Karen Lillis read with us in Paris from her novel EyeScorpion, and hooked us up in New York with the legendary St. Mark’s Bookstore. She’s now in Pittsburg, where she has hooked up all the small presses, independent bookstores, and information regarding readings and events into one wiki:
http://smallpresspittsburgh.wikispaces.com/
They say the problem with anarchists is that anarchists aren’t good at coming together. Not so for small presses in Pittsburg.
Edmund Burke once observed that, “He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”
Lucid words. But there’s one small problem. No matter how helpful these antagonists might be, they usually get treated like, well, antagonists. This is the paradox of dissent and Jeremy Mercer examines how a new generation of behavioral economics, neuroscientists, and business managers are attempting to extract the fruits of dissent while protecting the cherished dissenter from the claws of conventional thinkers.
Read the essay here:
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/71/in-praise-of-dissent/
And, if you aren’t familiar with Ode Magazine, visit the site and give it a look. In an age where most magazines are dumbing down and featuring high-profile investigations on celebrity cellulite, Ode provides a progressive and in-depth look at everything from advances in green architecture to the future of ethical investment. Worth a look is Mercer’s earlier – and award-winning! – essay which examines how standard economic theory wrongly dismissed the role altruism plays in society and business.
http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/63/altruism-vs-economics
For more of Mercer’s non-Ode work, visit his website http://www.jeremymercer.net
Kilometer Zero favourite Hannah Marcus is loved for mesmerizing solo albums such as Desert Farmers and Black Hole Heaven; more recently, however, she’s been pouring her energies into a musical side project, the literate and lyrical folk group The Wingdale Community Singers. Their new CD Spirit Duplicator is good, damn good, and we highly recommend you purchase it, either by contacting Scarlet Shame Records here:
http://scarletshamerecords.com/
Or visiting the longest of Long Tail shopping sites, Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Duplicator-Wingdale-Community-Singers/dp/B002OD32B0
And, for more about The Wingdale Community Singers, you can read a bit and listen a bunch here:
http://www.myspace.com/thewingdalecommunitysingers
(Of course, it must be said, that for we fans who have been clamouring for more Hannah Marcus solo material, this is kind of like craving a nice plate of lightly steamed asparagus and getting served a decent bowl of asparagus and mushroom soup instead. And, even worse, when you look at the package of soup, there isn’t even a picture of asparagus on it! But, still, it will do, because it’s all we have of Hannah for the moment, and little Hannah Marcus is better than a lot of most other musicians … )
As readers of this space know, Quinn Comendant is now involved with a tremendous bicycle collective in California called Wheeled Migration which encourages sustainable transport, organic gardening, and communal meals. You can learn more about this fabulous enterprise here: http://www.wheeledmigration.com
And recently it came to our attention that old KMZ friend Jennifer Friar has a bike-mad partner named Luke who runs the outrageous Bunny Hop bike shop in Richmond, Virginia. See more here: http://bunnyhoprva.wordpress.com/
Wheeled Migration
Bunny Hop
And yes, to the casual observer, the juxtaposition between the East Coast shredders and the West Coast hippies is somewhat amusing. If I wanted to take my children on a lovely bike ride through the forest? I’d go with Wheeled Migration. If there was a fight? I’d pick the bike team that has the guy with the tattooed hands.
Cyclists. You gotta love ’em. All of ’em.
DCF BARC project launched at the 2009 Shenzhen Architecture and Urbanism Biennale. BARC will run through to the Shanghai 2010 Expo. Read more on burb.tv.
New fiction from Jonny Diamond (read Falling for Lady Mondegreen) and Musa Gurnis (read Love Nest)
Victoria Browne launches Kaleid Editions – a new press for contemporary artists’ books.
LAUNCH!
Tuesday 6-9pm, 1st September 2009
Unit 2, 23-25 Redchurch St.
London E2 7DJ
UK
As the years squirt by and KMZ members travel further and further from the association’s Parisian roots, it is mightily impressive to see that one of our own is still in the French capital, still making art, still chasing dreams.
Clara McBride, the actor who performed in a raft of KMZ productions and Adrian Hornsby plays, is one of the founding members of the Improfessionals improv troupe. The group began way back in 2001 and this year they have introduced ImproFlicks, a French version of the show at one of the péniches – those cool barges moored along the Seine. If you happen through Paris, check their website for shows and take the time to catch up with Clara.
by Aaron Cohen, Christine Buckley
There are more slaves in the world today than ever before. There’s more of most things, and there are more slaves in the world today than ever before.
Slave Hunter is not an academic study of human trafficking, but a memoir that travels from Southern California to Sudan, Cambodia, Burma, Ecuador, Israel, Iraq, and back. John Bowe, who first alerted Americans to the presence of slavery in their own backyard and author of Nobodies, has called it “an inspiration to those who would claim the world’s problems are too big for any one of us to tackle … and a rollicking action-adventure tale to boot.” A portion of the proceeds go to Abolish Slavery, an NGO founded by co-author Aaron Cohen.
This links to a book summary; this to the first chapter, and this to the amazon purchase page.
Christine read at Kilometer Zero shows in Paris and Amsterdam – among many who were quite rightly afeard of enslavement to their own egos. Take heed take heed, there will be much to learn from this book.
Human rights issues addressed elsewhere on Kilometer Zero include Craig Walzer’s excellent Out of Exile, an account of Sudanese refugees, Jeremy Mercer’s translation of the hugely influential Robert Badinter’s Abolition, as well as Jeremy’s darkly daring And the Guillotine Fell, an account of the guillotine and the last man to be placed under it in France.
MIK MOVES!!
Those who were fooled into thinking Mik didn’t move by her appearance bolted into a chair as II in Three Parts were fooled indeed. In fact, both directing and performing with KMZ and many others, Mik is a tongue of flame in a raging storm. She has a new show opening in Seattle: “a dirty gritty warehouse event with lots of choreographed movement and original music – historic events mixed with mythological characters – it’s intense.”
Elsewhere on kmz Mik starred in Three Parts, directed The Dumb Waiter, and worked on movement in Marion Davies & the Moon.
