Archive > December 2010

A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper: The Outbursts of Everett True.

31 December 2010 » In art, comics

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

Invisible Community College

26 December 2010 » In art, books, comics, portland, trevorblake

The Invisible Community College is a study group dedicated to Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles moderated by Popjellyfish, Trevor Blake and Klint Finley. Weekly reading assignments will be sent to a mailing list for one year beginning January 23, 2011. If you would like to participate, you must sign-up for the mailing list before then.

There will be monthly public, in-person discussions in Portland, OR based on the reading. Those in other cities are encouraged to organize their own study cells.

Curriculum:
‘The Invisibles’ by Grant Morrison.
‘Our Sentence is Up’ by Patrick Meane
‘Anarchy For The Masses’ by Patrick Neighly
‘Grant Morrison’ by Patrick Meaney

The Invisibles
Available as individual issues, in digital form for the iPad, collected trade paperbacks and in an incomplete form in German-language trade paperbacks. Individual issues out of print, include letters to and from GM not collected in trade paperbacks. Trade paperbacks in print, include art not found in individual issues.

Individual monthly issues published by DC Comics 1994 – 2000:
Volume 1 Issues 1-25: September 1994 – October 1996
Volume 2 Issues 1-22: February 1997 – February 1999
Volume 3 Issues 12-1: April 1999 – June 2000

Individual Digital Issues
Available through DC Comics app for the iPad

Trade Paperbacks (English):
1. Say You Want a Revolution. (ISBN 1-5638-9267-7)
2. Apocalipstick. (ISBN 1-5638-9702-4)
3. Entropy in the UK. (ISBN 1-5638-9728-8)
4. Bloody Hell in America. (ISBN 1-5638-9444-0)
5. Counting to None. (ISBN 1-56389-489-0)
6. Kissing Mister Quimper. (ISBN 1-5638-9600-1)
7. The Invisible Kingdom. (ISBN 1-4012-0019-2)

Trade Paperbacks (German, incomplete):
Invisibles Monstereditionen 1: Revolution Gefallig?
Invisibles Monstereditionen 2: Ordnung & Entropie

Reference:
Patrick Meaney: Our Sentence is Up / Seeing Grant Morrison’s The
Invisibles. Book. (ISBN 978-0578032337)
Patrick Neighly and Kereth Cowe-Spigai: Anarchy For The Masses / The
Disinformation Guide To The Invisibles. Book. (ISBN 0-971-39422-9)
Patrick Meaney (director): Grant Morrison / Talking with Gods. DVD.

Enrollment information here.

A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper: The Outbursts of Everett True.

25 December 2010 » In art, comics

Merry Christmas!

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper: The Outbursts of Everett True.

24 December 2010 » In art, comics

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

Trevor Blake: 19,000

21 December 2010 » In ovo, trevorblake

This is the 19,000th post to ovo127.com.

Do a little bit of work often enough over a long period of time and a large body of work will accumulate.  Thanks to all my readers.

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

  • The SubGenius Psychlopaedia of Slack by Ivan Stang. New York, Thunder’s Mouth Press 2006.

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

1999

1997

1996

1995

  • ‘Zine by Pagan Kennedy. New York, St. Martin’s Press 1995.

1994

  • Revelation X by Ivan Stang. New York, Simon & Schuster 1994.
  • Kooks by Donna Kossy. Portland, Feral House 1994.
  • In Extremis by Bill Babouris. Athens Greece, Survival Kit 1994.
  • Killing for Culture by David Kerekes. London, Creation Books 1994.

1992

1991

1990

  • Three-Fisted Tales of “Bob” by Ivan Stang. New York, Simon & Schuster 1990.
  • Loompanics Greatest Hits by Michael Hoy. Port Townsend, Loompanics 1990.

1989

1988

  • OVO 4 (May 1988)
  • OVO 5 (November 1988)
  • High Weirdness by Mail by Ivan Stang. New York, Simon & Schuster 1988.

1987

1986

1985

A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper: The Outbursts of Everett True.

17 December 2010 » In art, comics

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

Trevor Blake: Multiple Name Identities

15 December 2010 » In anarchism, art, biographic, math, music, portland, religion, situationist, subgenius, surrealism, trevorblake


Trevor Blake: The Residents. 1990.

Multiple name identities are co-incarnations, individuals who exist in more than one body at the same time.

A few multiple name identities can be found in academia. Nicholas Bourbaki has written several influential papers on mathematics since 1935.  A number of men were Nicholas Bourbaki.  The theologian Franz Bibfeldt was also a number of men.

Most multiple name identities are found in the arts. No one knows who is the author of the 1930 book The Little Engine That Could.  The story is attributed to Watty Piper, which was the house name of publisher Platt & Munk.  Many men and women wrote under the name Watty Piper.  

Kenneth Robeson was the creator and author of the Doc Savage character, who first appeared in 1933.  Lester Dent and a number of men wrote the stories, all of which were published under the Street & Smith house name Kenneth Robeson.

Three German men were Stefan Brockhoff, author of mystery novels from the 1930s to the 1950s.  

Kilgore Trout is a science fiction author who first appears in the 1965 book God Bless You Mr. Rosewater by science fiction author Kurt Vonnegut.  Trout is modeled after the science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who in turn was born with the name Edward Hamilton Waldo.  Philip J. Farmer wrote the 1974 science fiction novel Venus on the Half-Shell and attributed it to Trout.

Since 1968, films which the director wishes to distance themselves from are attributed to Alan Smithee. The Internet Movie Database lists more than seventy titles attributed to Alan Smithee.

David Agnew is a name used by the BBC as a shared scriptwriting credit since the 1970s.

Bruce Lee died during the production of the 1978 film Game of Death.  Two other actors took on the role of playing Bruce Lee playing the character Billy Lo and the film was released.

V. C. Andrews’ 1979 book Flowers in the Attic was so successful that authors have published dozens of books under her name since her death in 1986.

Between 1988 and 1994, the Dutch composer Van den Budenmayer wrote the score for Zbigniew Prisner’s films.  den Budenmayer was several men working under one name.

Nicholas Palmer wrote the 1990 book Fuck Yes! under the pseudonym Rev. Wing Fu Fing.  On a lark, author Tom Robbins signed a copy of Fuck Yes! when a Robbins fan handed it to him.  This started the rumor that Robbins was the secret author of Fuck Yes!, a rumor which helped Palmer sell 50,000 copies of the self-published book over the next four years.  Fuck Yes! tells the story of a man who says ‘yes’ to every circumstance that life presents him.  In 1996 Palmer sued Robbins, who agreed to never sign another copy of the book again.  Palmer said: “It’s not just Robbins, the book is good. It has allowed him to take advantage of my anonymity.”  In 2008 Jim Carry starred in the film Yes Man, which tells the story of a man who says ‘yes’ to every circumstance that life presents him.  Yes Man is based on the 2005 book of the same title by Danny Wallace.

Actor Heath Ledger died during the production of the 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.  Three other actors took on the role of playing Heath Ledger playing the character Tony Shepard and the film was released.

The author Wu Ming is several Italian men who have published books since 2000.

There is a species of human behavior that is not quite art, not quite politics, and not quite as presumptuous as all that sounds. I prefer the term pranks. I first learned of multiple name identities from pranksters. Rrose Sélavy was an an artist and model in the 1920s, associated with a number of dadaists.

In 1960 the young Kerry Wendell Thornley worked as a desk clerk for the United States Marines.  As a prank, he entered a false name in the training lecture roster: Omar Kayyam Ravenhurst.  Over time Thornley and other Marines completed more paperwork for the non-existent Marine, giving him an IQ of 157 and fluency in 17 languages.  Ravenhurst then got the blame when Thornley or one of his friends made a mistake on base, making Private Ravenhurst a multiple name identity.

A free music festival was held near Stonehenge in 1974.  The audience decided to squat the location at the site after the performance.  Eviction laws required naming each of the squatters, and so the squatters all adopted the same name to make the job of the police more difficult.  Thus several dozen people became Wally.  One of the Wallies, Wally Hope, was sent to a psychiatric institution for possession of LSD in May 1975.  He was unable to detox from the forced drugging of the institution and died in September 1975.  His free-spirited life and oppressive death was a central inspiration for Penny Rimbaud to form CRASS.  Unrelated is the Stonehenge built by Wally Wallington.

David Zack has written about Monte Cantsin, who appeared in 1975:

Maris [Kundzins] and I were in Portland [Oregon]. We’d been working with a Xerox 3107 that makes big copies and reductions. We were making giant folios; monster folios and dinosaur folios we called them. And one night Maris started fooling around with the tape recorder, singing songs in Latuvian about toilets and traffic. Well, we decided to make a pop star out of Maris. But it had to be an open pop star, that is, anyone who wanted could assume the personality of the pop star. This open pop star would be the most talented in history, better than Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Sal Mineo and even Ry Cooder all rolled together in one. Pop stars have always been special to me, growing up the son of a symphony conductor the way I did. To me they stand for rebellion and acceptance, revolution and success and a whole lot of other things at the same time. We were mouthing Maris Kundzins’ name, and it came out Monty Cantsins. Then we got to saying can’t sin and can’t sing and quite a few other things to give the impression that this pop star could be a thief as well as a saint.

One thing I definitely did invent is “Monty Cantsin,” the open pop star. I did not do this alone, I did it in Portland, Oregon with the very first Monty Cantsin, an artist named Maris Kundzins. Maris and I sent a card to Kantor in Montreal, you are Monty Cantsin, the open pop star. Well Graf I have to assert what Kantor did with this simple postcard belongs in any history of art and also any history of the world. The idea that people can share their art power is a very good one I think. My own understanding of Neoism is that it is about sharing, about bash: cooperation between people, putting egos and tempers aside. Though not always seeming to. [1][2]

Stewart Home has written about Karen Elliot, who appeared in 1985:

Karen Eliot is a name that refers to an individual human being who can be anyone. The name is fixed, the people using it aren’t. Smile is a name that refers to an international magazine with multiple origins. The name is fixed, the types of magazines using it aren’t. The purpose of many different magazines and people using the same name is to create a situation for which no one in particular is responsible and to practically examine western philosophical notions of identity, individuality, originality, value and truth.

Anyone can become Karen Eliot simply by adopting the name, but they are only Karen Eliot for the period in which the name is used. Karen Eliot was materialised, rather than born, as an open context in the summer of ’85. When one becomes Karen Eliot one’s previous existence consists of the acts other people have undertaken using the name. When one becomes Karen Eliot one has no family, no parents, no birth. Karen Eliot was not born, s/he was materialised from social forces, constructed as a means of entering the shifting terrain that circumscribes the ‘individual’ and society.

The name Karen Eliot can be strategically adopted for a series of actions, interventions, exhibitions, texts, etc. When replying to letters generated by an action / text in which the context has been used then it makes sense to continue using the context, ie by replying as Karen Eliot. However in personal relationships, where one has a personal history other than the acts undertaken by a series of people using the name Karen Eliot, it does not make sense to use the context. If one uses the context in personal life there is a danger that the name Karen Eliot will become over-identified with individual beings. [3]

I published work by Karen Elliot in OVO 3 (1987)

Stewart Home, in turn, has seen publications under his own name that he did not write.  These include the books Stone Circle, Harry Potter and the Quantum Time Bomb, and essays including “Anarchism is Stupid: How Luther Blissett Hoaxed Bakunin’s Idiot Children,” “Communism or Masochism? An Appeal to All Revolutionaries Concerning the Rubber Slave Larry O’Hara,” and “An Open Letter to My Avant-Garde Chums by Stewart Home.”  Someone anonymously suggested the (then) anonymous blogger Belle de Jour was Stewart Home.  Not necessarily with his cooperation or consent, Stewart Home has become several people.

Luther Blissett (born 1958) is a professional footballer, manager and coach.  His name was adopted by the Luther Blissett Project as an open reputation in the 1990s.  Blissett the footballer is aware of the other Blissetts and has taken his open reputation in stride.

I enjoyed several people being me in the early 2000s.  A number of my friends in Portland were on a site called irreality.  They encouraged me to join, but I had enough internet time in my day and didn’t want to.  Some time back I’d heard that David Bowie had hired actors to play his press agents, and Bowie confirmed whatever exaggerated claim they made about him.  Inspired by this story I encouraged 2-3 of my friends to set up an irreality account for me and post to it as if they were me, promising I’d confirm anything they posted as my own.  For a year or two these friends would mix some of my own writing (from ovo127.com) with original writing of their own and post it at irreality.  When I’d meet up with those who thought I’d posted what they read at irreality attributed to me I’d confirm it.  Some of the friends I made on irreality are friends to this day, perhaps only now learning I wasn’t necessarily who they thought I was at the time.  Irreality closed shop in 2008.

The second-most influential multiple name identity is Anonymous.  Although Anonymous began as an internet meme around 2006, Anonymous is also the name of many individuals who have appeared in public.  Inspired by a scene in Allan Moore’s V for Vendetta, Anonymous appears in numbers wearing the mask of Guy Fawkes.  As of December 2010, Anonymous is conducting successful attacks on major credit card and communication companies around the world in retaliation for slights against wikileaks.

The most influential multiple name identity is St. Nicholas / Father Christmas / Kris Kringle /  Santa Claus.  Every December for over a century, Santa has appeared around the world, wearing the same clothes, carrying out the same actions, exhibiting the same demeanor, claiming the same home-base and promising to return at the same time next year.  A significant part of the world economy is shifted when Santa Claus comes to town.  In the late 1980s the Orange Alternative of Poland held a parade of seventy-seven Santas as part of their absurdist protests against Communism.  The SantaCon / Santarchy tactic appeared again in 1994, carried out by Suicide Club of San Francisco.

“You should never run out of people to be.” – Genesis P-Orridge.

Trevor Blake: Review of ‘My Struggle’ by Boojie Boy

11 December 2010 » In art, books, eugenics, music, ovo, periodical, trevorblake, zine

My Struggle is a book of 280 pages measuring 5.25 x 4.5 inches, written in 1975 and printed in a single edition of one hundred copies in 1978. These small thick books have red covers to make them look the same as Chairman Mao’s Book of Quotations. Some red cover copies had red ribbon page markers, and some had yellow covers and no ribbon. The pages of the book book are bound by two large staples and the cover is glued to the spine and inner edges of the first and last pages.

Almost every page of My Struggle has an illustration with a numbered caption, usually having nothing to do with the surrounding text. Most of these illustrations are clip art but some are collages or drawings by Mothersbaugh. There are also a few photographs of DEVO. The text of the book is a continuous flow of words, occasionally knotting itself into an essay but usually stream of conscious rambling. The text is presented without hyphens and in full justification. It reads as the work of someone who doesn’t understand what the bell on a typewriter is for.

My Struggle has the same concerns as the lyrics, music and films of DEVO: mutation, medicine, eugenics, potatoes, de-evolution, tyranny, corporate culture and sex. The chicken-winged chimponaut seen on the dust jacket to Duty Now for the Future and in the film Love Without Anger appears here, as does the beaker / man / atom logo. The warty-faced man described in the film The Men Who Make The Music as the work of “God in his Picasso period” is in My Struggle. Boojie Boy appears throughout the book, as does Chinaman. Chinaman is seen stroking a coathanger in the film Secret Agent Man, is described as giving the papers to Boojie Boy in the film Jocko Homo, and is mentioned in the song All of Us. The Chinaman’s glasses, minus their ‘velly clevah’ slanted eyes, are the glasses Mothersbaugh is wearing on the cover of Oh No It’s Devo. These words, images and concepts show a continuity of work by Mothersbaugh that lasts decades.

Some of what appears in My Struggle didn’t appear in any other form for many years. On pages 108 and 109 are the lyrics of the song All of Us, a song which was distributed only in bootleg form for decades. In 1977 the song was performed in Minneapolis as Soft Core Mutations, and in 1981 the song was renamed Going Under for the LP New Traditionalists. Only in 1990, on the CD Hardcore DEVO Volume 1, was the original All of Us released. fifteen years after appearing in My Struggle.

My Struggle gives much attention is given to the Huboon, a type of low-grade Beautiful Mutant. Hardcore Devo Volume 1 mentions the Huboon in the song Soo Bawls. The song Huboon Stomp was performed in the first few years of DEVO but was not released until the 1998 CD Chef Aid. The lyrics to The Last Time I Ever Seen St. Louie and My Frauline Done Told Me (the first song performed at the first DEVO concert) are found in My Struggle but have yet to be released. My Struggle is written in a sing-song style and many more lyrics may yet be harvested from it.

My Struggle was published in a format that was made to last, and proves an unbroken line from the earliest DEVO to the DEVO of today. This book is nearly impossible to find. I’m fortunate to have a copy signed by Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Mothersbaugh, Jim Mothersbaugh, Gerry Casale and Bob Casale (the original line up and the band as represented in the book), General Boy and (separately) a signature from Chuck Statler, the primary director of DEVO’s earliest video work.

from OVO 8 (May 1991)
re-written December 2010

A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper: The Outbursts of Everett True.

10 December 2010 » In art, comics

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.

A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper: The Outbursts of Everett True.

03 December 2010 » In art, comics

From the 1906 book The Outbursts of Everett True by A. D. Condo and J. W. Raper. With thanks to Barnacle Press.