Saturday, October 20, 2012

What happens next?

It's been a month or so since I updated. I have the flyer collection books through number 650 (though I've seen individual flyers into the 800s), and flyers continue to appear on lamp posts around town. The supplies of the flyer collections seem to be getting replenished, too--at least 2 sets have appeared at the store, and part of a third set remains there.

I actually have duplicates of the first 200 flyers. There are occasional missing numbers and duplicate flyers within the big collections, so I'm going to compare the contents of 2 sets and my single copies to see how consistent the numbering system is over a decent run of flyers. When I'm done with that, I'll have 2 volumes, 1-100 and 101-200, to resell, if anyone is interested. They're $15 each.

I had taken a bit of a break from thinking about the flyers, and then I watched the "Resurrect Dead" movie a few days ago about the Toynbee tiles. That got me thinking about them again--issues of solving the mystery, finding more flyers, etc, has been a very complimentary process to the group of folks trying to solve the Toynbee tile mystery. And I very much share their ethical concerns for how to document/archive/present materials like this, whose creators might not want attention, as in the case of the tiles, or whose mental stability is in question, as the case is with these flyers (and I presume with the tiles as well).

So I'm still not sure how I'd like to proceed: though these flyer collections are now "for sale" in a very limited sense, the store proprietor who is handling them seems distinctly weirded out by the whole thing, and I'd imagine that arrangement won't last much longer. And most of the flyers (oddly like the Toynbee tiles) encourage readers to make more copies and distribute them further. So I'm guessing that their author wouldn't be unduly upset to see the whole range of them posted.

Oh, and I bought one more tangential/ephemeral publication related to the flyers:


As you might have already guessed, a lot of the info in this book would be, ahem, difficult to recommend! But it highlights a number of interesting practices that are further mentioned in the flyers, such as the origin of the "state divine" idea, and more explorations of art history and its early relationships with quasi-gnostic healing ideas. An interesting little read.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Speechless.

So I held back on posting one flyer from this weekend:


And after checking on that lead, this happened:


The store proprietor said that these books, along with copies of a number of other books that appear to be from the same author (including a spiralbound version of the "Compassion Over Passion Volume 1" book), have been in the store for several YEARS! Their apparent author comes in roughly once a week and "fiddles" with them, adding to the stacks and sometimes taking things away. And he wasn't aware that they were even for sale--there are loose sheets of the flyers which he understands to be on sale for ten cents each, but he there were no price tags on the books themselves and he wasn't aware of a sale price. After showing him the flyer above, which lists them as being for sale for $15 a piece, we produced a hand-made receipt and volumes 1-7 of the series (100 numbered flyers in each) were purchased.



I'm not sure what this means for the future of this blog project yet...

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Paradise on Earth, Yeast connection to what?


Paradise on Earth, Women cannot be friends with pot


Paradise on Earth, pretified speeches with bold face lies

I guess the advice about having no commentary at conventions only applies to the convention you want to support!


Paradise on Earth, paper ballots tell the truth


Paradise on Earth, It's easy

I hope that some "local musicians" find the time to practice their stilt-walking trombone routines!


Paradise on Earth, invisible war movie


Paradise on Earth, How would you like to help out?


Paradise on Earth, Halt high virulent tuberculosis


Paradise on Earth, For these special children (variation)

We've seen this one before, except that the whole "dialogue" section at the end is different.


Paradise on Earth, develop minds

...so often these seem like a form of Surrealist Catholicism, but occasionally we get enthusiastic doses of TM.


Special edition, Dear Doctor letter

No "Paradise on Earth" on this one...


Paradise on Earth, Commenting on Nobama's speech

This is really fascinating--check out the quite about 2/3s down the 2nd column, starting with "After all you don't call Russia..." A little punctuation swap, and you have a whole new concept!


Saturday, September 8, 2012

Paradise on Earth, What would a person state from the grave?

Flash drives can go into a computer to take information out! So they do work properly...


Paradise on Earth, Therapy for the innocent spouse

It's interesting how the financial burden of seeing a shrink comes up in the 2nd column, yet many other flyers proclaim that health care can be ultra cheap.


Paradise on Earth, Test for molestation

More retroprimitive art healing...


Paradise on Earth, Schistomiasis

Candy bars stuffed with drugs!


Paradise on Earth, Ross and Lila

This is another good example of the shift from paranoid xenophobia to racism itself. The last paragraph of the "Twee and Al" section is quite disappointing.


Paradise on Earth, Men do no come into a woman's dorm!


Paradise on Earth: I will give you an A if you know the answers

I wonder where some of this political misinformation comes from? It's obvious from reading this series that its author tries to keep up with current events, world news, and political stuff, but even Fox isn't as wack as some of this stuff...


Paradise on Earth, Heaven on Earth

It's been kind of depressing watching the quaint xenophobia in these flyers shift toward straight-up racism over time. It's enough to make a person want to cuss...


Paradise on Earth, Facts about adultery

Paradise on Earth, the comet has arrived


Paradise on Earth, Children from San Francisco relax more

"Brain chemistry doctors" that don't go to med school? Sounds illegal to me--I think I'll call crime stoppers!


Sunday, September 2, 2012

Paradise on Earth, Wednesday at the Republican Convention


Paradise on Earth, Tim and Janet


Paradise on Earth, Republican convention has too much critisism by media

Two flyers have already show up discussing the RNC. This one complains that critics are too harsh, as the title indicates, and the other complains that there isn't enough coverage...


Paradise on Earth, New parents of a former San Francisco child


Paradise on Earth, Date carefully


Paradise on Earth, Christ is here to help us out


Paradise on Earth 60, The best ideas - VARIATION

Here's yet another variation on an older flyer. We first saw number 60 in one of the very earliest batches of flyers that were discovered back in late 2010. It's amazing to note how even those older ones are still subject to revision and re-use! This one contains a number of changes from the older edit of the flyer, almost line-by-line modifications. Wild.


Sunday, August 26, 2012

Paradise on Earth, Tuberculosis is found most often


Paradise on Earth, Stop everything nuclear so life can exist

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the author never bore children, based on "The Happiest Day." Woah.


Paradise on Earth, Single room in single gender dorm

The best line in this one is right at the end. What an image!


Paradise on Earth 492, Improvements for America

I think everything in the flyer has appeared in other flyers, but it's an interesting repackaging of this information.


Paradise on Earth, a Holy Water variation

This one has appeared before as well. This new version features italics at the beginning to delineate the actual holy water process, and there are a few new lines toward the end.


Paradise on Earth, a Healing Oils of the Bible variation

We've seen this one before, but apparently it's been edited to include a few new lines at the end.


Paradise on Earth, Esteem an employer

This one becomes a really painful read--the weird genital mutilations attributed to "debestrol" take on a very Naked Lunch-period Burroughs vibe, like pre-teen Mugwumps wandering around the Bay area.


Paradise on Earth, Christ is here on earth as a god

Based on the author's feelings about wormwood, presumably absinthe wouldn't be a favorite drink, but the Residents' Wormwood album of curious stories from the Bible might somehow work out...


Paradise on Earth, Best middle school literature

A lot of flyers went up this week, so here's another batch. Most are still circling the general return-to-school theme, including this one, but there's been a reposting of some holistic health flyers, too...


Saturday, August 25, 2012

Paradise on Earth, Yoga

This one was posted among another batch this week...


Paradise on Earth, Vicky's Delima

The "Men can live without Women" section of this one is another amazing throwback to 50s culture...


Paradise on Earth, Usual nano story

Of course, the "usual" nano story. I'm impressed with the incredible speed of this "pulverizer" device, too.


Paradise on Earth, Therapy for...

I'm totally not going to write out the full title of this flyer, because I can only imagine the weird hits I would get from random Google searches...


Paradise on Earth, Sunsets/Proof of the comet


Paradise on Earth, Monticello


Paradise on Earth 348, a Monkey Bar Homes variation

We've seen this one before, but it has a different number, and the footer at the bottom of the page is completely different and hasn't been seen on any of the flyers before...