Archive for January 2008

On Sunday I did my first real public talk, promoting Archaeologies of Consciousness at the wonderful Libra Aries bookshop in Cambridge. I'm sure the short course on public speaking that I did near the end of last year in Bristol helped (run very ably by John Dawson). But in the... More »

I was browsing in a bookshop the other day, and happened across the latest edition of Christopher Hyatt's Undoing Yourself (2002). I flicked very briefly through it, but immediately came across a section that very pointedly overturned some of my recent inferences about Hyatt's Reichian model for removing fucked-up human... More »

I rarely get tagged with "blog memes", and rarely feel like doing them anyway. But the redoubtable Jim has tagged me with something that resonates strongly with my current state of mind, so I'll play along. The idea is to list seven things that you're in favour of---with no tricksy use... More »

I never write music reviews. Occasionally I'll write a post about a band or album I've discovered and say a few words, but I'm intensely dissatisfied with any attempt I make to really write about music. Obviously it's to do with it being about trying to verbalize the non-verbal---but what sort... More »

I'm breaking the habit of my life so far and actually sticking my neck out in public to promote my essays book, Archaeologies of Consciousness. Although the book's technically been out for a couple of months already, the official "launch event" is to happen at the fantastic Treadwell's Books in Covent... More »

I'm hoping to get into a more regular flow with writing this year, and I'm kicking off with a review of a great little book I've just read, Louis A. Sass's The Paradoxes of Delusion, which unveils perspectives on schizophrenia that radically challenge the usual idea of it as an... More »

Currently, I can't not listen to Saul Williams' new album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust. I hadn't heard of Saul Wiliams before seeing him support Nine Inch Nails a few years ago, and I grabbed his excellent eponymous album the day after the gig. Trent Reznor's production of... More »

I've decided to have another go with Christopher Hyatt's excellent book of Sufi-Reichian-Zen exercizes, Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation. Not that it didn't work first time. Back in '95 the book helped propel me into what is probably my most intense, sustained period of "alteration" thus far in my life. But,... More »