Scarab Dreamer

The Red Goddess

2007-07-13T00:58:00.000-07:00

The Red Goddess by Peter Grey
a new book, consecrated & released by Scarlet Imprint on 07/07/07

A strictly limited talismanic publication in an edition of an hundred and fifty and six copies.

All copies are hardback slip cased and 156pp, professionally printed, bound, consecrated, numbered, signed and sealed.

The contents and conclusions of this book have never been published elsewhere.

The Red Goddess takes you through a tale of sex, drugs and violence.
This is an ecstatic journey through the unheard history of BABALON from Revelations, back through the Ishtar Gate and forward into a living modern magickal current.

This is an explicit and challenging vision of a very modern goddess coming into power.
This is more than a history, it is a passionate account of living magick and the transcendent power of Love.

The Red Goddess answers the fundamental questions:

Who is BABALON?
Why should we care?
Where did She come from and where is She going?

Does Revelations have anything to tell us?
Is there a hidden western tradition of sacred sex?

The epic sweep of the text takes us from Babylon to Jerusalem to Rome, and onwards to Apocalypse.
It looks at the angelic work of renaissance mage John Dee.
It delivers a devastating exegisis on the excesses of Aleister Crowley, and unlocks the secrets of Waratah Blossoms.
It explains the immolation of the Californian antichrist-superstar Jack Parsons and his relationship with Scientology founder L.Ron Hubbard.

There is also a full supporting cast of Solomon, Simon Magus, St John the Divine, Earl Bothwell, the Templars, Mary, the Magdalene and countless others.

This is the missing history of the Holy Whore.

Bluelight

2007-02-16T14:05:00.000-08:00

A truly excellent forum for anyone interested in information about psychedelic/mind-altering substances and communicating freely with kindred, enlightened minds worldwide...

Bluelight (www.bluelight.ru) is an international message board that educates the public about responsible drug use (with a focus on MDMA) by promoting free discussion. We advocate harm reduction and attempt to eliminate misinformation. Bluelight is funded by private donations and maintained by a team of volunteers.

Also, while we're on the subject of Blue Light, found this lovely place which exists in the New York area for anyone interested in floating while in that neck of the woods:

Jill Greenberg: End Times

2007-02-02T23:33:00.000-08:00

Great online archive of Jill Greenberg's exhibit, End Times, featured last year (2006) at the Los Angeles-based Paul Kopeikin Gallery - includes web versions of the entire exhibit, plus press release and other information.
LINK
Jill Greenberg explains, “The children I photographed were not harmed in any way. And, as a mother, I am quite aware of how easily toddlers can cry. Storms of grief sweep across their features without warning; a joyful smile can dissolve into a grimace of despair. The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset. It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation. The most dangerous fundamentalists aren’t just waging war in Iraq; they’re attacking evolution, blocking medical research and ignoring the environment. It’s as if they believe the apocalyptic End Time is near, therefore protecting the earth and future of our children is futile. As a parent I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for the mistakes our government is making. Their pain is a precursor of what is to come.”

JILL GREENBERG: THE MANIPULATOR
visit her website to see more of her amazing work-- be sure to click on her portfolio for Monkeys and Apes!

New Line Cinema releases 'The Golden Compass'

2006-12-26T23:32:00.000-08:00

News from 12.11.06 via the HDM fansite:

New Line Cinema has launched the official website for the live-action feature film 'The Golden Compass'

With a year out from the worldwide release of the picture, the website features exclusive information about the cast and the making of the movie. Additionally, fans can unlock hidden content on the website by using the Alethiometer, a virtual version of the device used in the movie to find truth. The website content is available in 11 languages. The Golden Compass is the first book in author Philip Pullman's multilayered trilogy, His Dark Materials.

'The Golden Compass' official movie site

another report I've just read somewhere (*forgot to bookmark it!*) mentioned the other two of the three films are being worked on simultaneously...

The Unfamiliar

2006-10-31T18:29:00.000-08:00

by Allison Lawless (link)
via Fishnet Fiction: Journal of Erotica

thanks to Doctor Jabir!

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox

2006-10-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

a documentary film by Sara Lamm

Dr. Emanuel Bronner was a master soapmaker, self-proclaimed rabbi, and, allegedly, Albert Einstein's nephew.

In 1947, after escaping from a mental institution, he invented the formula for "Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap," a peppermint-infused, all-natural, multi-purpose liquid that can be found today in every American health food store. On each bottle of his soap, he printed an ever-evolving set of teachings he called "The Moral ABC," designed, in his words, "TO UNITE ALL MANKIND FREE!"

A human story about a socially responsible company, "Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox" documents the complicated family legacy behind the counterculture's favorite cleaning product -- Bronner's son, 68-year-old Ralph, endured over 15 orphanages and foster homes as a child, but despite difficult memories, is his father's most ardent fan...

WATCH TRAILER

The Science Of Sleep

2006-10-01T01:17:00.000-07:00

La Science des rêves 2006
a film by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

Following the death of his father in Mexico, Stéphane Miroux, a shy insecure young man, agrees to come to Paris to draw closer to his widowed mother Christine. He lands a boring job at a calendar-making firm and falls in love with his charming neighbor Stéphanie. But conquering her is no bed of roses for the young man and the only solution he finds to put up with the difficulties he is going through is escape into a dream world...
VIEW TRAILER
INTERVIEW WITH MICHEL GONDRY (GreenCine)
...what a great lineup-- featuring Serge Gainsbourg's daughter Charlotte...

Two Wolves

2006-09-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

Cherokee Wisdom
thanks to Cyoakha for sending this around...

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a
battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son,
the battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret,
greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment
inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope,
serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,
empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about the situation for a minute...
He then asked his grandfather,
"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied,
"The one you feed."

after the long silence...

2006-09-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

'SPHYNX' image copyright by Mike Dringenberg

Marina Bychkova, enchanted dolls

2006-06-22T01:08:00.000-07:00

Interview with Marina Bychkova about her enchanted dolls.
LISTEN TO PODCAST
We discuss what inspired her to create her dolls; how long she has been making dolls; the materials she uses; what she finds so appealling about the fantastic and the romantic; how Disney changed her perception of fairy tales; the narrative of her dolls; her favorite fairy tale; archetypes in fairy tales from around the world; my favorite fairy tale; Godfather Death; why so many of her dolls are of women; Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray; perpetuating stereotypes of women; how long it takes to make her dolls; where she gets the supplies to create the clothing and jewellry for her dolls; new themes she would like to explore; Being John Malkovich; the Brothers Quay; experimenting with film; being inspired by Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride; her film project she created while in art school; dollmakers Heloise, Deanne Keeler and Jamie Williams; Chad Isley’s photos of her dolls on Flickr; deviantART; her interview on Pixelsurgeon; her appearance on Boing Boing.

Marina Bychkova's website

via small WORLD Podcasts

Malanda Art

2006-04-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

beautiful stuff from artist Karl L. Leiter...

Let Luke Brown blow y'er crown...

2006-03-24T23:02:00.000-08:00

...feast your eyes and take a journey, courtesy of Luke Brown:

Salvia Dalinorum

Salvia Dalinorum (inversed)

Tripping

2006-03-14T17:12:00.000-08:00

An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures
Edited and with an introduction and other texts
by Charles Hayes

Featuring an extensive interview with the late Terence McKenna
and illustrations by Alex Grey

EXCERPT from the NARRATIVES SECTION:
My first real breakthrough occurred on my third trip, when I dropped acid with my girlfriend Kathyrn, who abstained. We went to the beach in Santa Cruz. Although I hadn't gotten off yet, it was really extraordinary playing around in tide pools with sea anemones, observing the way they'd flow with the water moving around them. When Kathryn had to go to class, I returned home with her, still feeling no real alteration of consciousness. She kept checking with me. "Did anything happen yet?" I said, "No, I don’t notice anything." I lay down on the couch, where I could hear the water running as she showered.

Prompted by this aquatic audio cue, I remembered the water on the beach, and the next thing I knew ‑‑ and it happened so quickly I didn't immediately register the change ‑‑ I had a total identification with a sea anemone. I essentially turned into one. The walls of the apartment swished and swayed like the seaweed we'd seen in the tide pools, and everything was flowing like the ocean water there, to the sound of the shower and the music on the stereo. I was completely caught up in the flow of life that was, just a moment before, a concrete physicality.

Kathryn stuck her head out of the shower. "How ya doing? Anything happened yet?"

"No, not yet."

"What are you experiencing right now?"

"Well, I'm just a sea anemone in this tide pool, and everything is moving around like water." Suddenly I realized what was happening, and it blew me away. I’ll never forget the laughter that roiled out of me.

That evening I had one of the most beautiful experiences in my life. I was sitting on the couch and noticed a field of energy with darting splinters of multicolored light around a houseplant. Then, while looking at a candle flame, tiny fragments of light began to sputter off the top like a fountain of fireworks, filling the room with sparkles of resplendent light. It was the first time on psychedelics that I cried for joy. Beholding such beauty, I felt I was being welcomed to an ineffable mystery, as though I'd finally come into contact with a spiritual dimension that gave hope to humanity. I'd been a disciplined student of yoga and meditation for two or three years, yet this was my first real gnosis of mystic reality. The plant's energy field was also around me, a tangible bioelectrical force that seemed to be the very energy of life itself. Was this eros, orgone, or what is called in Asian philosophies, Chi, Shakti, or Kundalini?

When Kathryn came back from class, she sat next to me, I held her hand and looked into her face. A parade of visages flowed out, the faces of women from all times, young, old, beautiful, hideous. It's a hallucinatory phenomenon that I've experienced several times since. There are meditation techniques for staring into the face of a partner to trigger this effect, where the face goes through a series of fleeting masks, some recognizable, some imponderably complex in the geometry of intertwining inner cubes and outer space.

I felt a whole new dimension of love and compassion, a bioelectrical energy surrounding me, which was intensified by my interaction with Kathryn and the thought of people I loved. I felt blessed and exalted, both ecstatic and enstatic. Ecstasy connotes a separation of the soul from the body, while enstasy is an intense concentration in the present moment. Zen practice fosters a kind of enstatic liberation in which you drop all your illusions and petty desires and just be here now, whereas certain shamanic and yogic practices pursue an out of stasis, cosmic-travel sort of mysticism. I felt I was alternately undergoing both states.

This was a real dawning for me. I was twenty‑five.

m theory

2006-02-17T08:02:00.000-08:00

magic membrane
dream shifting consciousness
in this multiverse

I want to sigh
slip into its embrace
and expand

for glimpses
of parallel existences
in this three dimensional form
are not enough

I want to experience it all

I want to vibrate with the music
of 11 strings

M theory explained
Transcipt of the show Parallel Universes
A trippy ambient song Meme Pool by the band Membrane Theory

Life is But a Dream!

2006-02-16T16:53:00.000-08:00

Our real existence is in Hyperspace and we are part of the Type IV super advanced extraterrestrial civilization
India Daily Technology Team
Feb. 15, 2006

Scientists have found out that for every particle with positive energy there is a virtual particle in the Hyperspace with negative energy.

We are actually living in the Hyperspace while our positive and negative energies co-exist in a physical and a parallel universe as spatial projections. Our life may be nothing but a dream – it may be analogues to seeing a movie that will end soon.

(click the link for more, as well as other fascinating articles...)

Collage dreamer...

2006-02-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

My friend James Koehnline has made his massive collection of stunning collage-works available for viewing at deviantART.

Time Tasters (James Koehnline © 2006)

He is also offering gallery quality archival prints of his works on fine art papers at very reasonable prices ($20-$50 range).

Email if interested.

Kalachakra

2006-01-16T23:48:00.000-08:00

An Account of the Kalachakra, or Wheel of Time
The entire meaning of the subject matter of the Kalachakra tantra is included within the three Kalachakras, or Wheels of Time: The Outer Wheel of Time, the Inner Wheel of Time, and the Other Wheel of Time. The Outer Wheel of Time is the external world of the environment, and it is also called "The procession of the external solar and lunar days." The Inner Wheel of Time is the human body, that is an inner Jambudvipa, or earth-surface. Likewise, the inner channels, elements, and movements of the winds are set forth as the Inner Wheels of Time. The Other Wheel of Time is the initiations and paths of Shri Kalachakra, together with their results. It is "other" than the preceding two Wheels of Time. The guru ripens the disciple's psycho-physical continuum with the initiations, and the disciple meditates on the path that consists of the generation process and the completion process. In this way the yogi actualizes the resultthe buddha body that is the divine image of emptiness. This is the Other Wheel of Time.

Illusion (the movie)

2006-01-07T14:03:00.000-08:00

A legendary film director is shown three visions of the life of the son he never knew. As he lies dying, he is given one last chance to affect his son’s life.

Legendary film director DONALD BAINES lies dying alone in his private screening room, watching the films he has devoted his life to creating. Having isolated himself from family and friends, he now regrets many personal sacrifices. The rejection of his illegitimate child, CHRISTOPHER, brings him the most pain. Having seen him only once 30 years ago.

Late one night, Donald is awakened by the ghostly image of STAN, a favorite editor who has been dead more than 35 years. Suddenly Donald finds his deathbed transported to an old movie house. Stan informs Donald that he has come to help and that he will show him three films - three visions - each vision representing a different period of Christopher’s life.

The first vision brings Donald into the teenage life of Christopher who is in the thoes of his first blush with love. A rebel and a romantic, Christopher proclaims is love for a girl he has only seen from afar and chances it all for an opportunity to spend some time with her. A nagging voice, which sounds like the father he never knew echoes in his head tells him he is not worthy.

A wild romp marks the second vision of the 20s-something life of Christopher as he tries to escape an artistic maelstrom and finds himself face to face with the love he had for a brief moment and lost from the first vision. His life takes a brutal twist as he finds and yet again he is torn from his love.

The last vision Donald sees is the return of Christopher now as a mature man, wearied from the difficult curveballs life has thrown him. Again looking for love, this is his last chance and perhaps his only chance to rid himself of what he imagines to be his father’s haunting disapproval.

Donald Baines is also given an opportunity to make a difference… but after such a long time can he take the leap or was it all just an Illusion?

VIEW CLIP (Stan explains the Akashic Records to Mr. Baines)

ILLUSION will be released in theaters later this year.

(This bittersweet romance is inspired by Pierre Corneille's 17th century French comedy "L'illusion Comique" and reconceived in modern times.)

In Bed (2005)

2006-01-04T01:11:00.000-08:00

Paris: Visitors look at ‘In Bed’ (2005) by Australian-born sculptor Ron Mueck, 47, during an exhibition at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art.
via robot wisdom

Draw your dreams...

2005-12-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

Dreamlines is a non-linear, interactive visual experience. The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association.

The system has been developed in Java and PHP. First, a PHP script makes a Google image search of the words entered by the user. Then, the Java applet retrieves the images one by one, and uses them as input to generate an ever-changing drawing.

via Bruce Eisner's Vision Thing

Enayla, Digital Artiste Extraordinaire

2005-12-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

Enayla = Linda Bergkvist, Swedish digital idealistic style artist with a penchant for painting the best features of both genders, creating androgynous and sometimes controversial characters with her art.

VIEW GALLERY

See also: Master & Servant: Spoiled
(click for large view of this unbelievably gorgeous work of art)

Here is what the artist has to say about this piece:

At times, Nature is the master of Humanity... and at other times, Humanity certainly rules Nature...

Nature makes us hurry inside when she weeps rain upon the world. With hurricanes, she toys with us. Tornadoes are used to punish, earthquakes to throw us about like pebbles in a child's game. We live on her land, and through that, she rules over us. Our very bodies belong to her - they age in rhythm with her, and they are subject to urges and desires that she imposes on us. In some ways, we're little but slaves to Nature's ways.

But Humanity... on the other hand... has found another way to dominate. Humanity destroys what we touch. We reach out towards pretty things in greed, and leave a trail of death behind. We fence the woods in, we run over the animals and poison the seas. Ours is a different kind of mastery but it is one nevertheless. Nature serves us because she has no other choice. Humanity always expects Nature to mend what damage we've done: heal the woods burned down, return the animals hunted to extinction and cleanse the seas... never considering what will happen the day Nature is no longer there to catch us.

In this piece, I tried to show this relationship. Humanity a naïve yet destructive burden, the smile on her lips slight and dreamy as she thinks of the beautiful flowers she will pluck and the lovely birds she will see while all around her these very things now fade away. She's blind to the destruction she causes. She knows that Nature will be there for her, she knows that there will always be the scent of flowers and always the gentle surge of the sea. She is Nature's master in that Nature has no choice but to try to catch her and always try to mend the damage she has done... but she is Nature's slave because she must breathe the air, drink the water and eat the food that only Nature can give her.

Generation To Generation

2005-12-10T14:27:00.000-08:00

a poem by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,
laughter and tears, musings and deeds.
Love, like a carefully loaded ship,
crosses the gulf between the generations.
Therefore, we do not neglect the ceremonies
of our passage: when we wed, when we die,
and when we are blessed with a child;
When we depart and when we return;
When we plant and when we harvest.
Let us bring up our children. It is not
the place of some official to hand to them
their heritage.
If others impart to our children our knowledge
and ideals, they will lose all of us that is
wordless and full of wonder.
Let us build memories in our children,
lest they drag out joyless lives,
lest they allow treasures to be lost because
they have not been given the keys.
We live, not by things, but by the meanings
of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords
from generation to generation.

What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex

2005-12-04T00:14:00.000-08:00

Apparently I wasn't the only one who had wondered about these things...

Ever since the movie of the book Fellowship of the Ring came out, there seem to be two popular ideas about Elves' sex lives. Either they are radiantly asexual, or they are all screwing each other madly, along with any dwarves, hobbits, and men who happen along. Whichever you prefer is usually based on how attractive you think Orlando Bloom is. Tolkien's history of Middle-Earth provides us with some information about elvish sex lives.

Read further. It's fascinating.

Lightbeams...

2005-12-01T01:15:00.000-08:00

Just passing through...

Bloggie Break

2005-11-28T17:01:00.000-08:00

No time to surf or post for a couple of days-- busy at work, busy at home with the music and recording projects galore. Both Olla and Scarab Dreamer will be on a little bloggie vacation for a few... Hope you're all having a great wintery season.

anyone need stockphotos?

2005-11-26T09:06:00.000-08:00

jecate.blogspot.com

Faerie Power

2005-11-23T01:45:00.000-08:00

Fairies stop developers' bulldozers in their tracks
(by way of DRT)

VILLAGERS who protested that a new housing estate would "harm the fairies" living in their midst have forced a property company to scrap its building plans and start again.

Marcus Salter, head of Genesis Properties, estimates that the small colony of fairies believed to live beneath a rock in St Fillans, Perthshire, has cost him £15,000. His first notice of the residential sensibilities of the netherworld came as his diggers moved on to a site on the outskirts of the village, which crowns the easterly shore of Loch Earn.

He said: "A neighbour came over shouting, 'Don’t move that rock. You’ll kill the fairies'." The rock protruded from the centre of a gently shelving field, edged by the steep slopes of Dundurn mountain, where in the sixth century the Celtic missionary St Fillan set up camp and attempted to convert the Picts from the pagan darkness of superstition.

"Then we got a series of phone calls, saying we were disturbing the fairies. I thought they were joking. It didn’t go down very well," Mr Salter said.

In fact, even as his firm attempted to work around the rock, they received complaints that the fairies would be "upset". Mr Salter still believed he was dealing with a vocal minority, but the gears of Perthshire’s planning process were about to be clogged by something that looked suspiciously like fairy dust.

"I went to a meeting of the community council and the concerns cropped up there," he said. The council was considering lodging a complaint with the planning authority, likely to be the kiss of death for a housing development in a national park. Jeannie Fox, council chairman, said: “I do believe in fairies but I can’t be sure that they live under that rock. I had been told that the rock had historic importance, that kings were crowned upon it.” Her main objection to moving the rock was based on the fact that it had stood on the hillside for so long: a sort of MacFeng Shui that many in the village subscribe to.

"There are a lot of superstitions going about up here and people do believe that things like standing stones and large rocks should never be moved," she said.

Half a mile into Loch Earn is Neish Island. From there the Neish clan set forth to plunder the surrounding country, retreating each time to their island. Early in the 17th century, the MacNabs retaliated from the next valley, carrying a boat over the mountains, storming the island and slaughtering most of the Neishes.

This summer Betty Neish McInnes, the last of that line in St Fillans, went to her grave — but not before she had imparted the ancient Pict significance of the rock to many of her neighbours.

"A lot of people think the rock had some Pictish meaning," Mrs Fox said. "It would be extremely unlucky to move it."

Mr Salter did not just want to move the rock. He wanted to dig it up, cart it to the roadside and brand it with the name of his new neighbourhood.

The Planning Inspectorate has no specific guidelines on fairies but a spokesman said: “Planning guidance states that local customs and beliefs must be taken into account when a developer applies for planning permission.” Mr Salter said: “We had to redesign the entire thing from scratch.”

The new estate will now centre on a small park, in the middle of which stands a curious rock. Work begins next month, if the fairies allow.

Cinematheque

2005-11-19T22:33:00.000-08:00

an online video installation gallery

part of the New Media Project Network
experimental platform for art and New Media operating from Cologne, Germany

See also VIDEO CHANNEL

From the old acid scrapbook...

2005-11-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

I've been finding old artworks from back in the late 1980's and early 1990's from a period of my life that I now refer to as the "golden era" (my own way of saying that I was mostly tripping on psychedelics during this point in my life). I haven't saved all of the scribblings that I ever tried to manage while under the influence, because, quite frankly, most anything that you touch with a pen or paintbrush while you're tripping balls is the most gorgeous, brilliant thing you would ever think you've seen-- however, the next morning after you're back down on the planet again and you take a closer look, you find it's nothing but an incoherent and embarrassing pile of dren. However, there may also be a few gems here and there that you might want to keep, and I have a few of my own.

Here are some scans of a tiny, bright-pink little booklet that accompanied me on one of the best LSD experiences I can recall from back in 1992. For some reason I kept wanting to come back to this little booklet and draw a scene or an image. These were just little vignettes that kept popping into my trip. Mental stuff, mainly-- you know, the chattering monkey brain and all. But there was one very intense hallucination that came to me while I was pondering the ocean in front of me. My setting was on a balcony of a friend's apartment in Santa Cruz which overlooked the ocean. As I sat in lotus position, meditating and letting the visions sweep me away, I saw the image of an enormous geisha mermaid rising out of the ocean to meet the sky. She joined the two entities as if they were one-- fish, dolphins and other sealife swam out to meet her every breath. She appeared content and smiled, welcoming all life into her beautiful kimono-covered arms. Astonishingly, as soon as the swell of the tide happened along with my own breath as I exhaled, the vision changed to show the geisha no longer embracing the lifeforms that swarmed into her but instead, pushing them away with a fearful look on her face, as if she was somehow being driven mad by their very presence. I immediately tried to put this down in ink, but was only able to grab a very quick sketch before it faded.

Bits and pieces of mind...

2005-11-06T00:48:00.000-08:00

From an old paper journal, found while clearing out bookshelves... Something scrawled in faded ink pen while riding on a bus across the bay bridge.

lost and found, sprung and wound
fingers snap and waste,
not everything has a moment.

isthmus downed and left.
crinkle waves cut around a bend
and a fork in the road, but
not for naught.

someone seen in the moonlight
along the wafts of the bank
at the shore.

strangers find solace
in my company,
edged with the madness
that dwells within.

lost souls, lost souls
but not found--only when they
look right through you.

stunted in thought
never come to bloom,
half fragmented actions,
movements, sonatas.

somehow colours can thrill you
but only in the smallest of
doses is it most potent
for the waking soul.

make no mistake about it,
some things are better left
unspoken.

Encyclopedia Mythica

2005-11-01T23:46:00.000-08:00

The Encyclopedia Mythica is an online encyclopedia on mythology, folklore, and legends. It currently contains over 6,100 entries on gods and goddesses, heroes, legendary creatures and beings from all over the world.

legendary animals such as unicorns and dragons

mythical objects like Excalibur and Mjöllnir

gods and goddesses from many religions, including Greek, Japanese, Hindu, and Native American

imaginative places such as Atlantis, Avalon, and Thule

supernatural creatures such as ghosts, gnomes, leprechauns, and fairies

...and much, much more.

(Pictured above: Anahita: a Persian water goddess, fertility goddess, and patroness of women, as well as a goddess of war.)

The strange case of psychic murder

2005-10-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

A WOMAN is found dead on the island of Iona near the Fairy Mound, a place associated locally with magic and dark deeds. She is naked, but for a strange cloak and her feet are bloodied and swollen. In her hands is a knife and her body lies atop a crude cross carved out of the peat. There is a look of terror on her face.

You would be forgiven for thinking that this is the start of a newly discovered Sherlock Holmes story, but these events describe the death in 1929 of Norah Fornario, a clever, but slightly eccentric student of the occult.

Fornario was a member of the Alpha and Omega, an offshoot of the esoteric and theosophical Golden Dawn. These late-19th century societies set up by the occultist Samuel Liddell Mathers promoted western and eastern mysticism. The infamous black magician Aleister Crowley was one of the novices attracted by the colourful rites and promise of power.

Fornario believed she could heal telepathically and was striving to converse with other worlds. One of her friends, Dion Fortune, a high-ranking member of Alpha and Omega, worried that Fornario had become too involved in her craft.
CONTINUE...

[cag|e|gac]

2005-10-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when I spend too much time with myself.

not just these walls
not just this home, city or country
my cage of late is far greater
more vast

the glittering lines
neural pathways that carry thought
bind me

the red rivers of life
determined erythrocytes bent on tasks
keep me in line

and the white hard strength
of bones supporting,
limiting, determing movement
prevent me from taking flight

i am caged
my cage is me

More Dreams

2005-10-16T07:31:00.000-07:00

Dreaming Methods is home for anyone (Like Weirdpixie and myself ) who deeply dig the Dream Journal site below. Dreaming Methods have many more Digital Narratives. Might also want to try yugop.

Sorry for the lack of dreaming lately. Hope to be around these here parts more once my net is back up at FP HQ.

Expect some random pictures from the world of Dark Nights in the coming weeks.

Dreaming Methods

2005-10-15T15:26:00.000-07:00

digital fiction...
stunningly-beautiful and innovative imagery, narrative, animation and gorgeous flash design

I agree with John Harrigan-- the work entitled Inside: A Dream Journal is highly worth viewing. You'll fall right in.

found at Foolish People

Weed, it's good for the brain...

2005-10-15T14:37:00.000-07:00

Forget the stereotype about dopey potheads. It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.

While other studies have shown that periodic use of marijuana can cause memory loss and impair learning and a host of other health problems down the road, new research suggests the drug could have some benefits when administered regularly in a highly potent form. (continue reading...)

ALSO RELATED:
BC Marijuana Party
Marijuana Party Bookstore
Americans For Safe Access

(thanks to Jon B. for the link)

house of the dead

2005-10-11T07:30:00.000-07:00

Catching up on all the great posts by Weirdpixie, I thought these might fit in nicely:

This gives me an idea. I have a cloth doll and was thinking I could take a creepy pic of her and post it here for fun. Well, I'm going to give it a try anyway. It's about time my dear lil cloth friend played with her shadow. *toss my head back with a wicked laugh* I love this time of year.

Ontological Museum

2005-10-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

When one goes to sleep, he takes along the material of this all-containing
world, himself tears it apart, himself builds it up, and dreams by his own
brightness, by his own light.

Then this person becomes self-illuminated.

There are no chariots there, no spans, no roads. But he projects from himself chariots, spans, roads.

There are no blisses there, no pleasures, no delights. But he projects from himself blisses, pleasures, delights.

There are no tanks there, no lotus-pools, no streams. But he projects from himself tanks, lotus-pools, streams.

For he is a creator.
- the Upanishads

ENTER
The Department of
Nocturnal Emissions & Crepuscular Atavisms

...which in a long windy-bout way brings us HERE where we find some strangely familiar themes, indeed.

Dream Collector

2005-10-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

Photography of Arthur Tress

Spotworks

2005-10-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

Discovered a hop-skip-jump away from the Electric Sheep page (as recently seen on Gpod)-- SPOTWORKS is amazing-- with visuals so exquisitely beautiful you just have to see them to believe it.

NEW VIDEO AVAILABLE (.torrent)

FROM THE SPOT BLOG:
I am pleased to share with you the result: "165 Star Oasis". The video is at full resolution, totalling 100 megabytes in MPEG-4 format (Windows users may need this media player), and is available by bittorrent:
http://spotworks.com/bt/165-star-oasis.torrent

Experience 87 minutes of hypnotic retinal bliss by San Francisco VJ and software artist Spot a.k.a. Scott Draves. Five video tracks sync with electronic music by jhno, Spool, dj vordo, and mbb. Three more tracks sync with music by techno-violin sensation Kenji Williams (ABA Structure), including an original track not released elsewhere. See three unique and original styles: Dub Visuals, Electric Sheep, and Bomb, each with a documentary explanation. Includes looping tracks with solid backgrounds for use by VJs and progressive scan for videophile quality playback. The imagery is all open source.

Museums & Millenium

2005-10-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

The project Museums & Millennium is an initiative of the Musée de la civilisation in Québec. It is subsidized by the Canada Millennium Partnership Program and the ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec and is sponsored by the daily newspaper Le Soleil.

http://www.mumi.org/

Upon viewing the sitemap, took the plunge and clicked on REINVENTING THE BODY and found this little preety (click image for larger view):

Radical Face

2005-10-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

He's 23 years old.
His name is Ben Cooper and he's a dreamer.
He makes music like this.

Here's one of his paintings (I love the eyes on this one):

Go look some more and if you like what you see, drop him a line at radicalface@bellsouth.net

Where are all the other scarab dreamers lately? Sure has gotten quiet around here...

Nano-Nano

2005-09-27T00:33:00.000-07:00

The jiggling of atoms seen in these animations results not from mechanically induced vibration, but from the thermal motion of atoms, a natural occuring phenomenon that is visible in dynamical simulations at this scale.

This collection of images and animations have all been rendered with nanoENGINEER-1.b. nanoENGINEER, the most powerful nanomechanical engineering software on the planet, is an Open Source (GPL) project sponsored by Nanorex, Inc. Our mission is to develop the best 3-D computational modeling tools for nanomechanical engineering, enabling a new generation of scientists and engineers to design, model, simulate and analyze productive nanosystems.

via linkfilter

Japan Noodle Maker to Film TV Ad in Space

2005-09-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

Sep 21 (TOKYO) The makers of Japan's favorite instant ramen noodles will soon be airing a commercial that's truly out of this world.

Starting next month, Nissin Food Products Co. will film a promotional spot on the International Space Station for Cup Noodle, featuring a sales pitch by a hungry Russian cosmonaut. (source)

via News.3Yen.com

Ice Photographs

2005-09-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

via Presurfer

Amen...

2005-09-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

THE DECLARATION OF EVOLUTION (via Wilson's Almanac)
By Timothy Leary, PhD

When in the course of organic evolution it becomes obvious that a mutational process is inevitably dissolving the physical and neurological bonds which connect the members of one generation to the past and inevitably directing them to assume among the species of Earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent concern for the harmony of species requires that the causes of the mutation should be declared.

We hold these truths to be self evident:

* That all species are created different but equal;

* That they are endowed, each one, with certain inalienable rights;

* That among them are Freedom to Live, Freedom to Grow, and Freedom to pursue Happiness in their own style;

* That to protect these God-given rights, social structures naturally emerge, basing their authority on the principles of love of God and respect for all forms of life;

* That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and harmony, it is the organic duty of the young members of that species to mutate, to drop out, to initiate a new social structure, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its power in such form as seems likely to produce the safety, happiness, and harmony of all sentient beings.

Genetic wisdom, indeed, suggests that social structures long established should not be discarded for frivolous reasons and transient causes. The ecstasy of mutation is equally balanced by the pain. Accordingly all experience shows that members of a species are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, rather than to discard the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, all pursuing invariably the same destructive goals, threaten the very fabric of organic life and the serene harmony of the planet, it is the right, it is the organic duty to drop out of such morbid covenants and to evolve new loving social structures.

Such has been the patient sufferance of the freedom-loving peoples of this earth, and such is now the necessity which constrains us to form new systems of government.

The history of the white, menopausal, mendacious men now ruling the planet earth is a history of repeated violation of the harmonious laws of nature, all having the direct object of establishing a tyranny of the materialistic aging over the gentle, the peace-loving, the young, the colored. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to the judgement of generations to come.

* These old, white rulers have maintained a continuous war against other species of life, enslaving and destroying at whim fowl, fish, animals and spreading a lethal carpet of concrete and metal over the soft body of earth.

* They have maintained as well a continual state of war among themselves and against the colored races, the freedom-loving, the gentle, the young. Genocide is their habit.

* They have instituted artificial scarcities, denying peaceful folk the natural inheritance of earth's abundance and God's endowment.

* They have glorified material values and degraded the spiritual.

* They have claimed private, personal ownership of God's land, driving by force of arms the gentle from passage on the earth.

* In their greed they have erected artificial immigration and customs barriers, preventing the free movement of people.

* In their lust for control they have set up systems of compulsory education to coerce the minds of the children and to destroy the wisdom and innocence of the playful young.

* In their lust for power they have controlled all means of communication to prevent the free flow of ideas and to block loving exchanges among the gentle.

* In their fear they have instituted great armies of secret police to spy upon the privacy of the pacific.

* In their anger they have coerced the peaceful young against their will to join their armies and to wage murderous wars against the young and gentle of other countries.

* In their greed they have made the manufacture and selling of weapons the basis of their economies.

* For profit they have polluted the air, the rivers, the seas.

* In their impotence they have glorified murder, violence, and unnatural sex in their mass media.

* In their aging greed they have set up an economic system which favors age over youth.

* They have in every way attempted to impose a robot uniformity and to crush variety, individuality, and independence of thought.

* In their greed, they have instituted political systems which perpetuate rule by the aging and force youth to choose between plastic conformity or despairing alienation.

* They have invaded privacy by illegal search, unwarranted arrest, and contemptuous harassment.

* They have enlisted an army of informers.

* In their greed they sponsor the consumption of deadly tars and sugars and employ cruel and unusual punishment of the possession of life-giving alkaloids and acids.

* They never admit a mistake. They unceasingly trumpet the virtue of greed and war. In their advertising and in their manipulation of information they make a fetish out of blatant falsity and pious self-enhancement. Their obvious errors only stimulate them to greater error and noisier self-approval.

* They are bores.

* They hate beauty.

* They hate sex.

* They hate life.

We have warned them from time to time to their inequities and blindness. We have addressed every available appeal to their withered sense of righteousness. We have tried to make them laugh. We have prophesied in detail the terror they are perpetuating. But they have been deaf to the weeping of the poor, the anguish of the colored, the rocking mockery of the young, the warnings of their poets. Worshipping only force and money, they listen only to force and money. But we shall no longer talk in these grim tongues.

We must therefore acquiesce to genetic necessity, detach ourselves from their uncaring madness and hold them henceforth as we hold the rest of God's creatures - in harmony, life brothers, in their excess, menaces to life.

We, therefore, God-loving, peace-loving, life-loving, fun-loving men and women, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the Universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the Authority of all sentient beings who seek gently to evolve on this planet, solemnly publish and declare that we are free and independent, and that we are absolved from all Allegiance to the United States Government and all governments controlled by the menopausal, and that grouping ourselves into tribes of like-minded fellows, we claim full power to live and move on the land, obtain sustenance with our own hands and minds in the style which seems sacred and holy to us, and to do all Acts and Things which independent Freemen and Freewomen may of right do without infringing on the same rights of other species and groups to do their own thing.

And for the support of this Declaration of Evolution with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, and serenely confident of the approval of generations to come, in whose name we speak, do we now mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.

Mindblowingly-beautiful fractals...

2005-09-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

Pour these images into your mind-- maybe it might help balance out some of the horrific imagery pulsing through the wires as the mass-psyche continues to deal with the after-effects of the recent hurricane in the gulf-coast...

Send lightbeams...

PKD Android (vid clip)

2005-08-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

From the Philip K. Dick website:

August 7, 2005
PKD Android Featured on The Science Channel

(Tipped off via a comment from over at Anne Arkham's place earlier today...)

Darshan

2005-08-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

live from japan

2005-08-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

I keep meaning to blog The Huge Entity... so now it's been done!

Like cross between the late DW's Invisible College and Boing Boing... this is my new favorite weblog.

Dead Meat

2005-08-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

Dead Meat is the first Irish horror film ever with mad cows and even madder zombies, Dead Meat is the debut feature from rising writer/director Conor McMahon. Critically acclaimed as The goriest, funniest and most energetic zombie flick since Peter Jackson's BraindeadJoyously juicy... funnier than 28 Days Later... nastier than Shaun of the Dead... delivering scene after scene of wet zombie-riffic goodness (eFilmCritic). (Fangoria) and Joyously juicy... funnier than 28 Days Later... nastier than Shaun of the Dead... delivering scene after scene of wet zombie-riffic goodness (eFilmCritic).

Hmm I'm liking the look of this. Old Skool horror Peter Jackson Braindead Style.

The trailer is gory so beware.

Adam De Ville

2005-08-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

A piece by London based Adam de Ville, who I happened upon at MySpace of all places, at only 20 years old he has some pretty profound things to say;

These works are my way of speaking, but they are not all I have to say.

Art does not exist in what we already understand.

Weird Weekend

2005-08-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

Rehearsals are underway for the Weird Weekend teaser from FoolishPeople of Dark Nights of the Soul. looks like we are going to prove that we have a sense of humour at last...I hope.

The Weird Weekend is the annual event organised by our cohorts the CFZ and is the premiere fortean event in the UK this year.

A huge list of speakers, has me all in a tis about how I can sneak away from work to go and sit in on their talks without John noticing.

Camouflage I think, but in an old haunted monastry? Does anybody have any monks robes?

Al Franken to UN: 'Drop Acid in Space'

2005-08-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

Speaking of LSD...

Air America talk show host recommends space shuttle flights and LSD for world leaders

On the Friday, Agust 5th broadcast of the Al Fraken Show on Air America, while discussing the space shuttle mission with co-host Katherine Lanpher, Al Franken suggested that the UN HQ should be relocated to space, and that members of the UN should "drop acid" to get a better perspective of "Spaceship Earth, man."

Franken's comments came after discussing the current Discovery shuttle mission in which Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins noted to Japanese officials and press that the Earth is showing visible and worrying signs of continual environmental degradation. Franken also suggested that President Bush be sent into space.

Franken was only half-joking when he made the comment about the UN HQ being relocated to space, prefacing it with, "This is an idea I've had since high school." He then added the comment, "... and they should drop acid," as an aside, repeating it multiple times. Katherine Lanpher, Franken's co-host, responded, "How do you know they aren't dropping acid already?"

Archives of the show should be avilable here soon.

via Tripzine

Blotter Barn!

2005-08-02T16:29:00.000-07:00

Japanese develop 'female' android

2005-07-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1.

She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.

She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.

Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says one day robots could fool us into believing they are human. MORE...

a trio of fury

2005-07-28T05:18:00.000-07:00

In their original and best remembered form the Erinyes are among the most fearsome products of the Greek imagination. They are the avengers, three loathsome and implacable female beings, fulfillers of curses and especially of curses called down upon tose who murder thier elder kith and kin. Born from blood, roused from hell by the shedding of blood, they are satisfied only by the blood of their quarry.

In the dreadful beginnings of the gods, Uranus, lord of the sky, fathered the Titans upon Gaia, the earth. Uranus was afraid of his children and hid them away in the body of their mother. At length she could bear it no longer and persuaded Cronus, her youngest son, to attack her husband. Cronus took a sickle and castrated his father, and when the blood from Uranus's genitals fell upon the earth, his wife, she conceived and bore the Erinyes.

It seems strange that they, whose chief task was to hunt down the betrayers of blood kinship, should themselves have been born of their father's blood, shed by their brother. But they came into being out of an act of revenge that was done in defence of their mother; and it is the rights of mothers, even when they are unjust, that they uphold with particular ferocity.

The ancient authors describe the Erinyes with relish. They are horrifying in appearance and they stink. With snakes in thier hair, they brandish torches and metal studded whips. They bark like bitches, virgin hell-hounds. They have suitably ominous names : Alecto 'the endless', Tisiphone 'the retaliator', Megaera 'the envious rager.

Although their main duty was to avenge those murdered by their kin, they also took it upon themselves to right the established order in other ways.

http://svfgk.free.fr/albums.html

has our new 3 song album based on the classical myths on the furies or the Erinyes.
hope everybody enjoys it.

day out of time

2005-07-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

No Touch Monkey's post made me curious and I decided to google what this "Day out of Time" is all about. Here's what I stumbled upon:

Dayoutoftime.org -- The Day out of time is the culmination of the 13 Moon Calendar year originated from the Mayan science of time. On July 25th, Sirius (the dog star) rises with the sun. This day is observed as a day free of time in the 13 Moon Calendar. It is a day of reverence and cultural appreciation for the concept “Time is Art.” This “free day” is the closing of a 13x28=364 day year. The Day Out of Time re-aligns the 13 Moon calendar to the solar year and re-aligns humanity into renewed appreciation for our inherent divinity and connection to nature.

Foundation for the Law of time -- T(E) = Art - The Law of Time: Growing out of a lifetime research by Jose Arguelles-Valum Votan on the mathematical, prophetic and philosophical principles underlying the Mayan calendar system of Central America, the Law of Time, formulated as T(E) =Art, energy factored by time equals art, demonstrates that time is the universal factor of synchronization, accounting for both the elegance of the natural order and the existence of a universal field of telepathy. The Law of Time so radically alters our notions of time, hitherto based on measurements of space, that it evokes an entirely fresh vision of a transformed world, a world where time is no longer money, but time is art.

13moon.com -- 13 moon mission: Our aim is for the global population of humanity to consciously recognize Earth as a living work of art; to beautify this life we are given; to be in harmony with natural law - natural time.

Also, a little bit of added fun: While browsing the Frequently Asked Questions at 13 moon, I found this interesting day translation utility.

I got to admit I had fun seeing what my birthday translated into. Here is a screenshot:

But, I think I need a translator for the translation. Any ideas?

One of my dreams was to open this forum...

2005-07-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to share this type of space with my current and future online friends for some time now, and it's even named space.

I'm using the "new", open-source, Lussumo Vanilla software available at getvanilla.com for anyone who wants to host a forum of their own.

For slightly more than a year, I was a member of the defunct o8 forum,
on which Vanilla is based. It was a flourishing, invite-only web
community which had a dynamic I can only describe as "addictive". It's
my personal belief the way Mark has his software focused around the
conversations, people end up hanging around and refreshing the pages,
entering into freeform distractions or serious discussions among
friends, that are more dynamic and engaging than chat rooms, simple
instant messages, or even mailing lists can provide for.

Thank you, and I hope to see you there!

(but it seems I'm one of the few who is spending a lot of his summer inside rather than out!)

Steven Arnold, Dreamer Extraordinaire

2005-07-15T12:32:00.000-07:00

PANDORA
Star of "Luminous Procuress"
Steven's Muse & Life-Long Friend:

The first time I really connected with Steven was in high school... He was very delicate in nature and had a sense about him that was a quiet explosion... We were creating all the time through our blessed art teacher Violet Chew...

We made a pact that we would collect enough wigs, make-up, jewelry and high heels, and go to this club (on the Embarcadero where we saw all these fabulous women)... which reminds me, he stole my first tight skirt!

Steven, Kaisik Wong and I went to New York to show Salvador Dali Luminous Procuress (1969 full length color feature). Dali had arranged to premier Luminous Procuress in the basement of Rizzoli¹s Bookstore but their projector broke. So he arranged to show it at the Louis XIV room in the St. Regis Hotel. It was quite a spectacular event. He had ice sculpture, all kinds of wines and hors d'oeuvres, - The crème de la crème of New York society, Vogue Magazine and Andy Warhol were there. Dali fell in love with Luminous he played it upside down, backwards and sideways. He thought it was a work of genius, which it was.

I believe Dali understood a place where Steven was coming from and wanted to enhance that space... It was a wonderful time for Steven working on Dali's Museum. We dressed differently every night for Dali for a minimum of five years.

MORE...

Rhythms of the world

2005-07-09T14:33:00.000-07:00

Its ok when you choose to go to a music festival but its another thing when one comes to your door along with 25,000 people all wanting to get drunk.

For this entire weekend The Rhythms of the world music festival is literaly just outside the FoolishPeople office window.

Will let you know if I survive.

Dream abstract

2005-07-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

"Grey" aliens in my dream the other night...

A sort of story was what came through in the dream, from what I can deduce from my abstract recollection. This story involved all of humanity and lifeforms on Earth being the creation of the minds and doings of these grey beings (who appeared in my dream as the usual small, thin, grey bodies with large dark ovals for eyes). These apparently are the same beings that have appeared to many people for centuries on Earth in dream or vision form and have been the subject of controversy and fear ever since. However, the story that they seemed to relate to me in my dream was that we humans see these beings in this "grey alien" form only because this is the form that is represented to us when we try to see who we really are. From what I was "told" in the dream, these "aliens" are our actual "selves" and because we have both fear and curiosity at the same time there is this block that is created when both "sides" are trying to look at the other, when in a sense, they ARE each other. The other part of the dream-story was that there apparently are only just a few of these grey beings who are the creators of all that we know to be our world and ourselves, and we humans were created to play a sort of game. The beings say they do this because all of creation is a game to them and we are the players in this game. However, they have grown tired of watching the game and now want to make themselves known to the players and become one with their creation once more. In other words, "they" want to play, and they are on their way...

Some very fine examples of Toy Art

2005-07-03T01:29:00.000-07:00

FI DALWOOD'S TOY ART GALLERY

More of her work is shown here.

Check out more great artwerks from the ©beinArt Underground Australian Art Collective

Andrew Penland

2005-06-29T05:23:00.000-07:00

A search for a soundfile with Patty Hearst's voice accidentally led me to this delightfully out-there "outsider artist", Andrew Penland. It's the kind of pages where the instantaneous thought that comes first is "I want a large supply of whatever this one's on". Haven't even heard the sound experiments yet, but I've spent way too much time (that I should have been working on Choronzon this-and-that) looking at the paintings and reading the text.

if all else fails

2005-06-28T08:29:00.000-07:00

...create a space ring!

Timelinks...

2005-06-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Timelinks, Aetherco's online Time Travel guide.

Timevideo - Aetherco's overview of time travel movies and TV series and episodes from around the world. Span over and check out The Big List of over 600 time-travel shows!

Timewords - A new section where we'll be posting reviews and coverage of every non-fiction and fiction book, short story, report, and essay related to travelling time, that we can lay hands on.

Obscure Time Travel - Hard-to-find curios on the web.

via Flux

Dreamy Solstice Moon (pics)

2005-06-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

Took these while driving home from the radio show the other night. Click the photo to see the other shots...

The Dayglo Boutique

2005-06-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

I had the Dayglo Boutique dream again. I have a few recurrers and this is one of my favourites. I'm wandering around inside a head shoppe/clothing-store type place and it really feels like the late 1960s or early 1970s. It's very difficult to explain the feel, I just know that it is around this time. The store is located in a strip mall that looks like it could be in any California suburb - it highly resembles my home town, Saugus.

The windows of the store are one-way glass and it's really dark inside so that the black lights work properly. I'm just browsing around the store and every so often I find something I like and I pick it up and hold on to it. I find a basket full of all different kinds of rubber snakes and I grab several of them. There is music and people walking around looking at stuff. They are older than me. I am about five years old. (Which would be about right.)

I stay in the store for a long time, accumulating more and more silly fun objects - a poster with a volcano on it (I used to have this when I was little) and one of those little talking boxes (which is an anachronism from the future.) I recall the store was ready to close and I kept on trying to stall the manager from closing it up. They turned off the black light and turned on the regular recessed-in-ceiling fluorescent lights and I woke up.

Heavy Nostalgia dream for certain.

Clouds in the Head

2005-06-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

Downloads of ambient/electronica mixes by Jube.

I've been hogging all my blogging lately. Sorry about that. Doesn't seem that many have been spending time visiting, though.

Nirvana Buddha

2005-06-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

A Living House

2005-06-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

The Hundertwasser House in Vienna is living art as real people live in the building which is such a contrast to the other faceless buildings in that neighborhood. This photo story does not need a lot of comment as the photos should speak for themselves.

Because the Hundertwasser House Vienna was THE VERY FIRST architectural project that Friedensreich Hundertwasser ever was able to build, it has naturally attracted considerable interest worldwide since it's opening in 1986.

The HwH Vienna is a PRIVATE HOUSE owned by the COMMUNITY OF VIENNA and it's basically to visit JUST FROM OUTSIDE ONLY, as we tenants (would like) to live here without being disturbed.

More info and photos of the house can be found here.

An even better amount of info (more in-depth on the architect) can be found here.

Human Rainbow

2005-06-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

Ushering in its Centennial Year with the optimism born of achieving an enviable prominence in history - zealous of blazing more trails, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines attempted to become the newest record-holder for the "World's Largest Human Rainbow" as it warms up for one of the rarest spectacles ever in recent memory.

The Luneta grounds, a fitting historic site, was chosen to provide an impervious background for a vibrant assemblage of thousands of students, faculty and alumni forming an intricate design of a multi-hued rainbow, enough to unfasten the tight hold of a previous world record set by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Last September 18, 2004, PUP set a new record, which may endure for another one hundred years to come until perhaps PUP will run a fresh ring around the record in its bicentennial in 2104. (continue reading)

Photo Gallery

found at Grow-a-brain

ctephin news

2005-06-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

hi all,
thought i would just let everybody know that our first cd has finally been released!!
it is called MAASEH(gnosis) and can be found at http://www.anticlock.net .
also tonight in a few hrs we will be broadcasting a test stream for julys plundercast
we can be heard at this listening url :
http://neptune.sensoryresearch.com:8005/listen.pls
and we will be starting at 7pm cst.
-ctephin-
StF and Aedria Hughes

India's five-year old policeman

2005-06-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

At a time when most children prepare to go to school, Saurabh Nagvanshi is off to the office. Saurabh works at a police station in Raipur, the capital of India's central state of Chhattisgarh. He is five years old.

He is part of an Indian system that allows a family member to take the post of a government employee who dies while in service. There is no age limit and many families have no alternative but to send young children to work to make ends meet

it's not 'GoodBye'

2005-06-10T02:22:00.000-07:00

actually it is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/greetings/card2.shtml

Studio Troika

2005-06-07T19:59:00.000-07:00

My personal fav is the SMS Guerilla Projector, pictured at left (go to Devices, it's the second choice down--could definitely put that one to some good use!)

Thanks go to Brother Univac for the link!

Here's what he has to say about Studio Troika's works:

Give your "friends" some framed "art"...

Unfortunate flash interface (click on Devices, then TV predator. 2nd image says it all)

The Datasound is really amazing too. The sounds are like classic videogames, all from digital media detritus. (picture 4 is where the sounds are).

And, the Electroprobe is really amazing... hear the sounds of everyday machines. There are tortured soundscapes everywhere...(3 is where the sounds are.)

The Moving Image section is pretty cool too.

Neat!

They Can't Hear the Insects?

2005-06-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

The Japanese Language Brain
By Masaomi Ise

... The human brain is divided between the left and right spheres, with each having different functions. The right brain is called the music sphere, because it is where the sounds of music, machinery and noise is processed. The left brain is called the language sphere, because it processes sound logically and intellectually, namely being where the spoken word is comprehended. Up to this point Japanese are the same as Westerners.

But Prof. Tsunoda found a difference in the location where the sound of insects is processed. His experiments revealed that while Westerners process insect sounds together with machinery and noise sounds in the music sphere, Japanese capture insect sounds in their language sphere, meaning that Japanese hear insect sounds as "insect voices." (continue reading...)

Yahweh debunking

2005-06-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

Prophet Yahweh Holding Weather Balloons?

I still don't know how, even if he is scamming us by using weather balloons, he makes them appear at will in the sky and then has them move so irratically. But seeing him holding the weather balloons makes me think maybe it's true, he is scamming us.

Bleh. I want to believe...

Link via Vortex Egg

Hindu Toad Wedding Rain Ritual

2005-06-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

Bengal village marries off toads in bid for rains
Tue June 7, 2005

KHOCHAKANDAR, India (Reuters) - Two giant toads were married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in eastern India at the weekend by villagers hoping to propitiate the rain gods and end a dry spell.

Some 400 people cheered and blew conches as women put streaks of vermilion on the female toad's head while a band played music and priests solemnised the marriage to the chanting of Hindu hymns.

The toads were picked up from separate ponds, dressed in bright red clothes and brought to the marriage venue in a decorated palanquin in Khochakandar village in West Bengal late on Sunday.

The married toads were released into a pond after the ceremony in the village about 365 km north of Calcutta.

"Our forefathers used to organise marriages of toads to get sufficient rain for cultivation. We hope rain will be coming very soon," said Konica Mandal, one of the organisers of the wedding.

The village has been reeling under a severe heat wave with temperatures touching 44 degrees Celsius, drying up ponds and creating problems for farmers and their crops.

The southwest monsoon hit India's southern coast on Sunday, about four days later than normal, but it will be some time before the rains wind their way to the rest of the country.

A heat wave sweeping India, Bangladesh and Nepal has killed nearly 100 people over the past two weeks.

(thanks to my dad for the news story!)

More Yahweh...

2005-06-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

Here is an index of .wmv files (sent in by JonBe) full of more footage of those little shiny orange, metallic flying balls in the sky, summoned by Prophet Yahweh. Now, me personally, I've seen similar objects in our skies but only under the influence of psychedelics. Not that I don't believe beings like this are part of our reality (or other realities overlapping onto what we perceive as our own) but I'm quite overwhelmed by this footage, and I would really love to witness the sightings on my own to get the full impact for my own experience.

What do you think?

Yahweh and the Orange Balls of Light

2005-05-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

Praise BOB, they're HERE!
Thanks to JonBe for sending this one, it's truly marvelous.

The Keeper

2005-05-31T00:50:00.000-07:00

The legend of Omar Khayyam
an epic film set in 11th century Persia on the life and times of the famed epicurian Poet Omar Khayyam. (set for cinematic release June 2005)

Credited cast:
Vanessa Redgrave .... The Heiress
Moritz Bleibtreu .... Malikshah
Rade Serbedzija .... Imam Muaffak
Bruno Lastra .... Omar Khayyam
Christopher Simpson .... Hassan Sabbah

Kamran is a 12 year old boy in the present day who discovers that his ancestor is the 11th Century Mathematician, Astronomer, Poet of Persia, Omar Khayyam. The story has been passed down in his family from one generation to another, and now it is his responsibility to keep the story alive for future generations.

The film takes us from the modern day to the epic past where the relationship between Omar Khayyam, Hassan Sabbah (the original creator of the sect of Assassins) and their mutual love for a beautiful woman separate them from their eternal bond of friendship. Filmed almost entirely on location in Samarkand and Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

And speaking of Omar Khayyam:

Braintuning

2005-05-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

This post over at Key23 is right-on...
Check it:
Magical Consciousness

Saturnian moon poses new mystery for scientists

2005-05-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

Titan’s puzzling red spot: Scientific instruments have cut through the mysterious haze surrounding Saturn's biggest moon, Titan, only to find yet another mystery at the surface: a bright reddish spot about the size of West Virginia.

What is it? Researchers on the science team for the Cassini probe, which captured the infrared imagery during flybys in March and April, confess that they're baffled.

"At first glance, I thought the feature looked strange, almost out of place," said Robert Brown of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, who heads the team in charge of Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer. "After thinking a bit, I speculated that it was a hot spot. In retrospect, this might not be the best hypothesis, but the spot is no less intriguing."

new age for sherlock

2005-05-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Alternate Reality Gaming: A cross-media genre of interactive fiction using multiple delivery and communications media, including television, radio, newpapers, Internet, email, SMS, telephone, voicemail, and postal service. Gaming is typically comprised of a secret group of PuppetMasters who author, manipulate, and otherwise control the storyline, related scenarios, and puzzles and a public group of players, the collective detective that attempts to solve the puzzles and thereby win the furtherance of the story.

Who would you rather be? The PuppetMasters or the Collective Detective?

Via the Alternate Reality Gaming Network and Unfiction.

Strange Horizons

2005-05-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

Strange Horizons is a weekly web-based magazine of and about speculative fiction. The term "speculative fiction" refers to what is more commonly known as "sci-fi," but which properly embraces science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, slipstream, and a host of sub-genres. The magazine was founded in September 2000, and as we said then:

[Speculative fiction is] important to the world. These stories make us think. They critique society. They offer alternatives. They give us a vision of the future—and warn us of the potential dangers therein. They help us understand our past. They are full of beauty, and terror, and delight.

"This slick, non-profit magazine publishes original articles, fiction, art, and poetry. Thoughtful book reviews, editorials, and interviews help keep Strange Horizons a cut above the rest." —scifi.com

"Strange Horizons is one of a new breed of online publications proving that online fiction is here to stay—and in greater variety and accessibility than offered by its print counterparts.... You have only to look at Strange Horizons's Feedback section to see that people are indeed reading fiction online, and loving it. Strange Horizons does it right. Its design is artful and unobtrusive, and provides an ideal showcase for the main event, speculative fiction." —Tangent Online

Examining Quarks

2005-05-21T00:47:00.000-07:00

This'll blow your gourd.
Secret Worlds: The Universe Within

View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.

via Bifurcated Rivets

Sister Mary

2005-05-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

Patients at St Mary's Hospital in London are being seen by a medical robot as part of a new trial.

"Sister Mary" glides between beds and allows the controlling doctor to visually examine and communicate with a patient from anywhere in the world.

Meanwhile, a patient at London's Guy's Hospital has recently undergone a live kidney transplant surgery carried out by a robot - the UK's first.

The da Vinci robot has also been used to remove bladders and repair hearts.

Danteworlds

2005-05-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Danteworlds, an integrated multimedia journey--combining artistic images, textual commentary, and audio recordings --through the three realms of the afterlife (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise) presented in Dante's Divine Comedy. The site is structured around a visual representation of Dante's worlds: it shows who and what appear where.

Click on regions within each realm (circles of Hell, terraces of Purgatory, spheres of Paradise) to open new pages featuring people and creatures whom the character Dante meets during his journey. Click on individual figures in the regions to view larger images in pop-up windows. Available for each region are explanatory notes, a gallery of artistic images, recordings of significant Italian verses, and study questions--all aimed at enriching the experience of reading Dante's poetic vision of a voyage literally out of this world.

Danteworlds is conceived as a complement to--not replacement of--the experience of reading and discussing Dante's Divine Comedy. It is therefore recommended that you first read the cantos describing a particular region (click here for links to the text in electronic form) and then visit that region in Danteworlds.

Dreamers United

2005-05-18T17:34:00.000-07:00

A blog for dreamers...

World Dream Bank

2005-05-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

THERE ARE DOORS
Dreams of passing from one universe to another, through doors and gates (and other paths)... George Macdonald used a mirror. The Narnia kids used a wardrobe, and pools of water. Sheherazade used story-frames. Alice used a rabbit hole, and a mirror, too. Mia Farrow used a movie screen, in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Carlos eats cactus and stares at his hands...

Whatever gets you through the wall.

THE WORLD DREAM BANK
A library of 2000 dream texts and images, sorted by topic--whether you want funny, sexy, spiritual, scary, or lucid dreams, we got 'em. Dreams are uncensored, but potentially offensive entries have warnings. Dream well! -- Chris Wayan, 2004

Vive la Vivienne!

2005-05-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

While I haven't loved everything Vivienne Westwood has ever designed, I still believe she remains one of the most fabulously-talented dreamers involved with the fashion "universe" to-date. And don't get me started on the shoes (oh, the shoes...)

If you get a moment, click through the history section of her website and browse through her collections over the years. I'm still drooling over her excellent taste in cover models for this season (Dita and MM look to-die-for in V's designs...)

I would so love to own this shirt!

The stuff of dreams...

2005-05-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

... their music is like a soft breeze caressing your mind while you sit dreamily on some faraway seashore underneath a warm sun...

watch video: LOVE'S EASY TEARS (Cocteau Twins, 1986 4AD)

More CT videos here.

Sri Kali Temple

2005-05-16T01:30:00.000-07:00

(click for larger)

The top of the Sri Kali Temple
Yangon Region, Burma

Be sure to look through more of these stunning photographs. Here is the entry page.

Shatner Rocketman (a classic)

2005-05-16T00:57:00.000-07:00

An oldie but goodie.

William Shatner performs a unique version of Elton John's song, "Rocket Man", in 1978, for a Sci-Fi/Fantasy awards show.

via MilkandCookies

Jam the Ribbons

2005-05-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

And THEY know where they can stick'em!

Thanks, Otis -- this was fun!

Download For Fun and Prosperity!

2005-05-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just need to download an album... or two... or two thousand and three...

Bigger Than Yours!

2005-05-13T12:18:00.000-07:00


What a big ribbon you have! 

Ribbons galore (including the option to design your own!)

Chicks on Speed in a Water-Ride City

2005-05-12T14:23:00.000-07:00

Dear Weirdpixie invited me here aeons ago and having been so taken up with Other Things, namely One Other Thing which is THE other thing, be-all-end-all-beginning-all for me at this time, but I DID want to come here, it's just that I had to wait until I'd something to offer.

Dreams of course, tend to attenuate when sleep is unhabitual--which in my case is quite a lifestyle thing. I am one of the controversially, oft-maligned species of deliberately recreational insomniacs of the "assisted" variety - and some of us, indeed, do deserve the bad reputation for being our tweakishly annoying selves; even myself on occasion could be said to merit n occasional bad rap, if not the continuity of a bad rep.

I do think I handle my extended-awakefulness better than most. And frankly, it's a sine qua non situation - that phrase literally translates to "without which, nothing" - and indeed, those weeks, months, even a year here and there I've spent off the merry-go-round, with a more normal metabolic pattern, what came out of me creatively was bupkis, naught, zip, zero, zilchorama. I could go into more detail about this and won't; suffice it to say THEY drove me to it. If THEY hadn't made my dear diamond-studded space queen Lucy in the Sky vanish so utterly, so completely, but for Her most beloved, all-too-ephemeral appearances rare as solar eclipses, I'd never have had to turn to this lower form of flipping my mind upside down to shake things from it. But I do. Because I must.

That being the case, it's taken me a while to show up here, because dreams don't happen to the sleepless. If they do, they're given another name - psychosis. And that gets saved for Choronzon.

There are breaks, inbetween periods of the djam karet (Indonesian for "the hour that stretches") of a long tweak run, in which sleep returns with vengeance... and with it strong REM activity which is often longer and more imprinting upon the memory than usual. I had such recently and will relate a brief summarization...brief, for it is my experience that people dun' usually wanna read much about the dreams others have. They weren't there, after all. It's tantamount to watching their vacation slides. (But worse, since they can't even see the pictures.)

My dreams are frankly never much to write home about. Cool enough, mostly senseless dada stuff, recurring settings being my childhood home in Southern California suburbia and nothing like theme or meaning that imbues itself into it all...a psychic garbage disposal, as some theorize.

I think it's because my special habits and psychedelic personality make waking consciousness dreamlike enough to cause less need for it to happen in sleep. I have maybe one, two nightmares a year and just as many dreams of things that truly elevate me into ekstasis.

There's a recurring place I visit, during the ekstasis dreams, that I visited in this one. It's something I called "The Waterlands" in childhood and "One's City of Residence Not as on Maps" now. In childhood the layout was somehow related to Saugus/Valencia/Newhall (they call it Santa Clarita now) where I grew up, and of course now, it's San Francisco. But it's San Francisco that isn't anything remotely resembling it in real life. There's a certain Disneyland aspect to everything in that there are water slides and tubes and artificial rivers everywhere, explaining why I had once called it "Waterlands". The log rides and jet stream rides I dug on as a kid seem to be the mode of transport in this realm.

In my latest visit there, a very close long-term female friend/lover and I had been searching for drugs and had spent some time doing this. In past times I'd wake from dreams like this frustrated as I would realise they were never found, or that I'd bought something that turned out to be bunk. Not so in this dream, and in most like it I've had recently - there's been none of that frustration element or terror element - I even had my very first dream in which I could drive a car without being terrified (I can't drive in reality, it frightens me too much, as my mind is unable to multitask as driving cars requires - I find just too much to concentrate on.)

My girl friend and I were wandering all over the Non-San Francisco-Frisco to find a place to ingest the substance. After running around through front door of one store, out through its back door, up a building where we jumped over to the roof of one next to it and clambered down, ran around the street cross-corner and did this for some time, we found a bus shelter which was much more "sheltered" than bus shelters are, and my girl friend administered the drug to me, and in doing so, committed an erotic act in and of itself.

I remember us both smiling and higher than we''ve ever been, and we found one of the inlets to get on a water-rider together and we shot around corners, leaving wakes of warm-water aqua-coloured splash and white foam, viewing the hills and buildings and everything crisscrossed with aqua-green jet streams which seem to be the major means of transport in this otherworld I've visited twice or so a year since the early nineteen-seventies..

Beautiful. Beyond beautiful, actually...

World's First Virtual Secretary

2005-05-11T00:07:00.000-07:00

Virtual Secretary Puts New Face on Pakistan
Despite Area's Instability, More U.S. Firms Are Offshoring There

Washington Post
Tuesday, May 10, 2005

In a chic downtown lobby across the street from the Old Executive Office Building, Saadia Musa answers phones, orders sandwiches and lets in the FedEx guy.

And she does it all from Karachi, Pakistan.

As receptionist for the Resource Group, Musa greets employees and visitors via a flat screen hanging on the lobby's wall. Although they are nine hours behind and nearly 7,500 miles away, her U.S.-based bosses rely on her to keep order during the traffic of calls and meetings.

The Resource Group, a call-center company, represents a model that might sound familiar: U.S. companies save money by offshoring certain tasks to developing countries with cheaper workers who can telemarket, integrate data and program computer code. These "back-office" functions have created a booming, multibillion-dollar industry in countries such as India, Ireland and the Philippines. MORE >>

via bookofjoe