The only difference between a madman and myself is that I am not mad.”
— Salvador Dali
Tag: “Bob”
Cult of the Hidden Joke.
5 Thoughts: Comix with an X
1. CRUMB. GRIFFITH. SHELTON. THESE (AND other “sequential artists“) were the visual architects of my immediate post-adolescent universe; whose spare-but-dense works were strewn reverently on the couches and mattresses of my very late teens and very early 20s; whose fractured catchphrases (“Yow! Are we having fun yet?” “Hey kids, while you’re out smashing the state keep a smile on your lips and a song in your hearts!” “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope!”) worked their way into the conversations of my fellow-freakly peers. Continue reading “5 Thoughts: Comix with an X”
“For My Next Trick, I Will Unite the Universe…”
A FUN WAY TO ENTERTAIN and enlighten early adolescents is via the following exercise:
“What’s the first dimension?” you’d ask. They’d answer, “Length.”
“The second?” “Width.”
“Third?” “Height.”
“Fourth?” “Time!”
“That’s right. Now, for my next trick, I will unite the Universe…” Continue reading ““For My Next Trick, I Will Unite the Universe…””
Ask Me Another
IT’S HARD TO STAND OUT from the billions of people using social media — but you can do it in a small way, at least among friends.
I’m speaking as a self-appointed Facebook Questioner, posing queries every Monday through Friday mornings. The questions are widely varied, e.g., “What is your language of love?” “What are you listening to?” “How would you accessorize your personal action figure?” “What qualities do you (try to) cultivate?” “Dubbing or subtitles?” “What’s your instant-relaxation strategy?” Continue reading “Ask Me Another”
ORL Interview: Ivan Stang
INTERVIEWING ONE’S CULTURAL HEROES IS one of the greatest thrills of a career in journalism — even of amateur journalism. Such was the position in which I found myself while working for Obscure Research Labs in the early-to-mid-1990s. It gave me an insider’s excuse to pester thinker and novelist Robert Anton Wilson, and granted equal access to Church of the SubGenius co-founder Ivan Stang. Herewith this interview, conducted through the mail and slightly edited for clarity and length, which first appeared in Far Corner v1n7, c. 1993. Kick back, slack off and enjoy this longest-by-far of The Metaphorager’s 800+ posts. Continue reading “ORL Interview: Ivan Stang”
On Homo relator (w/ Special Guest Star John Wheeler)
IT TOOK A WEIRD BOUT of synchronistic weather to illustrate for me how our species loves to tell stories.
First, you need to know about Mugwort Manor. It was a Victorian apartment near the corner of San Francisco’s Fulton and McAllister streets where all the best 1980s’ “major ragers” took place, roughly according to the neo-Pagan calendar, for a specific group of Renaissance Pleasure and Dickens Christmas Fair(e) habitues, occasional bike messengers, poets, musicians, theater folk, and other outliers: social circles mostly (though not exclusively) centering on secretly famous Mugwort resident John Wheeler a”h [1]. Continue reading “On Homo relator (w/ Special Guest Star John Wheeler)”
Street Light (Fourth Indigent Sketch)
HE WAS A FLORID, BEEFY man in his mid-to-late 30s, perched on a high concrete bench in San Francisco’s lunchtime-crowded Justin Herman Plaza, and wearing a grey beltless trenchcoat tightly buttoned up to his thick neck. Every minute or so he loudly proclaimed in an operatic baritone:
“What a friend we have in Jesus.”
A minute went by.
“What a friend we have in Jesus.”
Another minute. Continue reading “Street Light (Fourth Indigent Sketch)”
Why I Love: Robert Anton Wilson
IT’S THE WAY HE BLOWS my mind. It’s the way he mixes conviction with doubt. It’s his searingly funny prose. It’s his search for Ultimate Relativity. It’s that he taught me some important Latin phrases, like “Cui bono?” and “Non illegitimati carborundum” (look ’em up). It’s how he manages to make everything he writes sound like a personal communication to the reader. It’s the little phrase-gems he drops off-handedly like “reality-tunnel,” “domesticated primates,” or “guerrilla ontology.” It’s his nimble skipping from neuroscience to neuropoetry to neuroanalysis to neuropolitics. (It’s also that “neuro-” is his favorite prefix.) Continue reading “Why I Love: Robert Anton Wilson”
The Joke’s On/In You
We’re trapped in linguistic constructs… all that is, is metaphor.”
—Robert Anton Wilson
First Graf(s): The New Hacker’s Dictionary
THE DEFINITION OF “HACKER” HEREIN is “a person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.” In 2019, we have all sorts of hackers — computer hackers, life hackers, biohackers, mindhackers — all trying to understand, implement, and twiddle with hidden qualities and little-known or -understood features of whatever it is they’re hacking.
The New Hacker’s Dictionary, adapted from and AKA “The Jargon File,” got its start in 1975 as a text file (accessible by what your Grandpa used to call “FTP“) shared over networks by the original (computer) hackers. Continue reading “First Graf(s): The New Hacker’s Dictionary”
Why I Love: H.P. Lovecraft
IT’S THE WAY HIS PROSE wraps me up like an amorous and itchy octopus. It’s the slow building of his narratives. It’s his quaint and dark sense of humor. It’s his search for literary identity (“There are my ‘Poe pieces’ and my ‘Dunsany pieces’ — but alas — where are my Lovecraft pieces?”). It’s his backward politics, which he eventually awoke from. (It’s also that he awoke from his antisemitism.) It’s his sense of atmosphere. It’s his malign genius. It’s the joy he took in corresponding with budding horror writers. It’s his love of cats. It’s his love of cheese (“How can anybody not like CHEESE?”). Continue reading “Why I Love: H.P. Lovecraft”
Our Own Little “Zone”
IF YOU WERE CONSIDERED A teenage weirdo in the late 1970s/early 1980s in Northern California’s suburban Diablo Valley, you could always find a place on Friday nights at an independent cinema-house in Walnut Creek, gathering with others of your tribe to enact the mythic and terrible rites associated with “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Aside from the ritualized viewing experience itself, this weekly event included standing in line hobnobbing with dozens of fellow viewers outside the El Rey Cinema for an hour or two before the film started at midnight. Continue reading “Our Own Little “Zone””