waxbanks

just watched 12 ANGRY MEN for the first time. predictable and wonderful—an unexpectedly stirring defense of humility and democracy. afterward, talked briefly w/my son about the postwar liberal consensus. another day, another hopefully-not-a-lecture. #dadproblems #waxflix

new #introduction for heads.social:

i'm Wally H.

father of one, husband of one.

#writer and longtime #CambridgeMA resident (b. 1979) still connected to my alma mater #MIT. i wrote the 33-1/3 volume on #phish's A Live One among other things

sometime critic interested in #media #theory and #history. recently finished a book about #antirationalism, #magical thought/practice, #highweirdness (more and less high/weird), and odd #consciousness. next stop: selling it, ugh.

pleased to meet you.

continuing to read up on #JamesHillman’s #archetypal psychology—his rich image of the ‘polytheistic’ psyche really resonates with me, as does his poetic-pragmatic take on the uses of ‘gods.’ and i admire his devaluing of *interpretation* of dream/desire. hillman’s writing doesn’t get into the full-on jungian visionary trip, but his fluid metaphors light a path from jung/corbin to, say, #minsky’s intuitively brilliant ‘society of mind’ and the lewis/amini/lannon General Theory of #Love.

watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off with the family. as good as i remembered. the script was written in a week and at a couple of tonal-mismatch moments (e.g. ferris's 'the first girl he lays' monologue) feels like it, but charisma & music carry it effortlessly—all those classic lines in acts 1-2 sure don't hurt. broderick is a miracle but alan ruck is the story’s weird wounded center; when he howled at his absent father i felt it in my marrow. #waxflix #SaveFerris

#CognitiveMusic #HighWeirdness

thinking this morning about links/differences between deity-visualization in #tantra and the spiritual exercises of St #Ignatius; the latter is explicitly couched in terms of empathy, relationship w/literally anthropomorphized god (i.e. jesus), while the former calls for imaginative projection/assumption into what we might call deity-consciousness

both are 'archaic techniques of #ecstasy' (#eliade's description of #shamanism)

there's a jarring move in the last 1/3 of #VALIS, an extension of its epistemological pushing/prodding, where #PKD drops the Phil/Fat setup via SF/theo-plotstuff--then back it comes as Fat returns.

the book's treatment of this collapse (back into #strangeness) as Just One of Those Things is maybe its most #phildickian quality: 'clinically crazy' is, in PKD's worldview, one more reality to be 'locked into' (318 in the LoA omnibus). structure perfectly, skillfully(!) mirrors content here...

normal people’s lives aren’t ruined by smut (or ‘porn addiction’!), but by having stupid, selfish, myopic ideas about sex, sexuality, sensuality, love—and so not being able to fit the desire-play of porn into a sane framework for living.

i think of this as analogous to #EstherPerel’s argument that the main reason sex dies in monogamous western marriages is that they *also* have to be best-friendships, work-partnerships, roommate situations—what’s needed is erotic/emotional load-balancing

np:

#WhatWeDoInTheShadows 3x02, ‘the cloak of duplication’

laugh-so-loudly-i-disturb-the-neighbours tour de force from #KayvanNovak, who was due for this kind of showcase episode (#MattBerry and #MarkProksch got their star turns in season 2; surely #NatasiaDemetriou is up next). every cast member could carry the show by him/herself. fucking incredible character work.

this show is pure joy.

@mrcompletely I was thinking of things like “magic” and “mystery” though categories in general also seem to fit. Like you can relate to the thing itself, or the category of thing, the action or the system, and I guess the character of it comes out of how you imagine the thing that you are #relating to?

@mrcompletely @drummmerandy no NO i'm taking this opportunity to #listen and #learn and #grow and #holdspace for everyone but #ween

The 'alam al-mithal (#imaginal realm) must be understood, in spite of its metaphoric use, not as a 'place' but as a mindstate, or ‘world-version’ in Nelson Goodman’s terms. The ‘eighth clime’ is an infinitely complex cognitive-computational layer overlaid atop the real, or whatever ‘the real’ is a metaphor for. It’s a mode of #play, magic-circle bounded. We can ‘be there’ as truly as we’re here (ha), affect it/ourselves as materially—and as skillfully apply ‘strategies for dreamlife.’

me, labor day:

'...reminded that Joss #Whedon did the best, most perfectly realized work of his life while balancing three #TV shows... the show might’ve fallen down without... his most gifted male performer, the fucking #Canadian Nathan Fillion, who gave the performance of his life in a role as rich as #Buffy Summers... The fact that this show existed at all is one of its fallen medium’s rare #blessings; the fact of its cancellation is just another fucking crime...'

https://waxbanks.wordpress.com/2022/08/30/irreal-life-top-10-labor-day-2022/