Jesse Walker reviews Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations:
The patron saint of such projects is Joshua Norton I, the San Francisco eccentric who in 1859 declared himself the emperor of the United States. He issued his own currency, which local businesses honored; he made royal proclamations, which the local newspapers printed; according to legend, he once managed to stop an anti-Chinese riot merely by standing in front of the mob and reciting the Lord’s Prayer. I can’t endorse all of his policies-the fines he levied on anyone he overheard calling the city ‘Frisco’ were an unconscionable interference with freedom of speech-but his reign was altogether far less bloody than that of his two rival emperors in the east, Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. When he died in 1880, tens of thousands of people attended his royal funeral.
Full Story: The American Conservative.
See also: Footnotes to History’s guide to micronations.
Rags was a counterculture fashion magazine ahead of its time. Published monthly in San Francisco from June 1970 through June 1971, its focus was street fashion rather than the fashion found in store windows.
Rags Lives!
(via Arthur Magazine blog).
Erik Davis talks about his new book, The Visionary State (with Michael Rauner), about the psychogeography of California.
This landscape ranges from pagan forests to ascetic deserts to the shifting shores of a watery void. It includes dizzying heights and terrible lows, and great urban zones of human construction. Even in its city life, California insists that there are more ways than one, with its major urban cultures roughly divided between the San Francisco Bay Area and greater Los Angeles. Indeed, Northern and Southern California are considered by some to be so different as to effectively constitute different states. But that is a mistake. California is not two: it is bipolar.
Full Story: BLDGBLOG.
(via Abstract Dynamics).
Also, Davis’s site Techgnosis has been re-designed.
LVX on meeting Grant Morrison:
Me and two buddies hit the scene Friday night at Isotope Comics in San Francisco. They were hosting the first of two big party’s for the annual Wondercon comic convention and Grant Morrison was the guest of honor. Packed in amongst the fanboys (and occasionally their women), we gawked at original artist renderings on the walls, leafed through unknown comics, and drank freely from the open bar. While standing outside Grant and his wife Kristan hopped out of their cab looking appropriately dashing, said “good evening” to those of us hanging about, then moved into the store to meet the fans.
Full Story: LVX23.
Mindwarp’s first piece for Key 23 is up, a review of Psychic TV’s recent San Francisco gig.
GPO these days is quite a sight to see (here?s a recent pic), as he continues his experiment of alchemical/surgical/cosmetic fusion with his wife, Lady Jaye Breyer. The aim of this process (which the couple laid out in the 2003 essay ?Breaking Sex!?) is for the two P-Orridges to achieve the creation of a third entity through a process of ?cut-up? of their own bodies, which is making them more and more similar to each other. The two recently got a matched pair of breast implants, and Genesis? surgical alterations so far include a substitution of all his teeth with a set of gold replacements, and enhancements of his cheekbones (and, judging by their size, maybe his lips as well). Down to the smallest choice of gestures, schtick and vocal timbre, Genesis comes across more and more as the lascivious diva who, on some hidden level, he?s been all along.
Link.
Disinfo is running a piece compiling evidence from mainstream news sources indicating that the govenment knew in advance “…that a devastating attack was in the works, that it would involve hijacked airplanes, and that it would occur inside the United States.”
1. Attorney General John Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial aircraft in July 2001 2. The FAA refused to let author Salman Rushdie fly in North America starting the week before 9/11 3. Four days before the attacks, Florida Governor Jeb Bush activated the National Guard, citing ?acts of terrorism? 4. On September 10, 2001, high-ranking Pentagon officials cancelled travel plans for the morning of September 11. 5. On September 10, 2001, San Francisco?s mayor was warned against flying to New York the next morning. 6. CIA Director George Tenet warned Congressmen of ?an imminent attack on the United States of this nature.?
Link.
To me this stuff only indicates that multiple agencies knew something involving commercial planes was going to happen sometime. And let’s not forget this one: one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings.
There was a time when the name R.U. Sirius was synonymous with cyberculture. His seminal magazine Mondo 2000 predated Wired, and was even more enthusiastic in its wow-gosh sexification of the new geek order. Articles predicting a slick future of nanotech parties and smart drugs were mixed in with batches of fearful predictions of terrorism, economic collapse, draconian copyright enforcement, increased surveillance and invasive advertising. But Sirius didn’t stop there: After the collapse of Mondo, he went on to write for magazines like 21C, Salon and Disinformation, and edited Getting It. He created the Revolution Party, a non-ideological anti-authoritarian political organization (“If even the alternative parties like Libertarian and Green seem a bit rigid to you, consider joining us”), and campaigned for Presidency of the United States. His latest project, The Thresher, is a political magazine.
But The Thresher is a print magazine. Sirius hardly goes online anymore, except for research. The truth is, the Godfather of GeekChic has moved on.
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Some might claim that the machines have a hidden agenda, that there already is an intelligent machine out there, directing traffic, infinitely patient and connected to the world. One might allege that these protesters are merely the pawns of a conspiracy which they themselves do not fully understand, a conspiracy by machines, for machines… against humanity.
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