[Seth-Trips] RE/Search party at City Lights Books, Thur Feb 24, 7pm

[Riana Pfefferkorn]

Excellent list of featured guests. I might go.

riana



City Lights Bookstore will host a special RE/Search event Thur Feb. 24
7pm, celebrating the recently-released JG BALLARD QUOTES book. This is
a last-minute reminder to you! 261 Columbus at Broadway, San
Francisco. Free. 415-362-8193. Event curator: Peter Maravelis of City
Lights.

Featured Guests:

1. Mark Pauline. Founder and Director of Survival Research
Laboratories (SRL), a San Francisco art institution since 1978. SRL
pioneered the genre of violent machine art performance on large
locations, incorporating and innovating cutting-edge computer
technology and remote-controlled robotics. Mr. Pauline is also a
graphic artist, engineer, inventor, writer, and has lectured at
numerous universities and museums in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. He
has been featured in V. Vale's Search & Destroy, RE/Search magazine,
the Industrial Culture Handbook, Pranks, the 1984 JG Ballard
celebration at Fort Mason, and will be featured in the forthcoming
J.G. Ballard INTERVIEWS book.

2. SRL engineer Karen Marcelo maintains the SRL website (srl.org) and
is responsible for implementing internet controllers for the
tele-operated machines used in many SRL shows. She provides vital
assistance to STELARC as a programmer and technical facilitator.

3. Eric Paulos received his PhD in Computer Science from UC Berkeley
and is currently a senior research scientist at Intel where he heads
the Urban Atmospheres group focused on exploring the proactive
archeology of our urban landscapes and emerging technology
(www.urban-atmospheres.net).  Dr. Paulos is also a long time associate
of SRL and director of the Experimental Interaction Unit. Eric has
developed numerous teleoperated robots and interaction system
throughout the years and is also teaching a course at the San
Francisco Art Institute. (www.paulos.net)

4. R.U. Sirius (aka Ken Goffman) has enjoyed a long career as editor
of High Frontiers and Mondo 2000 magazine, and is the author of six
books, including the recently-published Counterculture Through the
Ages (with Dan Joy). He was a friend to Timothy Leary and Terence
McKenna.

5. David Pescovitz is Co-Editor of the popular Boing-Boing blog. His
writings on science, technology and art have been featured in
Scientific American, the New York Times, Popular Science, and many
other publications. He is co-author of the book Reality Check, based
on his long-running futurist column in Wired magazine where he is
currently a contributing writer.

6. SM Gray's amazing photographs (depicting the corporate media
takeover of "public" space) are featured in JGBALLARD QUOTES. He is a
veteran of the 70s punk rock cultural revolution. To view his poetry,
writing, and photographs, go to telepoetic.com. (Sadly, photographer
ANA BARRADO could not attend; she currently resides in Florida.)

7. Joe Donohoe is a San Francisco independent writer and taxicab
driver whose interviews and writing may be found at
www.speciousspecies.com. He has written an introduction to the
forthcoming JGBALLARD INTERVIEWS book.

Featured guests will read a selection of their favorite quotations
from the JGBALLARD QUOTES book, and will be introduced by V. Vale and
Marian Wallace, editors and publishers.

Latest release: J.G. Ballard Quotes A mini-review from an avid
RE/Search reader: "This book is like a travel guide to your own mind.
No matter what the subject, Ballard nails it. Nobody else has
predicted the future as well as Ballard--why don't more people know
about him?!"
http://www.researchpubs.com has more information, excerpts and covers.

Futurism, Fabulism, Terrorism
J.G. Ballard despairs over our fate...
BY ANNELI RUFUS (anneli.rufus at eastbayexpress.com)

Tomorrow never knows -- or does it?: As the man credited with
launching the contemporary tattoo and body-modification movements
almost single-handedly, UC Berkeley grad V. Vale has been called a
prophet. His 1989 book Modern Primitives (RE/Search, $19.50) inspired
a generation to ink, pierce, and decoratively scar itself, not to
mention branding itself with hot metal and rerouting its genitals. But
the native San Franciscan writer and publisher, whose own flesh has
reached middle age without a mark, is now crusading to make America
venerate an even more illustrious seer. J.G. Ballard Quotes
(RE/Search, $19.99) compiles thousands of tidbits from the author of
Crash and Empire of the Sun, both of which were made into films.

The author of more than forty books, Ballard -- who lives in Britain
and has been scarcely published Stateside -- has always predicted the
future with amazing and eloquent accuracy. Forty years ago -- eons
before porn Web sites and chatrooms -- he wrote: "Sex times technology
equals the future." Eons ago too, he mused darkly that the future
would be governed "by competing systems of psychopathology." He has
called cell phones "the protective cocoon" that allows users to
"discreetly theatricalize themselves." Perhaps his darkest prediction
of all was: "Does the future have a future?"

In 1972, Vale discovered Ballard's book Love and Napalm: Export USA
[aka The Atrocity Exhibition] in a secondhand bookshop. "It was
completely prophetic. He predicted the election of Ronald Reagan 25
years before it happened." Ballard's 1973 novel Crash explores "the
psychosexual implications of owning an automobile. He posited that a
lot of people latently wish they would be in a car crash, because for
most people today, a car crash will be the single most exciting event
that they live through -- if they live through it.
"J.G. Ballard is the most relevant living philosopher. He's virtually
unknown in America, yet he has psychoanalyzed the predicament of the
near future, of the -- I hate to call it -- technofascistic society
we're becoming." The death of Ballard's crony William Burroughs in
1997 "made me wake up and think, 'Hey, I've gotta do something about
Ballard,'" says Vale, whose huge collection of rare Ballardiana
assembled over three decades provided source material for this book.
And will Vale's daughter, now nine, be getting tattooed or pierced?
"Not while I'm paying the rent," the trendsetter asserts.
EAST BAY EXPRESS, January 26, 2005
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2005-01-26/culture/presshere.html
-------
SAMPLE JGBALLARD QUOTES:

"The Arab world, the Moslem world, may well take the place of the
Communist world as the great bogeyman of the future." (JGBallard,
1993)

"How do you run a society where a large proportion of people will
never work?" (JGB, n.d.)

"People seem to enjoy being infantilized. The future before us is a
nightmare marriage between Microsoft and the Disney company..."
(JGBallard, 2003)

JG BALLARD QUOTES available from http://www.researchpubs.com or call
415-362-1465 to place order.

Our latest inspirations...
() STEVEN WATSON. All five of his books are stellar achievements,
showcasing a high literary standard of writing in which every word
must earn its keep. Far more importantly, the author conveys a
magisterial grasp of his subject matter, always striving to provide
maximum inspiration and large-pattern historical contexting. He
focuses on avant-garde movements of the 20th century, often revealing
unsuspected connections. Google "Steven Watson," and maybe start with
The Birth of the Beat Generation and Factory-Made.

() Crap Hound #5 is out, one of our favorite zines in the world.
Google "Reading Frenzy" to order a copy, or email
chloe at readingfrenzy.com.

DISCLAIMER & PROMISE (borrowed this from City Lights--thanks!) -- V.
Vale's eNewsletter is a free service to our esteemed customers,
comrades and critics. If you're receiving this email, it's because you
or someone you know has sent your address to us here. We will NOT
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--

RE/Search Publications
20 Romolo Suite B
San Francisco, CA  94133
(415) 362-1465
info at researchpubs.com