In this installment: A report on the new type of futurism that’s being spearheaded by highly regarded scientists and scholars for the purpose of studying the reality and scope of existential threats to human survival. The triumph of fear as a central motivating reality in contemporary geopolitics. The global plague of feral pigs. Renowned author…
Author: Matt Cardin
Teeming Brain founder and editor Matt Cardin is the author of DARK AWAKENINGS, DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP, A COURSE IN DEMONIC CREATIVITY: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO THE INNER GENIUS, and TO ROUSE LEVIATHAN. He is also the editor of BORN TO FEAR: INTERVIEWS WITH THOMAS LIGOTTI and the academic encyclopedias MUMMIES AROUND THE WORLD; GHOSTS, SPIRITS, AND PSYCHICS: THE PARANORMAL FROM ALCHEMY TO ZOMBIES; and HORROR LITERATURE THROUGH HISTORY.
Orson Welles on Chartres Cathedral, authorship, and the purpose of human existence
And this has been standing here for centuries. The premier work of man perhaps in the whole Western world, and it’s without a signature: Chartres. A celebration to God’s glory and to the dignity of man. All that’s left, most artists seem to feel these days, is man. Naked, poor, forked radish. There aren’t any…
Art, creativity, fate, and the end of the world: Revisiting Joseph Campbell
When The Power of Myth, the six-part PBS television series featuring Bill Moyers interviewing Joseph Campbell, first broke upon the unsuspecting American public in 1988, it became an instant sensation and Campbell became an instant celebrity (I mean in a pop cultural sense, beyond and in addition to the substantial academic fame he had already…
Boston and the age of surveillance: “It was like a science fiction movie”
Neil M. Richards, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education: We were living in an age of surveillance before the Boston Marathon bombing, but the event and its investigation produced calls for much greater monitoring of our cities and our lives. The media narrative of the investigation,…
Disruption, catastrophe, and resilience in a hyperfast, hyperconnected world
From The Chronicle of Higher Education, a thought-provoking examination of the ins and outs, both philosophical and practical, of the contemporary reality of disasters, catastrophes, and “resilience” — a word and concept that, as the article points out, is currently all the rage among scholars and policy wonks: In all, [Japan’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear…
Steven Soderbergh on “present shock” and the state of cinema
If you’re interested in books and ideas that explore the soul of a culture and civilization that in many ways seems to be flinging itself apart at the seams — and I know this describes most Teeming Brain readers — then be advised that Douglas Rushkoff’s Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, published in March,…
Flying cars and the “world of tomorrow” that never was
You know all of those excellent articles and essays that have appeared in recent months to explore the rosy science fiction-esque visions of our real-world future that characterized American culture during most of the 20th century? (Recall that we noted one of the best of them, David Graeber’s “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate…
‘Monarchs of Money’: How central bankers became the new ruling class
A new short documentary from the CBC titled The Monarchs of Money explains in hair-raising and gut-punching detail how “The world’s central banks have printed unimaginable amounts of money in recent years. Neil Macdonald explores what this means for the global economy and for your financial well-being.” There’s also an accompanying written report, billed as…
H. P. Lovecraft: A rabidly racist, almost fascist, deeply repressed, and perfectly lovely person
Despite a number of stylistic and grammatical/syntactical gaffes and oddities that appear in a newly published biographical sketch of dear old Howard Lovecraft at the Website Machinations into Madness — see especially the first sentence quoted below, which is both incomprehensible and strangely fascinating — the piece captures something really vital about the man, or…
Alan Watts: “The Real You”
“It’s absolutely necessary that we let go of ourselves, and it can’t be done, not by anything that we call ‘doing it’ — acting, willing, or even just accepting things. . . . When you look out of your eyes at nature happening ‘out there,’ you’re looking at you. That’s the real you, the you…