Do you want to be blown away? A prerequisite to enjoying the following interview with deceased author Colin Wilson, would be if you had a BA in humanities or you enjoy TED Talks regulary. Wilson, who died before TED Talks existed, would have been a star of the scene. See if you disagree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WWeE1GnZjA . Thespians and Anglophiles of all sorts should also enjoyhis mellifluous, avuncular cadence and timbre of his accent. Maybe Gary Lachman, a Wilson expert, can tell us from where the accent comes. (Is it BBC?, the linqua franca accent of Britain. Is it Oxford, London, House of Commons., etc. I've heard it a lot but never pinned it. It's King's English, but closer to the theater, church and museums, rather than the court at Buckminister palace and the House of Lords, the accent of which more pinched and garbled. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WWeE1GnZjA . - Tom Huckabee
Saturday, March 03, 2018
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
We Are Addicted to Blood and Need to Wean Ourselves Off of It
The United States of America was born in blood, just like a human baby. The baby experienced catastrophic growing pains during the Civil War, but came out better for it. Before it was grown as a country, it fought and won two world wars, resulting in its supremacy as a military power, which it wielded, subsequently, I would argue, no better nor worse than the Roman Empire did in it’s heyday.
As a nation, we are like alcoholics who have not yet recognized our addiction to blood, as we have to oil and freedom. Add to the mix our religion—also born in blood (of a gentle, homeless, apolitical Hebrew rabbi, prophet and martyr 1,980 years ago and 9100 miles away)-- as we must to sell a war to the American people, whereupon we’re capable of just about any atrocity. When there is no popular jihad to harness the dark energy of our addiction, nor a plan for transmuting it, we turn it on ourselves in homicidal and suicidal frenzies.
Perhaps, most likely, the flaw lies in the Homo Sapien species itself. So that any other nation that might supersede us would do no better at fomenting peace; although it would be interesting to see if the Swiss could do better. Assuming it unlikely we would turn things over to the Swiss or that they would accept it, our best prospect for a future that dodges Armageddon ---for western civilization, at least-- would be the wholesale evolution of our species toward what some scientists are calling Homo Evolutis, via emerging technologies such as genetic manipulation, robotics, and the ancient technique of wealth redistribution. You can bone up on Homo Evolutis here:
https://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_shares_mindboggling_new_science
Meanwhile, Randy Newman captured this capricious, subconscious bloodlust and death wish in our collective DNA perfectly, ironically, in 1973, updated here a bit in 2004 and well worth listening to today.
Sunday, October 01, 2017
Blogger(s) Wanted!
Welcome cisgendered people, GLBT, emerging gender variants.
Why open a blog post suchwise? Because I'm hoping it replaces the hoary "Welcome ladies and gentlemen," which seems hackneyed to my dramaturgic ear and exclusionary to my progressive mind.
Also, I'm going out on my prophetic limb to predict that gender identification will become in the not-too-distant future as fluid and essentially immaterial to most human interaction as race is today.
But I digress, welcome to Mount Analog, a blog associated with GoldAlchemy.org
I'm looking for bloggers, experienced, fledgling, or aspiring, to contribute to this site, specifically people knowledgeable about art and entertainment in DFW to review local cultural events. I'm not so much interested in people promoting their own or their friends' events but real criticism as one might get in old-school journals, a la The New Yorker, Art Forum, Time Out, Cahiers du Cinema, The Paris Review, etc, or locally, The Dallas Observer, Fort Worth Weekly or TheaterJones.
I'd also very much like to solicit reviews from DFW theaters that produce local authors, such as Hip Pocket Theater and Ochre House Theater.
My belief is that a cultural "scene" is only as good as its critics.
Contact me here or at t.huckabeee@icloud.com
Or just go on the site and start stirring the mud.
The link below will lead you to a youtube site with one of the most riveting hours of drama I've ever seen, beautifully conceived, perfectly structured, with vivid characters, delivering reams of brilliant dialogue trippingly off the performers' tongues. I long to produce media this entertaining, artful and meaningful on a subject so controversial and topical. It's like Dave Chapelle or Aaron Sorkin got in a time machine and went back to 1965 to a produce a drama about race relations superior to "To Kill a Mockingbird"
My main, minor criticism is that the actor playing William Buckley, Jr. often goes beyond over-the-top, evoking a bug-eyed monitor lizard, or Nicholas Cage on acid playing Vlad the Impaler. Spoiler alert, the villain's ultimate defeat is telegraphed too early for my taste. Before he even speaks, his slumping posture and sneering facial expressions signal the viewer that he is thoroughly corrupt and consciously evil, and, therefore, destined to be defeated by the hero. (See Peter Sarsgard in last year's "Magnificent 7" for a character so irredeemable.) The deck is stacked, so to speak, which is not generally good for drama, but it works here for some reason. He also reminds me of Snidely Whiplash from "Rock and Bullwinkle" in his rubbery malevolence, except, for all I know, Snidely Whiplash was based on William Buckley, Jr.
It's an even slighter criticism, but James Baldwin's character is a bit too obviously the Apollonian hero, given lines of such crystalline logic, righteousness, and artful syntax that he would upstage Jesus Christ himself, even Jesus Christ rewritten by Shakespeare (which no doubt Shakespeare would have given a shot at, if not for fear of a literal roasting).
Likewise, the thundering, prolonged ovation of the crowd after Baldwin's speech gives away the dramatist's intent too early in the first half of the show.
Why wasn't I shown this oration when I studied public speaking at Southwest High School in Fort Worth Texas in the 1970s?
God bless youtube, the best channel on TV.
Friday, August 18, 2017
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Welcome, Lords and Ladies, to Gold Alchemy dot org. We're glad you came. Take your shoes off, stay a spell. Watch some movies, listen to some music, view some art, read some articles and poems (if they've been posted), check out our friends and angels, consider signing up for a writing class... And let us know what you think.
The majority of the stuff currently posted originated with me or one of my illustrious associates of the past, in addition to projects in development by me or my fellow alchemists. That said, there are some cool things up already by fellow alchemists, particularly Gabriel Horn and Logan Gilpin.
We're still in the Beta stage, working out the bugs, with plans to go out wider as the minutes pass.
My fantasy is for this to become a cybeplace where you want to hang out, a meeting place on line, for people who share our vision of humankind as an upwardly mobile species, not just in economics and technology, but in ethics, intelligence, life expectancy, space exploration, mind expansion, happiness, environmental preservation, peace mongering, conflict resolution, poverty elimination, ocean exploration, human interdependence, individual freedoms, interspecies cooperation, etc.
You might wonder how one gets to be a Gold Alchemist. We haven't figured that out exactly. There isn't a codified process. Nor are there any bylaws, or requirements, except for a general spirit of good will toward other humans, animals, and yourself. A tendency toward healthy living, the intrinsic value of art, respect for the laws of physics, curiosity about metaphysics, and pataphysicis for that matter, but I digress (as usual), it's a blog, right? Also, here at Gold Alchemy dot org we believe in the Silver Rule, the Golden Rule, and the Platinum Rule (check back for elaboration on these in the future).
Onward and upward
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Scott Smith Rocks!
Scott Smith, my old high school running buddy, I hadn't seen for 35 years until the just recently, just happens to have retired from a career in sales, has become a webmaster, and he is designing our awesome Gold Alchemy website. "It's going to be huge," says Donald Trump. "I consult the Gold Alchemy service: Creative on Demand to make all my most important decisions. It's better than flipping a coin!n So check out Scott at roadrunnermedia.net Give my name and you'll get a 90 percent discount. Psyche."
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