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.

Pen-Link's LINCOLN Surveillance System

From Anthony Pignataro's 12-14-18 OC Weekly article entitled "Orange County Sheriff Wants More Surveillance Software from Mysterious Spy Contractor":

We tend to think of militarized law enforcement as cops fielding assault rifles or riding the streets in armored trucks. But sophisticated surveillance computer systems also blur the lines between the military and police agencies. Increasingly, local law enforcement–like the Orange County Sheriff’s Department–is equipping itself with surveillance hardware and software once found only in the secretive world of the National Security Agency or Defense Intelligence Agency to spy on suspected drug dealers, gang members, and whoever else is deemed a threat [emphasis added--RG].

At its Dec. 18, 2018 meeting, the Orange County Board of Supervisors will vote on a $163,000 sole-source contract with Nebraska-based Pen-link to install and support the company’s Lincoln surveillance system at the Sheriff’s Department wiretap room. The new software, which will intercept and store data traveling over landlines, is for the Sheriff’s Regional Narcotics Suppression Program (RNSP).

“RNSP works to target, investigate and prosecute subjects involved in large scale narcotics trafficking and money laundering,” states a county staff report on the contract. “Seized illegal proceeds are returned to participating local agencies in the way of civil asset forfeiture.”

According to the staff report, RNSP already has Pen-link software running in their “wiretap room.” This software “provides for the collection, storage and analysis of telephone and internet communications for investigative purposes,” according to the staff report. But now that software is apparently outdated.

“With a court order, RNSP may wiretap phone lines and internet communication for investigative purposes in support of narcotics trafficking and money laundering cases,” states the staff report. “With the advent of new technologies, the current equipment and software is dated. The purchase order contract for the one-time purchase and installation of wire intercept equipment will increase the system’s capacity for internet intercept of information.”

The insistence here that such surveillance would only take place after a “court order” would normally be reassuring, if we were talking about an agency that wasn’t beset by the scandals that have marred the OC Sheriff’s Department over the last decade. It also doesn’t explain what investigators will do with any information about people not accused of committing crimes or under investigation that such surveillance will inevitably scoop up [emphasis added--RG].
 
To read the rest of Pignataro's article, click HERE.

Manly P. Hall's "When the Invincible Sun Moves Northward: The Solar Chistmas"

I've posted this lecture before, but it certainly bears repeating around this time of the year.  So take a brief break from the holiday festivities and explore the mindscape of Manly P. Hall via his classic lecture "When the Invincible Sun Moves Northward: The Solar Christmas" delivered at The Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles on December 16, 1984:

"Each year the sun comes back to the world. Each year the world is just a little different. Each year the sun performs a slightly different service, and over the period of ages, these services vary greatly.

"The sun is the cleanser, the purifier, and the eliminator. It will come every time to carry on this particular task. Sometimes it will find a dark world waiting for it, heavily burdened with its own errors. Sometimes it will come to a better world where things seem right. But always the sun in its cycle is working toward the one great end and that great end, of course, is the final illumination of all that exists, that all things in, by, and for themselves shall be fulfilled or be perfect in their needs and in their operations.

"As the sun produces the symbol of the sprouting of the seed, so the light within ourselves produces the ripening of all the inner values of consciousness. And the sun which brings the harvest to the earth brings a light to the minds and hearts of human beings so that they may have the harvest of their years and have a great and wonderful future.

"The astronomical Christmas is based on the old solar mythology. The (Soular) solar deity is born at the winter solstice and substitutes for the three broken spokes of the wheel. It attains victory over darkness at the vernal equinox. The Christ principle performs a Pentecostal mystery by bestowing its powers upon the twelve disciples who personify the signs of the zodiac. While most of this esoteric meaning of the annual birthday of the sun is no longer remembered, it constitutes justification for the study of astronomy. Some day it will dawn upon the conventional astronomer that he is involved, not merely in a scientific project, but one of the sacred sciences dealing with the mysteries of birth, life, death, and resurrection."

--Lecture #333 "WHEN THE INVINCIBLE SUN MOVES NORTHWARD: THE SOLAR CHRISTMAS"

"This Wound of Glass" IN NEW READER MAGAZINE

To my delight, one of the short stories I mentioned in my previous post--a story I didn't expect to be released until the early weeks of 2019--has just been published in the pages of NEW READER MAGAZINE #4.  So if you're interested in reading my latest short story, "This Wound of Glass" (7,300 words), simply click HERE to download the entire issue for free.  "This Wound of Glass" begins on p. 79. 

(The editors of NEW READER MAGAZINE invite feedback at the following email address: Contact@NewReaderMagazine.com, or send them a message through their Facebook page.)

Update from the Guffey Fiction Factory!

Heads-up!  The following stories are forthcoming in 2019 from The Guffey Fiction Factory (which is located--according to certain scholars who have researched these arcane matters--somewhere in between Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and Thomas Ligotti's Nightmare Factory):

"This Wound of Glass" (7,300 words) in NEW READER MAGAZINE #4.

"Farewell, Frankenstein!" (10,500 words) in FREEDOM OF SCREECH edited by Craig Spector.

"The Loser" (13,000 words) in BLACK CAT MYSTERY MAGAZINE.

"The Last Nihilist Poet of Earth vs. the Radioactive Monkeys from Mars" (560 words) in THE COCKROACH CONSERVATORY VOL. 2 

"Dymaxion Love" (6,400 words) in HYPNOS.

"The Detective with the Glass Gun" (6,000 words) in BLACK DANDY #3.

"The Advertising Man" (7,500 words) in NAMELESS.

Keep yer eye on this blog for further vital information as it develops!!!

STRUGGLE: THE LIFE AND LOST ART OF SZUKALSKI

In collaboration with Warsaw-based filmmaker Irek Dobrowolski, my colleague Stephen Cooper (author of FULL OF LIFE:  A BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN FANTE) has helped write and produce a fascinating new documentary about the life and work of the sadly neglected artist Stanislaw Szukalski, about whom I've written in the past on this very blog.  (See, for example, my 5-31-13 post entitled "Behold!!! the Protong," my 12-8-13 post entitled "Nature Magazine Confirms the Theories of Stanislaw Szukalski?" and my 6-23-17 post entitled "Stanislaw Szukalski and the Human-Yeti War").  I'll be writing more about Szukalski and his peculiar evolutionary theories in the final chapter of my forthcoming book BELA LUGOSI AND THE MONOGRAM NINE (co-authored with Gary D. Rhodes).  What's the connection between Szukalski and Lugosi?  You'll have to wait to read the book to answer that scintillating question!  In the meantime, I highly recommend watching Irek Dobrowolski's STRUGGLE:  THE LIFE AND LOST ART OF SZUKALSKI when it debuts on Netflix on December 21st....   

 

Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers

From Amy Zimmerman's 12-4-18 Daily Beast article entitled "Why Did the FBI Raid the Home of the Biggest Alien Truther?":

[Jeremy Corbell’s new documentary] Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers follows Lazar through domestic scenes and films him at work, puttering around with beakers and pipettes. These everyday images are seemingly incompatible with the interviews that Corbell is conducting throughout, as Lazar calmly answers questions about the alien technology he claims to have worked with. Lazar’s main gripes with the United States government are consistent with the concerns he shared decades ago: that people are not just being robbed of the truth about extraterrestrial life, but of awesome technology that has the power to shift “the entire world economy.”

Specifically, Lazar recalls technology that produces and controls gravity, and uses it for propulsion. He explains that “this is a reaction-less craft.” Instead of expelling something, like air or exhaust, “It creates a distortion in space and time in front of it, where space actually bends.” At multiple points in the documentary, Lazar stresses that this technology could not possibly have been human-made. “There’s another civilization in existence that’s intelligent that we know about, and we actually have artifacts from them,” he insists. “The science and the technology can change us dramatically.”

Naturally, Lazar’s story was highly contested at the time. Most notably, reporters were unable to verify that he attended Cal Tech and MIT as he claimed. Los Alamos denied his testimony that he worked there, but his name was found listed in a 1982 phone book for the lab “among the other scientists,” and a 1982 clipping from the Los Alamos newspaper described him as “a physicist at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility.” Officials at Los Alamos insisted that they had “no records at all” of Lazar. “It’s as if someone made him disappear,” an old news clip intones [...].

Over the course of the film, [investigative journalist George] Knapp makes a number of convincing arguments for his continued faith in Lazar. At one point, he stresses, “We checked out so many details that Bob had told us that turned out to be true.” Bob Lazar: Area 51 and Flying Saucers is strongest when it takes up this mantle of investigative reporting, like when Corbell tracks down the man who Lazar says did his background check to confirm his story. 

To read Zimmerman's entire article, click HERE.

The official trailer for Bob Lazar:  Area 51 and Flying Saucers can be seen below....