ARTHUR - the magazine

New York is the last stand for culture and the arts in America

LOL

but I seriously cannot believe how you can be more than 8 years old and think that an entire city can be summed up by your thoughts.

haha maybe you should check out the "most racist city in America" thread on ILE... to be fair he has lived in LA his entire life

totally wish dude the best of luck tho

cannot wait for do's and don'ts

lolol

having lived in both cities i am laughing my ass off at mr babcock

I love new york, and maybe it's changed since I used to hang there, but generally speaking it always struck me as the capital of what-important-thing-are-you-doing-and-what-can-you-do-for-me.

plus it's been a while since anything "important" happened there, at least in a concentrated fashion. there are good bands in ny but not more than in any number of other cities.

cannot wait for do's and don'ts

*tears*

(really though, good luck Arthur!)

plus it's been a while since anything "important" happened there, at least in a concentrated fashion

strictly speaking I don't think "important" things happen anywhere anymore, thanks to the massive decentralization of media distribution methods

Pasadena's great. I gave up my car a year ago and don't miss it. Being without an auto in soCal isn't for everyone, though. When I want out to Santa Barbara or someplace, I just do a rental. Plus, I kind of like that "important" things don't happen in Pasadena, unless you count the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl.

Friends come over a lot and we grill for them. And people come from back east two or three times a year because they want to get out of the Pennsy funk.

SoCal often still looks great if you, say, live in Allentown or Bethlehem.

Why's this dude all butthurt? :(

SoCal often still looks great if you, say, live in Allentown or Bethlehem.

Aw, I love Los Angeles, but, c'mon, don't knock the Lehigh Valley! It's beautiful as well!

taking sides: LA vs LV

after driving through the Bladerunner-ish polluted disaster area hellhole that is the Port of Los Angeles a couple years ago its difficult for me to avoid the conclusion that anywhere in America is better than LA

Oh STFU

your brother's bitterness is more entertaining

after driving through the (insert dirty industrial section) of (insert every city in the world) etc

if you visit chicago please avoid the southern shore of lake michigan, you might start to hate on the rest of the city

shakey, no offense, but your brother thinking that ny is cheaper than la is stupidity x infinity. i won't get into the other bs because dude is entitled to his opinions, however narrowminded.

$20,000 wasted on the best pizza america has to offer

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/78/198921224_fb8d559213.jpg%3Fv%3D0

http://www.frogs-snails.com/catalog/Red%20Bummer.jpg

after driving through the (insert dirty industrial section) of (insert every city in the world) etc

yeah yeah, I've been around. Some places are worse than others.

i have never enjoyed arthur magazine-- i think b/c it has consistently dealt with things that i think about/care about lots, but always in a way that i find very detrimental...it has always struck me as being too much like going back and reading old sixties underground newspapers/books or whatever, and realizing how clueless and naive ppl were about occult stuff/"eastern" spirituality/whatever flakey flavor of the week (apple cider vinegar, i'm talking to you!)...and also being struck by how unaware ppl were of the submerged aggression behind their "peace, let's all just do some bong hits and listen to this shitty music" sentiments.

it has always struck me as being too much like going back and reading old sixties underground newspapers/books

well it is done pretty explicitly in that tradition. if you don't like that tradition, hey what can you do.

also apple cider vinegar rocks sorry but its true

for someone who spent his entire life in l.a. your brother sure doesn't understand it at all. then he acts like a spurned lover because the brentwood types didn't acknowledge him. i guess the respect he received from "poor artists" wasn't enough? i mean he says it's about money but it sounds like it's more about him not getting props from the right people. that rant = "every failed screenwriter ever"

well it is done pretty explicitly in that tradition. if you don't like that tradition, hey what can you do.

i guess i probably don't like that tradition, even though, goodness knows i am obsessed with the sixties and "the underground" in america...but in any case, that doesn't excuse arthur from espousing naive viewpoints about stuff (and i dunno, maybe i am complaining more about the opinions of the artists interviewed within its pages, as opposed to some overall editorial approach)

i should maybe add that i am speaking from the viewpoint of disaffected dude who felt alienated by both vice magazine culture and arthur magazine/"freak folk" culture of this decade, if i may set both publications up as some weird oppositional thing of sorts

i tried the ACV thing but i think i like kombucha better

if i may set both publications up as some weird oppositional thing of sorts

I think that's probably legit. personally I find Vice deeply alienating/irritating/funny when its making snarky fashion jokes but its rather obvious where my loyalties lie (even if I don't particularly care for Devendra or Joanna Newsom)

i was just in LA for E3 and anyway we were riding on a bus to the activision press conference and we drove by a store front in downtown that had "No Age Weirdo Rippers" painted above it what's up with that? it looked like it had been painted that way for awhile.

that's the smell

oh okay! damn i shoulda tried to go back there and see what was going down.

yeah, i like the "do's and don'ts" in VICE (i even bought the book!)

i'm indifferent to banhart's/newsom's music (admittedly, i guess i haven't listened enough to their stuff to give them a fair shake. oh well. life is short.)

i'm sure your brother is a great person. i just am disappointed by the magazine (and what i see as being some subculture that it tried to deliver ((to))).

but, thinking back, i remember enjoying reading an interview w/joanna newsom... and i am interested in erik davis' work, so...

the day they interview dale pendell, all will be right in my world.

but, yeah, jay took the steps to publish a magazine and distribute it for free, which is insanely admirable, and i am just some dude typing out shit here, so...

"after driving through the Bladerunner-ish polluted disaster area hellhole that is the Port of Los Angeles a couple years ago its difficult for me to avoid the conclusion that anywhere in America is better than LA"

Dude, I grew up outside Detroit. I live in LA now. If you think that the Port is the worst place in America, you have no idea what a significant chunk of the US has to offer in terms of Superfund hellholes.

the ports may be ugly but they're a very important job center for the region, so that trumps aesthetics in my mind. and they are taking steps to improve the air quality.

And I'm still annoyed that I subscribed right before this $20k PLZ! meltdown bullshit happened. Who knows when the fuck I'll actually get that next issue, but maybe "getting shit out on time" can be one of those NYC attributes that Jay picks up.

http://www.cleanairactionplan.org/ (xpost)

hmm hadn't heard about that - pretty encouraging

(btw next issue is at the printer now)

I had to move away from SoCal myself (grew up in L.A., spend college years plus in O.C.), so I understand Jay's frustration wrt the arts or what not. L.A. in particular is one grey arts-and-entertainment factory, which ironically makes it hard to have a centralized arts culture built from scraps.

But NYC is probably the most similar city to L.A. in that arts-and-entertainment factory analogy. Does Jay have to live in the belly of the beast? If so, why does he whine about it so much if that's what drives him? If not, why doesn't he move to Austin or Minneapolis or Portland instead?

dude if yr in the publishng business you go where the publishers are

also advertising $$$

i'm not an LA expert.

as far as where i'd go to hang out on vacation, NYC every time.

but honestly there's something about the messiness and sprawl and weirdness and randomness of LA that seems to me like it would be more conducive to a *real* arts/music scene evolving...lots of abandoned places and space, where NYC is too cramped and media microscope, it seems like it's hard for stuff to breath, literally and figuratively.

art needs a place to hide

but what do i know i'm just thinking out loud

I will say this. It's easy to start your own thing in L.A. and NYC moreso than other cities, mainly because things get built up and shut down in both cities all the goddamn time. I got sick of it and moved to Seattle, one of many reasons being that Seattle (as one example) has had some consistent assemblence of arts support. It may not be perfect, but it's been alive and not-so-fucked-with-as-much for decades. Also, I got sick of having to build from scratch over and over again -- like booking bands at Koo's Cafe in Santa Ana only to have the police bust it the year after I moved. Greater NYC and greater LA fucking eat people. I don't want to move to cities where I try to fucking duck and hide all the time.

As for the "dude if yr in the publishng business you go where the publishers are" comment, don't get me started on the cynicism and arguments I have with this concept of LA and NYC being the only places to make this happen.

things happen in portland, oregon (in the pacific northwest) and austin, texas (in the south, and in the same state as houston!) too

atlanta is pretty good from what i hear too

the twin cities have stuff. like places to look at art nobody likes and hear dudes making a godawful racket.

arthur, i think we have a winner

'Because I'm an Ohioan -- Cincinnati -- who was born in Louisville, I wanted to find out what was happening downriver along the Ohio. Overall, I discovered an intriguing, funky scene and a good-humored, pop-culture-savvy populace . . . plus more.'