In the transformation of the universe into information, recursion is GOD!

Jeremy Narby, author of THE COSMIC SERPENT and INTELLIGENCE IN NATURE in interview with Ascent Magazine originally, but this link has better illustrations (check out "The Vision of the Snake"!). Of course I'm initially struck that Dick covered a lot of this turf in VALIS in 1981 such as the link between serpent imagery and the DNA double helix, or the sensation of living within a gigantic, almost unfathomable (due particularly to it's powers of camouflage) system of living information (VALIS=Vast Active Living Intelligence System), and numerous references to the world turning into information either in forward-progressing time-space or as a backwards-process universe heading FROM chaos TOWARDS articulate information). Had my hands on THIS book in NH's best used bookstore yesterday, and, goddammit, should have parted with the $1.50 necessary to make it mine. Now, at the very least, I might do well to pick up this at The Strand ($5.95!!!) or the NYPL which analogously suggests that the photosensitive body's evolution has culminated in the eyeball to receive information directly and indirectly from the sun in much the same was as the brain as an organ has evolved to receive intelligence from the surrounding intelligent universe. Is it any coincidence that it shares a title with one of my favorite (hell, "only favorite") book(s) about cine-consciousness? VERY interesting indeed.....

MOSES WAS HIGH ON DRUGS, ISRAELI RESEARCHER SAYS

Moses was high on drugs, Israeli researcher says

We can own you: Genetic branding

Check out how fucked people will be in the future...I mean, now.
First learned about this practice in THE CORPORATION a few years ago, and don't want to beat the shit out of the folks who pioneered it any less.

Democracy's Endgame forum at MIT

Driving down to Boston today to check this out on a live video feed at MIT. Expect the discussion to lead to many more links.

Whale Songs

Seriously, what are they talking about down there? I'm rereading MOBY DICK right now, which is the best, and this has provided a fine backdrop.

Meditation score of the day: Angus Maclise's ASTRAL COLLAPSE

"6th Face of the Angel" off of this particular collection of Maclise's work has long been my favorite piece to sit cross-legged and cross-eyed to. Give it a shot. "Dracula"'s real scary, and everything else (by him, though quite out of print) is worth tracking down. He even out-arted John cale when he quit as drummer for The Velvet Underground well before their first album because the band was getting to be too commercial an outfit (or else, was he fired for forgetting to show up too often to concerts...stories vary). Went on to create the killer music for Ira Cohen's INVASION OF THUNDERBOLT PAGODA, one of my all-time favorite movies.

That far-out sound

Joel Cohen, formerly of the killer early music ensemble The Boston Camerata, had a great article in the quarterly publication Early Music America about cross-pollination in medieval music and the proposal of that cross pollination by Thomas Binkley, founder of Studio der Fruhen Musik and the Early Music Institute at Indiana University. How is it Bloomington sounds more and more like one of the coolest places in the US? What? And the Early Music America site also has a page with some interesting links and downloads.