TED talks Sychronicity and Science

Lately, I find that the topic of UFOs creeps its way into my conversations with people more and more. Over the last year or so, it's something I've developed a gradually increasing interest in. It also pops up a lot in the work of Robert Anton Wilson, whose work I had begun to read for his James Joyce commentary and now I find myself devouring his whole richly varied oeuvre. On the topic of UFOs he remains, as he does with just about everything else, agnostic.

He shares plenty of shocking information and research about alien encounters and UFO sightings but always with a humorous tinge in the background, never going as far as to say that he believes all of it is true, but it is clearly a deep fascination of his. He likes to bring up the fact that many hundreds of scientists have had what they believe to be alien encounters and this usually leads Wilson into a far-ranging discussion of the newest ideas in modern physics. Frequently he will cite the work of Jacques Vallée, an astronomer and computer scientist who spent years working with NASA and has written a number of books on the phenomenon of UFOs from a soberly scientific perspective.

I am planning on gradually introducing some material here about the cosmological implications of UFOs and the disclosure projects that have taken place over the last ten years or so. But for now, without any alien stuff at all, here is Dr. Vallée's recent TED talk about the current state of physics and where our world view is headed.

First Glimmers of a New Baseball Season

For a couple months now I've been kicking around the idea of writing a piece about my desire to step away from following baseball this season, let my attention go to more important things, and especially not allow my emotions to get invested into the ups and downs of any baseball team.

This piece was going to be a list of reasons for Why I'm Done with Baseball (for now), one of the main reasons being that the sorry state of the New York Mets and the departure of their best player to an arch rival are just too frustrating for me as a Mets fan. Other reasons include the steep price of following the game (for years now I've been an MLB.tv subscriber but in order for that package to carry over to either the iPad or iPhone device, one has to pay extra---as if Major League Baseball needs my money more than I do) at a time when I don't have much disposable income; the long hours spent watching games or reading baseball articles could certainly be better spent (especially at a time when I'm trying to put together two book-length projects); and after the dazzling crescendo of the 2011 baseball season, I figure the excitement has nowhere to go but down this year.

Book Review: The Illuminati Papers by Robert Anton Wilson

It is not very often that I shell out the cash for a brand new book. Most of the books I read are worn-out, tattered pre-owned texts that I buy as cheaply as possible either online or from one of Austin's many wonderful used bookstores (the Half Priced Books chain is one of my favorite things about this city). Whenever I do opt to purchase a brand new book it's usually something that has just been released (like the Baseball Prospectus annual which I always need to have as soon as it drops) or something so special that I couldn't resist paying full price.

In the early stages of my addiction to reading Robert Anton Wilson's work, I couldn't resist snatching up a fresh copy of his book The Illuminati Papers from a local New Age bookstore. Many months and re-readings later, I'm very happy with my decision. After quickly zipping through six different RAW books, this is definitely one of my favorites.

Folk Flavor (Madlib)

This delicious, folk-flavored track originally reached my ears via Madlib's 2009 appearance on the Radio Nova show in Paris. Check out the full 30-minute set here, plenty of rare old records and mellifluous melodies. One of my favorite DJ sets from Madlib.

Happy Birthday James Joyce

"I am trying…to give people some kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own…for their mental, moral and spiritual uplift."
- James Joyce, in a letter to his brother Stanislaus

130 years ago today, James Joyce was born. He was the first of many children in a family that grew too large for his parents to support and they slowly descended into poverty. His father had a knack for not holding on to money and so, unable to meet the rent, his family moved from one domicile to the next throughout most of his upbringing. Joyce inherited this itinerant habit into his adulthood as he lugged his belongings and family (wife, son, and daughter) to multiple homes throughout Rome, Trieste, Zurich, and Paris. While all this was going on, he somehow managed to find the time to put together arguably the greatest literary contribution in human history.

Aurora Australis

This video was the first thing I came across when testing the internet connection in my new apartment this past Saturday afternoon.

The lights are an effect of Earth's magnetic field (acting like a shield) protecting against solar winds. There have been a bunch of massive solar storms bombarding our planet recently and this video displays the resultant auroral lights seen from the coast of Australia on January 16th and 22nd.

Our planet's magnetic field comes from its constantly churning iron core, extending out from the center into a large invisible magnetic skin. I've always thought it quite closely resembles the shape of an apple.

This shape resonates in my mind with a painting by Vladimir Kush that I've been thinking about a lot lately, depicting the close connection between an apple's shape and that of a butterfly.

Getting Familiar with the NHL at Midseason

During my recent trip back home to New York I refreshed my perspective on a number of things, most prominently New York City itself (as I detailed in a post around that time). Alongside my renewed appreciation for New York was a brand new appreciation for hockey and the current NHL season. Having spent more than half my life as a hockey player, I've always loved the game and followed the pro hockey season closely. But after a knee injury sidelined me in the summer of 2010 I've been unable to sit and watch hockey games, embittered that I can't play. As a result, I've been almost completely ignorant of what's gone on in the sport, the exception being the Stanley Cup Finals of last June which I watched from within an enormous sports bar in Pasadena, CA while having dinner with a bunch of folks from the James Joyce Conference I was attending (the main buddy I made there was a big hockey fan from Calgary, a professor at the University of Alberta).

Most if not all of my close friends from New York are connected with hockey, we grew up skating on the same teams and continued to be play the game into our 20s. They all remain devoted hockey fans and with the local New York Rangers having their best season in almost 15 years, the hockey buzz was humming palpably during my visit to the city. When my family picked me up at Newark Airport and drove me into Manhattan where I met a friend for dinner, the sounds of the Rangers battling the Philadelphia Flyers blared over the car radio. Later that night, I happened to walk past a crowded post-game Madison Square Garden and some surrounding pubs where blueshirt-clad fans smoked cigarettes out on the sidewalks in the icy winter night.

The next night was Christmas Eve. After dinner I stepped outside to briefly speak to an old friend/nextdoor neighbor out in the street, the gist of our conversation being that I needed to watch the ongoing HBO series 24/7: Road to the NHL Winter Classic as soon as humanly possible. Thanks to the wonderful human advancement that is on-demand television (and my dad's near-obsession with having adequate cable television in nearly every room in my parents' house), I got to stay up late that night watching the first two episodes of the highly-regarded HBO documentary. The show follows the Rangers and Flyers behind the scenes and through their season as they prepare to collide in an outdoor game, the NHL's recently concocted New Year's Day celebratory match which is played on an outdoor surface. With all of the Manhattan scenes featured in the show, my newly minted perspective on the city was augmented and getting to know the personalities of players, seeing the dynamics of an NHL team, and witnessing the brilliance of Philly's cosmic-minded goalie Ilya Bryzgalov officially re-lit the spark on my hockey interest.

Two weeks later, that interest has exploded and so I'd like to let that all vent here and share my thoughts on the current NHL season, which has just recently crossed its midpoint.

Album Review: N.P.R. (Nihilism Produces Revolution) by A Man Called Relik

"Many a house of life
Hath held me---seeking him who wrought
These prisons of the senses, sorrow-frought:
Sore was my ceaseless strife!"
- The Buddha

"My counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way
and follow after justice and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal
and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil."
- Plato


It has taken numerous revolutions of this disc over a period of years for me to come upon a full understanding of its message. The display of poeticism (a style best described as "eloquent ferocity" or "ferocious eloquence") and the unconventionally unbroken, smooth (often drumless) hymnal music of the beats easily induces a state of tranquil marvel rather than rigorous contemplation. Now that I've managed to experience the latter and fully assess what's being said and presented on this record, I'd like to shed light on an underground gem of condensed mental minerals.

Remembering R.A.W.

Today, 1/11 is the anniversary of writer/thinker/guerrilla ontologist Robert Anton Wilson's departure from the physical world back in 2007 (can you believe 2007 was five years ago?). For the last few months, I've found myself often going through lengthy binges of listening to his interviews or lectures or reading one of his books. His work really creates an addictive drive in followers, probably because in all of his writings, lectures, and conversations he presents such a broad abundance of knowledge in such a funny, pellucid package.

Where We're At (The Center of the Universe)

The Railway Station at Perpignan (1965) - Salvador Dali

During the year that has just concluded, a good deal of my mental energy was devoted to Salvador Dali and his paranoiac-critical method. The paranoiac method was one of the keys to my study of Dali and James Joyce. For Dali, one of his favorite means of sharing this theory was always his deep infatuation with Millet's famous painting The Angelus (this was discussed in more detail here). During the 1930s, Dali penned a book-length analysis of this seemingly simple painting, asserting that the two farmers, who appear to be observing the daily Angelus prayer devotions in their field, are actually kneeling over a tiny casket. Millet decided to paint over the casket, Dali declared, because it came across as too morbid.

Album Review: MF DOOM - "Born Like This"

Art by Shaun Edwards - www.edwords.net

"Can it be I stayed away too long? Did you miss these rhymes while I was gone?"
- DOOM

After pretty much disappearing off the scene for a few years, DOOM (who dropped the "MF" from his name) released this short but densely rich little album in early 2009. With a total running time of just 40 minutes, four tracks where he doesn't even appear, and plenty of short solo tracks, it's a minimalist approach but then again his previous solo record MM..Food played less than 50 minutes long and was stuffed with lengthy skits and interludes. This is just his style. Madvillainy and DangerDoom were short records too, each one was also eminently replayable.