New works in the public domain since 1987.
Ian MacEwan (aka popjellyfish) has published his online comic The Yankee.
The Yankee is a dumb American. He’s Cosmo Vitelli. He’s Prince Rogers Nelson. He’s a Richard Pryor monologue. Psychedel-economic fiction set in the Nation States of America.
See Ian’s previous work in OVO 20 JUVEN(a/i)LIA for Evil Eye by Hakim Bey.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech [...] I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant . – H. L. Mencken
In carrying out this protest, is Wikipedia abandoning neutrality?
We hope you continue to trust Wikipedia to be a neutral information source. We are staging this blackout because (as Wikimedia Foundation Trustee Kat Walsh said recently), although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. For over a decade, Wikipedians have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Wikipedia is a tremendously useful resource, and its existence depends upon a free, open and uncensored Internet. SOPA and PIPA (and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States) will hurt you, because they will make it impossible for sites you enjoy, and benefit from, to continue to exist. That’s why we’re doing this.
Today, 18 January 2012, a number of the websites I read have made their content inaccessible or difficult to access in protest of two proposed laws in the United States. These laws (Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act) seem likely to have a chilling effect on the internet. If I’m understanding these laws correctly, my linking to a site that in turn links to a site found to be in violation of copyright laws would get me in trouble as well as the site I link to. As I am unable to monitor the content of the sites I link to in my 19,100+ blog posts, I may unknowingly be in violation of these laws when all I wanted to do was point out a funny video or an interesting article.
I make it a point to read across the political spectrum. This is my greatest hope to foster ongoing critical thinking, and often I learn of laws or events from one side of the sausage factory that the other side of the sausage factory is silent about. That silence may be based on ignorance or it may be a willful silence. Whatever the reason, I am not diminished by taking in more information.
I note that the SOPA / PIPA blackout is not common to sites that are likely to self-identify as ‘not-left.’ I use the vague term ‘not-left’ deliberately. My compilation of this list is no claim that these sites are of a kind, aside from a likelihood they would not identify as being on the political left. How far not-left they are, how that is manifest, varies. The sites I list below are not necessarily aware of or in agreement with each other. I am certain that some of them are antagonistic to each other. Inclusion in this list is not at all a claim that anyone on this list agrees with or is aware of anyone else on this list. I have looked at each of these sites at least briefly, and I can say that I also do not agree with the entire content of each one. The problem with SOPA / PIPA is it applies the contagion theory to information: if I link to a site, I’m guilty of what that site contains. If you think my linking to these sites contaminates me, then I suggest you speak out in favor of SOPA / PIPA – and reconsider reading my site any more, lest you yourself be contaminated. At the same time, I caution the reader that some of the following sites are factually incorrect, mean spirited, possibly illegal outside the United States, discriminatory and almost certainly not to be read at work. To the best of my ability, I have confirmed that these sites all reside in the United States.
The Occupy movement in the United States has been allowed months of free speech, then had it taken away. American Renaissance has been denied a single second of public meeting time for two years. Occupy is decidedly ‘not-right’ and American Renaissance is decidedly ‘not-left,’ but both share the thirst for freedom of speech and association. All ‘not-left’ sites are at risk from SOPA / PIPA. But few ‘not-left’ sites are participating in the blackout today.
Not-Left Sites Critical of SOPA / PIPA:
Not-Left Sites Not Discussing SOPA / PIPA
Tuesday 7 February 2012
6:00pm to 7:00pm PST (GMT+8)
Hand-Eye Supply
23 NW 4th Ave
Portland, OR, 97209
503.575.9769
Regular Hours: Monday-Sunday: 12pm – 6pm PST (GMT+8)
Trevor Blake: The Sound of the Hammer Greets You on Every Side: Portland Memorials
Between 2009 and 2011 Trevor walked the length and breadth of downtown Portland. When he found a memorial, he transcribed what it said and where it was. Portland Memorials includes all the memorials in downtown Portland. The book is entered this book into the public domain for the same reason Joseph Shemanski gave Portland the Shemanski Fountain: “to express in small measure gratitude for what the city has done for me.” Trevor will discuss the book and the remarkable memorials he found while writing it.
Trevor Blake was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and moved to Portland in 1992. He works as a freelance sign language interpreter. Besides Portland Memorials, he is the publisher of OVO (1987 – present); author of The Buckminster Fuller Bibliography; contributor to The Journal of Ride Theory Omnibus (Portland, JORT 2003); In Extremis (Athens, Survival Kit 1994); Pozdravi iz Babilona (Ljubljana, KRT 1987); and the literature of the Church of the SubGenius.
Curiosity Club Streaming Video
Portland Memorials
144 pages, 8.5 x 11, $15.00
Thousands of memorials in Portland, Oregon.
[Information] [Print] [Kindle]
Portland writer Trevor Blake’s book, Portland Memorials, is a compilation of historical markers to be found by walking through the downtown area. Sound simple? Consider that the author must at some points have practically crawled on his hands and knees to transcribe dates and names from the thousands of “plaques, buildings, statues, benches and fountains” that were grist for his investigations. He even discovered that a few memorials touching on Black history were likely thrown into the Willamette River. The Skanner News traded electronic letters with Blake to get his story on how, and why, Portland has chosen to remember its past.
The Skanner News: Trevor what made you want to put this book together?
Trevor Blake: I wrote Portland Memorials for three reasons. The first reason is an echo of one of the memorials found in the book. The Shemanski Fountain is located at the north end of the South Park Blocks. It was a gift to the city by Portland shopkeeper Joseph Shemanski (1869-1951) in 1926. Shemanski gave the fountain to the city “to express in small measure gratitude for what the city has done for me.” And that is exactly the reason I have written Portland Memorials. I moved to Portland in 1992 and the city has given me as many opportunities, experiences and challenges as anyone could ask for. The second reason is writing a book is a good way to learn a subject, and I wanted to learn more about the architecture and history of Portland. The third reason is it provided some good exercise for the legs and the brain.
TSN: How did you research it, how many memorials are contained in it, and how long did it take?
Blake: I researched Portland Memorials the old fashioned way: I used my feet and my eyes. Over a three year period I walked around every block in downtown Portland, usually two or three times, and whenever I found a memorial I wrote down what it said and where it was using a pencil and paper. No special training or equipment was needed. There are a few websites and books that might have helped but I decided to see for myself what was there, and in doing so I’ve documented many thousands of memorials that are found in no other resource. I thought it would be a fine project for a Summer and include a few hundred items. It is a fine project, but it took three years and includes thousands of names. The best way to find a particular memorial is to look in the index, then find that page, then go to that memorial.
TSN: Can you talk a little bit about the Portland memorials that touch on the African American experience here?
BLAKE: I’m glad you asked this question. One of the most lively memorials downtown is for the Golden West Hotel at 707 NW Everett. This hotel was owned and frequented by African Americans from the early 1900s onward. Of all the memorials I found, this is the only one that includes photographs, text and a recording – the blind can enjoy and learn from this memorial, making it accessible to even more Portland citizens. The Walk of the Heroines on the campus of Portland State University includes the name of nearly thirty Black women civil rights pioneers. Strangely enough, there are three civil war cannons in downtown Portland. Two are in Lownsdale Square and were taken from Fort Sumter, the third was melted down and made into the church bell of First Presbyterian Church. There are some sidewalk plaques in the Old Town area that honor how the Chinese community has interacted with other communities, and one of them (on NW Flanders between 3 and 4) talks about how the Chinese and African American community mingled at the Royal Palm Hotel. There used to be a memorial park downtown dedicated to the Liberty Ships built by many African American workers in Portland during World War Two, but when that property was converted to condominiums most of what was in the park was thrown into the Willamette River.
TSN: What do you want to come from this book?
BLAKE: I want people to read about a memorial and go see it for themselves. Not to read about it and forget it, not look it up online, but to go see it for themselves. It’s a reminder that each of us will just be a memory some day and that we’d best make hay while the sun shines.
TSN: What’s the most important thing about this town that you hope people take away from reading Portland Memorials?
BLAKE: Portland has preserved much of its history, and that can’t be said about many cities. Sometimes the preservation was by design of the city leaders, but often it was the efforts of individuals. In the 1950s many older buildings were torn down for being old fashioned. The decorative iron work on the sides of some of these buildings was, shall we say, ‘privately preserved’ by individuals who couldn’t stand to see the art destroyed. Decades later, when Portland again appreciated its history, these works were returned to the city and can be seen in the Saturday Market area. I hope Portland Memorials is read for years to come by those who care about our city’s history.
TSN: Is there a website or other place people can access your book, or any other of your writings?
BLAKE: My book can be purchased in print or for Kindle at this address http://ovo127.com/ovo/ , where there is also a free sample chapter to download.
Originally published by The Skanner News on 19 December 2011. Many thanks to Lisa and The Skanner.
Dr. Onan Canobite sent two self-published books, one a best-of from his OVO zine and one about the monuments and plaques of Portland Oregon, his town, which he loves, having grown up in Knoxville TN.
See also: Church of the SubGenius.
Image c/o Retronaut.
Thanks to the following for linking to OVO.
Eithin links to Liberating Wednesday.
Monday Vatican links to The Concordant Story.
Financial Advices Blog links to The Bonus Army.
Rambone at Indiana Gun Owners links to The Bonus Army.
The American Book of the Dead links to Unspeakable Horrors.
This review of OVO 20: JUVEN(a/i)LIA by Trevor Blake was written by Ferdinand Bardamu, and appeared at his blog In Mala Fide in November 2011.
This is a best-of collection of articles and artwork from OVO, a zine founded and edited by friend of the blog Trevor Blake, “a public record of [his] interests and inquiries.” It’s interesting, it’s weird, and I don’t entirely know what to make of it. I guess it’s because I’m too young to appreciate it – I was barely out of diapers when Trevor was printing up the early editions of OVO on his pal’s company’s copiers in the eighties. To someone of the Internet Era, where narcissistic self-expression is just a couple of mouse clicks away, the effort and dedication involved in compiling an entire magazine, from writing and gathering the material to binding the physical copies and mailing them out, is difficult to relate to.
Still, this is a great little collection of oddities, ranging from poetry to short stories to investigative journalism on offbeat subjects. They include “Holding Games for Ransom,” about how one tabletop game creator found a way to keep online piracy from cutting into his profits; “A Pit Stop Along the Inward Journey,” a stream-of-consciousness tale beginning with white guilt and ending with madness; and “23 Sperm Stories 23,” the longest article in the book, on just about every aspect of sperm, from its discovery, its function, and its future. Of particular interest to us in the manosphere are “Warbucks Intra-Family Communique” and “Becoming More Free” by Ernest Mann. The former is a satirical article on the emptiness and mindlessness of American consumerism; the latter is on how Mann unplugged himself from the Matrix of American culture:
I am wasting less of my time (LIFE) watching, listening to and reading THOUGHT LEADERS, ie, TV, movies, radio, music, newspapers, magazines and novels. These are like spectator sports. They cause me to live life vicariously, ie, second-hand, not real, only in fantasy. These mind conditioners are subtly designed to create not only fear and anger emotions but also create feelings of guilt and inadequacy. These feeling stifle growth and keep one securely in one’s rut. And of course the more visible purpose of the media is to create the desire to acquire (BUY! BUY! BUY!) and keep up with the Joneses. ‘Buying’ uses up my savings. I spent 22 years of my TIME (life) working as a Wage Slave. I helped perpetuate the status quo, ie a world of 98.6% Slaves and less than 1% Elite (Billionaires). I don’t wish to do that any more.
But the real prize is Trevor’s own writings, comprising the second half of the book. They include book reviews (including an exhaustive review of one of my favorites, L.A. Rollins’ Myth of Natural Rights), interviews with such diverse individuals as a bulimia sufferer and an expert on out-of-body experiences/bilocation, and my favorite, “Trajectory Through Anarchism,” in which Trevor tracks the evolution of his political beliefs:
1996: Feeling free of anarchism and a little burned by what I now see was my own hooded thinking, I call up the imp of the perverse to see what other forbidden ideas might be out there. Ayn Rand is suggested, and I read her works. Having already shed one hood I’m less inclined to put another one on, and I do not become an Objectivist. But moving through Objectivism brings libertarian thinking to my attention. It’s something about the sovereignty of the individual… but I’ve walked down that path already and don’t sign on as a libertarian either.
Like The eXile, OVO 20 comes in a 8 1/2 by 11 inch size, to fit artwork and cartoons on the pages – I was particularly amused by “Attack of the Giant Killer Sperm.” One minor issue I have with the design is that all paragraphs in OVO 20 are punctuated with bullet points. I suppose they’re there to make the book look distinctive, but I found them mildly distracting, fooling my eyes into thinking I was reading a series of lists instead of articles.
Still, if you want to take an excursion into the bizarre and come back a little more enlightened, OV0 20 is a fun and informative read. If you’re still not convinced, Trevor maintains a free online archive of all OVO articles here. He also has some words of wisdom for aspiring writers and publishers:
…First and most important, get busy. Your time is already diminished by work and mortality, and neither of those situations is going to improve. Keep a printed copy of what you make and write down the date of when you made it. Large bodies of work and the pleasure they bring are made a few small pieces at a time. Learn about the history of what interests you. Novelty is rare and not always of value for being novel. Your friends are not being documented right now and you are the one who can do a good job with that. Read with regularity outside your area of interests. Nothing will point out your own ignorance and error better than attentiveness to those who disagree with you, nothing makes what you know make sense like learning something unrelated to what you know. Take as many chances as you are willing to take the lumps for.
But most of all, get busy.
Those who long to live in 1911 choose that year – really any year from 1890 to 1914 would be equally ok – just because it’s safely in the middle of that long lingering last “decade” of the long 19th Century – which was also the first heroic decade of true modern radicalism – e.g. – the Wandervogel, Stirnerite anarchism, the IWW and Jim Larkin, Ascona, Sex Radicals & Nudists – etc. And still far removed from the future of total war & totalitarianism to come – a time of utopian revolutionary hope.
Also of course it’s the Age of Decadence – final year of the Manchu Dynasty – opium ten cents a bottle at any country store – the Paris of J. K. Huysmans. Gaslight. Also: the last gasp of true agrarianism in the USA – age of Populism, the Grange, Farmers Alliance – the last rural decade.
But there’s another reason we choose 1911 (or thereabouts) for our little Golden Age. It has to do with technology. In 1911 almost all the actual conveniences of modern tech already existed: the car, the telephone, the electric bulb, the phonograph… Now we Luddites do not approve of cars or any of these inventions, which all subtract from the quanta of Imagination available to individuals & to the Social. But we have to admit – they’re convenient. In their primitive forms they’re almost likable. The only real convenience invented since then – the electric refrigerator – can be replaced by an Amish-built propane refrigerator – OR – we could re-invent the ice-box. We hope someday to learn to sing again, but till then we can accept a few hand-cranked shellac records (but no radio or TV). Computers are NOT in any way part of a revived 1911 however. It’s time to wake up & smell the rot of technopathology.
The telephone easily corrodes social presence & reduces selves to disembodies “voices of the Unseen,” as the Arabs called the invention. But again the primitive version, with its “party lines” & snoopy local Operators, had a social aspect now completely leached out of the medium. If we must be thus haunted let it be via one of these elegant sinister objects – a real murder weapon.
Full play of Imagination becomes possible only without modern technology, because tech has become the heartless operation of Capital, which hates all forms of sharing. Let’s work for a secular Anabaptism, bold enough finally to refuse everything back to the steam engine – at least. Whereupon we may resume human life.
Everything has already been said about photography. We have it here in 1911 but even now we can see how it may have been a big mistake.
The Byzantine Iconoclasts were no mere smashers of idols – their arguments ran deep, subtle & profound. They claimed that the Image colonizes the Imagination – other people’s magic overcomes your own personal magic & imprints itself on your soul. Only the Imagination free of such (mis)representation can truly be called autonomous & capable of poiesis, the creative act. To depict the sacred (& all things are potentially sacred) is to degrade it & thus to blaspheme. Only the Eye of the Heart can actually see.
Many Sufis would agree with these sentiments, as would many Jewish & Protestant mystics. The more accurate & scientific the representation the more it lies & blasphemes. “Abstract” art is more moral than any form of realism. Music & architecture, which are simply themselves (ideally), are considered permissible, although Islam suspects even music of threatening the soul’s integrity. But painting & sculpture & especially photography must surely be damned. Looking itself is a compromised or even guilty pleasure, lacking the intimacy of touch or smell or even hearing – too akin to “pure reason” – to cruel.
Against these arguments however we might assert the possibility of Hermetic Imagery – which (as Giordano Bruno or Athanasius Kircher would say) can allow us to free ourselves from the Image through the Image.
Certain symbols, Emblems, hieroglyphs or works of art can liberate the Imagination rather than “enchain” it. These images stimulate your own creativity rather than stifle or suffocate it under their beauty or shock-value or subliminal potency etc.
In the Renaissance this theory of art was called “Egyptian,” thanks to a fortuitous misunderstanding of the ancient hieroglyphs (ie that they were “magic”). Cagliostro was pushing the same notion in the late 19th Century. I believe we need such a theory in order to redeem our various arts – to save them from merely forming new chains, like advertising or propaganda.
Does this argument rescue photography from its own special hell? Maybe not. But maybe there’s something to be said for a touch of damnation. Maybe photography is a vice, like pornography, but then perhaps it could be a magical vice.
If we must have photography in 1911 let it be slow, clumsy, alchemical, rare – somehow still innocent of theory – not so much a spectral doubling but rather Magic Lanterns, a kind of stained glass, primitive & luminous, posed & formal, static, sepia-toned, nostalgic & slightly comical.
ACME, you remember, was the company that made all those safes for Coyote to drop on the Roadrunner. If only it were that simple.
Everyone simply can’t go “back to 1911″ – there wouldn’t be enough energy there to support our wasteful habits. The last viable population density must’ve occurred, in fact, around 1911. After that – the crowd. The utopian reversionism I’m proposing, I guess, is only possible for a self-chosen elite.
Petroleum was a rare commodity in 1911 – like whale oil today. Stoves burned wood – a renewable resource. Plant an acorn, reap a cord of fixed sunlight. I’m not saying everyone should to it now. I’m saying that we – carefree luddites – will burned wood in our ornate victorian stoves, while everyone else poisons themselves with petrol & electricity.
The alchemists tell us that not all forms of heat are simply the same calories delivered by different tech. The heat of a brooding hen, heat of a manure pile, heat of a woodstove – & the heat of a nuclear reactor disaster – are qualitatively different, not just quantitatively.
Woodfire has been used since the cave people discovered fire. It comes from heaven (as lightning) – it warms the Zoroastrian temple in Persia, the Vedic sacrifice in India, the Celtic bonfire on May Day, the outdoor barbecue invented by buccaneers on Hispaniola. Woodfire is basic everyday magic. It transforms food alchemically. It alchemizes the domestic hearth. It engenders visions. It is the body of the djinn.
Frankly we no longer care very deeply about the end of the world. It’s too late for “everyone” to go on gulping down oil & shitting out pollution. The only solution to the energy crisis is voluntary poverty, as Ivan Illich used to say – so the secret is to learn to enjoy it.
Frenchfry oil, wind power, solar panels, nuclear power plants – none of them will allow the whole world to go on sucking up oil & other forms of dead energy like us Americans in 2011 – like it’s “going out of style” (which it is) – so let’s just do without it, & revert to 1911, comrades. Abandon the suckers to their doomsday scenarios (Rapture, Global Warming, Peak Oil, band, whimper), & stoke up your ACME woodstove with aromatic pine, & sit around it all winter with the complete works of Balzac, Scott, Dumas, Stevenson, Proust. Roast some apples. Simmer your poppy-head tea. Dream on.
The years between the death of Nietzche (& Queen Victoria) & 1914 constitute a dawn of Modernism that never happened into day. Instead it was smashed to nihil by the one long war (1914 – 1989) of the ghastly XXth Century. The liberté libre of trends like Symbolism, Expressionism, anarchism / socialism, lebensreform, Cosmicism etc. turned into the cynicism of dada, the fascism of Futurism & so on. Hope seemed dead.
L. Broadmoor III (who circa 1975 first turned me on to the idea of “living in 1911″) wanted to be an ordinary person in rural America (but with decayed millionaires as neighbors, hence his choice of Dutchess Co.) – he read only books published in or before 1911 that were truly popular at the time, such as novels with happy endings by long-forgotten lady novelists. In the 1970s you could buy old books like that for 25¢ a pound, yellowing & crumbling. Many by now must’ve disappeared completely.
I understand this “taste” or rather discipline as that of the spiritual dandy: an impenetrable cool of exotic ordinariness & secret impeccability. In effect one’s life becomes one’s art – completely. I could never aspire to such bodhisattvahood: fundamentally I’m simply not that serious. In fact neither was Broadmoor: he gave up 1911 & went into Reichean therapy. But still I take 1911 as a kind of metaphor or ideal double for my art, & to a certain extent my life as well. I’ve lived for 20 years now with no TV or other people’s cars – I pay people to use the internet for me (to buy books!) – & so on. I just don’t want to own the fucking things. I admire the Anabaptists for refusing electricity & infernal combustion in their homes. But you need communitas to live in that manner. You need place.
Even reading & writing is contaminated with Civilization’s technopathologies. Oral / aural culture would constitute the Luddite ideal. But as an isolated individual & lifelong print addict I can’t give up books – that necessary poison – like certain drugs… “Life in 1911″ requires books just as it might ideally include cheap & legal laudanum or tincture of Indian hemp.
Charles Fourier praised the Pigeon Post. It seemed quite modern in 1830, “utterly modern” as Rimbaud would say. In 1911 we’re allowed telegraph & even telephone, but our hearts still go into writing & receiving letters – handwritten, private, mysteriously brought to yr very door by unseen hand for only pennies per message, the money having been transformed into beautiful stamps. None of these pleasures are afforded by electromagnetic CommTech, which eliminates everything (including privacy) except text & image.
Imagine perfumed letters sealed with red wax & heraldic imagery, letters like Prince Genji used to write, or Proust, who could send little blue notes by pneumatic post anywhere in Paris. Think of mail-order degrees in Rosicrucianism. Yes, the POST – under the sign of Hermes – is sheer magic.
If only I could find a working mimeograph machine (or even better a roneograph, the kind that printed only in purple) (they had one in my high school in the 1950s) I’d certainly publish these manifestos on it. At least I can still use a manual typewriter, another surrealist-looking machine we enjoy here in “1911.”
June 14 2011
Recorded music realizes a dream of pure magic – but at the same time the end & even death of music itself. A Blakean paradox or mystical dialectic: every phenomenon had a “good” & a “bad” (in some rough sense), an Emanation & a Spectre. When I worked in radio (on WBIA-FM, The Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade) & played rembetica, Ottoman marching bands, Irish music composed by supernatural beings (the Tuatha De Danaan, aka the faeries), Anglican church music from the 15-20th Century, etc., I & my listeners (I hope) experienced the first Emanational aspect of recording – its magic.
But as the MUZAK company understood, recorded music eventually loses its presence – and in its state of absence or deprivation it becomes a potent subliminal form of anxiety, often alleviated by a shopping spree or food binge – perfect capitalist behavior.
Thus music becomes background – in expensive restaurants one is expected to listen (but not pay attention) to music appropriate to a honkytonk whorehouse: rock’n'roll, which should be a highly presentational dionysiac experience – becomes aural vanilla for jaded yuppies. Youth buys its latest “rebellion” from the world of commercial greed & adult condescension called the Music Industry. With headphones & computers everyone composes a soundtrack for their own stupid boring movie, their life as “student” or wage slave & consumer – music as anodyne for the constant immiseration (as the Sits used to say) of Too-Late Kapitalismo.
Finally – recording replaces our own voices with dumbness. We let stars sing for us – we let machines come between us & the divine musician within us. Music attains Spectral status. It haunts us with its own non-presence reduced to residual noise pollution.
I had to give up radio (both as producer & consumer) & get rid of all recorded music in my sphere of influence (basically my house) in order to preserve my relation to music. I don’t dare sing in the street (as everyone did until about 1979) and there is no amateur communal music anymore (recording killed it) – no “music bees” so to speak. Music now lacks all sociality except the ersatz of mass consumption to hear live music sometimes. Usually now when I hear any decent live music I burst into tears. I give it my attention – a process that produces a kind of high or rausch.
If we have to hear a recording let it be a 1911-style shellac disc or even wax cylinder, cranked up by hand, not electricity – a magic music box to baffle the dog with its master’s voice – a cabinet of aural marvels. If we have to be haunted by music’s non-presence (every recording is the tombstone of a live performance) let it be by one of these (see above) graceful ear-shaped or seashell-shaped machines, a Surrealist’s delight (Leonora Carrington’s “ear trumpets”) or Spirit Trumpet for a charlatanesque medium…
Shovel. June 2011. Pen and Pencil.
OVO 20 JUVEN(a/i)LIA
112 pages, 8.5 x 11, $10.00
The best of OVO 1987 – 2011. Walter Alter, Dmitry Babenko, Hakim Bey, Trevor Blake, Johnny Brainwash, Chris C. Cilla, Cunnichant Night Owl, Mike Diana, Yael Ruth Dragwyla, James Ellis, Karen Elliot, Feral Faun, Klint Finley, Richard Ford, Chris Gross, Mike Gunderloy, Ginger Hutton, Ian MacEwan, Ernest Mann, Melissa, Thom Metzger, Jennifer Murrian, PM, Gerry Reith, James V. Scianna, Stuart Swezey, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, V. Vale.
Review by Ferdinand Bardamu: “To someone of the Internet Era, where narcissistic self-expression is just a couple of mouse clicks away, the effort and dedication involved in compiling an entire magazine, from writing and gathering the material to binding the physical copies and mailing them out, is difficult to relate to. Still, this is a great little collection of oddities, ranging from poetry to short stories to investigative journalism on offbeat subjects.”
Trevor Blake: Introduction
Mike Diana: Read OVO
Hakim Bey: Salon Apocalypse
Hakim Bey: Evil Eye
Hakim Bey: Intellectual S/M is the Fascism of the Eighties
Hakim Bey: Ringing Denunciation of Surrealism
Johnny Brainwash: Holding Games for Ransom
Gerry Reith: Letter from the Graveyard Shift
Cunnichant Night Owl: Lunalogue
Thom Metzger: The Hypmogoogoopizin’ Man
Thom Metzger: Wad Rules
Richard Ford: Bellowing Forth and Brandishing
James Ellis: Mayhem
Mike Gunderloy: The Meta-Network
James V. Scianna: A Pit Stop Along the Inward Journey
Chris Cilla: Sperm Trek
Anonymous: 23 Sperm Stories 23
Mike Diana: Attack of the Giant Killer Sperm
Feral Faun: Thoughts on Experimentation
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: Lidznap
Chris Gross: Three Letters
James Ellis: Control
Klint Finley: The New Currency War
PM: Liberating Wednesday
Ernest Mann: Warbucks Intra-Family Communique
Ernest Mann: Becoming More Free
Karen Elliot: Operation Negation
Walter Alter: Little Wally’s Reader (Lights = Camera = Action / Densest? / The List of Recalibrations)
Chris Cilla: Apple / Pineapple
Review: My Struggle by Mark Mothersbaugh
Review: The Skin Horse by Nabil Shaban
Review: The Myth of Natural Rights by L. A. Rollins
Interview: Melissa
Interview: Stuart Swezey
Interview: Ginger Hutton
Interview: Yael Ruth Dragwyla
Interview: Jennifer Murrian
Interview: V. Vale
Trevor Blake: Tape Fragmentation
Trevor Blake: Magnetic Poetry
Trevor Blake: Saturn Return
Trevor Blake: New Superstition from a Dream
Trevor Blake: Mutants First
Trevor Blake: Science is Anti-Authoritarian
Trevor Blake: Tipping Points
Trevor Blake: Cursed Object
Trevor Blake: Trajectory Through Anarchism
James Ellis: Suffering
Trevor Blake: The Bonus Army
Trevor Blake: Multiple Name Identities
Trevor Blake: Co-Remoting with the Thunderous
Trevor Blake: Ecclesiastes 9:10
About the Contributors
… or assemble your own anthology from what I think of as the best few dozen articles or from all 19,000+ articles.
OVO has been a fan and follower of blort dot meepzorp dot com since 2001. Today we got the nod from Madam Jujujive after sending her a link to tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE’s video for an anti-Neoist rally. The honor is all our own!
Portland Memorials by Trevor Blake
144 pages, 8.5 x 11, $15.00
Thousands of memorials in downtown Portland, Oregon USA.
[Free Sample] [Print] [Kindle] [Front Cover 2550 x 3300 PNG]
Between 2009 and 2011 I walked the length and breadth of downtown Portland. When I found a memorial, I transcribed what it said and where it was. This book includes all the memorials in downtown Portland. I have entered this book into the public domain for the same reason Joseph Shemanski gave Portland the Shemanski Fountain: “to express in small measure gratitude for what the city has done for me.”
Video:
Trevor Blake: Bearing Service Co.
Trevor Blake: The Liberty Ships.
Press:
Trevor Blake at the Curiosity Club 7 February 2012.
Cornelius Rex: Twitter (26 December 2011).
Lost Oregon: Twitter (26 December 2011).
Oregon News Network: Twitter (26 December 2011).
Lisa Loving: Portland Memorials Lists City Histories Depicted in Park Benches, Fountains, and More (The Skanner, Volume XXXIII No. 60. 19 December 2011).
Klint Finley: Twitter (19 December 2011).
Ivan Stang: Portland Memorials (ScrubGenius, 19 December 2011).
Information is “in” these days [1]. Robert Anton Wilson’s Right Where You Are Sitting Now is mainly about information, as is the new Signal catalog from the folks at Whole Earth (who of course have made a career out of spreading information, as indicated by their slogan of “access to tools”).[2] Yet while the phrases “information economy” and “underground economy fall [3] easily from the lips of major pundits, no one has yet combined the implications of these ideas to consider the “underground information economy.”
Clearly there is such an underground economy of information. Just as there is an underground economy of financial transactions, hidden from “official” [4] scrutiny by active or passive design, [5] there is an underground economy of information which is similarly largely unknown to anyone other than its participants. Some [6] have called this “the Network,” but that term is too confining for the reality. [7] The underground information economy is more precisely conceptualized as a network of networks, or a meta-network, with a complex an unvisualizable, though not undiscussable, connectivity.
To show that the underground information economy is structured as a meta-network it suffices to consider the contacts of a typical fanzine editor. Take, for example, Dave Meltzer, editor of The Wrestling Observer. [8] He can probably contact almost anyone in the network centered around the appreciation and examination of professional wrestling very quickly, either through his own mailing list or through those of other zines which he sees. But he is nearly [9] helpless to get in touch with [10] someone whose prime interest is the music of the Beatles, or someone fascinated by the goddess Demeter. The (lack of) relationship is reciprocal: the editors of Good Day Sunshine or Pallas Society News would find it extremely difficult to locate a source of pro wrestling information with their own resources. Yet the music collectors and the pagans have their own well-developed networks, just as the wrestling fans do.
However, there are ways for these disparate networks to communicate, [11] for there are links which span the various networks and give them an overall channel of communication, if they want it. [12] These links are the zines and people who participate actively in more than one of the component networks of the meta-network, such as my own Factsheet Five. [13] These inter-network links are similar to the gateways of the international computerized telecommunications network, but I prefer a visualization more related to the physical universe. If we think of each network as a ball of cotton, with fuzzy edges of connections falling away from the core, then the linking zines are bits of string which tie the various cotton balls together. [14]
That is all very nice, but what’s the point? [15] Well, the meta-network is a more fragile thing than any of its component networks, for it is a much more fragile thing than they are. While each component network has many links between individual zines and people, the meta-network is created by just a few network-spanners. [16] To eliminate the punk music network [17] would require eliminating nearly all of its component pieces, for almost any of the zines could carry on the business of connecting people and exchanging information all by itself. But to eliminate the meta-network would only require destroying a handful [18] of key zines which act as conduits of cross-fertilizing information. [19]
Thus, we [20] can see [21] that while all zines [22] are created [23] equal, [24] some are more equal than others. [25] This idea has consequences. [26]
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[1] Is it possible that our use of “in” to indicate objects and actions which are fashionable itself refers to the process of inviting them “into” our minds? Once something becomes “in” to us, it is a part of us, no longer alienated from us by the barrier between thoughts and actions.
[2] There are of course many classic works focusing on the use and misuse of information as well, from Korzybski’s Science and Sanity to Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.
[3] A word which indicates the lack of volition involved in spreading the cliche variety of meme.
[4] A word with very little information content. Incidentally, the practice of indicating loaded words with quotation marks in speaking by waving a pair of fingers in the air apparently dates back to Korzybski’s lectures.
[5] That is, by hiding or by just not making a lot of fuss.
[6] For example, the Rev. Batrix.
[7] So, for that matter, is any term. Identifying a word as “too confining” is a common ploy to enable the author to dismiss someone else’s work in favor of his own.
[8] One of the beauties of thought experiments – gedankenexperiments to you pendants – is that it is unnecessary to obtain the consent of the experimental subject.
[9] Note this word. We’ll come back to it.
[10] A metaphor for those who prefer a more tactile approach to information.
[11] Admittedly in a slow and imperfect fashion.
[12] We’re back. Did you notice?
[13] If I was properly humble, in the academic mode which this structure seems to indicate, I would have relegated that title to a footnote. But I refuse to let my imagination be bound as much by the form as it “should” be. Indeed, these footnotes are getting progressively more out of hand – another tactile information metaphor.
[14] To complicate the picture beyond our capacity to derive any pedagogic lesson from it, the phenomenon may well be hierarchical and scale-independent. That is, what appears at first to be a meta-network may in turn prove to be a component network of a meta-meta-network, just as Dean Swift’s great fleas were merely resting on the backs of still greater fleas.
[15] As in pencil point; the “point” is the place from which information magically flows – and we know information is in fact magical, for it is nothing more than the old power of naming.
[16] That is, the component networks have more connectivity and are correspondingly more robust. The previous phrase, replete with pompous words, belongs in the main text but has somehow fallen down the page into this footnote. This bodes ill for finishing this paper.
[17] Some neophobes would argue that this is a laudable goal, but in this case it is only an example for purpose of illustration.
[18] Oh no! More tactile metaphors! Why is there this hidden fascination in the language with information as something we can touch and therefore manipulate (from the Latin manus, hand)? Could it be a plot by the creators of language to retain control?
[19] Now there’s an interesting idea: what does information sex look like?
[20] This is, of course, the auctorial we, by which the author – it’s no coincidence that this word is so close to “authoritarian” – attempts to co-opt the reader into agreeing with a conclusion without having time to consider it.
[21] A return to the visual information metaphor initiated by the word “focusing” way back in footnote number 2.
[22] And just why do you accept the idea that all information in the underground is contained in “zines?” Isn’t the spread of dangerous and outrageous ideas by word of mouth at least as important?
[23] Note that we are all convinced information is not a conserved quantity; it is easily created and therefore, reciprocally, destroyed. But that’s the subject for another essay.
[24] A mathematical term dragged into the discourse in order to bolster a weak argument with the authority of the “Queen of Sciences.”
[25] Here the author borrows a metaphor from Orwell’s classic Animal Farm, in order to impress his knowledgeable readers with his erudition. The less knowledgeable readers, perhaps, will think he coined it himself and be impressed with his wordcraft.
[26] As do all ideas, but it’s become obvious that we will not get to the consequences in the main text. Instead, it’s time to finish this essay were it was obviously heading all along, in the footnotes. The possible conclusions bifurcate neatly, depending on the political prejudices of the author. On the one hand, it would be easy to call for the increased support of the critical links which hold the various networks together into the meta-network, as a means of buttressing our civil rights. On the other, it would also be easy to call for more redundancy in the meta-network, which could be achieved by supporting new attempts to build inter-network links. On the third tentacle, perhaps the unexamined assumption that the meta-network is A Good Thing could be called into question – would it really be so bad if a thousand component networks bloomed in isolation? But the entry of the question mark shows that the information content of this essay has come to an end, and so we leave the reader here, probably with a vague sense of being cheated, to devise his own means of escape from this footnote and on to the next piece of text.
OVO 7 Information (October 1989)
Benchmarks for the next two issues of OVO have been accomplished this week.
Primary research for OVO 19 PORTLAND has been completed. This is a book-length record of every memorial in downtown Portland Oregon. As of this week, after three years, I will have walked every street and made note of every address and location. I will have a manuscript in hand by October 2011.
The material for OVO 20 has been compiled. This will be a human-readable anthology of thirty years of my writing and art, as differentiated from the rat’s nest of ovo127.com. OVO 20 will be published simultaneously with OVO 19 PORTLAND.
Welcome to the Easter Challenge! Our panel of experts – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and our Mystery Guest – have two thousand years to give consistent answer to simple questions about the resurrection of Christ. No proof is required, only consistent answers. Our questions are prepared by Dan Baker, author of Losing Faith in Faith.
And now, let’s begin… The Easter Challenge!
from OVO 16 AntiChrist (January 2006)
Tape fragmentation consists of interrupting the audio input to a tape deck from the take deck. That is, using the tape deck to fragment an audio input.
I often record my environment for source material in audio collages and for cassette correspondence. The portable recorder I use has a pause button that slurs when turned on while recording. I decided to see what it would sound like if I turned the pause on and off rapidly while recording. The results cannot be explained by someone who wasn’t there. The sound is alien and familiar at the same time.
My home recorder has a pause function that is exact and without slurs. Using this deck, I fragmented sounds from the radio (mostly classical music and speech), other tapes I’ve produced and sequences programmed into my synthesizer. I also tried unplugging and plugging in the power cord to the tape deck while recording, but the results weren’t satisfactory.
I believe the best fragmentation comes from speech. One can recognize voices and an occasional word, but the overall effect is the destruction of language. Words are cut apart and re-combined in new and unpredictable ways.
Fragmented tapes are very easy to ignore. If you set your mind to something else while listening to a fragmented tape you will find it easy to block out. It is the kind of destroyed sound that you hear when there is a television on in the next room, or when a radio is playing in a passing car. This background noise effect and the ease of creating fragmented tapes makes them ideal audio accompaniments to performances or exhibits for those with limited access to expensive recording equipment.
from OVO 1 (1987)
reprinted in Sound Choice issue 5.
