Before the links, a brief screed that arose spontaneously from some well in my psyche: If you’re a writer or another type of creator, never compare your gift to that of others. Your particular gift of vision, subject matter, passion, skill level, style, approach, and the life circumstances in which these all exist and unfold…
Tag: UFOs
Teeming Links – March 29, 2019
I have to start this edition of Teeming Links with a very special message: Vale and R.I.P., Wilum H. Pugmire, 1951-2019. Wilum died this week after several years of troubled health, and the news hit me hard even though it has been quite some time since I spoke with him.
Teeming Links – March 15, 2019
In light of yesterday’s awful mosque attacks in New Zealand, I feel led to start with this except from a 2003 PBS interview with Thich Nhat Hanh. After an extensive conversation about Buddhism, Christianity, mindfulness, and other such matters, and their relationship to gritty large-scale matters of war and violence, the interaction ends with this:…
Teeming Links – March 8, 2019
Has it really been more than a year since I published a Teeming Links post? It would seem so. The last one is dated October 2017. Chalk it up to the fact that I’m deep into a Ph.D. and now buried in my dissertation. And also the fact that 2018 was the most insane race-to-the-finish-line…
What is real, anyhow? Erik Davis on visionary experiences and the high weirdness of the seventies counterculture
Last night I digitally stumbled across this: High Weirdness: Visionary Experience in the Seventies Counterculture It’s Erik Davis’s senior thesis, written as he was pursuing his Ph.D. in religious studies at Rice University, and submitted just last fall. You’ll recall that I mentioned Erik’s study of this same high weirdness last year (and that he…
Teeming Links – June 20, 2014
Pandemic plague? Nuclear holocaust? Lethal asteroid strike? No worries: in case of planetary disaster, plans are afoot to use the moon as off-planet storage for the religious, cultural, and even genetic trappings of humanity. Meanwhile, back here on earth, philosopher Mary Midgely (currently 94 years old) warns of impending catastrophe in a culture of scientism…
Teeming Links – March 21, 2014
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Why great artists need solitude: because it “heightens artistic receptivity in a way that can be challenging and painful.” The Obama administration aggressively prosecutes leakers. It electronically spies on those who might speak to journalists. It deploys its own counter-media to confuse and evade scrutiny by the press….
Teeming Links – September 13, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Far Away from Solid Modernity (Revolution: Global Trends and Regional Issues) Zygmunt Bauman on liquid modernity and our unfolding apocalypse. “[We live in a society] which, moving relentlessly towards the apocalypse, does not care (does not want to care or is not able to) about the security and…
Teeming Links – August 23, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Today’s invocation comes from author and cultural historian Mike Jay, author of last year’s The Influencing Machine, slated for U.S. publication in January 2014 as A Visionary Madness. The article’s tagline states the basic thesis, which articulates an uncanny experience, sensation, and intuition that we’ve all had with…
Teeming Links – July 23, 2013
Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net For an overall commentary on this particular crop of fascinating, worthwhile, disturbing, and/or necessary reading and viewing, see “Alan Moore: The revolution will be crowd-funded,” recently published at Salon. In this interview, “the ‘Watchmen’ creator talks about his new Kickstarter-funded film series, zombies and the surveillance state.” Most…