"DOGS ARE FOREVER IN THE PUSH-UP POSITION": A MITCH HEDBERG REEL

Mitch Hedberg: wikipedia

courtesy Andrew M.!

SOUTHERN LIGHTS, AS SEEN FROM ABOVE

Super-gorgeous video via NASA:

"Video of the Aurora Australis taken by the crew of Expedition 29 on board the International Space Station. This sequence of shots was taken September 17, 2011 from 17:22:27 to 17:45:12 GMT, on an ascending pass from south of Madagascar to just north of Australia over the Indian Ocean."

A TOUCH OF GRAY

I've found myself reading quite a bit of Alasdair Gray lately (A History Maker, first; then, Lanark), apropos of nothing in particular. Here is a recent film in which the great man tries to explain his mural-making and prose-writing processes, often in asides, interruptions and character voices. Long may this "fat asthmatic Glaswegian" hem, haw, waver and start over...

Alasdair Gray: official website, wikipedia entry

VIEW OF A ROOM

Footage of Alexander Trocchi's timeless apartment via 'Cain's Film' (1969) ....

9/17, NYC - GET INVOLVED

A cartoonist for our times

Here's a panel from "Gordon Smalls Endures the Wasteland," a brutal reality strip by Gabby Schulz that is running at Jordan Crane's wonderful "What Things Do" site. Click on the panel below to have a look at the serial.

Gabby has also been posting another harrowing strip, "Sick," on a weekly basis lately. Click on the panel below to have a look at this brilliant work-in-progress...

LOCATE THE CENTER OF INFINITY

"IN TRANSIT" BY LENORE KANDEL
With artwork/design by THE MASKED PORNOGRAPHER

From the San Francisco Oracle No. 6 (February, 1967)

KEEP CLICKING IMAGE TO BIGGIFY

SAN FRANCISCO ORACLE: wikipedia

REPRODUCTIONS/COLLECTIONS OF THE ORACLE: Regent Press

"And I can't pretend to know/what's going on"

Julian Cope performs a new song—subject: his four-month-long Salvia exploration—with the usual great Cope introductory remarks. Can't wait to hear the studio version!

THEENDOFYOURMIND

This film by Marco Brambilla, and another, newer one called "Evolution," are on view IN 3-D at WALL SIZE (8 FEET BY 16 FEET) at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in Bergamot Station thru this Friday, August 20.

I have never had my mind blown so instantaneously and completely as when I entered the room in SMMOA with my friend Kristine McKenna where these two films were simultaneously screening IN 3-D at WALL SIZE (8 FEET BY 16 FEET). These are more than films: they're giant, beautiful, moving Joseph Cornell/Pieter Bruegel/Hieronymus Bosch collage scrolls made out of dreamstuff, Hollywood films and the deepest, most involved LSD visions you've ever had. Layers upon layers, depths upon depths. Utterly transcendent. It is nothing less than the birth/realization of a new artform.

Seriously, this is one of those very rare times when it's fair to say you really haven't ever seen anything like this before. It must be seen in person.

(I do not care if you've seen dude's video for Kanye, or if you saw "Civilization" on a monitor in an elevator in the Standard in New York, or on a big screen on a beach. This is superior. And anyway, you haven't seen "Evolution," yet.)

Don't think. Go.

ADDENDUM: Here's a still from "Evolution"...

PETER BERG: 100% FREE

INVISIBLE EXCEPT FOR A NERVOUS SYSTEM
forest bottom
thick with hemlock and pine pieces
from last fall’s roof-breaking wind
black rocks floating in brown needles
green clean-edged leaves stab through
I want to be less than I am
porous woods light
play over me, warm then cold
hidden birds call tease directions
fly through me
shushing breeze humped field descending in yellow-dotted waves
to the night-filled lake
slide over me deep underground

—Peter Berg, in one of his Eco Ecuador Dispatches, from Nov. 2, 2002

* * *

Peter Berg — San Francisco Mime Troupe playwright and pivotal member of the San Francisco Diggers (nicknamed 'the Hun'), early bioregionalism theorist and Planet Drum Foundation founder, husband and father, visionary radical thinker and beautiful concept/word poet and author — died two weeks ago at age 73. Those who knew him or his work recognized that he had the qualities of a genius. The rest of us will eventually understand what Berg — a true anarchist — was up to.

Here is a brief obituary and appreciation: Peter Berg Oct. 1, 1937 — July 28, 2011

Planet Drum has established a blog to remember Peter and his work at planet-drum.net. The biographical entry is essential reading.

Envisioning Sustainability, a collection of many of Berg's most important texts, with prefaces by Peter, was published in 2009 and is available from the usual (surviving) book sources, including Amazon.

Here is a wonderful video of Peter in 2009 (source: Shaping San Francisco project), discussing the Diggers' infamous "1% Free" slogan and poster...



Peter Berg: 100 percent free.