDRA BANHART~
~PEGGY HONEYWELL~
~CURRITUCK CO.~
(((special guests maybe too)))
………………………………………
ONLY 80 TICKETS
AVAILABLE @ DOOR
$12.00
………………………………………
SMILEY’s SCHOONER SALOON
Established in 1850
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
SATURDAY EVENING BLESSINGS
WITH
………………………………………
~GOJOGO~
~BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT~
~DANIEL HIGGS MAGICalphabet~
~VETIVER~
~ENTRANCE~
………………………………………
270 TICKETS AVAILABLE
@ DOOR/ALL AGES/$12.00
………………………………………
BOLINAS COMMUNITY CENTER
DOWNTOWN BOLINAS
(in front of the CO-OP)
………………………………………
BOLINAS IS LOCATED 45 MINUTES NORTHWEST OF SAN FRANCISCO BABYLON. RURAL WEST MARIN COUNTY, JUST OFF OF HIGHWAY 1. FOLKS IN BOLINAS HAVE REMOVED THE HIGHWAY SIGN FROM THE ROAD SO MANY TIMES THAT THE COUNTY DOESN”T BOTHER WITH A ROAD SIGN THAT INDICATES JUST WHERE BOLINAS IS….SO BOLINAS IS ON THE WEST SIDE OF BOLINAS LAGOON, NORTH OF STINSON BEACH, SOUTH OF POINT REYES STAION. THE ROAD IS CALLED “OLEMA-BOLINAS ROAD, IT MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE A SIGN…. JAH GUIDEST THOU!
FREE CAMPING ON THE BEACH!
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
HOTELS:
THE BLUE HERON INN: 415.868.1102
SMILEY’S SALOON & HOTEL: 415.868.1311
GRAND HOTEL: 415.868.1757
……………………………………..
http://www.thebrightblackmorninglight.com

From Publishers Weekly
The Bread and Puppet Theater, which started in the early ’60s on New York’s Lower East Side, migrated some years later to its present location in Vermont, and the wide open spaces obviously serve its expansive, anarchic being well. Photographer Simon has conducted a 20-year study of Theater founder Peter Schumann, and Simon’s 145 duotone photos show the influences of ancient theater and religions, particularly in the gravity of the massive faces of the puppets, made initially from straw, clay and, “according to some alleged medieval German formula,” beer. The book is organized around the eight “archetypical” themes of Death, Fiend, Beast, Human, World, Gift, Bread and Hope; however, like Bread and Puppet itself, which combines the creative with the mysterious, themes eddy into other themes. Estrin (Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa) makes the strong social activist component of the theater clear, in tones that are by turns humorous and revealing, informational and awestruck (especially when it comes to Schumann). But the stars here are the enormous, fantastical creatures that enact possible freedoms each season.

WILD IN THE STREETS (1968)/GAS-S-S-S! (1970)
Directors: Barry Shear, Roger Corman
MGM

In the latest wave of MGM’s beloved Midnite Movies line, there were very few new-to-DVD double features. Most of the discs consisted of previously-released films paired with new-to-DVD films. Thankfully there were at least SOME double-feature discs with both films making their digital debut, and this one pairs two of AIP’s most popular films of the 60s, both of which have an anxiously waiting audience to appreciate them.

Released in the turbulent year of 1968, Barry Shear’s WILD IN THE STREETS has been one of the most-requested Midnite Movies nominees since the line was introduced. It seems that the film was one of the #1 most-wanted AIP DVD releases because of the its obscurity. Its brief VHS release now demands top dollar on eBay and in trading circles and it has only recently started receiving cable play again. But after the positive reputation the film has gained over the years, I was sorely let down by this anti-youth picture posing as a rebellious teen flick. … Other than the great songs, I left WILD IN THE STREETS feeling angry and hateful of the 1960s counterculture movement, which might have been the ulterior motive of the filmmakers in the first place. Do yourself a favor and re-visit PSYCH-OUT or THE TRIP for a more fun, entertaining view of the psychedelic scene of 1967/1968.

On the flip side of the disc is another controversial political release by AIP, GAS-S-S-S!, the last film Roger Corman directed for American International (more on that later). Young hippies Coel (Bob Corff) and Cilla (STUDENT NURSE Elaine Giftos) discover that a military snafu has resulted in the release of a toxic gas that kills everyone over 25. The world becomes a chaotic maelstrom from the get-go, with the intellectuals believing they can become the new leaders over the jocks and potheads that tormented them and young military cadets going apeshit with their weapons! The two young lovers trek across the country, looking for their own way of living, and encounter a rambunctious quartet of rebels who join them in their adventure: Cindy Williams is Marissa, a wise-cracking pregnant girl with a passion for music (five years before she had her best comic role in FIRST NUDIE MUSICAL and “Laverne and Shirley” ruined her cool factor for years); Ben Vereen is Carlos, a black tough-talking cowboy in a Zappata-look outfit; Bud Cort (HAROLD AND MAUDE) is Hooper, a cigar-chewing stone-faced sharpshooter; and Tally Coppola (aka Talia Shire, future ROCKY heroine) is Coralle, Hooper’s dimbulb fianc?©e.

Opening with a tacked-on crudely-animated political assembly with a general with the voice of John Wayne (apparently tacked on by Arkoff and Nicholson), GAS-S-S-S! is a real mess and a half. Does that make it a chore to sit through? On the contrary, this is a superb time capsule which has aged better than its DVD co-feature. Taking a simple premise and rolling with it, the incredibly witty script (by George Armitage, who also penned DARKTOWN STRUTTERS and countless New World films for Corman) packs the films with kooky setpieces to keep it interesting and unique: a shootout where the gunmen shout out names of cowboy actors before shooting, with big names resulting in kills (“Gabby Hayes!,” “Tim McCoy!,” “Lee Van Cleef!,” “Jim Brown!,” “Gene Autry!,” “John Wayne!”), Cindy Williams going ga-ga over a used record store packed with oldies but goodies on 45 RPM’s (“This is the music that rocked the ’60s! Chuck Berry got out of jail, Elvis got out of the army, the Silver Beatles started, the Stones rolled, the Jefferson Airplane landed in San Francisco, and Dylan sang what was going down!”); Edgar Allen, a caped mortician, and Lenore, his silent blonde companion, giving a word of warning about the dangers of gaining control of the world…before taking off on his motorcycle (!); Country Joe and the Fish performing live at a transformed drive-in before being paged by God that their car lights are on (?!); a psychedelic sex scene with a light show projected on the nude bodies of the participants; an all-American town ruled by the local high school football team, who wreck havoc on geeky kids, the cheerleading squad, and raid every store in town; and various intelligent pokes at social mores and sacred cows of American culture. To give away more would be criminal, as discovering this neat little morsel of exploitation is a real pleasure.

The cast uniformly delivers tongue-in-cheek performances, with the real stand-out being straight woman Elaine Giftos, the sensible one in the group who spends most of her time enjoying the crazy sights and sounds she encounters in her journey. Giftos has a superb sense of humor and a sexy personability that many of her contemporary drive-in starlets didn’t possess. It’s no wonder she lasted longer than most of them, well into the 1980s and graduating to featured roles on TV series. The final edit of the film may not be what Corman originally intended (in a version that must be lost, as MGM’s superb restoration team would have likely uncovered it and released it on this DVD), but what remains is roughly 90% of his original vision and doesn’t come across as a lost opportunity (the voiceovers of “God” and the original panoramic ending are apparently the only real omissions). GAS-S-S-S! is certainly one of the most surprising films of the 1970s and neatly bridges the change of decades with the sensibilities (or lack thereof) of both eras.

Both features are presented in their original aspect ratios, 1.85:1, and enhanced for 16×9 TVs. WILD IN THE STREETS suffers from grain in obvious stock footage moments and during several key scenes with Shelley Winters (does she affect film somehow?!), but the musical numbers and colorful costumes and sets look sharp and the mono audio delivers the music superbly. GAS-S-S-S! looks just as good, with mild grain during some outdoor scenes, but mostly offers sharp colors and a bright, nice-looking transfer. The mono audio is incredibly strong, with dialogue, sound effects, and the almost non-stop rock score coming across loud and clear.

The sole extras are theatrical trailers, which typical of AIP are stupendous recruiting tools for the drive-in audiences. I had hoped that MGM would ask Roger Corman to contribute at least an interview for GAS-S-S-S!, explaining how the finished product differed from his vision and discussing the making of this underrated drive-in classic, but beggars can’t be choosers and at least it’s been released.

NOTE: MGM’s August 24 Midnite Movies are in-store exclusives to Best Buy, but they can also be found online at CD Universe, as well as Canadian retailer DVD Soon. (Casey Scott)

From http://www.thegline.com/dvd-of-the-week/2003/03-07-2003.htm

This movie could scarcely have been more timely. Punishment Park feels less like something that was made thirty years ago in our world, and more like something that leaked in sideways from an alternate universe gone horribly wrong. I doubt anyone in 1971 would have imagined that Punishment Park would still have relevance in 2003, but it does, and that fact alone is both exciting and ghastly.

In the late Sixties and early Seventies there was a small but thriving subgenre of movies that entertained alternate histories for the era. One of the most well-known (and most fun) was Wild in the Streets, which showed the Peace ‘n Love generation coming to power and being just as thuggish and cretinous as the over-30 crowd they professed to hate. Another, all but lost to history, was Robert Kramer’s little-seen Ice, a story of urban revolutionaries fighting back against repression in New York City (!). Punishment Park has similarities to Ice, but is far more immediate and engaging.

The movie posits a simple and horribly credible scenario: During the later years of the Vietnam War, hundreds of people are being arrested and kangaroo-courted in the United States for “inciting political unrest.” They have two choices: lengthy prison sentences, or three days in Punishment Park, a stretch of California desert somewhere near Los Angeles. In Punishment Park, the prisoners are set free and forced to navigate a hostile stretch of burning terrain–if they can reach the American flag at the end of the course within the allotted time, they are set free. Of course, they have more than the elements to contend with: Punishment Park is also used as a proving ground by police officers in training. If they get caught, they go to prison. “These officers have strict instructions not to molest you in any way,” the controlling officer declares, and from the way he underscores those words verbally, we suspect there is going to be at least one blatant violation of that rule. We are right.

I found it unlikely that any American director would have dared to film this material, and I was right: Punishment Park was created by British documentarian Peter Watkins. Watkins also directed the controversial and horrific War Game, a BBC-funded pseudo-documentary that wound up never being aired on the very network that funded it. Instead, it was released to theaters and later to TV and home video, and has become something of an underground classic in anti-war circles. It deserves a broader audience, especially in today’s increasingly unsettled political climate.

The film cuts between two groups of people: one gang of prisoners who are just now being run through the farce of the tribunal, and another who are just now entering Punishment Park. The movie is not truly interested in any of them as individuals, but in a film like this, having individuals who stand out from the whole canvas would actually be a deficit. The point is not to create heroes and prop them up, but to depict a broad swath of possibilities. Every now and then, faces do swim out from the canvas: the balding, fat-necked tribunal master, or the angry black militant who speaks his piece of mind in court. The cops also get some camera time. “This was their choice,” one of them says, referring to the Punishment Parkers. “They could have chosen to do a lot of things, but they chose instead to throw bombs and advocate the overthrow of the government. They’re doing what they want to do, and I’m doing what I want to do.”

One of the more interesting things Watkins does with the tribunal is populate it with a broad spectrum of the people that made up the “Silent Majority” in America. At one point we get a credit caption: Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Glendale. What’s he doing here? The same thing as everyone else, evidently: getting his two cents in, and he does. There’s another revealing moment where one of the runners (who bears a striking resemblance to Roger Daltrey) says, “They believe in protest and ritual defiance, and yet they participate fully in the rules for these games, and expect they’ll come out the other end with the flag.” When asked how things could be changed, he says, wisely, “I don’t think anything can be done. I think we just got to evolve out of it.” Sometimes even the tribunal members make sense, and I think that is exactly what Watkins wanted–he’s not here to side with either party, but to show the whole….

COURTESY DAVID H. AND ANDREW M.!

from tinymixtapes.com:

Devendra Banhart / Six Organs of Admittance
(Logan Square Auditorium; Chicago, IL)
11.14.04

by matty g

…I arrived at the Logan Square Auditorium just in time to wait an hour and a half for Ben Chasny, a.k.a. Six Organs of Admittance, to take the stage. Once he got up there, it was clear why he was tardy: he was completely drunk. While I’m a fan of Six Organs, I was not exactly looking forward to watching Chasny stumble through a haphazard set of fumbling fingers and drunken slurs. But here’s the amazing thing: even in his inebriated state, Chasny gave an incredible performance. Instead of fumbling, his fingers danced on the fretboard and frolicked on the strings with almost inhuman ability. His voice was, well his voice was Ben Chasny’s. His singing has been a dividing line since Compathia; listeners either like it or they don’t. Personally, I enjoy it, and his drunken slur somehow complimented his singing rather well.

The end of his set was the most interesting part. The drink had obviously taken complete hold of Chasny by this point, and he proceeded to place his acoustic guitar against the amp to vibrate the stings and create some exquisite feedback. He then grabbed the microphone and wailed over the wall of sound while the audience just stood there in shock. It was at once both emotionally intense and completely ridiculous, which is exactly the way I like my performances.

Once Chasny was though with whatever the hell it was he was doing, the ever enigmatic Devendra Banhart walked on stage with his guitar. He sat in a chair and ran though a few solo numbers before he launched into a strange interlude where he rambled about a “white buffalo.” This was the cue for the band to take the stage. That’s right, the band. The rest of the show was played out with Andy Cabic of Vetiver on acoustic guitar, Viking Moses on bass, Noah Georgeson of The Pleased on electric guitar, and [Jimi Hey] on drums . Together they made up White Buffalo Deer Woman Appears, which explains what the hell Devendra was talking about before they took the stage.

If you thought Banhart’s songs were amazing before, wait until you hear them backed by a full band. It breathed new life into songs that were already overflowing with energy, re-imagined them, and took them to some higher level, well beyond the scope of mere mortals. Highlights came by way of “Will Is My Friend” and “This Beard Is for Siobh?°n”, which ended in the entire crowd hopping up and down and shouting: “REALGOODTIMEAGOODTIMEAREALGOODTIME.”

Towards the middle of the set, the band took the time to play a rousing rendition of “Amour Fou” by Vetiver, and then turned it over to Viking Moses for two songs, who nearly stole the show. Donned with a garland of flowers, his booming voice was truly amazing, as he ran around the stage with his arms flailing. If I would have had any extra money, I would have bought everything he had.

Right before they launched into a new song for the encore, Devendra said something to the extent of “this is your stage too, so feel free to come up here.” Needless to say, as soon as they started playing people rushed to the stage, myself included. Within a few minutes, you couldn’t tell who was part of the band and who wasn’t. Those who weren’t playing an instrument (several audience members grabbed guitars and percussion do-dads), danced and grooved like there was no tomorrow. Afterwards, a completely euphoric vibe was in the air, and everyone, audience and band alike, smiled and hugged and exchanged words of praise and friendship and love. And this wasn’t some phony neo-hippy thing; everyone was genuinely in love with each other and everything around them. It’s as if Devendra cast a spell on everyone with his music. Actually, I wouldn’t put that past him. Who knows what he’s capable of? I have a feeling we’ve only seen a hint of his true power.

Peering through the cosmic sphere – illustration from “L’atmosphere: meteorologie populaire,” Paris 1888, by Camille Flammarion.