Next up at the October Gallery in London, on Tuesday October 29th, we’ve got the anthropologist and filmmaker Hugh Brody. He’ll be discussing his 40-year career studying, living with, and fighting for hunter-gatherer peoples such as the Inuit and the Kalahari Bushmen.
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This autumn, the founder and host of the Ecology, Cosmos & Consciousness lecture series, David Luke, is on sabbatical in the wilds of Wales. He’s passed the baton on to yours truly to bring you some stimulating Tuesday evening salons at the October Gallery in London.
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I just finished watching a remarkable DVD from anthropologist / filmmaker Hugh Brody. Tracks Across the Sand follows the progress of a land claim made by ‡Khomani San people, hunter-gatherers indigenous to the Kalahari Desert, who were driven into destitute exile in townships by European colonists.
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On 1st June 2013 I’m doing the 11-mile trek up Ben Nevis to raise money for Survival International. Survival is the only organization working worldwide for tribal people’s land rights and human rights.
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A great bout of intellectual riffing. Around 1:04 there’s some clarification from Dennis about the issues raised in this post. But the rest is worth a listen, too.
http://soundcloud.com/kevin-m-oconnor/evolver-mckenna-rushkoff-small
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I haven’t read Jared Diamond’s new book, The World Until Yesterday. I’ve enjoyed his other work, and this one seems interesting. I read Wade Davis’ recent book The Wayfinders. I’m so immersed in more in-depth works looking at tribal and foraging cultures that such accessible, popular fare isn’t quite juicy enough to really galvanize me. But Davis is a good writer, and it’s naturally heartening that there are more popular books flying the flag for indigenous people. On this level, while I’m not sure when or if I’ll get round to Diamond’s book, I’m glad it exists.
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After the last post, a reminder of Terence McKenna’s floor-wiping verbal magic. I think this is the earliest talk of his I’ve heard, 1982—and it certainly bears out Bruce Damer’s impression that McKenna as a speaker arrived “fully formed” in the public eye.
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Note: Please read this comment first as a caveat. See also Dennis’ clarification around 1:04 in this fascinating talk with Douglas Rushkoff.
Now that we’re shot of the “2012 phenomenon”, it seems to be a ripe time for reassessing the legacy of Terence McKenna. Just as significant as the non-arrival of the eschaton seems to be the public revelation that at the end of the ’80s, Terence experienced a mushroom trip that terrified him with a vision of absolute meaninglessness. Apparently he never took mushrooms again—and only took ayahuasca and DMT from that point on infrequently and with extreme trepidation. This has emerged from his brother Dennis’ recent book The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss, and has gained wider attention via a podcast from the Psychedelic Salon.
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In 1993 I moved to Leeds and quickly hit on the idea of starting a zine documenting and exploring dreams. I thought the title of J.G. Ballard’s wonderful The Unlimited Dream Company would be ideal. 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.
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A short extract from a speech by Charlie Kaufman, with images by Eliot Rausch:
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