Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
The Great Bear Pamphlets
"On my desk was folder of Alison Knowles’ performance pieces, too free for a book but enough to make an attractive unit of some kind. “Why not,” I thought, “make a series of 16-page pamphlets, miniatures in a sense of our books, and (hopefully) as refreshing as this water I’m drinking?” Thus began our Great Bear Pamphlet series. Sometime the books were too expensive for our friends to buy, but the pamphlets? Not really, though to hear our friends talk one wouldn’t believe that. The first ten pamphlets parallel the books we were doing, for the most part - small works by Alison Knowles, myself, George Brecht, Claes Oldenburg, Allan Kaprow, Wolf Vostell, Jackson MacLow and a collection of manifestos by all kinds of interesting people having common only their innovative thinking - Öyvind Fahlström, Bob Watts, the W.E.B. DuBois clubs (a communist youth group, though we were scarcely communists), Nam June Paik, Ay-O, John Giorno, Diter Rot (as Dieter Roth then spelled his name), and others. Later, in 1968-69, a generous friend made possible a second series too, works by Filliou, David Antin, Bengt af Klintberg, Luigi Russolo, Diter Rot and others. The pamphlets, all twenty of them, were able to get places that the larger books couldn’t. For example, in the late 1960’s they were sold from a rack beside the produce stand at the Berkeley Co-op in Berkeley, California; we were always delighted by the notion of a shopping basket containing ice cream, the makings of a good salad - and our pamphlets!"
Dick Higgins, “The Something Else Press: Notes for a History to Be Written Some Day,” New Lazarus Review, Vol. 2, No.1, Utica: New York, 1979
Alison. Knowles, by Alison Knowles, 1965
All the early performance pieces and events by the pioneering printer/artist of Four Suits fame.
Dick Higgins, A Book About Love & War & Death, Canto One, 1965
The earliest (1960-62) section of Higgins' largest work, designed to be read only aloud.
George Brecht, Chance-Imagery, 1966
This 1957 article remains the basic one for the techniques and philosophy of chance in the arts.
Claes Oldenburg, Injun & Other Histories (1960), 1966
Two very early scenarios (1958) from before pop-art. With two drawings.
Al Hansen, Incomplete Requiem for W.C. Fields, 1966
The gorgeous poem read by the artist in an early (1958) happening while Fields's movies were projected on his bare chest.
Jerome Rothenberg, Ritual: A Book of Primitive Rites and Events, 1966
A delightful anthology of Polynesian, Melanesian and American Indian events and performance pieces selected and adapted by the well known poet, translator, and editor
Allan Kaprow, Some Recent Happenings, 1966
Typical scenarios by the father of the Happening.
Dick Higgins and Emmett Williams, eds. Manifestos, 1966
Calls to arms by Ay-O, Philip Corner, The W.E.B. DuBois Clubs, Öyvind Fahlström, Robert Filliou, John Giorno, Al Hansen, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Nam June Paik, Diter Rot, Jerome Rothenberg, Wolf Vostell, Robert Watts. and Emmett Williams. A double pamphlet.
Wolf Vostell, Berlin and Phenomena, 1966
Two characteristic Dê-coll/age Happening scenarios by Europe's best-known Happener.
Jackson Mac Low, The Twin Plays: Port-au-Prince & Adams County Illinois, 1966
Two of this most inventive poet's most exciting experimental dramas, using identical linguistic formal structures but in different versions of English.
John Cage, Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse) Continued Part Three (1967), 1967
The latest in a series of essays in which Cage reflects lyrically on social questions. Printed in two colors structured by chance by the author.
Bengt af Klintberg, The Cursive Scandinavian Salve, 1967
Short, lyric happenings by the brilliant Swedish anthropologist/poet.
David Antin, Autobiography, 1967
As the title suggests, these are informal recollections and collages by the well-known Brooklyn poet.
Philip Corner, Popular Entertainments, 1967
The largest collage composition by the brilliant young composer.
Robert Filliou, A Filliou Sampler, 1967
Typical short works by the only poet among France's nouveaux réalistes.
Allan Kaprow, Untitled Essay and Other Works, 1967
The historic statement which accompanied the text of the first published Happening (1958) with a sampling of characteristic scenarios.
Diter Rot, a LOOK into the blue tide part 2, 1967
die blaue flut ("the blue tide") is this Icelandic innovators hugest work, and part 1 is a book in itself. These are selected pages from part 2. Heavily illustrated.
Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noise (futurist manifesto, 1913), 1967
This Futurist is generally credited with being the father of noise music, and his classic 1913 manifesto, L'Arte dei Rumon, has till now been difficult to obtain.
Emmett Williams, The Last French-Fried Potato and Other Poems, 1967
A small bouquet of typical recent works by one of the founders of Concrete Poetry.
Peter Bales, ed. and trans., A Zaj Sampler, 1967
Examples of the highly original and inventive concept performance and non-performances by Spain's first avant-garde group of international importance since the Spanish Civil War. Works by Josê-Luis Castillejo, Ramiro Cortes, Javier Martines Cuadrado, Juan Hidalgo, Walter Marchetti, Tomas Marco and Eugenio de Vicente.