Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

It’s been a crazy week with lots of great stuff to post, but I fear that there may be distinct lull in September.

No one (yet) has volunteered to take over the blog Update: One person has e-mailed me interested in taking over while I’m stranded in England on vacation in September, but there’s certainly still room for more. Position is still wide open, and I’d love for this to be an opportunity to widen the range of this blog to more than just my voice.

Hey! Signal!

• Rodney Davies has written a fascinating piece titled “The Last Days of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast, at Hastings” for 21stcenturyradio.com, largely drawn from Davies’ 1975 stay in Hastings, and interviews with Crowley’s last landlady, Kathleen “Johnny” Symonds.

• Martin Fackler writes about Japan’s dying mediums for nytimes.com. It seems itako and other shamanistic mediums were common across Japan in medieval times, but were were suppressed in the late 19th century as Japan built a modern nation. Now, when they die, there’s none to replace them.

• Digging this up from aeons (not yet) gone by, read this piece about chaos magick, by Ray Sherwin, one of its founders. In it, Sherwin discusses some of the history of the chaos current, the IOT, chaote philosophy and its (non)beliefs.

Er…noise?

• Max Kaplan writes about “real-life Quidditch” for aroundphilly.com. Apparently, hoards of almost-adult students love nothing better than running around throwing balls at one another while straddling brooms – to the point where an “Intercollegiate Quidditch World Cup” has been created with official rules, and, oh gods, even a trailer. Ok, admittedly the geek dressed in yellow who runs around campus pretending to be a tiny golden ball is kinda funny. But seriously people, WTF?

Hey, remember back in June when I promised to let you know when I’d finished reading Francis Breakspear’s If It Was Easy, Everyone Would Be Doing It!? Well, the review is up on SpiralNature.com now.

As always, if you find something weird, cool or otherwise noteworthy, please e-mail me about it. If you’re pro-promotion, include your name and website for extra credit. Thanks!

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What do these three things have in common? I’m still not quite clear on that.

I received Francis Breakspear’s new book, If It Was Easy, Everyone Would Be Doing It! a few months ago, read a few pages, then got caught up in other things. I recently picked it up again, and so far it’s as direct and funny as his first book, Kaostar!,as expected.

Also as in Kaostar!, essays appear from Kate Hoolu and someone called “Dave Evans” (a pseudonym if I ever heard one).

I’ve just finished reading a two-essay interlude by Kate Hoolu, the first, titled “Stereotyping”, deals with issues of race and culture, and the second, “That behaviour is not normal! But how do you prove it?”, discusses mental health. It’s unusual to see these topics addressed in books ostensibly about practical magick, to say the least. Continue reading »

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The People have spoken and declared Eyeago‘s Erisian haiku, “Discordian Death Epic Haiku in Five Chapters”, to be The Prettiest One:

King Kong died for You:
Ingrate domestic primate.
Banana peel death.

Five finger discount
Dun dun dun Dunnnnn, badum pshhh
Gobble gobble hey.

A Fnordian Slip
Aneristic nay-sayer
Hey: pull my finger Continue reading »

Popularity: unranked

This weekend vote for your top two favourite Erisian Haiku poets on Plutonica.net.

The entries received are below, and the voting buttons are on the right side bar. Vote for your favourite poet by name by whatever criteria strikes your fancy (Eris is a goddess of chaos after all).

Voting will continue all weekend, with the winner to be announced on Monday morning.

Below are the entries, alphabetical by first name: Continue reading »

Popularity: 2%

Last year for Agnostica Plutonica.net ran a contest where subscribers could win an Agnostica box. This time we’re running an Erisian Haiku Contest for Eris Day and the prize is Kaostar!, a written by Francis Breakspear.

Eris Day

Eris is the Greek goddess of chaos and discord. Today, she’s mostly remembered as the goddess who tossed the golden apple into a party she was not invited to which ultimately instigated the Trojan War. Discordians, by and large, take a decidedly lighter view of her than the ancient Greeks, and revel in her mischief. The Principia Discordia is her primary text.

Eris Day was declared to be May 23rd by Discordians as Continue reading »

Popularity: 11%