THE ARTHUR MAILING LIST BULLETIN No. 0006

COMMAND PERFORMANCE – JULY 21, 2004

THE ARTHUR MAILING LIST BULLETIN No. 0006

“Text beyond the presses.”

(((1))) WE WANTED THE AIRWAVES, NOW WE GOT ‘EM.

Arthur editor Jay Babcock will be a guest yapper on “The House of Boris,” a literary talk show hosted by Tara Mathison on WSUM 91.7 FM out of Madison, Wisonsin today (Wednesday, July 21) at 5pm. He will abide by FCC regulations.

And Arthur contributor Daniel Chamberlin will guest on “The Music Never Stops,” a Grateful Dead-centric show hosted by Barry Smolin, this Sunday, July 25 from 8-10 p.m. on on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles. Live Webstream at http://www.kpfk.org/listenlive.html. Dan will be there for the whole show, chatting between segments about the music and his controversial “Uncle Skullfucker’s Band” article from Arthur No. 11. He’ll also be spinning a few records in a valiant attempt to expand the audience’s uni-mind beyond Moe.

Arthur columnist Daniel Pinchbeck’s recent THREE-HOUR appearance on that Art Bell radio show is archived online. Listen at your convenience at

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2004/07/10.html

(((2))) FIVE NIGHTS IN CHICAGO THAT WILL RADICALLY IMPROVE YOUR OUTLOOK ON LIFE AND YOUR FELLOW MAN AND WOMAN.

This August 4-8 at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, Arthur Magazine and Galactic Zoo Dossier Productions present::

*****”MILLION TONGUES FESTIVAL”****

This gala fest will be packed to the gills with stimuli–the second stage, films, odd costumed performers, label reps, lights, freaks, and a real festival vibe. The fest is curated  by PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE and will feature, on two stages, over five nights, the following artists from around the world: Six Organs of Admittance, Espers, Josephine Foster and the Supposed, LSD March, Mick Farren (Deviants), Michael Yonkers, Simon Finn, Charalambides,  Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple) w/Kinski, Matt Valentine (Tower Recordings), PG Six, Fur Saxa,  Paul Flaherty/Chris Corsano/Matt Heyner, Born Heller, Taurpis Tula, Spires That in the Sunset Rise, The Cherry Blossoms, Nissenenmondai, Jutok Kaneko, By Lightning to the Womb, The Civilized Age, Panicsville, Born Heller, Goldblood, Inner Throne, Monostripe, Tom Carter, Frankie Delmane, Nick Castro, Farms, MV Carbon, Lichens, Davenport and the Plastic Crimeawave Sound.

$60 for 5-show Pass; or $15/show — general admission — Sorry! 21 & Over Only.

More info and tickets available at

http://emptybottle.musictoday.com/EmptyBottle/calendar.aspx

A “Million Tongues Festival” CD (Bast 0003) is out August 1, 2004. We’re only making 1,000 of these babies, so don’t dawdle if you want one. You know what happened to the other Bastet releases — they’re SOLD OUT!!!! Okay, so this CD features previously unreleased tracks by 20 underground psychedelicish rock artists,   assembled,  sequenced and art-designed by the legendary PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE. The lineup: Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple) with Kinski, Matt Valentine and Erika Elder Medicine Show, Plastic Crimewave Sound, P.G. Six, Espers, Michael Yonkers and the Mumbles, LSD March, Fur Saxa, Josephine Foster and the Supposed, Spires That in the Sunset Rise, Inner Throne, The Civilized Age, Simon Finn, Jutok Kaneko/Shimura Koji/ Takuya Nishimura, Nisennenmondai, Frankie Delmane, Nick Castro, Taurpis Tula, M.V. Carbon and Panicsville.

The “Million Tongues” Cd is  available now for pre-order ($12/14/17)  from

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

(((3))) NEXT ISSUE OF ARTHUR OUT AUGUST 31, 2004.

It’s gonna be good. More info in the next bulletin.

So long, it’s great to know you’re there,

The Arthur Surprise Peace Attack Squad

July 21, 2004

(WHY ARTHUR EXISTS)

All Together Now
By BARBARA EHRENREICH

Published: July 15, 2004 New York Times

Their faces long with disapproval, the anchors announced that the reason for the war had finally been uncovered by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and it was “groupthink,” not to mention “collective groupthink.” It sounds so kinky and un-American, like something that might go on in a North Korean
stadium or in one of those sex clubs that Jack Ryan, the former Illinois Senate candidate, is accused of dragging his wife to. But supposedly intelligent, morally upstanding people had been indulging in it right in Langley, Va.
    This is a surprise? Groupthink has become as American as apple pie and prisoner abuse; in fact, it’s hard to find any thinking these days that doesn’t qualify for the prefix “group.” Our standardized-test-driven schools reward the right answer, not the unsettling question. Our corporate
culture prides itself on individualism, but it’s the “team player” with the fixed smile who gets to be employee of the month. In our political culture, the most crushing rebuke is to call someone “out of step with the American people.” Zip your lips, is the universal message, and get with the program.
    This summer’s remake of the “Stepford Wives” doesn’t have anything coherent to say about gender politics: Men are the oppressors? Women are the oppressors? Or maybe just Glenn Close? But it does play to the fantasy, more widespread than I’d realized, that if you were to rip off the face of the person sitting in the next cubicle, you’d find nothing but circuit boards underneath.
    I trace the current outbreak of droidlike conformity to the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when groupthink became the official substitute for patriotism, and we began to run out of surfaces for affixing American flags. Bill Maher lost his job for pointing out that, whatever else they were, the 9/11 terrorists weren’t cowards, prompting Ari Fleischer to warn (though he has since backed down) that Americans “need to watch what they say.” Never mind that Sun Tzu says, somewhere in his oeuvre, that while it’s soothing to underestimate the enemy, it’s often fatal, too.
    And what was that group thinking in Abu Ghraib? Yes, the accused guards seem to have been encouraged to soften up their charges for interrogation, just as the operatives at Langley were pelted with White House demands for some plausible casus belli. But the alarming thing is how few soldiers demurred, and how many got caught up in the fun of it.

   Societies throughout history have recognized the hazards of groupthink and made arrangements to guard against it. The shaman, the wise woman and similar figures all represent
institutionalized outlets for alternative points of view. In the European carnival tradition, a “king of fools” was permitted to mock the authorities, at least for a day or two. In some cultures, people resorted to vision quests or hallucinogens — anything to get out of the box. Because, while
the capacity for groupthink is an endearing part of our legacy as social animals, it’s also a common precondition for self-destruction. One thousand coalition soldiers have died because the C.I.A. was so eager to go along with the emperor’s delusion that he was actually wearing clothes.   Instead of honoring groupthink resisters, we subject them to insult and abuse. Sgt. Samuel Provance III has been shunned by fellow soldiers since speaking out against the torture at Abu Ghraib, in addition to losing his security clearance and being faced with a possible court-martial. A fellow Abu Ghraib whistle-blower, Specialist Joseph Darby, was praised by the brass, but has had to move to an undisclosed location to avoid grass-roots retaliation.
    The list goes on. Sibel Edmonds lost her job at the F.B.I. for complaining about mistranslations of terror-related documents from the Arabic. Jesselyn Radack was driven out of her post at the Justice Department for objecting to the treatment of John Walker Lindh, then harassed by John Ashcroft’s enforcers at her next job. As Fred Alford, a political scientist who studies the fate of whistle-blowers, puts it: “We need to understand in this `land of the free and home of the brave’ that most people are scared to death. About 50 percent of all whistle-blowers lose their jobs, about half of those lose their homes, and half of those people lose their families.”

   This nation was not founded by habitual groupthinkers. But it stands a fair chance of being destroyed by them. 

 

THE ARTHUR MAILING LIST BULLETIN No. 0005

COMMAND PERFORMANCE – JULY 9, 2004

THE ARTHUR MAILING LIST BULLETIN No. 0005

“Text beyond the presses.”

(((1))) ARTHUR COLUMNIST AND ‘BREAKING OPEN THE HEAD’ AUTHOR DANIEL PINCHBECK ON NATIONAL RADIO THIS SATURDAY NIGHT, JULY 10.

“Here and Now” columnist Daniel Pinchbeck will be the guest on “Coast-to-Coast AM,” the nationally syndicated live talk-radio show, hosted this Saturday night, July 10, by Art Bell. Daniel will be discussing “the cultural history of psychedelic use and shamanism, and his personal explorations, ranging from transcendent to terrifying.”

Info here, including stations and broadcast times:

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2004/07/10.html

(((2)))  A BASTET UPDATE JUST FOR YOU.

Bastet is Arthur’s CD imprint. Here’s the latest on our releases:

a. ‘The Golden Apples of the Sun” CD (Bast0001), a 20-track contempoweirdfolk compilation lovingly created by Devendra Banhart, is now SOLD OUT!!! We are hoping to do a second printing but it might take us a little while to line it up.

b. The SUNN O))) live CD (Bast0002) is still sold out. There will not be a second printing.

c. The “Million Tongues Festival” CD (Bast 0003) is out August 1, 2004 and available now for pre-order ($12/14/17)  from

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

We’re only making 1,000 of these babies, so don’t dawdle if you want one. You know what happened to the others — they’re SOLD OUT!!!! Okay, so this CD features previously unreleased tracks by 20 underground psychedelicish rock artists,  assembled,  sequenced and art-designed by the legendary PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE. The lineup: Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple) with Kinski, Matt Valentine and Erika Elder Medicine Show, Plastic Crimewave Sound, P.G. Six, Espers, Michael Yonkers and the Mumbles, LSD March, Fur Saxa, Josephine Foster and the Supposed, Spires That in the Sunset Rise, Inner Throne, The Civilized Age, Simon Finn, Jutok Kaneko/Shimura Koji/ Takuya Nishimura, Nisennenmondai, Frankie Delmane, Nick Castro, Taurpis Tula, M.V. Carbon and Panicsville.

What is this Million Tongues festival, you ask? Why it’s…

(((4))) FIVE NIGHTS IN CHICAGO THAT COULD BE BENEFICIAL TO YOUR WELL-BEING.

This August 4-8 at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, Arthur Magazine and Galactic Zoo Dossier Productions present::

*****”MILLION TONGUES FESTIVAL”****

$60 for 5-show Pass; or $15/show — general admission — Sorry! 21 & Over Only.

Info and tickets at http://emptybottle.musictoday.com/EmptyBottle/calendar.aspx

This gala fest will be packed to the gills with stimuli–the second stage, films, odd costumed performers, label reps, lights, freaks, and a real festival vibe. The fest is curated  by PLASTIC CRIMEWAVE  and will feature, on two stages, over five nights, the following artists from around the world: Six Organs of Admittance, Espers, Josephine Foster and the Supposed, LSD March, Mick Farren (Deviants), Michael Yonkers, Simon Finn, Charalambides,  Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple) w/Kinski, Matt Valentine (Tower Recordings), PG Six, Fur Saxa,  Paul Flaherty/Chris Corsano/Matt Heyner, Born Heller, Taurpis Tula, Spires That in the Sunset Rise, The Cherry Blossoms, Nissenenmondai, Jutok Kaneko, By Lightning to the Womb, The Civilized Age, Panicsville, Born Heller, Goldblood, Inner Throne, Monostripe, Tom Carter, Frankie Delmane, Nick Castro, Farms, MV Carbon, Lichens, Davenport and the Plastic Crimeawave Sound.

Info and tickets at

http://emptybottle.musictoday.com/EmptyBottle/calendar.aspx

(((5))) THE RUMORS ARE TRUE.

The new issue of Arthur is out now. Kim Gordon of the still-wondrous rock band Sonic Youth is our cover star and the subject of a big interview by Oliver Hall. Then there’s new artwork by John Lurie, a visit to a convention of Aleister Crowley acolytes with a lovely new full-page art piece by John Coulthart, Daniel Pinchbeck talking some deep talk on the Kali Yuga, James Parker on raving and Daniel Chamberin on the plight of the secret Deadhead. And Kristine McKenna on an artist you’ve never heard of who built giant sculptures from refuse in the Joshua Tree desert. And comics too, and C & D on their own page, and reviews by Paul Cullum and Byron Coley & Thurston Moore, and a recipe from the Reigning Sound, and a letter from Robert Wyatt and and and and….

More info here:

http://www.arthurmag.com

So long, it’s good to know ya,

The Arthur Surprise Peace Attack Squad

July 9, 2004