Consumerist Holy Daze

By Eian Orange
From daylight-less underground bomb shelter morning parades where civil vigilance complies with paranoid inheritance. Thank the forty-two phonies for freeing the minds of desperate backwoods rednecks with assault rifles everywhere. The country is proud to have you protecting us from the men in green and the little green men, and our arch-enemy f.e.m.a.

And what with all this composted confederate civil war grudge grinding kkk bullshit espoused by ten-gallon cowboy wannabes and makeshift militias culled under the spell of Nazarene tyranny. We believe all their sacred texts are all syllogistic tools for bio-chemical brainwashing. (from mouth to ear as would oral traditions) Using the words in these so-called holy books with their picture perfect anti-heroes to play either maiden, martyr, or murderer. So selfless and giving yet merciless. The grand Master, the apotheosis, yet there's always the darkness present to keep the celestial balance. Real Satanists aren't made, they're born. Real Christians aren't born, they're indoctrinated as such. They're taken and baptized to mark the beginning of their lives. Then communion to mark their adolescence

King Herod sure seemed convinced of trouble from the start.

What do the Ted Kaczinski's of the world think of this consumer nightmare? All these shopping mall gestapo working serial moms? Why didn't those fuckin box cutter-wielding C.I.A. activated assassins crash two planes into Nordstrom's and Fortunoff? Where's the Anthrax in the Christmas swine? Or Semtex candles for Khanukkah? Or Jack o' Lantern pumpkin IEDs on your neighbor's doorstep? Or the good ol' fashioned "cut your own turkey's head off and we'll boil and pluck the fucker for you free of charge!" campaigns for kids.

These post-summer/pre-winter holidays begin with Labor day and the West Indian day parade which both fell on the 5th of September this year. Quickly followed by a new holiday, one that now has, not just national, but global ramifications. One that is built on death, misery, and deceit. September 11th. Not the happiest of holidays, but it has become the international day of togetherness in sorrow, guilt, and a displaced sense of mourning even though the oh so tempting implementation of a lachrymal vessel stationed amongst the layman offerings would be entirely vampiric in nature.

But I say fuck these pinche putos, if one magicker can drain the powers of cattle then fuck it let's drain 'em dry. We will make blood sacrifices in preparation for the placement of the orgone-wrangling vessel.

Hot Catgirls and Cold Dead Philosophers R Us

By Mr. VI

OK, so it's confession time – who finds cat-girls hot? The fusion of animal and human, the exaggerated feline attitudes? Of course, here at Modern Mythology we don't really give a fig about gender, sex or species – except as interesting things to examine and play with, so please feel free to mentally ascribe your felinoid paramour any characteristics you damn well like, yes?

Perhaps in the spirit of overkill, we'd like to bring a dead Greek guy into the sexual equation – because let's be honest, a little necrophilia always spices things up. After all, copulating with corpses seems to sell well – just look at the amount of vampire-based Pornonormal Romance in your local bookshop.

Our ancient nec(e)rotic newcomer goes by the name of Xenophanes (Ξενοφάνης) which, roughly translated, means 'Of Foreign Appearance'. He's a playwright, philosopher and general interesting fellow known only by fragments.

Now, we don't know about you, but a guy with a name like that seems to us to be ripe for engaging in some heretical thought. It's like his mum named him 'X. The Edgy' on purpose, and he spent a great deal of time living up to it.

After all, he has a go at Homer and Hesiod, plus criticising the notion of a pantheon of anthropomorphic gods – sort of the equivalent of knocking Shakespeare, Keats, and the theory of General Relativity all at once.

There is No Beauty without some Strangeness of Proportion/ Section 7

By Brian George

The ghost of revolutions past

“Fire in its advance will catch all things by surprise and judge them.”—Heraclitus, Fragment 66

Hi Betawave,

You wrote, “Everywhere I see the claim that ‘many plant stems...were found to be bent smoothly, something like an iron bar subjected to high temperatures, then re-cooled into another shape.’ If this is by any means a COMMON occurrence in crop circles, why aren't samples being collected? Where's the graph of ‘looks like bent by human feet’ circles VS ‘looks like the stalk was genetically altered’ circles. I refuse to believe that stems are *most often* supernaturally bent when there's zero photographic or scientific evidence for every new circle.”

In a letter to Kepler, Galileo wrote, “"What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times?”

Even now, I can see the illustration in my fifth grade science book.

Here is Galileo pointing to the telescope, or to the moon. And here are the church officials and the famous academic philosophers—with looks of horror on their faces, and with their hands thrust out in gestures of refusal.

It is not clear whether this actually happened—either once or more than once, or in three-dimensional space—or whether the story was a theatrical construct by the scientist. In any case, the story has become true through many tens of thousands of repetitions. In the theatre of my memory, I can play out the scene as follows:

“No, Mr. Galileo, we will NOT look through your telescope! You cannot make us, and you will cause much trouble for yourself if you persist in these observations that there are ‘craters’ on the moon.”

Occupy Wall Street Update

Things are still unfolding so rather than give a full continued analysis now (I gave a perspective earlier here, which was picked up on Disinfo), I'd like to share a couple videos I've come across in the past few days.


There are many, many more examples of footage like this on YouTube if you look around. Girls getting penned up and maced, a guy getting stomped and dragged off.



Here's my thing: it seems to me that these protests are, relatively speaking few people, and that if they were left alone they could get their message out but it would likely fizzle away without too much incident. But the more the NYPD ratchets up the pressure, the more likely that something is going to snap. Do they not realize how close we are to a flashpoint in many areas in this country? Or do they know it and want that so the "story" can be about violent mobs?

Also, check out this commentary from the Guardian:

Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation –despite the latest police crackdown – sent out sparks across America, within days, inspiring hundreds of people to send pizzas, money, equipment and, now, to start their own movements called OccupyChicago, OccupyFlorida, in OccupyDenver or OccupyLA?
There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.
Is it really surprising they would like to have a word with the financial magnates who stole their future?
Just as in Europe, we are seeing the results of colossal social failure. The occupiers are the very sort of people, brimming with ideas, whose energies a healthy society would be marshaling to improve life for everyone. Instead, they are using it to envision ways to bring the whole system down.
But the ultimate failure here is of imagination. What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world's financial architecture, when anything seemed possible.

The 250 Year Old Bagua Master

The other day I quite randomly came upon the story of Li Ching-Yuen, the bagua master that reportedly lived around 250 years. This from Wikipedia, or the NY Times Obituary:

He began gathering herbs in the mountain ranges at the age of ten, and also began learning of longevity methods, surviving on a diet of herbs and rice wine. He lived this way for the first 100 years of his life. In 1749, when he was 71 years old, he moved to Kai Xian to join the Chinese army as a teacher of the martial arts and as a tactical advisor.
One of his disciples, the Taiji Quan Master Da Liu told of Master Li's story: at 130 years old Master Li encountered an older hermit, over 500 years old, in the mountains who taught him Baguazhang and a set of Qigong with breathing instructions, movements training coordinated with specific sounds, and dietary recommendations. Da Liu reports that his master said that his longevity "is due to the fact that I performed the exercises every day - regularly, correctly, and with sincerity - for 120 years."^[2]

Apocalyptic Imaginary: The Best of Modern Mythology 2011

A cover mockup based
on the MM site design.

James Curcio

After a short discussion with Rowan and some thought, I've decided on the full title for the anthology that will be hitting Amazon and other major retailers by the end of 2011. Apocalyptic Imaginary: The Best of Modern Mythology 2011. This will be a reaction to his class at SUNY Binghamton, "The Apocalyptic Imaginary," and will be used as core curriculum in his class in 2012, along with, I imagine, a piece or two from The Immanence of Myth, which featured prominently in this semester's class.

Here's my first stab at the copy, though I'm sure it'll morph a bit in the time it takes to prepare the text for publication:
This book captures and expands upon the unique commentary and analysis that has helped define the Modern Mythology project in 2011. Through the voices of many contributors, we collectively take a hard look at the blurred lines between narrative and truth, philosophy and literature, personal history and cultural memory. All of this is done with an eye towards the imagined apocalypse that is always just around the corner. Join in the discussion, and leave your cultural blinders at home.

You'll be able to pick up a copy of your own for $.99 as an eBook everywhere but Amazon (their pricing strategy forces it to a bottom price-point of $2.99), and the paperback should come in at around $16. I will announce the final price when it is laid out, as prices are based on final page counts.

Meanwhile, I'm preparing to get my bus tickets for my trip up there to sit in on the class the week of October 10th, and bounce off of Rowan's frenetic style as I have in the past.

We are also working to raise funds to help expand the reach and quality of this and other works that we do into 2012. Please pitch in a hand if you believe in the hard work many of us have put in over the past few years.

I guess this is as good a time as any to announce that I've been working to prepare myself for MA-PhD applications, alongside all the projects that you've seen come to life here. I feel that the classroom is as good a place as any to get these issues center stage, with the explicit subversive intent of exploding traditional ideas of academic formality. And with the state of corporate America these days, frankly, I don't want to have anything to do with it, and would rather put my effort where it is more likely to be understood and appreciated.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Occupy Wall Street: Civil War or Smokescreen?

By James Curcio

Wishful thinking

As many of you know by now, #occupywallstreet is going strong. Or, at least, a couple hundred more people are living on the NYC streets for the time being.


An Ampedstatus headline reports, "Full-Blown Civil War Erupts On Wall Street: As Reality Finally Hits The Financial Elite, They Start Turning On Each Other",

"Finally, after trillions in fraudulent activity, trillions in bailouts, trillions in printed money, billions in political bribing and billions in bonuses, the criminal cartel members on Wall Street are beginning to get what they deserve. As the Eurozone is coming apart at the seams and as the US economy grinds to a halt, the financial elite are starting to turn on each other. The lawsuits are piling up fast. Here’s an extensive roundup:
As I reported last week:"Goliath On The Ropes, Big Banks Getting Hit Hard, It’s A “Bloodbath” As Wall Street’s Crimes Blow Up In Their Face"

Time to put your Big Bank shorts on! Get ready for a run… The chickens are coming home to roost… The Global Banking Cartel’s crimes are being exposed left & right… Prepare for Shock & Awe…"

Full blown civil war? Really. How about full blown posturing? Some of the content in that post is interesting, but aside from the link-baiting in the title, little of it seems to have to do with the protests themselves, let alone any sort of civil war, between the banks or anyone else. That is not a phrase to use lightly. Let's take a look at a reasonable opinion from the other side of the revolutionary think-tank...

Anarchists and radical organizers have a bit of collective amnesia with regards to the “Battle of Seattle.” The kids in black bandanas were only a very small part of the coalition that shut down the city in October, 1999. Their acts of childish violence against a Starbucks may have become the lasting public image of the event, but they were hardly representative. The bulk of that anti-globalization protest was composed of labor unions, environmentalists, and other organized progressives. All of those groups have deep traditions based in the community organizing traditions of Saul Alinsky and Cesar Chavez. The real work of organizing bears little resemblance to the attention-grabbing “culture jammers.” The real work involves “talking to one person, then talking to another person, then talking to another.” Organizing is slow, difficult, often thankless, but deeply meaningful work. There are “rules,” you see, even for radicals.

Some of these points should be well taken, both by the enthusiastic, fresh-faced youth and by the older jaded activists that lived through the high-water mark of the 60s that Hunter S Thompson refers to in Fear and Loathing:

Rather than seeing one event, we are seeing our own wishes and fears projected on top of whatever this event may be. This, of course, is the frame of reference regarding the ubiquity of our narrative which is our bread and butter here on Modern Mythology. So let me propose the idea that our reaction to the 'non'-event of the Wall Street protest is a function of ourselves, a mirror. It is ideology itself that seems to drive the almost performance-art aspect of protests. Here's a clip from earlier today, showing a throng of cops and protesters, and the actions leading up to an arrest-

Last Rites Laurie Lipton

Interview with Laurie Lipton for The Immanence of Myth (Weaponized.)

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

The Immanence of Myth - Officially Released!

For Immediate Release: London, 12th of September 2011

Weaponized is proud to announce the publication of ‘The Immanence of Myth’, an anthology arranged by James Curcio of Mythos Media. This anthology includes conversations, art and articles with those in the creative process, from up-and-comers and long-time underground myth-makers to celebrated artists such as Laurie Lipton and David Mack.

It is available in print now through major retailers, and will be available in Kindle and other eBook formats autumn 2011. The Immanence of Myth will be core curriculum in "The Apocalyptic Imaginary," a 200 level comp lit course at Binghamton university, the first in what will hopefully be many classes to explore the interdisciplinary approach outlined within its pages.

About ‘The Immanence of Myth’:
Thinkers such as Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade, Karl Kerenyi, and many others have helped to popularize an awareness of the psychological significance of archaic myth inside, as well as outside, the ivory tower of academia. However, the vast majority of their work has been focused on understanding and legitimizing the myths of the past.

The Immanence of Myth uses a deep but also conversational, honest and even subversive approach towards looking at the issue of mythology in our lives today, especially as the book moves towards personal mythology and conversations with current mythic artists.

Synchronicity, Myth, and the New World Order: Part 2

By Charles Eisenstein 


The Matrix of Synchronicity

The aforementioned shortcomings in the New World Order (NWO) hypothesis are not cause to dismiss it entirely, for the nature of the flaws points to some deep truths. The conspiracists are onto something, something that is actually even more radical – and far more hopeful – than they imagine. So let us consider a riddle: If there is no conspiracy in the normal sense, then how to explain the evidence pointing to one? Let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater. When you look into the Kennedy assassination, or the history of suppression of unconventional energy technologies, or the cancer industry and the criminalization of alternative therapies, or any number of other issues, it sure can look like a conspiracy. If there isn't one, then we must discover some third explanation that doesn't turn a blind eye to some very incongruous events.

You may not think there is any such evidence. You may think that the well-documented human capacity to make meaning and perceive patterns where none exist is sufficient to explain the conspiracists' conclusions. After having read a fair amount of the literature with an open mind, I find that explanation too quickly dismissive. Even discounting the considerable selection bias that filters the evidence presented in conspiracy books, many of the coincidences remain striking. Moreover, there is something uncanny about the facility with which certain events lend themselves to conspiracy hypotheses. It is as if they are begging for it; for example, Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald before he could talk in court about his motive for assassinating President Kennedy. It looks like a conspiracy. It smells like a conspiracy. But is it a conspiracy?

The Flooding

From Thee Uncondemning Monk: 

Well do we have a story for you (most of the juicy bits are being held back until we know how this plays out and will be continued on St. Stephen's blog Shitty Bear's Corner).

As many of you may know, we here in Johnson City, NY to be exact, the dwelling place of St. Stephen (ov Thee Uncondemning Monk) has been hit by a Flood. To get you started on this devastating event see this New York Times article, Flooding Persisting in Southern Tier... or here, from our local Press & Sun Bulletin, Broome County could take years to recover from flood damage looking out our back door

As of now we do not know when the power will return, we heard it could be another five days (as the substations are all out). St. Stephen would like to say that, as of this moment, he is alright, the three family building has power via the generator (we will keep it running until we either have to return it, run out of money, or ideally, the power comes back on). And that there are many peoples that could use your help. We are doing all we to ensure that St. Stephen does not have to not have to abandon his apartment (but stuff is stuff, we will survive and do what needs to be done to keep ours safe).

UPDATE: "Our Building Might Be Condemned. This is how it looks," says St. Stephen.St. Stephen has recently spoken to NYSEG (electric and gas) and this was their opinion. We will know for sure as soon as code get here, but it does not look good at all. Updates to follow, as we are able.

All things considered, please consider donating to Thee Uncondemning Monk. Or visit our store... perhaps we should make up some flood shirts... got to keep going some how, and as we said, besides the little family we have and some members of TOPI (One True TOPI Tribe), no one (State or Fed Government) has been quick to respond; we are told FEMA will be coming... but we can't wait... we need to move now...

9/11 to High Tide

I'm told our parents celebrated 9/11 like it was some kind of holiday. Fly a plane into a building, years later they'll be having Macy's sales around it. I imagine that if scientists announced that a meteor was hurtling towards the Earth, a whole industry would spring out of it. Pharmeceutical profits would skyrocket. Meteor pills would be all the rage. And the parties. Holy fuck, the parties.

That's now how it happened though. High tide just came on coming, a little each year. We worked our way around it. When the subways flooded, we made barges. Marketplaces moved from street level to the second floor. We banded into groups. I've farmed on rooftops, built windmills out of metal scrap. Not everyone, of course. The transitional generation got it the worst. Unprepared and generally worthless, a lot of them withered away to nothing in the darkness over skinned knees and bruised prides.

I guess we were lucky to be born amongst the garbage and scrap cities. We banded together. We improvised, or we died. I was seven when the news media started reporting the 404 Attacks. Eight when the ever encroaching sea was half-jokingly called High Tide. Fifteen when I decided to be a joiner, changed my name to a number (79, if you're wondering), and started pranking corporations.

And I was twenty one when I met my first demigod. That will take a little explanation though, huh? It started when I met a runaway along the side of the road. The rest I'll piece together from what she told me, and what little imagination I have. Grant this old man some poetic license and come along with me, I've got one bottle of old Scotch left, ...

There is No Beauty without some Strangeness of Proportion/ Section 6

By Brian George

There are—at a minimum—2 sides to the Sign

“A hidden connection is stronger than an apparent one.”—Heraclitus, Fragment 14

Hi Stu,

You wrote, “(Being British), I have an instinctive, perhaps even cultural dislike of the kind of self-important rubbish brought to the table by someone like BG. There are many, many interesting people who use Reality Sandwich, with much to say, but, in my humble opinion, BG is not one of them. I find his onanistic noodling almost as dull as the hijacking of interpretations of this year’s circles by fundamentalist Christians."

I am always amazed when people say something like, “I don’t mean to be offensive, but”—and then go on to be as offensive as is possible. YES, I UNDERSTAND.

From behind, a set of unknown forces propels the cloud of your anxiety, which swells, as though pregnant. This makes it difficult to be open to my innocence-destroying arguments. They are, perhaps, too much of a good thing, too much of what you had not known that you had asked for, or have been delivered much too soon.

The voice that echoes in your head—the voice of the archetypal messenger—both is and is not mine, as it both is and is not yours. If you were to paraphrase what you believe me to be saying, you would find that my “belief system” is as changeable as mercury, and that each opinion, when you look at it, becomes less solid than it seemed at first.

And so, you might ask, do I really have any opinions on the subject? YES and NO; I have insights and experiences that may one day turn into opinions, for the briefest of brief moments, before turning back into insights and experiences—as worlds turn back into water, and water then turns back into an indeterminate cloud. See, from out of it flashes the three-rayed sign for “Atomic Danger.”

Synchronicity, Myth, and the New World Order: Part 1

By Charles Eisenstein 

Looking out upon the horrid ruin we seem to have made of the planet, in spite of the kind hearts and good intentions of the vast majority of human beings, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that some nefarious force has hijacked civilization, driving it towards ends that serve almost no one.

If we are headed for a future that no one would consciously choose, it stands to reason, some say, that we are not choosing; that something else, unfriendly to human welfare, is choosing for us.

Deeper study of certain pivotal events in history strengthens this conclusion. The official explanations of the Kennedy assassination or 9/11 are riddled with contradictions that are difficult to explain. Ominous coincidences pile up and make patterns, pointing toward a conscious agency orchestrating these events toward sinister goals. Diving deeper, one discovers patterns of patterns that ultimately coalesce into an alternate history of the world.

The alternate history explains world events as resulting from the machinations of a powerful, dark cabal of secret organizations comprising the global elite: the banks, wealthy families like the Rockefellers and Rothschilds, non-official organizations like the Bilderburg Council, organized crime, shadowy agencies within the government, secret societies like Skull and Bones and the Freemasons, and so on. Behind them all is a group even more secret, comprising the true rulers of earth, who count even prime ministers and presidents among their puppets. Some theorist say that these Illuminati who hold the reins of power are human beings; others say that they have extraterrestrial allies, or that this group is controlled by, or consists of, ETs. Their goal, it is said, is to impose a New World Order (NWO) in which their dominion is complete.

In addition, the dark cabal that rules the earth is purported to have powerful secret technologies at its disposal. Weather control, mind control, energy weapons, artificially created diseases like Lyme and Swine Flu, and other near-magical technologies enable them to destroy any opposition and control us in ways we barely suspect. Always they are seeking to impose new forms of tyranny, to extend their dominion over mind and matter.

Flight from Narrative: a Hegira from Hegemony

By Amok

What type of sentence will an absolute mind construct? I considered that even in the human languages there is no proposition that does not imply the entire universe... I considered that in the language of a god every word would enunciate that infinite concatenation of facts, and not in an implicit but in an explicit manner, and not progressively but instantaneously. In time, the notion of a divine sentence seemed puerile or blasphemous. A god, I reflected, ought to utter only a single word and in that word absolute fullness. No word uttered by him can be inferior to the universe or less than the sum total of time.

Nachiketas: Tell me what you see beyond right and wrong, beyond what is done or not done, beyond past and future.
Death: I will tell you the Word that all the Vedas glorify, all self-sacrifice expresses, all sacred studies and holy life seek. (The Upanishads)

*****

Obsessing and wrangling in the wake of the idea that narratives should or shouldn't be studied and picked at and predictably obfuscated with alert counter-measures by quasineuroscientific initiatives, my own thoughts (driven and deeply structured by the traumatic engrams of archetypal Master Narratives) have been coiled around the idea of narrative death -- the directive of Thanatos, an Ouroboric plague of a feedback loop and how the modern alien can retaliate against the mad amalgams of narrating machines, the ideological state apparatus at large. Is escape even possible? A release? Or a mad Goetia of verbose, auto-didactic assholes?

Icon & Image – Charles Gatewood's Photographic Techniques for Myth-Making

by David Metcalfe

“William Burroughs, Paris, 1959. Burroughs is wearing what he called his “Rothschild suit”. One of a number of images taken of Burroughs by Brion Gysin in the streets of Paris. Gysin told writer Terry Wilson that the series was an ironic magical operation intended to procure Burroughs’ entry into the French Academy. ”

- from Naked Lunch at 50 - text by Oliver Harris

To create an icon you need an image. To create an effective image you need a really good photographer.

William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin are two of the 20th century's most profound exponents of the more esoteric angles of artistic creation. Open experimenters in the techniques of myth making and magic, they knew how to capitalize on a well crafted photo.

Will The Real xxx Please Stand Up?

OK. I'm going to break the fourth wall here for a moment (as if there was one) and ask a question.

Why is it that so many readers - at least ten just today alone - have thought posts written on ModernMythology were written by me, when the "By" line at the beginning and end of the article was not my name?

I'm actually asking.

Several of those people were also surprised to discover that there are in fact over a dozen contributors to this site; while I do write about 25-50% of the content on here depending on the month, I'm a voice in a chorus. Despite the description on the sidebar or in any of the sub-pages of the site that are quite clear in that, still the idea persists, so I wonder what we could do to be more clear about the collaborative nature of this project?

Or is the truth actually that none of you pay very much attention when you're browsing on the internet?

Also, one is completely insistent that I am Rusty Shackleford. I really am not. But I'm amused someone thinks that.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

A Mythic Primer of Transmedia

By James Curcio

There's a lot of talk about transmedia lately.

Haven't heard it? Well, there has been. Trust us.

And heaven knows there are a lot of transmedia evangelists out there. So I just want to talk over some of the possibilities presented by transmedia storytelling as a concept, without pretending that this is the final word on anything.

Most of us (er, them) are motivated by deep excitement. And of course, many corporations are also excited by it as a new way of perceiving the "life cycle of their brands," and "customer engagement," and other terms that sound really creepy in the "bad touch" kind of way. But we see all of the possibilities for new ways of engaging with content. Some of us see exciting creative possibilities and some see dollar signs. (I prefer to see both, when possible.)

On screen these instructions show
viewers how they can play along.

Engagement. Right there, some people get lost. "You mean there is more than one way to engage with content?"

Yes, there is.  It is not just that you are engaged, but also how.
 When you read a book, you're engaging with that story in a very different way then when it is shown to you in a comic, and when you watch a movie. Your brain is being engaged in different ways to create the narrative.

With a comic book, you are imagining the continuity of time, you are building mental movies out of the storyboard of the comic. The artist provides static visual cues. With a book, you are given the conceptual cues, but all of the sense experience has to be engaged. As such, it is both a deeply rewarding form of taking in media, because so much of the creative process is left up to you, and a very difficult one in terms of generating engagement, because it isn't a passive process. ("Why People Don't Read.")

With a novel, there is a high entrance price, a potentially high payoff. Movies are a passive process where visual, temporal, auditory cues are provided. Boredom is a potential enemy in all cases, but since there's a larger investment in reading a book, it seems to follow that if you get more than halfway through a book, you've already invested so much in creating that experience that you will insist on seeing it through to the end. It's very easy to switch channels on the TV, or surf away through YouTube or Netflix. Commitment seems to be so low on a platform like YouTube that it can be hard to keep attention for as "much" as two minutes.

Regardless of format, all of these are blueprints for an experience.

Of course, there's a dark potential in transmedia that the conspiracy theorists have also latched onto, producing a sort of paranoid PR-wing to the transmedia movement. I can't say if this paranoia is well placed or not, because it is based around things that haven't happened yet. (Maybe.) Can't see the ominous implication of transmedia? The fears engaged here are what drive the plot of the movie, "The Game."

The Ravens' Head: The Press Release

By Mr. VI

I acknowledge that I've been quiet here lately - that will change soon - however, the reason for this near-silence can now be revealed. I'm working on a book for the publishers of Immanence of Myth called THE RAVENS' HEAD.

Over the course of the coming months, I'll be giving you an insider's view of the mythic themes explored in the book - some of which are are already beloved by readers and contributors to this blog, so I invite you to come along for the ride!

Be Seeing You

- VI
_______________________


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - LONDON 5TH SEPTEMBER 2011

Weaponized is proud to announce the publication of ‘The Ravens Head’ a powerful new book by author Craig VI Slee.

Once upon a time, the first story was told – somewhere deep within the fields of memory, a vision was transmitted from one person to another. Once upon a time, a tale touched you and changed your world. It transported you somewhere else and left its fingerprints upon your life, and then when others saw the marks, you told of how they came to be. Over time, you wrapped yourself in stories, tattooing them upon the skin of your existence to make sense of all that happened. When others offered you stories, you took them gladly and spliced them with your own, until you could no longer discover where yours ended and theirs began.

Who exactly is it that tells your tale, guides the monologue and direct your actions? How much of your world is actually your own, and how much of it is painted scenery put there in the years before you were born? What is actually wallpaper over Plato’s cave walls, put there to soothe humankind and conceal the bare, unyielding rock?

What happens when you boil it all down and you are left with ash, ground down to the bone and struggling under the weight of loss and incomprehension?

Welcome then, to The Ravens’ Head.

Debunking the New World Order Mythology

"When you define the power elite as somebody else, I regard that as a loser's script. I define the power elite as myself and my friends. " -Robert Anton Wilson
By Rusty

I am fully aware of how unpopular writing this will make me. So be it. And let's not pretend I really have very much popularity in "real life" anyway, when most people just seem to look at me with a puzzled or quizzical expression or blank stare and ask me "So, what is it you REALLY do for a living?"

Nor do I have many real friends in "make believe internet land", where most people tend to think I am either some weird kind of legend, an honest-to-god alter ego cultivated by a completely insane person, or worse. So it goes. Please continue to keep an open mind as you read this, and remember to not believe anything just because I say it. It is entirely possible my agenda is diametrically opposed to yours and I am feeding you a line of bullshit. You MAY want to operate under the assumption that this is true of everyone, all of the time, unless this notion causes you to feel powerless and to slip further into self-sabotaging paranoia. As you will.

Lately, the hive mind has been crackling with transmissions via blogs and social networking regarding fascism and corporate police states, abuses of power, and notions, some of which are realistic and some of which clearly aren't, as to who is responsible. Listen: What I am about to tell you may sting, but there is no "New World Order" other than you. You, yourself. You are the New World Order, you are the conspiracy, for better or for worse. Allow me to explain.

The Hopi Indians predicted that there would be a fifth age. This new age they termed the age of "spirit" or of "ether". According to their timeline, and also the timeline of the Mayans and the timeline of the Hindu peoples, December 21, 2012 is roughly the spot in which the current age we are inhabiting transitions into something radically different.

The Hindu people termed the age in which we currently live to be the Kali Yuga. Traditionally, this is viewed by many people to be negative but in the grand scheme of things it is a stepping stone or transitional period to a new age. The Kali Yuga itself refers to a period in which humanity is preoccupied with greed, spiritual ignorance, superstition, bigotry and emotional poverty. Conquering seems to be the overall goal, and multiplying and replicating without any real motive other than to grow and to consume (much like a cancer) seems to be the overriding value of human conduct.

Enter 2012. Many are already aware of the Mayan prophecies concerning a new era, but some may be unaware of the correlation between this and what the Vedic scriptures considered to be the dawn of a new "Golden Age" for humanity. This new age was predicted to be the end of the Kali Yuga or the age of iron and the beginning of the new Golden Dawn of enlightenment for humanity.

Alternately, we see the Hopi Indians predicting much of the same, although there is an admonition and a warning: We collectively as a species can choose to make this "new age" one of enlightenment, one of freedom and beauty, or we can choose to further descend into bickering, extremely polarized left or right wing political ideology, petty in-fighting and bigotry (religious or otherwise.)

CONSUME! A Discussion With Bradley the Buyer

Spoony Boomer interviews Bradley the Buyer on consumerism, wanton teenage destruction, the patriot act, Orwellian society, industrial music, the occult, culture jamming, music theory, and society.

Bradley is only half drunk and particularly lucid in this interview and answers every question you never particularly wanted to know. All music by Bradley the Buyer.

http://bradleythebuyer.bandcamp.com
http://www.bradleythebuyer.com

There is No Beauty without some Strangeness of Proportion/ Section 2

By Brian George

X marks the spot of the transplantable Omphalos

“Time is a child moving counters in a game; the royal power is a child’s.”—Heraclitus, Fragment 52

Let “here” be the time, and let “now” be the place. As if, made manifest by the energies of a vortex on a field, the last 12,000 years were to be stretched out horizontally.

Fallen Nation Audiobook

Calling all cars!

I've set up the bandcamp to begin releasing the chapters of the Fallen Nation: Party At The World's End audiobook as unique albums (one per chapter). Some old albums and collaborations that tie into the narratives of the novel are included on that page, but the real purpose of that page is for the audiobook albums.

These will have a great deal of original soundtrack material. I already have many hours of material from my work and past collaborations with many other musicians, but there is still plenty of room for new material- your own, or for us to work on together.

I am not aware of anyone else having done an audiobook like this before. (Though it wouldn't stop me if someone has.)

Contact me if you have material you'd like included. It is preferable if you can provide it as .wav or .aif though high res .mp3 can work.

It'd also help if you are actually familiar with the book.

I would also consider voice actors though if you're interested in that, I need reliability. It'll be a real hassle if someone is reading a chapter and drops off the face of the planet halfway through. So if no better and fully reliable options present themselves I'll be reading a lot of it.

Music will all be used under a creative commons license. I'm asking permission to use submissions, not rights to own it. PLEASE include your name as you'd like to be credited in the title of the files, and contact me immediately if when these are released I manage to miss crediting anyone in the shuffle. I try to be very careful on big group projects like this to credit everyone on each relevant item but as these credit lists can get very extensive, a second pair of eyes can't hurt. I look forward to seeing what we can do together!

Time-frame: I'm aiming to have at least the first album released in 2012. The sooner the better.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

"Why Do You Write?"

By James Curcio.
I've gotten this one in interviews in the past. Everything I said there was a lie. Let me answer it truthfully: 

I no longer write for you, to get finger claps in Cafes or "Likes" on Facebook. I no longer write to be understood. I don't do it for fame for fortune, because who are we kidding? It's public, but only like flashing your genitals in a subway car is public.

I write to momentarily get rid of myself, to get a little more distance, to intellectualize the gnawing in my stomach or ringing in my ears. I like us all a little better when we've been turned to symbols. It's an Other-ing that makes it all more bearable. Sometimes it can even get us a little high, though those are also the worst times, the benders where the words hurt you the next morning and you're a stranger to yourself. Then the words are like pans crashing and clattering to the ground, lolling around like Murakami's kittens, and even more words spill out to enclose that noise with comfortable silence. Signal and noise can flip end over end, but that's subject for another day. That buzzing in my head is already drowning it all out--

"Memory is like fiction; or else it's fiction that's like memory. This really came home to me once I started writing fiction, that memory seemed a kind of fiction, or vice versa. Either way, no matter how hard you try to put everything neatly into shape, the context wanders this way and that, until finally the context isn't even there anymore. You're left with this pile of kittens lolling all over one another. Warm with life, hopelessly unstable. And then to put these things out as saleable items, you call them finished products - at times it's downright embarrassing just to think of it. Honestly, it can make me blush."
— Haruki Murakami 

You're only a writer when you don't know why you do it anymore, eventually there's nothing else but the lie that tells the truth. You're a writer the way a junky is a junky. It's got little if nothing to do with anything else. If you're still talking about "writer's block" and wordcounts, there might still be hope for you. Turn back. Kick the habit.

I don't write for you to come with me. We don't need writing for that.

But since I have your attention, I've started working on my new book ...


[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]