Author Archives: Joe Nolan
John Frum Will Come
The other night Antonia and I were watching something or other on Netflix. When it was over we stumbled upon Into the Inferno and I was like, “Whoa. This is that new Herzog flick.” If you’re familiar with Herzog’s films you know that he’s into extreme nature: jungles, grizzly bears, Antarctica, volcanoes. You also know [...]
Buk Toons
For some reason the fall always seems like the most poetic season — the best season for writing and reading verse. I think it has something to do with darkness. I think it has something to do with the cold and the damp that begins to creep into the coming Southern winter. I think it [...]
Memories of McKenna
Here’s how Wikipedia defines psychonaut: Psychonautics (from the Greek ψυχή psychē ["soul", "spirit" or "mind"] and ναύτης naútēs ["sailor" or "navigator"] – “a sailor of the soul”[1]) refers both to a methodology for describing and explaining the subjective effects of altered states of consciousness, including those induced by meditation or mind-altering substances, and to a [...]
Young Journey
If you were in Nashville last night you could’ve caught Neil Young’s directorial debut, 1974′s Journey Through the Past at the Belcourt Theatre. The film combines concert performances, and candid footage of Young during his early recording career with Buffalo Springfield, CSNY and during his first solo outings. Young mixes the music movies together with [...]
Chupacabra Sucks
My interest in the occult, UFO’s, and the paranormal probably all began with the Bigfoot episode of Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of television series. I still find the look of those shows and the creepy synthesized music to be so chilling, and the Bigfoot episode gave me nightmares for years. That said, the possibility of [...]
The Story of Bear
Leonard Cohen died last week. Leonard Cohen told us “Things are gonna slide – slide in all directions. Won’t be nothin’ you can measure any more. The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold, and it’s overturned the order of the soul. When they said, ‘Repent,’ I wonder what they meant…” It’s crazy time, [...]
So Long
Antonia and I had been talking about Leonard Cohen tonight, eating a hotdog down the street, watching television screens displaying both Agnes Varda’s Cleo from 5 to 7 as well as the original Highlander film. With the sound off – Cleo had subtitles – it was interesting to see the parallel themes of the existential [...]
Marvel Magus
I’m not fanatical about comic books, but I’ve always enjoyed graphic stories of all kinds, and I’ve been impressed by much of Marvel’s screen universe especially the brooding Captain America: Winter Soldier, and Daredevil‘s first season on Netflix. I recently attended a preview for Doctor Strange and it’s got much to recommend to readers of [...]
Reich in Rearview
Props out to Ezra Buckley for hooking up a recent story about the death of Wilhelm Reich at Remnants. According to the Freud Quotes site the good doctor was… Wilhelm Reich, psychoanalyst, political theorist, pioneer of body therapies and prophet of the sexual revolution died 59 years ago, on November 3, 1957. Here’s their word [...]
Anderson vs Burroughs
Performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson was one of the only women inside of William Burrough’s clique of friends and collaborators during the 1970′s, while some critics were pointing to what they saw as misogyny in Burrougs’ writings and statements to the press, women like Anderson and punk priestess Patti Smith befriended WSB, and were [...]
