Occultists

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Ira Cohen The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (1968)
‘A classic underground film made in 1968, it is divided into three parts, the Opium Dream, Shaman, & Heavenly Blue Mylar Pavilions. A unique film by the originator of mylar photography “Combines Kabuki and Dr. Strange in the mythical realm and alchemical journey by an arcane master” – Julian Beck

 

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Christopher Carrol
‘Christopher Carroll uses visual art as a way to physically and spiritually probe nature. He creates these “Magic Squares” through screenprinting and handcarving with a traditional lime fresco process. The process of these works parallels the traditional practice of using magic squares for occult purposes.’

BALAM (2016)

BEDSER (2016)

MALACH (2016)

 

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Genesis P-Orridge Moonchild (1984)
‘Moonchild is a long lost gem in the canon of esoteric cinema. The title references a 1923 novel by Aleister Crowley, and Genesis originally stated of the film, ‘Moonchild is a spell, to create a new person or a new stage in people, through compassion and through thought, and it’s a construct, just like a spell is. Moonchild was originally broadcast in 1984 on Spanish television show La Edad De Oro, alongside interviews with Genesis P-Orridge, filmmaker Derek Jarman, and musician and conceptual artist Jordi Valls, and performances by Psychic TV and Vagina Dentata Organ, which caused a forced shutdown of the network by the government at gunpoint.’ — Jacqueline Castel

 

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David Chaim Smith
‘David Chaim Smith is a New York-based artist that creates massive pencil-and-paper artworks inspired by the Qabalah, the Hebrew system of understanding the divine through numbers and letters. His works go far beyond the standard Tree of Life diagram you’ll find in nearly any occult book, sourcing both orthodox Rabbinical texts and an almost Cronenbergian “body horror” that turns the Tree into living biology.’

 

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Suzanne Treister
‘Since the 1980s, the British artist Suzanne Treister has blended history and speculation in ways that many are moved to call hallucinatory, if not slightly paranoid. Her paintings and pioneering digital works have drawn on her interest in systems of observation and belief, from surveillance to theoretical physics. Often diagrammatic and filled with wordplay, her early pieces anticipate the technopolitics of the twenty-first century and presage postinternet-era arcana like a future-tense Hilma af Klint.’

The Escapist BHST (Black Hole Spacetime) Constellated Interface (2019)

 

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Mohammad Ali Kariman Various (2015)

 

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Tabitha Nikolai
‘Tabitha Nikolai is a trashgender gutter elf and low-level cybermage raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, and based in Portland, Oregon. She creates the things that would have better sustained her younger self–simulations of a more livable future, and the obstacles that intervene. These look like: fictive text, videogames, cosplay, and earnest rites of suburban occult.’

Sex Temples Ver 0.8 Walkthrough (2019)

Ineffable Glossolalia (documentation) (2018)

 

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Valerie Hammond Various (2011 – 2017)
‘Layering is an essential aspect of my work. Whether this is seen or perceived as physical or contextual, my interest is in combining the literal and emotional qualities that are evoked through the physical process of layering. I begin by collecting ferns and other organic materials, transforming them through drawing and the printmaking process, creating images that marry the ferns with images of the body. These images reflect the uniqueness of individual hands, as well as reveal the tracing of the spirit. The process, in which the image itself is submerged in a tray of heated wax, metaphorically removes the image from the world of the living but paradoxically preserves it indefinitely. The images act as mechanisms to stop time-to document a moment in a person life-an open meditation on portraiture.’

 

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Angus MacLise

‘Chumlum’ (1964)

‘The Cloud Doctrine’ (2003)

 

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Mikala Dwyer

‘Balancing Spell for a Corner (Aleister and Rosaleen)’ (2017)

‘Spell for a Corner’ (2015)

 

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Rosaleen Norton Various (1955 – 1964)
‘Rosaleen Norton was an Australian visionary artist, mystic and witch, daubed by the popular press of the time as “The Witch of Kings Cross”. At the peak of her artistic fame just before the rise of contemporary witchcraft in the 1960’s, her work was little known outside the confines of Australia. As such her contribution to pagan art was in many ways diminished by the likes of Austin Osman Spare.’

 

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Brian Butler Babalon Working (2013)
‘The film, which features Paz de la Huerta undulating sensually amid what feels like the cinematic manifestation of a terrifying acid trip, is inspired by elements of Enochian magick. Developed by Edward Kelley and Dr. John Dee in the 1500s, Enochian magick was used in a series of rituals performed by Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard popularly referred to as Babalon Working. The ceremonies produced what Parsons believed to be a conjuring of the “Scarlet Woman,” a figure whom Aleister Crowley had thought would help to bring about the Aeon of Horus and put an end to bepenised rulers and religions all over the world. Babalon Working was filmed in Prague, at Kelley’s home, lending the whole thing a feeling of intimacy and familiarity with its source of inspiration that it couldn’t have gotten had it been shot anywhere else.’

 

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Leonor Fini en Corse (1966)
‘Throughout a long career, the canvases of Leonor Fini’s journey between the pains of despair and the serenity of enlightenment but remain polished with eroticism at every extreme. Driven by passion, liberty, and sexual experimentation, she was arguably the most rebellious, theatrical, and autonomous of the female Surrealists. Described by many to be particularly tall and commanding in physical appearance with very unusual cat-like eyes, in many ways she was more creaturely than human. Taking the artistic interest in the motif of an animal/human hybrid somewhat literally, she stood as an embodiment of feline transformation and metamorphosis, and came to accurately identify herself with the ancient figure of a Sphinx. Deadly in Greek tradition, whilst benevolent but ferocious in Egyptian stories, the appearance of the mythical creature is symbolic of Fini’s love for artifice and nature combined.’

 

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Jesse Bransford Various (2004 – 2019)
‘Bransford’s work has been involved with belief and the visual systems it creates since the 1990s. Early research into color meaning and cultural syncretism led to the occult traditions in general and the work of John Dee and Henry Cornelius Agrippa specifically.’

 

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Mark Titchner The Eye don’t see itself (2007)
‘The Eye Don’t See Itself is video projection as monument, mirrored in a black reflecting pool, referring to the Washington Monument. The video is a kaleidoscopic depiction of an unblinking eye against a phallic obelisk, on an endlessly shifting background. The background is based on a Rorschach inkblot commonly believed to represent the father. This video employs a flickering light at a frequency of 10Hz, in correspondence to the brain electrical activity in Alpha state in attempt to alter the perception of the viewer, which also references the work of W Grey Walter and Brion Gysin. Computerised Male and Female voices repeat a mantra to psychotic self-improvement… “If you don’t like your life you can change it.” “After all what good is life without conquest?” “If you can dream it you can do it.”’

 

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Scott Treleaven

‘Film for January 1, 2012’ (2012)

‘Last Seven Words’ (2009)

Watch it here

 

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Laura Battle Various (2006 – 2015)
‘I aspire in my work to a kind of mental concentration that leads to essential language, symbology, and form. The process is highly repetitive (some of the drawings have upwards of 4000 lines), yet it leads me in each piece to exciting optical effects and unexpected ends. A friend introduced me to the word “enantiodromia,” meaning something done to such an extreme that it produces its opposite effect. The combined complex geometries in my work result in a mental and physical space that hopefully one can indulge in in a mystical way.’

 

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Adam Cooper-Terán

“Shooting Columbus” (Excerpts, 2017)

thee Coyotel Church ‘Seven Ways of Coyote’ (2018)

‘San Luis Potosí’ (2008)

 

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‘Photographer Shannon Taggart is drawn to what she calls “psychological spaces.” She describes these as “invisible realities, like an interior experience you can’t really see,” and relishes the challenge of making visuals to describe them. Taggart says she values photography’s ability to open up new worlds. Taggart first became aware of Spiritualism as a teenager, after a stranger somehow uncovered a family mystery: “My cousin received a reading from a medium who revealed a secret about my grandfather’s death.” As Taggart discovered, Spiritualism is an American-born religion that believes we can communicate with the dead. Later on, she set out to document Spiritualism around the world, a path that led her from New York to England, Spain, and France.’

 

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Curtis Harrington The Wormwood Star (1956)
‘The Wormwood Star (1956) is a short documentary film about Marjorie Cameron, an artist, occultist, and actress. The film is not a “documentary” in the traditional sense, but is more in line with the early avant-garde practice of pure cinema. Curtis Harrington, the film’s director, describes Wormwood as “a poetic tribute to Cameron.” The subject of the film is not explicit; Cameron’s biography is not explored nor is she presented amid her daily routine, and so there is no effort to humanize her through narrative. Rather, Cameron is presented in two distinct movements. First, she is shown in a series of tableaux. Time is frozen as she poses among occult artifacts. The camera frames her body and environment in fragmented and symbolic succession: her hand on a book next to a rose; close ups of her lips, her eyes. The camera then enters a mirror that reflects Cameron’s face and we enter the reflection of her being. The rest of the film catalogs a series of Cameron’s paintings with a voiceover of her reciting some original poetry. The paintings are very reminiscent of the work of Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt, Alastair, and Harry Clarke; a mesh of symbolism, surrealism, and the profane. Here, the occult seems to become a metaphor for the subversive, the outcast, the blasphemous pleasures of life, the dark “magic” of film, etc.’

 

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Ann McCoy Various (1997 – 2003)
‘Contemporary artist Ann McCoy’s artistic inspiration comes from “dreams, mythology, alchemy and her spiritual practices”. “The wolf is a big symbol in alchemy,” McCoy said. “I’m interested in mining and refining of ores and how this relates to processes in the psyche, and our spiritual transformation – Alchemy was a symbolic language that dealt with the inner life, and was often linked to the ores.”’

 

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Dressed in a crisp tuxedo, Swiss artist Kurt Seligmann stepped into a chalk circle lined with the names of archangels on the wood floor of his Manhattan apartment. It was May 8, 1948, and with sculptor Enrico Donati, he led his assembled party guests in a ritual to summon the dead. The performance recreated a rite by 16th-century magician John Dee and his medium, Edward Kelly, that had been included in Seligmann’s new book The Mirror of Magic. Seligmann was then a central figure to Surrealism in New York City, and the scene’s magic expert. The book compiled his extensive esoteric knowledge of the occult, magic, alchemy, and other topics, as well as his views on these subjects’ historical influence on art. He saw magic as connected to his art — not a deliberate part of each work, but rather a way of centralizing knowledge of the universe. As he wrote in 1946: “Magic philosophy teaches that the universe is one, that every phenomenon in the world of matter and of ideas obeys the one law which co-ordinates the All. Such doctrine sounds like a program for the painter: is it not his task to shape into a perfect unity within his canvas the variety of depicted forms?”‘

 

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Rik Garrett
‘I made a book (because I fixate on books) where I took this early 20th century astronomy book, and I started painting over the pages and adding my own photographs, adding found photographs of different things. So, it was kind of this wordless book that turned into something about going inside, both going inside of yourself mentally as well as going inside of the Earth using an outer space theme and turning it on its ear a bit.’

‘White Book’ (2009) and ‘Red Book’ (in progress)

‘Finis Gloriae Mundi’ (2011)

 

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Steven Shearer Various (2014 – 2017)
‘Music as inspiration. Black metal. Teen boy cutting his arms, keloid rhythms and not so rare topography of pale skin and paler releases- the theatre of hellish miasmas, implements of hell (Albert Fish). Cutting deeper, further sonorous invocations of an imagined demon brother. An occult Marlboro package crushed and in a rolled up “Show No Mercy” Slayer short sleeve. Long stays at the local fun fair carnival spent pissing in bushes and throwing rusty darts at balloons to win the King Diamond glass mirror- the strange and unfettered influence of the hyper-imagined body of Ray Brower versus the contempt for his pale blue skin in a movie cast with young men due to crumble unto the tempestuous ravine of an unholy and sanctimonious drug use-River Phoenix (Never rose from the ashes, did he) and that Corey that nobody really wanted to live over that other Corey whose destiny, after Lost Boys, was simply a faded coke-bloated and fatted version of his younger more attractive and sought after self.’ — Brad Feuerhelm

 

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Luigi Russolo Intonarumoris (1913)
‘Luigi Russolo created the mechanical sound synthesizer, the intonarumori, in 1913, inspired by occultism, which operated in tandem with contemporary scientific ideas about X-ray and wireless telegraphy—all with an emphasis on waves, vibrations, and their new communicative potential. Russolo’s noise aesthetic and its practical manifestation—the intonarumori—were for him, and for his Futurist associates, elements of a multi-levelled experiment to reach higher states of spiritual consciousness.’

 

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Karin Ferrari Various (2018)
‘Ferrari’s videos create suggestive causal chains made of collages from found footage and specially made animations. At the same time, however, they exaggerate the brilliance of the individual pearls of the chain of arguments to an extent that makes us reluctant to simply believe them, and the pearl thread is about to tear every moment: On the one hand, the detail-obsessed decoded scenarios unfold a seductive pull and on the other hand, they introduce in their gaps and smooth transitions, their underlying insane hubris. Also the voice-over links the images and unties them in the same breath. We hear the voice of the artist herself, in the style and color of a computer-generated voice ironically and in vain to approximate. The voice of Ferrari makes the big story oscillate between the poles of “the whole truth” and a medium for prompted ghost voices, that responds with astonish- ment to to their own statements while it reciting them. Instead of aiming for a decoding of the subjects as specified in the title, Ferrari’s work spells out the stylesheet of truth production and validation strategies on the net and asks which debates about our world the users on the digital platforms are actually conducting when they seemingly exchange about occult and extraterrestrial messages.’

THE iPHONE XS: A TECHNO-MAGICAL PORTAL

DECODING Katy Perry’s Dark Horse (THE WHOLE TRUTH)

DECODING US TV NEWS Intros

 

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Panos Tsagaris Various (2017 – 2020)
‘Fascinated with the Occult, spiritualism, mystical scientific principles, and states of consciousness, Panos Tsagaris makes art influenced by both current events and the relationship between the sacred and the profane. Through his work, he attempts to reveal symbols of the divine in the everyday and apply sacred themes to the modern world. Working with gold leafing as a symbol of divine emanation, purity, and luxury, Tsagaris recently covered front-page articles from the New York Times with gold foil. Leaving only the paper’s header and above-the-fold image (which documented riots in the wake of the Greek austerity crisis) visible, he sought to shift the focus away from the economics of the crisis and highlight its immediate impact on humans and communities.’

 

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Keralhala Occult Glitch Collages (2019)

 

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Marie Angeletti Saturnine (2016)

Watch an excerpt here

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Georgiana Houghton Spirit Drawings (1871)
‘In 1871, Georgiana Houghton debuted her “spirit drawings,” a set of abstract watercolors that she made with the encouragement of her “invisible friends.” People were scared: “What she put on display was unlike anything any Western artist had made, or any member of the British public had ever seen. The watercolor drawings, a little larger than A4, were intricately detailed abstract compositions filled with sinuous spirals, frenetic dots, and sweeping lines. Yellows, greens, blues, and reds battled with each other for space on the paper. The densely layered images appeared to have no form, and no beginning or end. There was no traditional perspective to enjoy. There was no mythological subject to interpret; no moral narrative to read, and no hint of portraiture or landscape to scrutinize.”’

 

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THE ANTI-GROUP Test Tones (2011)
‘TAGC are not affiliated to any one system of philosophy or epistemological paradigm or occult fraternity but are open more to individual systems and innovative thinkers Science, Sonology, Psychophysics, Visual Arts, Literature, Research & Publication are its main areas of focus. Over the years ideas and esoteric and occult philosophy of various individual practitioners have been a focus of exploration and research within TAGC projects, but there is always connections to other areas of research within those projects, in some our aim is to highlight and discover new connections and correspondences between systems of thought and the systems of technics similar to Bernard Stiegler’s concept of technics which has emerged recently as an important contribution to studies of the relation between technology, time and the human spirit by exploring the possibilities of the technology of spirit, to bring forth a new “life of the mind”.’

 

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Tom Sachs Satanic Ceramics (2014)

 

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Susan Hiller PSI Girls (1999)
‘PSI Girls presents five brief loop sequences of girls with paranormal telekinetic powers, depicted while concentrated in producing the movement of an object with the strength of their mind. The sequences are taken from five famous films (The Fury by Brian De Palma, 1978; The Craft, by Andrew Fleming, 1996; Matilda, by Danny De Vito, 1996; Firestarter by Mark Lester, 1984, and Stalker, by Andrei Tarkowsky, 1979), whose colours were altered by Susan Hiller. The artist transformed each film in a blue, yellow, red, purple and green monochrome. The original audio of the films was replaced by a single soundtrack, taken from the record of a gospel choir of St. George’s Cathedral of Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.’

 

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Gustave Dore The Dance of the Sabbath (1883)

 

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The Game Kitchen Blasphemous (2019)
‘Blasphemous draws from the deep well of Catholic gothic – ranging from Matthew Lewis’s Madrid-based novel The Monk (1796) to the action-adventure game Resident Evil 4 (2005), set in a nameless Spanish village and castle – in which the exploits of satanic priests and violent inquisitions have long been the stuff of horror. As a medium that often hinges on spectacle, the video game has become a comfortable home for these tropes. One of Blasphemous’s clearest reference points is the Dark Souls series (2011–16), produced by Japanese studio FromSoftware, in which enormous, European-inspired cathedrals are inhabited by monsters that bring to mind the punished denizens of Gustave Doré’s 1861 illustrations for Dante Alghieri’s Inferno (1320).’

 

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Bridget Bate Tichenor Various (1955 – 1982)
‘Bridget Bate Tichenor was born in Paris in 1917 and attended schools in England, France, and Italy. At the age of 16 she moved to Paris, where she worked as a model for French Fashion designer Coco Chanel. She was subject for the photographers Man Ray, Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn, John Rawlings, and George Platt Lynes. Bridget Tichenor’s mother, who was reputedly descended of George III and had highest connections, was the public relations liaison to the royal families of Europe for Coco Chanel. After an arranged marriage Bridget Tichenor moved to New York where she was a student at the Art Students League of New York. In 1945, after the divorce from her first husband, she married Jonathan Tichenor, an assistant of photographer George Platt Lynes. In 1953 she got divorced from her second husband, left her job as professional fashion and accessories editor for Vogue behind, and moved to Mexico, where she began her career as surrealist painter of fantastic art in the school of magic realism. Her works were inspired by her interest in occult religions and esoteric sciences, and the Mexican mythos. Bridget Tichenor died in 1990 in Mexico City.’

 

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Johannes Segogela Satan’s Fresh Meat Market (1993)
‘His iconic sculpture ‘Satan’s Fresh Meat Market’ is full of angels and demons and demonstrates very effectively his personal goal to ‘save the world from violence and horror’.’

 

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Ron Regé, Jr.
‘In 2008, the work of Ron Regé Jr. took a startling shift. Though still symmetrical and fine-lined—with forms incorporating both abstract and representative shapes—Regé began to make comics about occult ideas and esoteric mysticism. 2012 saw the release of the tall, dense Cartoon Utopia, its pages packed with comics about Regé’s studies in magical practice.’

‘The Cartoon Utopia’ (2012)

 

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, yes, of course he would have been in NYC then and naturally you would know his films. Everyone, Mr. E’s FaBlog tackles Trump vs. the Plague here. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh! Lovely to see you! We don’t have that toilet paper panic over here. Or not so far. Or not as of my last trip to the supermarket yesterday. But things did very suddenly start getting harrier here yesterday. I’m happy you like Iimura. Best of the best of luck getting through the plague’s US release, which seems to have a few different/extra tracks than the French release (so far). ** _Black_Acrylic, Take good care, pal, and enjoy and stay safe with your dad and then down there in Leeds. Every single event I was looking forward to, planning for, and/or had tickets for during the next month got cancelled yesterday, so I feel you. ** KK, Hey, K! Mm, bit of a strange week as France reluctantly but firmly began to accept there’s a plague, but I did manage some fun and things before the shutdown started. Yes, I’m just so immensely sad and shocked about Molly Brodak. I never met her, but I liked her work a lot, and I’m good friends with Blake, and it’s just a horror. Really devastating news. I’m so sorry for your loss, and about your grandmother. That’s a lot, man. I hope you can hold up as well as possible through that not to mention the plague. Everything is getting cancelled and closed here now. I’m going to try to get out and catch whatever is still functioning this weekend before a ghost town takes over. Hang in there, man, and lots of affection and respect from me. ** Steve Erickson, Yeah, I spoke too soon about the nonchalance here. As I said above, everything here got cancelled yesterday, including everything I was looking forward to — the Cinema du Reel Film Festival, the Metz Subversive Film Festival, the Protest Sonique music festival, the Japan Connection festival, the Presence Electronique festival, and basically every music gig. The year’s best month just got turned into the emptiest. ** Misanthrope, Aw. Highest five. Yeah, as of yesterday we over here are incrementally entering a national emergency state too. We don’t have panic buying, or didn’t yesterday morning before the closings and cancellations were announced, but we’ll see today. ** Bill, Yeah, the blog will remain open and free of charge for all your entertainment needs during the plague unless, of course, I die of it or something. As I’ve said above, everything has been cancelled here now, and, yes, even gigs I was aiming for where there would be lucky to be 50 attendees. Given that the great majority of Americans have been acting and thinking irrationally for a couple of years now, yeah, I wouldn’t expect a tea party. The French have remained pretty rational through thick and thin, but all bets are off at the moment. ** Armando, Hi. Okay, I’ll go line all of them up and enjoy the mutation. ** Okay. This weekend’s blog shaped respite from the real world is occult in nature. Enjoy it, survive everything else, and I’ll see you on Monday.