Chris Trela (producer of the documenatry Guest of Cindy Sherman) teamed up with photographer Gretchen Berg and counterculture icon, John Wilcock (one of the founders of Interview Magazine & The Village Voice) to reissue the 1971 classic, The Autobiography and Sex Life of Andy Warhol. They've updated the content with some interesting stories and new photos and kept the entertaining interviews: Taylor Mead, Nico, Viva, Marisol and the rest of the usual suspects in tact.  The editors will be discussing the book and signing copies at the Gagosian Shop (988 Madison Ave) on June 24th. From 6-8 pm.

This is a rare exception to the usually unimpressive mix of new Warhol media products that have over saturated the market. The industrious producer/publisher Chris Trela releases this substantive work that is both interesting and entertaining.

Source: tmagazine

Below text via Dangerous Minds, where there's more links:

The CIA has released its official secrets of magic (stage magic, that is, don’t get any ideas) in a just-published book. Now THAT sounds like an excellent holiday present for quite a few people I know. From Wired:

At the height of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency paid $3,000 to renowned magician John Mulholland to write a manual on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft. All known copies of the document — and a related paper, on conveying hidden signals — were believed to be destroyed in 1973. But recently, the manuals resurfaced, and have now been published as “The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception.” Topics include working a clandestine partner, slipping a pill into the drink of the unsuspecting, and “surreptitious removal of objects by women.”

This wasn’t the first time a magician worked for a western government. Harry Houdini snooped on the German and the Russian militiaries for Scotland Yard. English illusionist Jasper Maskelyne is reported to created dummy submarines and fake tanks to distract Rommel’s army during World War II. Some reports even credit him with employing flashing lights to “hide” the Suez Canal.

But Mulholland’s contributions were far different, because they were part of a larger CIA effort, called MK-ULTRA, to control people’s minds.

Red 777
Undo Mundo

"James Moffat (1922-1993) was a Canadian-born writer who once published a magazine about bowling and who, under sundry pseudonyms, wrote hack fiction (westerns, children’s stories, mysteries). In 1970 he was asked because he was so versatile and prolific, to write a book for the New English Library about skinheads, the white working-class youths whose thuggery seemed, to some, an authentic cry of alienation and, to others, the decline of Western civilisation.

Allen’s first novel, Skinhead, uneasily combined self-righteous fascist rhetoric, nihilist indifference and the shocked voice of reason. But it succeed with its authentic portrayal of Joe Hawkins, the 16-year old gangster convinced the Cockneys had lost control of their patch, London, and whose life of rape, drink and hooliganism ends in a kind of triumph when he is jailed for beating a cop – a punishment which, he gloats, makes him king of the skinheads.

After that sold a million, the formula stayed pretty constant for 17 other novels – seven with the words “skin” or ‘Skinhead’ in the title. Allen bought to the task an enthusiasm for research, speed – he once completed a novel in less than a week – narrative drive and pulp fair. The opening line of Suedehead is masterful: “As he stood in the dock, Joe Hawkins considered the situation with a detachment”. Yet the author, uncomfortable with charges he encouraged violence, later blamed “leniency in courtrooms, catering to fads by mercenary-minded rage-trade merchants, a soft-peddling attitude by politicians who look for teenage votes and a overwhelming pandering by the media”.

Rediscovered in his seventies, Allen was planning a sequel Skinhead Return, when years of writing at short notice aided by tobacco and booze finally caught up with him. He died in 1993."

- The Richard Allen Project

I was first turned on to the Whole Earth Catalog by my friend and old boss, John Wackman. He described the catalog as the sort of "Sears Catalog of cool and interesting things" as well as "the first blog." He couldn't have been more right.  According to Wikipedia, "The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture catalog published by Stewart Brand between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. Although the WECs listed all sorts of products for sale (clothing, books, tools, machines, seeds -- anything for a self-sustainable ""hippie" lifestyle) the Whole Earth Catalogs themselves did not sell any of the products. Instead the vendors and their prices were listed right alongside with the items. This led to a need for the Catalogs to be frequently updated. Apple Inc. founder and entrepreneur Steve Jobs has described the Catalog as the conceptual forerunner of the World Wide Web."

The catalog featured brief, blog-like entries on weird stuff that you would now find in selective, curated stores and websites around the city. These entries were written by the likes of: The Black Panthers, Walter / Wendy Carlos, William S. Burroughs, Peter Coyote, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Buckminster Fuller, Ram Daas, Wavy Gravy, Ken Kessey, Paul Krassener, Dalai Lama, Timothy Leary, Alice Waters, The Yippies, and so many more.

Some of the more notable article titles included:

The Global Mushroom Trade
The Double Bubble Wheel Engine
Left Handed Bears and Androgynous Cassowaries
Poets on the Bum
The Ultimate Swiss Omni Knife
Son of Man Temple
What are People For?
Computational Chemistry
A Witch's Manifesto
Do It Yourself Eclipse Prediction
Obeying Chogyam Trungpa
Outside the Yuppie Zoo
The Living Water Garden
God is a Verb
Tiptoeing Out of Real Estate
Dr. Seuss: Architect of Social Change
Death Does Not Exist
Am I Psychic Yet?
The Beauty of Disconnection
Organizing Programs as Mind Extension Tools
Shit
Juggling and Performing Mathematics
Big Foot No Longer Fair Game
A Hard Look at Soft Woods
King Kong Died For Our Sins
Model Rockets

From the opening page of the 1969 Catalog:

Function

The WHOLE EARTH CATALOG functions as an evaluation and access device. With it, the user should know better what is worth getting and where and how to do the getting. An item is listed in the CATALOG if it is deemed:

       1. Useful as a tool,
       2. Relevant to independent education,
       3. High quality or low cost,
       4. Not already common knowledge,
       5. Easily available by mail.

    CATALOG listings are continually revised according to the experience and suggestions of CATALOG users and staff.   

Purpose

We are as gods and might as well get good at it. So far, remotely done power and glory—as via government, big business, formal education, church—has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing—power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested. Tools that aid this process are sought and promoted by the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG.

Official
Wikipedia