Everybody has seen those lists of rules that writers sometimes come up with for advising others on how to perform the literary art and craft. Mark Twain famously embedded some real writing advice in his mostly snarky/facetious identification of “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses.” George Orwell’s offered five rules for writers in “Politics and the English…
Author: The Teeming Brain
The Teeming Brain is a blog magazine exploring the intersection of religion, horror, the paranormal, creativity, consciousness, and culture. It also tracks apocalyptic and dystopian trends in technology, politics, ecology, economics, the arts, education, and society at large.
Study links mind-body dualism to unhealthy behaviors
First, a philosophical review for those who need it: as a philosophical term the word “dualism” refers to the belief in a fundamental split between the mind and the body, and more broadly between the mind and the physical world. It is classically associated with Descartes, who in the seventeenth century proposed that reality consists…
“Mossgrove / Bed of Moss” (SHORT FILM in 2 parts)
In distinct contrast to the surreal metaphysical/ontological grunge and horror of “Metachaos,” our other cinematic suggestion for today, here’s a linked pair of positively lovely short films, set to beautiful solo piano music and focusing on certain aspects of the natural world that usually go unnoticed by us humans. The paired title is “Mossgrove/Bed of…
“Metachaos” (SHORT FILM)
For the first of this week’s Cinema Purgatorio offerings, we’ve chosen a short, surreal experimental film that is, hands down, one of the most challenging, engrossing, and overwhelming cinematic experiences on multiple levels — visceral, emotional, aesthetic, philosophical — that we’ve come across in ages. Like so many other items that we’ll be featuring in…
“Metamorphosis” (SHORT FILM)
This post will launch our Cinema Purgatorio feature, wherein each Wednesday we’ll share one or more finds from the Internet’s rich trove of cinematic fascination. Whatever else may be true of the current state of our digital media-driven way of life — which flirts in so many ways with dystopian disaster — it’s a golden…
The official Teeming Brain posting schedule
In the past The Teeming Brain has proceeded on a schedule dictated by personal, mercurial whims, energy levels, and availability. But for those of you among the extended teem (as we like to think of our readers) who prefer some structure and regularity to your online engagement, we’ve now got you covered. Here’s the official…
Important for all Teeming Brain subscribers: Update your subscriptions to the new site
It’s crucially important for all Teeming Brain email and RSS subscribers at the old WordPress.com site to resubscribe here at the new site. See the simple process near the top of the right-hand column. This reminder is one of the final updates that will be sent both to the old list and to the new…
Cosmic awe: The religious experience in (and of) space
A very nice read about religious experience as associated with space travel, enhanced by quotations from an international roster of astronauts. For many people, space represents its own religion, a spiritual experience on its own, secular terms, with no help from the divine or ancient rituals. But for those who believe and travel into space,…
Obama quietly gives gov’t control of US communications. Foreign press spooked while American press snoozes.
“President Obama has quietly issued an executive order that, in a state of emergency, prioritizes government communication over civilian.” So states CNN Newsroom (“Government re-prioritizing US communication,” July 9, 2012) in a sentence whose single adverb, “quietly,” resounds with unsettling connotations to complement its already unsettling informational content. Dana Kerr elaborates for CNET: President Barack…
U.S. corn growers “farming in hell” as drought, heat portend another global food price spike
Things are grim if you’re a U.S. corn farmer right now: The worst U.S. drought since Ronald Reagan was president is withering the world’s largest corn crop, and the speed of the damage may spur the government to make a record cut in its July estimate for domestic inventories. Tumbling yields will combine with the…