Category Archives: Cacophony Events

Upcoming Book Readings & Events

Alameda Books incMarch 14th, 2014 7 PM Books Inc in Alameda

A full panel of all the editors !
The Cacophony Society, at its zenith, hosted chapters in over a dozen major cities, and influenced much of what was once called the underground, going on to influence a range of art and activities including Burning Man, SantaCon, and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, amongst other things. Learn the vivid history of this eccentric amalgamation with the lushly beautiful, Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society and Cacophonists Carrie Galbraith, Kevin Evans, and John Law.

Location:
Books Inc.
1344 Park St
Alameda, California
United States


View Larger Map

Book Readings 2013

spain-influencers-bullonfireNovember 2013 
The Influencers 2013 – Art unconventional guerrilla communication, radical entertainment –
Barcelona, Spain!
Arte no convencional, guerrilla de la comunicación, entretenimiento radical

7, 8 y 9 de noviembre de 2013
Evento especial inauguración 7 de noviembre 19h
Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona
Entrada gratuita ( free entry)

October
Elbo Room 6PM Saturday Oct 19th
S.F. Cacophony Society reads from Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony at LitQuake.

Hear amazing true stories written for the book and read by co-authors Carrie Galbraith & John Law and by book contributors Stuart Mangrum, Steve Mobia and Marc Weber.

Lit Quake Flyer

Sunday October 20th 3:45 PM
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut St., San Francisco

Main auditorium
1) Cacophony Presentation at SFAI includes a rich slide presentation and talk by Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society co-authors Carrie Galbraith and John Law on Cacophony, the Suicide Club and related groups over the course of 30 years.
2) Artist and Cacophonist Wiston Smith will recount a tale from his pranking days with the group.

3) SFAI’s Mark Van Proyen will then moderate a discussion with the authors and field questions from the audience.

<href=”http://www.sfai.edu/concentrate”>http://www.sfai.edu/concentrate
3:45PM

September
G-Town Radio -Morning Feed with Ed- Sept 6th – 9 AM to 1030 AM
Reading and Book Signing John Law and Carrie Galbraith – Germantown – iMPERfECT Gallery – Sept 6th – 6:30 PM to 10 PM – Krampus characters, International Mail Art, bike rodeo types, along with food trucks and music at 1st Fridays in Germantown – Philadelphia, PA
NYC -> Housing Works Cafe and Bookstore – Sept 9th
Brooklyn, NYC -> Nonsense NYC – RSVP Required –Sept 10th
Brooklyn, NYC -> Desert Island Books – 8 PM – Sept 11th
San Francisco – Commonwealth Club – Chuck Palahniuk and the SF Cacophony Society: Creating Culture from Mayhem – Mon, Sep 23 2013 – 7:30pm

October

Plans are afoot for an big event in San Francisco so check back!

[pl_alertbox] September 9, 2013
Housing Works Cafe and Bookstore

126 Crosby Street, Manhattan
7-8:30p; $free [/pl_alertbox]

.
[pl_alertbox]September 10, 2013
Gemini and Scorpio Loft
RSVP for address
Gowanus, Brooklyn
8p; $10
bridges@nonsensenyc.com [/pl_alertbox]

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––


[pl_alertbox]

More Details:housingworks.org
Facebook
[/pl_alertbox] Tales of Cacophony: How to Make Your City a Playground

Your city is a stage. A canvas. A playground. It’s a veritable dog run of overextended metaphors.
No one understood this better than the Cacophony Society. At the tail end of the 20th century, this ad hoc group of San Francisco pranksters refused to live boring lives. They climbed bridges, hosted dinner parties in tunnels, and mobbed the streets — always running against the crowd, usually dressed up in oversized salmon costumes.
Their exploits directly inspired Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. They took Burning Man to the Nevada Desert. And perhaps most importantly, their way of thinking, that desire to build your own life and make your own fun directly inspired a global network to do the same.
For the first time, the brand new Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society documents the secret history of the most influential underground cabal you’ve never heard of. The lavishisly illustrated, luridly designed book assaults readers with exploits and lore. It’s more than a book; it’s a brick to shatter your ideas of what you can do in a city.
Tonight’s panel features Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society co-authors John Law and Carrie Galbraith, along with Charlie Todd, whose Improv Everywhere carries on the spirit of early Cacophony pranks, and Ida Benedetto, co-founder of Wanderlust Projects, who’s organized games in the Brooklyn’s abandoned Domino Sugar factory. Trying to make sense of it all is moderator Jeff Stark, editor and publisher of the underground newsletter Nonsense NYC, who says the Cacophony Society ruined his life — and he wasn’t even a member.


[pl_alertbox]

More Details: Facebook
Nonsense NYC
brownpapertickets.com
[/pl_alertbox]Nonsense NYC presents:
John Law: Scaling Big Bridges
John Law is obsessed with bridges. He’s studied them, written about them, and worked on them. And he’s climbed them. A lot of them. Without permission.
Law is an adventurer. An urban explorer before anyone had heard of the term. He started climbing bridges with the Suicide Club in San Francisco in the mid 1970s and continued with the Cacophony Society in the 1980s and 1990s. Along the way, he scaled massive spanners around the world, including every major bridge in New York. And he took his camera.
Law’s lecture tonight features spectacularly lucky photography to accompany his amusing, improbable, and occasionally harrowing tales. He’ll explain what it took to finally get up the Verrazano-Narrows, why he ran the Brooklyn Bridge cables in a Santa suit, and why he no longer climbs the Golden Gate. He’ll talk about his book of short stories, The Space Between (Furnace Press, 2009), and share exploits recorded in his newest book, Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society (Last Gasp, 2013).
Whether you’re an armchair adventurer or a seasoned explorer, Law’s inspiring talk will change the way you see the city.

 Commonwealth Club at the Castro Theater: Chuck Palahniuk and the SF Cacophony Society: Creating Culture from Mayhem

Mon, Sep 23 2013 – 7:30pm
Chuck Palahniuk, Author, Fight Club, Choke; Member, Cacophony Society Portland Chapter
John Law, Main Organizer, Cacophony Society; Co-author, Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society
Carrie Galbraith, Main Organizer, Cacophony Society; Co-author, Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society
Brad Wieners, Executive Editor, Bloomberg Businessweek – Moderator

Ever wonder how Chuck Palahniuk came up with the idea for Fight Club’s secret society of recreational fighters? Or how a giant wooden “man” ended up on fire, inspiring one of the world’s most radical gatherings? Welcome to the Cacophony Society, an underground group of pranksters whose culture-jamming antics have shaped the contemporary zeitgeist for the past three decades. Now, from Flash Mobs and SantaCon to groups like Improv Everywhere and the Yes Men, new generations of instigators are taking a page out of the Cacophony book, driving pranks and events with social media tools. Join us as Society founders, celebrated members and those they’ve influenced take us through the origins of Cacophony, the importance of play in adult life, and how to kick-start your own culture.

Location: Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, San Francisco
Time: 6:15 p.m. check-in, 6:30-7:30 p.m. premium reception, 7:30 p.m. program, 8:30 p.m. book signing
Cost: General admission: $25 non-members, $15 members; Priority seating with book (includes a copy of Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society and seating in Rows F-J): $45 non-members, $35 members; Premium (includes a book, seating in Rows A-E, and VIP reception with speakers): $75 non-members, $65 members; Group Ticket*: 6 tickets for $60
Also know: In association with the Club’s Business and Leadership Member-Led Forum

*Note: The Group Ticket only applies to groups of 6 and is available for a limited time only. $60 for 6 General Admission tickets.

– See more at: http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2013-09-23/chuck-palahniuk-and-sf-cacophony-society-creating-culture-mayhem#sthash.OMNQfjxq.dpuf


 
Previous Readings:
May 16th City Lights – San Francisco CA
May 18th Maker Faire San Mateo
May 19th Green Apple Books San Francisco
June 14th Powells Books Portland, OR
June 22nd La Luz de Jesus Los Angeles, CA


L.A. Zone Trips 1 & 2

The Zone Trip concept was pioneered by Ethyl Ketone when she discovered that fellow Cacophonist Phil Bewley grew up a few blocks away from her childhood home in the prototypical nondescript LA suburb West Covina. They (of course) decided they must do an event. Her fascination with the Tarkovsky movie Stalker and the weird locale called “The Zone” that serves as the central metaphor and place of action (inaction, really) for the film set the idea in motion. The Zone was a place where anything could happen, the laws of physics did not always apply and where people often were last seen. Any Cacophony road trip could be (and often was) a Zone Trip.

Camera Obscura, 1st LA Zone Trip 1989
Camera Obscura, 1st LA Zone Trip 1989


Zone Trip #1 Covina Church in  Covina
Zone Trip #1 Covina Church in Covina


The only criteria was for all participants to mentally prepare for the trip to another place as they would were they going to another planet. The first time Burning Man appeared in the Black Rock Desert in 1990, it was as a part of the “Cacophony Society Zone Trip #4: Bad Day At Black Rock.” Carries idea was mirrored a few years later by Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z. Temporary Autonomous Zone and together with William Binzens “Desert Site Works” events, provided much of the philosophy behind the emerging Burning Man Culture throughout the succeeding years.

Atomic Café

1st Atomic Cafe - near Golden Gate Bridge

1st Atomic Cafe – near Golden Gate Bridge

These elaborate events took place in abandoned urban ruins where attendees had escaped the collapse of civilization and retreated to a conclave of fellow refugees. Cacophony hosted three Atomic Cafes – one in a sealed bunker at the Golden Gate Bridge, one in the huge basement of an abandoned Federal Government warehouse filled in part with prosthetic limbs, and the final and grandest one in a colossal abandoned tooth paste factory.

1st Atomic Cafe - Group shot after event
1st Atomic Cafe – Group shot after event