Tag: William Burroughs

Paradise Now: The Living Theatre in Amerika DVD

julian_beck.jpgMost people today know Julian Beck, if at all, for a small but unforgettable film role at the end of his career. In Poltergeist 2 (1986) Beck plays the nightmarishly sinister Reverend Henry Kane and his one full scene in that film is far more unnerving than the rest of its rubber monsters and special effects. Beck, a bisexual radical who makes most contemporary theatre directors seem as challenging as civil servants, started out as a painter but moved into theatre in the late Forties, founding the legendary Artaud-inspired Living Theatre in 1947. The Living Theatre was to the stage what the Beats were to literature, intent on shaking up the medium, the audience’s complacency and—by implication—society itself, to the fullest extent possible.

It’s the tragedy of theatre that its nature as a medium dependent on performance leaves so little record of its works behind. But there is one major film of the Living Theatre at its most provocative and it’s fitting that this should appear on a new DVD from Arthur Magazine in the year of the company’s sixtieth anniversary.

NEW FROM ARTHUR: PARADISE NOW: THE LIVING THEATRE IN AMERIKA DVD. LIMITED EDITION OF 1,000 – PRE-ORDER NOW – SHIPS OCT 1ST, 2007!

the screams
the unchained soarings of a sincerity which is on its way
to this revolution of the whole body without which nothing can
be changed. – Antonin Artaud
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Arthur Magazine proudly presents our newest release PARADISE NOW: The Living Theatre in Amerika DVD featuring rare, never-before-distributed films and a bacchanal of revolutionary multimedia documents from The Living Theatre’s historic and influential ’68–’69 American tour. A fulminating art-meets-life installation brought to you in collaboration with The Living Theatre, The Ira Cohen Akashic Project and Saturnalia Media Rites of the Dreamweapon.

DVD INCLUDES – PARADISE NOW: The Living Theatre in Amerika (1969) a film by Marty Topp, produced by Ira Cohen for Universal Mutant

• EMERGENCY (1968) a film by Gwen Brown, featuring precious footage of Living Theatre productions Mysteries and smaller pieces, Paradise Now, and Frankenstein

• RARE PHOTOGRAPHS of Paradise Now at Brooklyn Academy of Music by Don Snyder

• THE MAP OF PARADISE NOW, a 14″ x 19″ double-sided, commemorative poster + ‘zine including texts by Antonin Artaud, Julian Beck, Judith Malina, Ira Cohen and Don Snyder

ADDITIONAL SPECIAL FEATURES

• Slideshow / Installation, The full theatrical script

• Paradise Now: A Collective Creation of The Living Theatre as written down by Julian Beck and Judith Malina

• Video Interviews with director Judith Malina, Hanon Reznikov, Steve Ben Israel, and producer Ira Cohen

• The Spinning Wheel by Steve Ben Israel, soundtrack to EMERGENCY sourced from agit-prop radio broadcasts

• Akashic Video Gallery of excerpts from current and forthcoming Arthur DVD releases

WHAT IS PARADISE NOW?

In 1968 The Living Theatre, led by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, triumphantly returned to America from years of self-imposed exile in Europe with their theatrical breakthrough Paradise Now. The play introduces the practice of collective creation, dissolving the boundaries of human interactions and forging a harmony between the actors and audience. Of this process, Julian Beck writes, “Collective creation is the secret weapon of the people… This play is a voyage from the many to the one and from the one to the many. It’s a spiritual voyage and a political voyage, a voyage for the actors and the spectators. The play is a vertical ascent toward permanent revolution, leading to revolutionary action here and now. The revolution of which the play speaks is the beautiful, non-violent, anarchist revolution.The purpose of the play is to lead to a state of being in which non-violent revolutionary action is possible.”

The result of this shared voyage is the spontaneous creation of a temporary anarchist collective – free from the enslavements of war, violence, the State, money and the self.

CRITICAL PRAISE FOR PARADISE NOW

“Marty Topp’s beautiful film of Paradise Now reveals how the theories of revolutionary change and the experience of sexual liberation are not separate paths to the beautiful nonviolent anarchist revolution. Practiced together they are a single thrust, encompassing both political action and sensual joy, leading to the dreamed-of terrestrial paradise.” Judith Malina

“Paradise Now is possibly The Living Theatre’s greatest achievement – unsurpassable!” Ira Cohen

“This past spring, in a group art show at New York?s Swiss Institute, an old black-and-white television played a grainy print of bodies writhing to the tune of distant drumming. “As long as you have people working for money and not love, there will be violence,” intoned a tall, angular man on the screen. The bodies – women in scant bikinis and men in what looked like loincloths-piled together in an orgiastic tribal dance, some simulating (or perhaps actually having) sex as the voice continued: “Psycho-sexual repression is impeding the revolution.” What looked like an underworld-of the 1960’s counter-cultural variety, in this case- is the Living Theatre?s Paradise Now, as documented in the 1969 Ira Cohen-produced film Paradise Now: The Living Theatre in Amerika ? soon to be released on DVD from Arthur Magazine.” CAN THEATER STAGE A REVOLUTION – Traci Parks, Fall ’07 Preview, V MAGAZINE

“Joyous, brutal, exploding with the kinetic energies of psychic catharsis… Marty Topp’s PARADISE NOW: The Living Theatre in Amerika has captured the essence of this extraordinary theatrical experiment. It is unquestionably one of the finest artistic documentaries to come out of the United States cinema. Its heartfelt sincerity should be sheer inspiration to the many young people throughout the country who are struggling to make meaningful and influential work. It is the reverberation of a crucially important message that must not be neglected, for the consequences are too terrible to endure.

“Marty Topp’s achievement is not just in the making of a great film, but in making us remember again, Paradise as a reality.” PARADISE ON FILM – Don Snyder, July 1970, East Village Other

“Like an astonishing portion of the country’s popular music, the spectacles of The Living Theater proved to be in content and form outside the social system – not structured by it nor, except as outlet, implementing it: liberated territory.” Revolution at the Brooklyn Academy – Stefan Brecht, The Drama Review number 43: Spring 1969, The Living Theater Issue

Previously on { feuilleton }
• William Burroughs by Ira Cohen, 1967
• The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda

The Realist

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The Digger issue, August 1968.

Here’s something of major importance, The Realist Archive Project. Four complete issues online so far, with a promise of all 146 issues to be uploaded eventually. The Realist started out as a satirical magazine in the late Fifties and moved into the slipstream of the counter-culture as the Sixties progressed. Editor Paul Krassner is introduced in the RE/Search Pranks (1987) book thus:

Paul Krassner is famous for doing The Realist (1958-1974; now revived), described by OUI magazine as “the most satirical and irreverent journal to appear in America since the days of HL Mencken.” The Realist published explicit photos, outrageous cartoons, vicious satire, and extreme paranoid conspiracy theories on topics ranging from the Kennedy assassinations to Jonestown. When Mike Wallace asked him on a 60 Minutes interview about the difference between the underground press and mainstream media, he told him that Spiro Agnew was an anagram for Grow A Penis, adding, “The difference is that I could print that in the Realist, but it’ll be edited out of this program.” That prediction came true. Harry Reasoner said of Krassner that he “not only attacks establishment values; he attacks decency in general.”

During his lifetime of weird experiences and friendships with notables like Lenny Bruce and Timothy Leary, Krassner claims (among other things) to have taken LSD when he testified at the Chicago 8 trial, on the Johnny Carson show, with Groucho Marx, and with Squeaky Fromme and Sandra Good. In 1977 he became publisher of Hustler magazine for six months.

I first encountered the Realist from mentions in Robert Anton Wilson’s books (RAW was one of its writers) but, unlike UK undergrounds which often turned up secondhand, there was no way to ever see a copy over here. Hence the value of this archive. If you want an idea of Krassner’s outrageousness—which makes much of the political sniping of Private Eye seem very tame indeed—look no further than the May 1967 issue with its lead story describing Lyndon B Johnson fucking the dead John F Kennedy’s neck wound shortly before his being sworn in as president. And in the same issue there’s the notorious cartoon spread by Wally Wood depicting a host of Disney characters doing all the things that recently-deceased Uncle Walt wouldn’t allow them to do in the cartoons. That drawing was so scurrilous that it’s generally supposed Disney preferred not to sue for fear of giving it greater publicity.

The issue edited by the anarchist Diggers was altogether more serious, and the list of names involved shows a lineage connecting the Beats to the hippies:

Memo to the Reader

When Time magazine decided to do a cover story on the hippies last year, a cable to their San Francisco bureau instructed researchers to “go at the description and delineation of the subculture as if you were studying the Samoans or the Trobriand Islanders.”

Thus were they supposed to remain—a frozen fad for posterity.

But a few months ago, police rioted on Haight St. Next day, at a town hall meeting in the Straight Theater, the spectrum of reaction ranged from “Let’s have another be-in” to “We gotta get guns!” A compromise was reached: bottles painted Love were thrown at the cops.

And yet, the question remains—What is being defended?

This issue of the Realist, therefore, has been created entirely by The Diggers, in an attempt to convey the flavor and feeling-tone of a revolutionary community.

An inadequate list of the brothers and sisters whose work is represented in this document:

Antonin Artaud, Richard Avedon, Billy Batman, Peter Berg, Wally Berman, Richard Brautigan, Bryden, William Burroughs, Martin Carey, Neil Cassidy, Fidel Castro, Don Cochran, Peter Cohon, Gregory Corso, Dangerfield, Kirby Doyle, Bill Fritsch, Allen Ginsberg, Emmett Grogan, Dave Haselwood, George Hermes, Linn House, Lenore Kandel, Billy Landout, Norman Mailer, Don Martin, Michael McClure, George Metesky, George Montana, Malcolm X, Natural Suzanne, Huey Newton, Pam Parker, Rose-a-Lee, David Simpson, Gary Snyder, Ron Thelin, Rip Torn, Time Inc., Lew Welch, Thomas Weir, Gerard Winstanley, and Anonymous.

The contents herein are not copyrighted. Anyone may reprint anything without permission. Additional copies are available at the rate of 5 for $1. The Diggers have been given 40,000 copies to spread their word: free.

Many of those writers are no longer around but happily Paul Krassner is and he’s been writing regularly for The Huffington Post, the Arthur magazine weblog and other sites.

Via Boing Boing.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Ginsberg’s Howl and the view from the street
• Simplicissimus
• Revenant volumes: Bob Haberfield, New Worlds and others
• Underground history
• Wallace Burman and Semina
• Robert Anton Wilson, 1932–2007
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer
• 100 Years of Magazine Covers
• Oz magazine, 1967-73

The art of Bertrand

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The first question has to be “Bertrand who?” but you won’t receive an answer here since information is scarce (see below). Bertrand’s erotic surrealism first appeared in the late Sixties, going by the dates in collections of his work. Some of his paintings and drawings crept into the underground mags of the period then turned up in odd places throughout the Seventies. The first I saw of any Bertrand art was on the cover of the pre-Savoy publication, Wordworks #6, and a music paper ad for the Chrome 12″, Inworlds.

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French porn publisher Eric Losfeld produced a couple of large, limited edition collections of Bertrand’s work in the early Seventies. All the drawings reproduced here are from the battered 1971 volume shown above. If it seems surprising that these haven’t been reprinted it may be that Bertrand’s concerns are too weird or simply too unpleasant for contemporary tastes. Many of his ink drawings, and some of his paintings, seem to have begun life as decalcomania splotches, a Surrealist technique invented by Oscar Dominguez as a means of injecting chance into the creative process. Decalcomania produces random patterns which the artist then elaborates upon. Max Ernst’s famous Europe After the Rain, and a number of his other paintings from the 1940s, began life as a field of vaguely organic marks created by pressing thickly applied paint to the canvas with a sheet of glass or paper. Bertrand used ink stains in a similar way, with the result that most of his doe-eyed female figures (and his figures are nearly always women) are fringed by leafy or fungal growths. Many of his scenes are a kind of lesbian equivalent of the human/alien entanglements one finds in William Burroughs’ more elaborate flights of fancy. If his women aren’t being absorbed into some organic mass, they’re often being subject to investigation (even impalement) by spikes or claws, and here we perhaps find the reason his work remains out of print. Feminists then and now would have taken a dim view of Bertrand’s more violent works; even if Taschen did produce a Bertrand collection, it’s unlikely that many of the more grotesque pictures would be included.

All the pictures in the Losfeld books were produced in a short period from 1967–69. What happened to Bertrand afterwards remains a mystery. Did he decide to do pursue a different, more commercial direction? Is he still alive? The books offer no clue but maybe someone out there has the answer.

Update: Nathalie discovers that the artist in question is Raymond Bertrand, and more of his work can be seen here.

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Continue reading “The art of Bertrand”

Revenant volumes: Bob Haberfield, New Worlds and others

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The Singing Citadel (1970).

Michael Moorcock’s Elric books are being prepared for republication by Del Rey in the US next year. I’ve assisted with some minor parts of this preparation, including sourcing pictures from Savoy’s edition of Monsieur Zenith the Albino. (Anthony Skene’s albino anti-hero is a precursor of Moorcock’s albino anti-hero.)

Discussion of the Elric books with Dave at Savoy prompted my excavation of this battered Mayflower paperback from the retired book boxes. This slim volume collected four fantasy stories: the title piece (possibly the first Elric story I read), Master of Chaos, The Greater Conqueror and To Rescue Tanelorn…. I’d forgotten about the garishly strange cover, one of many that Bob Haberfield produced for Moorcock’s books during the 1970s. Haberfield is one of a number of cover artists from that period who worked in the field for a few years before moving on or vanishing entirely. The swirling clouds derived from Tibetan Buddhist art identify this as one of his even without the credit on the back; later pictures were heavily indebted to Eastern religious art and while technically more controlled they lack this cover’s berserk intensity. Haberfield’s site has a small gallery of his splendid paintings, including a rare horror work, his wonderfully eerie cover for Dagon by HP Lovecraft.

Searching for more Haberfield covers turned up these two examples, both part of the SciFi Books Flickr pool, a cornucopia of pictures by vanished illustrators. Browsing that lot is like being back inside the In Book Exchange, Blackpool, circa 1977. The digitisation of the past continues apace at the Old-Timey Paperback Book Covers pool and the Pulp Fiction pool. Don’t go to these pages if you’re supposed to be doing something else, it’s easy to find yourself saying “just one more” an hour later.

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And in other Moorcock-related news, Jay alerts me today to the existence of an archive of New Worlds covers, something I’d been hoping to see for a long time. New Worlds was one of the most important magazines of the 1960s, mutating under Moorcock’s editorship from a regular science fiction title to a hothouse of literary daring and experiment. As with so many things in that decade, the peak period was from about 1966–1970 when the magazine showcased outstanding work from Moorcock himself, JG Ballard, Brian Aldiss, Harlan Ellison, Samuel Delany, M John Harrison, Norman Spinrad and a host of others. For a time it seemed that a despised genre might be turning away from rockets and robots to follow paths laid down by William Burroughs, Salvador Dalí, Jorge Luis Borges and other visionaries. We know now that Star Wars, Larry Niven and the rest swept away those hopes but you can at least go and see covers that pointed to a future (and futures) the world rejected.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The book covers archive
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer
• 100 Years of Magazine Covers
• It’s a pulp, pulp, pulp world