literature Archives | Page 11 of 18

Tagliterature

Terry Pratchett: I’m slipping away a bit at a time… and all I can do is watch it happen

October 8, 2008 / TiamatsVision

Terry Pratchett

“When author Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with dementia, he was shocked to discover doctors could do little to help. For despite the fact that the condition affects more than 700,000 Britons (a million by 2025), research into its causes and treatment has been chronically under-funded. Patients and their families also have to cope with the stigma and ignorance surrounding dementia, as a report published today by the Alzheimer’s Society has revealed. In the belief that the only way to change this is to talk openly about the disease, here Terry Pratchett describes his own experiences.

Seven hundred thousand people who have dementia in this country are not heard. I’m fortunate; I can be heard. Regrettably, it’s amazing how people listen if you stand up in public and give away $1million for research into the disease, as I have done. Why did I do it? I regarded finding I had a form of Alzheimer’s as an insult and decided to do my best to marshal any kind of forces I could against this wretched disease.

I have posterior cortical atrophy or PCA. They say, rather ingenuously, that if you have Alzheimer’s it’s the best form of Alzheimer’s to have. This is a moot point, but what it does do, while gradually robbing you of memory, visual acuity and other things you didn’t know you had until you miss them, is leave you more or less as fluent and coherent as you always have been.”

(via The Daily Mail)

Neil Gaiman?s The Graveyard Book

October 8, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Watch Neil Gaiman read The Graveyard Book on a 9-city video tour. At each stop on the tour, Neil will read one chapter from The Graveyard Book. Beginning on October 1st, we will post the video readings daily. By the end of the tour, on October 9th, you will be able to watch the master storyteller himself read The Graveyard Book in its entirety right here.”

(via Mouse Circus)

Monster Theory: Culture, Monstrousness and Ourselves

September 22, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“As I searched Amazon.com for reading materials related to the fantastic to add to my wishlist the description of Monster Theory: Reading Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 1996) struck me as intriguing: ‘Explores concepts of monstrosity in Western civilization from Beowulf to Jurassic Park.’We live in a time of monsters. Monsters provide a key to understanding the culture that spawned them. So argue the essays in this wide-ranging and fascinating collection that asks the question, What happens when critical theorists take the study of monsters seriously as a means of examining our culture?

‘In viewing the monstrous body as a metaphor for the cultural body, the contributors to Monster Theory consider beasts, demons, freaks, and fiends as symbolic expressions of cultural unease that pervade a society and shape its collective behavior. Through a historical sampling of monsters, these essays argue that our fascination for the monstrous testifies to our continued desire to explore difference and prohibition.’

Monster Theory is edited by Jeffrey J. Cohen who is associate professor of English and human sciences at George Washington University. Dr. Cohen agreed to discuss the collection of essays that make up this book, and in particular his contribution to the volume.”

(via TheoFantastique)

The Best Heavy Metal Songs Based on Fantasy Novels

August 6, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“I’ve always been both a metalhead and a total fantasy geek-possibly the two most powerful formative influences on my teen years were Metallica and J.R.R. Tolkien. There exists a deep and occult connection between heavy metal and fantasy fiction, one that surfaces both obliquely-Spiked wristbands! Album covers that could double as Wheel of Time book jackets! Fire!-and overtly, as in the legacy of metal songs explicitly inspired by fantastical literary sources.

After the jump, check out a few of my favorite heavy metal songs inspired by fantasy novels. And I know I’ve forgotten a few, so add them in the comments!

Iron Maiden – ‘To Tame a Land’

Pretty much the entire Iron Maiden catalogue of powerfully narrative songs could be considered part of the classic fantasy canon. But special mention has to be made of ‘To Tame a Land,’ off Piece of Mind, based on the Dune novels. And they’re really not kidding with these Dune references, which are serious and deep-this is Bruce Dickinson singing, as a fan, to other fans:

It is a land that’s rich in spice
The sandriders and the ‘mice’
That they call the Muad’Dib.

He is the Kwisatz Haderach.
He is born of Caladan
And will take the Gom Jabbar.”

(via Suvudu. h/t: SF Signal)

Technoccult reader’s favorite books

July 31, 2008 / Klint Finley

Last week I linked to the results of a Disinfo readers poll on their favorite books. A few people commented that they’d like to see what Technoccult reader’s favorite books are. I wasn’t as disappointed with the results of the Disinfo survey as some people were, but my curiosity is sufficiently piqued.

This will be an informal survey, vote by commenting here. Vote for ONE fiction and ONE non-fiction.

Here are my favorites:

Let me preface by saying these are my favorites, not necessarily the books I think are actually “the best.”

dance dance dance

Fiction: Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami. It wasn’t hard to decide that my favorite novel was something by Murakami. The hard part was deciding which one. I keep changing my mind, but I’m going to go with Dance, Dance, Dance for now. It was the last Murakami novel that I read (I’ve read them all, including Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973), which seems fitting as it is the final in the quadrilogy of the Rat (though many consider it to be a separate novel from the trilogy of the rat). It feels like a fitting “end” point. I wouldn’t recommend anyone read it without at least reading Wild Sheep Chase first, so this isn’t exactly a recommendation. It’s just, y’know, my favorite.

everything is under control

Non-fiction: Everything is Under Control by Robert Anton Wilson. This was the first Wilson book I read, when I was 18 and just starting to get into “this stuff.” I’m pretty sure I read every word of it, but it’s non-linear, hypertextual structure makes it hard to be sure. In this book Wilson introduces Discordia, Hakim Bey and the TAZ, the Church of the Subgenius, Crowley, chaos magic, and more conspiracy theories than I can name and ties them all together through his obsessive cross-referencing. It was absolutely essential to my “initiation.”

Disinfo reader’s favorite books

July 23, 2008 / Klint Finley

The results from Disinfo’s reader survey:

1. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
2. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson
4. The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy), J. R. R. Tolkien
5. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
6. Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut
7. The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
8. Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
9. The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
10. Ishmael, Daniel Quinn

Non-fiction:

1. Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
2. A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn
3. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
4. Cosmic Trigger (Series), Robert Anton Wilson
5. Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche
6. Prometheus Rising, Robert Anton Wilson
7. The Bible, Various Authors
8. Walden, Henry David Thoreau
9. God is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens
10. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig

Full Story: Disinfo Myspace

“Myth and Ritual”

July 8, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Myth is commonly taken to be words, often in the form of a story. A myth is read or heard. It says something. Yet there is an approach to myth that deems this view of myth artificial. According to the myth and ritual, or myth-ritualist, theory, myth does not stand by itself but is tied to ritual. Myth is no just a statement but an action. The least compromising form of the theory maintains that all myths have accompanying rituals and all rituals accompanying myths. In tamer versions some myths may flourish without rituals or some rituals without myths. Alternately, myths and rituals may originally operate together but subsequently go their separate ways. Or myths and rituals may arise separately but subsequently coalesce. Whatever the tie between myth and ritual, the myth-ritualist theory differs from other theories of myth and from other theories of ritual in focusing on the tie.”

(via Mythic Passages/Mythic Imagination Institute)

The 21st Century Writer

June 26, 2008 / TiamatsVision

Good article on the future of writing and publishing with Tim O’ Reilly, Stephen Abram, Douglas Rushkoff, and Frank Daniels:

“It’s a snowy February Monday in midtown Manhattan. Publishing magnate and tech guru Tim O’Reilly’s ‘Tools of Change’ conference has just opened at a Marriott off Broadway. The timing is fortunate; publishers HarperCollins and Random House have just announced that they will be offering more book content online and au gratis. The affable O’Reilly-who has been urging publishers to go digital since the early eighties-refuses to gloat (much). ‘They weren’t even trying to keep electronic copies [of manuscripts],’ recalls O’Reilly. ‘You look at these announcements today, they seem too little too late,… but it’s allowing them to start innovating, to become part of the technology process.’ ‘Twenty years ago, people wouldn’t have listened,’ says Sara Domville, president of F+W Publications book division. ‘They’ll listen now.’

As the publisher of an extremely popular series of computer manuals, O’Reilly is a bright star in a field of drab. Dubbed the ‘guru of the participation age’ by Steven Levy in a 2005 Wired profile and a ‘graying hippie’ with a ‘hostility toward traditional media’ by author Andrew Keen, O’Reilly makes millions of dollars promoting open source at his conferences and selling do-it-yourself know-how to anyone who browses the computer aisle at Barnes and Noble. His message to the world’s publishing elite exudes a Wizard of Oz simplicity: Give more product away on your Web site, thereby attracting more people to sell on something pricier than a book- like a bunch of books or a conference ticket. The approach works for him at least. Some 900 publishing execs from Simon and Schuster, Norton, etc., have paid $1,100 apiece (on average) to learn how to give content away.

‘I think I’m optimistic,’ said Sonia Nash of Random House, echoing the uncertainty of the attendees, editors, and publishers from around the world eager to find some reason to feel good about the future of what they sell.”

(via The Futurist)

I Create Gods All the Time – Now I think One Might Exist, Says Fantasy Author Terry Pratchett

June 22, 2008 / TiamatsVision

Terry Pratchett

“There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist. But it is true that in an interview I gave recently I did describe a sudden, distinct feeling I had one hectic day that everything I was doing was right and things were happening as they should. It seemed like the memory of a voice and it came wrapped in its own brief little bubble of tranquillity. I’m not used to this.

As a fantasy writer I create fresh gods and philosophies almost with every new book (I’m rather pleased with Annoia, the goddess of Things That Get Stuck In Drawers, whose temple is hung about with the bent remains of bent egg whisks and spatulas. She actually appears to work in this world, too). But since contracting Alzheimer’s disease I have spent my long winter walks trying to work out what it is that I really, if anything, believe.”

(via The Daily Mail)

A New Look at Mystical Los Angeles and its High Priest, Manly Hall

June 22, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Last Sunday evening at the Silent Movie Theater, a clip from the 1938 astrological murder mystery “When Were You Born?” was shown as part of an “Occult L.A.” program curated by the author Erik Davis. In the clip, legendary occult scholar Manly P. Hall, who had also written the movie’s script, appeared on screen to introduce the concept of astrology. With penetrating blue eyes, thick dark hair and a rakish mustache, Hall had the looks of a silent film star, and he radiated intensity as he explained the various personality traits of the different sun signs — Leos are loyal, Capricorns are brave, and so on. But that’s not all: “Astrology can solve crime!” he exhorted. “It has solved many crimes in the past.”

At this the audience burst into laughter: Yet another absurd Hollywood twist. It wasn’t the late Hall’s finest moment — in fact, he’d done the scene reluctantly. But afterward he held out hope that “When Were You Born?,” the first major motion picture to treat the subject of astrology seriously, might help “open the way for a great cycle of occult philosophy,” he wrote.

The film was a bomb, but the fact that this obscure clip was being screened before a sold-out crowd of artists, intellectuals and spiritual seekers shows that the cycle of Hall’s influence continues. And it may grow in the coming months, for Process Media has just published “Master of the Mysteries,” the first biography of Manly Palmer Hall, written by Louis Sahagun (who is a staff writer at The Times).”

(via Los Angeles Times)

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑

Technoccult

Mutate Your Mind