Pranks, Punk and Industrial Culture from V. Vale

WELCOME TO V. VALE’s RE/SEARCH NEWSLETTER #107, AUGUST 2012 Add Us to Your Address Book! You are Receiving this Email because You or Someone You Know Signed Up to Our Newsletter in the Past. Scroll to the Bottom of this Email to UNSUBSCRIBE.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. MESSAGE FROM YOUR EDITOR, V. VALE: Essay on What Is Poetry & How Is It Made…
2. Counter Culture Hour Sat AUG 11, 2012 – 6:00 PM PACIFIC TIME – SF cable channel 29, also simulcast on-line (see below):
3. **MEDITATION SPACE** [blank]
4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS
5. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing:
6.  Meditation Space #2 (John Cage hommage)
7. Recommended Links – send some!
8. QUOTES
9. Letters from Readers
10. Sponsors (Please check out their websites!)
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1. EDITORIAL FROM V. VALE: Yesterday I wrote a foreword for the forthcoming book of poems, YOU TORE US,  by Meri St. Mary (Housecoat Project; Google her!) and herewith present it to you, our readers, as a kind of essay on poetry.

A forgotten Surrealist said, “Language was given man to make Surrealist use of it.”  On Planet Earth, man is the only animal given a written language. About 140 years ago, Lautreamont claimed that, “Poetry must be made by all.” So, does everyone have the DUTY to write and speak poetically, as much as possible? Quite possibly!

Written language is a kind of privilege, enabling poetry, philosophy and scientific knowledge to be transmitted through time. As Burroughs put it (paraphrased): No matter how much a wise old rat may learn about avoiding traps and poison, he can’t pass his wisdom on to younger rats. Humans can — or at least can try –  if a suitable audience can be found (Burroughs considered the purpose of his writing “to wise up the marks”).

WHAT IS POETRY? Socrates told us, “Before I can converse with you, we must first define our terms.” Buckminster Fuller gave us a kind of technical definition, “Poetry is ventilated prose.” Surrealists thought that poetry encompassed metaphor, the dream dimension, and desire. They championed “desiring images” in search of each other, otherworldly dream sequences which provide revelatory insights, Chance, Spontaneity, and Possession. Also, the sonic dimension of language was regarded as supremely important — i.e., in order to fully appreciate a poem, you must read it out loud (or at least sub-vocalize as you are reading it). Puns, rhymes, rhythms, cadence can all add a dimension of PLEASURE to the reading/speaking experience… And whatever you write, make sure it has jagged line endings, or resembles the geometric calligrammes of Apollinaire.

So how is poetry made? Before written language was invented, poetry had to be MEMORIZED — and who knows how much great poetry was lost forever, all around the world? In the 20th century, the ability to read and write is practically a universal birthright — along with the availability of cheap notebooks and ballpoint pens. Everyone with a pocket or tote bag could carry the wherewithall to quickly jot down sudden, illuminative flashes of poetry — which have a habit of showing up at the most inopportune times. Write down enough of these insights and you might have a poem. Write enough poems and you might have a book.

We’re guessing that Meri St. Mary, in her complicated histories (Punk Rock singer, band leader, songwriter, musician, muse to Flipper vocalist Bruce Loose, mother to their son Montgomery, DJ, radio talk show host, fashion innovator, holder of numerous day jobs, and friend to Monte Cazazza, et al) has been writing down poetic narratives for many a year, capturing that still small voice which is inside all of us, but rarely ever put into writing with uncensored honesty.

Meri has dared to communicate the REAL DEAL, the RAW DEAL, the REAL/UNREAL TRUTH/UNTRUTH — as experienced in a female body which has lived intensely, felt emotions intensely. She’s had the courage to forge her own path and survive in a capitalist, misogynistic world. We live through our bodies; our bodies speak the truth if we but listen. The very title of this collection “You Tore Us” is (of course) a pun on “uterus” – the creative matrix of every human alive on the planet. We live and learn and acquire experiences and things and then we stop and make assessment, like Allen Ginsberg did with “Howl.” Surely Meri’s equivalent of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is her life-inventory-synopsis poem: “I have…”

Here finally, a  collection of Meri St. Mary’s  poems is available in a real paperbound book published by an intrepid, non-commercial (but visionary) publisher. Poetry is a form of Time Travel, and we hope these poems find their deserving readers across time and space. Duchamp told us that “the spectator completes the work of art,” so does that mean that the reader completes the poem? Perhaps. – V. Vale

2. Counter Culture Hour -  Sat AUG 11, 2012 – 6:00 PM PACIFIC TIME.

This program was filmed “out in the field” at at least two locations in the Bay Area and features Stelarc, Marie Losier & Genesis P-Orridge.
Stelarc’s “artwork” consists of human-machine and biotechnology “mash-ups,” using his body as base matter. Marie Losier is the filmmaker behind the recently released, “Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye,” the two musician/ artists who had been trying to create a third gender.
Edited/filmed/produced by Marian Wallace;  interviews by V. Vale.
The Counter Culture Hour (aka RE/SEARCH TV) is also simulcast ON-LINE as well as on cable access San Francisco Channel 29 — 6pm Pacific Time, Sat  AUG 11, 2012
- see this link at broadcast time:

http://72.47.201.244/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1881&Itemid=1801

You need a fairly decent internet connection and computer to “get it.”
USA west coast: 6:00 PM Saturday, Aug 11, 2012
USA east coast: 9:00 PM Saturday, Aug 11, 2012
London: 2:00 AM Sunday, Aug 12, 2012
Tokyo: 10:00 AM Sunday, Aug 12, 2012
If you cannot get this online email us at info@researchpubs.com
Would you like to have a Counter Culture Hour showing in your town? Please write & ask us how you can do this. (write:  info@researchpubs.com)

See RE/Search channel on youtube: “researchpubs”

3. This is blank space a la John Cage aka “Meditation Space”!

4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS (San Francisco unless Otherwise Noted)

() $ NOW THROUGH AUG 19, 2012: de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park: Jean Paul Gaultier Show. Certainly anybody interested in “Punk Rock” will appreciate this over-the-top, erotic, imaginatively-extravagant art installation by one of the reigning masters of catwalk costumery. We saw the de Young’s screening of the film, “Jean Paul Gaultier, or How to Subvert Haute Couture,” a 52-minute film by Farida Khelfa, 2011. The Gaultier show is guaranteed to make you dissatisfied with what passes for style and fashion today; so many of his ideas have yet to be developed, dumbed down and exploited! You realize there is such a thing as a grander visual language involving materials, textures, surfaces, braiding, beading and knitting and that almost any textile can be deployed in a hitherto-un-thought-of juxtaposition. Hopefully wannabe designers will carry on Gaultier’s groundbreaking, avantgarde explorations…

() $$ NOW THROUGH AUG 12, 2012: a William S. Burroughs Exhibition: the name is BURROUGHS − Expanded Media  [ www.zkm.de ] Curators: Udo Breger, Axel Heil and Peter Weibel – publications will be available…

() $$ NOW THROUGH OCT 21, 2012, Vienna, Austria: Cut-ups, Cut-ins, Cut-outs, The Art of William S. Burroughs KUNSTHALLE wien museumsquartier hall 2.
Exhibition Catalogue: Ed. KUNSTHALLE wien, Colin Fallows, Synne Genzmer; with texts by Colin Fallows, Synne Genzmer, Barry Miles, Jon Savage as well as the first and the last interview with William S. Burroughs conducted by Allen Ginsberg and Lee Ranaldo respectively; app. 288 pages; app. 160 color images; German/English; Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg  http://www.kunsthallewien.at/cgi-bin/event/event.pl?id=4625&lang=en

() $20 Aug 2-25, Darkroomsf.com presents live theatre: “The Princess Bride” here in San Francisco at 2263 Mission/18-19th Sts. Live theater is very hard to keep going, so — you know, support local talent…

() FREE. Sat Aug 11, 11AM North Beach’s Italian Athletic Club hosts a free shindig. 1630 Stockton/nr Union St, across from Washington Square Park.

() $10, Sun Aug 12, 8pm, Red Devil Lounge, 1690 Polk St/Clay St, SF. Jill Tracy & SoRIAH. reddevillounge.com

() FREE. Sun Aug 12, 4-7pm Thee Parkside hosts free Rockabilly Day. 1600 17th St nr Arkansas St, SF

() $ Thur Aug 16, 730pm, ROXIE Theater, SF: ERASERHEAD, showing where I first saw it w/Jerry Casale of Devo…David Lynch’s Early Feature Is a bizarre breakthrough; amazing “sound design” before the term was invented. This 35mm print has the improved soundtrack done by Lynch’s fellow-student, Alan Splet before he died. Support the ROXIE so it doesn’t leave us, like the Red Vic did…

() SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA! Free. Tue Aug 21, 6-8pm. JG BALLARD-inspired Art Show curated by Jack Sargeant includes Monte Cazazza, Lydia Lunch. Alaska Projects, www.alaskaprojects.com

() FREE. Fri Aug 24, 6:30-9:30pm, 1AMSF.com, 1000 Howard/6th St, SF. Art Opening w/Mark Bode, Vaughn Bode, Metal Mike, 21+. Show runs thru Sept 22.

() FREE. Sat Aug 25, 5-8pm. Electric Works gallery housewarming party, 1360 Mission St/9th-10th Sts, SF.

() FREE. Sat-Sun Sept 1-2, County Fair Bldg, 9th Ave/Lincoln Way, SF: SF ZINE FEST. RE/SEARCH will have a table w/Charles Gatewood – please meet us and try to buy RE/Search books you have procrastinated acquiring; we’ll autograph ‘em, of course.

() $ Mon Sept 10, 7pm, Warfield, SF: DEVO plus BLONDIE play San Francisco! A Must for the Elect. http://thewarfieldtheatre.com/eventdetail.php?id=36409

5. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening to/What We’ve Been Sent

() 7/9/12: V. Vale interview in the 2nd hour only of Radio Valencia/Scream For Peace/topics: Punk Rock, Poetry, Surrealism http://radiovalencia.fm/screamforpeace/2012/07/09/s-c-r-e-a-m-for-p-e-a-c-e-about-punk-rock-pyramids/

() Thu July 12, Brava Theater, 24th/York St, SF: Hypnodrome/Thrillpeddlers re-presentation of MARAT/SADE gave a new appreciation of 3D theatre: Music. Actors running into the audience! These are the times that try (wo)men’s souls! Preview video: http://thrillpeddlers.com/press/MARAT/video.html – “Revolution NOW!”

() Fri July 13, 2012: STEVEN WOLF FINE ARTS, 2747 19th St/York, SF: Punk Art Show! Kal Spelletich, Matt Heckert, Steve Tupper, Karen Marcelo, Nina Alter, M.Dingle. Marian Wallace had Art on the walls, along w/Exene, Penelope Houston, David J (Bauhaus) and others.

() Sat July 28, 4-630pm: Winston Smith’s Grant’s Tomb Gallery, 55 Bannam Alley, hosted a conversation with Penelope Rosemont & Dennis Cunningham, moderated by V. Vale on the topics of Surrealism & Its Relevance Today, Making Art w/Found Materials, Collage, and more… Watch for video in future Counter Culture Hours

() Sat July 28, 8-11pm: Roxie Theater, San Francisco, hosted a showing of rare San Francisco short Punk Rock films from the ’70s-early ’80s, curated by Gina Basso, and assisted by the Roxie staff. Filmmakers Mindy Bagdon & Liz Keim did a Q&A afterwards, along with V. Vale. Marian Wallace’s documentary of V. Vale talking about “Search & Destroy” was partially screened (8 minutes)…

() July 29, 2012: SFMOMA had 2 other fantastic shows today: NAOYA HATAKEYAMA’s explosive landscapes, & the BUCKMINSTER FULLER overview/retrospective w/videos. Next, after devouring the CINDY SHERMAN Show, I kept seeing women who looked like Cindy Sherman, everywhere! It was a small day-mare… Thanks Paul Clipson.

() Fri Aug 3, 6-10pm. Emerald Tablet, 80 Fresno, SF: Reception for Sandro Sardella, w/Jack Hirschman present! June 29, Emerald Tablet also hosted a showing of a Bela Tarr film, “Werckmeister Harmonies.” Loved those long 11-minute takes, which demand “perfect” acting from all in the frame. Nice music. It’s a rare opportunity to see a film by Bela Tarr!

() Sat Aug 4, 8-11pm. Hypnodrome thrillpeddlers.com. Benefit for Galen Tsonga (Ecuador Adventure) w/Scrumbly Coldwyn, Rumi Missabu (Cockettes) & others. V. Vale interviewed Galen live and played piano – one improvisation.

() Sun Aug 5, 12-7pm. “Prepare for Burning Man” Street Party (entire block), Cafe Cocomo (actually, it was closed down by the Health Dept!?), 650 Indiana St bet 18th-19th St, 4 blocks west of 3rd St. RE/Search had a small book table. Very fun fashion show!

() Our pal from the ’80s NYC underground scene, Michael Shamberg, sent his beautiful all-color 6.8×6.8″ book of his photographs on glossy paper. Nice! From the ruins of Beirut to Bryant Park, passing through Paris & more. Enclosed was a DVD titled “p.s. Beirut chapter I + II. Contact RE/Search if you are interested in obtaining a copy of the above…

() The drummer (Emily Rose) for a local “band” titled TY SEGALL sent us a CD titled “Slaughterhouse” — the band has a number of releases out and are currently touring Europe — like, San Francisco musicians “makes good.” We’re always pleased when this happens, just to PROVE that the Bay Area is actually the place where a lot of ground-breaking art-and-creativity has ORIGINATED, not to mention SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (Beat, Hippie, even Punk)… Emily also sent a gift copy of Joan Didion’s Slouching Toward Bethlehem — great portrayal of America in the Sixties…Thanks, Emily!

() James Reich, POB 732, Cerrillos NM 87010, sent us his beautiful novel titled “I, JUDAS” (with, appropriately, a goat’s head on the cover). Right from the prologue, this dark work-of-the-imagination is refulgent with “poetic” language: “He moved between morbid articulations of rock and dull signatures of slime, following the quartz-lined way of Virgil, the lantern-lit coils of Dante, down through the splay of fossilized vegetation, shoals of crystallized fish [shades of JG Ballard!], a vertiginous landfill of microchips, pterodactyls, and religious billboards, compressed jungles, sedimentary cities, rotting wings of cinema screens, diving boards, neon, crushed statuary, ashen corpses like nameless buildings…” This is the kind of writing we like! It was published by Soft Skull Press, an impritn of Counterpoint in Berkeley. Also enclosed was a CD with striking artwork titled VENUS BOGARDUS, from www.five03.com – great sleeve photographs by Michele Maier. These are worth taking the trouble to FIND….

() Karen Marcelo of SRL hosted a highly-crowded event featuring (2) Drone Warfare presentations. Daniel Suarez (Daniel-Suarez.com) told us about his new novel, Kill Decision, about autonomous combat drones. Didn’t realize that drones could also operate underwater as well as on land. As his PR blurb states, “he takes the very real implications of automated war to its next logical step.” Scary: the notion of autonomous rogue combat drones. Parker Higgins gave a heavily-documented presentation titled “Pwn the Drones: A Survey of UAV Hacks and Exploits”: “Internationally, drones are being deployed for military action and observation. At home, police departments, border patrols, and others are acquiring UAVs and developing programs to fly them…think tasers and rubber bullets shot from the sky. But a series of alarming events over the past few years have demonstrated that many of these unmanned vehicles are dangerously vulnerable to exploits, leading to intercepted data, flight failures, and even remote takeovers (!)…privacy and security implications” were discussed, and more… Parker Higgins is an EFF associate whose Twitter feed is @drones. (This was a very disturbing presentation.)

() Last Gasp’s latest release is Pop Psychedelic, 336pp, 8.5×11″, 300+ color illustrations, from lastgasp.com

() Our former intern Joe Donohoe’s latest Specious Species #5, 186pp. features David King (designed CRASS logo), John Shirley, Alex Grey, Mark McCloud, Clayton Patterson, Bret Easton Ellis & others. $8 from 3345 20th St, SF CA 94110. Release party (at Viracocha) footage https://vimeo.com/album/1976182

6. Meditation Space #2

7. RECOMMENDED LINKS (send some!)

() V. Vale interview by Nate Luce (print, not video):  http://adhoc.fm/post/search-destroys-v-vale-talks-about-zines/
- V. Vale intv by Aslan & Jennifer Russell: http://radiovalencia.fm/screamforpeace/2012/07/09/s-c-r-e-a-m-for-p-e-a-c-e-about-punk-rock-pyramids/
- V. Vale intv by Ami Lawless: (not yet posted?)

() SRL new spine robot video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cu847EYutI

() “Burroughsian” Ed Hardy brand launch in Shanghai: http://www.tanfei015.com/2012/06/28/41.html

() meta-driving in San Francisco: http://youtu.be/LuDN2bCIyus

() Tinguely! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl_WVGDzxT4&feature=endscreen&NR=1

() from James: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuDN2bCIyus&feature=g-sptl&cid=inp-hs-edt
- http://www.youtube.com/user/marlanembutol/videos?query=another+state+of+mind
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQkfWQzI-PU (Adobe Bookstore art show)

() Antony Gormley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT7_-XyDHEA&feature=related

() Arthur Lipsett, 1962: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sye1PbLbzhg&feature=related

() Vorarlberg, Die Grosse Naturdokumentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY863ex_8D8&NR=1&feature=endscreent

() Ornella Muti: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKaMUa3NKlU&feature=related

() Hermann Nitsch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnnUqSQJtkI
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2T3iqghVFE
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVcuFuZr8cU&feature=related

() from Phil G: http://staircasewriting.blogspot.com/2010/01/abba-zaba-holy-grail.html
- http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/2012/07/shutterbug-friday-12-strangelove-of.html

() We THANK the person who wrote this [Sean Reveron?]:  “RE/Search: V.Vale of…Search & Destroy Magazine Speaks Real Talk! – Posted In Avant Garde,Documentaries,Film,Positive Punk
“17 minutes of pure inspiration is what you will see when you watch this video. V. Vale, the founder of Search & Destroy magazine from San Francisco, speaks about how punk rock was a cultural revolution. Honestly, there is nothing that he says in this video that I disagree with, mainly because of the honest place he is coming from. I remember Search & Destroy magazine as a youngster – I actually thought of it as a cooler version of Slash. Listening to V. Vale break it down about how he started this magazine gives me so much energy to do what we do. This radical piece of alternative print history was created way before the internet. This is why I feel that it is very important for the younger generation to hear what V. Vale ia saying, because his point of view comes from a pure punk rock foundation. The look of this magazine was way before its time and to this day it can’t be duplicated. For those that were living in San Francisco during this time, this video is a blast from the past, and for others it offers a life lesson. CVLT Nation salutes V.Vale and Search & Destroy magazine for creating real art for us all to read! Peep this killer video after the jump.” http://www.cvltnation.com/research-v-vale-of-search-destroy-magazine-speaks-real-talk/

() from V in London: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/london-and-the-2012-olympic-games-a-match-made-in-hell-a-844599.html
http://www.martinbackes.com/pixelhead-limited-edition/  – (is it art?)

() “Hey Vale here is the url for the Specious Species #5Release party (at Viracocha) footage https://vimeo.com/album/1976182 — Joe

() from Stephane von Stephane: “Link to sunday N.Y. times – a little piece about Genesis P-Orridge & diabetes:”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/nyregion/genesis-breyer-p-orridge-stays-in-on-sundays-and-misses-lady-jaye.html?smid=tw-nytimesarts&seid=auto

() from B: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J79ThhMuxWg&feature=related

() https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/arts/music/for-more-pianos-last-note-is-thud-in-the-dump.html?pagewanted=2&_r=3&ref=arts&pagewanted=all

8. QUOTES chosen by, or authored by, V. Vale

() “There’s no such thing as pure chance…If you kept up with the news, you’d know that there’s nothing else.” — “Back to Bologna” by Michael Dibdin (R.I.P.)

() “Failure is the key to everything…Well, the possibility of failure. That’s the truth maker, as philosophers say. The only authentic tasks are those at which you can fail.” – ibid, pp. 92-93.

() “I hate telephones, I hate computers, I hate this technology that is stealing our souls!… Your problem… is that you’ve been educated beyond your intelligence.” op cit, p. 93

() “I practice all the scales. Everyone should know lots of scales. Actually, I feel there are only scales. What is a chord, if not notes of a scale hooked together? There are several reasons for learning scales: one, the knowledge will unlock the neck for you–you’ll learn the instrument; second, if I say I want you to improvise over Gmaj7+5, then go to Eaug9-5, then to Bmaj7-5–well, if you don’t know what those chords are in scale terms, you’re lost. It’s not all that difficult, but you have to be ready to apply yourself.”–John McLaughlin

() “The revolution is dead… Capitalist society that treats human beings like cattle has won, and with it all the false ideologies: democracy, freedom of expression, justice before the law, women’s rights… The working class has been reduced to a brainwashed horde of cretinous consumers… There’s no desire to improve things anymore. The false authorities herd people… use people up, now as then… This is how it has always been, but today it is governments elected by the people that permit the buyers of labor to exploit us until we break… There’ll never be any revolution. Humanity has bartered it for Coca-Cola and cable television.” – Liza Marklund, Red Wolf, Feb 2011, p. 335 – she is a Nordic Noir mystery writer recommended by Henning Mankell. Maybe “cable television” has been superseded (as a narcotic) by endless access to YouTube Internet videos, FaceBook, etc…

() Who else has written an “update” of Voltaire’s CANDIDE besides Leonardo Sciascia (CANDIDO)? Fast, Funny, Hypocrisy-Skewering. We Need More!

() Where Have All the WISE MEN Gone? July 30-31, 2012 we Lost GORE VIDAL & CHRIS MARKER, ARTISTS w/GENIUS. ETHICS. CONSCIENCE. HUMOR. DRIVE. ACHIEVEMENTS. R.I.P.

() Fellini’s ROMA has to be one of THE BEST GOODBYES Anyone ever left us. Time. Beauty. Desire. Spontaneity. Improvisation. Decay. Speed. Death.

() PROOFREADING is a MIRROR of your ABILITY TO CONCENTRATE (or INABILITY). Consciousness = Swiss Cheese–Even if You’re a Genius! So Be Humble.

() DEVOLUTION trumps evolution – just study HISTORY! Every Advance Gets Turned Into a Liability. It’s a “Miracle” Humans have lasted This Long!

() Philip Kaufman’s “THE RIGHT STUFF” is a 3-hour Marathon posing the questions: “WHO Has the RIGHT STUFF?” & “Is it Environment or Character?”

() POLICY: Don’t Mention A Project Until AFTER It’s DONE! Unless you need Somebody to Help You — Tell People on a Need-to-Know Basis ONLY!

() LIFE LESSON: Start making collages when you are YOUNG & Never Throw Out Any. Make at Least One a Week if You can. YOU WILL GET BETTER!

() GOAL: Try to STAY UP ALL NIGHT at Least ONCE A YEAR! You may view the earth & fellow earthlings differently — at least temporarily!

() A massive STOCKHOLM SYNDROME has imprisoned voters in the USA: many of the 99% identify with the values of the 1%. Not “us,” of course!

() Saw NIGHT OF THE HUNTER: A Classic Arguing that B&W May Supersede Color & That Silent Films can provide Excellence. So, Less CAN Trump More.

() Whatever happened to Silvana Mangano? Marco Ferreri? Ornella Muti? Monica Vitti? Gunter Brus? Otto Muehl? Young, Beautiful, Rebellious &…

() A new favorite artist is Jane Graverol – unique style of collage, plus photo-surrealist painting, plus Coco Chanel-ish fashion sense. R.I.P.

() SEX, BOMBS & BURGERS [book] distills much research into clear writing: “War & Sex x Technology = The Future,” to augment JG BALLARD’s principle…

() You can read William S. Burroughs until you’re dead, & still not fully encompass his coruscating vision, sardonic humor, predictions, advice. (Same for J.G. Ballard.)

9. LETTERS FROM READERS:

() “Hey Vale; I was impressed with your acknowledgment of the noise scene in your most recent newsletter. Noise is the last great secret society, albeit an unintentional one. At no other point in modern history have so many people, in so many countries, for so many years gone largely unnoticed by both the mainstream AND the wider underground. This despite the openness and non-eliteness of the scene. This despite 30+ years of releases, zines, radio shows, record shops, gigs, blogs, sites, DVDs, and history. It never took off like the industrial music scene did, but because so many new kids keep getting involved every 12 or so years, the scene keeps re-inventing itself. Unlike most other scenes, Noise remains as active, and as passionate as ever. Kudos to you sir; ALL THE BEST, GX” www.jupitter-larsen.com pob1386, Hollywood CA 90078

() “hey v.! how are you, all good? will be in SFO in july (& September)! the kickstarter for our film is up, that’s a kind of online donation box! please help spread the word! (i know that you probably don’t have money to throw in, but distribution would be really great. maybe you could post the link of facebook or twitter or your blog.)
–> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/monochrom/sierra-zulu  would really help! cheers!”  -  johannes from monochrom (Austrian art-philosophy-technology group)

() TU LAN (6th St/Market) & Sam Wo (Washington St/above Grant Ave) Recently CLOSED. “The only pathogen that can survive 350 degree frying oil is a prion, and if it eats your brain, you’ll be too dumb to care!  We loved that place, and never got sick either. Between Tu Lan and Sam Wo closing, I get the feeling a new sheriff is in the health department with a do-good complex.” – Doug S.

() “I read your Leary On Drugs book while on my Alaska cruise. What a document! The book was very well put together. I feel like I understand the late twentieth century a lot better after reading it. Great job!” – J.Wilson

() “Dear V. Vale, Just finished reading your newsletter. #106 found me… Your newsletter is, as always, a portal to a rich creative world when few outlets offer anything of substance. Just thought you should know that your work is appreciated, valued and anticipated…” – sent by artist Jennifer Kornder — check out her paintings and art online by goggling her! And yes, we like HER artwork…

10. **SPONSORS** (Without them you would NOT be receiving this newsletter – Please go to their websites!)
1. 47 Canal Street (Gallery w/events, NYC) – 47Canal Street.com
2.  Emerald Tablet (Gallery w/events), Fresno Alley (100 feet from RE/Search! in North Beach). emtab.org – lots of free or low cost local community events; check out their schedule! http://emtab.org/
3. Mrs Dalloway (Catering, Bay Area): Holly Erickson’s catering/foodblog/cookbook
www.mrsdallowayscatering.com and lightscameracuisine.foodblog.com
4. Contribute to (& Order copies of!) “OUT OF OUR” – Steven Gray & Sarah Page’s San Francisco Poetry Magazine:  outofour.com
5. From our friends Amy and Brian: check out their  “simple business software for art galleries: gallerystar.com
6. Jason Weiss’ (knew Brion Gysin) writing website:  www.itinerariesofahummingbird.com and his new book/history of ESP-Disk: www.upne.com/0819571588.html
7. V. Vale’s RE/Search Newsletter is cordially sponsored by “Beyond the Beyond.”
Information Wants To Be Free WE MEAN IT MAN! $0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0 http://blog.wired.com/sterling
RE/Search THANKS (3) SPONSORS who Wish to Remain Anonymous – you know who you are! And yes, we NEEDED Your Support!

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AUGUST 2012 RE/Search eNewsletter written by V. Vale & other contributors. RE/Search website powered by http://www.laughingsquid.com.  Add us (“info@researchpubs.com”) to Your Address Book
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Physical Address since May 1979: RE/SEARCH | 20 Romolo #B | San Francisco CA 94133-4041 | 415.362.1465
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WELCOME TO V. VALE’s RE/SEARCH NEWSLETTER #106, July 2012 Add Us to Your Address Book! You are Receiving this Email because You or Someone You Know Signed Up to Our Newsletter in the Past. Scroll to the Bottom of this Email to UNSUBSCRIBE.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. MESSAGE FROM YOUR EDITOR, V. VALE: Who says there’s no “Underground” anymore?
2. Counter Culture Hour Sat July 14, 2012 – 6:00 PM PACIFIC TIME – SF cable channel 29, also simulcast on-line (see below): Genesis P-Orridge, Marie Losier, Stelarc
3. **MEDITATION SPACE** [blank]
4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS
5. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing:
6. Meditation Space #2
7. Recommended Links – send some!
8. QUOTES
9. Letters from Readers
10. Sponsors (Please check ‘em out!)
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1. EDITORIAL FROM V. VALE: Who says there’s no “Underground” anymore?

(Well, anytime there is a real live SRL show, there is a distilled, concentrated “underground” present. But otherwise…)

RE/Search’s last book was titled “OF INTERCOURSE AND INTRACOURSE” – why is RE/Search interested in the effects of technology upon social — as well as sexual — behavior?! Because we are being changed and we don’t understand what’s really going on, how it’s happening, the long-term consequences, et al. Recently we received a visit from NYC gallerist Margaret Lee, visiting from 47CanalStreet, who brought up RE/Search’s interest in technology (well, we learned from J.G. Ballard that “sex times technology equals the future”). Ms. Lee’s distinct born-and-raised-in-New-York-City viewpoint contrasted with our Wild West Coast/California/Silicon Valley orientation. At age 32 she felt she was part of a “transition” generation — i.e., familiar with life BEFORE the Internet, and immersed in life NOW post-Internet.
She wanted to know what “hip underground” phenomena might be happening now? Or is it possible to have a “Virtual or Internet Underground” movement made up of people who have never been in the same room together? Of course, we thought NOT…
What did we think of OCCUPY, she wondered, before expressing concern that certain “hip” young artists she encountered had participated in and tried to acquire the “street credibility” associated with being an Occupy protestor … while in real life seeming to be just as anxious to be millionaires as any Wall Street trader, just manifesting this in a different way: “Why didn’t you show my art to that zillionaire art collector?” “Well, I may not enjoy making cold calls all that much.” “Why not — that’s what you’re here to do?!” We thought this was a case-by-case basis — all young artists are striving to find a way to avoid having to have a “day job” — waiter, bartender, cab driver, et al. Hmm…
Again, everytime we are privileged to attend any kind of an “SRL” experience we feel that at least the “theory” of the “underground” still exists. But, we’re in a different time. Now everybody wants their “underground art/music/film” to go VIRAL as fast as possible! Yes, millions of “hits” — and RIGHT NOW! — is a widespread fervently-held desire and ambition of countless young people in “edgy” bands and… And part of this involves continual Twitter/FB/Tumblr (& their future successors) posting which sucks away entire lifetimes fast. Worse still, this posting-your-entire-lives-online plays into the hands of the Stasi of the future — who says “It can’t happen here”? (It already has, what with the slamming of 120,00 Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during World War II, right here in the U.S. of A… Are Muslims next?)
Well, recently on Sat June 23 we felt we had truly experienced an “underground” that we had sadly lost sight of over the years: the NOISE MUSIC UNDERGROUND. If you want to read more, there’s a long report on the “SF DISSONANCE PARTY” below… Meantime, let’s all hunker down in front of our laptop screens and iPhones and — you know — keep doing our RE/SEARCH… – Your Editor, V. Vale

2. Counter Culture Hour – Sat July 14, 2012 – 6:00 PM PACIFIC TIME.

This program was filmed “out in the field” at at least two locations in the Bay Area and features Genesis P-Orridge, Marie Losier, and Stelarc (thank you, Ken Goldberg, for Stelarc)
Edited/filmed/produced by Marian Wallace; interviews by V. Vale.
The Counter Culture Hour (aka RE/SEARCH TV) is also simulcast ON-LINE as well as on cable access San Francisco Channel 29 — 6pm Pacific Time, Sat July 14, 2012
- see this link at broadcast time:

http://72.47.201.244/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1881&Itemid=1801

You need a fairly decent internet connection and computer to “get it.”
USA west coast: 6:00 PM Saturday, July 14, 2012
USA east coast: 9:00 PM Saturday, July 14, 2012
London: 2:00 AM Sunday, July 15, 2012
Tokyo: 10:00 AM Sunday, July 15, 2012
If you cannot get this online email us at info@researchpubs.com
Would you like to have a Counter Culture Hour showing in your town? Please write & ask us how you can do this. (write: info@researchpubs.com)

See RE/Search channel on youtube: “researchpubs”

3. This is blank space a la John Cage aka “Meditation Space”!

4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS (San Francisco unless Otherwise Noted)

() Wed July 11 Marc Huestis is presenting Marat/Sade by thrillpeddlers.com – see preview video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mwj4hZvQ7k&feature=share Support the Hypnodrome, S.F.’s unique Grand Guignol/Humor Noir Revival Theatre showcase. Children ages 8-15 can take summer creepshow camps ( http://thrillpeddlers.com/creepshow-camp-2012/ ), which teach the arcane arts of applying fake wounds, blood, gore and zombie makeup!

() REMINDER: Worth a Trip to GERMANY: RIGHT NOW THROUGH AUG 12, 2012: a William S. Burroughs Exhibition: the name is BURROUGHS − Expanded Media [ www.zkm.de ] Curators: Udo Breger, Axel Heil and Peter Weibel – publications will be available…

() FREE. Fri July 6, 6-9pm, SOMARTS “Performing Community” PARTY, 934 Brannan/8th-9th Sts. Featuring a 7pm performance by SF Rock Project and an exhibition introduction by curators Kara Q. Smith and Laura Poppiti. www.somarts.org or call 415-863-1414.

() FREE. Fri July 6 5pm-late. Last Gasp annual art show will be at 111 Minna and it is 21 and over.

() $ Sat July 7 9pm, Parkside, 1600 17th St/Carolina-Arkansas, SF: Meri St-Mary supports Deborah Iyall (Romeovoid). The poster says “Donations Yo!” Meri will have a new poetry book release soon.

() $ Wed July 11, 7pm: Victoria Thtr, 16th St/near Mission, 9/11 documentary: http://911expertsspeakout.org/

() $ Thur July 12, 8pm?, Cat Club, 1190 Folsom St, SF: RE/Search will have a table (come & meet us) at the 14th Anniversary Celebration of David J from Bauhaus – http://www.reverbnation.com/davidjofficial – titled “Search & Destroy.” Yes, we will have issues of “Search & Destroy” for sale, plus a few other titles…

() $ Sat July 14, 9pm, Parkside: Meat Sluts (all-girl group), more

() FREE (but, RSVP). SAT JULY 21, 1-3pm: “Dunes, Trains, and Beer: The Buried History of SOMA,” a walking tour facilitated by Greene and Shaping San Francisco, connects the sentiments depicted in Greene’s mural with the survival skills utilized by SOMA residents past and present. Must be there by 1pm when walking tour with Susan Greene & Shaping San Francisco begins at SOMArts. RSVP: somawalk.eventbrite.com

() FREE. Fri July 27, 530pm, Critical Mass: Justin HermanPlaza, Market/Embarcadero St, SF – bring: Bike. Lights. Helmet.

() WE WOULD LOVE TO ATTEND: Cut-ups, Cut-ins, Cut-outs, The Art of William S. Burroughs KUNSTHALLE wien museumsquartier hall 2 June 15th – October 21th, 2012 (Vienna, Austria)
William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997), an icon of the American Beat Generation, has fascinated the public mainly because of his image as an excessive writer addicted to drugs who inadvertently shot his wife in a bizarre William Tell act. Admired as a revolutionary and homosexual intellectual and criticized for his enthusiasm for firearms, he established a new form of writing: the cut-up method. Text fragments are intuitively strung together to form open associative narrative structures in order to expand the boundaries of language and describe human consciousness. The visionary author talked about the “Electronic Revolution” as early as 1970. He influenced countercultures from the acid scene to punk and achieved late popularity in the young New York art world of the 1980s.
Assembling Burroughs’s legendary shotgun paintings and cut-ups in such different media as text-image collages, photo montages, and tape experiments, the exhibition highlights the cross-over character of his oeuvre, which has influenced wide areas of pop culture, music, and techniques of digital sampling. Beyond that, the show presents itself as the portrait of a great author who was the inspiring personality for the Beats with their freethinking redefinition of the American way of life.
Curators: Colin Fallows, Synne Genzmer- Exhibition Catalogue: Ed. KUNSTHALLE wien, Colin Fallows, Synne Genzmer; with texts by Colin Fallows, Synne Genzmer, Barry Miles, Jon Savage as well as the first and the last interview with William S. Burroughs conducted by Allen Ginsberg and Lee Ranaldo respectively; app. 288 pages; app. 160 color images; German/English; Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg

http://www.kunsthallewien.at/cgi-bin/event/event.pl?id=4625&lang=en

5. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening to/What We’ve Been Sent

() A slightly long-winded introduction: Our former intern Graphic Garrett invited RE/Search to have a table at SF Dissonance Party, Sat June 23, 3pm-midnite. Garrett was a student at the Art Institute of San Francisco and did photography and graphic art and also was in several bands — well, he still does all this. He moved down to Southern California and formed a band with “Joshtopia” called “Torn by Teeth”. Josh organized the SF Dissonance Party, and that’s why we showed up at The Lab, 2994 16th St/near Mission at 2pm to set up our table.
We can’t claim to have kept up with the proliferation of “noise music” and all its permutations since publishing THE INDUSTRIAL CULTURE HANDBOOK — after 1983 there have been so many bands and so many records from all over the planet! I don’t know what I was expecting, but here’s what happened. The Lab is a fairly large L-shaped white-wall room. When we went up the stairs, there was a container of free orange earplugs — I took some, and they were definitely NECESSARY. Turning right to go inside to the main room, I saw folding tables all over the place and a row of folding chairs against the wall. There was no stage. It seemed that the (17) acts scheduled were to set up at various tables here and there, like, more “democratically”? (It turned out that the way you knew the next act was starting was when Josh screamed at the top of his lungs an “announcement” (I heard his loud voice yelling, but never once understood a word!) Five speakers on stands were spread throughout the room and a guy named Mike was running a small mixing board next to my book table. (He was also reading a book on Russia, which he hoped to visit soon.) With no “stage” it seemed like this was going to be a more “casual” event. It turned out each act was limited to 15 minutes — merciful, as noise can be very loud and intense, but, thankfully low-volume French female pop music from the sixties was playing between sets, provided by Josh’s iPod. I heard a lot of music I had never heard before and which I liked.
At 3:50pm there were mostly just noise musicians setting up their tables when the first act, DAS BLUT (a solo cellist named Tena dressed in tattoos and all-black clothing, w/effects boxes in a silver suitcase) gave her 15 minutes — too bad there weren’t more people there, as this was one of my favorite “mini-concerts.” I love the tonality of the cello and “took the trip” as noise and various effects crept in until what she did almost sounded like a full orchestra, then died down. The End. Tena played sitting on the floor (or on a chair) and stayed there on the floor packing up her gear (large black “purse,” silver suitcase on a wheeled luggage rack, cello in a nylon instrument case with shoulder straps). I offered to help her exit but she said, “No thanks, I live very close to here. I’ll be back.” *(Actually, she didn’t return ’til Bastard Noise played, whereupon she hid, sitting on the floor leaning against a side wall, out of sight.)
Next up was Medicine Cabinet: a large young man wearing a cap sitting down at a folding table producing loud noise out of several devices including a small mixing board? It was intense. Then he was applauded.
Next we recognized the tall, wolfish-faced Kent Cates, (‘Lektricman) who had been associated for years with Survival Research Laboratories (SRL). He “played” a small silver suitcase synthesizer with a lot of wires sticking up — another 15-minute noise jet-plane ride. Then, soothing French female vocals.
Moe! Staiano was a more athletic act — he raced around placing wind-up burglar alarms all around the room, then wrapped the room (and the people in it) with yellow Caution tape (he used up a whole roll). Near the end sirens went off. Then he raced around collecting the burglar alarms and his 15 minutes was up. Remember the Punk Rock ideal of “no separation between the stage and the audience”? This was it. There were about 25 people in the room so this felt very “interactive” — no doubt everyone had the experience of “Moe!” rushing by them doing something — kept you on your toes.
Rubber O Cement: a project by Caroliner Rainbow founding theoretician Grux, featured (2) surrealist entities sprouting rubber appendages or non-human shapes stumbling amok around the room, upending tables and inspiring cautious attentiveness — nobody wanted to get “hit upside the head”. Michael from Striations was the second performer inside the moving floor box. Don’t understand how the “soundtrack” was produced or if it was modified “live” by the performers, but it was loud.
Conscious Summary: a dreadlocked young man sitting at a little table playing 3 little devices. Loud noise. Applause.
Striations. Young angelic-looking Michael stripped off his black “Suspiria” hoodie and black T-shirt and screamed into (2) microphones, standing up facing a small floor lamp with two purple lights. Fun. Intense. Later, he got an Industrial Culture Handbook from me and was so charming — no doubt everybody likes him, wherever he goes! I met his partner Heather and noted that several other people helped him bring in his equipment. We predict he will go far.
Liver Cancer was kinda scary-looking. Two big guys who looked like they once had been in the Mentors (leather executioner masks) played their gear at separate tables – one had a big NOISE tattoo on his bared chest and the other had a center-chest tattoo with a red circle with a diagonal slash through two treble-clef musical notes… Well, they looked scary, but later on I met “Bobby” and he was friendly and asked my name – he helped buy his musical partner a rainbow “necklace” that an older woman was selling outside (well, it was Gay Pride Parade weekend)… they were funny guys, it seemed…
Kawaiietly Please: a young attractive Hispanic woman came out in a black communion dress, held her mike up high, walked around changing the feedback, then slowly got more and more intense… screaming… had a pile of soft plush animals on the ground and started throwing them into the audience, who started throwing them back… who started tearing them apart… I looked back and she was hitting the mike as hard as possible into the concrete floor… running into the audience… more chaos and noise… 15 minutes! soft animal parts all over… later was told she is a successful post-op (gossip always rears its head, doesn’t it?)…
Torn by Teeth: Well, if you missed Einsturzende Neubauten (especially Andrew Chudy) and SPK (especially Graeme Revell) then some of the most dramatic parts of both bands were brought to life. Graphic Garrett hit his improvised horizontal metal percussion rack with fury… got out a power tool and sent thousands of sparks into the audience (hey, they’re hot!)… took an axe and totally flattened a large tin garbage can … but it was all RHYTHMIC… lots of synth noise from Josh, dressed in drag with a black wig (and rumor has it, proposed to his girlfriend that weekend)… They were accompanied by Cookie Wolf, a dancer in a black bikini wearing a Darth Vader mask and waving translucent clear plastic wings attached to both arms. Earlier, Cookie Wolf had brought a large Tupperware plastic box filled with home-made peanut-butter (for protein) chocolate chip cookies for everybody, and I can personally testify they were genuinely home-made and addicting… you can’t just have one… (How great of her to bring us all free cookies!)
Xome: I talked to Bob, a tall man who lives in Sacramento, clad in a black T-shirt that proclaimed “DISEASE” on the front. He had started making noise music in 1994 — he lived for years in Japan and learned to speak Japanese (no easy feat) — had a corporate job there but got satisfaction from the very tight and supportive Japanese noise music scene. He recently played Denver and a person in our Industrial Culture Handbook came up out of the audience and talked to him. He said that yes, there is a noise music underground, it has been happening for many years, and that almost everybody in the “scene” seems to know each other (and support each other) so — yes, there HAS been a real underground right beneath our eyes. Personally, I’m not sure WHO to go see, but if this event is any indication, well –
Time to ask: What is a real international “underground” characterized by? 1) friendly people — not a lot of full-of-oneself attitude 2) very supportive people who applaud each other’s sets 3) a diverse crowd of all ages and “looks” but obviously everyone present is a kind of outsider, at least temporarily 4) in the “noise” underground, a wide range of arcane-higher-technology present in the room, which means a higher-than-average-IQ, we hope 5) D-I-Y/ANYONE CAN DO IT: Many of the performers looked to be tweaking knobs and switches, not showing mastery of some potentially-difficult musical instrument like a guitar or keyboard; therefore, one can instantly think, “**I** could do that!” 6) Maybe NOISE MUSIC will NEVER be co-opted or become mass-trendy-popular, because — can it be that NOISE is finally the ring-fence preventing “commodification” from corrupting a genuine underground — and that this underground will STAY SMALL FOREVER… ? I noticed how almost everybody in the room seemed to know each other — it felt like there was a lot of genuine affection in the room between people, lots of smiling, laughing and joking, despite the occasionally very abrasive 15-minute noise concerts… (Well, if you’re truly weird [but smart], and there aren’t many of you, then…) It really felt like there wasn’t a single “creep” in the room; that almost anyone would be interesting to talk to, and how often does that happen when you go to a normal “concert”?!
Pulsating Cyst. Tall man wearing cap with 3-video projectors playing his noise-generator setup which seemed to alter the video sine-wave-like patterns. Turns out I met him in Los Angeles at Beyond Baroque — I flew down there to do a William Burroughs presentation and he was performing too, kind of cut-up experimental noise tracks with a friend… Small world! Nice guy, intelligent.
Nuclear Death Wish. Filmmaker Doug Katelus also gives Hammond organ concerts with film projections, but tonight he was “jamming” with 3 other musicians including Josh from Torn By Teeth — Doug was playing “guitar” but I never heard anything that sounded like guitar — it was all noise and mutating rhythms and …
Riververb – 2 guys (or were there 3?). SUPER-LOUD. Two girls in the audience who looked like they were from Japan were holding their ears (guess the free earplugs were not protective enough) and then they left… Loudest yet so far. (I was sorry to see the girls leave…)
Nautical Almanac – a tall beekeeper on guitar and effects and a woman projecting videos, films, patterns, templates (like a 60s light show) who occasionally recited poetry. She gave me a poster-zine before their show. Some beautiful film footage. More full-spectrum emotionality, from moody to loud-and-dissonant…
Bastard Noise. Long-haired man in T-shirt; woman in black T-shirt screaming full-tilt into microphone, but only rarely. Quite a variety of noise, textures, tones. Definitely INTENSE. They posted a VERY thought-provoking poster-made-for-tonight’s-performance on the wall behind them which said:

BASTARD NOISE
ARTZ/WOOD
JUNE 23, 2012

“EXTINCTION IS CERTAIN”

DEAFENING CYCLE
BEAR TRAP SYSTEM!
CRIMINALLY ADEPT AT DIVERSION
EVERYTHING IS DIVERSION !!!

EVIL TO THE BONE IS THE ONE
AND ONLY ANIMAL !!
SATANIC MAMMALS DESTROYING
OUR WORLD
THROUGH RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE,
HATRED AND BLOOD CURDLING GREED…

THINK MORPHED BY A
‘”PROFIT ABOVE LIFE” PHILOSOPHY

WAR IS KING!! SUFFERING IS QUEEN !!
EXTINCTION IS CERTAIN !!!!!

Well, never expected to feel a genuine “underground” experience again, but here it was! Met really nice people the whole evening who were also smart, funny, weird, and — well, they had an OUTLET, and a small group of people who supported them, no matter WHAT they did, so — how much better can it get, especially THESE DAYS?! It reminded me of the earliest days of Punk Rock, when there were 30-50 people in the room (I think at the peak there were maybe 60 people at The Lab) and this reminded me of reading accounts of early DADA performance events at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich — never very many people there, either. Happily, it wasn’t just a rooster party; there were a small number of interesting-looking (some would say good-looking) women there for most of the evening. Met “Howard” who said he considered the noise music scene more of a “performance” scene than a “music” scene and I would agree — it’s definitely more performance. But not pretentious. Not “arty.” But intense. A very satisfying evening.
I got out after midnight and discovered that even on a Saturday night, precious few buses run down both Mission Street and 3rd Street/Kearny Street heading back to North Beach. Finally got home at 2:30AM but the day had been so much “fun” that I didn’t mind. But, next time I’ll drive there — day and night you can get free parking on Shotwell and Folsom Streets near 16th St, with no “A” sticker-type 2-hour restrictions. And since the cheapest parking ticket is now like $65, I’ve been experimenting with taking the bus more, and it’s a weird kind of “fun” — just don’t look crazy people in the eye! I guess this was my “equivalent” to John Waters hitchhiking from Baltimore to San Francisco (you do know that someone liked him and drove him the last 1000 miles to San Francisco; John put him up in his apartment as a kind of “reward”… John Waters: at age 60-plus doing his best to “KEEP IT REAL”… What a Role Model! [end]

() SRL “News”: Go to srl.org and browse the website! Sadly, a couple SRL shows got cancelled recently. But we thoroughly enjoyed the Mark Pauline presentation at sf artpad several weeks ago. Rudy and Sylvia Rucker, Kal Spelletich & friends were there.

() Historical Record: R.I.P. Tim Mooney, drummer for Sleepers, June 2012. He leaves behind a wife and child in Petaluma, CA.

() HISTORICAL RECORD: Ed Hardy returns to The Art Guys Museum, 5757 Knox St, Houston, TX 77091 for the first time since 1997 with an exhibition of new and never-before-seen drawings and paintings. Don Ed Hardy: Death or Glory is presented in conjunction with Don Ed Hardy: 2000 Dragons at DiverseWorks Art Space, June 9 – July 7, 2012, opening reception Sat, June 9, 3 – 6 pm. DiverseWorks ArtSpace, 1117 East Freeway, Houston, TX 77002, 713-223-8346 . BTW, Ed did 12 new dragon paintings this year, each 4′ x 3′.

() Fri June 29, 2012: Emerald Tablet (emtab.org) Gallery had a last-minute showing of Bela Tarr’s “Werckmeister Harmonies.” He vividly conveys the feeling of living in an Eastern European totalitarian country. There were only 30 scenes (uncut) in 145 minutes: black and white, very slow, some beautiful music, some very strange and violent visuals, including an insectoid helicopter. We’d like to see more! Even though he is almost the exact opposite of, say, Luis Bunuel, our favorite filmmaker of all time.

() LAST GASP has produced BLAB WORLD No. 2, Monte Beauchamp’s “curating” of favorite art, artist profiles, & articles. “It’s like the New Yorker for Mutants” – L.A. Reader – order DIRECT from lastgasp.com

() HISTORICAL RECORD: June 19-Sept 9, Yoko Ono retrospective at Serpentine Gallery, London

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2011/11/yoko_ono_2012_exhibition_announced.html

6. Meditation Space #2

7. RECOMMENDED LINKS (send some!)

() V. Vale interview by Nate Luce (print, not video): http://adhoc.fm/post/search-destroys-v-vale-talks-about-zines/

() Wish I’d known about this a year ago (Slavoj Zizek & Julian Assange talk for 2 hours!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2cgGao_tdA&feature=related

() Will solar power save the world? ww.alexandredang.com www.solarsolidarity.org

() http://www.weldonowen.com/blog/cupcake-cars-dragon-ships-and-steampunk-hotties-maker-faire-bay-area-2012

() Hope all is well… Thought you might enjoy this article. – xoxo Judy http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574358643117407778.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

() intv w/Mark Pauline, somewhat misquoted in that MP did NOT say He Does Everything in SRL!: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2012%2F04%2F25%2FDDIT1NTOG9.DTL
- also, MarkP recommends: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4d6_1341254855

() Devo’s newer album: subversive, of course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=Bp2tQ75pTD0

() from Ralf: “Old-time hovercraft, repeating crossbow, etc.” http://www.vintageprojects.com/
World’s smallest manned helicopter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTcNcA_zViw

() http://www.hbo.com/movies/hemingway-and-gellhorn/index.html#/movies/heming=
way-and-gellhorn/video/trailer

() from Ken Goldberg: “My TED talk, ‘Can Robots Inspire Us To Be Better Humans?’ is on the TED homepage (look for the robot): http://www.ted.com/ – Ken tells us that in September he’ll be interviewing WILLIAM GIBSON live in San Francisco at the JCC, California/Presidio St… Stay tuned

() from Bruno R: http://blog.tastebuds.fm/worst-album-covers-of-all-time/
http://theendofbeing.com/2011/11/10/the-off-switch-part-2-a-new-serialized-comic-by-mark-beyer/#comments ????????????

http://www.lecointredrouet.com/

http://compendium-of-beasts.tumblr.com/archive

http://ubu.com/

https://arbrealettres.wordpress.com/tag/fernando-pessoa/page/2/

http://sites.google.com/site/languesexpressions/home/citations

http://siotantka.skyrock.com/2968024445-LA-GALERIE-URUBAMBA-magasin-parisien-specialise-dans-tous-les-indiens.html

() http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WpEc-rJQ3s&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Hi vale, I saw the movie by cronenberg called cosmopolis yesterday. I really liked it and you may too. Is it out in the usa?

() from Joey Skaggs: http://artoftheprank.com/2012/05/30/banksys-prank-tv-special/

http://www.logotv.com/video/misc/785908/the-antics-roadshow-preview.jhtml?xrs=orea_antics

() from Jerry C: Diner of the Living Dead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o_LlmYoBdE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Vomitorium: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLre-ZYMIEg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

() from Gail T: Philip Kaufman’s “Hemingway & Gellhorn” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWFuQlLqqZk&feature=related

() Mike Watt’s PHOTOGRAPHY: http://www.track16.com/exhibitions/2010-04-01-watt/photos.php

() our photographer-neighbor’s website! http://www.mikkelaaland.com/

() Vivian Maier, as good as Robert Frank: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWEDOnBfDUI

() from David K: www.worldheadpress.com My new book: Mezzogiorno. Life. Death. Southern Italy.

() from V in London: http://m.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/01/no-future-punk-youth-rebellion?cat=music&type=article
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5BdyIGtYcg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
- http://www.trumansbeer.co.uk/wp-content/themes/trumans2010/googles.html
- http://m.wimp.com/oldschool/ Frank ‘Sugar Chile’ Robinson from a 1946 film called “No Leave, No Love” (some people are just BORN with superior hardware)
- http://www.aroomforlondon.co.uk/hearts-of-darkness/mar-2012-fiona-banner-heart-of-darkness (Orson Welles reading “Heart of Darkness”)

() from Karen M: transparent bullet-proof aluminum: http://blog.makezine.com/2012/01/17/transparent-aluminum/

() Our former intern Kiowa Hammons’ band: “Paradise Club” creates a soundtrack for the dystopian bombed-out psychosexual resort of the mind. http://paradiseclub.bandcamp.com/album/paradise-club

() from Sylvia T: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/06/ray-bradbury

() from Dave S: http://www.kazanjian.net/pg_chateau.html (dream house?)
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/12/carved-book-landscapes-by-guy-laramee/?src=footer (carved book landscapes)

() from Morgan in Vienna: http://www.tba21.org/augarten_activities/143?category=spoken_words (Genesis P-Orridge; Lydia Lunch; William S. Burroughs ?)

() from Phil: Amazon abuse of power? or same old tricks? http://andrewhy.de/amazons-markup-of-digital-delivery-to-indie-authors-is-129000/
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duMR3OikNU8 (Leo Gorcey)
- http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/06/26/506357/the-5-craziest-policies-in-texas-republicans-2012-platform/
- http://tsutpen.blogspot.com/2012/06/art-of-cinema-500.html (Carnival of Souls poster)

() from Steven Gray: Sarah on Occupy: http://truth-out.org/news/item/8744-why-you-should-help-occupy-help-you
- Joshua Tree desert photos: http://www.pbase.com/lautreamont/joshua_tree__2012
- 9/11 doc: 3. New documentary about 9/11 from Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. The
film will be shown at the Victoria Theater on 16th Street near Mission on July 11
at 7 p.m.: () http://911expertsspeakout.org/

() from Chris T: “society of spectacle” http://vimeo.com/39706359

() We’re fans of Alfred Kubin’s drawings and novel, The Other Side: ww.nottinghamcontemporary.org

() from James: We Got Power Films presents David Markey’s 1981-82 raw and homespun documentation of the Los Angeles/Orange County hardcore punk scene. Like a fanzine on film, The Slog Movie has an intimate backstage/on stage feel. Interviews, humorous interludes, and incredible live performances from Circle One, Symbol 6, Wasted Youth, Red Cross, TSOL, The Chiefs, Sin34, Fear, Circle Jerks, and Henry Rollins, Chuck Dukowski, Robo & Dez Cadena. Gogs at the Whisky A Go-Go, Cuckoo’s Nest, Bards Apollo, Club 88, and the Santa Monica Pier – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvDod3rgTCM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=6_zfbjW35fs&NR=1

8. QUOTES chosen by, or authored by, V. Vale

() “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Stephen Hawking, quoted in Occupation 101.

Most of the below Quotes come from reading a mystery book: from Michael Dibdin’s [R.I.P. 2007] END GAMES, 2007:
() “Why overload your system with a bunch of mostly dormant read-only files when the Internet could come up with anything you didn’t know in like 0.18 seconds?” p. 67 (“mental data storage is peripheral now” – V. Vale)
() “I remember when we first got fax machines at work… They were cutting edge then, a status marker. If you didn’t have one, you weren’t important. Now they were virtually obsolete and sat gathering dust in some unvisited corner of the building. I’ve witnessed the birth and decay of an entire technology, he thought, not just in my lifetime but within recent memory.” – p. 135 (same for Palm Pilot – V. Vale)
() “Life is an acquired taste…but death has mass-market appeal. Sooner or later, we all succumb to its charms.” p. 161
() “A__ lamented the demise of that generation’s [Fellini, Visconti] values in favour of the cynical manipulations of market-driven accountants and middle managers, ‘people without intelligence, without courage, without vision, without ideals, concerned only with maximising profits.’ … I don’t live in that world. For me it is all about the creative challenge (& THAT’S ENOUGH!).” p. 165
() “M__ had always prided himself on being FURBISSIMO, a MAESTRO of cunning schemes and shady short-cuts to riches.” p 212
() A.Z. “had never paid much attention to birds, but the stealthy approach of death had made him more attentive to any form of life…the most striking specimen was a fig tree whose roots must, with their seemingly intuitive attraction to proximate water, have found out an ancient well.”.. p. 270
() “In this context, the electronic whining of his mobile phone came as as double shock. How he hated these attention-seeking pests to which everyone was shamelessly addicted! He recalled a dinner party… where half the guets had spent the evening yammering away to people who weren’t there while ignoring those who were. When he’d complained on the way home afterwards, he was told that that was the way it was these days. He should adapt, but he couldn’t.” p 271
()”…there is always room for disimprovement.” p 302
() “under the ‘you pretend to work and we’ll pretend to pay you’ system, their jobs were not only guaranteed for life but left them enough free time to make some serious money in the black economy on the side.” p 330

9. LETTERS FROM READERS:

() “Hi Vale! I love getting your newsletters. Keep it up, and thank you. Take care” — Windy C. (And, here’s a “funny video” she recommends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nmpNXOMZyQ )

() “Dear Vale, Thank you so much for sharing your insights [May newsletter editorial]. I appreciate it so much. (I quit FB a while back, and still have the same old unsophisticated cell phone from 2006!). With a big human hug to you” – Anne M.

() “Vale – your editorial [May newsletter] totally rocks! i love it. Militantly clear, so needed, so true, and so hard to get this across!!!” – f.

() “…Howdy V… …well…that was a brilliant editorial [May newsletter]…couldn’t possibly agree more…
…Now, you may accuse me of being extreme here: but i’d just like to pose the question of whether it is a coincidence that the Internet springs forth from the Pentagon/Think Tank/Defence Industries nexus?…Surely the battles of the future are already won/lost if the intended target is too busy thumbing some inane gadget to even notice that the crosshairs have fallen upon them …Thanks for the great summation/writing… All the best – ddt”

() “I’ve been reading a novel called ‘The Family Fang’ and it’s about a family of weird artists that do weird happenings. No machines though, but I do recognize some SRL in it.” – letter sent to someone else! by V—-.

() Hi Vale, from sunny and cold Kuopio send you greetings. I am putting on a festival here on August 24-26. Main focus is experimental music, but there is also dance, poetry and film (ugly swans). Plan was to make it wider: also workshops and lectures. Funding is tight in this (so-called) economical situation (situation is, that 1% is taking the most and capital is heaping into unregulated places. Anyway we try. And nice to get mail from there.
Would be cool to have you to make a lecture some year for the festival. (I agree!) Our rural town: i still see some changes and at least nature is fantastic and takes over if everything fails. Best, Ilpo aani.mobi

() “Hey Vale, again good to hear your voice. Best to you – hope things are well and flourishing in this horrible system we have allowed to be birthed. i think of you often, and your encouragement. Berlin is chilly but i feel safer here than in LA – how’s that for irony?! Your writing tips are great. May i live up to them, All my best, Fred Dewey” – http://gittebohr.de/oberfldewey.pdf

() “Thanks for another great newsletter. Here is my perspective on the GG Bridge 75th Anniversary fireworks… I just finished the big Golden Gate Bridge show and it was great. My favorite part: As traffic was halted on the Bridge i knew the show was about to begin.
The noise of traffic fell silent and my senses were on full alert. This point of any fireworks show is one of peak awareness as the danger is so close and you do not want to be the point of failure. The lights went out and as i stood by at my position half way across the span i heard the song of the Bridge as the wind was in the wires and loose steel pieces clanked below my feet. I heard the first e-matches light on both sides of me and converge to my point in the center… It was on… – Dave X” (from Burning Man)

() New York Jazz website: http://newyorkjazzproject.com

() “Dear V.Vale, I’m Paolo Campana, we met at your place via Winston Smith for the documentary about records called ViNYLMANIA, in 2010. The film is finally finished and we made the dvd. www.vinylmaniafilm.com http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/vinylmania?ref=ts Best regards, Paolo”

() “Hi Vale, The North Beach art crawl…this kind of info is precisely why I made my little contribution…I wish I could have come over to see Mark Pauline at the art pad, I hope you enjoyed that….I still recall my atonishment & delight when I discovered SRL’s work in the mid-80′s…. Best, Dave S”

() “Vale, Very interesting newletter…. Of course I remember Shig very clearly… he was always very busy..and quiet.. I imagine he was very loyal… i didn’t know he hired you…Billy”

() “Hi Vale, Thanks for writing your newsletters. I enjoyed reading the writing advice, as well as the link to the website dedicated to Shig, and the sexy mandarin link haha!
“I just deactivated my facebook for at least a few days, after my friend posted a fake post about how I was moving to Florida. It was a really good joke, cuz so many people believed it, and still do. Then I was like, FB is taking too much out of my time. I need a break. I feel better already! I have more time to read and do other stuff.
“I’m focusing on writing my master’s thesis right now. In a nutshell, I’m using Said’s concept of Orientalism, how Americans and Europeans viewed and studied Asia, or the Orient, without knowing actually being involved with the cultures. I’m applying it to how academics have written and study punk (and punk-related) subcultures and discourses, without actually actively being a part of DIY culture. I will also discuss post-colonialism in punk. Even as people in punk are critical of dominant cultures, punk subcultures can still act as a microcosm of dominant culture (“liberal” attitudes toward issues such as racism, privilege, etc). This goes into discussing how people of color, ppl in “3rd wave feminism,” and others have continued to open up more spaces, to diversify. But yeah, something like that. I hope it turns out well. It’s something fun, and something to nerd out to.
“I hope you’re doing well, didn’t mean to type too much. Vale, as I’ve said before, I totally respect your energy and work. Take care! – Elliot F.

() I am getting the eVale newsletter, thanks! I read & re-read, loved the story about Lawrence Ferlinghetti reading his poetry at the SFAI graduation ceremony. Made me feel glad to be living here and sharing space with some amazing people… Talk to you soon — Robert”

() “Vale, Here’s my memoir of the Bunker and making “Burroughs on Bowery”, along with the Youtube link to the complete film… Best, Marc http://rustytruck.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/the-beat-memoir-pt-4-by-marc-olmsted/

() How-to-take-up-drawing-for-fun advice from Billy: “…Mount Fuji is a good subject to start with (check images) http://www.google.co.th/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=653&q=mount+fuji+painting&gbv=2&oq=mount+fuji&aq=9&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_l=img.3.9.0l10.4602.8252.0.18538.10.7.0.3.3.0.20.117.7.7.0…0.0.VB_VRhaS3yg

“I tore out a Picasso of Francis Drake or someone from Financial Times – anything that looks appropriate (you can draw)

“Important thing is to:

“work fast
don’t think too much
never wear a beret
have an overall composition
don’t overwork it – leave it simple
Faber and Castell colored pencils for detail (they have new ones that can be watercolors)”

10. **SPONSORS** (Without them you would NOT be receiving this newsletter – Please go to their websites!)
1. 47 Canal Street (Gallery w/events, NYC) – 47Canal Street.com
2. Emerald Tablet (Gallery w/events), Fresno Alley (100 feet from RE/Search! in North Beach). emtab.org – lots of free or low cost local community events; check out their schedule! http://emtab.org/
3. Mrs Dalloway (Catering, Bay Area): Holly Erickson’s catering/foodblog/cookbook
www.mrsdallowayscatering.com and lightscameracuisine.foodblog.com
4. Contribute to (& Order copies of!) “OUT OF OUR” – Steven Gray & Sarah Page’s San Francisco Poetry Magazine: outofour.com
5. From our friends Amy and Brian: check out their “simple business software for art galleries: gallerystar.com
6. Jason Weiss’ (knew Brion Gysin) writing website: www.itinerariesofahummingbird.com and his new book/history of ESP-Disk: www.upne.com/0819571588.html
7. V. Vale’s RE/Search Newsletter is cordially sponsored by “Beyond the Beyond.”
Information Wants To Be Free WE MEAN IT MAN! $0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0$0 http://blog.wired.com/sterling
RE/Search THANKS (2) SPONSORS who Wish to Remain Anonymous – you know who you are! And yes, we NEEDED Your Support!

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JULY 2012 RE/Search eNewsletter written by V. Vale & other contributors. RE/Search website powered by http://www.laughingsquid.com. Add us (“info@researchpubs.com”) to Your Address Book
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Physical Address since May 1979: RE/SEARCH | 20 Romolo #B | San Francisco CA 94133-4041 | 415.362.1465
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WELCOME TO V. VALE’s RE/SEARCH NEWSLETTER #105, June 2012 Add Us to Your Address Book! You are Receiving this Email because You or Someone You Know Signed Up to Our Newsletter in the Past. Scroll to the Bottom of this Email to UNSUBSCRIBE.
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**TO RECEIVE LAST-MINUTE LOCAL S.F. BAY AREA NEWS OF RE/SEARCH-recommended EVENTS, reply to this newsletter & in subject line write “local subscribe”
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—–SPONSORSHIP NEEDED! We are Offering Just a Few Sponsorships So This Newsletter Can Ensure Continuance. At this point (5000 names worldwide) it costs us $11/month to send out. If someone is willing to paypal us $11, they will receive a SPONSOR CREDIT and a WEBSITE LISTING plus a small message, all in the eNewsletter. However, as we need this MONTHLY, we are looking for REGULAR SPONSORS!

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. MESSAGE FROM YOUR EDITOR, V. VALE: “Some Writing Advice”…
2. Counter Culture Hour Sat June 9, 2012 – 6:00 PM PACIFIC TIME – SF cable channel 29, also simulcast on-line (see below) – Mike Kuchar, guest.
3. ** RE/Search Book: “Of Intercourse and Intracourse”by monochrom from Vienna
4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS
5. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing: SRL’s Mark Pauiine, etc
6. Lawrence Ferlinghetti (born March 24, 1919!) – excerpt from his SFAI speech Sat May 12, 2012
7. Recommended Links – send some!
8. QUOTES
9. Letters from Readers
————–
please add info@researchpubs.com to your WHITE LIST in your email preferences, or to your ADDRESS BOOK. If you change your email, send it plus your “old” email address to delete. Lastly, forward our newsletter to your friends! If you are on AOL, please make sure you can receive our newsletter – we get the most returns from addresses at AOL, Hotmail, Comcast and Yahoo!
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1. EDITORIAL FROM V. VALE: Some Writing Advice…

People occasionally ask us for advice on “How to Write” and recently a former intern grilled us anew. Well, it’s our “job” to provide “useful content” to our readers, so here’s this month’s editorial…

WRITING ADVICE

1. Pick a great title that succinctly summarizes/evokes the book. Like, Stephen King’s 800-page book remaking the JFK assassination is titled 11-22-63. Or, “Catch-22.” Or, “The Heart of Darkness.” Or, “The Drowned World” or “Crash” by J.G. Ballard. Or, “Junky” or “Queer” by William S. Burroughs.

2. Write something useful, poetic, darkly humorous, or all of the above! Make sure you have something to SAY (preferably, kind of ORIGINAL) and that you say it absolutely beautifully, with panache, flair, style and passion (unless your “style” is completely dispassionate or emotionless, of course). If you give valuable “advice” or “insight” – so much the better. Hopefully, repeated readings will yield compounded insights and grist-for-thought (as “they” used to say). It also doesn’t hurt if you offer an occasional little-known scientific truth or paradox – something that a lot of people don’t already know. Or advice to live by, like, “Follow The Money…”

3. Proofread, proofread, proofread. No excuse for misspelled anything, what with Google nearby.

4. Add an index, references, footnotes if necessary, glossary, and even a quotations section. It’s more work, but adds the magical “repeatability” potential.

5. Have all your friends read your writing with a pencil or red pen and tell them to be merciless, especially with anything they can’t understand, or a passage that might be clumsily written. Sometimes the wrong words get used – fix ‘em. Don’t let an un-beautiful sentence slide by and think to yourself that it’s “good enough.” Whenever you say that something’s “good enough” – you know it ISN’T!
I read a sentence this morning that stuck in my craw: “I know I can’t expect anything from anyone because the mind is the only organ which deterioration of brings pure isolation.” First of all, is this sentence LOGICAL and scientifically, empirically “valid”? Secondly, how could you REWORD this – especially the “deterioration of” section? It seems that one’s mind “deteriorates” (if indeed, it does) so slowly as to be practically unnoticeable, at least to the body hosting that mind/brain. Well, if someone truly becomes “crazy,” then yes, they probably DO alienate most of their former friends and associates (if any). Still, there MUST BE a way to avoid writing “which deterioration of brings pure isolation” and get rid of that “OF”! Maybe, “whose deterioration brings pure isolation.” Of course, I doubt that isolation is ever “pure”! So…

6. Writing demands Diligence, Perseverance and Taking Pains. If anybody gets “stuck” when writing, often the best solution is to take a quick break, walk around, get away, go out for some fresh air, and then rush back (or write down in a small notebook) when inspiration hits… And, inspiration appears at the most inconvenient times (this must be a “law”), so keep a notebook/pen in the bathroom and wherever you might need it…

7. Always re-read what you’ve written THE NEXT MORNING, before you send it off for publication!

2. Counter Culture Hour – Sat June 9, 2012 – 6:00 PM PACIFIC TIME.

This conversation was filmed at the RE/Search office in San Francisco and features MIke Kuchar in conversation with host, V. Vale.
Edited/filmed/produced by Marian Wallace
The Counter Culture Hour (aka RE/SEARCH TV) is simulcast ON-LINE as well as on cable access San Francisco Channel 29 — 6pm Pacific Time, Sat June 9, 2012 .
– see this link at broadcast time:

http://72.47.201.244/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1881&Itemid=1801

You need a fairly decent internet connection and computer to “get it.”
USA west coast: 6:00 PM Saturday, June 9, 2012
USA east coast: 9:00 PM Saturday, June 9, 2012
London: 2:00 AM Sunday, June 10, 2012
Tokyo: 10:00 AM Sunday, June 10, 2012
If you cannot get this online email us at info@researchpubs.com
Would you like to have a Counter Culture Hour showing in your town? Please write & ask us how you can do this. (write: info@researchpubs.com)

See RE/Search channel on youtube: “researchpubs”

3. REminder: latest RE/Search book is “OF INTERCOURSE AND INTRACOURSE: Sexuality, Biomodification and the Techno-Social Sphere” by monochrom.

Here are some excerpts:
() “The technology for this is close vs. far: to be able to record your own sexual experiences and play them back later; re-experience them. And, ideally, to be able to allow someone else to plug in, however that’s going to be done, and experience the same sexual experience that you’ve experienced…
“That’s like the movie ‘Brainstorm’ from the early 1980s, starring Christopher Walken. They record everything. Death, sex. Someone’s brain gets fried because he makes an endless tape loop of a recorded orgasm. He experiences it for a couple of hours and turns into cabbage. Good film… It’s somewhere on Pirate Bay, I guess. [laughter] p.73
() “I come from Italy, and for us hacking is a ‘life attitude.’ I speak about at least the community I’m part of: the one that brings together art, hacking, and often sexuality. In the Italian background sex culture is really connected with hacking because it shows a challenge of trying to rethink sexuality in a different way that is not predictable, and it is not mainstream. It plays with boundaries and stereotypes. It is like a flow that is traveling between different identities, different ideas of using your body.
“Metaphorically, you open your body like a hacker could open a machine, in the sense that you try to experiment with what is inside, with your deeper emotions, and you create a new mental category, or get rid of categories…” p.61 – http://www.researchpubs.com/Blog/

4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS (San Francisco unless Otherwise Noted)

() We always encourage readers to go to thrillpeddlers.com & support the Hypnodrome, S.F.’s unique Grand Guignol/Humor Noir Revival Theatre showcase. Children ages 8-15 in particular will highly benefit from their 4 2-week summer creepshow camps ( http://thrillpeddlers.com/creepshow-camp-2012/ ), which teach the arcane arts of applying fake wounds, blood, gore and zombie makeup. June 4: Creepshow Camp begins; 4 2-week sessions. http://thrillpeddlers.com/

() FREE. Fri June 1, 8-10pm, Magnet, 4122 18th St/Castro St, SF. Mike Kuchar drawings!

() FREE. First Fridays Art Crawl, North Beach. June 1, 6pm “SURREALISM” Show! Emerald Tablet, 80 Fresno/Grant Ave in North Beach, behind the Saloon. RE/Search plans to show artwork along with Winston Smith, Della Heywood, et al. www.emtab.org and http://eepurl.com/mlOPT ALSO, Winston Smith has his OWN OPENING at Grant’s Tomb, 50A Bannam Alley (off Union, bet Grant/Stockton Sts).

() REMINDER: Worth a Trip to GERMANY: RIGHT NOW THROUGH AUG 12, 2012: a William S. Burroughs Exhibition: the name is BURROUGHS − Expanded Media [ www.zkm.de ] Curators: Udo Breger, Axel Heil and Peter Weibel – publications will be available…

() $$ FILM: “MANSOME” – Morgan Spurlock documentary, listed here because JOHN WATERS is briefly interviewed, defending his “Little Richard” pencil moustache: “I look like a pervert.” [However], “it gets me jobs.” Film Message: There’s big money in overpriced men’s grooming products!

() FREE. Sun June 3, 7pm, Beat Museum, 540 Broadway/near Columbus, S.F.
Shig Murao Anniversary + Allen Ginsberg’s 86th Birthday – Soon after Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin opened the City Lights Pocket Book Shop in 1953, they hired Shigeyoshi “Shig” Murao as their first clerk. Shig was young and charismatic, with an infectious geniality that became as integral a part of the bookstore’s culture as the paperbound volumes on its shelves.
Shig Murao was born in Seattle in 1926. In 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he and his family were sent to a Japanese internment camp in Idaho. Afterward, he joined the Military Intelligence Service, and worked as a translator in postwar Japan.

Shig Murao hired your editor V. Vale at City Lights; City Lights was the address for SEARCH & DESTROY Magazine; RE/Search was the REvised Editorial Project of V. Vale, who writes this newsletter!

Self-Portrait from Shig’s Review

Although Shig was not himself a poet, he became a fixture in the North Beach Beat scene. He could frequently be found at the Caffe Trieste surrounded by his many friends, who included Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Bob Kaufman, Philip Lamantia, Richard Brautigan, Gary Snyder. Ginsberg would often stay at Shig’s apartment on Grant Ave. when visiting San Francisco. Shig collected poems, collages, flyers, photos, and various other material from his Beat colleagues, and sporadically published the material in an eclectic zine called Shig’s Review. He would make about 20-30 copies of each at the nearest photocopy shop, then walk over to the Trieste and distribute them amongst his friends. He published about 80 [?] editions of his Review.
On June 3, 1957 (coincidentally Ginsberg’s birthday), Shig was arrested for selling an ‘obscene’ book to an undercover police officer. The book was HOWL and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg, and according to Captain Hanrahan of the SFPD, was only the first in a long list of books the department had deemed objectionable. Ferlinghetti was arrested for having published the book shortly thereafter, and the trial that ensued was among the defining battles of the free speech movement.

For more background on Shig: ShigMurao.com

Please join us at the Beat Museum as we celebrate the legacy of Shig Murao, “the enigmatic soul of City Lights and the San Francisco Beat scene” on the day of his infamous arrest, and Allen Ginsberg’s birthday.

Hosted by Richard Reynolds, who worked at Mother Jones magazine for thirty-two years, mainly in the role of communications director, and retired in 2010. In addition to his work at the magazine, he is a professional French horn player and has written numerous articles on music, food, and coffee. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Gourmet, Saveur, Salon.com, Gastronomica, Imbibe, Fresh Cup, and other publications. He and Shig met in 1976 and remained friends until Shig’s death in 1999. Reynolds created and operates ShigMurao.com

() $ Sun-Tue June 10-12. Castro Theater, Castro St/Market St, the most beautiful movie theater on the West Coast. The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine in digital restoration!

() $5 Fri June 15, 8pm, Viracocha, 998 Valencia/21st St, SF: Specious Species #5 Release Party. Theme: Madness and Evolution: the Donner Party, Occupy SF and Oakland, Philip K. Dick, Dave King (designer of the CRASS logo), Alan Kaufman, the Residents, Mark McCloud, Alex Grey, Jaina Bee and many more. To cover expenses sliding scale of $5-$10 and featuring Jimbo Trout, Happy Idiot, Jon Longhi, Alan Kaufman, Charlie Getter, Pam Benjamin, John Shirley, etc. RE/Search may have a small table there, too. If you pay $10, you get a “free” issue of the 190-page SPECIOUS SPECIES #5, edited by our friend & former RE/Search Intern JOE DONOHOE.

() FREE. Mon June 18, 7:30pm, Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market St/6th St or Taylor St, SF. RE/Search Publications presents “Forgotten San Francisco: From Beat to Punk to Industrial in three acts” 1. Beat Icon Philip Lamantia wasn’t as famous as Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac, but he did read at the world’s first “Beat” poetry reading. 2. San Francisco’s Punk Scene never became as world-famous as New York or London’s (or even Los Angeles), but the bands were world-class and San Francisco’s SEARCH & DESTROY magazine published by V. Vale has been judged the “best” of the 70s Punk publications. 3. Arguably, with the publication of RE/Search’s Industrial Culture Handbook, the world-wide industrial music scene was catalyzed, with bands, performers and groups forming all over the planet. RE/Search founder V. Vale introduces and presents video footage by filmmaker Marian Wallace, who will also be in attendance. Q&A after each section. Special live interview w/KAL SPELLETICH! [http://kaltek.wordpress.com/kalman-spelletich-resume-cv/] http://streetopiasf.com/2012/04/21/full-calendar-of-streetopia-events/

() FREE. Wed June 27, 7pm. City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus/Broadway, S.F. CHRIS HEDGES talks about his new book: “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.”

() $ Fri June 29-July 4. Castro Thteater. New 35mm restored print of Shirley Clarke’s “THE CONNECTION,” about 8 junkies “waitin’ for the man.” 1962 “beat” film evokes the heroin-addict-lifestyle – a must for all Burroughs fans who want to time-travel back to the era of post-bebop-cool-jazz… One of the stars is Garry Goodrow, who used to live on Green Street above Kearny St in North Beach, with his two children Jason and… Jackie McLean plays sax & Freddie Redd plays piano…

5. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening to/What We’ve Been Sent

() Had dinner May 6 with Jack Rabid, publisher of the best still-printed-on-paper music journal, THE BIG TAKEOVER, baseball-history expert as well as unparalleled Punk music historian. New issue #70 contains Nuggets/Patti Smith Legend Lenny Kaye article; Thomas Dolby, our pal Peter Stampfel (German filmmaker from 70s Punk Days), LOVE article, and more! order from www.bigtakeover.com

() SRL “News”: see LINKS [section, below] for photos of recent Mark Pauline demonstration of spine robot at ArtPadSF! With him was Leo Villareal (see baylights.org) and Joel Slayton of Zero One, introduced by Amy Critchett, with Karen Marcelo taking photos and Rudy and Sylvia Rucker taking notes.

() WHAT WE MISSED: May 5, 2012, 9pm: The ZEROS playing The Uptown, 1928 Telegraph Ave/20th St, Oakland, CA. Wish I could have seen ‘em! May 18, 2012, Cafe Du Nord, Market/Sanchez St, S.F.: The AVENGERS to celebrate the re-release of their first “Pink” LP (haven’t seen the new release, but the original had brief liner notes by V. Vale, and No, I wasn’t Paid for writing ‘em – it was for “The Cause”).

() FILMS we’ve watched (not many!):
Bunuel’s Phantom of Liberty: still shocking in its evasion of superficial logic, oblique erotism, parody of justice. Humans x lovely animals.
Sat 5/19/12 830pm ATA: Vanessa Renwick’s Charismatic Megafauna: WOLVES in America. Painfully Beautiful. Live Cello, et al. Also a documentary titled “Mighty Tacoma” and…
“Finally saw “MOULIN ROUGE”: in the category of “OVER THE TOP” – BAZ LUHRMAN followed his Obsessions like a Postmodern Joseph von Sternberg. Incredible sets, costumes, great tracking shots over the roofs of Paris, some manic-comedic moments…

() Sun May 27, 2012, 9:30pm watched the 75th Anniversary Golden Gate Bridge fireworks – the first minute was the greatest, what with the white lights swooshing toward each other and then becoming a long waterfall… liked the Rastafarian horizontal flag, the “heart,” but frankly, have been spoiled by seeing so many fireworks shows in San Francisco that… Well, the searchlights were quite fun, too… Lot of people walking on the streets of San Francisco at night…

() Our pal Leo Edelstein sent us his latest Pataphysics magazine and we hope readers will order it from http://www.pataphysicsjournal.net. Sylvere Lotringer, Terry Wilson on Brion Gysin, Jack Hirschman, Barney Rosset – need I say more?!

() One of the most beautiful books of the past five years has been Herbert Pfostl’s “TO DIE NO MORE,” printed on handmade paper — great design and aphoristic, meditative reflections which can be re-read over and over. A good book for the bathroom! Check out http://papergraveyard.blogspot.com/ and order Herbert’s book from http://blindpony.blogspot.com/ – Herbert also is selling some art work to finance his son’s trip to India, so, you may find something you really like…

() Ed Hardy, tattoo artist, has signed to do a memoir with Thomas Dunne Books. Rob Kirkpatrick bought world rights from agent Frank Weimann at the Literary Group International, and Joel Selvin will be co-writing. (Selvin coauthored Sammy Hagar’s recent autobiography, Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock.)

() Besides RE/Search books (which we fervently hope our readers will order at least once every couple years), we also recommend our friends at lastgasp.com as providers of beautiful, radical, stimulating art books.

6. Lawrence Ferlinghetti at the San Francisco Art Institute, Sat May 12, 2012 (excerpt)

At the last minute a friend notified us that Lawrence Ferlinghetti, V. Vale’s boss at City Lights Bookstsore (BTW, this was Vale’s only “straight job”) would be talking FOR FREE at the San Francisco Art Institute, a mere eight blocks from RE/Search headquarters in San Francisco’s storied North Beach neighborhood, home of the Beat Generation, part-parent to the Hippie Revolution (Janis Joplin’s first “gig” was at the Coffee Gallery, a block away), and the Mabuhay Gardens, home of San Francisco’s First-Wave 70s Punk Revolution, is also a block away from RE/Search. (Memo to self: try to avoid sentences this long, unless one is trying to emulate Thomas Bernhard!)
Nine A.M. is a bit early to be getting out of bed on a Saturday morning, but this magically happened, and by 10 AM we were in place at 800 Chestnut St to await Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s presentation. First there was an introductory encomium, and then Ferlinghetti himself walked (no cane) up three steps to the temporary stage in the SFAI outdoor courtyard (which boasts a grand wide-angle view — possibly one of San Francisco’s finest). He was being given the SFAI’s Douglas MacAgy Award…
Lawrence said, “Well, I’m honored, but I’m totally abashed by this praise upon me — it must be somebody else they’re talking about! … I’ve been hanging out around here for thirty or forty years — I just live about four blocks from here. I had a book published by New Directions, Poetry As Insurgent Art — it’s a couple years old. How about: PAINTING AS AN INSURGENT ART? [cheers] Maybe some of you will become Insurgent Painters!” [cheers] Lawrence recommended Francisco Goya as a role model “who was a dissident and radical in his time, in Spain. And the first poem in CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND is about Goya. I just happen to have a copy with me…” [laughter].
Lawrence read the poem — he is an excellent reader of his own work, by turns dramatic, wistful, resonant, plaintive and poignant. [reads poem which we will not reproduce here; probably every single person receiving this newsletter owns CONEY ISLAND OF THE MIND..., so find it and read it yourself). He challenged painters in the audience (this was a graduation, after all) to see if they could match Goya's "Disasters of War" some day...
Showing how up-to-the-minute he was, Lawrence read a new poem that was published in THE NATION a couple months ago: "The First and the Last of Everything." This epic poem encompassing life on America's earth from its very beginnings up to the "first President to Become an International Criminal for Crimes Against Humanity, Making America a Terrorist State." ... to "the first Fine Day of the Wall Street Occupation to Set Forth on This Continent a New Nation." [end, to thunderous applause] Lawrence walked by himself off the stage, dressed in a kind of baseball cap (or was it a cadet cap?), what looked from a distance as a navy blazer and khaki trousers.
We felt we had witnessed some kind of “in-the-future-this-will-be-legendary” event. Sometimes in life, you do get lucky…

7. RECOMMENDED LINKS (send some!)

() Sent by Karen Marcelo: SRL at ArtPadSF Sat May 19, at Phoenix Hotel, Larkin/Eddy St, SF: Rudy Rucker’s article: http://www.rudyrucker.com/blog/2012/05/28/garden-of-eden-mark-pauline-indesign/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/k0re/sets/72157629821778706/

() from David C: “Hallelujah” version by 3 Norwegian boys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2NEU6Xf7lM

() from Billy H: “language lesson a la mode”:

http://www.google.com.hk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=sexy+mandarine+mr+feng&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CF8QtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DG977aEzuBlI&ei=M-ilT-C5IvGQiQf1rYW8Dw&usg=AFQjCNHbS_DUXyi8175jRuGNP9nsXBxvNg&cad=rjt

() from James M: ww.razorcake.org/columns/book-review-violence-girl-east-la-rage-to-hollywood-stage-a-chicana-punk-story-by-alice-bag
- http://www.razorcake.org/punk-book-reviews/spray-paint-the-walls-by-stevie-chick-403-pgs
- Very funny lyrics to this veiled reference! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpu_uFarvKI
- Tongolele 1949: ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=P3Gf4qUFP1I

() www.fearofbanking.com – videos of protest against banks

() from Winston Smith: “Check out this interview that Vice Magazine did with me (It’s my big shot at Show Business!)”

http://www.vice.com/vice-meets/winston-smith?utm_source=vicetumblr

() from VyVy: John Waters HITCHHIKING?! http://dcist.com/2012/05/hitchhiking_director_john_waters_pi.php
NYTimes says YES, John Waters hitchhiked from Baltimore to San Francisco to get material for a new book!http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/john-waters-tries-some-desperate-living-on-a-cross-country-hitchhiking-odyssey/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha28_20120526

() from Chris T: Robert Moog, on his birthday: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/bob-moog-google-doodle-heres-how-to-play-todays-elegantelaborateepic-interactive-synethesizer-happy-birthday-dr-moog/2012/05/23/gJQAZupCkU_blog.html

() from Sylvia T.: Movies filmed in San Francisco http://www.sfgate.com/maps/movies/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_in_popular_culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_set_in_San_Francisco,_California

http://www.movie-locations.com/places/usa/sanfran.html

() Golden Gate Bridge Fireworks: http://laughingsquid.com/golden-gate-bridge-75th-anniversary-celebrated-with-massive-fireworks-display-light-show/

() sent by Steven Gray: Remember 9-11? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nfM0cwouTE
- photos of the May Day protest in downtown San Francisco by Steven Gray:

http://www.pbase.com/lautreamont/may_day_2012__san_francisco

- JET SHOCK AND CULTURE LAG – new book of poems by Steven Gray: http://outofour.com/Jet.html

() from GX Jupitter-Larsen: Please “like” http://www.minioperas.org/scriptwriter/its-where-they-met/

() from Graham Rae: “Compare and contrast these two stories, from 1914 and May 2012. Substitute the word ‘Germans’ for ‘terrorists’ and have fun trying to pick the two apart. Ponder how little things change, and how very, very shamelessly scary and evil and dumb and fascistic and hateful America is getting. – http://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5
- http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWatrocities.htm

8. QUOTES chosen by, or authored by, V. Vale [@ValeRESearch = twitter account]

() “When I’m conversing with someone, I don’t want music around. If I want to listen to music, I listen HARD, preferably w/headphones – no talk!”

() “Our Bodies were Not Designed to Stare at a Screen All Day. Our Bodies Were Designed to MOVE – A Lot More… ‘Enuf Said!”

() “Semi-belonging to an Outsider Group: YOU Carry Your Outsider Outlook Everywhere You Go & Everything Looks Different cuz YOU’RE DIFFERENT!”

() “Truly discerning aesthetes can look at a building & instantly identify the historical elements, ornaments, & anomalies (if any). KNOW & SEE.”

() “Art is everywhere… art happens when we least expect it & don’t know it did until later… art & life are interchangeable… too much art, not enough time!… no matter how long we live, we will never know enough about what art is, what it was, what it can be…

() “WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: “Anyone who owns a frying pan owns death.” Herein is an Entire Theory of Improvised Weaponry, or Black Humor, or Both!” (Still like Burroughs’s idea of the Shotgun Pistol, and the glove gun…)

() “RECOMMEND a living ALOE VERA plant where you live/work. A little slice, criss-crossed, can heal a skin wound faster than corporate products!”

() “Half the Secret of “$uckce$$” is having an Instantly Memorizable NAME: Lady Gaga. Osama bin Laden. Yoko Ono. Peaches Christ. Dan D. Lion…”

() “Who are the Greatest **LIVING** Filmmakers? Chris Marker. Emir Kusturica for “Underground.” Terry Gilliam for “Brazil.” Nelly Kaplan for “A Very Curious Girl.” The rest: Davids Lynch&Cronenberg. Dario Argento. Werner Herzog. Jean-Luc Godard. Francis Ford Coppola. Wim Wenders?

9. LETTERS FROM READERS:

() “We did some business several years ago, as I was discovering J.G. Ballard (having realized that my favourite film at the time – Cronenberg’s CRASH” – was based on his work. Around midnight, on the 16th to 17th of April 2012, I lost more or less every…” (darn, we wish we could read the rest of this sentence). – Janni H. from Sweden

() from Brian N: “Vale, [Your newsletter is the] Best damn thing I have read in a long time!! P.S. I had to stop going to the free book exchange because I started running out of room in the apartment.” (talking about V Vale editorial in May 2012 newsletter on “The New God is the iPhone…”

() “Parla Vale! Long time, eh? Glacing through your site, found out that I have not yet purchased “Pranks 2″ (http://www.researchpubs.com/Blog/?page_id=13&category=8&product_id=5). A “must have” & “must read”, no doubt. I’ve been reading and re-reading the first one ever since I got it in the mid-80s; absolutely brilliant! When possible, drop me a quote for the book and shipping to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Will pay via Paypal – just drop me the e-mail do be used (would it be: info@researchpubs.com?). Oh, and if possible, do sign it for me. Be an honor! all the best, Sergio, Rio.”

() “My boss says you are a legend! Blue Cheer!” – Samantha M.

() Matt Gonzalez, collage artist & one of our favorite San Francisco Notables, asks us to vote June1 for his brother’s band COO COO BIRDS – http://pulse.sfstation.com/thelineup2012/ ROUGH CUT OF NEW VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6srRZcEiE&feature=youtu.be MORE LIVE VIDEO:

() () We read in one night Jim Hayes latest zine, “Girl Talk Is a Scorpio,” available from POB 1459, Marietta, GA 30061. (Jim.Jimhayes@gmail.com) He wrote us a handwritten letter: “I fell in love with Walt Whitman last year and it’s made me reinvestigte and re-read ALL of Allen Ginsberg – in a flash the other day I remembered he gave you some $ to help and it made me realize that he was THAT great. It made me want to be more of a Poet – remember that Whitman insisted that the poet engage in discourse – so finally, after a year, here’s my latest – I hope you enjoy it!” Jim, we enjoyed it, liked it, and appreciated anew your spontaneous prose style and the frequent use of dashes – which I also employ…

() “It was good to see you at Paule Anglim’s gallery (for the Bruce Conner Punk Photo Show) and to have you give me RE/Search Real Conversations No. 1 (w/Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jello Biafra, Henry Rollins and Billy Childish). Nice format, and feels good in the hand. Also, an interesting collection of interviewees for numero uno. Jello Biafra looks sweet on the cover…Grahhrs and gracias” — Michael McClure

10. **SPONSORS** (Without them you would NOT be receiving this newsletter – Please go to their websites!)
1. 47 Canal Street (Gallery w/events, NYC) – 47Canal Street.com
2. Emerald Tablet (Gallery w/events), Fresno Alley (100 feet from RE/Search! in North Beach).
3. Bob Koenig Music – Musician/Record Label, Keywhol@aol.com
4. Mrs Dalloway (Catering, Bay Area): Holly Erickson’s catering/foodblog/cookbook
www.mrsdallowayscatering.com and lightscameracuisine.foodblog.com
5. Our pal Dave S. gave us an anonymous gift of magnanimous magnitude! Thank You, Dave.
6. Contribute to (& Order copies of!) “OUT OF OUR” – Steven Gray & Sarah Page’s San Francisco Poetry Magazine: outofour.com

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JUNE 2012 RE/Search eNewsletter written by V. Vale & other contributors). RE/Search website powered by http://www.laughingsquid.com. Add us (“info@researchpubs.com”) to Your Address Book
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Physical Address since May 1979: RE/SEARCH | 20 Romolo #B | San Francisco CA 94133-4041 | 415.362.1465
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—–SPONSORSHIP NEEDED! We are Offering Just a Few Sponsorships So This Newsletter Can Ensure Continuance. At this point (5000 names worldwide) it costs us $11/month to send out. If someone is willing to paypal us $11, they will receive a SPONSOR CREDIT and a WEBSITE LISTING plus a small message. However, as we need this MONTHLY, we are looking for a REGULAR SPONSOR!

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

 1. 2 MESSAGES FROM YOUR EDITOR, V. VALE: Humans Are Becoming More Robotic!

 2. Counter Culture Hour with filmmaker Mike Kuchar, twin brother of George Kuchar, Sat May12 – 6PM Pacific time – SF cable channel 29, also simulcast on-line (see below)

 3. ** RE/Search  eBooks! For starters: “Confessions of Wanda Von Sacher-Masoch” now available on Kindle, along with a companion reading of “Venus in Furs.”

 4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS

 5. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing

 6.  Writing Advice…

 7. Recommended Links – send some!

 8. QUOTES 

 9. Letters from Readers

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please add info@researchpubs.com to your WHITE LIST in your email preferences, or to your ADDRESS BOOK. If you change your email, send it plus your “old” email address to delete. Lastly, forward our newsletter to your friends! If you are on AOL, please make sure you can receive our newsletter –  we get the most returns from addresses at AOL, Hotmail, Comcast and Yahoo!

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1. EDITORIAL FROM V. VALE: HOW MANY JOBS HAS THE INTERNET KILLED? (You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!)

 

If I were an alien from Outer Space wanting to ruin life on Planet Earth, I think I’d invent the Internet.

      I’d get every earthling constantly connected via some electronic wireless gizmo to an ADD-creating, creativity-sucking, time-wasting, globally-exploitative hive-video-brain offering:

     1) massive discounts no “local” merchant could afford to give

     2) “free” illegal downloads of the entirety of the world’s cultural output, thus chopping off at the root any chance of lengthy artistic development and maturation

     3) billions of shocking / titillating images, films, videos and words whose net effect is even more passivity-inducement and lethargy

     4) fake social networking whose RESULT is: nobody gets together in the same room anymore — too much trouble. Everyone’s at home consuming images and audio on an electronic screen, writing inconsequential fluff, and twittering their lives away…(Yes, a few who can still afford it, sit “alone together” in coffeehouses, glued to their electronic devices).

     5) in sum, constant, hypnotizing distraction so that silence and solitude have become unthinkable, obsolete and positively quaint…

     Then I’d sit around and watch 99% of the earthlings get fat and insane as every possible place offering “real social contact in real time” goes out of business — most never to return. The 1% left are like the actors in the ancient Roman Games, living the “real” lives while the other 99% act like the zombie spectators they are, each unemployed spectator telling themselves they’re truly unique and “special” and deserve to be celebrities…

     Meanwhile, none of the 99% ever suspect that the Internet was the cause…

 

(Ironically, since this is posted on the Internet, this “rant” will doubtless be ignored… Oh yes, it was written by a luddite BOOK publisher – almost forgot what a “book” was – I once saw one, long ago… )

 

 

2.  EDITORIAL FROM V. VALE: The Internet Has Already Changed Your IDENTITY/Animal-Bodily-Functioning/Brain Synapses… But Was This VOLUNTARY?!

 

1) Think about the way you live, process information, recall important details, remember favorite moments, prioritize your life & future traveling. 2) Now imagine that the Internet had never existed. 3) Then visualize yourself traveling to a strange (but “human”-populated) planet and observing some of its inhabitants sitting at a table:

 

1. A being asks a question. Someone else produces an iPhone, pushes some buttons, reads an answer from the screen. Everyone at the table lavishes admiration upon the answer-producer. But, did that person TRULY deserve that admiration?!?

 

2. A being walks around all day looking at their iPhone. Posing as an amateur anthropologist, you follow them around. They scarcely notice any other human on the street, are unaware of being followed, almost get hit by a car swerving around a corner, and wherever they go, they stay focused on their iPhone.

 

3. It turns out they are constantly receiving messages from afar (or from other beings in their own town or city). Like a slave they consume an endless, smile-giving (or shock-administering) stream of images/soundbites promoting someone else’s ”content”…

 

4. Finally, they get summoned to a bar or cafe where they see, IN PERSON, other beings. The whole time they are there ostensibly talking and interacting, they’re glancing at their iPhone to monitor the constant flow of messages appearing — are they looking/hoping for a “better offer”?

 

5. Occasionally they suddenly leave the room, presumably to talk to somone? It turns out they were placing a last-minute bid on some heavily-discounted brand-name luxury item whose auction was closing.

 

6. The being boards a public transport bus. The whole time they ignore the other humans around them & talk on the phone (this is the best time to talk to mom or dad, when trapped and there’s no other option). Or, they’re texting or web-surfing or watching videos or listening to music. Many times, they’re being “mentored” by algorithms — (“If you liked THAT, you might like THIS…”), not even a real human being with unique taste, discernment and sensitivity… (Now, the whole topic of being “MENTORED BY ALGORITHMS” deserves an essay in itself!)

 

7. CONCLUSION: Has it finally dawned on you that these beings are literally behaving as though they’re partially “robotic”? As ostensibly human-animals, their perceptions, reflexes and animal instincts seem to be largely non-functioning, as almost all their attention is directed toward a small screen in their hand. They are barely receiving any information or stimuli from the actual physical environment immersing them. And after years of this behavior, they appear to be barely capable of fine penmanship, artistic drawing, spontaneous wit, complex humor and fantasy generating, role-playing, aphorism-coining, big-picture-imagining, lateral thinking, and everything that humans used to engage in that falls under the penumbra of “play” (remember “homo ludens”?). 

 

8. CONCLUSION: Language of gesture and bodily self-expression seems to be severely reduced, truncated or even ”disappeared.” You learn that they are addicted to watching pornographic images and films, so that THAT creative ability seems to have atrophied. Emotional stunting seems to have occurred, save for the all-pervasive cynical-laugh-reflex and the quick penning of anagrams/emoticons such as “LOL” or “:)” upon their iPhone.

 

9. CONCLUSION: Usage of the Imagination and dreams of these beings also seems to have atrophied. We recall the Thomas de Quincey observation that “the machinery for dreaming and imagination in the human brain was not implanted for nothing.” Well, that notion went out with 19th-century button shoes! 

 

10. CONCLUSION: Why should these beings even exist? They have lost the ability to ask the question, “WHY”? What is the MEANING of their Lives? Why do they exist? Are these beings even coherent? Are they a community? Do they have basic morals and ethics — or even question what these might be? Which means: they have become semi-robots. Can robots/computers ever ask WHY? No. They just DO what they do…

 

These beings all seem to be in one solid pursuit: checking the iPhone, which is their new “God.” Oh, their 2nd “drive” is to attain profit and money (& maybe celebrity), preferably without working hard for it. Money/Profit/Trying to Get A Bargain is their Secondary God / Goddess. All else is just pure distraction… So, the new “norm” is distractibility, like some kind of universal nervous tic: always checking the iPhone. No one can look anyone else in the eye for a full minute without feeling the urge to… check the phone. Just start people-watching and see if you don’t agree?!

 

Who needs mutation the old-fashioned way? Mutation has already happened; the next generation will have faster, more dexterous thumbs and be more short-sighted… and definitely, fatter… Wait a minute; the Future Is Already Here! And it is ROBOTIC…

 

2. Counter Culture Hour -  Sat May 12, 2012 – 6:00 PM PACIFIC TIME.

 

This conversation was filmed at the RE/Search office in San Francisco and features filmmaker MIKE KUCHAR, pioneering ”underground” San Francisco/New York filmmaker and film-making teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute. Mike’s identical twin brother George recently departed this world, as well as a household cat, so Mike was hardly in the most cheerful frame of mind, but he soldiered on and graciously did this interview.

Edited/filmed/produced by Marian Wallace;  interview by V. Vale.

The Counter Culture Hour (aka RE/SEARCH TV) is also simulcast ON-LINE as well as on cable access San Francisco Channel 29 — 6pm Pacific Time, Sat  May 12, 2012

- see this link at broadcast time:

http://72.47.201.244/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1881&Itemid=1801

You need a fairly decent internet connection and computer to “get it.”

USA west coast: 6:00 PM Saturday, May 12, 2012

USA east coast: 9:00 PM Saturday, May 12, 2012

London: 2:00 AM Sunday, May 13, 2012

Tokyo: 10:00 AM Sunday, May 13, 2012

If you cannot get this online email us at info@researchpubs.com

Would you like to have a Counter Culture Hour showing in your town? Please write & ask us how you can do this. (write:  info@researchpubs.com)

 

See RE/Search channel on youtube: “researchpubs”

 

 

3. REminder: one RE/Search book is on Kindle! Our “Confessions of Wanda Von Sacher-Masoch” is now available along with a companion eBook of “Venus in Furs.”  ”Wanda” is the gripping narrative written by a late 19th-century proto-feminist coping with the perverse demands of the father of her 2 children — the father being the writer who published in book form the behavioral archetype of SM (the masochist enslaved to his dominatrix). “Venus in Furs” is the novel, written from the husband’s standpoint, of his literary invention of the “classic” scenarios deployed in the Master-Slave relationship, complete with leather-fur fetishes, whips & all the accoutrements readily available in certain shops in the Castro/SOMA neighborhoods. These 2 books are still outside the mainstream, and posit many “consensual/power/relationship/hierarchy issues” still relevant today. A feminist classic, Wanda’s version of her life had to wait almost 100 years until RE/Search published it for the first time in English.

 

Support the digitization of RE/Search Publications: Get these fascinating books at http://amzn.to/eCM52a  And check out: http://aerbook.com ). They design and build enhanced eBooks for all the major eReaders, including readers on the iPhone and iPad

 

4. FORTHCOMING EVENTS (San Francisco unless Otherwise Noted)

 

() We always encourage readers to go to thrillpeddlers.com & support the Hypnodrome, S.F.’s unique Grand Guignol/Humor Noir Revival Theatre showcase. Children ages 8-15 in particular will highly benefit from their 4 2-week summer creepshow camps  ( http://thrillpeddlers.com/creepshow-camp-2012/ ), which teach the arcane arts of applying fake wounds, blood, gore and zombie makeup. On May 19, 2012 The Thrillpeddlers’  Hot Greeks ends – it’s a Cockettes musical; enuff said!  http://thrillpeddlers.com/

 

() FREE. Sausalito. Tue May 1, 6pm. 52-min US/French Documentary Film featuring Author Sebastian Junger. Tiburon Film Society (tel 415-381-4123) will present “Into the Forbidden Zone“ at the Bay Model located at 2100 Bridgeway in Sausalito. Author Sebastian Junger and photographer Reza enter a modern day Armageddon. Traveling through war-torn Afghanistan, The filmmakers follow these two journalists on their search for Ahmed Shah Massoud, the resistance leader known as The Lion of Panjshir. Junger and Reza must trek to Massoud’s front lines deep in the Hindu Kush Mountains, a treacherous place in the best of times, a death trap in war. Follow an unforgettable journey through courage, fear, and the heart of a nation torn by war.

 

() Worth a Trip to GERMANY: RIGHT NOW THROUGH AUG 12, 2012: a William S. Burroughs Exhibition:

the name is BURROUGHS − Expanded Media  [ www.zkm.de ]

 

ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art -  Burroughs, as a cross-media artist, also produced a comprehensive, varied body of work that no less experiments with audio tape, film and photography as it does with painting and collages. The comprehensive exhibition “the name is BURROUGHS” − Expanded Media presents the author’s artistic output in Germany for the first time. It examines the multiple affiliations between literary and experimental image production, further augmenting the image by way of the representation of “collaborations” Burroughs produced in association with other artists. The exhibition gains additional appeal thanks to a series of works by contemporary international artists who each make unambiguous reference to Burroughs’ writings and his method of “expanded media”, and thus, from a present-day perspective, sound out the individual pictorial potential.

The exhibition’s goal is to make tangible, in review and for the first time within Europe on such a scale, the visionary volatility of William  S. Burroughs‘ literary output while at the same time showing the impact of his ideas and philosophy on a wider network of authors, musicians, composers, painters, photographers, video artists and filmmakers. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, Burroughs is more than ever considered – especially owing to the experiments he carried out in the 1960s together with painter, author, inventor Brion Gysin, with mathematician Ian Sommerville and filmmaker Antony Balch − as a pioneer of media art. In this respect, with the exhibition the name is BURROUGHS − Expanded Media, the ZKM also reflects the institution’s unique mandate and its own history − that it was, indeed, Burroughs, who was awarded the first Siemens Media Prize in Karlsruhe, in 1993.

Curators: Udo Breger, Axel Heil and Peter Weibel with valuable support by James Grauerholz and his staff

Publication: In conjunction with the exhibition, a richly illustrated publication on William S. Burroughs as representative figure of the counterculture is available; the work includes a written contribution by Ian MacFadyen, and is edited by Axel Heil as part of his series ”Future of the Past” (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne).

During the exhibition, the ZKM plans, in cooperation with the “Estate of William S. Burroughs”, a comprehensive publication including numerous essays and over 300 illustrations – mostly hitherto unpublished works from the artist’s varied oeuvre.

 

() FREE. Berkeley. Thur May 3, 11-5pm. Berkeley Art Museum, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley.

 

() FREE. LOS ANGELES: Thur May 3, 730pm, Getty Center, Harold M. Williams Auditorium. Presentation on Photographer Herb Ritts by Dr. Jonathan Katz. Free, but call 310-440-7300 for reservations!

 

() $$. NOW THROUGH AUG 19, 2012, Tue-Sun, de Young Museum, SF: The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk: the first major exhibition dedicated to French designer Jean Paul Gaultier. More than 130 iconic haute couture and prêt-a-porter ensembles created between the early 1970s and 2010 in scenic contexts ranging from the boudoir to graffiti streets and the catwalk.

 

() FREE. Sat May 5, 6-9pm. Free PHOTO SHOW/Reception at Moxi Salon, 1980 Union/Buchanan, SF. Daniel Konhauser & 14 other photographers.

 

() FREE if you have a BofA credit-debit card: Sat-Sun May 5-6: de Young Museum, Legion of Honor Museum, Contemporary Jewish Museum, more…

 

() FREE. Tue May 8, 11-530pm. SFMOMA, 151 3rd St/Mission-Howard, S.F. ALSO: 930-5pm. Legion of Honor Museum, 100 24th Ave, S.F.

 

() FREE. Tue May 8, 930-5pm. de Young Museum (Gaultier Show; is that a separate $$ admission?), Golden Gate Park near Japanese Tea Garden.

 

() FREE. Thur May 10, 830-930pm. V. Vale interviews Greg Scars, guitarist/songwriter for the Avengers (1977-era S.F. Punk band). Homestead (back room), 2301 Folsom/19th St, S.F. Event curated by Maureen Russell. 12 bus.

 

() FREE. Fri May 11, 6-8pm. SFAI MFA Graduate Exhibition Opening Reception. Phoenix Hotel, 601 Eddy St, S.F.

 

() FREE. OAKLAND. Fri May 11, 6-930pm. James Stark’s photographs & Crime posters at 1234Go Records, 420 40th St, Oakland. 510.985.0325.

 

() FREE. BERKELEY. Sat May 12, 10-530pm. 11th Annual PAGAN FESTIVAL AND PARADE. Theme: Paradigm Shift. Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park, 2151 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, 94704 (at Center Street Next to Farmers Market – South of University Avenue and East of Downtown Berkeley BART.

 

() $$. Sun May 13, 12-8pm, HOW WEIRD Street Faire. Howard/2nd Sts & more, SF. www.howweird.org

 

() $$. SAN MATEO. Sat May 19-Sun May 20, 10-6pm. MAKER FAIRE, San Mateo County Event Center, makerfaire.com

 

() FREE. OAKLAND. Sun May 20, 5-8pm. Bucky Sinister reads poems! New LP, too. ISSUES, 20 Glen Ave, Oakland 94611.

 

() FREE BOOKS. Sat-Sun Every Weekend 9-6pm. www.bayareafreebookexchange.com 10520 San Pablo Ave/Moeser Ln, El Cerrito CA 94530

 

 

5. What We’ve Attended/What We’ve Been Reading/Seeing/Listening to/What We’ve Been Sent

 

() RE/Search attended Sun April 22, 8pm NOH MERCY live show/record release party at Café du Nord, Swedish-American Hall in San Francisco. Erase Errata (all-women band) was the opener. Note that V. Vale wrote introductory liner notes for the NOH MERCY LP/CD, and that this was the band’s first live performance in over 33 years! Esmerelda & Tony Hotel performed just a tantalizing few of their ahead-of-their-time-songs. However, Esmerelda’s beloved Farfisa keyboard had not been touched in 33 years, so the audience was treated to ONLY voice and drums… which meant that EVERY WORD could be heard and understood (well, almost). Additionally, there was more room on the small stage for Esmerelda to freely express her theatrical persona and vocabulary of gesture and choreography. Up close, both Tony Hotel and Esmerelda sported beautifully designed, colorful kabuki mask makeup, plus Japanese-inspired costuming.This felt like a kind of classic legendary event, and a few people did drive over 100 miles for the experience which definitely did not disappoint. The evening felt more like a kind of trance ritual than a standard “music concert” — and like all great events, left the audience wanting MORE!

 

The live set list was 6 songs: Revolutionary Spy. Girl. Fashion Chant. My Wild Love. Pay the Devil. Caucasian Guilt. The end of “Revolutionary Spy” is: “Who is the enemy? Is it you, or is it me? Who is the enemy? Is it you? Or is it FaceBook?! “This “new” ending to “Revolutionary Spy” brought on wild cheers…

 

A number of people from the late 70s/early 80s San Francisco Punk scene showed up. As Esmerelda remarked, “Winston Tong looks like a Chinese Keith Richards… I didn’t recognize him!” Designer Patrick Roques (with friend Jennifer from Mill Valley) flew up from Los Angeles. Photographer Dan Nicoletta. Neal Pauline & Bobbi. filmmaker Mindy Bagdon. Marc Huestis with the star of “Whatever Happened to Susan Jane?” [1982] Peter Urban. Victoria. Brenda Tong. Matt Heckert./Kelsey Kerr. Janlee (Kim Danders RIP). August Ragone worked the door.

 

Talked briefly with Esmerelda after the show and here are some highlights: “When we played Madame Wong’s in L.A., with Tuxedo Moon, well — Madame Wong is a real person & she’s like a true grande dame – she owns this nightclub in Chinatown L.A. where all the punk rock shows were. And she got really offended when she heard us do “Caucasian Guilt” at soundcheck — she freaked out, and kicked Noh Mercy off the bill. And she threatened us with the real TONG gang ‘cuz she IS a Tong. Winston Tong was our saviour ‘cuz he was able to calm things down so at least Tuxedo Moon could play!

 

“There should be some kind of monthly Punk reunion in San Francisco somewhere — after all, many of us still live here, but we never see each other. Tony Hotel [who lives back East] said, “Do I have to come out here for everyone to see each other?!” Where could this monthly free Punk Salon possibly be? Viracocha? El Valenciano? It’s an idea: First Mondays, MONTHLY PUNK SALON. People can put on little performances, or shout poetry, or whatever they wanna do.”

 

Times have changed: a favorite moment happened when Esmerelda yelled out onstage, “63 is the new 31!” Her daughter is 41 or 42, and has a 2-year-old. Esmerelda’s son is 43 and has an 18-year-old; yes, the grandson is 18, and “he’s great…” This event happened to promote the new Noh Mercy LP and CD releases, on Steve Wascovich’s Superior Viaduct Records — look for it at superior small record stores, or order direct from Steve himself! http://www.superiorviaduct.com/nohmercy/

 

() RE/Search attended two STELARC presentations within the past month. 1) Fri March 30 Dorkbot SF (Gray Area, 998 Market St): STELARC, SRL founder Mark Pauline and artist Leo Villareal each gave presentations with video. Stelarc’s show was titled ”Zombies & Cyborgs: The presentation explored varying constructs of the body in an age of Mixed Realities and Circulating Flesh. People will increasingly become portals for sensory feedback and for remote manipulation, becoming extended operational systems performing beyond the boundaries of the skin and beyond the local space they inhabit. Bodies have become chimeras of meat, metal and code.

 

“Stelarc will show videos, animations, demonstrate the Prosthetic Head project and will also show his extra ear which is presently being surgically constructed and cell-grown on his arm.” Yours truly was privileged to actually feel the ear-on-arm...

 

“Stelarc is currently the Chair In Performance Art, School of Arts, Brunel University London… STELARC has visually probed and acoustically amplified his body. He has made three films of the inside of his body. Between 1976-1988 he completed 25 body suspension performances with hooks into the skin. He has used medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, Virtual Reality systems, the Internet and biotechnology to explore alternate, intimate and involuntary interfaces with the body. He has performed with a Third Hand, a Stomach Sculpture and a 6-legged walking robot, Exoskeleton. In 2010 he was awarded the Hybrid Arts Prize at Ars Electronica. His artwork is represented by the Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne http://stelarc.org/   ”

 

Mark Pauline‘s presentation was titled “Spine Robot Lives! Mark Pauline presented detailed info about the Spine Robot progress (he had to design/machine 1500 separate parts!) and showed video of it operating at the new Petaluma shop.

“Mark Pauline originated and developed the concept of large scale machine performance beginning in 1978 with the founding of Survival Research Laboratories. Staged over 57 machine performances in the US, Europe, and Japan as director of SRL. The most recent performance was staged at MOCA in Los Angeles, September 2011. Mark constructed and designed dozens of large, complex robots and machines for use in these performances and has trained and supervised the efforts of over 400 assistants in the art of machine performance. Mark has given over 180 lectures, panel discussions, and seminars such as Oxford University, Yale, Commonwealth Club of SF, etc. and has over 150 TV spots in the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan ranging from interviews and video documentation specials to anonymous reports of mechanized pranksterism. There have been over 450 articles and interviews both in print and online…”  http://www.srl.org

 

Amy Critchett is helping Leo Villareal do his Bay Lights project. Bay Lights is an iconic light sculpture which will live for two years on the Bay Bridge West Span starting with a Grand Lighting in late 2012. Created with over 25,000 energy efficient, white LED lights, it is 1.5 miles wide and 500 feet high, viewable from San Francisco and points north but not by drivers on the bridge itself.

“Leo Villareal orchestrates complex, rhythmic artwork composed exclusively of points of light; his groundbreaking work is part of the permanent collection of major museums worldwide. He received a BA in sculpture from Yale University in 1990 and a graduate degree from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP). http://thebaylights.org/   ”

 

2) One of the most avant-garde cultural exploration/elucidation series happening today has got to be Ken Goldberg’s ATC (Art-Technology-Culture Colloquium) Lecture Series. A recent installment featured Stelarc (Performance Artist, Melbourne): The Comatose, the Cadaver, and the Chimera, Mon Apr 2, 2012, 7:30pm to 9:00p at Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley. Stelarc uses medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, virtual reality systems, and the internet to explore alternate interfaces with the body. A publicity email provided the following text:

 

“Caption: “Third Ear”, Stelarc, 2007. (Photo courtesy of Stelarc.) ”Flesh is circulating. Organs are extracted and exchanged. Limbs detached  from a dead body can be reanimated on a living body. Ova are fertilized by sperm that was once frozen. The skin cells from an impotent male can now become sperm cells. And more interestingly the skin cells from female bodies can be re-engineered into sperm cells. The face of a donor body becomes a third face on the recipient. Cadavers can be preserved forever with plastination whilst comatose bodies can be sustained indefinitely on life-support systems. Cryogenically suspended bodies await reanimation at some imagined future. The dead, the near-dead, and the yet to be born now exist simultaneously. And if body parts can be stem-cell grown or Organ Printed, then organs will be in abundence. Organs will be in excess. There will be organs awaiting bodies. Organs Without Bodies. This is the age of the Cadaver, the Comatose and the Chimera. The Chimera is the body that performs with mixed realities. Liminal spaces proliferate, blurring what it means to be a body and whether it is any longer meaningful to remain human. Perhaps what it means to be human is not to remain human at all…”

 

Now this was easily one of the most thought-provoking presentations of the year, literally crammed and jammed with challenging ideas and language, all grounded (occasionally) by Stelarc’s signature deep laugh, which has to be heard to be loved (or at least appreciated). What a difficult territory for an artist-scientist to be exploring: the body’s relationship to the latest progressive technology involving cutting-edge (literally) medical research, robotics, the invention of new metallic alloys — at the frontiers of never-before-glimpsed human experiencings. We certainly look forward to the posting of this symposium on the ATC website [atc.berkeley.edu] , which would easily bear several viewings.

 

After an extremely detailed lecture followed by a Q&A featuring intelligent questions from the audience, RE/Search followed Stelarc to a local Indian restaurant where, under extremely noisy conditions, the artist granted a small interview for The Counter Culture Hour. [Thanks, Ken Goldberg, for making this happen!] We hope this will soon appear on our monthly cable TV show, possibly to be paired with another small recent interview with Genesis P-Orridge plus Marie Losier, in San Francisco recently to promote their new film, “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye“ which began screening in movie theaters worldwide. If you would like to see this episode, please write us — it helps to have encouragement to finish projects!

 

() Friday, April 13, 2012, 8:00 pm.  ATA, 992 Valencia/21st St, 415-824-3890. ILLUMINATED TEXTS: Whether it is the exploration of language emerging from the body in Finkelstein’s “Marvelous Discourse,” or the opulent verbal/visual splendor of Mike Kuchar’s “Opal Essence,” these complex collages of music, images, words, and sounds all aim to use video in order to bring poetic texts to life. Collaboration between the two artists: Kuchar’s “The Dreamer’s Tale,” in which performer and writer Finkelstein sleepwalks down into subconscious corridors. http://www.atasite.org/2012/04/illuminated-texts-new-language-based-videos-by-david-finkelstein-and-mike-kuchar/

 

() Saturnday, April 14, 7-9pm BEAT MUSEUM, 540 Broadway, SF featured legendary San Francisco criminal defense attorney Tony Serra on his prison experiences; poet Marc Olmsted (he once made a short film on Burroughs), and the enchanting Los Angeles poet /siren Liv Zutphen.

 

() Sat April 21. Went to the San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut St, to enjoy the last day of the George Kuchar installation (magnificent job by Kent Long and others), and ran into John Waters! He was dressed in purple (as befits, um, underground royalty) and carrying a canvas bag from a London bookstore (?). We love what he once said: “If you go to someone’s home and they don’t have books, don’t f–k ‘em! We have to make books cool again.” John himself is an appreciator of the rarest, strangest, weirdest books on the planet… (well, so is RE/Search)…

 

() FREE. Wed April 25, 6pm-9pm. JOHN WATERS talks/introduces A Dirty Shame. Timken Lecture Hall, CCA, 1111 8th St, S.F. 415.703.9563.

 

() FREE. Fri April 27, 4-7pm. ANNIE SPRINKLE talks/introduces Herstory of Porn: Reel to Real. CCA, Carmen M. Christensen Production Stage. 1111 8th St.

 

() We have to thank our friends in Los Angeles who flew us down for (3) events in the last few months: 1) Extreme Futurist Fest, curated by Rachel ___ – check out her FaceBook page. We met ALEX from Russia there — more on that, later!  2) L.A. Zine Fest - fantastic one-day event (find their FaceBook page), at the end of which Henry Rollins interviewed V. Vale for at least 90 minutes – what a pro Henry is!  Thanks to Rhea Tepplim/Nag Champoy for inviting us & LastBookstore/JoshSpencer for sponsoring everything! 3) Shelf Life 2, another independent publishing / zine festival hosted by USC and curated by Ewa Wojciak, married to Bruce Kalberg [RIP] who published No Magazine. We also thank SkylightBooks/Dan & our hosts who put us up in L.A.: David, Gail, Richard M and others…

 

() DARN. It’s past 2 AM already. No way can I review all the fabulous books which legendary San Francisco independent publisher Last Gasp sent me. PROMISE to review ‘em for the June Newsletter – V. Vale

 

 

6. WRITING ADVICE TO “RICHARD” who was arrested at an OCCUPY LOS ANGELES: “Richard, write 1st thing in morning before you get out of bed – channel every possible memory & sensation – do not edit, do not censor, it’s for YOUR EYES ONLY – keep notebooks around the house & whenever you think of a DETAIL or something write it down – editing/pulling it all together into a linear narrative is the last step, if it needs to be done at all. You’re doing this first of all for yourself, because you have been severely traumatized and you need to EXTERNALIZE what happened to you, in your body (where emotions reside) OUTSIDE OF YOUR BODY, onto paper. You need to FREE YOURSELF (sort of) from this traumatic experience (sort of) …  writing is CHANNELING - never stop & edit or censor – just write every DETAIL you can summon up. Start with what you were wearing (details) when you were “arrested” – what OTHERS were wearing – try to recall exact phrases, thoughts… ah, you already know all this!” … You don’t want to kill memories of “injustice you’ve experienced” but you must try to separate yourself from what happened, toward the goal of getting the biggest possible picture, of which you are an actor in a drama, but maybe not the only actor, but still, since you are the CENTRAL actor in YOUR drama, it’s important to make it as vivid as possible, with DETAILS, even smells, environments, timings of what happened. The LANGUAGE OF AUTHORITY needs to be captured, then only later can it be critiqued, analyzed, etc. The BODY LANGUAGE of AUTHORITY — ditto. It’s the best project you could do for yourself, i think!!! … Richard, don’t forget to WRITE so you can purge that awful Occupy experience from your BODY – not just your mind!!!

 

 

7. RECOMMENDED LINKS (send some!)

 

() V. Vale interviewed by Henry Rollins (1st hour of 90 minutes) at LA Zine Fest: http://vimeo.com/37583048

 

() http://www.eddie.com/category/san-francisco/

 

() from Richard M & Gail T: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAHDP-j5-dY  YOU TUBE:  WARHOL & BURROUGHS

 

() Jon Savage intv: http://dummymag.com/videos/2012/04/19/a-dummy-film-about-jon-savage/

 

() from Graphic Garrett: http://shootbucket.blogspot.com/

 

() written intv with V. Vale by Chris Ziegler: http://larecord.com/interviews/2012/02/17/v-vale-our-job-is-to-fight

 

() A Real History of the last 62 years? http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/#more-46802

 

() Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail? http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314

 

() http://www.allmyfaves.com/blog/allmyfaves/the-top-10-coolest-websites-best-of-2011/

 

() ballardian.com - frequently updated with J.G. Ballardiana …

 

() realitystudio.org - dedicated to William S. Burroughs, posting old underground press intvs, et al… [google "reality studio burroughs" ]

 

() from JOEY SKAGGS: www.mobilehomelesshomes.com - coming soon! Or call Joey Skaggs at 212-254-7878

 

() from VyVy ”Have you been tweet-bombed?” : http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2012/04/20/the-tweetbomb-and-the-ethics-of-attention/

 

() A 30-minute V. Vale interview by George Chen: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3D3F93E42148DB64

 

() Rev Billy Banking Action site: fearofbanking.com

 

() from James “National Lampoon…” http://books.google.com/books?id=nOLvftldSSAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=national+lampoon&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qbKBT49ypqeIAvPwjI4D&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=national%20lampoon&f=false

 

 

 

8. QUOTES chosen by, or authored by, V. Vale

 

() Long ago J.G. Ballard wrote about the “new” theatricalised behavior affected/adopted by people who talk on their cellphones in public… the increasing 360-degree self-consciousness aided & abetted by “reality TV shows” (which Ballard also predicted decades ago)…

 

() “Sometimes you see things that are so amazing, so humbling, that you realize you will always be a student, that you will never know enough.”- Henry Rollins, Occupants, p 142. (Dazzling new all-color photo book with great commentary; Henry’s best so far.)

 

() At the End of the Day Ask: WHAT HAVE I ACHIEVED “FOR THE AGES”? Make a DAILY LIST: Artwork, Creative Writing, Music Composition, Dark Humor… (Or, at least try to do this weekly!!)

 

() “Imagine if we deliberately gave up on the future? If we refused the pressure to move forward & consume the latest hip technology as an early adopter?”

 

() “The concept of the “future” is now being seen as some kind of dodgy capitalist construct to market and abet “modernism” … as the best way to get consumers to buy the newest iteration, of, say, the iPhone5 or iPad4 or MacBook Air…

 

() “In any situation where humor is absolutely not allowed, be very, very afraid!”

 

() “Dreams reveal the cosmic humor of the universe — especially to those who think they have Free Will & Total Control of their lives, destinies, and minds…”

 

() “I love seeing apocalypse movies. Why? Because whatever happens in the future will NOT be precisely predictable. Each new apocalypse movie ensures that THIS Will Not Be How the World Ends…” [Now, on the other hand, we are running out of pure water and are getting low on a lot of world resources, so...]

 

() You know that song, “Stay young & beautiful/Just as long as you can”? As advice, it’s not bad…

 

 

9. LETTERS FROM READERS:

 

() ”To our Patient Readers Who Have Made It This Far, A tiny Notice: Two of our favorite books, RE/Search #8/9: JG Ballard & RE/Search #14: Incredibly Strange Music Vol One, are down to our last handful of copies. In today’s non-print-publishing eWorld, it is doubtful they can ever be reprinted (although one can always HOPE!). If you want a Brand New Copy on real paper, best get one now! And, I’ll autograph it upon request… – your editor, V. Vale

 

() from George P. in Canada, ordering one of the last hardback copies of Brion Gysin’s HERE TO GO book: “I’ve been an avid RE/SEARCH reader for many years now. Still have my autographed copy of Ballard’s ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’!” — Well, nice to know there’s one copy in Canada!

 

() from Joshua N. in Canada, ordering Search&Destroy#1-11 set: ”I have read RE/SEARCH Pubs for over ten years. Finding these books in the used bookstore of a small town have influenced me in more ways than I can count — from discovering new Punk bands to my love affair with the writings of JG Ballard and was instrument [sadly, ran out of room]

 

() from James C-G of Australia who ordered a R/S logo t-shirt: “ LONG TIME DEVOTEE. DONT MAKE ME BEG FOR A STICKER !!!!!!! – Sorry James, but we don’t have any stickers, although — now’s the time to produce a RE/SEARCH LOGO square to stick over your MacBook Air logo…

 

() from Kate in Canada: “We’ve never met, but I just wanted to tell you that finding a couple RE/Search books in the library at the art school I went to last year was a huge deal for me. Reading the interviews you did really helped me figure out my attitude towards art-making (and life in general). I think it inspired me to take a lot more risks and not be so afraid of being a little bit bad (in the good, Pranks kind of way, you know?) So thanks for that!”

 

() from Dan of Skylight Books in L.A, one of the few stores to carry DIY zines and books: “it was V. Vale that inspired me the most. He said to write and create that which we are passionate or obsessed about. It has to drive you to get up and do something. You don’t have to cater to an audience. It’s what drives you. And you have to meet the public in order to get your stuff out there.” [Gee, Thanks Dan!]

 

() from anonymous Denver, Colorado citizen: “All of these San Francisco Photographers showing their ’70s “Punk Photographs” in Denver would not have made the photographs if not for you!! And the MCA even named the citywide event Search & Destroy…” [I know for sure that Bruce Conner would not have made a single Punk Photograph if I had never been born." - V. Vale]

 

() “There is no TRY. Only DO.” – Yoda

 

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MAY 2012 RE/Search eNewsletter written by V. Vale & other contributors (sorry for gap; last newsletter was March/April 2011). RE/Search website powered by http://www.laughingsquid.com. This May 2012 newsletter is an “experiment”: Add us (“info@researchpubs.com“) to Your Address Book

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Physical Address since May 1979: RE/SEARCH | 20 Romolo #B | San Francisco CA 94133-4041 | 415.362.1465

http://www.researchpubs.com | http://www.myspace.com/researchpubs | info@researchpubs.com  facebook: “RE/Search Fan Page”    twitter: @valeRESearch

Thanks to Ewa Wojciak who brought V. Vale to SHELF LIFE 2 last weekend. A whirlwind back & forth – apologies to everyone I know in L.A. who I wasn’t able to see. Very last minute trip. In L.A. just 38 hours. Here’s some photos (a photo is worth 1000 words, right?).

V. Vale among the 100+ photos taken by WYATT CONLON @ SHELF LIFE 2, LA 3/24/12, USC campus, hosted by Ewa Wojciak+pals! http://t.co/3obepHo8

By V. VALE: “L.A. Zine Festival, Sun Feb 19, 11-11pm – temporary utopia on earth – crammed & jammed with some of the nicest quirkiest yet rebellious souls ever to amuse your future intellectual life with their handmade truths on paper. Even though, I met someone who said, “The truth is boring.” (Well, we all know there are as many truths as there are people.) Discussed topics like THE NUMBER THREE (3): There are at least (3) possibilities in every situation: yes, no, something else. Talking and meeting people can be FUN – especially if they’re the ones who don’t go out too often, or even rarely… And, Henry Rollins was an amazingly good interviewer who always had one eye on the bigger picture, and the future of the future… And, that incredible THE LAST BOOKSTORE which hosted all of us humans who met there – if you haven’t been there – well, even if you live in Iceland or Slovenia, this place deserves a pilgrimage. Some of the best Los Angelenos work there – and you should meet them all! We thank Josh, Greg, Peter, Elizabeth (and others) plus the incredible six women who worked for a year to make the L.A. Zine Festival become a reality, and actually happen – in the spirit and tradition of the best “Happenings” ever to occur in the history of Counter Culture creating…”

1 HOUR VIDEO of V. Vale/Henry Rollins live intv at LA Zine Fest 2-19-12 (Sadly, 1/2-hr more intv is missing!): http://vimeo.com/37583048 THANKS!

he video you’ve all been waiting for, Henry Rollins interview with V. Vale of RE/Search Publications!

Just went to Glenn O’Brien’s “blog” and noted that he had the “balls” to post photos of himself from all ages – youth to now white hair – and that he wrote perhaps the “best possible” obituary for artist Mike Kelley, who apparently killed himself Jan 31 or Feb 1, 2012. I noted that perhaps Kelley went to some of the same Punk Rock concerts in Los Angeles that I attended in 1978, the year he moved to California and attended Cal Arts, which members of the seminal Los Angeles Punk band the WEIRDOS also attended. We are always sad to see rebel artists leave our planet on an early exit trajectory, and hope that this act does not go viral. ‘Nuff said…

WEEKLY V. VALE EDITORIAL Published Monday Mornings

HOW I MET WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS (Part Two)

I forgot to mention that in that same June 1969 EVERGREEN REVIEW was a Burroughs story titled “My Mother and I Would Like to Know.” It begins: “I am on my way from London to Tangier. American tourist with wife he calls “Mother” . . . in North Africa I will contact the wild boy packs. I am bringing them modern weapons” (shades of Rimbaud!) “We intend to march on the police everywhere.” The first paragraph continued: “The precise programming of thought, feeling and apparent sensory impressions by the technology outlined in bulletin 2332 enables the police states to maintain a democratic facade from behind which they loudly denounce as criminal perverts and drug addicts anyone who opposes the Control Machine. Underground armies operate in the large cities, enturbulating the police with false information through anonymous phone calls and letters…We put out false alarms on the police short wave directing patrol cars to nonexistent crimes and riots which enables us to strike somewhere else… False construction workers tear up streets, rupture water mains, cut power connections…” (No wonder I did the RE/Search PRANKS! book years later!)

Later in this story I found such quotes as “We intend to destroy all dogmatic verbal systems” — which I put on a rare Burroughs T-shirt I conceptually designed. The next paragraph dropped the phrase “authority sickness” — and volumes could and have been written about this syndrome alone. The hated chain Borders is finally going out of business, and on the first day of their going-out-of-business-forever sale I entered the last remaining branch at the Stonestown mall. First I discovered that the sale discount was mostly a mere 10% — NOTHING, by today’s standards. Next I noticed a huge interweaving line of “suckers” lined up with books in their hands — it looked like the average line for a Disneyland ride, filled with bovine-faced suburbanites. Amazed, I began shooting a small tracking video of this mammoth line when suddenly a short stout martinet ran up and shrieked at me, with amazingly heart-felt indignation, “You CAN’T shoot video in here!” My first thought was to immediately kill her, but I restrained myself: “Lady, don’t you know you’re getting FIRED in a week? YOU don’t own this flabby fat-ass gy-normous store.” My anger was based on the knowledge that Borders had driven some 5,000 mom-and-pop bookstores out of business all across the United States, circa 1995. My guess is that nobody under 30 ever knew this, including this little brainwashed robo-tart.

I had managed to videotape the entire line (Fuck you, corporate whore!). When I replayed the video, sure enough, there wasn’t an interestingly-dressed man or woman in the entire cow queue — not one! I suppose all the “smart” people know enough to wait ’til the last two days, when everything’s 90% off, or at least “Every book in the store $1.99″). Now what was I doing there? I’d gone to Trader Joe’s next door but, seeing the “Going Out of Business” sign popped in to gloat and smile at another “Too Big to Fail” national corporation biting the dust. (Maybe I should be surprised Borders didn’t get a taxpayer-funded $170 billion “bailout” like A.I.G. Insurance, Goldman Sachs, and other corporate lobbyists. For those not in the book business, be aware that when Borders went under, it ripped off thousands of small book publishers like yours truly. And you wonder why I hate almost all corporations?!

But back to the core topic: Willliam S. Burroughs. By some strange coincidence, the ATLANTIC MONTHLY also published Burroughs in their June 1969 issue: a long, illustrated version of “The Last Words of Dutch Schultz.” The first paragraph noted: “Success in any line is a question of being ON SET… The sets are the medium in which the characters live that inexorably mold their actions. When a character is no longer on set, he is finished.” Yes — all the world’s a stage… but does the stage influence the actions that cumulatively form the character? Well, Buckminster Fuller once said, “Don’t try to change man . . . change environment.” Burroughs the playwright elliptically tells the story of the criminal milieu around Dutch Schultz, aka Arthur Flegenheimer, and graphically evokes the era when “morphine, heroin, and cocaine were sold across the counter in any drugstore.” Meanwhile, Dutch has built up “a private army of more than a hundred expert guns … a phantom army moving in the darkness of underexposed film, tracing telephone calls, slipping through doors with skeleton keys on their errands of death.” This is Burroughsian poetic-gangster-noir at its finest: “The Shrew’s eyes light up inside like a cat’s, and his hair stands on end. His gun quivering like a dowser’s wand, every bullet finding its mark.” And, as I was to find out later, Burroughs himself was a respectable shootist… [To Be Continued. Part 3 will appear next Monday]

WEEKLY V. VALE EDITORIAL Published Monday Mornings

HOW I MET WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS (Part One)

In the Sixties I was in a band with a tall blond London expatriate art school dropout painter named Patrick Morrison. Everywhere he went, people thought he was Eric Clapton. He dressed the part, deploying his dazzling British accent, quick wit, and Carnaby Street sharp clothing. His then-girlfriend, an attractive brunette named “Madeleine” (shades of VERTIGO) had an uncle named Frank Sinatra and was currently working for the Committee Theater, managed by a tall man in a blue jumpsuit named Bill Love. Patrick told me that I HAD to read Naked Lunch by William Burroughs (the middle initial “S” had not yet been universally adopted) so I got a copy and read AT it, but had a difficult time “following” the narrative (or lack of it) — later I realized why, of course. But here and there were some very darkly humorous lines, but still, I was not a fan.
But in June 1969 an issue of EVERGREEN REVIEW magazine came out with an article titled “Journey Through Time-Space: An Interview with William S. Burroughs by Daniel Odier…The Mayan Control System, Hubbard’s E Meter, foldin and cutups — an exploration of the world of the author of NAKED LUNCH and his reasons for trying to break down the “word image” barrier.

This interview was nothing if not totally thought-provoking, acerbic, confrontational and prophetic. In the first paragraph Burroughs said, “I think the novelistic form is probably outmoded and that we may look forward to a future in which people do not read at all or read only illustrated books and magazines or some abbreviated form of reading matter.” (Is he predicting the Internet, here, where the average piece of writing is 2 pages?) He continued, “To compete with television and photo magazines, writers will have to develop more precise techniques producing the same effect on the reader as a LURID ACTION PHOTO.” Well, has this “come true”? And to think this was 1969, after all.

The next idea was “Writing is fifty years behind painting. How can the gap be closed?” Burroughs then posited that “The writer does not yet know WHAT WORDS ARE.” (Italics ours) Like, what do you mean? Later in the paragraph he talked about “a precise science of words and show how certain word-combinations produce certain effects on the human nervous system.” Who else was giving forth ideas like these at the time? Nobody, and at that time I had not yet investigated Korzybski, whose tome SCIENCE AND SANITY apparently had no little effect on Burroughs…

This very generous excerpt continued from pages 39-41 to pages 78-89 and was so full of ideas that to demonstrate here the full scope of Burroughs’ vision would risk a lawsuit for copyright violation. Burroughs explained the cutup theory, quoted Brion Gysin, talked about his Paris Review interview, tape recorder experiments, film experiments, computer experiments (nobody had access to computers in 1969) with Ian Somerville, making street recordings, the word as an instrument of CONTROL. This single article was so concentrated as to be almost vertiginous — one article can indeed almost totally change the way you look at the world — if the article is by Burroughs.

From that day on — I must have read, studied and debated this article a hundred times — I became a Burroughs fan, and remember that “fan” is shorthand for “fanatic.” Starting that day I began tracking down every single Burroughs book, magazine article, interview, review, mention and piece of ephemera I could find. And this was in the days BEFORE the Internet and eBay … this relentless search was launched in the trenches, as I began visiting every possible used bookstore in the Bay Area. Fortunately, there still were dozens of used bookstores, not to mention thrift stores, garage sales and flea markets full of books and magazines — ah, the “good old days” when you could make a “score” and whoop for joy because this magazine cost ten cents or that book cost 50 cents. I felt like a knight on a personal crusade, scouring the countryside for hidden treasure markered by the name “William Burroughs”… (To Be Continued)

RE/Search Publications
20 Romolo Place #B
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Did anybody notice that the RE/Search monthly newsletter stopped being sent to over 5,000 email addresses? (Blame comcast.net for labeling it “spam” & threatening our wonderful service provider, Laughing Squid.)
() If you’d like to receive the future iteration of the newsletter, once we find a magnanimous host, please email me at: info@researchpubs.com ! – Thanks, V. Vale, RE/Search founder

July 2011 editorial by V. Vale, RE/Search and Search&Destroy founder:

HOW MANY JOBS HAS THE INTERNET KILLED? (You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!)

If I were an alien from Outer Space wanting to ruin life on Planet Earth, I think I’d invent the Internet.
I’d get every earthling constantly connected via some electronic wireless gizmo to an ADD-creating, creativity-sucking, time-wasting, globally-exploitative hive-video-brain offering:
1) massive discounts no “local” merchant could afford to give
2) “free” illegal downloads of the entirety of the world’s cultural output, thus chopping off at the root any chance of lengthy artistic development and maturation
3) billions of shocking / titillating images, films, videos and words whose net effect is even more passivity-inducement and lethargy
4) fake social networking whose RESULT is: nobody gets together in the same room anymore — too much trouble. Everyone’s at home consuming images and audio on an electronic screen, writing inconsequential fluff, and twittering their lives away…(Yes, a few who can still afford it, sit “alone together” in coffeehouses, glued to their electronic devices).
5) in sum, constant, hypnotizing distraction so that silence and solitude have become unthinkable, obsolete and positively quaint…
Then I’d sit around and watch 99% of the earthlings get fat and insane as every possible place offering “real social contact in real time” goes out of business — most never to return. The 1% left are like the actors in the ancient Roman Games, living the “real” lives while the other 99% act like the zombie spectators they are, each unemployed spectator telling themselves they’re truly unique and “special” and deserve to be celebrities…
Meanwhile, none of the 99% ever suspect that the Internet was the cause…

(Ironically, since this is posted on the Internet, this “rant” will doubtless be ignored… Oh yes, it was written by a luddite BOOK publisher – almost forgot what a “book” was – I once saw one, long ago… )