The important new dynamic in modern human communication.

The first image (fucking finally) from Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard’s Cabin In The Woods.

Are wide male faces a predictor for unethical behavior?

James Spader is joining The Office, but not as the boss, not for long.

Zadie Smith turning to speculative fiction and sci fi.

Infidelity might just keep us together.

Spike Lee to direct the American remake of Oldboy?

Above: Katie West summer print sale.

An oral history of Explosions In The Sky.

Antonia Fraser and Harold Pinter.

The paradox that was G. K. Chesteron.

Don’t let them cut off your balls, boys.

At least Glenn Beck is gone from the airwaves.

An oral history of Michael Fucking Bay.

9 steps to foolproof outdoor sex.

“In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant…. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known—no wonder, then, that I return the love. “

-Søren Kierkegaard

Harry Potter’s favorite magic potion is booze.

Speaking of which, some of your favorite fast food chains are now serving alcohol.

Also, the “experts” are now saying that some “light drinking” may be “safe” while you’re pregnant.

And: An oral history of the Harry Potter film series.

The evils of “like” culture.

“All I want is to have incredibly violent sex.”

from here.

Massive amounts of cheating discovered in Atlanta public schools.

Topless sunbathing in the bit city.

How Charlotte’s Web was conceived.

The perfect penis.

Alfred Hitchcock recalls working with Salvador Dali.

“You are a computer salesman – I am fucking JAMES BOND.”

Ours might not be a holographic universe after all

This is going to be awkward.

Jon Hamm will direct Mad Men‘s season 5 premiere (in 2012).

Terrorist “pre-crime” detector field tested.

The wisdom of crowds is a dangerous, stupid thing.

Of course Annie Hardy has a tumblr.

Important news: Ciara likes being naked.

Michael Jackson’s daughter is going to be a star some day.

Idris Elba is so hot right now.

Pictures from here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Food prices will double by 2030.

Here’s that Jonathan Franzen link that every other fucker has posted somewhere on your facebook, tumblr, twitter, or whatever.

Copanhagen suborbitals upcoming launch attempt in June.

Kevin Fanning on the daily commute.

Read more about that terrible sounding Wonder Woman pilot.

To the blogger who thinks saying “fuck” means I’m dumb.

An excerpt from Mindy Kaling’s new book.

The Hangover Part II has to be the laziest fucking movie ever.

The gospel according to Bill Clinton.

In September, DC Comics will relaunch all their superhero titles with new #1s, other changes.

Here’s a wild new drug that you should surely know about: Oxi.

Michael Kupperman doing Mark Twain’s Autobiography.

Is Donald Sutherland the last person to join the cast of The Hunger Games or could there possibly be more?

Hip-hop loved Gil Scott-Heron.

A drug that could erase your memories of being afraid.

PBS website hacked with a story about Tupac still being alive.

Chemists discovered why Van Gogh’s yellows were fading; a Dutch ornithologist remained unsure whether the yellow breasts of great tits change with age but found that the offspring of older females are likelier to die young. In Finland, tawny owls were evolving from gray to brown and sperm quality in humans was deteriorating. Religion was going in extinct in the Czech Republic. A sacred soft-shelled turtle in Hanoi, one of only four species left in the world, was gravely ill yet continued to evade capture. A female mite preserved in amber with her mate was observed to have been controlling the terms of their copulation. Florida could be up to 50 percent older than previously believed. Astrobiologists hypothesized that the first multi-cellular animal resembled cancer. Tonsillectomies make children gain weight. Weight-loss surgery makes children lose weight. Doctors touted the benefits of removing the gallbladder through the vagina. Texas scientists cut holes in the hearts of baby mice; the hearts then healed themselves.

The passages above are from the “Findings” section in the May 2011 issue of Harper’s and were written by Rafil Kroll-Zaidi.

See previously: here, here, here, here, and here.

from here.

Oh well, a shame. But I suppose the Internet will quickly find something else for itself to get excited about, right? But there’s still us and there’s tomorrow and a little more juice to be squeezed out of whatever could be “the future” and there’s whatever could possibly come with that…

Mad linkage:

Here’s 10 other recent predictions for the End Times that didn’t come true either.

German insurance firm held orgy to reward salesmen.

Learn how to tie your shoes right.

Quite possibly our first look at Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.

Kirk Cameron vs. Stephen Hawking.

Ricky Gervais on The Office‘s finale.

If you do go up in the Rapture, don’t worry, the atheists will take care of your pets… for a price.

An excerpt from Chris Adrian’s new novel.

“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”

-Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

by Beth Hoeckel, from here.

What really goes on in Area 51?

A volcano in Iceland called Grímsvötn has erupted.

Twitter shit about the Rapture from yesterday.

Inside the Robert Redford biography.

Stephen Fry joins The Hobbit.

New discovery about mosquitoes reveals why vampires will never exist.

Speaking of which, Joe Jackson is still a bloodsucking piece of shit.

from here.

“The future is already here… It’s just not even distributed.”

-William Gibson

David Lynch to release an album later this year.

The visual impact of gossip.

The story of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s doomed/failed/totally fucking crazy would be adaptation of Dune to become a documentary. Here’s Dan O’Bannon talking about it a little.

Related: the team up between Salvador Dali and Walt Disney.

Just checking: Still no Rapture, right? Whew.

NBC cancels Outsourced. Good.

The trailer for the new film by Miranda July.

Carrie is being remade and Stephen King suggests Lindsay Lohan for the lead.

from here.

This trailer/movie looks really terrible: Horrible Bosses.

This trailer looks so so, but the movie will probably suck: Another Earth.

It’s Pilot Season! Trailers for (just a few of the) new TV shows that were just picked up:

Awake. Which… looks good, looks interesting, but I just don’t see a TV show that I would follow/watch for years and years there. Funny how both it and Another Earth‘s trailer use that song by the Cinematic Orchestra.

Alcatraz. The latest from the J.J. Abrams camp… The 4400 meets Prison Break, featuring Sam Neill and Hurley from Lost. This looks ridiculous, and I’ll watch it and just hope that it’s not another letdown like Fringe.

Person Of Interest. Another from J. J. Abrams, although it seems like it’s mostly just his name on it and the real creative juice is from Jonathan Nolan, writer of The Dark Knight and brother of Christopher. Looks interesting-ish, but Jim Caviezel? Was that really necessary?

A trailer for the documentary on the showrunners of all your favorite TV shows.

And a nice guide to the shows that didn’t make it to the Fall 2011 season.

“The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.”

-Dennis Gabor

I had a dream a while back that the world was ending… It was an odd dream, but not a terrible one, I guess. It’s just not something you can prepare for, the end of the world. You can’t ever really be ready for it. You just gotta keep on living, don’t you? And loving and listening to music and dancing and pursuing impossible things and enjoying mundane moments and people and doing all kinds of stupid shit. Take things seriously but maybe enjoy the ridiculous things that surround you just a little bit more? I don’t want to tell you something terribly cliched, like… Live every moment like it’s your last!

No, don’t do that. You’ll probably hurt yourself trying to do that.

But maybe every once in a while, take a single moment and consider that it is your last moment on this beautiful, insane planet, and just really ponder that. And think about what you would do if it wasn’t. Beam yourself into the future and peek in on yourself and see what you’re up to. Take a vacation into the future and see who you are there. Interview yourself and find out what went right and wrong in your life in the moments/weeks/months/years between now and then, and take good notes. And when you come back to the present, remember that little trip. Remember that time you went to the future and appreciate that you’re back here, and now, and then go there again.

The anniversary of Bikini Atoll is coming up.

Chinese “dinosaur city” reshapes understanding of prehistoric era.

Brittany Julious is sexy.

The kind of guys who stay single?

The Cat Rapture for Caturday!

Neil Gaiman on Gene Wolf.

Grant Morrison to write a movie about dinosaurs vs. aliens, Barry Sonnenfield to direct.

from here.

RIP “Macho Man.”

The fashion of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Fleetwood Mac to reunite in time for the end of the world.

The never before seen original ending to Alexander Payne’s Election, which is much closer to the book’s ending.

I don’t think I’m all that crazy about these Odd Future guys.

Skeeter Davis and Henry Moore.

Tom Cruise is a lonely robot repairman.

from here.

How to survive a mass extinction.

Plot details from the upcoming Tim Burton/Johnny Depp big screen version of Dark Shadows.

Will the internet destroy academic freedom?

A history of bedwetting.

Bionic hands! The future is now!

A good prank for the Rapture.

Oh well, hopefully this one was good practice for the next time the world (supposedly) ends. Still plenty of time to get your Rapture Playlist just fucking perfect. No sleep til 2012!

17 things about tonight’s episode of Doctor Who…

1. There’s a Supermassive Black Hole on the TARDIS!

2. Tonight’s episode was a bit… so so, I guess? I mean, not terrible, with some interesting concepts, but I just didn’t feel like I was watching something classic and lovely. Similar, as far as two parters would go, would perhaps be last year’s Silurian episodes, I think. Although it might turn itself around in the second part… An example of a good filler two parter on Doctor Who, for me, would be probably “The Impossible Planet” and “The Satan Pit.”

3. Doctor Who likes things that are impossible, that’s for sure.

4. Castles! Clones and/or shapeshifters! Old scary monasteries and darkness and weird mysteries that should just not be poked at and pondered by humans, who may be the real monsters themselves… I like it. There’s a little bit of a Frankenstein flair to this episode… Like I said, interesting concepts. Also… The Thing, maybe? And Solaris, sorta.

I never saw more than YouTube clips of the original British Life On Mars, or its sequel, Ashes To Ashes, but I’ve always heard it praised, and Matthew Graham’s writing especially. His script here wasn’t terrible, not really, and so far feels better than his previous effort, “Fear Her,” which he had to write in a pinch during the second season when Stephen Fry fell through on his writing commitment to the show.

5. Solar Tsunamis! That’s just goddamn fun to say. Say it five times fast, then a couple of more times.

6. The pacing of this episode was a bit of a problem, I think. It just didn’t grab you, and then if it did, it didn’t keep you. The episode came up a bit reaching on the level of “moody” and “atmospheric” that I think it would’ve needed to survive…

In fact, the more I think about it, it really feels like they did smash “The Impossible Planet”/”The Satan Pit” together with “The Hungry Earth“/”Cold Blood” and mashed them together. Two sides warring. The doctor pleading with peace. A new life form. Sharing and caring. Isolated away from others, trapped in the darkness, focusing on the guest stars, and ehhh…

7. By a bit of that logic, I wonder if that means that Rory will have to die again?

8. I kept waiting for Amy to hit him with a dart in the opening scene in the TARDIS. I mean, I like Rory and all, don’t get me wrong, but he seems like the kind of guy who should be getting hit in the balls with a football or something every other episode.

9. And, ugh, once the Doctor touched that goo, besides the copious hints of a some shadowy monstrous figure whispering “Trust me!” you just knew that the Doctor would have to face off with his fleshy (Doppel)Ganger.

10. In their in between shifting state, the Gangers do look a lot like Odo, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, don’t they?

But, oooh, does the Doctor know more about the future of “The Flesh?” He does refer to them as “primitive technology,” and evades questions about what he may already know about them, yes? Is this one of those episodes where he finds himself stuck at the crossroads of time, having to reinforce an event that he already knows must happen? What does the future hold for the Gangers that the Doctor already knows about? And is he trying to fight/change that future?

11. I really want to see the Ganger Doctor fighting the real Doctor. Who doesn’t want an evil twin?  Of course, that can only end one way: With you having to wrestle your evil twin to death while your friends look on, unsure of which of you is the real you and which is the fake…

Kill us both, Spock!

12. It was nice of them to give Rory a very human moment, and let him connect with someone who feels real, as far as being human goes, but isn’t quite. After spending two millenniums as plastic, you’d expect the man to have a little empathy. And it was nice watching him do something other than feel left out when the Doctor and Amy are off having fun/adventures/sexy flirtatious hijinks.

And Sarah Smart was really good as the woman who is no longer human but still remembers being human. Some interesting moral quandaries and questions there and if there’s anything that science fiction loves devouring, it’s moral quandaries. And questions. And Sarah Smart, I always thought, was good in Kenneth Branagh’s Wallander series, though criminally wasted. Nice to see Mark Bonnar too, whom I thought was decent in a show called Paradox that just didn’t get nearly enough respect out there. I’m surprised that Amy didn’t bond with him since she seems to bond with every Scottish person that she meets.

13. Spoilers…

Coming soon: Meredith Vieira, the Silurians, Winston Churchill, the Romans, and the Cybermen!

14. I keep hearing rumors that Rory is going to be evil or do something slightly evil this season…

Is it possible that he still has naughty evil programming in his head from when he was an Auton? And is he actually human now? How does all that work, that stuff from “The Big Bang,” with the Doctor restarting the universe and Amy wishing everyone/everything she loves back into existence? Seems to be like there would be some wiggle room there for plotline nastiness to be throw in as the season progresses.

15. After next week’s “The Almost People,” we have the big mid-season finale, “A Good Man Goes To War.” Should be exciting. The released synopsis for it says something about Amy being kidnapped and Rory and the Doctor racing around the universe gathering allies and calling it old debts to rescue her. And that River Song has to prepare herself to escape from prison and that the time for her to reveal her big, crazy secret is fast approaching.

Fuck, I miss River Song.

16. Also, Amy is still Shrodinger’s Preggers!

And her:

And also:

Eesh.

17. Also, I love Dusty Springfield.

Just know that before you say anything bad about her, well, then you better be bringing a fight with you.

Next time: More with the almost people and the rebel flesh and the Doctor vs. the Doctor! And also a massive cliffhanger of some sort…

and

and

and

and last but not least…

from here, here, here, here, and here.

And previously: go here, here, here, here, and here.

That’s a short film entitled Ollie Klublershturf vs. the Nazis, written by Lost‘s Damon Lindelof and directed by Skot Bright. It features a few famous faces such Chris Hemsworth (who’s now Thor in Thor, and was Kirk’s dad in the Star Trek reboot), George Segal, Rachel Nichols, Norman Reedus, and Samm Levine. IO9 posted it the other day and I was excited because I hadn’t actually realized it had been produced. It’s about a little boy genius who invented a time machine and is trying to stop the Nazi scum who’ve infiltrated his family dinner in an attempt to steal his device. It’s silly but good fun.

Anyway, I had heard of it before because I remembered reading an interview with Lindelof about the origin of his being paired with J.J. Abrams to write the Lost pilot, which ABC gave them after it let go of Jeffrey Lieber (but kept his initial concept about a group of strangers crash landing on a mysterious island, hence his name appearing as one of the creator’s of the show). The gist of the story is essentially that Abrams was intrigued by the idea, and already had a deal in place with the network, but didn’t really want to do it on his own, so he needed to find another writer to work with and whom he could work with. Along came Lindelof, with the script for this short film being his audition piece, and history was made.

Fucking “Stairway To Heaven.”

I love my guitar. I love playing it, when I play it, which is somewhat more rarer these days. But back then I was full of boundless enthusiasm about learning to play the thing and I was so nervous and so fucking terrible about it. And thus I convinced my mom to pony up the cash to get me a session with some dude with a pony tail at the local guitar shop once a week. This was maybe 1997-ish?

Mind you, all professional guitar teachers have pony tails. It’s like a fucking requirement. Same thing for the schlubby white dudes who work at your local Game Stop. Another Game Stop requirement: That hot Asian/Pacific Islander girl who wears really, really tight pants. After she leaves Game Stop, that girl will go get a job at your local gym and thanks to her, you will never ever ever quit your membership.

Anyway. Six weeks I spent with that dude who wanted me to slave over my guitar until I could play “Stairway To Heaven” in its entirety. “This is a right of passage!” he would scream as my fingers struggled. “But Page just stole this from ‘Taurus’ by Spirit!” I would scream back, but that was irrelevant to my guitar teacher. His name was something unspectacular like… Greg. “All the best mages steal and make the magic of others their own!”

That was a big thing with my guitar teacher: Magic. The occult. The focusing of one’s will onto the world around oneself and interacting and influencing it. Mastering your domain, and achieving a dominion with nature and this goofy playground we call reality. “This song is a magic spell,” he would tell me again and again, “and I want you to get this enchantment right.” It was a big deal to him that I attempt a passable version of Page’s solo. I tried to explain to him that that wasn’t my goal with learning to play the guitar, but it fell on deaf ears…

All I wanted to do was learn how to write songs. I wanted to entertain myself and write little pop ditties. Maybe I’d do something serious with them, but maybe not. They were going to be my own magic, intended for and belonging only to me. Three chords and a melody. That’s what someone had promised me, and with just three chords and a melody I could change my life. I wasn’t interested in learning someone else’s solos or playing them or anything like that, especially not for others’ consumption.

Honestly, If I wanted to masturbate in front of a group of people then I’d yank out my other magic wand and do so, thank you very much.

As my young fingers slaved over the fretboard my guitar teacher wanted to fill my head with stories of the occult powers and apprenticeship of Jimmy Page. He wanted to talk about Kenneth Anger and Lucifer Rising. He wanted to talk to me and get me excited about sigils and secret words. He thought it was important that I knew not just about the words and deeds and actions of Aleister Crowley, the “wickedest man in the world,” but that I knew the influence that he had had on some of my favorite musicians.

Mind you, don’t forget: This was the 90s. Back then we were either obsessed with the 70s or told that we should be obsessed with the 70s. And we should be obsessed with their obsessions. Like Tolkien and The Lord Of The Rings and Thelema and Aleister Fucking Crowely.

If you’re interested in the short version on Crowley, it goes like this: He was a shit. And a piece of shit. And full of shit. And he may have been onto something. I’ve talked about him here previously, if you’re interested, but I’ll say this… If there’s truly magic in this world, outside of a young girl’s heart or in music, then he might’ve made some real strides towards discovering it. I’m not exactly what I’d call a full fledged “magic” enthusiast, but I’ve always had an interest in the strange and eye towards a certain level of experimentation. I’ve done my research and from what I understand, you can do some of Crowley’s rituals and get the same results. But the thing is… so what? Do you really want to summon a demon? Look out your window. They’re already here. They’ve taken over!

(And sure, we know that the Devil is a hardcore patron of the Arts, clearly, but then he went down to Georgia and all I want to know is if I were to meet him on the road… Which of us plays the fiddle better?)

And sadly none of this knowledge that was being dropped on me by this sleazy dude with a pony tail and overpriced guitar lessons was new. Maybe/maybe not in this post I’ll go into an anecdote about my dad, but one of the few things my father ever gave me was an extensive collection of esoteric anecdotal knowledge about the heroes and icons and monsters and cunning folk of classic rock. Invite me to a party with your parents and I’ll be a fucking hit. Wanna hear a story about Keith Moon and horse tranquilizers?

Sure you do. But maybe another time. Anyway. After six weeks in a tiny little closet in the back of the guitar shop I finally got up the balls to tell my guitar teacher that enough was a enough. “Look, Gandalf,” I said, and I’m paraphrasing, “Fuck this. Teach me something else.” His style was to learn  songs and go from there, so show the technique and the craft behind individual songs, and expand it. It hurt him greatly to have to give up this little spell, but finally he nodded and acquiesced. The next song he taught me was “Angie” by the Rolling Stones.

Thanks to my guitar teacher I always think of this song as an ode to wanting to get fucked. “This song will release the flood, if you know what I mean,” my guitar teacher would tell me. I’d tell him that I didn’t exactly know what he meant and then he’d start a complicated explanation of how exactly the physical effects of arousal come about in a woman’s vagina. I’d cut him off then and say, “Ah, yes. I get it.”

“This song is all about pussy,” he’d tell me, simplifying it. He was a happily married guy, he’d assure me, but whenever he and his bodies would go out of town, he always took his guitar with him. If he met a nice girl, one who intrigued him, he’d pull out the guitar and play “Angie” for her. And then the flood would come, he lead me to believe. “This song will get you into serious trouble,” he’d tell me. “And that trouble is called ‘girls.’”Again, “this song is all about pussy.” And probably the pussy of David Bowie’s first wife, at least from a historical perspective.

I’m not here to talk to you now about my, ah, cocksmanship, or my luck with the ladies, or any of that. Everyone’s got a set of magic words or that perfect song that you can put on and it gets the kind of attention you want from the people you want amorous attention from. What I’m saying here is that was never what the guitar was supposed to be for me. It was not an extension of my dick. It was not a metaphor for my penis and it wasn’t something that I was hoping would get me into any trouble or any women. I’d like to think I’m beyond any kind of cheap metaphors or mentality about women and penetration.

FYI: I grew up, for the most part, in Sacramento, California. In and around that area is where this story is taking place. The thing about Sacramento is that back then, every guy you’d meet who had a ponytail and was over 40 probably had some story about how he was in Tesla for about five minutes. Other than that, the local music scene consisted of all this bad white funk and swing/rockabilly bullshit. That the guitar teachers would consider themselves citizen warlocks isn’t so much of a stretch, but that their world was some kind of undercover seduction community… Well, I guess that wasn’t much of a stretch either. Sigh.

Anyway. After I had mastered “Angie” to the approval of my guitar teacher, we moved on to “December” by Collective Soul.

Sadly, there was no deep knowledge to be dropped on me that had to do with this song or any kind of belief system behind it. It wasn’t about magic nor was it about impressing girls, not as far as my guitar teacher was concerned. It was just a song that was on the radio at the time and he liked it. As far as my tutelage in the guitarsenal (or the guitarmy) was going, it was busy work. Two weeks later I got a call at home from my guitar teacher’s wife to tell me that they were moving out of state and that he wouldn’t be able to continue my lessons, but a good  friend of his would and that the first lesson with him would be free to see if we were a good fit. If I was interested. I remember sitting there in the den of my California home and holding that phone and being silent for a long time. I was thinking, I guess, but mostly I was realizing that I didn’t care one way or another. The guy’s wife asked me I was still there and I was and I told her so and I said sure, and told me that the lesson with the other guy would be at the same time at the same place and I said I’d be there. Physically, at least.

Anyway, the replacement guy was a nice Philipino man who’s real name I can’t remember but he kept wanting me to call him Zen. Everyone called him Zen, he assured me, and I had a problem with that. He had a pony tail too, so I knew he was legit. His alternative credentials was that he had been in a band with Perry Farrell about six or seven years earlier, prior to that band’s implosion and Farrell going on to start Jane’s Addiction. I said, “Wow. That’s interesting.” I remember he smiled so big at that. “You love that, don’t you?” he asked. “All you kids love that, that I knew Perry Farrell.” I shrugged. I didn’t really like Perry Farrell. Or Jane’s Addiction. Maybe a song or two. I liked one or two songs by Porno For Pyros. And Dave Navarro looked like a parody of an alternative rock God masquerading as a magician in drag to me.

After that first lesson with the man whom I will sadly now and only now refer to Zen, I went where he instructed would be an abundance of the one album he recorded with that band that included Perry Farrell: Tower Records. Never found it, sadly. Of course not. Maybe it had never actually be conjured in existence. Maybe he had made it all up, which wouldn’t surprise me. That’s the thing about magic, kids: What you want doesn’t exist. It’s bullshit. But if you wrap it in a story and think about it hard enough and tell it right, you can make it real.

That’s the idea, anyway.

Back in the 90s, there was this concept of division in music as well. It’s a cyclical idea, part of our constant search for authenticity and what’s real and our witch hunt for anything that’s untrue. We disliked poseurs back then, I remember. Suddenly we all become Holden Caufield, righteously screaming on into the dying of the light about all those phony people that surrounded us.

That guy that I’ll call Zen here really hated rap and hip hop. He assumed by by my picking up the guitar that I must hate it too. He and I would talk about how Rock vs. Rap was really the battle for the soul of the humanity, or something like that. Just a year or two later, a bunch of assholes would be creating something called “Rap Rock” and it would probably blow his mind. Nevermind that a decade earlier Run DMC and Aerosmith had already shown us that we could all “walk this way.” It was really about taste, what you liked and what you disliked. It wasn’t about the Rockers vs. the Mods, not anymore. Or jazz and rock n’ roll (and the effects both have had on American crime). Some songs are about unification and partying and some are about solitude and otherness. They can be about one or the other and usually they tie into each other. It always comes back to us vs. them, and it’s usually the same. Do you even know what side you’re on?

Me, personally? I’m on the side that’s got the butter on it.

All I’m saying here is that in some loose definition, all music (and possibly all noise, depending on the listener) is pop, and it doesn’t matter whose side you’re on when you’re marching into the Holy Land to wage your stake in the Crusades, you’ll probably be singing a little song to keep yourself occupied and though the lyrics may change, the melody is probably the same as your enemies’ song. Like what you like and don’t like what you don’t like, because your music belongs to you and only you, but just know that sometimes only the concept of division is what divides and what you like and what you don’t like probably share the same address.

Anyway, that guy Zen and I used to talk about that kind of stuff at the guitar lessons my mom was paying for and, well, they weren’t very deep conversations. Thankfully the lessons weren’t that expensive either.

I’m thinking about this stuff now, but the last I really thought about this all was back in late 1999, or early 2000, a few years after my adventures with the guitar teachers (that was the mid-90s, and I was in high school then). I was homeless, just having turned 18, and I was very much alive in this world and very much adrift. I was living with a mess of a friend, a real asshole (but in our group of friends back then he was our asshole, as Commander Light had so perfectly put it not too long ago). It was late at night one night and we were sitting on a porch, this friend and I, and this hideous girl who he was fucking behind the back of another friend of his. She was a disgusting mess and there was a guitar present. I picked it up, so tuned out of whatever their conversation was about, and I was just finger picking, just finding a tune, something to keep my mind active. At some point I just remember my friend getting so upset with me and grabbing the guitar out of my heads and yelling at me, “That’s not how you play ‘Dazed And Confused’!” and then he proceeded to try to play the Led Zeppelin song for the amusement of his lady friend.

He played it terribly but she was easily amused. Eventually they left me the guitar while they snuck off into the night to fuck somewhere and I just stared out into the dark. I hadn’t been trying to play “Dazed And Confused.” I don’t even know how to play “Dazed And Confused,” nor have I ever cared to learn it. But I certainly felt dazed and confused. And there on that porch in the darkness I played “Stairway To Heaven” all the way through, just as my guitar teacher had taught me and forced me to practice all those years earlier.

That was the only time I’ve played it since I quit the guitar lessons and I haven’t played it since. I don’t even remember how now.

But that was then and this is now and 2500 words later I can tell you that I still have the same guitar I had back then and I still play it occasionally but not like I did back then, sadly. But I still play it for the same reasons I sought it out back then: for myself. For enjoyment. Hell, I don’t even masturbate solely for enjoyment anymore these days (I do it so that I don’t go crazy and kill people).

Magic is just another one of those things, like religion and politics and fresh fruit and an interest in other human beings. You believe in it, but in your way, and it’s not comparable to what or how someone else thinks or how they feel it. When people ask you that stupid question, “What would you choose if you had to pick from one, to be either blind or deaf?” and I think I’d have to ultimately choose to be blind. There’s so much in this life that I think I’m seeing but really not anyway, and plus, as cheesy as it sounds, I think I’d die without music.

In that regard, and in others, I haven’t given up on magic, but magic the way I feel it and understand it and appreciate it and practice it. These aren’t just words and a silly story you’re being told here. This is my incantation and this website is my talisman and hypersigil. And my grimoire. And if you’ve ever written on this website, or read this website, or even just these words right now, well, then you’re a part of my coven. Welcome to the game that’s disguised as everything. We’re telling a story that’s big and crazy and a little bit odd and hopefully a little bit fun and if we want it hard it enough and tell it right then maybe we can make it real. And if you’re lucky it’ll have a good tune that you could dance to.

Nudists are seeking the next generation.

The grilled cheese sandwich gets a trendy rebirth.

An absolutely amazing abandoned end of the world bunker.

Animals that have Jack Shephard’s face.

“Only zealots and fools will continue to bow down to the gods of social media.”

Junot Diaz on Tokyo’s insane urbanism.

Relive Bill Paxton in all his glory in James Cameron’s Aliens.

FYI: The last name of the guy who plays Magnitude (which is short for “Magnetic Attitude”) on Community is Youngblood. Pop pop!

Martin Amis on Christopher Hitchens.

Japanese graffiti artist adds Fukushima disaster to famous A-bomb mural.

The haunted pod village of San-zhi.

An interview with Werner Herzog.

Professional online poker player ponders how he’ll make a living now.

Lindsay Lohan & Shenae Grimes: This should be interesting.

Thankfully the death of Osama Bin Laden doesn’t really affect Kathryn Bigelow’s film about the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Salvador Dali’s TV ads for chocolate, alka-seltzer, and wine.

On Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Roberto Bolaño’s European adventures.

The Naked And Famous.

Jim Caviezel says that playing Jesus ruined his acting career. LOL. Good.

Baby was breastfed by wrong woman!

The man most likely to take top military job has never seen war.

The collected letters of Vladimir Nabokov.

Women are changing the sex industry from the inside, by Molly Lambert.

Guy Pearce cast in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus/Aliens prequel.

Will Ferrell shaved Conan O’Brien last night.

The pictures in this post are from this awesome collection of covers to the various editions of the novel and the two film adaptations of Lolita. Some really interesting design work there, ranging from the incredibly boring to the incredibly tantalizing.

“Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.”

-Vladimir Nabokov, interviewed in The Paris Review.

But I guess they just happened to miss this one:

from here.

Nikola Mihov’s fascinating photography series “Forget Your Past.”

Relive Bill Paxton in all his glory in James Cameron’s True Lies.

The billionaires go back to school.

Bin Laden’s legacy will depend in part on what Obama does next.

Al-Quaeda: the next generation?

Back To The Future 2 is totally amazing and depressing at the same time.

6 medication side effects straight out of a horror movie.

Tracing that fake MLK quote back to its source.

Hipster animals!

Hot women pandering to nerds.

from here.

A week ago I said to a friend: “Dealing with your enemies is simple and easy. The best way to combat them is to simply make friends with them. Make friends with them so hard that it hurts.”

It’s so weird to me still that one of the time I felt most unified with this crazy, amazing, fucked up country was on 9/11. The wost metaphor I could use here would be: It’s like that girlfriend, the one who’s really fucking amazing, if a little weird, and way too good for you, and you just treat her like shit. She should really quit you and your bullshit. You just don’t appreciate her and for some reason she just won’t leave you. And you don’t realize how important she really is to you until someone else threatens here. Some clarity only comes to us on the precipice of great and terrible disaster. Life is funny like that.

Part of me is glad that Bin Laden wasn’t captured and forced to answer for his crimes to us and to the world in person, though I would have wanted that, of course. Part of me was glad to hear that this was finally over, that everyone who had been wounded by the tragedies that seemed to be dialed up at this man’s fingertips can now crawl just one more inch ever so slowly and painfully into the past. I wouldn’t really call this “justice “though because, well, there is no such thing as justice. Scales aren’t balanced because Bin Laden is dead. His life will never ever begin to be equal in worth to those lost on 9/11 or those who have put on an military uniform and defended a certain set of ideals and beliefs that we all take for granted every single minute. America is a brilliant, beautiful idea, but not a perfect one, and it can be hurt and it can be dented, but it’ll always be stronger than some cheap thug, no matter where he lives, no matter what he looks like, no matter what he worships. It can only be killed by those who give up on the idea, or who sell it out bit by bit in the name of “freedom.”

from here.

The death of what we consider to be an evil man on the other side of the world doesn’t bring back all those special people that we lost but hopefully it helps some people to breathe easier. Hopefully it reminds us why those people were special to us and hopefully we never forget what they meant to us. I’d like to say that hopefully it makes us appreciate each moment we have on this planet all that much more, but we should’ve been doing that long before now, and of course should continue doing that to the moment we draw our last breath. Hopefully someone like Bin Laden will never ever come close to challenging that idea every again.

I’ll admit to being conflicted or just confused about this news and how I should be feeling, but I’m lucky. Lucky to be here, lucky to be typing this in the land of the free, home of the brave. I’m lucky that I didn’t lose anyone ten years ago on that strange September day or in the fights and wars that followed. Who Osama Bin Laden is and what all of this means is something for you to decide. I can tell you that I don’t view this man’s death as closure, but honestly, I won’t look down on anyone who gets it from this news.

Thank you, mom. Thank you, God. Thank you, Barack Obama. Thank you, Donald Trump (with your stupid ass hair and head full of shit). Thank you, Pakistan. Thank you, India! Thank you, everyone who’s ever stood up for what they believed in and put that belief above themselves. Thank you, Bill Murray. Thank you, internet jokesters and “expert thinkers.” Thank you, Doctor Who. Thank you to the moon and to The Onion, both. Thank you, mainstream media. Thank you, “Mission Accomplished.” Thank you, those who agree with me, and thank you to those who would never agree with me in a million years. Thank you, Jack Donaghy, and thank you, Condoleezza Rice and thank you, Margaret Cho (for guest starring on 30 Rock). Thank you, strange new/old world that has such people in it. Thank you, post-Now. Thank you to everyone who thinks this matters and everyone who knows that it really doesn’t. Thank you to all those who never forget and especially thank you to those who are doomed to remember.

I saw this picture posted on the internet a little while ago…

…and I had a might good chuckle.

The terrorists are always winning. And the terrorists are always losing. And the battle will keep raging and hopefully we’ll never forget what we’re fighting for or who we should actually be fighting.

It’s doesn’t even matter that Superman’s no longer an American citizen or that The Rock had the #1 movie at the box office this weekend AND knew that Osama was dead before you did because…

Well, because the story’s not over and the dream is never ending.

And like PKD said, Maybe the Empire never ended?

Like fake MLK said, “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.”

It’s been over 24 hours now and tonight when I go to bed I’ll be thinking the same thing I was thinking last night, “Okay, so Osama’s dead. And what will tomorrow look like?”