1. I don’t think things like Katy Perry’s demonic Grammys
imagery show she’s in league with the Devil, but the oddly-gratuitous and
somewhat discordant use of such symbolism in pop and hiphop videos lately does
at least suggest that some record execs figured it might be time to recycle
some of the old devil-worship aesthetic tropes from 1970s heavy metal. I’m not convinced it works as well for the
likes of Kanye West as it does for, oh, say, Ronnie James Dio here.
2. Devil’s advocate/devil Michael Malice can be found on
Reddit at 2pm today discussing his new book, Dear Reader, about the
tyrannical Kim Jong Il. Malice’s dark heart
can also be found pining after Disney’s Maleficent
as played by Angelina Jolie, but you can hardly blame him.
(And if you want more conventional right-vs.-left figures, I
see that tonight at 7:30 the recently indicted Dinesh D’Souza, on his site,
will do a debate with former fugitive Bill Ayers. The real crime, of course, is what’s legal.)
3. Earlier this month I mentioned that despite my ardent
skepticism, I must at least admit there have been odd sightings
of flying black triangular craft, be they military or otherwise
mundane. There’ve apparently been
well-documented sightings
in Belgium going back twenty-five years as well. Beats me.
4. If instead of cautious skepticism, one assumed all the
most dire UFO claims you’ve ever heard were true -- and crammed them all into
an intense, rock-video-paced nineteen-minute video -- the result would be quite
simply the most dramatic video I’ve ever seen...and HERE IT IS (brace
yourself).
5. Despite remaining ever the evidence-demanding,
materialist skeptic, I’m keeping my mind open by reading the avowedly mystical
Ken Wilber’s 1986 book Eye to Eye,
which (long story short) asserts that mind, body, and spirit require different
methodologies, and half the confusion in Western culture is caused by
attempting to address questions from one area with the tools of another
(reducing all philosophy to scientific measurement or empirical questions to
matters of religious doctrine, etc.).
Well, OK, I can concede it’s reductive to treat Categories
1-3 as if they are all 1, though I retain the right to question whether we need
3 at all (seeing Wilber do this
annoying video doesn’t boost my sympathy, but the book is more cogent so
far).
My friend Valerie Jackson, a product of Brown and Berkeley,
suggested reading that book, though she’s not my only acquaintance with some
sympathy for Buddhist meditation and the like, with others including my friends
Chris Nugent (who ended up a professor of Chinese), Oona Trien, and even Jesse
Forgione, an Objectivist you might not expect to be into such things (I wish
him luck with his new business venture in capitalistic Orlando -- and with his
attainment of true enlightenment, whether Eastern or eighteenth-century style).
6. I suppose as a product of the 80s I am always keen to
avoid that decade’s proliferation of quantum-mechanics-abusing
science-meets-mysticism vagueness and obfuscation. Indeed, I question even prominent physicist
Roger Penrose’s continual harping on things like the possible role of quantum
indeterminacy in the brain tubules purportedly essential to consciousness.
If the quantum indeterminacy proves the key, so be it, but
there’s no question there are people, even scientists, simply rooting for the
most ambiguous/mysterious/variable element of reality to prove central in order
to add a shroud of beloved mystery to all things, for aesthetic reasons. Reality could just prove to a be a big,
boring, clunky, unambiguous thing when we’re done looking it over. We have a duty to be prepared for the
non-wondrous, too, you know.
7. Still, as this blog’s “Month of Time Travel” draws to a
close, it’s worth keeping in mind the impressive, shifting apparent indeterminacy
of our future paths, like Paul in Dune
perceiving all possible futures and their rootedness in his present
actions. Contemplate possibilities and
stay at least slightly agnostic, I suppose.
8. The mere ability to contemplate things being other than
they currently appear to be is something that naturally unites fans of
philosophy and sci-fi, I’d contend (or at least I tried to persuade a New York Press colleague of that many
years ago).
9. Combining those two mindsets may at least help
prepare us, like the ethicists at Google, for the coming robot domination of
the planet (h/t Anna Nash).
10. And now that I’ve prepared you for all eventualities
from robot conquest to spiritual enlightenment, I must (as repeatedly
threatened in the past) largely withdraw from the Net for now -- yes, even Twitter and Facebook -- to complete some other
projects, but this blog will at the very least be used to link to those from time
to time.
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