The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

1961-69

Crazy. Castenda does little to convince the reader (or himself) that Juan's hallucination-induced shamanism involves actual magic or influence by diety, but still fleshes out an ancient and very in-depth belief system that can make the shallowest person understand and believe that our universe consists entirely of how we perceive it.

I was suprised at how many of my friends admitted familiarity with this book, and how many people coyly admitted having read it. I also had a hard time tracking it down at the local library system and reading it before another library patron demanded it. Clearly the merging of the Yaqui mystical use of natural hallucinegens with the growing awareness of youth culture in the late sixties in drug experimentation touched a nerve that still is a little raw and exposed today.

Anyone who has experienced a fraction of Castenda's visions for themselves will know that Don Juan's rituals are more than a primitive way to explain the universe, even if only an insight on the human brain's functionality.

Although shaman magic and spiritual drug use can both play a major role in some of the fiction I read, I'm not aware of any direct crossover appearances of Don Juan in literature. I've certainly met a few dudes who espoused the benefits of taking peyote in the desert, and one or two who claim to have done so, and I would go as far as saying I wouldn't be totally opposed to trying something like that myself. But I think that the drug-induced transformations into a crow and visitations with a higher power are best left to the mists of mythology, religion and Jim Morrison.

Marvel Masterworks: The X-Men: Vol. 2

1965



The Sentinals. Juggernaut. A backstory that explains Xavier's true intent when forming the X-Men- the future of mutantkind? No! Alien invasion!!

Okay, sure, these comics are cheesy like all old comics. Kirby was great, but like all of Stan Lee's work you have to try and read these comics as though Marvel was still a ground breaking phenomenon instead of a flimsy outline of what other writers and artists would do in the following decades.

But if you can swallow that pill of cynical suspension, these stories really are awesome. Where I recommended volume 1 to only diehard loyalists, this volume is a much more entertaining and well rounded collection of stories that truly expanded the X-Mythos and made all that incredible storytelling in the 70's, 80's, 90's and beyond possible.

life is short

The neighbors used to have an idea about what was going on with your kids. Maybe a few family members were in the circle of trust.  It's possible that the guys at work knew a little bit about your marital troubles.  Maybe you trusted the clerk at your 7-11 enough to bitch and moan about your boss.   If you were a mature and well adjusted adult....you may have kept the private stuff private from everybody except your shrink.

Parenting was never as civic as it is today.  It takes a village.   And it's probable that the whole freaking village just read your status update that your 5th grader is failing math.  Marriages are falling apart publicly.  Half those marriages originated from an online sponsored rendevous.  Your boss is likely to surf the interwebs to dig up dirt on you....and he may very well discover that tweet where you referred to him as a greasy douchenozzle. 

Everybody has a mobile sharing device in their pocket.  Blackberry got us tapping at handhelds.   We think we look like Dr. McCoy....but really we all seem more like Koko the gorilla.  And then Steve Jobs put Facebook in all of our pockets.   And now the guy who sat behind me in Social Studies is looking at pictures of my son's first day of school in Beaverton, Oregon while eating Nutella on an english muffin, in a cafe that he is the undisputed Foursquare mayor of, in San Juan, Costa Rica.

We now share our family with a pretty large sphere of confluence via social networking and 21st century communication channels.  It’s so much easier to reach out to friends and family near and far. So the stuff that consumes our daily energy is now commonplace fodder for chit-chat.   The gravity of real-life is not just limited to soul searching conversations between me and my shrink.   Actually, I don't have a shrink.   And not because I don't need one.   But, because I can effortlessly ask for advice from an old college buddy via text message.

Me: "dude, my dad got cancer"
Buddy: "sorry to hear that, you ok?"
Me: "yeah"
Buddy: "life is so short"
Me: "true dat"
Buddy: "hang in there"
Me: "k"

What makes me think.

What makes me think? This is a key element to communicating with womenfolk.

I'm not referring to dendrons or grey matter.   I'm talkin' 'bout inspiration and motivation and warm fuzzy shit.

Does life experience or cultural norms play a significant role in the underlying processes that perpetuate our thoughts? Are my ideas just the common denomination of emotional whims, hormonal responses and the ambient temperature of the room? How often are thoughts the end result of a bunch of autonomic bodily functions?  Can a fart inspire?

Anyway….it’s clear that I need to consider the genesis of a thought before communicating it to my wife. Simple computational data responses are not useful info for her. Crunched numbers and paths of least resistance do not usually give her the type of input she needs to move forward.  She needs to know WHY I think what I think.   She's like a math teacher demanding that I show my work.

“What makes you think you can say something like that?”, she asked.

What makes me think? I never thought of that before.  I've always just taken my ideas for granted.   Until now I've managed to think my way through life in an organic, unforced manner.   I've never questioned why spherical objects feel like a disingenuous expression, that I prefer spumoni ice cream served in a metal bowl or that sock, sock, shoe, shoe, starting with my right foot, is a better order of operations than starting with my left foot or going sock, shoe, sock, shoe.

But this is exactly what my wife needs to know.   Why do I feel the way I do?   This reverse engineering request is tripping me up.   Going backwards to prove my work is putting a kink in my mental flow.   Questioning the thought process is influencing the outcomes.  

Last night I expressed my preference for the lusty whores featured in the Game Of Thrones series over the Cylons on Battle Star Galactica.  

“What makes you think you can say something like that?”, she asked.

I don't know why.   I really don't.  Once I considered the origin of my opinion....evaluating my literary leanings, weighing my experiences with fantasy vs. sci-fi and then traversing all the way back to my adolescent masturbatory fantasies....I lost interest in the idea and started thinking about Mexican food.

Chubby Middle Earth women are sexier than sleek modern robot temptresses.   And fajitas are delicious.   This is just the truth right now.   And I can't really explain why I think I can say something like that.

The Nova Trilogy

1961 - 1964

Excerpt from William S. Burroughs' Nova Express

The basic nova mechanism is very simple: Always create as many insoluble conflicts as possible and always aggravate existing conflicts--This is done by dumping life forms with incompatible conditions of existence on the same planet--There is of course nothing "wrong" about any given life form since "wrong" only has reference to conflicts with other life forms--The point is these forms should not be on the same planet--Their conditions of life are basically incompatible in present time form and it is precisely the work of the Nova Mob to see that they remain in present time form, to create and aggravate the conflicts that lead to the explosion of a planet that is to nova--At any given time recording devices fix the nature of absolute need and dictate the use of total weapons--Like this: Take two opposed pressure groups--Record the most violent and threatening statements of group one with regard to group two and play back to group two--Record the answer and take to back to group one--Back and forth between opposed pressure groups--This process is known as "feed back"--You can see it operating in any bar room quarrel--In any quarrel for that matter--Manipulated on a global scale feeds back nuclear war and nova--These conflicts are deliberately created and aggravated by nova criminals--The Nova Mob: "Sammy The Butcher," "Green Tony," "Iron Claws," "The Brown Artist," "Jacky Blue Note," "Limestone John," "Izzy The Push," "Hamburger Mary," "Paddy The Sting," "The Subliminal Kid," "The Blue Dinosaur," and "Mr. & Mrs. D," also known as "Mr. Bradly Mr. Martin" also known as "The Ugly Spirit" thought to be the leader of the mob--The Nova Mob--In all my experience as a police officer I have never seen such total fear and degradation on any planet--We intend to arrest these criminals and turn them over to the biological department for the indicated alterations--

That is one of the most coherent pieces from the Nova trilogy- Burrough's famous cut and paste series of books written during the Tangiers years. It actually makes the books sound like they have a plot. Of course, I guess they do, but it only makes sense if you're in Bill Burrough's drug-addled head.

Here are my thumbnail reviews of each book:

The Soft Machine
Rude, disgusting, incoherent, nasty... but genius nonetheless. Bill Burroughs was not ahead of his time- I think he may have actually come from our future to warn us. No, Soft Machine and any Burroughs is not light reading, and I don't recommend it really at all to anyone, but hidden amongst the anal depravation, catapillar jism and symbiotic cannabilism is jolting shocks of pure poetry and sci-fi imagery that will be inspiring writers, movie makers and Xolotl centipede priests from Uranus for years to come.

The Ticket That Exploded


This is the first book in the Nova series that makes even any sense at all, or at least has portions I found I could explain to others. This book is notable for a much heavier and intentional inclusion of actual science fiction (as opposed to things that were most likely simply drug-fueled delusions). Burroughs fascination with film splicing and the use of tape recorders also marks the era of his writing but opens a door on more of his prophetic visions of how technology would be used in the future. The last chapter is perhaps the simplest and most straightforward bit of writing Burroughs does, but is fascinating in terms of his perspective on how audio-video tech can influence the world around us.
Ultimately I can still only recommend this to the most loyal Burroughs fans.

Nova Express
Saying that this is the most comprehensible of the Nova books isn't saying much. Like all of Burrough's cut and paste drug poetry prose, any reader will find themselves scratching their head and wondering at times why they bother. But Nova Express is the first book in the trilogy to really embrace science fiction as the Nova Police finally emerge from the shadows and their operations are exposed. Several chapters are completely legible, as Burrough's fascination with tape recordings and even some straightforward takes on scientology get snuck in.
I hate to say it, being such a purist, but I really do feel casual readers would be best off skipping the first two novels and getting a satisfactory shot in the veins from 'Nova Express' alone

Final Thoughts
When I think of these books (a year and a half after reading them) my intial response isn't that favorable. I have no problem with homosexuality or graphic scenes, but the depravity of Burrough's fantasies can make anyone feel better about censorship. The writing, as novel or poetic as it may be, is just too hard to sit and read for any period of time.

The Nova Gang do exist in my timeline world, but more subliminally than in any outright crossover sense. I guess I do enjoy the idea of these existential creatures floating in the shadows of the subconscious of the fictional universe, smoking cigarettes and closing deals while splicing tape to create new realities.

But at the end of the day these books still made a huge impact on me. I remember talking about them to anyone who would listen. The cut and paste methods that Bill talks so much about really really did affect the world in ways that no one could have predicted in the sixties (I'm thinking of both political sound bites as well as industrial music) and I think the conflicts of the Nova Police were a very loud warning to the counterculture of what was coming over the next ten years.

Yikes!

We check the nutritional info on our food….because we understand what goes into our bodies affects our well being.  Garbage in - garbage out.

So we shouldn’t get too wound up over political/populist decisions made by charitable foundations if we haven’t bothered to check the nutritional info.   Where we spend our wages and who we vote for has everything to do with how our dollars get digested.  Right?

So if Komen initially feels like it gets more help from the Pro-lifers….and you can’t compete because you haven’t purchased enough pink water bottles to fund their research efforts.   Then you should stop helping to fund the pro-lifers who have enough money to outweigh your contributions.

Have you bothered to explore who funds the politicians you’re voting for?   Left wing folks take money from all kinds of lobbies that ultimately help support the agendas of right wing causes.

Have you checked to see where the store-bought goods you fill your home with spend their political dollars?

What?   You say you can’t figure out the complex web of the social/commercial/political superstructure?   Yeah….me neither.   What a nightmare.  I really can't be bothered with all this bullshit.

Pepsi is pretty much owned by the Mormon Church.   But they spend their R&D dollars on a company that uses fetus parts to test soda pop flavor chemicals on.   But they don’t give money to Planned Parenthood.   So Pepsi is pro-dead fetus….but also pro-life.  Yikes.