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Fantasy Magazine Looking For Audio Dramas to Podcast

July 28, 2008 /

“In 2009 Fantasy Magazine will add audio dramas to our suite of podcasts. To that end, from September 1 – November 15, we will accept audio script submissions for the first season.

Scripts should run 30 – 60 minutes and follow traditional radio play format. We prefer plays that will require five or fewer actors.

Though we will lean more heavily toward dramas in the fantasy genre, we will look at science fiction and dark/horror tales. Any good script with elements of the fantastic is game. Keep in mind that we’re looking for many of the same qualities in audio drama that we look for in our fiction. Scripts should emphasize character, dialogue, and a good story over relying heavily on sound effects and cool tricks.”

(via Fantasy Magazine)

Longest Walk 2 For Native Americans

July 26, 2008 /

click to view slideshow

“Two weeks ago an 8,000-Mile Walk for Native American Rights, Environmental Protection, and to Stop Global Warming reached its destination in Washington, DC. Started on the opposite coast, in the San Francisco Bay Area, on February 11, 2008, the Longest Walk 2 delivered a 30-page manifesto and list of demands to Congress, which included climate change mitigation, environmental sustainability, the protection of sacred sites, and items regarding Native American sovereignty and health.

Hundreds of walkers representing more than 100 Native American Nations, plus an active International group, embarked on a journey that lasted 175 days (4,200 hrs.) criss-crossing 26 states along two separate routes – through rain, snow, and even a tornado. They also picked up more than 8,000 bags of trash on the roads they traveled. ‘As we walked through this land we were horrified to see the extent in which Mother Earth has been raped, ravaged and exploited,’ noted the Manifesto for Change.

The trek also commemorated the 1978 Longest Walk, a similar campaign that led to the defeat of 11 anti-Native American bills pending in Congress and the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.”

(via Global Voices Online. “The Longest Walk 2” site)

The Nature, Structure, and Role of the Soul in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

July 26, 2008 /

Thesis Book Cover by albill.

I haven’t had a chance to read all of it yet, but blogger Al Billings has made his thesis on “The nature, structure, and role of the soul in the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn” available for free as a PDF download.

Summary:

“The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a 19 th century English society engaged in the creation of a systematic form of western esotericism. Its founders created a synthesis of previous strands of esotericism and spiritual thought that had existed in Europe. One aspect of this synthesis was the creation of a new vision of the soul. This soul went beyond a simple mixing of elements from earlier traditions and provided an integral portion of the spiritual vision that gave an overall purpose to the spiritual practices of the Golden Dawn. A discussion of the nature and structure of this soul, its key influences, and unique aspects gives clarity to some of the spiritual goals and vision of the Golden Dawn as a system of spiritual practice. This demonstrates a system of thought unique to the end of the nineteenth century that places it with other spiritual traditions of the world.”

(via In Pursuit of Mysteries)

The Man With The Musical Broomstick

July 26, 2008 /

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“It could only happen in New York. Where else in the world would people queue around the block for a seedy-looking jazz club, to hear the performance of a man best remembered for having invented the musical broomstick, whose fingers are so arthritic they can hardly move, and who is still pumping it out every Monday night at the age of 93?

But then, the weekly Les Paul show at the Iridium Club, a basement joint on Broadway that looks as though it was set in aspic some time in the 1950s, is more than just a performance. It’s a pilgrimage, where fans of 20th-century American music and lovers of the electric guitar – Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, and Keith Richards among them – come to pay homage to the great man. Richards bluntly summed up the aura of the man when he said: “We must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets.”

Like his close collaborator, Leo Fender, Les Paul is best known for the electric guitar he created. If the Fender Stratocaster is the edgy workhorse of the rock industry, the Gibson Les Paul was and remains its elegant rival, its richly varnished mahogany body and oyster-shell fingerboard adding a touch of class to a rough-hewn affair. But there’s much more to Paul than a lump of wood with a cherry-burst finish: he’s also a consummate musician who, despite the arthritis which has reduced him to the use of just two fingers, is still able to spark a flame in much younger performers.”

(via The Guardian)

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

July 26, 2008 /

Randy Pausch

This is an inspirational “must see”:

“With equal parts humor and heart, Carnegie Mellon professor and alumnus Randy Pausch delivered a one-of-a-kind last lecture that moved an overflow crowd at the university – and went on to move audiences around the globe. Randy died July 25 of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47. Randy’s family is planning a private burial. A campus memorial service is being planned and details will be announced at a later date.”

(via YouTube)

Visiting New Guinea Cannibals, Corpse-Eating Hindus

July 26, 2008 /

“Australian-born adventure writer Paul Raffaele doesn’t let a little danger stand in the way of a good story. In the course of his career, he has reported on modern-day slavery, dived with great white sharks and accompanied Afghan police into illegal poppy fields.

Now, in his weirdly compelling book, “Among the Cannibals: Adventures on the Trail of Man’s Darkest Ritual,” Raffaele, 64, who writes for Smithsonian magazine, intrepidly makes contact with 21st-century man-eaters. The author, who is recuperating from shrapnel wounds suffered on assignment during a suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan, spoke to me by telephone from his hotel in New York.

Schatz: Why do the Korawai in Papua New Guinea practice cannibalism?

Raffaele: They do not see it as they are eating human beings. I see it as a Stone-Age rationalization of disease that kills you, and you don’t really know why…. What they’ve come up with is this monster from the other world called a khakhua. He comes into the clan, and he inhabits the body of someone they know. And then begins to magically eat the insides of another clan member who eventually dies. And when he dies, the Korawai have to find the khakhua who killed him, so they search about and eventually come up with the khakhua and kill that person and eat that person. They have to get revenge against the khakhua.”

(via Bloomberg.com)

(Related: documentary on the Aghori sect in India-“Sadhus: India’s Holy Men” and “Cannibalism May Have Wiped Out Neanderthals”)

Free Documentary Site: Snag Films

July 21, 2008 /

This is for all you documentary addicts out there:

“At SnagFilms.com, you can watch full-length documentary films for free, but we also make it easy for you to take our films with you and put them anywhere on the web. When you embed a widget on your web site, you open a virtual movie theater and become a ‘Filmanthropist.’ Donate your pixels and support independent film! And click on ‘info’ on any widget to learn more about that film and a related charity you can also support.

With a library of 225 documentaries, and rapidly growing – browse by topic or go through the alphabet from A-Z – you’re bound to find films that resonate with your interests. There is a widget for EVERY film, so any film you like can be snagged. [..] Enjoy your visit, snag a film, and keep checking back because we’re adding great news titles daily.”

(SnagFilms.com. h/t: The Daily Galaxy)

“Who Will Stand”-Documentary Tackles PTSD & Wounded Soldier Issues

July 21, 2008 /

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“More American soldiers kill themselves than are killed by the enemy, and many others suffer the effects of post traumatic stress disorder. As many as eighteen soldiers a day are committing suicide and most of those soldiers kill themselves after they return home. Their divorce rate has tripled since the beginning of the war and substance abuse among veterans is four times the national average. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg according to Who Will Stand producer/director Phil Valentine.

The two hour documentary covers, in detail, the plights of more than a dozen soldiers who have returned either physically or psychologically wounded, including hard-to-measure effects of post traumatic stress disorder. ‘Nobody is surprised that war creates amputees, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, divorce, but very few people are aware of the enormous rates of these issues,’ said Valentine. ‘And almost no one is aware of the psychological issues that nearly 100% of combat soldiers suffer with, namely Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD.’ Many of the films on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan take sides on whether we should have gone there, whether we should still be there and when we should leave. Who Will Stand covers none of these issues, focusing instead on the plight of returning disabled American veterans.”

(via Alternative Approaches. See also: “Soldier in Famous Photo Never Defeated ‘Demons'” via MSNBC)

(“Who Will Stand” trailer)

Heavy Metal Monk in Second Album

July 21, 2008 /

“At first glance, Cesare Bonizzi looks like the archetypal Capuchin monk – round-faced, stout, with twinkling eyes and a long flowing white beard. But beneath his robes beats a heart of metal. Brother Cesare is the lead singer in a heavy metal band which has just released its second album. A former missionary in the Ivory Coast, he lives in a small friary in the Milan hinterland.

The 62-year-old monk’s love affair with heavy metal began when he attended a Metallica concert some 15 years ago. “I was overwhelmed and amazed by the sheer energy of it” he says. Hard rock and heavy metal have, over the years, been criticised as the work of the devil. It’s a claim which Brother Cesare, also known as Brother Metal, says is nonsense. He started playing and recording cassettes, firstly with “lighter” metal music, but gradually he realised that what really moved him was the hard core.”

(via BBC News)

Consciousness, Qualia, Power and Self

July 20, 2008 /

Intergral Praxis has an interesting post up with videos from Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at UCSD, who discusses consciousness, qualia, and self. An interview with David Chalmers discussing his theory of consciousness, the hard problem, and the explanatory gap, and part two of a BBC documentary called “The Century of Self”. This part is called ‘Engineering Consent’, and tells the tale of how power elites used psychoanalytic theories to try and control human populations in an age of mass democracy and global capitalism.

(via Integral Praxis)

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