Twin Peaks: Can You Go Home Again?

Back in 1990, the Boston Phoenix ran a review of the first few episodes of Twin Peaks along with the plot of the sitcom Wings. 

Spy vs Spy: Stuck in the Funhouse

Funhouses are only fun when you can leave them. When the distorting mirror images become your new, day-to-day reality construct, then it's not so much fun anymore. 

The Present Can Only Be Viewed from the Past

2017 might seem like the hangover after a particularly-nasty meth, glue and Thunderbird bender, but it's actually a year of major anniversaries. We're coming up on the 70th Anniversary of Kenneth Arnold and Roswell (as well as the National Security Act), the 50th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper and the Summer of Love and the centennial of the Russian Revolution. But there are a lot more observances, all kinds of 'ennials to observe. 

The (Not-So) Secret History of Saint Patrick's Day

March 17 is the day generally believed to be the death of St. Patrick, the British-born missionary who is credited with converting Ireland to Christianity. 

Lovecraft Revisited: Cthulhu, Crowley and Cosmic Fire

Peter Levenda has two new books out. One is a nonfiction work (Sekret Machines: Gods) attached to Tom DeLonge's Sekret Machines project. Gods attempts to put the ancient astronaut corpus of the past 50 years into an entirely new context, one explicitly connected to the mysterious cabal of high-ranking government, intelligence and military figures DeLonge claims to be working with. 

It's All Real. Now What?

There's a famous exchange in the recent Star Wars sequel The Force Awakens in which Han Solo announces to the young rebels Rey and Finn that the Force and the Jedi-- mystical concepts that had come to be seen as superstitious nonsense by most people-- were all real. That the legends about them were "all true." 

World(views) in Collision

My apologies for not updating earlier. I've been trying to hammer out an essay (provisionally titled "Magic in a Time of Chaos") all week but so much has been happening, both in my life and in the world outside, that it keeps reshaping itself. I'll be working on it in earnest this weekend.