Audio

The First "Three-dimensional" Magazine?

February 18, 2008

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SPEAKER:
And welcome to the third UbuWeb Poetry Foundation podcast, All Avant Garde All the Time, where we reveal for you some of the deeper and hidden audio treasures that lurk in the archives of UbuWeb. UbuWeb can be found at ubu.com. In this podcast, we'll be exploring the archives of Aspen Magazine, with a particular emphasis on the audio recordings available there.

YOKO ONO:
Beatle John Lennon lost his hospital bed yesterday.

SPEAKER:
We're listening to Yoko Ono and her flexi disc that was included in the British issue of Aspen seven, entitled "No Bed for Beatle John".

YOKO ONO:
Where John was keeping vigil in the room, where his girlfriend, Yoko Ono

SPEAKER:
Published ten times between 1965 and 1971, Aspen billed itself as the first three-dimensional magazine. Most issues arrived in a notebook-sized box that was stuffed with articles, and had been printed individually and assembled, rather than stapled together. Aspen magazine was conceived by Phyllis Johnson, who was a former editor for Women's Wear Daily and Advertising Age. And while she was skiing in Aspen, Colorado, she got the idea for a multimedia magazine that was designed by artists and that would showcase the great culture of her day. She said, "We wanted to get away from the bound magazine format, which is really quite", and that she did. The first two issues of Aspen Magazine were mostly Phyllis Johnson trying to get on her feet, but by number three, she came up with a formula and hired Andy Warhol and David Dalton to put together the pop art issue. And in 1966, with a big fab color, the pop art issue was launched. (INSTRUMENT PLAYS) Included with issue three the very rare track by John Cale and the Velvet Underground entitled 'Loop', which goes on for seven minutes and 14 seconds with machine noises feedback and tape echo.

(INSTRUMENT PLAYS) The year of 1967 saw the McLuhan issue, Aspen Number four, designed by Quentin Fiore. It was basically trying to do a magazine replication of McLuhan and Fiore's work at the time. Included in that, was a poster-sized mosaic images from the pages of the medium as the Massage by McLuhan and Fiore. Included in the issue, was a couple of modern music pieces, and this is from the Once Group out in the Midwest; Robert Ashley, Gordon Mumma, and George Cacioppo. It's called (UNKNOWN), a coulisse from antiquity in the guise of an (SPEAKS IN FRENCH).

MERCE CUNNINGHAM:
Now, I can't see that crisis any longer means a climax. Unless we are willing to grant that every breath of wind has a climax, which I am. But then that obliterates climax, being a surfeit of such.

SPEAKER:
And we are listening to Merce Cunningham reading in 1952 an essay that he wrote called "Space, Time, and Dance".

MERCE CUNNINGHAM:
And since our lives, both by nature, by the newspapers, are so full of crisis that one is no longer aware of it, then it is clear that life goes on regardless. Climax is for those who are swept by New Year's Eve.

SPEAKER:
This is all part of the largest and most important issue of Aspen Magazine number five and six, the minimalism issue, which is just packed with seemingly endless amounts of incredible audio of the day. This was edited and designed by Brian O'Doherty, also known as Patrick Ireland, and was put out in the fall and winter of 1967. This is Morton Feldman, the King of Denmark, which was performed and released by percussionist and sound artist Max Neuhaus. Morton Feldman says that this recording should be played at very low volume so that you almost don't hear it.

JACK MACGORWAN:
Only the words break the silence. All other sounds have ceased. If I was silent, I'd hear nothing. But if I were silent, the other sounds would start again. Those to which the words have made me deaf, or which have really ceased. But I am silent. It sometimes happens. No! Never! Not one second.

SPEAKER:
And you're listening to a 1958 recording of Samuel Beckett's Text for Nothing, number eight, read by the actor Jack MacGorwan.

JACK MACGORWAN:
But I speak softer. Every year, a little softer, perhaps, slower too. Every year a little slower, perhaps. It is hard for me to judge. If so, the pauses would be longer between the words, the sentences, the syllables, the tears. I confuse them, words and tears.

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS:
This gentleman is a death dwarf, as you can see, manipulated by remote control.

SPEAKER:
In this issue, they really had their finger on the pulse of exactly what was going on at the time. And what was going on at the time also included people like William S. Burroughs.

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS:
I got orgasms, I got screams. I got all the images any poet ever shit out. My power is coming. My power is coming. My power is coming. He goes into a faith healer routine, rolling his eyes and frothing at the mouth. And I got millions and millions and millions and millions of images.

SPEAKER:
There are almost nine minutes of Burroughs' reading from Nova Express, which had just been written in 1965. And we're hearing an excerpt from "This Gentleman Is a Death Dwarf". Also, Burroughs talks about Mr. Bradley and Mr. Martin.

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS:
Alright, you hick sheriffs. I'll cook you all down to decorticated canine preparations. You'll never get the apomorphine formula in time. Never, never, never. Caustic white hot lava drips from his teeth. The smell of phosphorus fills the room.

SPEAKER:
This was not just an American magazine. And there were international literary movements being represented, particularly in this issue by Alain Robbe-Grillet. And there's an excerpt from 1957 of Robbe-Grillet reading from Jealousy (SPEAKS IN FRENCH).

ALAIN ROBBE-GRILLET:
(SPEAKS IN FRENCH) No, there is nothing wrong with your MP3 player. In fact, this is John Lennon playing with his radio, a very rare piece called Radio Play. Eight minutes of John twiddling the Am radio dial and having conversations of a mundane nature with Yoko Ono in the room. This is from the fantastic Aspen Number seven, the British issue that was edited by Mario Amaya and published by Aspen Magazine in the spring and summer of 1970.

SPEAKER:
Can you get my ambassador? 5973 please. Don't forget to look at the Lennon Diary from 1961, which was written every single day for the year by John Lennon of his mundane activities. I won't tell you what they are, but it's item number eight and you can go see those for yourself. There's also marvelous Concrete poetry by Ian Hamilton Finlay and concrete poetry by John Furnivall, and finally, some drawings by David Hockney, the Swinging London British Issue, issue number seven of Aspen Magazine. Don't mix all that stuff up from issue with everything else that I've got to go through it all again, you know? Yeah, it fills in the boxes of material, you know. (INAUDIBLE) Turtles. The hatchlings... Journey... No one knows where the turtles go. Whose courses...? Whose course is a mystery? A mist have found their way to the... One knows where the turtles go. Sea Turtles. No one knows where the turtles go. The hatchlings... Turtles. Journey. They embark upon a... Young turtles. And you're listening to "Young Turtle Asymmetries" by Jackson Mac Low, a chance generated poem for five simultaneous readers that was published in the Aspen Number eight, the Fluxus issue, in the fall and Winter of 1970 to 1971, edited by conceptual artist Dan Graham and designed by Fluxus's boss George Maciunas.

Fluxus, a very loose and broad genre, was a group of artists that gathered together in the early 60s and made a performance-based anti-art. Instead of making permanent objects, their practice was based on ephemeral objects, performances, music, writing. It was truly an interdisciplinary field that vanished almost as quickly as the objects they made, and that was completely intentional. They embark upon a journey... Also included in the audio section of the Fluxus issue, is La Monte Young's Drift Study 31 1 60 9. As always with La Monte Young, his real title is much longer. The title for this is Notes on Continuous, Periodic Composite, Sound, Waveform, Environment, Realizations. And there's a full essay on exactly what La Monte Young was up to and his thinking behind this track called Drift Study 31 1 60 9 from Aspen number eight. You can also find a musical score by Philip Glass, a three music for Two Voices in place of a lecture by poet David Antin and visual artist Eleanor Antin. Other great non-Fluxus related but visual artists that are featured in this issue include Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, and Ed Ruscha, all under the rubric of the Fluxus issue from 1971, Aspen Magazine.

(MUSIC PLAYS) And you're listening to some hippie psychedelic music, which was part of the audio portion of Aspen Number nine, The Psychedelic Issue. This is the Joyous Lake and is headlined by Angus Maclise, who was the original drummer for the Velvet Underground. And this issue was completely dedicated to psychedelics. It was edited by Angus and Hettie Maclise and was published by Aspen Magazine in the winter and spring of 1971. Included in this, were great psychedelic artists such as Ira Cohen and Bill Devore. You can see photographs that have now become very famous from Ira Cohen's invasion of the Thunderbolt Pagoda. There are drawings in the Mayan style, glyphs by (UNKNOWN), and poems. We've got perforated sheets of gummed stamps printed with color photographs of what else? Female nudes? Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was Benno Friedman, with Westerns predating Richard Prince's appropriation practices, a poetry sheet with poetry and psychedelic lyrics by Gerard Malanga and (UNKNOWN), Harvey Cohen, John Cale.

(MUSIC INSTRUMENTS PLAY) Aspen magazine was truly ahead of its time. Although many of the figures at the time were completely unknown, the editors had their finger on the pulse of what was happening and turned out to be a completely accurate picture of what the avant garde of the 1960s looked like. Extremely prescient, and that's why it resonates so well with us today. The issues themselves are absolutely rare. They can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. They're rarely found today outside of museum libraries and dusty flea market bins. But fortunately, UbuWeb was able to have the entire run of the magazine digitized for us by a San Francisco book dealer who, in fact, had copies of all of them and spent five years converting all of the paper issues onto the web. And it's absolutely, beautifully and convincingly done. Of course, there's nothing like the original, but unless you've got some serious bucks, Aspen magazine on UbuWeb is going to have to do. And this has been All Avant Garde All the Time.

The Poetry Foundation UbuWeb podcast. You can find all you need to know about Aspen Magazine and UbuWeb at ubu.com.

Aspen featured Warhol, the Velvets, and John Lennon twiddling the radio dial.

More Episodes from Avant-Garde All the Time
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    Driven by Sound Tracks

  2. Tuesday, September 7, 2010

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  3. Friday, July 23, 2010

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  4. Wednesday, June 2, 2010

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  5. Tuesday, March 23, 2010

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  6. Tuesday, November 24, 2009

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  7. Monday, October 19, 2009

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  8. Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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  9. Wednesday, July 22, 2009

    The Sounds of the UK

  10. Tuesday, April 28, 2009

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  11. Tuesday, January 6, 2009

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  12. Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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  13. Friday, August 1, 2008

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  14. Tuesday, May 27, 2008

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  15. Friday, January 18, 2008

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  16. Wednesday, December 5, 2007