POP OCCULTURE: HIGH WEIRDNESS IN THE ARTS

From the almost biological rhythms of shamanic drumming to the atonal polychromatic formalism of 20th century “musique concrete”, the philosophies and belief systems that have inspired creators to express themselves through the manipulation of air molecules via sound waves have been anything but pedestrian. In his excellent 2004 overview, The Occult and Music, Gary Gomes covers the gamut, from the world music tradition stretching all the way back to the Ancient Greeks, to the sacred theology that informed early liturgical music, to the more esoteric philosophies that have inspired composers of “serious” as well as popular music, up to and including the so-called “demoniac” influence on such rockers as the Rolling Stones and Black Sabbath, it’s all here, in one easy-to-digest starting place. An excellent primer for those eager to explore this infinitely rich topic of research.

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Fans of Umberto Eco have reason to celebrate, as the celebrated Italian novelist, philosopher, essayist, literary critic, and list-lover … “revisits the mesmerism of the metaphorical and the symbolic in The Book of Legendary Lands, an illustrated voyage into history’s greatest imaginary places, with all their fanciful inhabitants and odd customs, on scales as large as the mythic continent Atlantis and as small as the fictional location of Sherlock Holmes’s apartment.” This gorgeously illustrated tome will make a perfect gift for the bibliophile in your life. Check it out online, or at your local library, where the waiting list is sure to be long on this one. Enjoy!

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When he isn’t dreaming up incredibly odd “experimental” hotel environments (Jupiter Room, anyone?), designer Ai Hasegawa seems intrigued by the possibility that human beings will one day carry dolphin fetuses to term, deliver them in special birthing pools… then cook and eat them. Hey, what with the Malthusian alarm about population growth outpacing global food production capacity, will such modest proposals remain out of rhetorical bounds for much longer? We here at UselessEaterBlog certainly hope so. Incredibly strange video, below.

I Wanna Deliver a ... from aikiaiki on Vimeo.

HEIDEGGER BACK ON THE RACK

One of the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger, is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons. It seems that a few passages from the thinker’s soon-to-be-published “philosophical journal” and diaries hint at an even greater level of “anti-Semitism” on his part than had heretofore been acknowledged.

Heidegger, who infamously signed onto the Nazi Party program in the hottest depths of the Third Reich, had always claimed to be a reluctant Nazi, guilty perhaps of moral cowardice for refusing to doom himself by standing against monstrous tyranny, but no race hater. In the recently uncovered journals – which Heidegger ordered held back from publication until his death – he seems to suggest that "Jewish intellectuals" were an important force behind the various movements that coalesced into the generalized paradigm that goes by the name of Modernism. Needless to say, much of Heidegger’s philosophical project involves the critique of Modernism, of which he was no great fan.

Now, whether this in and of it’s self can be said to constitute rank anti-Semitism is obviously debatable. However, in the context of Heidegger’s biography, it certainly is troubling; and this is true, whether his observations are otherwise ever determined to be factually accurate, or not.

THE WOO FILES: KOOKY LINKS FOR NON-FINKS!

If this blog is attracting the type of reader that I have hoped for, then a great many of you will be interested to read this first, excerpted chapter from Dr Rick Strassman’s DMT and the Soul of Prophecy. Entitled “The Hebrew Bible Prophet and the DMT Volunteer”, it travels some very intriguing territory, crossing over and dipping into various apparently contradictory domains and disciplines to emerge with some truly unique and intriguing insights into both ancient theology and cutting edge psycho-pharmaceuticals. I, for one, am looking forward to reading the rest of Strassman’s tome.

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Is it possible that human beings don’t come from Earth, and that sunburns and pain during childbirth prove this "fact"? Can it be that there is an alien message embedded on our genetic code? Are we living in a hologram? Or is our species simply experiencing an epistemological breakdown that will precipitate a full-blown ontological crisis? Read this article, then YOU be the judge!

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If you'd like to see an example of what I'd refer to as poor paracultural scholarship - the kind of stuff that gives honest, intellectually rigorous truth-seekers a bad name with hoi polloi - look no further than Sky Blimps, Gravity's Rainbow, Predictive Programming and Thomas Pynchon, by Paul McGuire. Apparently, the fact that Pynchon's novel features blimps (it's set in World War II and yes, blimps were used extensively in the British theater, where most of the novel takes place) is evidence that... well, that the world is about to end in a massive apocalypse, and every Christian and Jew needs to get right with God before it happens! Of course! How did I not see this before!?

MEMORY HOLE: MTV'S FORGOTTEN PUNK ROCK TRAVELOGUE

When one peruses MTV in its current manifestation, it's almost impossible to believe that one is interfacing with the same entity whose employees were once capable of producing something as pure and authentic as WAY USA, the Punk Rock travelogue hosted by Tesco Vee of Meatmen infamy. 

Of course, they only shot two episodes... and neither of them ever made it to air... but still! 

Anyway, thanks to the magic of the Internets, the pilot episode of this 8mm wonder-show is now only as far away as your laptop screen. The second episode still hasn't surfaced from underground tape-circling circuit, which of course makes my longing to see it all the more intense.  

But for now, kick back with me and let Tesco Vee show you all the best parts of Charm City(TM) BALTIMORE! Infinitely quotable, absolutely cult and totally punk rock, I give you... WAY USA!!!

POP OCCULTURE: JODOROWSKY REDUX

The New York Times of all places has just published an excellent overview of two seismic events that have rocked the Jodoverse, that being the expanded fictional universe where all the various works of maverick cinematic sorcerer and comic book auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky take place.

No, the news is not that the director of such legendary films as El Topo, The Holy Mountain, and Santa Sangre has made a second career writing hugely popular, beautifully illustrated European comic books such as Incal, Metabarons, and Technopriests. Rather, what drove the Journal of Record to devote so many precious column inches to the man is the arrival of two new cinematic projects: The Dance of Reality – Jodorowsky’s first new film in over two decades – and the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, a chronicle of the Greatest Film Never Made. And yes, I include Kubrick's Napoleon in there.

From the Times:

Jodorowsky the filmmaker is legitimately back. "Jodorowsky’s Dune,” a documentary by the American director Frank Pavich about Jodorowsky’s two-year quest to adapt the Frank Herbert science-fiction novel, and “The Dance of Reality,” a trippy but big-hearted reimagining of the young Alejandro’s unhappy childhood in a Chilean town, will each make its stateside debut this spring (on March 21 and May 23). As the rapper Kanye West, whose “Yeezus” tour was inspired by “The Holy Mountain,” put it last November to a packed (and very likely perplexed) house at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center: “I don’t know if . . . y’all ever heard about Jodorowsky, the director. . . . Y’all don’t know who the [expletive] he is. . . . Everybody copied off him. . . . And there’s gonna be [expletives] in this arena in a few months dancing all sloppy off him.”

Anyone wondering what Jodorowsky has been doing since his previous movie, “The Rainbow Thief” — a bust of a Peter O’Toole-Omar Sharif vehicle from 1990 — would find the answer in his overstuffed apartment. Shelves of “The Incal,” “The Metabarons” and other comics he wrote line the entryway. Books on tarot, philosophy and religion are stacked eight rows high in his study. Posters of his films and portraits of his family decorate many of his walls.

“I waited 22 years to make a film, but not sitting here in this seat,” he said to me in his baritone Spanish. “I did 40 books, 80 comics, theater performances, exhibitions of my drawings, tarot courses — ”

Yer old pal Jerky is absolutely tickled to see one of his personal heroes getting some well deserved attention after years of inexplicable neglect. I include here a photograph of one of the high points of my life, meeting Jodorowsky just over 10 years ago. We got a chance to talk briefly (after I toweled off the sweat I worked up standing in line two hours to shake his hand) and he was so much cooler and more amazing than I could have ever hoped he would be. They say meeting your heroes is a sure fire way to lose your respect for them. I'm happy to report this is not ALWAYS the case.

MEMORY HOLE: OSAMA'S CORPSE AND SOME INTERESTING LISTS

Most people seem to be okay with the idea of Osama bin Laden slipping down one of History's Memory Holes. And yet The Powers That Be still seem to feel the need to cover their tracks when it comes to the fishy circumstances surrounding his execution and subsequent disappearance. So now we have yet another excuse for why we weren't allowed to see the body, a new theory that has sprouted unbidden via Drudge and other propaganda vectors. We are now being asked to believe that the real reason why we've never seen images or video of bin Laden's corpse is because soldiers on the scene all took turns emptying their clips into the villain’s lifeless body, thus breaking a bunch of UN "rules of engagement" and rendering him utterly unrecognizable, anyway. So says former SEAL Matt Bissonette in his new book, No Easy Day. Personally, I’m not yet fully convinced that bin Laden was even alive at the time of his alleged "elimination"... but hey, that's just me.

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Here’s an interesting list of "10 Things we Wouldn’t Know if it Weren’t for Bradley Manning’s Whistleblowing." Some disgusting highlights include...

• During the Iraq War, U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape, and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, according to thousands of field reports.

• There were 109,032 “violent deaths” recorded in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, including 66,081 civilians. Leaked records from the Afghan War separately revealed coalition troops’ alleged role in killing at least 195 civilians in unreported incidents, one reportedly involving U.S. service members machine-gunning a bus, wounding or killing 15 passengers.

• The U.S. Embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country that opposed genetically modified crops, with U.S. diplomats effectively working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto.

• In Baghdad in 2007, a U.S. Army helicopter gunned down a group of civilians, including two Reuters news staff.

• A leaked diplomatic cable provided evidence that during an incident in 2006, U.S. troops in Iraq executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence. The disclosure of this cable was later a significant factor in the Iraqi government’s refusal to grant U.S. troops immunity from prosecution beyond 2011, which led to U.S. troops withdrawing from the country.

• The U.S. threatened the Italian government in an attempt to influence a court case involving the indictment of CIA agents over the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric. Separately, U.S. officials were revealed to have pressured Spanish prosecutors to dissuade them from investigating U.S. torture allegations, secret “extraordinary rendition” flights, and the killing of a Spanish journalist by U.S. troops in Iraq.

Follow the link above to read the other five, and for links to even more ridiculous revelations about American crimes in the name of spreading "democracy" and "liberty" to the savage Middle Eastern masses.

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And here's another fine list, this time detailing "10 Things Americans Underestimate about Our Massive Surveillance State." As the author of this list explains, "it's not just the loss of privacy but also the growing power of the state to target and oppress people who it judges to be critics and enemies." Included (and expanded upon at the link) are the following...

1. Underestimated: The National Security Agency’s abilities. ... As the Internet has grown and more data pathways have been developed ... so has the NSA’s electronic dragnet.

2. Overlooked: The expanding NSA dragnet. ... Americans have overlooked that as the Internet has grown, so has the NSA’s ability to track and trace everyone’s online lives.

3. Underestimated: The erosion of constitutional rights. ... Kirk Wiebe, a former NSA intelligence analyst, told NPR on Thursday that collecting vast reams of electronic data was changing the "innocent-until-proven-guilty" foundation of constitutional law.

4. Overlooked: How the NSA is getting away with this. ... Congress passes laws. The administration drafts regulations to carry out those laws. And lawyers—in and outside of government—find ways to get around what they don’t like in those laws.

5. Underestimated: Loss of privacy. Americans need to realize that every electronic transaction can be traced and seen by the government—period.

There's tons more links and rich layers of information at the link above, which I urge you all to read, clip, save, remember, share and - perhaps most importantly - to think about... long and hard.

INCREDIBLE, MIND-BLOWING INTERACTIVE EDUCATIONAL TOOL

From a Planck Length - only a titch bigger than a "string" of Superstring Theory infamy - to the outer limits of the Visible Universe, and everything in between, the only thing more impressive than this interactive comparative size/scale tool is the fact that it was created by twin 14-year-old brothers, Cary and Michael Huang! And if that doesn't light a fire under your lazy ass and get you motivated to do something with your life, I don't know what will. 

From a recent review:

Most of us have trouble visualizing the height of buildings, or the distance it takes to get home from work, let alone things on an intergalactic scale. The above interactive graphic made by 14-year-old Cary Huang may be the best tool to help us understand our place in our vast universe. The interactive piece allows the viewer to zoom through scale and space, from quarks to galactic clusters. The real genius of the interface is the ability to scroll back to a familiar object like a car - the time spent scrolling helps to convey a sense of size and distance. Even cooler are the tidbits of information that are provided when you click on an object. 

Honestly, folks, if you only ever click on one of these pages that I share with you, let it be this one. It's that good. 

JOHN C. LILLY'S BIZARRE DOLPHIN/LSD/LANGUAGE EXPERIMENTS

No shit, folks. Read all about it.

POP OCCULTURE: GLOOMY SUNDAY POSSESSES CHILD PHENOM

Seeing as it's one of my favorite songs, and seeing as it's being sung by a bewitching little barefoot phenom who reminds me of the magic and mystery of youth and music both, I couldn't resist sharing this chill-inducing clip from a recent edition of Norway's Got Talent. Anybody familiar with the Billie Holiday version will realize how amazing this is from the get-go. All others should familiarize themselves, then return, before passing judgement. A wonderful pop occulture moment. I wish all good things for the future of this little old soul, Angelina, who has come to visit us and bless us with her talent.

FBI DOCS SAY HITLER ESCAPED TO SOUTH AMERICA

Make of this what you will, but apparently... "newly declassified FBI documents prove that the government knew Hitler was alive and well, and living in the Andes Mountains long after World War II."

TOO AMAZING NOT TO SHARE - THE SIZE OF THE UNIVERSE

Don't miss THIS wonderful interactive size differentiation app. It goes all the way from the smallest measure (1 Planck Length) to the size of the ENTIRE FREAKING UNIVERSE. All the elements are clickable to learn more about them (particularly interesting to me were the Total Human Height and Minecraft World entries). Enjoy and thank me later. You WILL want to thank me.

BAHAMAS "BREAKAWAY BILLIONAIRE" STEM CELL AGE REVERSAL?

Our friends over at Giza Death Star have vectored this BBC story of billionaire playboy designer Peter Nygard's apparent success in reversing the ravages of age by using intensive new stem cell technologies not yet available to the general public. The implications seem to dovetail with the concerns raised by researcher Richard Donlan in his Breakaway Civilization hypothesis. Regardless of whether or not this story serves as a harbinger for future developments, it remains an interesting tidbit to tuck away for future reference. Hence this posting.

MEMORY HOLE: ILLUMINATI PARTY FAVORS

Check out this incredible post over at HangTheBankers.com, featuring so many photos of an exclusive Rothschild dinner party that was seemingly designed (and attended) by surrealist superstar painter Salvador Dali.

Some of the more intriguing images include the mirror-reversed invitation card...

The host and hostess in full Satanic regalia...

And, of course, a decidedly disturbing dinner table set piece...

Much more disturbing imagery at the link above.

MEMORY HOLE: UNDERGROUND LA-LA LAND?

BANKER DEATH COUNT REACHES NINE

IntellihubNews.com brings word from John Vibes that the trail of dead bankers, which has now reached nine victims, has also reached the corruption-shackled state of Arizona:

SCOTTSDALE, AZ (INTELLIHUB) — Former National Bank of Commerce CEO James Stuart Jr. was found dead, the morning of Feb. 19. A family spokesman did not say what caused the death. This brings the total of banker deaths in recent weeks to 9, and like the other recent deaths, this one comes with no explanation.

POP OCCULTURE: CODEX SERAPHINIANUS REDUX

Dangerous Minds has a story about the re-release of one of the strangest books ever to be published for commercial distribution, Italian renegade artist Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus.

In October Rizzoli will be republishing what is regarded by many to be the strangest book in the world, the Codex Seraphinianus. The Codex is unlike other historically well-known strange books (such as the Voynich Manuscript), in that the author of the book is not only known (Luigi Serafini is his name), he’s still alive. But the book is just so damned strange that it has accumulated a veritable industry of speculation about its meaning, deeper origins, and whether the language in which it is written actually has any syntax or not. Serafini has said relatively little about it himself over the years, and denies that the script has any meaning, but no one really believes that, including me.

Original printings often sell for upwards of a thousand dollars on Ebay. I don't know what effect if any this re-release is going to have on the value of the original stock, but I do know one thing. If this fool has any cash in his pocket when je come across this re-release in book stores, he and it will soon be parted.

POP OCCULTURE: WHO'S WITH SGT PEPPER?

1. Sri Yukteswar Giri
2. Aleister Crowley
3. Mae West
4. Lenny Bruce
5. Karlheinz Stockhausen
6. W.C. Fields
7. Carl Gustav Jung
8. Edgar Allen Poe 
9. Fred Astaire
10. Richard Merkin
11. The Varga Girl
12. Leo Gorcey
13. Huntz Hall
14. Simon Rodia
15. Bob Dylan
16. Aubrey Beardsley
17. Sir Robert Peel
18. Aldous Huxley
19. Dylan Thomas
20. Terry Southern
21. Dion
22. Tony Curtis
23. Wallace Berman
24. Tommy Handley
25. Marilyn Monroe
26. William Burroughs
27. Sri Mahavatar Babaji
28. Stan Laurel
29. Richard Lindner
30. Oliver Hardy
31. Karl Marx
32. H.G. Wells
33. Sri Paramahansa Yogananda
34. Anonymous Dummy
35. Stuart Sutcliffe
36. Anonymous Dummy
37. Max Miller
38. "THE PETTY GIRL" painting of Lucille Ball), by George Petty
39. Marlon Brando
40. Tom Mix
41. Oscar Wilde
42. Tyrone Power
43. Larry Bell
44. Dr. David Livingstone
45. Johhny Weissmuller 
46. Stephen Crane
47. Issy Bonn
48. George Bernard Shaw
49. H.C. Westermann
50. Albert Stubbins
51. Sri Lahiri Mahasaya
52. Lewis Carroll
53. T.E. Lawrence
54. Sonny Liston
55. "THE PETTY GIRL 2"
56. George Harrison
57. John Lennon
58. Shirley Temple
59. Ringo Star
60. Paul McCartney
61. Albert Einstein
62. John Lennon
63. Ringo Starr
64. Paul McCartney
65. George Harrison
66. Bobby Breen
67. Marlene Dietrich
68. Mahatma Gandhi
69. Legionnaire from the Order of Buffalos
70. Diana Dors
71. Shirley Temple

POP OCCULTURE: DAVID LYNCH AND THE PROJECTIONISTS PLOT

Everybody loves to be in on a conspiracy, so I'm sure the nation's projectionists were totally stoked to receive this personal message from director David Lynch upon release of his 1996 masterpiece, Mulholland Drive.

PARADIGM SHIFT: HELL ON EARTH IN AUSTRALIA

The fire has been raging out of control, underground, since February 9th. Firefighters can't fight it because they get sick when they approach within a few hundred yards of it. Find out more at this link.

PARADIGM SHIFT: APOCALYPSE NJ

What does the future hold in store for America's major metropolitan centers? This Rolling Stone article gives you a pretty vivid portrayal of one possibility, using one of New Jersey's most dangerous hot-spots as a test market for the Apocalypse...

The first thing you notice about Camden, New Jersey, is that pretty much everyone you talk to has just gotten his or her ass kicked.
Instead of shaking hands, people here are always lifting hats, sleeves, pant legs and shirttails to show you wounds or scars, then pointing in the direction of where the bad thing just happened.
"I been shot six times," says Raymond, a self-described gangster I meet standing on a downtown corner. He pulls up his pant leg. "The last time I got shot was three years ago, twice in the femur." He gives an intellectual nod. "The femur, you know, that's the largest bone in the leg."
"First they hit me in the head," says Dwayne "The Wiz" Charbonneau, a junkie who had been robbed the night before. He lifts his wool cap to expose a still-oozing red strawberry and pulls his sweatpants down at the waist, drawing a few passing glances. "After that, they ripped my pockets out. You can see right here. . . ."
Even the cops have their stories: "You can see right here, that's where he bit me," says one police officer, lifting his pant leg. "And I'm thinking to myself, 'I'm going to have to shoot this dog.'"
"I've seen people shot and gotten blood on me," says Thomas Bayard Townsend III, a friendly convicted murderer with a tear tattoo under his eye. "If you turn around here, and your curiosity gets the best of you, it can cost you your life."

It only gets better/worse from there. Keep reading this depressing goddamn screed at Rolling Stone.