Tag: VALIS

The Philip K. Dick and David Bowie Connection

On By adminIn David Bowie, Esotericism, Movies, Music, Philip K. Dick, The Rabbit Hole

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“They’re the start of a coming race.
Homo Sapiens have outgrown their use
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they’re here to stay.”
—David Bowie, “Oh! You Pretty Things”

Pop-music had always been an important theme for Philip K. Dick and his novels, especially later in his life. Linda Ronstadt (with whom he was a bit obsessed and wrote fan letters to) was a favorite of his, her “look” making its way into novels like The Divine Invasion as the musician “Linda Fox.” And the untimely death of John Lennon sets the stage for the somber Transmigration of Timothy Archer. Continue reading “The Philip K. Dick and David Bowie Connection” →

Fourth Wall Revisited: Peeking At The “Script”

On By adminIn The Rabbit Hole

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My favorite It’s Garry Shandling’s Show began with Garry being told by a psychic that somebody was going to get shot by the end of the episode. So he’s totally alarmed and wants to prevent this tragedy from happening.

What does he do? He gets a copy of the episode’s script and waits between scenes as they’re being filmed, ready to intervene in case the shooting happens. He’s going to proactively foil his own show’s story and save the day by attempting to alter the plot.

Watching this as a teenager, it made complete sense to me. It kinda still does.

Continue reading “Fourth Wall Revisited: Peeking At The “Script”” →

“The Exegesis” Of Philip K. Dick

On By adminIn Books, Philip K. Dick, The Rabbit Hole

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“What best I can do? Exactly what I’ve done. My voice for the voiceless.”
—Philip K. Dick, “Exegesis”

In 2015 I set out to perform a task that in some earlier era I literally could not fathom—reading Philip K. Dick’s almost 900-page Exegesis. While the edition I read was published in 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, it was edited down from a far longer unpublished version spanning about eight thousand pages.

Continue reading ““The Exegesis” Of Philip K. Dick” →

Slamming Into The Fourth Wall

On By adminIn Books, Movies, Personal Narrative, Philip K. Dick, Philosophy, Synchronicity

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I. THE FOURTH WALL: A VERY (VERY) BRIEF OVERVIEW

The following short video explores the concept of “breaking the Fourth Wall” in storytelling. That’s when a fictional character—or even simply the narrative itself—acknowledges the existence of the “real life” audience existing beyond the (now-tenuous) barrier between fiction and reality. Some famous examples of breaking the Fourth Wall are Ferris Bueller directly addressing the viewer, Dark Helmet discovering the VHS tape for Spaceballs during the middle of the movie, and the ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Continue reading “Slamming Into The Fourth Wall” →

Tripping The Manson-Nixon Line

On By adminIn Comics, Philip K. Dick, Synchronicity, Television, The Rabbit Hole
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Would you buy a used car from this man?

I’ve been reading a lot about Richard Nixon lately, and the period of time from 1968-1974. Those years had some really weird, dark energy; dark energy that the late Robin Williams summed up as “The Manson-Nixon Line.”

Author Peter Levenda in his 3-volume work Sinister Forces sees the two seemingly diametrically opposed public figures, Nixon and Charles Manson, as essentially being opposite sides of the same coin:

“On the plane of the real world as understood by the media and the public at large, Manson was an insignificant crook compared to Nixon, the President of the United States, undeserving of the President’s attention or comment; but on another plane, Manson and Nixon were warring black magicians, fighting over airtime and the fifteen-second sound bite.”

Continue reading “Tripping The Manson-Nixon Line” →