Network Atlas by Geza Perneczky - Ruud Janssen

409celebrated his 61st birthday two weeks prior, on November 25." The sad news of Lon'sdemise suddenly arrived through an e-mail from Judith Hoffberg and again, a few dayslater, through a report of Lon's memorial service in San Pedro, written by Creative Thing.Needless to say, even if I only exchanged a few letters with Lon in the past ten years,after he stopped being a full-time "militant" mail artist, I was shocked to realize that yetanother great pen-pal (after Robin →Crozier, Cees →Francke, Joseph → Huber) hadpermanently left the building (and I never even had the chance to meet him in flesh).Lon was a concentrate of everything that made and still makes mail art interesting: aweird visionary and a great buddy, a passionate organizer of collective projects (includingmilestone shows like "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "HELP: 'teach' mailart") and a prolific creator of artistamps, postcards, stickers, publications (like the rebelliousSpiegelman's mailart rag) and dada-doodling "spiegelmisms" (like those reproducedon this cover). He was also a brave defender of the purest "mail art philosophy" & netiquette(I am partly responsible for this, since Lon shaped his notorious and controversiallist of "mail art considerations", co-signed by Mario Lara and other US networkers, onthe blueprint of a provocative leaflet I had written in October 1980 with three otherItalians). Since I could not attend Lon's memorial service on December 15, I felt I had todo something to be there at least "in spirit". I remembered a big box I received from Lonin 1992, after I circulated an invite for an issue of Arte Postale! magazine on the themeof "vinyl love junkies". In an unexpected act of generosity, not rare in his postal activities,Spiegelman mailed me a heavy 21x21x21 cm. box (spending $ 46.59 of postage!)containing about a hundred old 45 rpm records mostly from the 50s-60s: crooners, doowop, early r'n'r, easy listening and more assorted nostalgia. He told me these were singlesfrom his youth that had been gathering dust in his garage, he did not need them anymoreand he thought I could enjoy them. I was surprised and delighted.As a sort of "musical wake", I decided to play this (juke)box of records that had beensitting for ten years in my studio waiting for a thorough listening, while flipping througharchive files of Lon's old correspondence. To give some of Lon's best friends the possibilityto share and replicate (if they want) this memorial experience, I copied on cassettesome of these songs, jumps and scratches included, in the same semi-casual order thatI picked them from the box (but if you listen closely, you will be able to hear bizarre"correspondences", popular music has its ways of talking to us.). We are what we eat,buy, listen, and something of Lon's personality might well be trapped among these dustyvintage grooves. May his soul now be reunited with his beloved wife Linda.»(Vittore Baroni: E-mail text to the annoucement of the Arte Postale! #86, Lons’s MemorialJuke-Box – An audio tribute to Lon Spiegelman. December 23rd 2002)Spill, Nicholas ? Palmerston North New Zeeland 1976°Art in the Mail, Cat.: Tabloide, offset, 4 p. / Manawatu Art Galery, 1976 °Art in the Mail, Doc. Texts by Terry → Reid. 46x74 cm. poster, offset, recto/ verso. 300 parts. / Manawatu Art Galery. Palmerston North, 1979Stagnaro, Umberto ? Finale Ligure Italy 1984°Alfabeto. Cat.: A/4, offset, 14 p. + poster. Chioso di S. Caterina, July 1984 Stake, Chuck ! Don Mabie! 7736 5th Street N.W. Calgary /Alb. T2N 1P9 Canada 1986↑ N° 2319-608. 9th St. S.W. Calgary, T2P 2B3 - “ - 1975......................................................................................................................................................(Chuck Stake’s significant output was that he organized the most Mail Art shows in the wholeNetwork history. No list can be perfect... Anna Banana in her Canadian Art [See: Crane/Stofflet: Correspondence Art, 1984. 258 p.]: «....I don’t know of anyone else, anywhere, whohas consistently organized so many exhibitions, all documented with catalogues...»)Correspondence action with a drawing printed in 500 copies and sent out to friends and poeople in the media. Calgary, ~1971.First Annual Toronto Correspondence and Junk Mail Art Exhibition. (Org. by Stake) 567 Gallery, Toronto, 1974Images and Informations (by Don Mabie) Art-calender, view point, review, Mail