Dick knew that there had to be an FBI file on his activities because, as he told the Bureau in the letter requesting access to it: “In the early ’fifties, two agents of the FBI, Mr George Scruggs and Mr George Smith, approached me.”
Undoubtedly, one of the prime reasons why Dick attracted attention from the FBI was a series of bizarre letters he penned to the Bureau in the early 1970s, in which he described his personal knowledge of an alleged underground Nazi cabal that was attempting to covertly manipulate science fiction writers to further advance its hidden cause.
And the nature of that cause was even more bizarre: to initiate a Third World War by infecting the American population with syphilis. On 28 October 1972, Dick wrote to the FBI and outlined his distinctly odd beliefs:
“I am a well-known author of science fiction novels, one of which dealt with Nazi Germany (called MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, it described an ‘alternate world’ in which the Germans and Japanese won World War Two and jointly occupied the United States).
“This novel, published in 1962 by Putnam and Co., won the Hugo Award for Best Novel of the Year and hence was widely read both here and abroad; for example, a Japanese edition printed in Tokyo ran into several editions. I bring this to your attention because several months ago I was approached by an individual who I have reason to believe belonged to a covert organization involved in politics, illegal weapons, etc., who put great pressure on me to place coded information in future novels ‘to be read by the right people here and there’, as he phrased it. I refused to do this.”
Read More – Fortean Times: The Strange Tale of Solarcon-6
Another Philip K. Dick movie is coming soon: Radio Free Albemuth, starring Alanis Morissette as Sylvia, Jonathan Scarfe as Nicholas Brady, and Shea Whigham as Philip K. Dick himself.
Official movie site
IMDB entry
(Thanks Joe)
[..] Walt Disney’s King of The Elves, based on the Philip K. Dick story about a gas station attendant who receives a knock on the door one rainy night. It’s a group of elves. Small, maybe a foot tall each. They are all green, with leaves and foliage growing off of them. They beg him for shelter from the storm. Despite his better judgment he allows them to stay and as reward he is made king of the Elves.
Directed by Bob Walker and Aaron Blaise. It’s pretty far out from release, of course, but they showed some art. The elves I described a little above. The art was very painterly and the idea is that these little green buggers live in modern day Mississippi and have been undiscovered based on their appearance. With the leaves growing on their bodies if a human enters their domain they can just ruffle their foliage, duck their heads down and be completely undetectable.”
(via Ain’t It Cool. H/T: The Website @ the End of The Universe)
“In my book Gods of Aquarius: UFOs and the Transformation of Man [Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976], I introduced the concept of the Star People, individuals who feel that they bear within their genes awareness acquired by extraterrestrial interaction with humans in prehistoric or ancient times and who have now been activated by DNA memory to fulfill a mission in assisting others in their spiritual and evolutionary advancement.
Sometime after the book’s publication, I received a letter from Philip K. Dick, who told me that he suspected that he was such an individual as those whom I had profiled in the book. He had first realized this in 1974 when his own ‘DNA memory packet’ began to fire within his psyche.”
(via Alternate Perceptions Magazine )
The west coast premier of 800 Words: The Transmigration of Philip K Dick is this weekend in Seattle.
Details.
Pics.
Until his death, of a stroke, in 1982, Dick never stopped crying out. He was buried at last beside his infant sister, Jane, the missing half he had longed for and eventually made into a part of his cosmic mythology, the much mourned female God. The vision of an unending struggle between a humanity longing for a fuller love it always senses but can’t quite see, and a deranged cult of violence eternally presenting itself as necessary and real-this thought today does not seem exactly crazy. The empire never ends.
Full Story: The New Yorker.
(via Hit and Run).
In the second half of our show on Philip K. Dick, the Vikings meander through the multiple mind states of our fearless author picking apart the events and aftermaths of what came to be known as the V.A.L.I.S trilogy.
We discuss the final work of PKD which, unfortunately, was never completed and how that project known as “The Owl in Daylight” shows PKD prophecizing his own demise 2 weeks before it’s occurrance.
Throughout his work PKD not only defined a new class of sci-fi hero – the delinquent savante – but also challenged our notion of what it means to be sane, what it means to be insane, and what it means to come to realize that our defining organism – the artist who created this whole mess of several worlds, the organism we all may be but fingers upon fingers of the same self within – may itself be as batty as the most batty amongst us.
MP3 on Viking Youth Power Hour.
Grab a drink and fill that pipe full kids, this week the Vikings indulge themselves in the greatest Science Fiction writer of our time and a modern day christian/gnostic prophet, Philip K. Dick. While you may be familiar with the many films adapted from his novels (Blade Runner, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly among others) you may not be aware that in February of 1974 – around about the same time R.A. Wilson was having some strange visits from the Sirius star system and Tim Leary was busy bouncing his ethereal body up over the walls of San Quentin – PKD believed that a satellite, V.A.L.I.S, which might have been part of a Russian covert operation, part of a nervous breakdown, or perhaps even God itself, blasted a pink laser into his head. The subsequent effects of this experience left Dick speaking languages he did not know, accurately diagnosing illnesses he should not have been aware of, and living in two realities simultaneously…one as PKD, the other as an early christian under prosecution from the Roman Empire. What resulted for the rest of the world were two of the most unique and important science fiction novels in the history of the genre, “VALIS” and “The Divine Invasion”. AJ was our editor, satellite Viking Channel Null offers up our closing hymn.
MP3 (on Viking Youth Power Hour).
He [Dick] got it, because he always had a human character base. He wasn?t about these highfalutin ideas about where consciousness, the world or technology was going. He was like, ?Yeah, people, what are they going to do next?? He knew that at the core of the future, there is always going to be some schlubby guy struggling, trying to get laid, and being frustrated. [Other science fiction writers] create these fantastic worlds where humans have suddenly lost all humor and they?ve become automatons, but Dick always granted everyone their full humanity, and that?s his enduring appeal. His characters are flawed and oh-so-human. When I read Scanner, I intuitively felt that it was probably his most personal work. It felt like he had lived this world, [the characters] felt like every roommate he had and half the roommates I had at a certain time in my life. It felt very familiar, the way you just sort of ?end up? around people. You can see how that house became a kind of crash pad. One group moved out ? his family ? and another group, these ne?er-do-wells, move in. It?s fun for a while, but then it spins out of control.
Full Story: Film Maker Magazine.
(via Robot Wisdom).
LVX23 provides the exact reference in Comment 24 of Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis:
The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us what Heaven’s kingdom is like.” He said to them, “It’s like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.” (Gospel of Thomas)
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while: Philip K. Dick’s Tractates Cryptica Scriptura from VALIS.
(via Key 23 del.icio.us).
Wes points out that that philipkdick.com has pictures up from the set of the Scanner Darkly movie. Doesn’t look bad.
Link
“[...] an interesting graphic interpretation of a series of events which happened to [Philip K.]Dick in March of 1974. He spent the remaining years of his life trying to figure out what happened in those fateful months.”
This eight page graphic novel (Weirdo #17) is archived on the Internet for your enjoyment.
Featuring work by William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, Philip K. Dick, and more.
Link (via New World Disorder).
“I Understand Philip K. Dick” by Terrence McKenna.
Link (via Die Puny Humans)
A charming set of letters Dick wrote to a 15 year old fan in 1982.
Link.
Sci-fi author Ray Nelson recounts the last time he saw Philip K. Dick.
“You know when we were kids at Hillside School in Berkeley, I believed without question that Walt Disney personally drew all those talking ducks and mice”.
“Well, so did I. I took it for granted. Of course we both know now that he didn’t even draw his signature. He probably didn’t himself actually invent Mickey Mouse. He fooled everyone.”
“Not everyone Ray. Can you imagine Larry Niven being taken in?”
“I guess not.”
“No Ray, Larry would have laughed at us. I can just imagine his scornful, hurtful laughter if he had found us out.”
“But that was a long time ago Phil. We’ve changed.”
“Oh? Larry hasn’t changed. He still has no room in his universe for talking mice. Today, if anything, he’d be more scornful, more sarcastic than he must have been as a child.”
“Get to the point Phil.”
Again He glanced around. He paused, gathered his courage.
“I still believe” Phil whispered.
I burst out laughing.
“You too, Ray? Yes, you and Larry have changed all right. Only I have remained faithful.”
“So that’s it? The big secret?”
“That’s it.”
“I have to say, I don’t believe you. You had me going there for a second, but I don’t believe you really still believe in Disney.”
He looked hurt.
Link.
An article in New Dawn Magazine explores the prescience of Philip K. Dick’s writings in light of 9/11 and the Bush administration’s reactions.
Link (via New World Disorder).
“However, Nixon?s weary world ignored the eschatological opportunity I thought my brother?s inspired fiddling with hyperspace had afforded. The world continued grinding forward in its usual less than merry way. There was only one small incident that might subsequently be construed, even within the framework of the schizoid logic that was my bread and butter then, to support my position. Unknown to me, a struggling, overweight SF writer, an idol of mine since my teens, discovered the next day that his house have been broken into, his privacy violated by the Other. How peculiar that on the first day of the new dispensation in my private reformist calendar, he had been burglarized by extraterterrestials the CIA or his own deranged self in an altered state. The torch had been passed, in a weird way the most intense phase of my episode of illumination/delusion ended right where Phil?s began.”
Link (via New World Disorder).
Orange County Weekly has a piece up about Philip K. Dick’s relationship to Orange County.
Link.
There’s a longish piece on Slate today on why Minority Report isn’t film noir, comparing it to past noir masterpieces. I think the author makes his case, though I’m not sure what the relevence is.
Link.
How much do you know about Philip K. Dick? I scored an 8/10.
Link (via Boing Boing).
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