Showing posts with label Illuminati. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Illuminati. Show all posts

Saturday 7 September 2019

Reading


Nearly finished the appendices of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and if anything they are madder than the main part of the book itself. Conspiracies and mysticism fantasy with maybe the odd sprinkling of truth with recognisable names and images. I has been a wild and wacky ride and hopefully this will be the last time I mention it, but probably won't be because of the links and influences it has over so much music and writing that are in my admittedly large and eclectic sphere  of stuff that attracts my attention.

I'm not sure what will be next and have a number of disparate tomes lined up including Richard Dawkins, Matt Haig and Brian Eno but they are just three of many, I could easily go for something else and at some point want to reread "Imajica"and "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" or even "Bored of the Rings" although like Spike Milligan's "Puckoon" that starts out brilliantly funny but does eventually fizzle out

So after that brief literary interlude I'll leave you on this Saturday morning with the vaguely literary connection of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" which recalls Lewis Carroll through a drug fuelled tango time haze.

Wednesday 4 September 2019

Reading Appendices #2 and Discovering Sam Fender


Well I am reading the appendices of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and it's like nothing has changed. Same mad whirlwind mix or mysticism and conspiracies as well as explanations of I-Ching symbols that I was unaware of, well I assume they are correct despite the fact this is a work of mad fiction. It's not often fictional novels  have a large section of appendices.

This is just a short post to let you know a little more about this book that I thought I was finished with and had finished writing about, but like a box of fireworks you dropped a match in , they've not all gone off yet.

Chris Hawkins played "The Borders" by Sam Fender on 6Music this morning and I've had a natural aversion to Sam Fender because everyone seems to be pushing him. He's also a local lad (North Shields I think, well that's where his studio is). Chris described him as the English Springsteen. After hearing "The Borders" he might not be wrong , and amazing song and the album is on my list to buy, and given my generally paucity of new music buying these days that is no mean thing. Well impressed.

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Tuesday 3 September 2019

Reading Appendices


I know I was on the last leg of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" have finally met the subject of the final book "Leviathan" then way before the end the book ends! It's been a wild kaleidoscopic ride (and I know that probably isn't a correct metaphor, even if it is a metaphor) but here I was at the end.

So I have still nearly ten per cent of the text to go through that consist of the appendices which I suppose is unusual for a work of mainly fiction with the odd drops of reality and even truth in there, so I still probably have a week's reading to go.

Is this a book I will keep? I'm not sure. I've loved reading it but I'm fairly certain this is a one read book for me and not something, for me, that I can dip in and out of, but I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to go off on a mad literary ride. I'm not sure what book I will read next, maybe something with a more stable narrative.

Also this week I have been, for me, binge watching TV taking in Catch-22 , Parks and Recreation, Carnival Row and Scamalot.

September is a 30 month so I need to slightly up my daily steps but that's going OK after last month fairly smashing it. I'm just wondering if I could maybe hit half a million steps in a month, which would require me to hit 17K steps a day so maybe that's not really an option as I am generally to lazy.

The sky outside is grey, the heating is on , there are seagulls crying which indicates rain but we are at the first Tuesday in September.

In that past month the blog has now had 30K visits thanks to Feedburner picking it up again and I'm glad that I have a new top post which is here. thankfully replace this, which was stuck there for years.

So what song for today. I really haven't a clue but as the KLF are the reason I am reading "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" we can go with "Justified And Ancient" their mash up with Tammy Wynette.

Enjoy your Tuesday.

Sunday 1 September 2019

September Scamalot Coincidence


September is upon us and someone yesterday that summer is over. Not from my window it isn't. Blue skies and bright sunshine and I might even mow the lawn and go for a walk after breakfasting and reading the papers with the crossword and sudoku to have a stab at.

This is an unusually extremely short post just to mention James Veitch , who I first came across on TED then went to see him at The Stand in Newcastle , bout his book , and found his take on scamming funny, entertaining and informative.

I was then surprised that he has a series on Amazon Prime called "Scamalot". The episodes are two or three minutes and are in fact presentations of sections from his live show and is book "Dot.Con" both well worth your investment.

In August I actually did 420K steps which is approximately 140 Km or 90 miles and 20% over my monthly target

I've just noticed that this is post number 2023 , and "2023" is the novel by The KLF that then got me into my current read "THe Illuminatus! Trilogy" . Life is full of noticeable coincidences.

So time to sign off with this first post of September.

Saturday 31 August 2019

666


I've just passed page 666 in "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and was expecting something apocalyptic or at least interesting , but barring Moses crossing the Red Sea there wasn't too much out of the ordinary barring a reanimated Nazi army rising from the bottom of a lake near a rock festival close to Ingolstadt which is fairly normal for that book.

I can only think of two other books that I've read have a page 666 that's "Imajica" and "Lord of The Rings"  and maybe of of Michael Moorcock's Corum collections. I suppose The Bible and Quran also have one.

666 is defined as "The Number of The Beast" and features in many biblical and occult writings and films. as well as being an upside down 999. Aleister Crowley modelled himself as The Great Beast and many metal bands such as Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden , and jazz artists such as Graham Bond tapped into his legacy.

I remember visiting a youth club as a teenager and we brought records and one guy brought the "banned" "666" by Aphrodite's Child (featuring Vangelis and Demis Roussos" and I was well impressed with a lot of the album and have a copy in by collection. "Babylon" and "The Four Horsemen" are well worth tracking down. Click on the name for Youtube links. But we'll go with the more obvious Iron Maiden rampage on this Saturday morning.

Thursday 29 August 2019

Quarter Of A Million


I've hit quarter of a million visits on the blog since it started, and while I don't write a lot on each post, fairly bite size chunks, it is an improvement on when I started. I have lots of friends who started blogs that have then lapsed, a few of my favourites that you see on the right hand side of this have not been updated for a hell of a long time. Often people write extremely long essay type pieces which  take time to put together (which often we don't really have) and then sometimes people see a huge chunk of text and it just turns them off, even though the subject or writer actually interest the reader.

I have been criticised for writing documentation at work, because there is not enough writing on each page (never for the actual content). The thing is white space actually draws people in because they see that they can read and take in what's on that page. I'm not sure about others but I find all my documentation useful because it's easy to find and take in what you need to know but that is just self recommendation.

"The Illuminatus! Trilogy" is severely blocks of non stop text, so very intimidating, but it has managed to draw me in and keep me hooked but that is a definite exception to the rule

Also while these blog posts might be seemingly slight on a computer browser, when viewed on a mobile device they become reasonably digestible articles, not too long but but not throw away.

So Graham Parker's "New York Shuffle" is playing on 6Music , and it's a brilliant reminder of the wonderful Graham Parker who is still making great music. Thanks for that Chris Hawkins.

New Targets? Well I can probably hit 320 posts this year, which will be another record and well within my grasp and unexpected as I was aiming for 200 posts this year. It is possible I may hit 300K visits this year but that's dependent on stuff beyond my control , also I'd like to see the Christopher Lee video hit 50K visits as it hit 30K this year.

Monday 26 August 2019

2019


This is post 2019 in the year 2019.  This year my aim was to hit 2000 posts since I started blogging, I ended up doing that last month here.  I was thinking that maybe this would be another record posting year but this month posts have dropped off so it may or may not happen, we shall see.

Today has been a very hot Bank Holiday but that is nothing to complain about, though tomorrow is a return to work for a four day week.

Over the weekend I was completely cut off from music apart from listening on the train journeys to and from Scotland and was thinking I haven't played "Rain" by The Beatles on the new RPM record player.. The rumour is that Paul McCartney's bass on the original single was so heavy that it caused the needle to jump. I have a re released single but will try that before work tomorrow morning.

I've dipped back into the swirling currents of words that make up "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and still finding it entertaining as I pass the three quarter level. Totally mad with probably some snippets of truth to be taken with large doses of salt.

So on the burning day I think "Hot Hot Hot" by The Cure from possibly my favourite album of theirs "Kiss Me,Kiss Me,Kiss Me" would be good to sign off with.

Saturday 10 August 2019

Like A Ping Pong Ball In A Wind Tunnel


I was trying to think of an analogy for "The Illuminatus Trilogy" and that came to mind. It's a loosely noir canvas but this ranges from  American location , proisons, hotels , big cities , small towns with secret societies to submarines and sunken cities and lands such as Atlantis and wars and fights with gangs and armies and societies featuring every continent of the Earth and even some extra terrestrial locations. The whole thing can change between paragraph , one line you're in a seedy New York hotel next you're a Yellow Submarine the you are locked in a southern tale before ending up on a small island off the West African coast.

I am about halfway through the book and despite incredibly long unbroken chapters I am finding it incredibly readable, though maybe others would not.

I'm selling a lot of my CDs on Discogs  but sometimes I hear things on the radio by bands I thought I didn't really listen to then think , no I'm not selling that. That's recently happened with Kate Tempest and Fat White Family , both well worth a listen.

The weather is still absolutely mad  but we still have to venture out. Ever since the leak (temporarily fixed)  I am now constantly listening in case it comes through again , but any regular noise such as a tripping tap or the ticking of a clock or watch can trigger the worry mode , and when you think about various forms of mental illness related to OCD and just somethings taking all of your attention and triggering anxiety , something that is everyday for me can be absolute hell for others.

If you do suffer in this way Matt Haig's "Reasons To Stay Alive" id a book that should be in your position . A friend of mine told me it saved his life.

So it's Saturday and yesterday I bought two vinyl records, Bostons' eponymous first album with has one of the most perfect AOR  vinyl sides ever, and the "Substance" Joy Division compilation and leaving JG Windows met Jonathan Wells-Lee and Hedley Sugar Wells and their young charge who were watching a twenty grans self playing piano in the window. Lovely people, and lovely meeting them for a quick catch up.

So we'll go with a live take of "Foreplay / Long Time" by Boston , showing that they could play taking in in progressive bombast and euphoric AOR . Enjoy.


Thursday 18 July 2019

Coincidentally.. A Conspiracy Theory and The Heisenberg Supercut


After finishing "2023" I started "The Illuminatus Trilogy" expecting some exposé of secret societies and the like, but it is more a detective story and the main detective is Saul Goodman and the book , I think was published in 1975.

Saul Goodman also appears as a policeman in "2023" and a CRIMINAL Lawyer as opposed to a criminal lawyer in "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul". I have a feeling that this is more than coincidence.

Anyway after the mass of text in a bad typeface that I initially saw in "The Illuminatus Trilogy" it is starting to pick up and I am looking forward to this 800 page slab of reading over the new few weeks. I am sure it probably influenced Dan Brown to write "The Da Vinci Code" but I have a feeling that this will have tongue firmly in cheek with more than a little fun.

Given that I've dragged in "Breaking Bad" (one of the greatest TV series ever) so we will go with Badfinger's "My Baby Blue - The Heisenberg Supercut"


Thursday 28 March 2019

Buying Books and Listening To Podcasts


I'm listening to the podcast "How To Burn A Million Quid" the BBC Sounds mockumentary about the story of the KLF and the influence of The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson (and my mind immediately connects the Tony Wilson broadcaster, punk leader and Factory Records supremo, but I will put that on pause).

The thing is I have now ordered The Illuminatus Trilogy along with a parralel publication by the KLF themselves. I never knew what KLF stood for but according to the pocast it is Copyright Liberation Foundation but they decided that the letter "K" was way much cooler than "C" so instead of "CLF" we got "KLF". I sort of see what they mean.

So whether or not I will read the book, I am just getting it to see what tangents it zooms off in, rather than expecting any revelations.

The thing is, it does show you that product placement within and environment you enjoy can influence you to actually purchase a placed product, although I am sure this is not a prime example of product placement.

So it looks like more KLF rated stuff to share so I'll go with their Tammy Wynette collaboration before I go to make my tea,