Arthur #31

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Cover photography by Lisa Law, design by Alia Penner.

It was only a few months ago that Arthur Magazine was struggling to stay afloat in a nation swimming in inflated wealth. How quickly things change… Arthur #31 is available right now as a free PDF download while those in the US can pick up the paper edition (free!) at the best kind of record stores, coffee houses and Wall Street soup kitchens. Or be the envy of your friends by taking out a subscription. Douglas Rushkoff’s take on the credit crisis can also be read here.

Author Trinie Dalton traveled into the wilds of New Mexico to live with psychedelic earthers BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT for two days. Sublimity ensued. Here’s what happened. With photography by Lisa Law.

Douglas Rushkoff: 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. Illustration by Arik Moonhawk Roper.

Dave Reeves: Having doubts about Iraq? America’s victory is Infinite. Just have a look at Vietnam…

Molly Frances on all sorts of delights in, from, or about Los Angeles—from Wallace Berman, Velaslavasay Panorama and Lily Tomlin in The Late Show to Show Cave, Nite Jewel and the new Flying Lotus album. Plus other, non-geographically specific stuff.

On May 10, 1968 SLY & THE FAMILY STONE opened two shows for THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE at the Fillmore East in New York City. Artist/scholar Plastic Crimewave reports on this extraordinary, little-known moment in American countercultural history.

Greg Shewchuk: What is it about skateboarding that makes kids willing to break laws in order to do it? Illustration by Joseph Remnant.

Nance Klehm: What to do with the nuts, seeds and berries you can find while foraging in the urban jungle. Illustration by Makeswell.

The Center for Tactical Magic: Do the ends ever justify the magic(k)? Illustration by Cassandra Chae.

Erik Davis: Is the “planetary consciousness” of neotribal psytrance gatherings like Portugal’s Boom festival just window dressing for the same old hedonism and escapism—or could it actually be what it says it is?

A centerfold of new ARTHUR COMICS by Jeffrey Brown, Charles Burns, Al Columbia,

P.W.E., Simon Evans, Matt Furie, Tom Gauld, Lisa Hanawalt, Joseph Hanks, Tim Hensley, Ted May, Anders Nilsen, Laura Park, Helge Reumann, Souther Salazar, Julia Wertz and Dan Zettwoch. Edited by Buenaventura Press.

STYLE: Annakim Violette, glampire vamp, tells an arachnid tale from a rainbow’s underbelly. Styled by Miss KK, with photography and design by Alia Penner.

BYRON COLEY & THURSTON MOORE review choice finds from the deep underground.

C and D let it rip about the Fela! musical, Hacienda, Megapuss, Little Joy, Kasai All-Stars, Grouper, Natacha Atlas, Matt Baldwin, Mercury Rev, Desolation Wilderness, Gang Gang Dance, Raglani, Jonas Reinhardt, Apse, and Eagles of Death Metal.

Underground history

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Poster by Arik Roper.

Radical Living Papers
A history of the free, alternative, counter-culture and underground press, 1965–75

Gavin Brown’s enterprise at PASSERBY
436 W. 15th Street,
New York, NY 10011
February 2–March 7, 2007

Opening reception: Friday, February 2, 2007, 6pm.

The Council for the Fortieth Anniversary of The Summer of Love with Gavin Brown’s enterprise opens and invites you to an exhibition of the world’s most radical living papers from a time when the press took risks and voiced opinions.

Celebrating the heyday of alternative magazine publishing in Europe and America, Gavin Brown’s enterprise at Passerby opens an exhibition of more than two hundred original copies, as well as reproductions of these seminal and obscure publications, whose influence reverberates through culture, politics, and society.

Covering politics, revolutions, evolutions of the planets, freak-outs, love-ins, support of green politics, gay liberation, power to the people, the peace parties, protests, the Panthers, peyote, LSD, pot, fiction, music, poetry, prose, prayers and more. Publications include: Actuel, Avatar, Berkeley Barb, Berkeley Tribe, Black Panther Papers, Digger Papers, Door, East Village Other [EVO], The Fifth Estate, Freep, Grabuge, Hobo-Québec, International Times [it], Los Angeles Free Press, The Oracle, The Organ, Other Scenes, OZ, Rat, The Realist, Re Nudo, Rolling Stone, The Seed, Ann Arbor Sun and more.

Please note: A press conference to the unified, positive forces actively involved in the community will be held at 6pm on Friday, February 2, 2007, with active members of today’s free press.

Curated by Eva Prinz, Dan Donahue, and Thurston Moore.

Previously on { feuilleton }
Wallace Burman and Semina
Barney Bubbles: artist and designer
100 Years of Magazine Covers
Oz magazine, 1967-73

Arthur #22

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America’s most vital cultural bulletin. Free PDF download.

How nature droners GROWING found their flow. By Peter Relic. Photography by Eden Batki.

Swiss anthropologist-author JEREMY NARBY talks with Jay Babcock about what hallucinogens like LSD and the Amazonian drink ayahuasca have to teach us in the 21st century. Introduction by author Erik Davis, with a full-color illustration by Arik Moonhawk Roper.

How columnist DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF learned to stop worrying about current events.

Why power duo Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus reunited to make the meditation-suitable
heavy metal sound of OM.

‘Do the Math’ columnist David Reeves on the main reason why the USA should seal its border with Mexico.

The life, work and astounding impact of North Indian vocalist PANDIT PRAN NATH, guru
to Western minimalists La Monte Young and Terry Riley. By Peter Lavezzoli.

‘New Herbalist’ columnist Molly Frances on Lord Byron’s secret elixir and the Prophet Muhammed’s top condiment: VINEGAR.

How to recognize—and use—OCCULT FORCES, by the Center for Tactical Magic.

Notes from Mardi Gras in New Orleans, 2006 by the intrepid Gabe Soria.

Comics by Vanessa Davis, Chris Wright and PShaw.

Scenes from ArthurBall 2006, featuring Joanna Newsom, The 5:15ers (Joshua Homme & Chris Goss) and Moris Tepper and Polly Harvey.

Bull Tongue columnists BYRON COLEY & THURSTON MOORE review Richard Youngs, Pink Mountaintops, Parts & Labor, Oneida/Plastic Crimewave, Ex Models, Mouthus, The Bummer Road, Idea Fire Company, Taurpis Tula, Spykes, Ong Ong, Carson Cistulli, Starbird, 2673, Ladderwoe, Tovah Olson, Pan Dolphinic Dawn, Gastric Female Reflex, ANP Quarterly, Matt Chambers, The Colonial, Mineshaft, Little Claw, Black Lips, Zaat, Mystical Footprints of Asia, Whysp, The Story, Skarerkauradio, Jerusalem & the Starbaskets, Noise Nomads, The Nightjar Review, Shannon Ketch, Jeremy Rendina, Carousel, Quantum Noise, Lambsbread, Carlos Batts, Trenton Doyle Hancock, S.M.S.R., Tchernoblyad, Narrowmind, Sudanstrain, Blod, Sharon’s Last Part, Mnem, Edwidge, The Rita, Mania, Ashtray Navigations, Evenings, Septic Sores, Bottom Dweller, Paul Metzger, Tombi and Glass organ.

C & D riff into the dawn on Marvin Gaye’s The Real Thing: In Performance, 1964-1981 dvd plus new albums from Gnarls Barkley, Rufus Harley, The Black Keys, The Raconteurs, Eagles of Death Metal, The Cuts, Future Pigeon, The Aggrolites, The Fiery Furnaces, Espers, Josephine Foster, Scott Walker, Fred Neil, Belong, Boris and Howlin Rain. Plus: Peter Relic’s Book Corner spotlights new poetry collections by Alex Mitchell and John Tottenham.

And more…