Joseph Matheny's Blog, page 20
September 28, 2014
Legend Tripping Online:: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong���s Hat reviewed by Lynne S. McNeill for Western States Folklore Society
Legend Tripping Online:: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong���s Hat reviewed by��Lynne S. McNeill for��Western States Folklore Society
http://folklore.usu.edu
http://www.folkloristics.com
Also: Lynne and��Legend Tripping Online:: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong���s Hat��are cited in this examination of the Slenderman phenomena over at Semiotic Review. ��–��http://www.semioticreview.com/index.php/thematic-issues/issue-monsters/22-the-sort-of-story-that-has-you-covering-your-mirrors-the-case-of-slender-man.html
Filed under: Academia, Folklore, Incunabula, Legend Tripping, Ong's Hat Tagged: Academia, folklore, incunabula, Legend Tripping, Ong's Hat
Legend Tripping Online:: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat reviewed by Lynne S. McNeill for Western States Folklore Society
September 12, 2014
Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search For Ong’s Hat Review from Religious Studies Review
Review by Joseph Laycock for Religious Studies Review
Texas State University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
Article first published online: 12 SEP 2014
Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rsr.12144/abstract
Filed under: Incunabula, Ong's Hat
August 17, 2014
Updates and downloads: Where did Incunabula.org, Greylodge.org, Alterati.com and RAWilsonfans.com go?
Passing along FYI.
We’ll be back!
Originally posted on Incunabula: Ong's Hat, Greylodge, Alterati Archive:
No, not like the Terminator, but something new and exciting for the future. We’re moving servers, uploading a lot of the old Greylodge material, crafting a new interface, new database search tools, all kinds of tech-craft to make finding what you want on our site archives so much easier. So, don’t despair, we’ll be back this fall and we’ll be better. Until then, have a great remainder of your summer!
If you’re looking for a free copy of the Incunabula: Ong’s Hat book, you may find several formats here. The other content will be back soon or you may look for other free things on Archive.org
Also, Codex Seraphinianus is now archived here. Past articles are all archived here (Greylodge), here (Incunabula) and here (Alterati). Alterati podcasts and video are being migrated to Archive.org. Some of it can currently be found on Youtube.
Reviews and articles still…
View original 47 more words
Filed under: Announcements, Greylodge, Greylodge Occult Review, GSpot, hukilau, Incunabula, Links, Ong's Hat, Robert Anton Wilson
August 15, 2014
Audiobook- The Incunabula Papers: Ong’s Hat and Other Gateways to New Dimensions
Above image used with permission of the artist. Courtesy of James Koehnline : http://www.koehnline.com/
A professional version of The Incunabula Papers: Ong’s Hat and Other Gateways to New Dimensions is currently in production for Audible.com, Amazon.com and iTunes.com. It should be available sometime October. It is narrated by the inimitable James Lewis.
Note to creatives reading this: If you have any audio v/o projects and you want to work with a consummate professional and all around nice guy, you can’t do better than James.
Of course, the free radio play version P. Emerson Williams and I did years ago remains and will always remain available for free in the commons.
Here’s a sample of my conversation with Nick Herbert, read by James, so you can get a sense of the quality (Click the blue “Listen” button below to hear the sample).
Filed under: Announcements, Incunabula, Ong's Hat Tagged: audiobook, featured, incunabula, joseph matheny, Ong's Hat
The Incunabula Papers: Ong’s Hat and Other Gateways to New Dimensions: Audiobook
Above image used with permission of the artist. Courtesy of James Koehnline : http://www.koehnline.com/
A professional version of The Incunabula Papers: Ong’s Hat and Other Gateways to New Dimensions is currently in production for Audible.com, Amazon.com and iTunes.com. It should be available sometime in September. It is narrated by the inimitable James Lewis.
Note to creatives reading this: If you have any audio v/o projects and you want to work with a consummate professional and all around nice guy, you can’t do better than James.
Of course, the free radio play version P. Emerson Williams and I did years ago remains and will always remain available for free in the commons.
Here’s a sample of my conversation with Nick Herbert, read by James, so you can get a sense of the quality (Click the blue “Listen” button below to hear the sample).
Filed under: Announcements, Incunabula, Ong's Hat Tagged: audiobook, featured, incunabula, joseph matheny, Ong's Hat
The Incunabula Papers: Ong’s Hat and Other Gateways to New Dimensions Audiobook
A professional version of The Incunabula Papers: Ong’s Hat and Other Gateways to New Dimensions is currently in production for Audible.com. It should be available sometime in September. Here’s a sample of my conversation with Nick Herbert, so you can get a sense of the quality.
Filed under: Announcements, Incunabula, Ong's Hat
August 10, 2014
Life in the Pines: Ong���s Hat
Story from the Asbury Park Press, a New Jersey newspaper on the legend(s) of Ong’s Hat.
Some excerpts:
���Two weeks ago there were these young kids, like 19 or 20, who came by asking about Ong���s Hat,��� said bartender Jacky Colon. ���I looked it up on my phone. It was this weird interdimensional thing. Hold on, I have to look it up, this is how I got all my information on Google.���
Very short synopsis of said legend: Mash-up of religious sect, jazz musicians, native Pineys and rogue physicists settle in Ong���s Hat, open a portal to other dimensions. More on this later. First, that name.
——-
During a lull, you can ask about those legends. The modern one about Ong���s Hat ��� that portal to another dimension somewhere out in the pitch pines ��� was popularized in the 2002 book ���Ong���s Hat: The Beginning��� by writer Joseph Matheny, who creates transmedia works and is a prominent figure in alternative reality gaming.
���Nineteen eighty-nine, I think this started. I had a friend who had a cabin out there in the Pine Barrens, and he hosted these parties. He was very bohemian and had artists and writers of all kinds out there,��� Matheny said. ���He gave me a pamphlet that purported to be this story about Princeton scientists and something called the Ong���s Hat Rod and Gun Club, where they used to hang out and relax.���
During World War II the Pine Barrens were a testing ground for weapons development. Princeton scientists did explosives and ballistics work in the Forked Ruiver Mountains, and a Johns Hopkins University team fired crude surface-to-air missiles from the Project Bumblebee site at Island Beach. ���There are kernels of reality to this legend,��� Matheny said.
With Matheny and other contributors writing, the story line arose ithrough the 1990s, first on computer bulletin boards frequented by gaming enthusiasts, generating online versions of urban legend that���s grown to an elaborate body of work. One consequence is an uptick in younger visitors seeking Ong���s Hat. Hence Colon���s close encounter at the Magnolia Bar.
��Folklorists call it legend tripping ��� the urge to visit supposedly haunted houses and the like. One infamous place is Leed���s Point near Smithville in Atlantic County. The supposed birthplace of the Jersey Devil ��� a half-human monster said to haunt the forest since the 1700s ��� attracts people around Halloween.
But the Ong���s Hat story is one of the first examples of ���legend tripping online,��� said Michael Kinsella, a scholar who studies new religions, paranormal beliefs and folk traditions at the University of California Santa Barbara. He���s author of the 2011 book ���Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong���s Hat,��� published by the University Press of Mississippi.
���I���ve always been fascinated by supernatural beliefs,��� said Kinsella, who like Ong���s Hat enthusiasts stumbled across the story online, and wrote a whole dissertation on it for his master���s degree in 2007, which led to the book. The cross-connections of various enthusiast websites ��� whether gaming, UFOs or conspiracy theories ��� lead like a trail of digital bread crumbs to Ong���s Hat.
He sees it as technology simply extending an ancient human compulsion. ���People really want to seek out the eerie and paranormal,��� Kinsela said.
There are other snippets from actual history in the Ong���s Hat portal legend, like radioactive waste. Around the time the legend was developing, the Department of Defense was figuring out what to do with thousands of tons of soil contaminated with plutonium when a nuclear missile burned up a few miles away at Fort Dix in 1961. That���s how modern legends grow, Kinsella said.
���It���s typical for these kinds of stories to mix up history and facts and legend,��� he said. ���So much weird stuff and stories seems to come out of the Pine Barrens, they reinforce each other.���
���If nothing else, it is a vortex of mysteries, legends, tradition and folklore…I���m interested in tracking it back as far as I can, but I don���t want to puncture that bubble,��� Matheny said. ���There���s nothing in the structure of the story that I haven���t heard, in one form or another, from people in the area.���
Filed under: Folklore, Incunabula, Interviews, Ong's Hat Tagged: featured, folklore, incunabula, Ong's Hat
Life in the Pines: Ong’s Hat
Story from the Asbury Park Press, a New Jersey newspaper on the legend(s) of Ong’s Hat.
Some excerpts:
“Two weeks ago there were these young kids, like 19 or 20, who came by asking about Ong’s Hat,” said bartender Jacky Colon. “I looked it up on my phone. It was this weird interdimensional thing. Hold on, I have to look it up, this is how I got all my information on Google.”
Very short synopsis of said legend: Mash-up of religious sect, jazz musicians, native Pineys and rogue physicists settle in Ong’s Hat, open a portal to other dimensions. More on this later. First, that name.
——-
During a lull, you can ask about those legends. The modern one about Ong’s Hat — that portal to another dimension somewhere out in the pitch pines — was popularized in the 2002 book “Ong’s Hat: The Beginning” by writer Joseph Matheny, who creates transmedia works and is a prominent figure in alternative reality gaming.
“Nineteen eighty-nine, I think this started. I had a friend who had a cabin out there in the Pine Barrens, and he hosted these parties. He was very bohemian and had artists and writers of all kinds out there,“ Matheny said. ‘He gave me a pamphlet that purported to be this story about Princeton scientists and something called the Ong’s Hat Rod and Gun Club, where they used to hang out and relax.“
During World War II the Pine Barrens were a testing ground for weapons development. Princeton scientists did explosives and ballistics work in the Forked Ruiver Mountains, and a Johns Hopkins University team fired crude surface-to-air missiles from the Project Bumblebee site at Island Beach. “There are kernels of reality to this legend,“ Matheny said.
With Matheny and other contributors writing, the story line arose ithrough the 1990s, first on computer bulletin boards frequented by gaming enthusiasts, generating online versions of urban legend that’s grown to an elaborate body of work. One consequence is an uptick in younger visitors seeking Ong’s Hat. Hence Colon’s close encounter at the Magnolia Bar.
Folklorists call it legend tripping — the urge to visit supposedly haunted houses and the like. One infamous place is Leed’s Point near Smithville in Atlantic County. The supposed birthplace of the Jersey Devil — a half-human monster said to haunt the forest since the 1700s — attracts people around Halloween.
But the Ong’s Hat story is one of the first examples of “legend tripping online,” said Michael Kinsella, a scholar who studies new religions, paranormal beliefs and folk traditions at the University of California Santa Barbara. He’s author of the 2011 book “Legend-Tripping Online: Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong’s Hat,” published by the University Press of Mississippi.
“I’ve always been fascinated by supernatural beliefs,” said Kinsella, who like Ong’s Hat enthusiasts stumbled across the story online, and wrote a whole dissertation on it for his master’s degree in 2007, which led to the book. The cross-connections of various enthusiast websites — whether gaming, UFOs or conspiracy theories — lead like a trail of digital bread crumbs to Ong’s Hat.
He sees it as technology simply extending an ancient human compulsion. “People really want to seek out the eerie and paranormal,” Kinsela said.
There are other snippets from actual history in the Ong’s Hat portal legend, like radioactive waste. Around the time the legend was developing, the Department of Defense was figuring out what to do with thousands of tons of soil contaminated with plutonium when a nuclear missile burned up a few miles away at Fort Dix in 1961. That’s how modern legends grow, Kinsella said.
“It’s typical for these kinds of stories to mix up history and facts and legend,” he said. “So much weird stuff and stories seems to come out of the Pine Barrens, they reinforce each other.”
“If nothing else, it is a vortex of mysteries, legends, tradition and folklore…I’m interested in tracking it back as far as I can, but I don’t want to puncture that bubble,“ Matheny said. “There’s nothing in the structure of the story that I haven’t heard, in one form or another, from people in the area.”
Filed under: Incunabula, Interviews, Ong's Hat
August 8, 2014
Will Transmedia eat itself for lunch? Or is it the end of Storytelling as we know it?
Transmedia as an idea of collaborative, multi-platform creation and narration origins in the 70’s and 80’s of the last century, in the area of telematic art, where artists experimented with collaborative narration and defined the idea of transmedia.
It soon moved on to the gaming industry, creating so-called Alternate Reality Games (ARG).These are games that, based on the Internet as a main hub, use(d) multiple other technological platforms like telephones, email and real offline mail to tell and simultaneously create different parts of the game’s story in those medial habitats relevant to the players. So not just transmedia telling, but transmedia engagement that requires interaction from every gamer in order to bring the game’s plot to the next level. In other words: “Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and collaborate as a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities.” (Wikipedia) An early example being Ong’s Hat.
Filed under: Incunabula, Ong's Hat
