Interzone report of September 1998

Report of September 21th 98

Hi all,

A lot of news this month, as the Zone have been again very active :

Gary is making a magazine in his site "Welcome to Interzone" J , which had been required by several of you since the beginning and had not been realized yet :

"Izzy and I have been discussing changing the nature of the monthly report to that of a magazine. This would mean that we can accept articles/poems/fiction or art work from group members to flesh it out, reducing Izzy's workload in this department so she can concentrate on the other stuff she has to do. The idea for the format would be simple with the bulk of the magazine appearing on a web site, allowing us to use images and nice colours, while each month an e-mail can be sent out with the editorial/news of the group, an article (or excerpt) and links to the other pages so that you can easily get to any information contained in the magazine you are interested in. We will NOT be sending pictures or large files, so people with slow downloads don't have to worry, anything like that will be kept on the web site and a link provided in the mail.
To make this work, and we believe it can, we need your help and support. Please, if you have anything at all that you can give us for inclusion please let us know. You can e-mail Iz or myself with what you have, or if you'd prefer to discuss it first then just let us know. The only guidelines are that anything of interest to others like ourselves will be included, whether it be on buddhism, ishmaelians, cut-ups, a day in your life, whatever. We are hoping to set an approximate deadline of the 25th of each month for submission.
As a first article I hope you all enjoy my account of my visit to Izzy's place earlier this year.
Hope to hear from you all soon,
Gary."

I propose we keep on including the articles of the magazine in the book as well for publication.

Gary is now hosting the reports at : http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gary.leeming/zonereport/rindex.htm

Ramuntcho proposes to put up a record label : if 100 people give 100 $ each, his is enough for the first CD to come out, and then the selling will give enough money to produce more. The first answers have been positive. See the details of his proposition in the forum on economical organization : http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westernlands/forum-money.html

About the sum of hundred $, it's reasonnable in the West, but in some places of the East, it represents a big sum. So I suggest that , for some of you who are there and want to be part of it , several people can group; we might also foresee another symbol of exchange than bills, which would have a constant value , similar for all of us, and based on a common agreement. See http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westernlands/s&s6.html.

3. Max (Maxence Grugier <mxzone@yahoo.com> "Transition Webzine": http://web.synapse-dev.fr/max/ & "The Game is Rigged - Take the Place Apart": http://web.synapse-dev.fr/max/williamsb.htm is making a magazine : NET ZONE which is now coming out in France . It is sold with a CD-ROM and costs 39 fr (9$). Here is the content : Cybersexe, Cyborg and Android. (Stellarc, Orlan, les "Wirehead", ...etc) , Otaku, technologic Zombies. (a super article on Japanese ones) , Cyberculture and litérature : (Gibson, Sterling, Egan, Noon...) Kyoko Date, virtual idol (it's a Japanese chick who lives on the net, she does not exist, but has a very realist biography and gives interviews). Sects, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll (as the title does not say, it's on T.O.P.Y, Psychic TV and Thee Process) John Waters and Divine (no comment) , Artificial Paradises on the Net, Cyber-beatnick (about the infuence of our beloved ones : Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs, Leary and the Merry Pranksters on the web development where I tell about us !) . The first issue is now in the shops.

Max gives the URL to buy it from : http://www.defisex.com/magazines/pages/francais/framag.html but says that if you use it, you have to use a credit card, you will be listed in the files and will receive the adverts from the place endlessly. He proposes that you tell me if you want to buy one, and then he sends me a paquet with the number of issues which I'll forward to you. I can make it.

4. In the domain of videos : some new stuff in the Zones sites :

- Pierre Belouin Foe and Andrew Shachat's : http://members.aol.com/rubout - http://www.shachat.com have begun to work together in the frame of the CD poroject "Last Words 1999" : see the results in : "APO 33": http://campus.ensba.fr/belouin/index.html , : Index of /foe4foe/realvideo : Parent Directory

Pierre is making an expo with Glassbox at the moment on the 19, 22, 26, 27, 28 September 1998, 113 bis, rue Oberkampf 75 011 Paris Tél/Fax 01 43 38 02 82. Retransmission of events on http://www.icono.org/glassbox/open.htm

- Scott Lickstein : http://www.iws.net/cydonia/vwinnie28.html A crazy lady, an answering machine and a drive.

- Rod Pitman : "Don't Freak" : http://come.toDontFreak : "Don't Freak" is the title of the video Rod made with Bill Burroughs in July 97 .

- Mark Mentzer : http://www.bestweb.net/~mentzerm has just been putting on line a Beatnick channel http://www.offbeattv.com with a Ginsberg video and the Burroughs video "Towers Open Fire"

There are a lot of new pages as well :

- Gary has just put a cut-up machine in his site : http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gary.leeming/cutup/cutup3.htm

- See the first results at : http://web.ukonline.co.uk/gary.leeming/cutup/afghanmon.htm

- Also Jeremy 's page on another cut-up machine :

http://www.geocities.com/~spiritechuk/cutup.html and http://www.geocities.com/~spiritechuk/cutup11.html with his own results as well : see at :

Foe put an article by Victor Bockris : Negative Girl : http://www.foe4foe.net/interzone/negative.html and many other new pages at www.foe4foe.net (new URL)

New pages and books also in Rick's Bookstore: http://www.abebooks.com/home/Intrepid and Website: http://www.reninet.com/ricochet

The hotel in Poitiers : see the forum : http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westernlands/mails.html to follow what has been going on recently.

The situation is that the business is in the hands of the liquidator since Jully. There is no date fixed for the auction at the moment. I wrote to her to ask the report on hygiene and security conditions.
According to some of you, if few people are interested in it, we might first concert about a cheap price to propose to the liquidator (2000 $), which we can afford; if he does not accept it, then we can go to the auction and try to make it. The hotel and flat are to rent at 400 $ per month, we would not be bound to the place and could leave when we want, the selling of the bussiness not being then a problem if buy at such a low price. But at the moment I write this, all this is still hypothesis. In such conditions, this entreprise would not be hasardous on the financial point of view. The only point in getting this precise place is making a good business if possible. If not, let's forget it.

- I shall forward the result to the people who are interested, but if this ends to work, let me know what you think about this place : at the moment we are just looking for informations , see if this really fulfill our needs, and if we are able to run such a place.

- On the practical level : Don has a hotel-restaurant businness experience and proposes to invest money in this. Kevin who also has a 17 years similar experience proposes his help and advices.

- Now the possibilities in such a place are so wide that we cannot make them all :

We might run the place as it was before, or forget about some activities which require a lot of work to concentrate on more easy ones : run the bar with a fast , good and nourishing meals (verious kinds of breakfast, and quick meals , desserts and original drinks) for the clients of the bar, which would not require a restaurant licence. We might use only a light alcohol licence, cheap and easy to get and get rid of, instead of the previous licence IV for strong alcools. The bar is interesting as a place of conviviality, which allows to earn one's life and get in touch with quite a lot of people, specially if this is the only bar in the commune, and in the disctrict of a universitary town.
Instead of the formal place it was before (kind of a hotel -restaurant you see in the Maigret movies of the sixties), we might make more an artistic place with a Burroughs and Gysin museum, the selling of our productions (CD, reviews, books, paintings), with shows, expos, music, lectures, videos, etc...
Presently, at least 3 of us propose to get involved in it : Don, me and Snappy. Iggy is not disponible at the moment but is interested for a bit later. Several of you plan to come and visit if we got a physical place. Koulin would be interested to come here for his studdies, but is stuck in Ivory Coast at the moment without job nor money.
In case a consequent group would gather, we might parallelly rent a big farm or a castle, in the surroundings of the hotel, in a retired place where to work together, in gathering and producing our respective arts : Ramuntcho's idea of label record made me think that we might do the same in the other domains : produce our videos, publish our writings (Andrew Shachat's printer in US is very cheap compaired to France, the printing of a book of 130 pages in 500 copies being worth half a dollar for each copy !) So the hotel would be more a public place to sell our productions and get in touch with people, and the other one, a multimedia workshop, limited to the Zoners. See what you think.
About the immigration, US citizens can come to France without visa during 3 months. I'm gonna see for citizens from other countries and tell you.
In case the hotel project would not succeed, you might have a better idea about a place you would like to make such a project. A number of you encourage the idea of a common place and are willing to be part of it if something is put up. Why not concert and elect a country ?

Concerning our witings, I sent 2 manuscripts to Christian Bourgois, French Burroughs' publisher, with the French versions of "Le Temps des Naguals" and "Le Carrefour des Impasses", and introduce the "Time of Naguals", our common writings mainly in English, as another tome bound to the French writings. This sending without much illusions, as most of French publisher do not answer to people (I never heard about the other one I had sent to the first tome of Interzone writings), unless they want to publish it, and when they do, their propositions happen to be hasardous for the authors. I'm gonna make another attempt in Canada for this French part, to a young publisher who is settling in Toronto. And then begin to print the several tomes of the English version for John Gehner in US.

In case some of you would be used to deal with publishers, please let me know, as we would be in better position to evaluate the validity of contracts and offers, which I am not competent to do alone.

Dreamachine again :

Joshua is making one with a tape-recorder running in 45 and 33 rpm. The plans I made are for a 78 rpm. In case any of you would have some fitting to Josh 's machine, please, let him know : Joshua Lowell cordwainer@yahoo.com http://www.radix.net/~joshua

Chats and appointment of the 23^rd :

You can join us on ICQ : # Gary : 10236254 - Iz : 3146693. A whole bunch of us are on ICQ now, which is great to exchange. In case you want to download it, let's know and we shall transmit you the list of other Zoners.

Foe's chat-room has been deleted by his server (shame on him !) so as usual for the appointment, let's meet In Music Art and Books at Floor 3 : http://eventchat.gay.com/pages/eventchat.cfm, or in Interzone in mIRC at Random US DALnet server, or in Dan's site at http://www.dancentury.com/red_night/chat.htm . See the details for this monthly appointment in the page Interzone Chats : http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westernlands/Chat.html

. The tee-shirts :

I have sold them all. Let us know what you think of this experiment, if you found it worth doing it, your eventual complains, and if you think we might try it again.

Burroughs ' book "Ghost of chance", about Captain Mission's adventures (see "Port of Saints", and "Cities of the Red Nights"), has just come out in France, published by Christian Bourgois, translation Sylvie Durastanti.

See the news between 2 reports at : http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westeernlands/news2.html , in Foe's site at http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/foe4foe/front.htm and in the forum at http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westernlands/mails.html

Have a wonderful automn.

Love and all the best.

Iz & Gary