Interesting essay on how the work of late science fiction author Philip K. Dick can be seen to have prefigured today’s role playing video games over at the mighty Pop Matters blog.

The thesis of author “L.B. Jefferies” is straightforward enough: “Philip K. Dick?

(Via Everything is Terrible)

As the Copenhagen Talks begin, a massive problem rears its head: The Himalayas, one of the world’s primary sources of fresh water (as well as spiritual weirdness), are under threat from global warming. The Himalayan glaciers that store the world’s waters are melting. As if China’s Three Gorges Dam project wasn’t enough, now this?

Way above us in the Himalayan cloud are jagged, snowbound peaks ?

The Guardian reports on a beloved French tortoise named “Kiki,” who apparently amused the French public to no end with his priapic, Gainsbourg-esque antics. Kiki, in addition to being one of the world’s horniest animals, was also one of its oldest. Canonize that mofo! >Via the Guardian:

France was in mourning today for one of its oldest and best-loved lotharios, a giant tortoise named Kiki, who died at the age of 146.

Staff at the M?ɬ

 
It’s been, what, weeks since the last Dangerous Minds Rolling Stones post, so here’s my last one…for the decade.  The tragedy at Altamont happened 40 years ago yesterday, but rather revisit that chapter in Stones history, here’s some little-seen footage of Mick Jagger taking the stage at Hyde Park to eulogize Brian Jones, who’d died under mysterious circumstances just two days earlier.  Five months after Hyde Park, the Stones played Altamont.

 
While crystal meth and male prostitutes might have sent him into exile, disgraced former preacher Ted Haggard is now mounting his return as a spokesman for God.  This time, though, rather than lavish cathedrals, his flock will have to settle for the barn beside his house:

Last month, Haggard—who declined to be interviewed—opened his home for a prayer meeting.  He expected a dozen people.  More than 100 came, and the Haggards moved the furniture out of the living room to make space.  A week later, he swept out his barn and rented 75 chairs.  When they were filled, people stood against the back walls.

Many were former or current members of his old church who called him Pastor Ted.  They said they had missed him, that he was born to preach—not to sell insurance as he had when he first returned here.  They said they had forgiven what they and Haggard regarded as his sins.  If Haggard can make a comeback, it will be because many evangelical Christians find his story appealing, said Michael Hamilton, an associate history professor at Seattle Pacific University who studies evangelicalism.  “Sin, sorrow, repentance, conversion and trying to live out your new faith—that’s the standard evangelical way to look at one’s life,” he said.

But whether Haggard can achieve his previous success is questionable, said Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois.  One sticking point could be that Haggard reportedly did not complete a church-mandated “restoration process.”  New Life officials have said Haggard quit the process in early 2008; he maintains that the church ended the process and that he did not ask to be released from the obligation.

“The larger question is the inability to put himself under someone else’s authority and whether it shows true repentance,” Eskridge said.  Another issue is the nature of the scandal itself.”  Even though evangelical theology doesn’t make distinctions between sins,” Hamilton said, “homosexuality is a hard one for evangelicals to cope with.”

To watch Alexandra Pelosi‘s Trials of Ted Haggard in its entirety, click here.

 
Ted Haggard Returns To The Pulpit In Colorado

 
What if Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom was performed by The Three Stooges?  Well, it might come out looking something like the work of L.A.-based artist, Paul McCarthy.  Although he probably first captured national attention with MOCA’s infamous Helter Skelter show in ‘92, McCarthy’s been working with “the primal substances of life—blood, pus, urine, feces, sperm, milk, sweat,” ever since the ‘70s.

Below is a more recent work from ‘03, WGG (Wild Gone Girls).  Ubu describes it thusly: “Depicting a sailing party gone wrong, McCarthy questions the effects that violence and mutilation, both real and simulated, have on the viewer in contemporary culture.”  Maybe so.  But strip away the cozy, art-speak contextualizing.  Couldn’t that be said, too, for something like, oh…Wes Craven’s, Last House On The Left from ‘72?  WARNING: McCarthy’s WGG = not for the squeamish!

 
In the NYT: Fairy Tales, But Strictly Adults-Only

 
And why not combine political dissent with yard ornamentation?

Standing at just under 17inches, Gnome Chomsky the Garden Noam clutches his classic books, ‘The Manufacture of Compost?

 
Apparently, Luke Skywalker has OCD. The reaction shots from the rest of the team are priceless.