A small photo journal of my recent hike along the Ridgeway for the summer solstice at Avebury:

Another heads-up for another new blog. And it’s another goodie.

Dreamflesh Journal contributor Stephen Grasso is now blogging under the banner ‘Clean living in difficult circumstances‘. Stephen sums it up thusly:

It will predominantly feature writing about Voodoo, magic, music, obscure records, psychogeography, and whatever else I get up to and feel like writing about.

It’s essentially a way for me to get regular new material out while I work on finishing my book, so I don’t feel quite so much like one of those guys who secretly makes a throne for the Archangel Metatron out of lightbulbs and toilet rolls in his garage, that nobody else ever gets to see or hear about.

The book in question is, needless to say, much anticipated. For now, the blog serves up Stephen’s refreshingly relevant occultism, subversive antics in the City, and obscure Voodoo vinyl, with rum & cigars aplenty.

Merrick has discovered Xtranormal, a website that lets you make little animated films online. Select backdrops, characters, move them around, and type in their dialogue—which gets spoken by voice synthesizers. Which, of course, sound hilarious if you make them swear a lot.

Having got past the initial juvenile—and cripplingly funny—bout of gangsta-rap parody, Merricks still fears he “may never blog in another format ever again”. But with gems like the one I’ve embedded below, mercilessly nailing the woeful orgy of confused stupidity that was the European elections—is this such a bad thing?

As you’ve probably guessed from my sparse posting this year, I’m busy. This bittersweet situation continues unabated, to the extent that even my “check this out” posts aren’t half as frequent as my noticing good shit out there.

Top of my current list of things that warrant me doing a Moses on the Red Sea of busyness bearing down on me, to bring my dear readers’ attention to it, is Dorian Cope’s new blog, On This Deity: Commemorating Culture Heroes & Excavating World Events.

Billing it as “an alternative ‘On This Day’”, for a good few weeks now Dorian’s been posting every few days on some birth, death, or other significant event that took place on that date. The focus is on visionaries and radicals from everywhere on that riotous spectrum: from the death of Maud Gonne (muse to W.B. Yeats and bold revolutionary in her own right) to the release of ‘God Save The Queen’; from Oscar Wilde’s release from Reading Gaol to the straw that broke the back of the camel in the way of me writing this, a remembrance of Helen Keller’s death, and a reminder of her radical political views.

Dorian and her indefatigable husband Julian have been staunch and forthright supporters of my writing and publishing since we met in 1996. What makes this much more than an obligatory reciprocation is the pleasure of seeing Dorian’s razor-sharp perceptions and infectious energy, which have inspired me endlessly in conversations over the years, transfer so well to writing. Her posts popping up several times a week in my feed aggregator have the habit of quickly creating a bubble of attentiveness, within which she paints a vivid picture of a moment in radical history. It’s a steady stream of historical nourishment—feast away!

My good (if somewhat scatophilic) friend Merrick always has a good aim when it comes to bringing the hammer down on political nails. Perhaps the British National Party is an easy target, and picking apart their promotional literature verges on nuking sharks in an egg cup. However, if only for the satisfyingly succinct writing, I heartily recommend my readers to his latest post, ‘British Jobs for Polish Workers‘. I can’t recall the last time I saw sleazy propaganda so thoroughly demolished.

While you’re at it, do read his take on the MP expenses row. Has there been a more just and rational solution to the second home issue than making MPs eligible for Housing Benefit? I think not.

The International Arts Pestival—a celebration of insects in the arts and the art of being an insect—is looking for volunteers for this year’s event, which will take place at the Southbank Centre in London, 3-6 September.

“Calling all insect workers, educationalists, artists and budding naturalists. . . . Reasonable out of pocket expenses paid.”

More details »

Last year me and a few others quietly put together an online discussion community whose aim was (in the words of the official blurb) “to promote a visible and intelligent discourse around the theory and practice of magic, spirituality and experiential religion”. We wanted a high signal-to-noise ratio, writing that could work as reasonable quality for readers as well as participants, and a respectful, good-natured, slowly-growing membership. Thus, Liminal Nation.

I, true to my preference for either a book or a pub to online discussion, have remained a shadowy background figure. However, by all accounts it’s gently thriving, and Dreamflesh readers who feel they might want to join in are encouraged to head over and apply.

Yeah, the application process was one of the moves to keep the whole thing troll- and bore-free. Sometimes not a popular idea for people who advocate a very simple “openness” on the net (are there many of those left in these days of 85% spam?), not to mention trolls and bores. To me it’s a no-brainer for the kind of site we’re looking to nurture. Freedom on the net includes the freedom to create your own space with its own rules, as long as they don’t infringe on others.

Anyway, you can read the discussions for yourself, read more about the site’s ethos, and apply if it looks like your cup of tea.

Two brief extracts on creativity from Clayton Eshleman’s marvellous poetic exploration of Palaeolithic cave art, Juniper Fuse:

Anton Ehrenzweig [from The Hidden Order of Art]: “Any creative search, whether for a new image or idea, involves the scrutiny of an often astronomical number of possibilities. The correct choice between them cannot be made by a conscious weighing up of each single possibility cropping up during the search; if attempted it would only lead us astray. A creative search resembles a maze with many nodal points. From each of these points many possible pathways radiate in all directions leading to further crossroads where a new network of high- and by-ways come into view. Each choice would be easy if we could command an aerial view of the entire network of nodal points and radiating pathways still lying ahead. This is never the case. If we could map out the entire way ahead, no further search would be needed. As it is, the creative thinker has to make a decision about his route without having the full information needed for his choice. This dilemma belongs to the essence of creativity.”

And:

If a “last line,” or “conclusion,” occurs to me upon starting to write, I have learned to put it in immediately, so it does not hang before me, a lure, forcing the writing to skew itself in order that this “last line” continues to make sense as such.

J.G. Ballard, a hugely important writer and considerable influence on my own thought, has died.

I spoke to him once. In Leeds, 1994, I decided to start publishing a zine about dreams, and loved the mock-corporate feel that lifting its title from Ballard’s novel The Unlimited Dream Company would give it. Slightly naive about publishing law and etiquette, and probably looking for a little approval from an idol, I decided to give Ballard a call and ask if he’d be OK with it. Having no landline, I went out and phoned directory enquiries from a phone box.

“I’m trying to get in touch with a friend, and I’ve lost their details,” I lied. “The name’s Ballard, and they live in Shepperton—if you have a look and if there’s only one that’s probably them.” I don’t think they were supposed to, but they gave me the number, which I called straight away.

“Is that J.G. Ballard?” I asked. “Yes,” came the clipped, confident accent. “The writer J.G. Ballard?” I asked, I little dumbstruck. He was very courteous and when I told him about my zine and asked for his address to send him a copy, he complied. He sent me a postcard of the Wat Buddhapadipa Temple in Wimbledon, explaining that as long as I wasn’t planning on calling a novel The Unlimited Dream Company, I was fine legally, and wished me well with the venture.

Reading the book J.G. Ballard: Quotes when it came out (one of several essential Ballard volumes from RE/Search Publications), mostly on buses and tubes around London, the extent to which he has acted as the modern world’s most canny prophet sank in deeply.

Even though he was recognized to an extent within his lifetime, his death comes during a period when the relevance of his work has become quite crucial. Celebrity culture, media morbidity, the death of affect, the pathologies of sensationalism, ecological catastrophe… Terrible things to be so right about; but it was a monumental achievement to face them with stoicism and a relentless eye for possibilities.

Everywhere is infinitely exciting, given the transforming power of the imagination.

J.G. Ballard