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digest 2006-05-20 #001.txt
litsci-l-digest Saturday, May 20 2006 Volume 01 : Number
179
In this issue:
FW: [Autonogram] Critical Art Ensemble book launch, 5/24, NYC
Fwd: The VALIS Idea, PK Dick & Walter Breen
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 13:42:23 -0700
From: "Wald, Carol"
Subject: FW: [Autonogram] Critical Art Ensemble book launch, 5/24, NYC
Carol Ann Wald
- -----------------------------------
Carol Ann Wald
Program Assistant
Electronic Literature Organization
UCLA Department of English
2225 Rolfe Hall
Box 951530
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1530
t. 310.206.1863
f. 310.206.5093
wald@eliterature.org
http://www.eliterature.org
- -----Original Message-----
From: autonogram-bounces@lists.interactivist.net
[mailto:autonogram-bounces@lists.interactivist.net] On Behalf Of Ben at
Autonomedia
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 10:24 AM
To: autonogram@lists.interactivist.net
Subject: [Autonogram] Critical Art Ensemble book launch, 5/24, NYC
Greetings, subscribers, especially those anywhere near NYC. Next
Wednesday, Autonomedia will be launching the new Critical Art Ensemble
book "Marching Plague" at the Eyebeam Atelier in Chelsea, an art +
technology space concerned with many of the same kinds of projects CAE
has
been developing for 20 years. If you're in the area, please join us for
the release, which will include several short talks and the screening of
some recent filmwork by or in proximity to CAE.
bests,
Ben / Autonomedia
press release follows, and also check
http://www.autonomedia.org/marchingplague:
* * * * *
Book release, talk and screenings
Critical Art Ensemble, "Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public
Health"
Wednesday May 24, 2006 - 6:00-8:30pm
At Eyebeam - 540 W. 21st Street, NYC
Please join us for a book launch and an evening of conversation
concerning
contemporary warfare: an anti-war event. Critical Art Ensemble present
their latest book, "Marching Plague: Germ Warfare and Global Public
Health" published by Autonomedia and coinciding with the inclusion of
their film "Marching Plague" in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. This event is
open to the public free of charge and will take place at Eyebeam, 540 W.
21st Street between 10th & 11th Aves.
The evening will include brief presentations by artists Gregg Bordowitz
and Paul Chan and CAE Defense Fund representative Lucia Sommer. Films
from
Peggy Ahwesh, Lynn Hershman and the Yes Men, along with the Critcal Art
Ensemble's film "Marching Plague", produced/ commissioned by Arts
Catalyst, will be screened on monitors throughout the evening.
Marching Plague examines the scientific evidence and the rhetoric
surrounding biological warfare, particularly the development of anthrax
and other bio-weapons, and makes a strong case against the likelihood of
such weapons ever being used in a terrorist situation. Studying the
history and science of such weapons, they conclude that for reasons of
accuracy and potency, biological weapons lack the efficiency required to
produce the widespread devastation typically associated with
bioterrorism.
Why, then, the public urgency around biowarfare and why the channeling
of
enormous resources into research and development of tools to counter an
imaginary threat? This is the real focus of Marching Plague: the
deconstruction of an exceedingly complex political economy of fear,
primarily supporting biowartech development and the militarization of
the
public sphere. The book addresses the following questions:
* Why is bioterrorism a failed military strategy?
* Why is it all but useless to terrorists?
* How have preparedness efforts been detrimental to public health
policy?
* What institutions benefit from the cultivation of biofear?
* Why does the diplomatic community fail to confront this problem?
The book concludes with a brief examination of the actual crisis in
global
public health, arguing for the redirection of health research away from
the military, and promoting a number of strategies for civilian-based
preparedness and education.
Critical Art Ensemble's books address the deep-rooted replication of
capitalism at the frontiers of science and technology. Whether
discussing
robotics, information technologies, or the biological sciences, CAE
skillfully exposes unseen agendas at the foundation of 21st century
life,
and suggest interventions and semiotic shocks that hope to collectively
negate the rising intensity of authoritarian culture.
Marching Plague ad other Autonomedia titles will be available in the
Eyebeam bookshop during the event.
Eyebeam supports the creation, presentation and analysis of new forms of
innovative cultural production. Founded in 1997, Eyebeam is dedicated to
exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies and media arts,
while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating new media as a
significant genre.
Eyebeam's programs are made possible through the generous support of
Atlantic Foundation, Time Warner Youth Media and Arts Fund, the John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for
the
Visual Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, Alienware, the Jerome
Foundation, the Helena Rubinstein Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation,
the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency, the New York
City
Department of Cultural Affairs, the David S. Howe Foundation, the Lerer
Family Charitable Foundation and the Sony Corporation.
Location: 540 w 21st Street between 10th & 11th Avenues
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 6:00pm
Bookstore: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 6:00pm
_______________________________________________
Autonogram mailing list
Autonogram@lists.interactivist.net
http://lists.interactivist.net/mailman/listinfo/autonogram
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------------------------------
Date: Sat, 20 May 2006 15:19:05 -0700
From: Jack Sarfatti
Subject: Fwd: The VALIS Idea, PK Dick & Walter Breen
> Subject: Re: The VALIS Idea, PK Dick & Walter Breen
>
> Thanks for reminding me! :-)
>
> Saul-Paul there is a major publishing project going to happen. I
> will cut you in on my share and what you need to start doing is to
> assemble all your notes journals from your own life and also the
> events you and I both participated in. You remember many details I
> have completely forgotten!
>
> On May 20, 2006, at 2:00 PM, saul-paul & mary-minn sirag wrote:
>
>> Jack,
>> In 1976, you and I visited Walter Breen at Marion Zimmer
>> Bradley's house on Deakin Street in Berkeley. She gave us each a
>> copy of her latest novel, *The Heritage of Hastor* (published
>> 1975). This was a few months after the month-long workshop we did
>> at Esalen (January 1976). You had Walter Breen come down to Big
>> Sur for a few days. He brought along recorded music to play and
>> demonstrate the psychological effects of different pieces of music.
>>
>> Here are more details on Philip K. Dick in the 1964-1965 period:
>>
>> In early 1964, the young SF writer, Grania Davidson, had recently
>> broken up with her husband Avram Davidson (a well known SF &
>> fantasy writer and friend of Phil's). By June 1964 Grania (and
>> her young son) and Phil moved into a house on Lyon street in
>> Oakland. Throughout the summer and fall of 1964, that house became
>> a kind of salon for SF & fantasy writers including: Avram
>> Davidson, Marion Zimmer Bradley & Walter Breen, Ray Nelson, Poul &
>> Karen Anderson.
>>
>> Shortly after Halloween, Grania Davidson moved out of Phil's
>> house and into the Berkeley home of Marion Zimmer Bradley. Phil
>> and his friend Jack Newkom pulled off childish pranks around
>> Bradley's Deakin Street house -- including perhaps stealing
>> diapers off the front porch.
>>
>> By December 1964 Phil was into a new love, young Nancy Hackett.
>> In March 1965 Nancy moved into Phil's Lyon street house. BTW:
>> Nancy's mother Maren became Bishop James Pike's secretary and
>> secret lover, which is how Phil got to know Pike quite well. Pike
>> attended but did not officiate at Phil's marriage to Nancy in
>> 1966. The third novel in the VALIS trilogy (*The Transmigration
>> of Timothy Archer*) is based on Bishop Pike and other people in
>> Phil's life. (It was published in 1982 after Phil's death.)
>
> You remember Sidney Lanier knew Bishop Pike quite well. Laurance
> Rockefeller used to call for Jean Lanier at PCRG HQ across the
> street from the Grace Cathedral. Didn't you pick of the phone once
> with Laurance on it?
>>
>> I met Phil Dick in the summer of 1964 when Ray Nelson brought him
>> to a "Channing Club" meeting at my apartment on Dana Street in
>> Berkeley. They were working together on a novel, *The Ganymede
>> Takeover* (published in 1967). Everyone in the meeting (except me
>> perhaps) had already read Phil's novel *The Man in the High
>> Castle* -- an alternate reality tale in which the Axis nations had
>> won World War Two. The Germans had taken over Eastern US, the
>> Japanese had taken over the West coast, while the Rocky Mountain
>> area was still a kind of free zone.
>>
>> The next (and last) time I met Phil was in November 1971. This
>> was just after Phil's house in San Rafael had been burglarized.
>> Phil was freaked out by the "hit on my house" as he put it, and
>> was staying with Avram Davidson in Berkeley. There was a birthday
>> party for the (10 yr. old ?) son, Frodo, of Avram and Grania at
>> the Sausallito home of Grania and her husband Dr. Steven Davis.
>> Avram brought Phil and Frodo to Grania's party. Leslie, my wife at
>> that time, had an afternoon play school in Berkeley, in which
>> Frodo participated. Thus Leslie and I were invited to Frodo's
>> birthday party in Sausallito. There were about a dozen people
>> present, most of whom were writers. I was then writing the weekly
>> column "The New Alchemy" on the frontiers of science. I remember
>> discussing some of the ideas I was writing about with Jim Benford.
>>
>> And yes, Jack, I have learned since that time that you knew the
>> twin physicist brothers Jim and Greg Benford (who also write SF),
>> when they were in graduate school.
>
> Jim and Greg Benford, Herbie Bernstein and I were all grad students
> together at UCSD in the 60's. This was when George Chapline would
> drive down from Cal Tech in his black AC Shelby Cobra. John
> Wheeler, Ed Teller, Fred Hoyle were frequent visitors at Revelle
> College because of the Burbidges, Herbert York, Keith Brueckner,
> Walter Kohn ...This was the setting for Greg's "Timescape" about
> waves from the future in a time loop. I had the idea to make a BEC
> of EPR photon pairs. Greg and I worked on it briefly but nothing
> much came of it.
>>
>> Phil seemed to be cycling between paranoia and amazing calmness
>> and openness that evening. He had recently completed the first
>> draft of *Flow My Tears the Policeman Said*, and he tried to talk
>> Leslie into editing it for him. After much rewriting, it was
>> published in 1974 and won the John W. Campbell award.
>>
>> Of course, February-March 1974 was the time of Phil's experience
>> of VALIS. Moreover, on June 7th of 1974 in the libretto of
>> "Ezekiel's Vision" I quoted a few lines from your letter, written
>> from Trieste (27 March 1974) -- and these words were sung by Tom
>> Buckner, baritone (at the University Art Museum in Berkeley):
>>
>> "We are creating the Qabala right now. General Relativity
>> provides 'time machines' in the form of 'closed time-like curves'.
>> It would be possible for a super-conscious culture to go back in
>> historical time and create its own history on one of the space-
>> time pages in the great gook of the cosmos."
>>
>> All for now ;-)
>>
>> Saul-Paul
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>> On May 20, 2006, at 11:22 AM, Jack Sarfatti wrote:
>>
>>> I was at that house I think in 1965 in Berkeley. I also stayed
>>> with Lenny Susskind at that time as I recall.
>>> On May 20, 2006, at 1:22 AM, wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jack Sarfatti wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think P.K.D. and Walter Breen knew each other?
>>>>
>>>> PKD had a huge crush on a girl who was living at Walter Breen and
>>>> Marion Zimmer Bradley's house, so he used to hang around in hopes
>>>> of running into her. She wound up marrying another writer. This
>>>> was in 1965 when MZB and Walter Breen were living in Oakland
>>>> (or was it Berkeley?).
>>>>
>>>> Richard Newsome
>>>> newsom@panix.com
>>>
>>
>
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------------------------------
End of litsci-l-digest V1 #179
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