Jesperson’s trajectory is a familiar one: a suburban kid (Minnetonka in his case) who makes his way to the city. He spent his teen years ushering at the Guthrie Theater. In perhaps the most poignantly Sisyphean tale here, the high schooler also attempted to become the Twin Cities distributor of the U.K. rock weekly New Musical Express, failing to unload a thousand copies of the May 1972 “test” issue: “It came with a free flexi-disc containing snippets of songs from the Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street, two weeks before the album came out,” Jesperson recalls. “I was sure stores and customers would be champing at the bit to get their hands on this magazine.” At least he wasn’t alone: “Apparently, the other cities didn’t do blockbuster numbers either.”
Is this the same Gordon and Gotch publishing out of Toronto?
Peter Jespersen's father was the Midwest distributor for Toronto office of Gordon and Gotch that appears to be a "British Imperial" book publisher - they stretched globally!?! OK it was a magazine publisher started out of Australia! wild.
Gordon & Gotch was founded in 1853 in Melbourne, Australia, by Alexander Gordon and John Speechly Gotch as a news and magazine import and distribution firm.
This paper uses the case study of Gordon & Gotch, media import/exporters, to explore how the transnational sale of British media contributed to a common cultural identity within the British World.
Just as I suspected!! Peter Jespersen tried to distribute a new British rock magazine... via his dad's connection...
the London firm was forced to pivot to a European or more generally “global” strategy, while the Australian firm refocused its energies to domestic and American media. The consequence for Australian consumers was a reduced presence of British media and a greater preponderance of American, Australian, and locally printed multinational media in Australia.
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The turn from Britain was further eased by more economic and media opportunities coming from the United States.Footnote 92 Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Gordon & Gotch increased its sale of American newspapers and magazines. This shift toward American and Australian product was less “geopolitical jockeying,” in which multinationals in decolonizing states shift allegiances for political reasons, and more a move of economic necessity.
Roy Harper Folkjokeopus - British inspired record store name
Roy Harper (born 12 June 1941) is an English folk rock singer, songwriter, poet and guitarist
early 19th century U.S. from the term "Cousin John" or by association with Sir John Harington, the 16th-century inventor of the first flushing toilet,...Some sources suggest the term "John" was influenced by Sir John Harington, an English courtier who invented an early flushing toilet and wrote about it...The slang term "John" became more prevalent in the US, where it was seen in print as early as the 18th century...
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Throne-of-Sir-John-Harrington/
His water-closet had a pan with an opening at the bottom, sealed with a leather -faced valve. A system of handles, levers and weights poured in water from a cistern, and opened the valve.
In spite of the Queen’s enthusiasm for this new invention, the public remained faithful to the chamber-pot.
These were usually emptied from an upstairs window into the street below, and in France, the cry ‘gardez-l’eau’ gave warning to the people below to take evasive action. This phrase ‘gardez-l’eau’ may have been the origin of the English nickname for the lavatory, the ‘loo’.
cool design invention!! No wonder Queen Elizabeth
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