International Authors and Emanations: Third Eye at the Brooklyn Book Festival

Next month, I will give a talk on Emantions: Third Eye at the WAH Center:

Bookend Lecture

Lectures and a Display of Terrance Lindall's

Gold Illuminated Paradise Lost Elephant Folio

 

A Bookend Event of the Brooklyn Book Festival

 Saturday, September 21, 2013

12-6 PM Display of the Elephant Folio, plus the Gold Scroll and NEW large format full color drawing, Paradise Lost Re-envisoned

3 PM Admission $5  Refreshments Available.

3 PM Introduction by Yuko Nii, Founder and Artistic Director of the Williamburg Art & historical Center.

3:15 Bienvenido Bones Banez performs his renowned "Satanic Rhapsody" on our Grand Piano.

3:30 PM Dr. Carter Kaplan of International Authors discusses their new release, Emanations: Third Eye.

3:45 PM Audience questions and answers followed by book signings.

4 PM Terrance Lindall will sign his limited edition book about the Gold Folio and talk about the Paradise Lost Contemporary Art Collection that is being developed by the Yuko Nii Foundation, and the complimentary collection being developed by Dr. Robert J. Wickenheiser for the University of South Carolina, which will be on display at a grand conclave of artists, collectors and scholars at the U of SC in 2015 (info: milton@wahcenter.net).

 ...plus Special Antiquarian Book Exhibits including  Reynard the Fox, Boccaccio's Decameron, The second folio of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hamlet (1632). etc.

Steve Aylett on the Quest for Originality

In a new interview (click here), British author Steve Aylett discusses his current project The Heart of the Original. 

Here are a few lines from the interview that I found particularly interesting:

What do you perceive to be the main obstacles to originality?

There’s a strange discomfort that people feel when confronted with an original idea, which is to do with the very fact that it didn’t exist before and so there’s no ‘place’ for it yet. It can be accommodated but many people aren’t willing to do that. There’s also some laziness involved and a need to stay with the familiar. That’s just in regard to original ideas coming from outside, so you can imagine how most people are in regard to coming up with original ideas themselves.

Do you believe people are becoming more, or less original in their ideas?

Less. The world is getting more conservative and fearful every day. People are willing to ‘buy’ one or other badge of individuality but the real thing is being starved out at a younger and younger age.

These observations serve as interesting points of departure for considering contemporary culture, education, and perhaps politics. What registers most strongly with me is the sense that culture is in transition, shifting into a mode where there is less originality and more conformity: in thought and institution (that is, in terms of the culture of social organization, and in terms of our cultural institutions--eg. entertainment, religion, marriage, what it means to be an adult or child).  Arguably, the internet is a source for greater diversity of thought and opinion, an open forum for the cosmopolitan exchange of ideas; however, in actual practice... I wonder. Do people use the internet to seek challenging new ideas, or rather use it as a place where they seek confirmation of their already established ideas, beliefs and prejudices?

Aylett's second point is somewhat chilling.  Coupled to the mitigation of behavior and thinking that is original early in life--"being starved out at a younger and younger age," to quote Aylett--I wonder if there is a tendency to cling to the more mundane and undesired "overt" behaviors and thinking patterns of childhood? On one hand people are at a younger age abandoning their rebelliousness, their desire to experiment with life and experience, while on the other hand people, to make up for this perhaps, are clinging to more archetypical core behaviors and attitudes that are simply immature. Are we exchanging risky patterns that are necessary for growth and learning in return for safe patterns of mock rebelliousness, i.e. childishness, and in so doing are we remaining children for longer periods, into our 20s, 30s, and beyond?

UPDATE

A new 2025 edition has been released. Click the cover image to view the Amazon description.

Reflections

Construction atop the "Freedom Tower" (One World Trade Center)
reflected in the face of Tower Four, with clouds from four angles in multiple panels and in open sky.

Ritual Purification of the Temple

"Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God..."  
(2 Corinthians 6:16)

The Fearless Earthworm Hunter!

Advanced IQ Test: Are you a Highbrow?

What should be the final shape in the sequence?

If you know, you know.   And if you know--you're a highbrow!

Variation on the Jorge Luis Borges Esoteric Conundrum Plot Apparatus

Cover art for Emanations: Third Eye

Kai Rob has done stunning work (yet again) preparing the cover art for Emanations: Third Eye.

An anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays from around the world,  Emanations: Third Eye will be available soon. Watch this space.

Highbrow Discussion on Ancient of Days

Tessa Dick has invited me to be her guest on her talk show Ancient of Days Monday, August 5 (that's the day after tomorrow). We will discuss mythology, history, literature, International Authors, and Emanations: Third Eye. The show airs Monday at 3:00 p.m. Pacific; 6:00 p.m. Eastern; and 11:00 p.m. Greenwich. 

Listen to the show HERE.  Click on the show by name.

To listen by phone or to call in with questions for Tessa, dial (347) 324-3704. 

 

"The Ancient of Days" 
by William Blake

Heart of the Original by Steve Aylett

Attentive Highbrow readers will recall my review of Steve Aylett's excellent novel Novahead.  Here is a new book project from Aylett, which he calls Heart of the Original:



Fine distinctions between "originality" and "novelty" are made by Edgar Allan Poe in his reviews of Nathanael Hawthorn's Twice Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse. In the latter review, Poe distinguishes himself in the final sentence by asserting that Ralph Waldo Emerson should be hung.  To Poe, the notion of originality is a con.  Herman Melville comes to a similar conclusion in his "discursive" treatment of the concept of originality in chapter 44 of his novel The Confidence-Man, which can be viewed by clicking HERE.  As for originality in works of art, Poe and Melville conclude that there are rather original people; that is, there are artists and writers who make us believe we are seeing something new.  A treatment of the subject of originality, including a detailed examination of the analyses offered by Poe and Melville, can be found  in my book Critical Synoptics: Menippean Satire and the Analysis of Intellectual Mythology. See the chapter entitled "Originals and their Antecedents."

SpaceX "Grasshopper"

"On June 14, SpaceX's Grasshopper flew 325 m (1066 feet)--higher than Manhattan's Chrysler Building--before smoothly landing back on the pad. For the first time in this test, Grasshopper made use of its full navigation sensor suite with the F9-R closed loop control flight algorithms to accomplish a precision landing. Most rockets are equipped with sensors to determine position, but these sensors are generally not accurate enough to accomplish the type of precision landing necessary with Grasshopper."
                                                              SOURCE

Raquel Welch staring in "The Return of Mary Make-Believe"

Raquel/Mary seen here employing avant-garde dance movements to channel ancient wisdom from the Pleiades star cluster:



Click HERE to learn more about Mary Make-Believe and her friends.

Ancient of Days with Tessa B. Dick

I am happy to announce the new radio show Ancient of Days with Tessa B. Dick, Mondays at 3 p.m. Pacific, 6 p.m. Eastern, and 11 p.m. Greenwich.   The show explores the ways ancient myths and legends are rooted in actual history. This evening's show explores the origins of the story of Oedipus.

Click HERE to listen to the live stream under the (temporary) show name "Crystal Clear."  To listen by phone or to call in with questions to the host, dial (347)324-3704. 

Tessa B. Dick is the widow of legendary science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, arguably the greatest science fiction writer of the 20th century. Her memoir Philip K. Dick: Remembering Firebright  is available through Amazon.

Thunderchief Emergency Departure over Gulf of Tonkin, Another View

Yesterday I posted Joe Kline's clever photoshop image of Ed Larson and Mike Gilroy ejecting from their stricken F-105 Thunderchief over the Gulf of Tonkin after sustaining hits from three SAM missiles and 57mm AA fire. Joe used a 1/72 scale model as the basis for the image.

Commissioned by Mike Gilroy, Joe has made a painting of the event as seen from the altitude of the aircraft, and here it is:

Other Highbrow posts on the F-105 Thunderchief can be viewed here and here.

 "Watch your six!"

Thunderchief Ejection

"Ed Larson and I departing A/C 358 on 7 August 1966 over Gulf of Tonkin. Hit by the third of three SAMs, blew canopies and flew for another 15 minutes until hit by 57mm crossing the coast line. Airplane blew up shortly after ejection. Photo by Joe Kline."  Author and source:  Mike Gilroy, facebook.

More about artist Joe Kline click here.

More Gnostic Amusements in Moby-Dick

In response to Dario's comment concerning yesterday's Highbrow post, here is another passage in Moby-Dick representing Melville's Gnostic speculations. This is from chapter 66, "The Shark Massacre". A number of sharks--which  have been attacking and devouring a whale tied to the side of the ship--begin to devour each other:

They viciously snapped, not only at each other’s disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual life had departed.

A shark is hoisted on board in order to skin it, and it nearly takes off Queequeg's hand.  The harpooner responds:

“Queequeg no care what god made him shark,” said the savage, agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; “wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.”

Clearly, an expression (however humorous) of the Gnostic worldview.

More

Political Gnosticism, Genial and Lighthearted Version

I admit to indulging an on-going enthusiasm for the following lines from Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.  The effect is humorous, but nevertheless the language embodies a political statement that is vaguely paleoliberal in nature, with post-Calivinist and Gnostic overtones:

Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.

--Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 57, "Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars"

This way to the rebellion...

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Cambridge University Press Selects Terrance Lindall Painting

The Yuko Nii Foundation has announced that Cambridge University Press has selected one of Terrance Lindall's Paradise Lost paintings for the cover of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Paradise Lost, edited by Professor Louis Schwartz.

In 2012, Lindall completed work on a hand-embellished book of Paradise Lost illustrations, with 23.75 carat gold leaf borders.  The Elephant Folio, as it is called, will be on display at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center during the Brooklyn Book Festival, September 21-22, 2013. 

Click HERE to view images from this remarkable production.

International Authors News

Horace Jeffery Hodges' novella The Bottomless Bottle of Beer is now available on Kindle.  Professor Hodges' novella was originally published in the International Authors anthology Emanations: Second Sight, and features illustrations by artist and philosopher Terrance Lindall. These illustrations (and many more) are in the new Kindle edition. A full announcement has been posted in Professor Hodges' blog, Gypsy Scholarship.

Italian artist, translator, critic, and poet Dario Rivarossa has been working steadily on his translation of Torquato Tasso's poems La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) and Gerusalemme Conquistata (Jerusalem Conquered).  Sections of the translation will appear soon in Emanations: Third Eye. This remarkable effort includes preparing illustrations rendered in a contemporary style that is influenced by Japanese anime. As he works on Tasso's poems, Mr. Rivarossa is documenting his engagement with the creative process in his blog Tassonomia.  Mr. Rivarossa is the author (and illustrator) of the book-length critical study Dante Was a Fantasy Writer.

Versions, 2010, Oliver Laric

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