Drastic Frivol 1 Kindle not moving, no surprise

Counting total sales of my Kindle Publication total - comes to very few little. At this rate (ha ha) I will get a commission from Amazon at about the time I retire (or rather never.) Time to promote the book (ha ha). I'd rather work on Drastic Frivol 2.

My coauthor has done a great job of stocking venues in the bay area that carry zines with Drastic Frivol 1 - Dog Eared Books, Green Apple, City Lights Books. I've dropped some off as I travel - in Vancouver, Chicago, Oakland. Mostly I've given them away to friends and family.

I have been reading a lot recently, mostly on the European economic troubles and their social and political consequences, and on human right developments related to Africa and the middle east due to turbulent events in the last two years. The Human Rights Watch 2012 Report has an enormous amount of material on these regions.

There was a great (and scary) article in Le Monde Diplomatique: Drugs: the alternative economy of West Africa. This concerns  destabilization of weak states, and how this leads to international exploitation. Specifically, in West Africa a sphere of influence now exists in which narcotics exporters from South America provide a major economic and political dynamic.

Listening pleasures greatly expanded with discovery of the 3 apps.


WFMU - the greatest radio station around that I've found (freeform & as diverse as the brilliant and many radio hosts who devote their energy to this awesome project.) Already on the web, basic access to recent and historical radio archives open up an exhilerating cornucopia of eclectic and very specific investigations of exquisite audio. The app is even better - with control down to the individual track in historic archives. This is way ahead of its time. Random access to the past! Android & Apple variants of this brilliant app exist.


Vibe Vault - Up until now, I searched the archive.org live music archives via their web interface. This is quite cumbersome on a small device, especially late at night in bed when I really want to retreat into a historic live show. This app again organizes material wonderfully and allows random access to shows past, as well as some information as to the live performance. Note to those who don't know: there are 10s of thousands of shows archived here - many from bands you know and love. This is a grass-roots effort, not especially high fidelity sometimes, but WOW!

FMA - The Free Music Archive: An exciting frontier to explore. Musicians with produced material provide it free and unlicensed for this archive (OK, I haven't fully investigated the terms.) The app is organized by genre and offers an easy way to browse a crazy range of recent musical (and anti-musical) creativity. An Android variant variant of this promising app is available.