thank you for the beautiful last mono.klub of 2011 yesterday. We look forward to doing it all again in 2012, and in the meantime wish you an exciting and successful new year. Thank you for your continuous support and making us want to keep producing another four issues of our little adventure in print in 2012.

All our best,
mono.kultur

PS. And yes, as usual you will receive a copy of our annual mono.kalender for 2012, see above, with every order on mono.konsum, for as long as stocks last.

Best wishes for a happy last day of 2011, and for a super 2012!

W.G. Sebald, one of the greatest German authors of all time, died 10 years and four days ago. He was 57 years old. Damn.

ASLSP is a music piece for organ, which John Cage, always up for a little joke, noted should be played ‘as slow as possible’ – shrewdly leaving the comment open to interpretation. Performances range from 21 minutes to, erm, 639 years.

The city of Halberstadt, in the meantime, boasts the first organ with a 12-note claviature, which was completed in 1361 and laid the ground stone for organs to come. There are many myths and anecdotes as to why they decided to initiate the longest musical performance in history, but with some swift mathematics (2000-1361=639) a new and rather eccentric interpretation of ‘as slow as possible’ was determined, and the concert began on what would have been Cage’s 88th birthday, on September 05, 2000.

Note changes occur every few months, attracting a large crowd of music fanatics to experience, well, a change of chords. In the meantime, we’re here – 11 years in, 628 to go. People come up with curious things sometimes, but I’m sure John Cage would have loved the idea.

Nerdy magazine Wired’s US edition features a special on time travel this month. One article examines Haruki Murakami’s novel 1Q84 which was just released in the English translation. Murakami creates a “bizarro version” of 1984 and Wired compares it to the real 1984 as it happened.

Moreover, there’s an interview with Stephen King about his latest novel 11/22/63 in which he sends his hero, Jake Epping, back in time to prevent JFK’s assassination. A short article about H.G. Wells’ first time machine explains where the idea of time travel and it’s fascination for writers came from.

Illustrations by Sachin Teng (Murakami) Pilgrim (King).