Blog Archives
The Piltdown Hoax
On December 18, 1912 antiquarian and lawyer Charles Dawson announced that he had discovered the skull of a “missing link” in the human fossil record. The thick skull and the large jaw satisfied many that Dawson’s discovery was indeed a specimen that demonstrated the connection between monkeys and men. It might have been one of [...]
Happy Birthday, PKD!
Readers of this blog know that I love Philip K. Dick. Dick is one of my all time favorite authors — he was a poster-boy for tortured artists, an active participant in the counterculture of his day, an incredibly prolific author, and a mystic visionary whose life was full of strange happenings that blurred the [...]
The First Saturnalia
According to the Wiki, December 17, 497 BC marked the start of the first-ever Saturnalia holiday in ancient Rome. You’ve gotta love that Roman record-keeping, and the revelry, gift-giving and sacrifices of that celebration made up “the best of days” according to the poet Catullus. The Saturnalia season is the pre-cursor to many of our [...]
Arthur C. Clarke and the Unexplained
Today we celebrate the birthday of Arthur C. Clarke. We lost Clarke in March of 2008. Before that, Clarke discovered an ancient temple while scuba diving in Sri Lanka, invented the geosynchronous communications satellite, penned the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey with Stanley Kubrick, and — along with Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov — [...]
Cohen Intelligence Agency
I’ve blogged about Leonard Cohen’s use of LSD on this illuminated scroll before. Today as I was sorting stories for the Remnants Flipboard when I came across this bizarre report from Abel Danger about Leonard Cohen’s involvement with early CIA LSD experiments in the 1950′s. Here’s the word… The man in the photo, taken at [...]
The Geodesic Dome at 65
Buckminster Fuller is one of my heroes and I wanted to add this post to celebrate the the 65th anniversary of his greatest project in 1949. Here’s some of the Wiki about the great architect/inventor/philosopher’s Geodesic Dome… Fuller taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina during the summers of 1948 and 1949,[17] serving as [...]
Unfinished Kubrick
On November 28, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was re-released in remastered, digital form in the UK. I haven’t been able to confirm when it will be screening in the U.S. but I’m hoping that some form of BFI’s sci-fi celebration will be making its way to the states soon. While the spacefaring film [...]
Remembering Debord
Been having some trouble sleeping lately. Actually, I’ve been falling right to sleep, but I keep waking up in the middle of the night for an hour or so with some minor nightmare that seems connected to the anxiousness I feel upon fully waking. Of course, the only thing to do is to make myself [...]
Insomnia Gives Thanks
Thanksgiving is an important day: It marks the beginning of the traditional holiday season for most white, Christian Americans and it reminds all of us immigrants of when we first began to call this land our home. These events have importance in and of themselves and should not be dismissed. However, the world is a [...]
Wasted in Wonderland
Another recent viewing of random programs on Nashville’s over-the-air digital television paid off this past Saturday night when my girlfriend and I discovered this mind-blowing trip of a flick based on Lewis Carroll’s books. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a 1972 British musical that features a great cast in a psychedelic journey that makes Tim [...]
