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:
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more
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.
Read more
Read more
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.”‘
Read more
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.
Read more
The past decade or so has seen an intermittent but healthy blossoming of various conferences and festivals celebrating intercourse between esoteric thought and the wider culture, between academic and fringe archaeologies, between the many varied disciplines and perspectives that any serious-minded, open-hearted student of consciousness gets embroiled in. Thankfully there’s been no centre to this flowering, no bloom that has easily outshone the rest; but the Occulture Festival, back after a 6-year break, has been one of the more colourful (see my review of the 2003 event).
Read more