Sunday, January 20, 2019
Tessa B. Dick on CRYPTOSCATOLOGY and CHAMELEO
A few days ago, on January 17, Tessa B. Dick (author of CONVERSATIONS WITH PHILIP K. DICK and several other illuminating books) went live on YouTube to talk about my books CRYPTOSCATOLOGY: CONSPIRACY THEORY AS ART FORM (TrineDay, 2012) and CHAMELEO: A STRANGE BUT TRUE STORY OF INVISIBLE SPIES, HEROIN ADDICTION, AND HOMELAND SECURITY (OR Books, 2015). If you want to see Tessa holding forth on such subjects as mind control, propaganda, and strange technology, simply click HERE.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Bela Lugosi and the Monogram 9 Update
A couple of days ago on Twitter the incomparable Michael Kronenberg posted this striking illustration he recently completed for my forthcoming nonfiction book BELA LUGOSI AND THE MONOGRAM 9 (written in collaboration with Gary D. Rhodes). The book is at last nearing completion! More details to come....
Monday, January 14, 2019
Sonic Waves and the Davis Shooter
From Sarah Ravani's 1-12-19 SFGate article entitled "Davis Man Who Killed Rookie Cop Left Note Saying He Was Hit With 'Sonic Waves'":
A 48-year-old man identified as the gunman in the ambush killing of a 22-year-old Davis police officer left a note in his apartment saying that police had hit him with “ultra sonic waves meant to keep dogs from barking.”
The note was released by Davis police a few hours after Kevin Douglas Limbaugh of Davis was identified as the man who shot and killed Officer Natalie Corona on Thursday while the rookie officer was responding to a routine collision in downtown Davis, according to the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office.
Hours after the shooting, Limbaugh killed himself with a single gunshot to the head as police closed in, said Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel. The note was found during a search by police of Limbaugh’s apartment.
“The Davis Police department has been hitting me with ultra sonic waves meant to keep dogs from barking,” read the note, which was typed on a computer. “I notified the press, internal affairs, and even the FBI about it. I am highly sensitive to its affect (sic) on my inner ear. I did my best to appease them, but they have continued for years and I can’t live this way anymore.”
According to Lt. Paul Doroshov of the Davis police, there’s no way to tell exactly when the note was typed.
“There have been a lot of rumors as to why this happened, why he did what he did, and we’re hoping this sheds some light,” Doroshov said. As for the placement of the note, which was found face-up on Limbaugh’s bed, “I really can’t speculate as to why it was there like that.”
To read the entirety of Ravani's article, click HERE.
A 48-year-old man identified as the gunman in the ambush killing of a 22-year-old Davis police officer left a note in his apartment saying that police had hit him with “ultra sonic waves meant to keep dogs from barking.”
The note was released by Davis police a few hours after Kevin Douglas Limbaugh of Davis was identified as the man who shot and killed Officer Natalie Corona on Thursday while the rookie officer was responding to a routine collision in downtown Davis, according to the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office.
Hours after the shooting, Limbaugh killed himself with a single gunshot to the head as police closed in, said Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel. The note was found during a search by police of Limbaugh’s apartment.
“The Davis Police department has been hitting me with ultra sonic waves meant to keep dogs from barking,” read the note, which was typed on a computer. “I notified the press, internal affairs, and even the FBI about it. I am highly sensitive to its affect (sic) on my inner ear. I did my best to appease them, but they have continued for years and I can’t live this way anymore.”
According to Lt. Paul Doroshov of the Davis police, there’s no way to tell exactly when the note was typed.
“There have been a lot of rumors as to why this happened, why he did what he did, and we’re hoping this sheds some light,” Doroshov said. As for the placement of the note, which was found face-up on Limbaugh’s bed, “I really can’t speculate as to why it was there like that.”
To read the entirety of Ravani's article, click HERE.
Sunday, January 13, 2019
The Hunter S. Thompson Reading List (1955-1967)
I recently reread Hunter S. Thompson's first collection of letters, THE PROUD HIGHWAY: SAGA OF A DESPERATE SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN 1955-1967. While doing so, I jotted down the title of every book the young HST mentions to his various correspondents. Between the years 1955 and 1967, Thompson no doubt read many more books than the ones mentioned below; these are merely those titles he felt compelled to reference in letters written to his close circle of friends and colleagues. Here, then, for your privileged illumination, is a partial Hunter S. Thompson Reading List (1955-1967):
THE OUTSIDER by Colin Wilson
THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
THE POWER ELITE by C. Wright Mills
TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
ON THE ROAD and THE SUBTERRANEANS by Jack Kerouac
BEING AND NOTHINGNESS by Jean-Paul Sartre
EXISTENTIALISM: FROM DOSTOEVSKY TO SARTRE edited by Walter A. Kaufmann
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
THE ORGANIZATION MAN by William H. Whyte
THE BEST OF EVERYTHING by Rona Jaffe
ESCAPE TO THE WEST INDIES by Bradley Smith
TIGRERO! by Sasha Siemel
LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS by William Styron
OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen
A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE by Reynolds Price
IT IS TIME, LORD by Fred Chappell
RED LANCES by Arturo Uslar Pietri
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
A SINGULAR MAN by J.P. Donleavy
THE UNNATURAL ENEMY by Vance Bourjaily
THE WHITE NEGRO by Norman Mailer
THE DAMNED OF THE EARTH by Frantz Fanon
THE FUN HOUSE by William Brinkley
THE AMERICAN DREAM by Norman Mailer
THE KANDY-KOLORED TANGERINE-FLAKE STREAMLINE BABY by Tom Wolfe
DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON by George Orwell
THE WORLD OF SEX by Henry Miller
GOING AWAY by Clancy Sigal
A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE by Nelson Algren
MAN INTO WOLF by Robert Eisler
THE OUTSIDER by Colin Wilson
THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
THE POWER ELITE by C. Wright Mills
TROPIC OF CANCER by Henry Miller
WINESBURG, OHIO by Sherwood Anderson
ON THE ROAD and THE SUBTERRANEANS by Jack Kerouac
BEING AND NOTHINGNESS by Jean-Paul Sartre
EXISTENTIALISM: FROM DOSTOEVSKY TO SARTRE edited by Walter A. Kaufmann
BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A FAREWELL TO ARMS by Ernest Hemingway
THE ORGANIZATION MAN by William H. Whyte
THE BEST OF EVERYTHING by Rona Jaffe
ESCAPE TO THE WEST INDIES by Bradley Smith
TIGRERO! by Sasha Siemel
LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS by William Styron
OUT OF AFRICA by Isak Dinesen
A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE by Reynolds Price
IT IS TIME, LORD by Fred Chappell
RED LANCES by Arturo Uslar Pietri
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey
A SINGULAR MAN by J.P. Donleavy
THE UNNATURAL ENEMY by Vance Bourjaily
THE WHITE NEGRO by Norman Mailer
THE DAMNED OF THE EARTH by Frantz Fanon
THE FUN HOUSE by William Brinkley
THE AMERICAN DREAM by Norman Mailer
THE KANDY-KOLORED TANGERINE-FLAKE STREAMLINE BABY by Tom Wolfe
DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON by George Orwell
THE WORLD OF SEX by Henry Miller
GOING AWAY by Clancy Sigal
A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE by Nelson Algren
MAN INTO WOLF by Robert Eisler
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Hunter S. Thompson on Richard M. Nixon
"If
the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket
would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty
into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a
jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed
servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral
was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been
burned in a trash bin." -- from Hunter S. Thompson's 1994 obituary for Richard Nixon
In honor of what would have been Richard M. Nixon's 106th birthday, I recommend reading Hunter S. Thompson's obituary for Nixon, collected in BETTER THAN SEX: CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL JUNKIE (1994). Click HERE to read "He Was a Crook."
In honor of what would have been Richard M. Nixon's 106th birthday, I recommend reading Hunter S. Thompson's obituary for Nixon, collected in BETTER THAN SEX: CONFESSIONS OF A POLITICAL JUNKIE (1994). Click HERE to read "He Was a Crook."
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Jon Rappoport on Catherine Austin Fitts
From Jon Rappoport's 12-31-18 article entitled "The Government 'Can’t Find' $20 trillion, While Pension Funds Are Tanking":
"Look around you. Money is everywhere. Titanic piles of it are flowing. The question is, to whom is it flowing, and how, and why? Within the current system, there are designated winners and losers. This has to do with criminal controllers posing as benefactors. They steer the money ship. They dump shipments of money at certain favored ports and keep shipments from reaching many other ports.
I know there are people out there who will say, 'It’s all about the illegal Federal Reserve and the transnational bankers.' That’s like saying the drug problem is all about the Mexican cartels—but then, digging further, you also come across the expanding opium poppy fields in Afghanistan, the hands-off collusion in Chicago that permits the city to act as a primary hub for drug distribution in the US, the pharmaceutical companies that traffic millions of opioid pills to dealers, and the 2016 law that strangled DEA efforts to bust those companies.
"The devil is in the details, and [Catherine Austin] Fitts has uncovered an astonishing number of them.
"I first came across her work about ten years ago, when we spoke several times about her specific method enabling local communities to discover money flows—the sources of money coming into their towns and cities, and the destinations of money going out. This brilliant tool would give communities the power to see exactly how money was impoverishing them, rather than enriching them. In an effort to make that tool widely available, thus pointing the way for communities to change those flows and foster local prosperity, Fitts ran into legal trouble with the federal government—and 'trouble' is a vast understatement.
"She emerged, after a long battle, with her primary goals securely intact.
"She has answers and solutions.
"Answers that are vital for our time.
"Fitts was once an insider and had a front row seat at the money circus. Now, her ongoing enterprise is Solari, Inc. I highly recommend it to you."
To read Rappoport's article in its entirety, click HERE.
"Look around you. Money is everywhere. Titanic piles of it are flowing. The question is, to whom is it flowing, and how, and why? Within the current system, there are designated winners and losers. This has to do with criminal controllers posing as benefactors. They steer the money ship. They dump shipments of money at certain favored ports and keep shipments from reaching many other ports.
I know there are people out there who will say, 'It’s all about the illegal Federal Reserve and the transnational bankers.' That’s like saying the drug problem is all about the Mexican cartels—but then, digging further, you also come across the expanding opium poppy fields in Afghanistan, the hands-off collusion in Chicago that permits the city to act as a primary hub for drug distribution in the US, the pharmaceutical companies that traffic millions of opioid pills to dealers, and the 2016 law that strangled DEA efforts to bust those companies.
"The devil is in the details, and [Catherine Austin] Fitts has uncovered an astonishing number of them.
"I first came across her work about ten years ago, when we spoke several times about her specific method enabling local communities to discover money flows—the sources of money coming into their towns and cities, and the destinations of money going out. This brilliant tool would give communities the power to see exactly how money was impoverishing them, rather than enriching them. In an effort to make that tool widely available, thus pointing the way for communities to change those flows and foster local prosperity, Fitts ran into legal trouble with the federal government—and 'trouble' is a vast understatement.
"She emerged, after a long battle, with her primary goals securely intact.
"She has answers and solutions.
"Answers that are vital for our time.
"Fitts was once an insider and had a front row seat at the money circus. Now, her ongoing enterprise is Solari, Inc. I highly recommend it to you."
To read Rappoport's article in its entirety, click HERE.
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Clark Ashton Smith: The Emperor of Dreams
I highly recommend checking out Darin Coelho Spring's new documentary CLARK ASHTON SMITH: THE EMPEROR OF DREAMS. Clark Ashton Smith is a key figure in the Shadow Pantheon of American Literature, as you will no doubt agree if you read such timeless works as "The City of the Singing Flame" (1931), "Master of the Asteroid" (1932), and THE BLACK BOOK OF CLARK ASHTON SMITH (1979). It's quite strange that 2018 should mark the debut of a pair of feature-length documentaries focusing on two of the most important visionaries to ever set foot on California soil. First came CLARK ASHTON SMITH: EMPEROR OF DREAMS (which debuted October 31st), followed by Irek Dobrowolski's STRUGGLE: THE LIFE AND LOST ART OF SZUKALSKI (which debuted only a few weeks later on December 21st). These documentaries about overlooked California outsider artists mirror each other in wonderfully unexpected ways. For example, in a synchronistic twist, one of the Szukalski aficionados who appears in STRUGGLE--painter/actor/magician Charles Schneider--is also featured prominently in CLARK ASHTON SMITH: THE EMPEROR OF DREAMS.
A few days ago I said to frequent Cryptoscatology correspondent Eric Blair, "What does it mean when serious documentaries about both Stanislaw Szukalski and Clark Ashton Smith debut within a few weeks of each other?" Eric replied that it was the universe trying to balance itself out (i.e., the Positive Madness of Szukalski and C.A. Smith balancing out the Negative Madness of... well, everything else). Perhaps Eric is more right than he knows....
Click HERE to watch the official trailer for CLARK ASHTON SMITH: THE EMPEROR OF DREAMS. If you wish to order CLARK ASHTON SMITH: THE EMPEROR OF DREAMS on Blu-ray or DVD via Hippocampus Press, simply click HERE. You can also stream the documentary through Amazon Prime and Vimeo.
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