Artforum covers the recent Process Church event in NYC:
LEGEND HAS IT that a young L. Ron Hubbard once bragged to his friends that he was going to start a religion and make a million dollars. We all know how that went. Less known is a far smaller rogue offshoot of Scientology that exerted disproportionate influence on late-1960s and early-?
Dangerous Minds pal Michael Simmons got a listen to the new Bob Dylan album, Christmas In the Heart and reviewed it over at MOJO. Here’s his verdict:
Overall, it’s without a doubt the most minor and oddest record in Bob’s canon. The 15 selections are all straightforward Christmas standards and there’s a cognitive dissonance on hearing He Who Gargles With Battery Acid backed by what sound like the Anita Kerr Singers. That Dylan’s voice is shot (albeit poignantly so) isn’t as glaring when he sings If You Ever Go To Houston; it’s when he attempts Winter Wonderland. And throughout Christmas In The Heart Dylan makes Tom Waits sound like Antony Hegarty.
Moreover, the mixture of kitsch and reverence is surreal, referencing both his jokey Theme Time Radio Hour persona and the Born-Again Bob’s true believer trip, reinforced by graphics that include the Three Wise Men as well as Bettie Page in a scanty Santa get-up.
I think Michael’s being way too kind. If I had a job in a retail environment and I was forced to listen to this over and over again, I’d gouge my ears out:
Read more: Dylan’s Christmas Album: First Listen!
Trippy, must read science essay from the NY Times. As Keanu Reeves would say “Whoa…”
More than a year after an explosion of sparks, soot and frigid helium shut it down, the world?
This is one of the most enlightened solutions to the world’s problems I’ve ever heard.
Just in time for the holiday! Ever dream of seeing on the same stage KISS, Margaret Hamilton and Witchiepoo? Well, The Paul Lynde Holiday Special is here to make that dream come true! Broadcast just once in ‘76, The Paul Lynde Variety Show was reissued a few years back on DVD, but is now available on YouTube. Part I follows below, with links at the bottom to all the rest (KISS appear in Part V, right before the emergence of the forever-sexy, Roz “Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly).
Astounding clip features cat contestants lifting an increasingly heavy series of weights aka fish. Nice!
WARNING: what follows is a video for possibly one of the most insanely catchy songs of all time. It Came In The Night, recorded by in ‘76 by Andy Arthur under his band name “A Raincoat,” ultimately came to serve as the soundtrack to the abridged version of Kenneth Anger‘s Rabbit’s Moon.
You can read more about the elusive Mr. Arthur here, but the shorthand goes like this:
Mystery man ?
Last week the new footage and legacy-dissecting book, this week Anne Frank in anime. Is there a genre that can’t somehow accommodate her story? Directed by Eiji Okabe, Anne no Nikki combines the story of Frank’s confinement with “fantasy” adaptations of four of her short stories—Fear, The Wise Dwarf, Henrietta, and The Adventures of Bralee the Bear Cub—which saw later publication in Tales from the Secret Annex.
An English version of “Anne no Nikki” has never been released, but I find it comforting it’s out there in French, Italian and Arabic. Anne no Nikki?
Apparently every night throughout the world hundreds of people dream about this guy’s face:
In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.
That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist’s desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.
The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.
From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Dehli, Moskow etc.
Update: Methinks this is a viral marketing campaign.
This Man
(via Presurfer)
An excerpt from Frank Schaeffer’s soon-to-be released book, Patience with God, gets to the root of why millions are praying for End Times.
Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series of sixteen novels (so far!) represents everything that is most deranged about religion. If I had to choose companions to take my chances with in a lifeboat, and the choice boiled down to picking Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, or Christopher Hitchens, I’d pick Hitchens in a heartbeat. At least he wouldn’t try to sink our boat so that Jesus would come back sooner. He might even bring along a case of wine.
The Left Behind novels have sold tens of millions of copies while spawning an “End Times” cult, or rather egging it on. Such products as Left Behind wall paper, screen savers, children’s books, and video games have become part of the ubiquitous American background noise. Less innocuous symptoms include people stocking up on assault rifles and ammunition, adopting “Christ-centered” home school curricula, fearing higher education, embracing rumor as fact, and learning to love hatred for the “other,” as exemplified by a revived anti-immigrant racism, the murder of doctors who do abortions, and even a killing in the Holocaust Museum.
No, I am not blaming Jenkins and LaHaye’s product line for murder or racism or any other evil intent or result. What I am saying is that feeding the paranoid delusions of people on the fringe of the fringe contributes to a dangerous climate that may provoke violence in a few individuals. And convincing folks that Armageddon is on the way, and all we can do is wait, pray, and protect our families from the chaos that will be the “prelude” to the “Return of Christ,” is perhaps not the best recipe for political, economic, or personal stability, let alone social cohesion. It may also not be the best philosophy on which to build American foreign policy! The momentum toward what amounts to a whole subculture seceding from the union (in order to await “The End”) is irrevocably prying loose a chunk of the American population from both sanity and their fellow citizens.
Read more: Why Republicans Are in the Grip of an Apocalyptic Rapture Cult Centered on Revenge and Vindication
Thanks Steven Otero!