Melanie Surani's Blog, page 261
May 24, 2015
foreignexchangehijabi:
If anyone’s trying to learn a language I’ve recently discovered this company...
If anyone’s trying to learn a language I’ve recently discovered this company called the Language Pod Company and it is so much better than Rosetta Stone and it’s completely free (unless you’d like one-one-one teacher-student help then it’s like $25 a month which tbh you shouldn’t really need because they make it really clear in the lessons). It’s super easy to navigate and it even gives you a history of the language. There are audio and video lessons. Real-life situations and different speakers. They even write the letters for you because I know sometime it’s hard to learn to write in a language that doesn’t use the same alphabet that you’re used to. You’re welcome.
very cool!
Dammit, Duh
Patron [angrily]: “Well, I left my sunglasses on the counter just TWO MINUTES ago and they are ALREADY STOLEN. Somebody is going to LOVE THEIR NEW PAIR OF RAY-BANS.”
Me [coming around the counter]: “Let me help you look for them!”
Patron: “I’ve already looked everywhere. DUH. DAMMIT!”
Me [stooping to pick them up off the floor]: “Are these your sunglasses?”
Patron [sweetly]: “Yes! Why thank you very much. Haha! I thought maybe you stole them. Bye now!”
Me: “-”
People are assholes.
The Occult in Inhuman Interest
It’s guest post time! Today we’ll hear from Eric Turowski.
During my Christian upbringing, I learned about Christianity, some Judaism, and not much else in terms of religion. In my adulthood, I’ve learned about Islam, Budhism, and some Hinduism – and even that doesn’t cover all that much.
Today, Eric Turowski is going to talk a little about the Occult, and it’s quite interesting. Looking forward to reading his book!
Take it away, Eric.
The novel Inhuman Interest centers around an unknown energy I called the occult. Why the occult, as opposed to the paranormal, parapsychology or the supernatural? Well, it’s shorter, for one, and easier to type. Plus, it just has a ring to it that sounds creepy, non-scientific, and ancient. And that’s what the occult is in this book—an eldritch force, like nature, but unseen and barely comprehensible.
While my personal study of the occult is not particularly extensive—mostly because occult practitioners and societies have a religious bent to them, which I find uninteresting—what I’ve learned over the years is this.
The occult stems from secrets discovered in the past, usually the distant past. Secret societies, both good and evil, have sought the clandestine works of lost or ancient races. The Rosicrucians liked the Egyptians, the Nazis liked the Aryans, the Theosophists liked just about every elder and Classical philosophy, but especially ancient Greece via Plato, and so on. There are so many of these occult societies that I couldn’t begin to cover them, blog-style.
It is human nature to believe that the past was a golden one, that earlier times were better times. So I suppose it follows that a more pure, powerful, or responsive belief system existed in antiquity. My revisionist take on that thought was to move the source, the origin, of the occult all the way back to prehistory, what I sometimes refer to as “proto-history,” a time before human communication. It is thus a force beyond culture. You think it’s easy to research stuff that wasn’t written down? If it were easy, everyone could do it.
The other aspect of the occult is that its very nature is secret, in fact its very definition is “knowledge of the hidden,” from the Latin word occultus—clandestine, secret, hidden. Other words would be esoteric, from the Greek, pertaining to the innermost, and arcane (also from Latin, arcanum, from arc, a chest or to enclose (like ark)), meaning known by few. These words do get thrown in, but not quite interchangeably. So not only is the occult something that is unwritten in Inhuman Interest, it is also kept secret. Makes it doubly tough on the researcher.
Knowledge of the hidden, at least in my book, is not measurable, and thus not under the auspices of science. But I went a step further, and decided to strip this version of the occult from mysticism. I did this because of the aforementioned disinterest in religion, but also because by extending the origin of the occult to proto-history, I had to eliminate the esoteric association with Western religion, pre-Christian or otherwise. The views of any religion, being younger entities (and a product of culture), could only distort the perception of a force associated with pre-communicative H. sapiens.
How does one go about researching this occult, then? Given the idea that this force is akin to looking into the face of God, or discovering a Lovecraftian horror, or being struck by lightning or a tornado, let’s go with the old joke—very carefully. Occult researcher Davin Egypt employs certain scientific apparatus, a host of sympathetic magic paraphernalia, and rare occult relics in his pursuits. As with studying anything of great power, say, the sun, the occult must be viewed obliquely. Otherwise, it is damaging to the mind and soul. Fun stuff, right?
I take great joy in formulating how Egypt pursues his research, the hope being that it translate into happy reading. Feel free to hit me up on my webpage if you have questions about the occult. Without doubt, I probably won’t be able to answer them.
Eric’s Website: http://www.ericturowski.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/eric_turowski
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Turowski.Books?fref=ts
Inhuman Interest: http://goo.gl/52YvRF
May 23, 2015
myjetpack:
My book of cartoons ‘You’re All Just Jealous of my...
My book of cartoons ‘You’re All Just Jealous of my Jetpack’ is available now:
US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1770461043
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1770461043
Other stockists and info at www.tomgauld.com
(you can also buy prints there).
moma:
“I paint the white as well as the black, and the white is...
moma:
“I paint the white as well as the black, and the white is just as important.” - Franz Kline, born today in 1910.
[Installation view. Franz Kline. Chief. 1950. The Museum of Modern Art, New York © 2015 The Franz Kline Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York]
This kind of art pisses me off.
