Douglas Rushkoff – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 429

• Julia Holter’s next album, Aviary, will arrive next month with a cover design bearing astrological symbols (a cryptic message?) and what looks like a grimoire page in the background, although I may be reading too much into this. Whatever the esoterics signify, the album is a double, and going by the sound of new song I Shall Love 2 it’s going to be a good one. Aviary will be released on 26th October just in time for the witch season.

• Donna Ferguson talks to Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, about the manuscript for The Picture of Dorian Gray which includes more openly homoerotic sentences than were included in the printed versions. A facsimile of the manuscript is now available in a limited, numbered edition from SP Books.

• The final single in the excellent Other Voices series from the Ghost Box label is released later this month. Something Out Of Nothing is by Sharron Kraus and Belbury Poly.

…we’re still trying to operate this new, paranoid society on what amounts to a psychedelic substrate—with little or no awareness of how our sets and settings are determining our results. The set and setting of the advertiser yield addictive behavioral design and persuasive technologies. The set and setting of the investor lead to algorithmic trading and winner-takes-all, extractive businesses. The set and setting of the military lead to drone warfare. The set and setting of the politician lead to targeted propaganda and digital fascism.

America is unconsciously living in a psychedelic landscape and having a bad trip. We don’t realize that we are living in a media environment that offers us an unprecedented capacity over reality. The world may have always been a consensual hallucination to some extent, but never before have we built our world so completely.

The internet is acid, and America is having a bad trip, says Douglas Rushkoff

• Photographia Erotica Historica is a tiny leatherbound collection of antique pornography from Goliath Books.

• Why is the Federal Government threatening an indie book publisher with $100,000 in fines?

• Undead, undead: my illustrations for Dracula are featured at Dangerous Minds. Thanks!

• The Vinyl Factory meets Japanese composer and musician Midori Takada.

• Exploring HP Lovecraft’s Gothic roots by Dr Xavier Aldana Reyes.

• From 2013: Dario Argento discussing his films with Alan Jones.

• Aurora Mitchell on Electro pioneer Doris Norton.

• Mix of the week: XLR8R Podcast 558 by DJ T.

• Aviator (1970) by Michael Chapman | Aviation (2000) by Fluxion | Aviation (2001) by Monolake

Weekend links 137

Self-portrait by Jon Jacobsen from his Home series.

• Steven Arnold: Cabinet of Curiosities is “a retrospective exhibition of this groundbreaking yet under-recognized queer artist at the ONE Archives Gallery & Museum in West Hollywood. The exhibition celebrates Arnold’s radical imagination, presenting many of his tableaux vivant photographs alongside never before exhibited drawings, sketchbooks, paintings and original poster art. In conjunction with the exhibition, ONE will screen Arnold’s four films, including Luminous Procuress (1970), which featured The Cockettes and was lauded by Salvador Dalí.” The exhibition runs to January 12, 2013.

• “The boundary-pushing techno/sound design duo Emptyset will transform London’s cavernous industrial space Ambika P3 into an immersive sound installation for one night only—and here’s how they’re going to do it”.

• “At one time he was a well-known figure in Montparnasse, where he had a reputation as a master of the occult sciences.” Aleister Crowley is interviewed about his expulsion from France in 1929.

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness… No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded… [T]hey forbid our premature closing of accounts with reality.

William James (1842–1910) quoted in What Should We Do With Our Visions of Heaven—and Hell? by John Horgan at Scientific American.

• Screws is an album of piano music by Nils Frahm that’s currently available as a free download (inc. aiffs).

• At Pinterest: Art Visonnaire. Related: Ain’t We Got Fun: The magical surrealism of Jen Ray.

• Rowan Somerville “challenges the purpose and legitimacy” of the Bad Sex Awards.

• Jimmy’s End: the website for the film by Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins.

• Douglas Rushkoff in conversation with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.

• Linda Rodriguez McRobbie explores The History of Boredom.

• Recreating the sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

• Alchemical Emblems, Occult Diagrams, and Memory Arts.

• Rocaille: A Blog about Decadence, Kitsch and Godliness.

• A new video for Goddess Eyes II by Julia Holter.

• The complete audio recordings of Jean Cocteau.

• The Rumpus interview with Russ Kick.

• Forgotten Bookmarks

• RIP Spain Rodriguez

• Astradyne (1980) by Ultravox (produced by Conny Plank) | Biomutanten (1981) by Les Vampyrettes (Conny Plank & Holger Czukay) | Never Gonna Cry Again (1981) by Eurythmics (feat. Holger Czukay, produced by Conny Plank).

Arthur #22

America’s most vital cultural bulletin. Free PDF download.

How nature droners GROWING found their flow. By Peter Relic. Photography by Eden Batki.

Swiss anthropologist-author JEREMY NARBY talks with Jay Babcock about what hallucinogens like LSD and the Amazonian drink ayahuasca have to teach us in the 21st century. Introduction by author Erik Davis, with a full-color illustration by Arik Moonhawk Roper.

How columnist DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF learned to stop worrying about current events.

Why power duo Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus reunited to make the meditation-suitable
heavy metal sound of OM.

‘Do the Math’ columnist David Reeves on the main reason why the USA should seal its border with Mexico.

The life, work and astounding impact of North Indian vocalist PANDIT PRAN NATH, guru
to Western minimalists La Monte Young and Terry Riley. By Peter Lavezzoli.

‘New Herbalist’ columnist Molly Frances on Lord Byron’s secret elixir and the Prophet Muhammed’s top condiment: VINEGAR.

How to recognize—and use—OCCULT FORCES, by the Center for Tactical Magic.

Notes from Mardi Gras in New Orleans, 2006 by the intrepid Gabe Soria.

Comics by Vanessa Davis, Chris Wright and PShaw.

Scenes from ArthurBall 2006, featuring Joanna Newsom, The 5:15ers (Joshua Homme & Chris Goss) and Moris Tepper and Polly Harvey.

Bull Tongue columnists BYRON COLEY & THURSTON MOORE review Richard Youngs, Pink Mountaintops, Parts & Labor, Oneida/Plastic Crimewave, Ex Models, Mouthus, The Bummer Road, Idea Fire Company, Taurpis Tula, Spykes, Ong Ong, Carson Cistulli, Starbird, 2673, Ladderwoe, Tovah Olson, Pan Dolphinic Dawn, Gastric Female Reflex, ANP Quarterly, Matt Chambers, The Colonial, Mineshaft, Little Claw, Black Lips, Zaat, Mystical Footprints of Asia, Whysp, The Story, Skarerkauradio, Jerusalem & the Starbaskets, Noise Nomads, The Nightjar Review, Shannon Ketch, Jeremy Rendina, Carousel, Quantum Noise, Lambsbread, Carlos Batts, Trenton Doyle Hancock, S.M.S.R., Tchernoblyad, Narrowmind, Sudanstrain, Blod, Sharon’s Last Part, Mnem, Edwidge, The Rita, Mania, Ashtray Navigations, Evenings, Septic Sores, Bottom Dweller, Paul Metzger, Tombi and Glass organ.

C & D riff into the dawn on Marvin Gaye’s The Real Thing: In Performance, 1964-1981 dvd plus new albums from Gnarls Barkley, Rufus Harley, The Black Keys, The Raconteurs, Eagles of Death Metal, The Cuts, Future Pigeon, The Aggrolites, The Fiery Furnaces, Espers, Josephine Foster, Scott Walker, Fred Neil, Belong, Boris and Howlin Rain. Plus: Peter Relic’s Book Corner spotlights new poetry collections by Alex Mitchell and John Tottenham.

And more…