Divided cities are an interesting phenomenon. You have cities that grow and merge, and cities that split apart, usually because of politics. They differ in their level of connectedness.
For a while we had East and West Berlin, with a wall in between. Until the 1870s Budapest, Hungary was Buda and Pest, with the Danube River in between.
In America, we have a lot of “twin” cities. In Texas we have the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and Midland-Odessa.
Usually one of the cities in a “twin” relationship is more working class than the other, but when you come down to it, they’re still American. American culture, American social norms.
In The City and the City, China Miéville writes about fictitious cities Besz and Ul Qoma. The cities are physically adjacent – they have many “cross-hatched” regions – but their societies are kept strictly separated. This, despite the fact that they share streets, highways and railways,
By mutual agreement of Besz and Ul Qoma, a mysterious entity called Breach keeps citizens from mingling and interacting, on pain of arrest or worse. And you never know if Breach is watching.
The City and the City is a murder mystery that develops into an interesting study of society and law. A body is found in a crosshatched area. Did the crime occur in Besz or Ul Qoma and did anybody “breach”?
And could there be a mysterious third city flying under the radar?
Citizens of both cities have to be trained from childhood to purposely ignore any person or thing not of their city. Citizens learn to “unsee” (and even unsmell!) anything that doesn’t belong in their city. There are unificationist groups in both cities, but they are treated as radicals and suppressed.
It’s crazy when you think about it, how much the concept of a border depends on belief. There may be a fence or a wall or a line on a map, but the earth doesn’t care. It’s people who make borders happen.
I enjoyed the murder mystery and protagonist Tyador’s detective work, but the conceptual stuff was especially interesting. Enforcing a border via psychology.
Unseeing. Pretending you didn’t see to the point that for practical purposes you didn’t. Is that really possible?
It got me thinking of anti-memes – objects, creatures and phenomena that use forgettability as camouflage. qntm’s novel There Is No Antimemetics Division, takes that concept to ridiculous and extremes, but “anti-memetic” does seem to be a thing. Can you describe the last panhandler you saw while driving? Probably not. I can’t.
I actually forgot an entire city. I was talking about twin cities and totally forgot that El Paso, where I live is exactly such a city, or half-city. The Rio Grande officially separates El Paso from Juarez, as well as U.S. from Mexico. But the real separation is cultural.
Borders are imaginary until you make them solid, but still in the most important ways, they’re imaginary. Before it was part of the U.S., Texas has been territory of Spain, France, Mexico, itself, the Confederacy and the territory of various native American peoples.
Who will claim it in 1,000 years? It won’t be more than a claim. The earth doesn’t care about lines on maps.
I had forgotten, but this video jogged my memory. Interesting story collection that I might read again soon.
I first came across the name, The King in Yellow, in the Blue Oyster Cult song, “ETI,” just a brief reference: “The King in Yellow, the Queen in Red…” But I loved BOC and always wondered what all their symbolism referred to. Who was The King in Yellow?
Sometime in the ’90s, I decided to find out. I read The King in Yellow, a short story collection by Robert Chambers that refers to a play of the same name that drives everyone mad who reads it. Like a mind virus.
I thought it was a pretty cool conceit. I wonder if it might have inspired Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace’s novel about a video so addictive people rewatch over and over until they die.
When I opened The King in Yellow, I couldn’t help thinking, “what if?” Same delicious forbidden fruit feeling I got when I listened to heavy metal as a religious teenager. I didn’t think it was devil music, but it still felt like I was taking a risk.
Blue Oyster Cult – E.T.I.
I remember “Repairer of Reputations” in particular, where Hildred reads the play while recovering from a head injury and becomes convinced the spread of the play has prepared the American people to reestablish Lost Carcosa and make him king. Like something was manifesting into reality.
I’ve had that feeling before, like if you just knew how, you could pull some of that dream stuff out into the world and make it real. I think of it as “the dragon’s whisker.” I know you really can’t. But it FEELS like it.
The play in The King In Yellow used to just seem like an interesting device. No way reading a creative work is going to make you crazy and mistake fantasy for reality.
Then it occurred to me. The Internet does that all the time.
In one way, the Internet is exactly like Infinite Jest, so addictive you can’t stop looking at it, even as your life falls apart. But perhaps the King in Yellow is an emerging inhabitant of the Internet, trying to be born.
He lures you in with that first act, then breaks your mind in the second act, tells you how important you are, has you pining over imaginary empires and your place in them.
That was just stoner brain talking, but now I’m kinda spooking myself.
Los Tigres Del Norte – El Zorro De Ojinaga (The Fox of Ojinaga). A corrido about the drug kingpin who ruled much of the trade of marijuana and cocaine between Mexico and the US before the advent of the cartels.
The barker in front of the club called out with heavy reverb, “El B29-nine nine nine… Beeg surprise tonight-night-night…”
There was a big surprise all right, but not the one he meant. This was in the ‘80s, while I was on break from college. My first and last visit to Boys Town.
My uncle and a couple of his friends had invited me to go whitewater rafting on the Rio Grande, back when it had water.
After a long drive through West Texas, we arrived at our campsite in Lajitas on a Friday afternoon. We had some time on our hands and decided to go out for dinner, so we headed to the international bridge in Presidio.
We figured we would eat dinner at the train station in OJ, then check out Boys Town.
OJ was our nickname for Ojinaga. Boys Town was what everybody called the red light district. OJ’s red light district wasn’t as famous as the one in Acuña, but it had an anything goes reputation.
Going to Mexico was easy in the 80s. No passport, no fussing about walls. My uncle didn’t want to take his truck across, so we caught a ride from a resident on his way home for the evening.
We tapped the side of his pickup and he signaled for us to hop in the back. Common courtesy back then. He drove us to the checkpoint. From there, we walked to the end of the bridge where we found a taxi waiting.
He drove us to the train station, and agreed to return in an hour and take us to Boys Town. We finished dinner early and thought, why not catch a ride from the taxi parked out front? A taxi is a taxi, right?
We struck up a friendship with Driver Two, who I’ll call Roberto. He didn’t speak English, but my uncle’s friend Mando translated. He had a lot to say about Boys Town and how the girls there all liked white meat.
After a surprisingly long ride, we arrived at a collection of bars and clubs. He dropped us off and agreed to come back in a couple of hours.
The first bar was quiet and nearly empty. We chatted with the lady at the bar, who had a really cool bracelet made from old Pesos.
About half a beer later, a man burst in the door and tapped Mando on the back, hard. Taxi driver Number One had found us and he was pissed! Behind him was a cop with some kind of assault rifle.
“You made me come all the way back to the train station and you weren’t there,” he said in Spanish. “You’re paying my fare!”
Mando relayed the message. No arguments from us. We didn’t even bother to count. We just grabbed whatever bills we had and put them in his hand till he went away.
Lesson learned. Wait for your taxi.
We weren’t ready when Roberto came to get us. Mexico partied late! The strip clubs weren’t even open. He said he’d find us on his next trip out.
We looked for a more happening bar and figured, why not see a strip show? We weren’t there for the brothels. The barker at B29 Cabaret got our attention. What was the big surprise?
It was dark inside. My uncle and his buddies found a table and ordered a round of Dos Equis for themselves and a bottle of Coke for me.
Then an inebriated man at another table motioned for me to come over. Why me and for what? I was nervous as hell, but I went.
All he did was stick out his hand and say, “Americano.” He apparently liked the look of me and wanted to shake hands with an American. That memory really stuck with me.
Several beers and Cokes later, Roberto turned up. We still weren’t ready. He’d made several runs to OJ and back, but we still hadn’t seen a show. They were trying to find out how much beer they could sell us.
We invited Roberto to sit at our table and bought him a beer. He settled in and had several. He’d picked up enough fares for the night and was there to party.
After a while he got up and hollered. “Bring out the girls!” he said in Spanish. “These gringos want to see a show!”
And was there ever a show. Three girls came out and danced on the stage, then came out on the floor, between the tables, including ours. I’m sure I was blushing.
I thought they were cute, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as expected. I could tell they didn’t want to be there. They wouldn’t look you in the eye.
Then Spanish classical music began playing and out came a tall woman in a fancy dress and headdress. She wore a lot of makeup and had long, false eyelashes.
She held up a fan and performed a classical dance, demure, but flirty.
Then the DJ put on something with a beat. She thrusted her pelvis and gave all the drunks the come-on. She lifted her dress and did something with her high-heeled shoe. I saw a lot of tongue.
Then ta da! She tore off her top, took off her wig and took a bow. She was a he. My uncle and his buddies’ mouths were hanging open.
They were older than me and had their beer goggles on. I’d been drinking Cokes all night. I thought he was a woman, but too old for me and wearing too much makeup.
I just thought, huh. I guess that was the “beeg surprise.”
There were no more girls, but the night was far from over. A conjunto band started up. Mexican men wearing oversized cowboy hats and buckles danced with their wives (or girlfriends more likely). Roberto got up and spoke to the band.
We were all exhausted except Roberto. He was into the music. “I’m waiting to hear my song, then we can go,” he said. I was about to fall asleep.
All of a sudden, “Crash!” A man threw a metal chair in the center of the room, cursed in Spanish and stomped out and nearly slammed the door off its hinges.
I thought “Oh shit! Which way is north? Am I gonna have to walk to the border? What if he comes back in with a gun and starts blasting?”
But apparently that was par for the course at the B29. The band played another song and folks went back to their cervezas.
“We can go now,” Roberto said with a grin. He and the band had given us the REAL surprise.
He filled us in on the way back to OJ. The federales has just killed the local druglord in a shootout. The man who threw the chair was the druglord’s brother.
Roberto recognized him and thought it would be great fun to request a corrido about the shootout. Roberto wasn’t afraid of much apparently.
Incidentally, I read Druglord: Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin, by Terrence Poppa in the ‘90s and learned a few things about that night. The druglord who got shot had to be Pablo Acosta, who turns up in the Netflix show Narcos Mexico.
I haven’t found anything about Pablo having a brother, so maybe the guy meant compadre or associate. I don’t know who the band was, but the song was almost certainly “El Zorro de Ojinaga,” made famous by Los Tigres Del Norte.
Not sure what the cab driver’s deal was or why the chair thrower was so pissed. The song makes Acosta a tragic hero as far as I can tell. I reckon he must have had enemies though. Maybe it was just a case of “too soon.”
Science fiction helped keep me sane when as a kid. Whatever troubles might be going on in my life, I could dive into a book and be halfway across the galaxy.
But science fiction is more than just an escape, or it can be. The wild adventures and mind-bending scenarios can actually make you better.
If you let them.
I really enjoyed the above discussion by John Vervaeke and Damien Walters about ways science fiction can be a framework to help us find meaning.
I had to chuckle at the last part, starting around 1:13. They could have been talking about 20-year-old me. That isn’t me anymore. But I remember the mindset.
Ringworld – the quintessential “hard SF” novel.
For a long time, “hard science fiction” was almost all I read. (Think Andy Weir’s The Martian, or Jurassic Park.)
Back then I thought all fantasy other than Lord of the Rings was a waste of time. That shelf space could be better filled by the likes of Larry Niven and Poul Anderson, I figured.
Obvious science mistakes pissed me off. Han Solo “made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs”? Please. Parsecs are a distance measurement.
Which gets to the heart of my snobbery about hard SF.
I wanted the science to WORK. I wanted to believe the adventures I read about were at least possible.
Walters and Vervaeke get into the Hugo Awards controversy. The Sad Puppies, protectors of the old guard, battled it out with writers and fans who wanted to expand the definition of science fiction.
There was a time when I would’ve rooted for the Sad Puppies. Walters was close to the mark when he speculated that the fight is really about personal fantasies.
I had a personal fantasy that I was almost unconscious of. Science fiction helped me deal with existential angst.
I might not get to be the adventurer in that somewhat scientifically accurate sci fi novel, but one day someone would.
A lot of people are mad at John C. Wright over his role in the Hugo Awards fight, but his Golden Ocumene trilogy is pretty damn good. I’ve read it and I got my mother to read it.
It bothered me to know the sun would swallow the earth one day. I coudn’t handle the idea of human extinction, even billions of years in the future. I thought, why not colonize the stars and outlive the sun?
Good Christian or not, I kept that possibility in my back pocket just in case. I wanted to go to heaven. But failing that, I thought maybe science would give us a kind of immortality.
The reason I never got laid in college.
A few stars seemed to be within reach. When I took Astronomy in college, I made a little chart of some of the likely candidates. Anti-matter might not take us as far as it took the Enterprise, but 3 or 4 light years ought to be doable. Right?
And once we had a couple of nearby stars under our belts, who knew what we might accomplish. I still have to scratch that itch sometimes. Movies and shows that do that for me are far too few.
Movies like Ex Machina, Interstellar and series like The Last of Us and Westworld kind of do it for me. I also enjoy watching videos by futurist Isaac Arthur, who explores those massive engineering feats that might be possible if we put resources and effort into them.
Futurist Isaac Arthur digs into one of my favorite concepts: the space elevator, something I think humanity could, and should pull off. If there’s one thing I haven’t changed my mind about, it’s that: we must continue to fund space technology.
When it comes to science fiction novels, I’m a lot less interested in the scientific rigor than I used to be, especially now that I understand how hard it is to separate perception from reality.
Phillip K. Dick is more my speed these days when it comes to sci fi. I figure if we can’t figure out the human mind and tame our irrational behavior, there isn’t much chance of accomplishing those grand projects anyway.
I’m no longer particular about how I define science fiction. I really enjoyed N.K Jemisen’s Hugo Award-winning Broken Earth Trilogy, which contained a lot of fantasy elements. (The world-building was incredible.)
New Weird also does for me what science fiction used to do, with elements of science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Annihilation, from Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy is a good example. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville is another. They seem rather appropriate for the times we’re in. How to deal with the world when it makes no sense…
I was going through some stuff in storage and found an old book that somehow it made its way to Texas from Milton, Massachusetts.
Dad must have picked it up at a garage sale. He could never resist an old book.
It’s a book of recipes (or receipts as he calls them) and other things everyone should know, from 1874.
The handwriting is hard to read, so I transcribed it the best I could, leaving out a couple of things I couldn’t figure out how to copy. We don’t use a lot of the ingredients in America these days – one in particular.
WAIT till you get to rheumatism remedies 17 and 18. I don’t want to judge people from the olden days. Life was different back then. But if you try to make the recipes, you might sub one particular item. Maybe you could do something with Crisco?
No. 1.Tanic acid will harden the feet. Put a few drops into soft water and wash them.
No. 2. Effects of Camphor on seeds.
Taken from Boston Daily Advertiser, Aug. 7, 74. Very many years ago that water saturated with camphor, had a great effect upon the germination of seeds. It was forgotten, but a German professor revived the idea and establishes the fact that a solution of camphor stimulates vegetables as alcohol does animals. He took seeds some of which were 3 or 4 years of age, dry and hard and put some between pieces of blotting paper simply wet and some of the same seed he put between paper soaked in camphorated water. Where those in the 1st case did not swell at all. Those in the blotter with camphor every seed germinated. The experiment was tried on seeds both old and new and always with a like result showing a singular awakening of Dormant vitalism an a wonderful quickening of growth. It also appears that plants started in this manner continue to grow with much more vigor than those not treated in this way. On the other hand.
Camphor pulverized and mixed with the soil has a bad effect on the seed. Owing probably to its being too strong.
No. 3.Receipt for bluing.
Take one oz. Prussian Blue
¼ oz. oxalic acid. Put into a quart bottle and fill with soft water. Excellent and cheap.
No. 4. Receipt for Cheap Cologne.
10 qts (can’t be quarts, but that’s what it looks like) 85 per cent alcohol
5 oz. essence of Lemon
12 ½ Drachms essence of cedrate
4 oz. essence of Bergamot
1 oz. Essence of Lavender
1 oz. tincture of benzoin. Mix.
No. 5.Spruce Beer
Dissolve 10 lbs. Sugar and 4 oz. of essence of Spruce in 10 gallons of warm water. Allow it to cool a little . Add ½ pint yeast; Bottle immediately.
No.’s 6 and 7 I can’t copy. No. 6 is an Interest Table that goes on for a couple of pages, has math I don’t understand and “ marks going down columns I would never be able to copy. I like how it says “commit to memory.” As if. No. 7 says “Interest rules” and has a division equation in it. I don’t do division. Here are some pics if you want to try and make sense of them. He must have had a small business. Looked him up and it looks like he was a constable.
No. 8. Leather Cement (Good)
Gutapercha
Benzoin
Cloroform
(Equal parts mix)
Warm both parts before applying the cement.
No. 9. Wart acid.
Acetic acid 2 drachams
Citric acid 10 grains
Mix.
No. 10. For Ring-worms.
Apply Rotten Apples or pound up garlic or rub them with juice of house-leak or wash them with oil of sweet almonds and oil of tartar mixed. Or lunar (?) caustic.
12 grains to 1 oz. water. Or apply gunpowder & vinegar
No. 11. For Scald Head
Citrin ointment
Tar
(equal part mix)
Wash the head every morning with castile soap and apply the ointment. This was never known to fail in 35 yrs practice.
Give sulphur and charcoal mixed in molasses to be taken inwardly.
No. 12. Salve.
Take a white turnip and roast it. Scrape it and mix with lard. Good for any sore.
No. 13. Cancer. Balsam.
Take of sorrel salve
Fir Balsam.
Fresh Butter
(Equal parts mix)
Simmer together. Good for cancerous sores or any other sore.
No. 14. Ointment for a feeling like ants crawling.
Iodide of Possassium ½ dracham
Simple cerate 4 oz.
Make and apply.
No. 15. Kelly’s Healing Salve.
Beeswax 4 oz.
Beef tallow or lard 6 oz.
Fir Balsam 4 oz.
Venice Turpentine 2 oz.
Simmer all together except the turpentine, which you add after taking off the fire. Stir until cold.
No. 16. For Stiff Joints
Fish oil
Beef brine
(of each 1 gill – I don’t know what a gill is, but that’s what it looks like)
The yolk of 4 eggs, beat, mix and shake together
Apply three times a day
No. 17. For Rheumatism, gout, cramps, contractions of the sinews etc.
Take a young fat dog. Kill him. Scald him and strip off his hair, then from a small incision, take out the contents of his belly, and put in the cavity two hand fulls of nettles, 2 oz. brimstone, 12 eggs. 4 oz. turpentine well mixed together, then see-saw up his belly and roast him before the fire and save the oil. This is to be applied to the parts affected and warm before the fire.
No. 18. No. 2 of the above Receipt. The dog being prepared in the same manner, fill his belly with a pint of Red pepper a pint of angle worms, the bark of sassafras roots, four green frogs.
Roast in the same manner and save oil. This is a valuable ointment for Rheumatism, contraction of the tendons, Nervous affections affections (that’s what it says – afflictions afflictions?), burns etc.
These preparations although singular are valuable no one need doubt.
(Poor little puppies. At least he thought they were “singular.” And I thought I was scared of grandmother’s home remedies.)
No. 19. For cough and Hoarseness.
Take ½ pt vinegar
2 Lemons
2 oz Garlic
Simmer well together, then strain and add ½ lb. Sugar and ½ pt. Gin, add all together.
Dose ½ wine glass full 3 or 4 times a day.
No. 20. For a Cough
Take equal parts of the lose, coarse, moss which grown on White Oak, White Maple and White Ash trees, make a strong tea. Sweeten and drink freely.
No. 21. Pulmonary Balsam.
For consumption cough if longstanding…
Take of
Spinesnard 6 oz.
Hoarhound 6 oz.
Elecampane 6 oz.
Comphfrey root 6 oz.
Boil in three gallons of water. Reduce down to 2 ½ gallons. Add 3 lbs. white sugar. 1 ½ lbs honey. Clarify with whites of eggs. Let is stand 24 hours in order that it may style. Add 1 qt. Spirit and bottle it for use. Dose… a wine glassfull 3 or 4 times a day.
Excellent
No. 22. To Make Whiskey Cordial
Cinnamon
Ginger
Coriander seeds
(of Each 3 oz.)
Mace. Cloves. Cubebs (It’s a thing. Look it up).
Of each one ounce and half. Add 11 gallons proof spirits and 2 gallons water.. Now tie up 5 oz. saffron. 4 lbs. Raisins with seeds taken out. 4 lbs. Dates. 2 lbs liqorice root. Let it stand 12 hours in 2 gallons of water, strain & add to the above. Sugar to suit.
Proof spirits consists of
Half of each of 95% alcohol and water
No. 23. Liniment for Rheumatism
1 oz. Spirits ammonia
1 oz. Laudanum
1 oz. Oil Origanum
1 oz. Sweet Oil
1 oz. Oil Hemlock
8 oz. 95% alcohol
1 teaspoon Rattle Snakes Oil
Mix
No. 24. For Glue that will never give out.
⅔ pt. Alcohol 95%
½ lb. white glue
¼ lb. white lead
3 oz. American isinglass or fish glue. 1 teaspoon spirits of camphor to 1 qt. Soft water.
First dissolve the glue and isinglass in the water but not. (I don’t know why the sentence ends there but it does)
Boil then add the lead. Then the alcohol & camphor and it is ready to Bottle.
No. 25. Hot Drops…
Gum. Myrrh
Cayenne peper
Common ginger
Red Sanders (for color)
(of each 1 ½ ounces)
Put into 1 gallon of Liquor no mater whether Gin or Whiskey or proof Spirits, but not Rum. Shake once in a while for a day or two and it is fit for use after filtering.
No. 26. Recipe for Dropsy
1 oz. mustard seed
1 oz. Horse Radish
Water or cider 1 pint. Simmer two hours. Dose. 3 Wine glass full four times a day.
No. 27. For Rheumatism
1 qt. Whiskey 2 oz. Gum guiac 2 drachms of Salt Petre. Mix. Dose a wine glassful 3 times a day.
No. 28. For Rheumatism
2 oz. Spirits frument (spiritus frumenti – it’s a kind of liquor)
2 oz. Gum guaiac
2 drachms Nitrate Potass.
Mix. Dose wine glassful 3 times a day.
No. 29. For consumption cough of longstanding
6 oz. Spikenard
6 oz. Hoar hound
6 oz. Elecampane Root
6 oz. Compfrey Root
Boil in 3 gallons of water, Reduce it down to 2 ½ gallons. Add 3 lb. White Sugar. 1 1/2w lb. Honey. Clarify with whites of eggs. Let it stand 24 hours to settle. Add 1 qt. Spirits and Bottle it up. Dose. wineglassful 3 or 4 times a day.
No. 30. Onion Syrup for Cough. Cold etc.
Take any quantity of onions. Roast them on the fire. Peal off the outside and press out the juice and sweeten with honey, molasses or sugar. Teaspoonfull to tablespoonfull according to age.
No. 31. (Blank – Mr. Bronsdon ran out of material and interest and quit filling up the notebook.)
I just read Stephen L. Peck’s novella, A Short Stay in Hell. Soren Johansson, the main character, finds himself in Zoroastrian hell after mistakenly following the “wrong” religion his whole life (Mormonism).
This particular hell seems pretty tame compared to the fiery fantasies of Christianity. This hell is a huge library full of books. If you find the one with your life story in it, you get to leave.
Problem is, the library is so incredibly immense, it might as well be infinite.
There are so many possible letter combinations, just finding a book that makes sense could take eons.
That got me thinking about just how unprepared the human mind is to handle the concept of infinity. Even heaven would be torture if it was eternal – or so close to eternal as makes no difference.
I’m trying not to spoil the story, but let’s just say that hypothetically, you were alone in that scenario. How would you cope? Seems to me like you’d want to really lean into your imagination.
You’d create characters you could interact with. Over time they’d get more more elaborate. You’d make them unpredictable, because predictable is the last thing you’d want after a few billion years. Sooner or later you’d have a whole universe in your head.
Would those characters know you made them up? Are we a figment of somebody’s imagination?
This time I read VALIS by listening to the free audiobook on YouTube – which totally counts. Found out there are quite a few books like that. Just started DoAndroids Dream of Electric Sheep.
I always thought VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System) was a great book, full of heady ideas. I liked it the first time, though much of it was over my head. This time, having learned a little about Gnosticism and Phillip K. Dick’s life, I think I got it.
I’m aware that VALIS was semi-autobiographical. I think it was Dick’s way of explaining how he navigated genius and mental instability. He might not have been the sanest writer out there, but he was functional – and creative.
Horselover Fat wouldn’t give up his faith that VALIS had been real. Phil in the book knew Horselover was crazy, but that belief was keeping him alive. What changed was the amount of power he chose to give his alter ego.
I know real life Dick had a religious experience that convinced him he’d lived another life as an early Gnostic Christian. I think he knew his experience was irrational. But I think he kept that part of himself around, because it was his creative engine.
Charles Platt’s 1979 interview with Phillip K. Dick
Phillip K. Dick is a fascinating figure for me. Terribly unstable yet visionary. He said several profound things during the above interview by Charles Platt. I was especially intrigued by the part about how someone with a powerful psyche can invade the psyches of others.
He admits to being easily persuadable. While undergoing “attack therapy” he found himself agreeing with statements about himself he knew to be false. Exactly the same mechanism used to extract false confessions and create cults and totalitarianism.
It gave me an image: Comic book thought bubbles, floating around invisibly, taking form in the actions of people.
It’s interesting to think about political and cultural changes not as people & countries making decisions, but more like clouds of psychic energy, traveling through the airwaves, through the Internet, through advertising and political campaigns.
Battling it out and making alliances. Merging and splitting apart. Some more powerful than others. Many small ones, gradually absorbed into larger ones.
I’m not a New Ager. I don’t believe in “psychic energy” per se. It’s mostly a metaphor, but a hell of a strong one.
James Baldwin changed my life. Reading “Another Country” taught me more about America than anything I learned in college. If they taught this book in high school civics classes, we would iron this country out in no time.
And I got in on a whim. I thought, I am such a voracious reader why haven’t I read any black literature? I couldn’t think of a reason, I just hadn’t gotten around to it.
Mainly because I was a sci fi nerd. I loved literature, but I was more likely to read a Peter Hamilton space opera if given a chance. But I wanted to know what I was missing.
I had heard Baldwin’s name thrown around a lot. Apparently respected for speaking out in the ’60s.
The book I started with was Another Country. Since then, I’ve come to depend on him for perspective on race in America.
Another Country taught me how the systems of power really work in America. The system of white supremacy that is invisible to us white people. This is true in both our liberal and conservative classes.
As sharp as his critiques are, I love Baldwin because he actually gave a shit about us white folks, when he had plenty of reason not to.
Some of the lessons I took from Another Country:
A white woman can always use race to get her way in an argument. You know the “Karen” thing that recently switched from “I’m calling the manager” to, “Do you have your papers?” Excuse me, “Do you live in this neighborhood?”
A woman, including a black woman, can try to use sex to obtain power over a man, but if that man is white and rich, he’s usually going to win in the end.
That honesty with yourself may be painful, but it’s still the best policy. Things tend to go better if you’re honest with yourself and others.
Ever think how lost you’d be if you really went inside one of these things? I can barely find my way out of a parking garage.
Just watched a cool documentary on Netflix, A Trip to Infinity, for a second time. I love it because it’s about my favorite subject: how little I know.
The more I learn, the more mysterious the world becomes. That thought gives me the same tingle I get when a song moves me or I really gazed into the sky?
Infinity is difficult for me to grasp – some infinities are bigger than others… Say what? I am attracted to the concept nevertheless. Rudy Rucker’s science fiction novel, White Light was a great exploration of the topic.
Rucker is mostly known for his Ware tetrology (which I loved), but if you’ve never read White Light, you’re missing out. It’s so fun.
White Light follows a man on a trip through infinity. Rucker is actually a mathematician, so he knows what he’s talking about. And I didn’t have to solve for X once.
They move me, those mysteries. And I get the suspicion that certain people touch it, just a little – poets, artists, astrophysicists, quantum physicists, mathematicians. When I think about these topics, feels like there’s a world beyond the world. It may be no more than a feeling, but it’s enough to give me that tingle.
As a young man I was extremely optimistic about what science could discover. I read a lot of sci fi and many of those crazy tales seemed truly possible – someday. Absolute Truth was out there and we’d find it eventually. I didn’t really think it through, I just kind of left it on the table.
Now I understand there are some things beyond the reach of science, where math fails, logic fails, and we’re left to guess, no way to verify. Some things are just unknowable and that’s that.
Conway’s Game of Life helped me to be OK with that. It’s a game with simple rules, that produce extremely complicated effects. If you want to experiment it, you can do it here: https://playgameoflife.com. (It works best on a PC or a laptop.)
You can do some pretty impressive stuff with it. There’s a whole community of hobbiests out there, exploring the possibilities. I’ve managed to create a few gliders by accident. I’ll never do anything on this level:
Hard as that was to grasp at first, the fact that some patterns that leave the screen could last infinitely while others may just last a very long time – but you cannot know.
I was in awe when it finally clicked. If some things are beyond scientists and mathematicians to solve – consciousness for example – there’s always room for a little spooky stuff.
I love pondering those spooky questions. Where is math located? Are there other dimensions of reality and if so can we touch them? Makes me wish I’d had better math teachers in 3rd grade.
That doesn’t mean I believe every tall tale I hear, or make up in my head. One of my most meaningful discoveries has been just how powerful and irrational the human mind can be. I suspect some pretty wild things, but I will never say I know.
However New Agey I might come across sometimes, I should mention that I don’t believe EVERYTHING is possible.
The ground exists, for us puny humans at least. I have to eat food and drink water. That’s why I’m very comfortable stating “I don’t know.”
Late Boomer's Den 
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