Recently someone named Travis added me to his friends list on Facebook. His name was terribly familiar, so I messaged him - "Your name is familiar, can you refresh my memory of when we knew each other?" I did a bit more digging and realized he'd gone to one of the high schools I attended. The first of four.
Still. His name. I had the nagging feeling I *should* remember him. So I emailed a few friends from that high school. One wrote back:
"Yeah, we went to high school with Travis. I dated him freshman year (if you can call it that) - when we broke up he wrote 'bitch' on my locker. Nice, eh?
Actually he was a nice guy. I also knew his little sister in cheer leading. Good lord, did I just admit that I did cheer leading?! Sorry."
Another called me to talk:
"Oh yeah, Travis. *TRAVIS. Don't you remember him? We cut school with him and his friend that day, and he said I looked like the kind of girl who'd have hairy ankles."
"He said that?"
"Well I didn't, I mean, he just said I looked like I would. Yeah, I internalized all that shit. It's been haunting me for years."
Hm. Still no clue. So I added him back, let him see my limited profile, and browsed his photos, thinking maybe it would spark some recognition. I hate that, the nagging feeling like I SHOULD know someone, and I just can't place that person in any sort of context or memory.
But, you know, he kind of sounds like an asshole. So maybe it's best I don't remember.
*I love when someone tries to refresh your memory by repeating the same word. "Travis! You know, Travis? TRAVIS. He was Travis! Come on."
Like so many literary critics, Kitchen has the ability to crack open a poem. Her comments on internal sound relationships between words in "Traveling Through the Dark" is worth the price of the book (by the way it is on remainder at Powell's Books).
In the end, it fits with my summer theme because it is a story about beliefs. Stafford believed that language matters and it is important to teach language to incline toward peace. He brought about peace by reminding all of us of our own humanity, fragility, and open-ended mystery. He was not an Oregon poet, Kansas poet, or U.S. poet. Stafford was a poet-philosopher who helped the world understand what it means to be a human being.
In an apparant contrast to Kitchen's book, I finally read Sam Harris' The End of Faith, one of my new favorite books. Like Letters to a Christian Nation, Harris is rough on liberal theists for their blind tolerance of irrational thinking from their more radical bretheren. To that end, he actually defends more extreme theologies as a more adequate representation of the texts that they celebrate.
Some people my criticize Harris as being anti-spiritiual or angry. These people have not read the entire book. Harris, like Stafford, is a passionate advocate for love, compassion, humility, mystery, and spirituatlity. What he really wants to see is a world in which people use their heads and openly invite civilization forward. Also, he makes a compelling argument supporting the dangers in not helping the world abandon theism. For anybody concerned about the rold of religion in current affairs, this book is a must read.
For me, the most challenging section of the book was Harris' critique of pacifism. I will write about pacifism in a seperate blog post. It is an issue worthy of its very own mini-essay.
Last night I finished Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams. I am reading it as part of a book club at work. Like the Kitchen and Harris books, it dealt with how people fold belief into their experience of suffering. Kingsolver seems to take a more mythopoeic approach to faith than Harris, Stafford, or Kitchen; though, she does seem a bit like Stafford.
A chapter toward the end of the book called "Ground Orientation" dragged as a muddled through the history of one of the main character, but the rest of the book chugged along like a fast train in the barren desert. I liked it, but I did not love it. I'll tell the truth, it made me cry. It had the quality of a really well made Hollywodd film, but it did not bring me toward seeing the world in any kind of new way. It did remind me of the power of love, death, and family. Three things that we cannot forget when we want to find love in a world that offers up question marks and suffering alongside sunrises and open sky.
You cannot call yourself a past or present comic book geek unless you have read Alan Moore's 'The Watchmen'. When I heard that movie was being made I scoffed at the idea.. there was no way this could be done. In fact I was almost right... this movie had been in the rumored status since 1986.... which at times feels like the often rumored but never seen 'Duke Nukem Forever' game. In other words... "There is no freakin-way this is ever going to happen"...
But it has happened.... it is coming out....
To view some high quality Quicktime... go to Apple's Website.
Some of my favorite lines:
- Police Detective: I think you take this vigilante stuff too seriously. Since the Keene Act was passed in '77 only the government-sponsored weirdos are active. They don't interfere.
- Detective Steve Fine: Screw them. What about Rorschach? Rorschach never retired, even after him and his buddies fell out of grace. Rorschach's still out there somewhere. He's crazier than a snake's armpit and wanted on two counts of Murder One. We got a cozy little homicide here. If he gets involved, we'll be up to our butts in corpses.
- Happy Harry the Bartender: [scared] Ruh. Ror. Ror. Rorschach! Har Har How are ya doin', fella?
- Rorschach: I'm fine, Happy Harry. Yourself?
- Happy Harry: Fine! I'm fuh, I'm fine! And I'm, and I'm, and I'm glad you're fine too! And uh, and uh... Oh God. Please don't kill anybody.
Here's a very nice post from Scott Bourne of MacBreak Weekly and the Apple Phone Show from last week: I Saw A Little History Yesterday Thanks to Leo Laporte.
Scott says a number of very nice things, including this excerpt:
Leo managed to make sure things kept rolling even though the iPhone was covered non-stop for 24 hours. Again, this is not easy. I was pretty excited by the variety of topics and opinions that were presented as was the audience.
Now let’s look at what really happened. At any given second, between 7000 and 8000 people were watching LIVE. The cumulative audience for the event was just under 300,000! These are cable TV numbers folks without the Cable TV! We constantly had about 600-700 people on chat joining in as well.
The streaming part of this was amazing. The folks at Stickam did a great job. Streaming media has come a very long way since I started delivering radio with the Internet at NetRadio in the 90s. We could never support an audience that large simultaneously.Many of my listeners commented that it felt like the old TechTV days. I have to agree.
Leo’s been on the bleeding edge of technology media from day one. He’s always innovating and always trying to find new ways to serve his audience.
As far as I know, nothing has ever been done like this in the brief history of new media. To do 24-hour, live, streaming coverage of a single event in front of an audience of this size is a staggering achievement.
I am a gamer... it is a known fact that this drives the Mrs bonkers. She is not so much into video games... however she is cool enough to play co-op games with me and she will also watch me play an RPG as she is interested in the storyline.
I am a kid of the 80s as well and today... I saw this video and I sighed... ahhhh the long gone days of the classic arcade.
I would play Star Wars, Q-bert, Frogger, Space Invaders and then later it was Gauntlet and Contra. /sigh
Writer and reporter Louis Sahagun joins us to discuss his amazing new book, “Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall” available from Process Media. Louis’ book is an incredibly well-researched and revealing a biography of Manly Hall that contains so many previously unknown facts and stories that it is simply amazing. This book is a must-read for anyone that considers themselves a student of Hall and his work, or is simply interested in how a man came from almost nothing and made himself into one of the greatest teachers of his generation.
Our conversation begins by discussing how Louis came to know Hall and his work and describes his approach to writing the book as a history of Hall and the city of Los Angeles growing up together. Next, we talk about Manly Hall’s early life and how he began his career as a teacher and seer. In the early years, Hall was identified with Rosicrucianism, as were some of his contemporaries, including Max Heindel’s widow, Augusta, and H. Spencer Lewis. We get into Hall’s history as a Freemason and how this affected the subject matter of his writings and lectures. We trace the progression from writings on Magic, Tarot, Alchemy, and Freemasonry to his later works on mysticism, meditation, Eastern philosophy, and comparative religion. We also discuss the later years and Hall’s very mysterious death at the hands of the man who was supposed to be his friend and aide. Hall’s accomplishments are legion, including the hundreds of books, thousands of lectures, and the Philosophical Research Society that still stands as a living monument to the Wisdom of the Ages compiled by Hall during his lifetime.
I would encourage you to obtain and read a copy of Louis Sahagun’s “Master of the Mysteries” (also available from Amazon). It reveals the man behind the mysteries, telling all the details of Hall’s life that, apparently, not even very close friends knew. The result is a portrait of a genius who was driven to accomplish great things, as well as a human being. By doing this, Louis Sahagun brings us much closer to the man and his works - a truly great accomplishment.
“The 21st century has an extreme reminiscence to the 21st year of a person’s life. It is a year of coming of age … when a person becomes an adult… Mankind has not the right to take a beautiful world with all its privileges and opportunities and turn it into a purgatory. This situation should remind Freemasons that they have something to live for. We have the power to build worlds, the wisdom to govern them, and the divine right to inherit the earth and preserve it in good condition in order to pass it on to our descendents as a place of happiness, usefulness and security for thousands of years to come. We’re not asking for treason. We’re not asking for disobedience. We’re only asking … that in every way possible, when they have the choice, stand for truth and, if necessary, take a little punishment for it.”
- Manly Palmer Hall, 26 May 1990, Scottish Rite Temple, Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, California (p. 1-2 of Sahagun’s “Master of the Mysteries”)
relevant links:
“Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall” by Louis Sahagun (also available from Amazon.com)
“The Great Work of Manly Hall”
“The Mysterious Career of Manly P. Hall” by Mitch Horowitz in episode 6 of Sub Rosa magazine
“Podcast 21 - Mitch Horowitz” - Mitch and I spend the last portion of the show discussing Manly Hall
Philosophical Research Society
University of Philosophical Research
“The Secret Teachings of All Ages” by Manly P. Hall
“Lectures on Ancient Philosophy” by Manly P. Hall
“The Secret Destiny of America” by Manly P. Hall
“The Lost Keys of Freemasonry (Also Includes: Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians / Masonic Orders of Fraternity)” by Manly P. Hall
“Road to Inner Light” by Manly P. Hall
intro music by HipGnosis
outro music by The Doors, excerpt of “Riders On the Storm”
original link -- http://www.occultofpersonality.com/2008/07/09/podcast-49-louis-sahagun-and-the-master-of-the-mysteries/
direct link to download .mp3 audio file -- http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/72/0/OoP_Podcast49_Sahagun_it.mp3
I am not much into musicals... out of all of the movies and music I am a nutjob over you would think I loved musicals.... well I can tell you that I like a couple.
This may be in that list...
Feeling in a pretty good mood at the moment... however I noticed something
odd this morning.
I put my iPod on shuffle and it proceeded to play 4 Danzig songs in a row.
I stopped it... verified it was on shuffle....
Started it over...
It began playing another Danzig song....
Awwww crap... what is going to happen today?
