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 Reading Experience ‘Shattered by the Presence of a Mob’
“I’m reading a new book I downloaded on my Kindle and I noticed an underlined passage. It is surely a mistake, I think. This is a new book. I don’t know about you, but I always hated underlined passages in used books…. And then I discovered that the horror doesn’t stop with the unwelcomed presence of another reader who’s defaced my new book. But it deepens with something called view popular highlights, which will tell you how many morons have underlined before so that not only you do not own the new book you paid for, the entire experience of reading is shattered by the presence of a mob that agitates inside your text like strangers in a train station.
“So now you can add to the ease of downloading an e-book the end of the illusion that it is your book. The end of the privileged relation between yourself and your book. And a certainty that you’ve been had. Not only is the e-book not yours to be with alone, it is shared at Amazon which shares with you what it knows about you reading and the readings of others. And lets you know that you are what you underline, which is only a number in a mass of popular views…. Conformism does come of age in the most private of peaceful activities–reading a book, one of the last solitary pleasures in a world full of prompts to behave. My Kindle, sugar-coated cyanide.”
–Andrei Codrescu, source: ‘Shelf Awareness’. The complete essay “E-Book Tarnishes The Reader-Book Experience” is available on NPR’s All Things Considered. |
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Posted in: Education, Media, Reading | No Comments » |
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 Sunday, September 19th at 2:00 PM, Book Beat will present an impossibly funky afternoon planned with Mike White author and founding editor of Cashiers du Cinmemart. Mike will present his new anthology–which was years in the making, filled with extremely witty and diverse film writings. Impossibly Funky; A Cashiers du Cinemart Collection is a film collection like no other. Readers of this wise and nitty-gritty book will obtain an education of film-land impossible to find anywhere else on the planet. This book is overflowing with insane delights, kooky interviews and blinding revelations of the universe!
Don’t Miss This!! IMPOSSIBLY FUNKY SUNDAY –a once-in-a-lifetime afternoon journey of fully mutated movie discussions and gonzo film appreciation made for the true film maniac, but even the common everyday Hollywood Joe-bystander is welcome and will come away with wild tales and juicy gossip that is truly off-the-map.
Harangue for Hollywood! From the blighted urban squalor of Detroit–Paris of the Midwest–came enfant terrible Mike White and his mutant publication, Cashiers du Cinemart. For fourteen years and fifteen issues the writers of Cashiers du Cinemart have provided a treasure trove of writing on film and popular culture.
This book collects the best articles from the fifteen year history of Cashiers du Cinemart magazine with sections dedicated to Quentin Tarantino, Star Wars, Black Shampoo, un-produced screenplays, celebrity interviews, and much more. Everything has been refreshed, polished, and improved for this volume of movie mayhem. Other signing dates available at: http://impossiblefunky.blogspot.com/
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Posted in: Book Reviews, Book Signings, Film & Video, Media, pop culture | No Comments » |
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“Television Delivers People (1973) is a seminal work in the now well-established critique of popular media as an instrument of social control that asserts itself subtly on the populace through “entertainments,” for the benefit of those in power-the corporations that mantain and profit from the status quo. While canned Muzak plays, a scrolling text denounces the corporate masquerade of commercial television to reveal the structure of profit that greases the wheels of the media industry. Television emerges as little more than a insidious sponsor for the corporate engines of the world. By appropriating the medium he is criticizing-using television, in effect, against itself-Serra employs a characteristic strategy of early, counter-corporate video collectives-a strategy that remains integral to video artists committed to a critical dismantling of the media’s political and ideological stranglehold.” — Ubu Web
a clever update response to this video can be seen at You Tube Delivers YOU
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Posted in: Art, Film & Video, Media | No Comments » |
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 The “Rehearsal for the Destruction of Mu” is a live shadow theater & musical lightshow exotica coming May 10th at the MOCAD cement pastry palace and funky prayer & novelty shop in the heart of the art ghetto. Monster Isalnd’s cosmic calamity troupe will dazzle and bewilder the young and old with their ancient and modern low-fi psychedelic pyrotechnics. Performing will be; narrator, synth and harmonium player Aliccia Berg, on sitar, bass and guitar: Matthew Smith, lighting FX and percussion Jamie Easter, violinist: Mary Alice, puppeteer artist Tom Carey, samples, lighting, etc., Cary Loren.  Come See the CTHULU monster awake from a dreaming sleep! Come See a Clash of Planets collide in a firey ball of destruction! See the mysterious and exotic hanging gardens from ancient Babylon! Hear the celestial bells and droning eternal rhythms! Witness the flood and cataclysmic debris! See the Lost Princess of Mu and the ghost of Alfred Jarry! Showtime at 9 PM.
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Posted in: Media, Monsters & Myths, Music, Psychedelia | 2 Comments » |
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 I was just saddend to learn that after five years, L.A.’s Arthur magazine has ceased its publication with its March 2007 issue. It was one of the amazing highlights to receive and distribute this incredible and Free! publication. The information that Arthur gathered, was one of the few places to find it in print. One of my favorite review column’s was the irrepressable “Bull Tounge” by Byron Coley and Thurston Moore. I’m pleased to note, Bull Tounge will continue as an online review available at: Ecstatic Peace!, a site worth checking out for its amazing/eclectic noise videos and sound/art label distribution.
First based in Chicago, Arthur managed to put out a psychedelic designed zine that reviewed many underground and neglected music styles. It was defintely not mainstream media , but managed to deliver 50,000 copies to over 120 cities nationwide. They sponsored music festivals and other cash raising events, but their funds and support eventually dried up.
“Besides the exploration of psych-folk and the surrounding sub-genres, the magazine regularly featured guest contributors including, but not limited to, Thurston Moore, Will Oldham, and Spike Jonze, and, while concentrating on music and culture, thoughtfuly covered a wide variety of subjects of social importance. An explanation of the publication’s closure can be found on it’s website. All the best to those who contributed to a great magazine.” Source :Aquarium Drunkard.com
Arthur Magazine
Bi-monthly
First published October 2002
Published as a free paper, Arthur has the vibe of the old underground counter-cultural magazines, complete with lefty politics and a thirst for all kinds of psychedelic music. While it covers a lot of ground, including food, sex, culture and politics, the staff has excellent taste in music, and always introduces something new and interesting that I had never heard.” from the site FAST N’ BULBOUS Last of the Independents: Five Music Magazines That Mattered
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Posted in: Media, Music, Obituary, Psychedelia | No Comments » |
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