#1970s Visions of Space Living

[mudwerks]

(via Looking Back on NASA's Vivid 1970s Visions of Space Living - Atlas Obscura)

Rick Guidice, a NASA-affiliated artist during the 1970s, generated visuals of what space accommodation might look like.

[nasa]

For the Benefit of All: Assistive Tech Developed from NASA Tech

What do modern cochlear implants and robotic gloves have in common? They were derived from NASA technology. We’ve made it easier to find and use our patented inventions that could help create products that enhance life for people with disabilities.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which highlights the contributions of American workers with disabilities – many of whom use assistive technology on the job. Take a look at these assistive technologies that are NASA spinoffs.

Low-Vision Headsets

The Joint Optical Reflective Display (JORDY) device is a headset that uses NASA image processing and head-mounted display technology to enable people with low vision to read and write. JORDY enhances individuals’ remaining sight by magnifying objects up to 50 times and allowing them to change contrast, brightness, and display modes. JORDY's name was inspired by Geordi La Forge, a blind character from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” whose futuristic visor enabled him to see.

Cochlear Implants

Work that led to the modern cochlear implant was patented by a NASA engineer in the 1970s. Following three failed corrective surgeries, Adam Kissiah combined his NASA electronics know-how with research in the Kennedy Space Center technical library to build his own solution for people with severe-to-profound hearing loss who receive little or no benefit from hearing aids. Several companies now make the devices, which have been implanted in hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Robotic Gloves

Ironhand, from Swedish company Bioservo Technologies, is the world’s first industrial-strength robotic glove for factory workers and others who perform repetitive manual tasks. It helps prevent stress injuries but has been especially warmly received by workers with preexisting hand injuries and conditions. The glove is based on a suite of patents for the technology developed by NASA and General Motors to build the hands of the Robonaut 2 humanoid robotic astronaut.

Smart Glasses

Neurofeedback technology NASA originally developed to improve pilots’ attention has been the basis for products aimed at helping people manage attention disorders without medication. The devices measure brainwave output to gauge attention levels according to the “engagement index” a NASA engineer created. Then, they show the results to users, helping them learn to voluntarily control their degree of concentration. One such device is a pair of smart glasses from Narbis, whose lenses darken as attention wanes.

Anti-Gravity Treadmills

A NASA scientist who developed ways to use air pressure to simulate gravity for astronauts exercising in space had the idea to apply the concept for the opposite effect on Earth. After licensing his technology, Alter-G Inc. developed its anti-gravity G-Trainer treadmill, which lets users offload some or all of their weight while exercising. The treadmills can help people recover from athletic or brain injuries, and they allow a safe exercise regimen for others with long-term conditions such as arthritis.

Wireless Muscle Sensors

Some of the most exciting assistive technologies to spin off may be yet to come. Delsys Inc. developed electromyographic technology to help NASA understand the effects of long-term weightlessness on astronauts’ muscles and movements. Electromyography detects and analyzes electrical signals emitted when motor nerves trigger movement. Among the company’s customers are physical therapists developing exercise routines to help patients recover from injuries. But some researchers are using the technology to attempt recoveries that once seemed impossible, such as helping paralyzed patients regain movement, letting laryngectomy patients speak, and outfitting amputees with artificial limbs that work like the real thing.  

To further enhance the lives of people with disabilities, NASA has identified a selection of patented technologies created for space missions that could spur the next generation of assistive technology here on Earth.

Want to learn more about assistive technologies already in action? Check out NASA Spinoff to find products and services that wouldn’t exist without space exploration.   

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[the-fire-within0]

Spiritual Psychosis

Spiritual psychosis, also known as spiritual emergency, is a term used to describe a spiritual or mystical experience that is so intense, it can lead to a breakdown or a psychotic episode. These experiences can be profound and transformative, often involving a deep sense of connection to the divine or the universe. However, the intensity of such experiences can be overwhelming and difficult to integrate into everyday life, leading to a state of psychological crisis or mental health challenges. This phenomenon was first introduced by psychologist Stanislav Grof in the 1970s.

Spiritual psychosis is not associated with a positive spiritual experience; rather, it causes distress. It instills fear and leads a person to spread or believe misinformation, preventing a healthy relationship with their own spirituality. This conflates the idea that one should only rely on their connection with a higher being or energy, rather than trusting themselves and understanding reality. This intense fear can make someone paranoid and question others' intentions because they believe God or a higher energy has told them that certain people in their lives are "evil spirits" sent to teach them a lesson. Consequently, it fosters distrust in others and in one's own perception of what is truly happening.

Spiritual psychosis is not recognized as an official mental health diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). However, it is a recognized concept in the field of transpersonal psychology.

Another aspect to consider is that spiritual psychosis can lead individuals to believe they are more enlightened than their peers who aren't undergoing a similar "spiritual awakening." They may think they possess greater knowledge and understand the secrets of the universe, which can inflate their ego. This inflated sense of self can result in shaming others or blaming them for not being spiritual enough. They might even become paranoid, thinking that the government is targeting them due to their perceived special knowledge. This can evolve into "spiritual narcissism," where they see themselves as superior and deserving of a position of authority. In extreme cases, this can lead to the formation of a cult or their acceptance into one.

Spiritual psychosis can lead a person to spiritual bypass, where they use spiritual ideas or practices to avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, trauma, and unfinished developmental tasks that require self-reflection and healing. For example, when someone's family member passes away, they might say, “Well, it’s just part of the spiritual experience. Try meditating more. It was meant to be.” This attitude can make a person insensitive to others' trauma, grief, and emotions, and even to their own wounds. These ideas and practices become ways to avoid deeper self-exploration, shadow work, and receiving appropriate help. People might use spiritual bypassing to avoid dealing with physical ailments. They may assert that they healed their cancer or kidney issues through their mind or spiritual practices alone. However, it's important to remember that spirituality should not replace actual medical treatment.

Now, to get into the signs of spiritual psychosis

𖤓 Intensely vivid spiritual visions or experiences (this can mean visions or hallucinations of spiritual beings or realms, hearing the voice of God, seeing angels in a 3D/physical realm)

𖤓 Feelings of unity or oneness with the universe

𖤓 Believing that the universe doesn’t make sense (when individuals undergo "enlightenment" or receive a sudden "download" of universal knowledge, it can be overwhelming and difficult to comprehend)

𖤓 Altered perception of time and space

𖤓 Disconnection from reality (anything they say or do lacks a practical foundation, logic, or facts. Instead, it's all based on conspiracy theories and a complete disconnect from reality)

𖤓 Increased anxiety or fear

𖤓 Difficulty distinguishing between spiritual experiences and reality (similar to someone who struggles to distinguish dreams from reality)

𖤓 Grandiosity or delusions of spiritual significance (seeing “angel numbers,” seeing a coin dropped on the ground, perhaps not understanding that it is not associated with anything spiritual)

𖤓 Disorientation and confusion

𖤓 Inflated sense of ego (spiritual narcissism involves believing one is superior to others, considering oneself special and important. Some even claim to have been Jesus in a past life and assert they should be worshipped again)

𖤓 Out-of-body experiences (depersonalization can definitely occur when someone believes that their “soul” detached from your physical body, or they may think they’re a stranger or an alien in their own life)

𖤓 Using substances or engaging in practices that alter consciousness (sometimes leading into a drug-induced psychosis)

𖤓 Experiences of rebirth or past-life memories (in my experience, this often indicates that past life experiences are making someone paranoid about history repeating itself. They may feel haunted by their past, believing it's influencing their present and feeling the need to purge themselves of it)

𖤓 Relying on a higher being (or beings) to control everything without taking any action yourself

Why it happens and who is vulnerable to spiritual psychosis

𖤓 Intensive spiritual practices, such as meditation or yoga, that lead to rapid spiritual growth (while meditation indeed offers scientific benefits, it's possible for individuals to attribute profound awakenings to meditation, even though they may have harboured those beliefs prior to starting their practice)

𖤓 Traumatic experiences or major life changes that trigger a spiritual crisis (often, this is typical for individuals experiencing spiritual psychosis without adequate support or treatment to manage their trauma in a healthy manner)

𖤓 Mental health conditions, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, that can increase vulnerability

𖤓 Substance abuse or psychedelic use that alters perception and reality testing

𖤓 Personality traits like absorption (intense focus) and transliminality (thin boundaries between states of consciousness)

𖤓 Individuals with intense spiritual aspirations or expectations

Why it should not be encouraged

𖤓 Spiritual psychosis can lead to a breakdown in reality testing and daily functioning

𖤓 It can be distressing and disorienting, causing significant distress

𖤓 Without proper support, it can lead to long-term mental health issues

𖤓 If it is continuously encouraged, it might cause a person to stop taking their prescribed medication.

𖤓 It might lead a person into a path of self-sabotage rather than personal healing and development

This post isn't meant to shame anyone or bring anyone down. I believe it's important for anyone in a spiritual community to be aware of these things and to encourage self-care and personal development.

Just a reminder: I'm not a professional psychologist or therapist. I do my best to research psychology to understand myself and others, but it's always much better and wiser to consult an actual professional.

This post does not mean that everyone who is spiritual is crazy. You can certainly have a healthy relationship with spirituality, meditation, or your practice, as long as it isn't negatively affecting you or those around you. As a person that struggles with their own mental health, I’ve definitely had my highs and lows in my spiritual journey, but it has improved significantly.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

[thecreaturecodex]

Godzooky

“Varan-02″ © deviantArt user JSochart. Accessed at their gallery here

[Sponsored by @glarnboudin​. Ignore the “Varan” title, or maybe don’t. I realized that Godzooky may not be Godzilla’s blood relative, but he’s probably Varan’s. For those of you who don’t know, the Godzilla Power Hour was a Hanna Barbera adventure cartoon in the 1970s, which licensed Godzilla but had a cast of other monsters in it. Think Johnny Quest with less racism for the tone. But since it was 70s Hanna Barbera, it had to have a comic relief sidekick. Enter Godzooky:

Godzooky was a cute little dragon-y thing that whined and whimpered like Scooby-Doo, because he had the same voice actor, Don Messick. Think Minilla, but less repulsive to look at. This is my attempt at injecting some fantasy ecology into the concept of “Godzilla’s nephew”. It turned out kind of the opposite of a gray render as far as flavor text is concerned.]

Godzooky CR 7 N Magical Beast This creature is a reptilian biped, with a row of spines and plates along the back, sharp teeth and claws. It has membranous wings growing from between its arms and down its torso.

A godzooky is an omnivorous reptile that lives as a monstrous pilot fish. It follows in the wake of a greater monster and feeds on materials kicked up and carrion left behind by the movements and attacks of its superior. Their attitude towards this greater monster is something like that of a nephew towards their favorite uncle. The monsters a godzooky associates itself with can be anything from a genuinely weaker monster that has an irascible attitude and dominant personality all the way up to literal kaiju. Although they are curious and fairly friendly creatures, the appearance of a godzooky in a town or on a road brings concern—its patron monster may be close behind.

A godzooky is actually a reasonably powerful melee combatant, but they prefer to leave direct fighting to others. Instead, they make hit and run attacks through the air—they are not exactly graceful fliers, but they are speedy ones. Godzookies can breathe a cloud of choking smoke. There are reports of some that can actually breathe fire, but these are likely either mutated or very old and powerful specimens. A godzooky has a versatile vocal range, and they can magnify their calls into a deafening howl. The sound itself is dangerous in the short term. The fact that such a noise often acts as a beacon for a stronger monster is potentially catastrophic.

A godzooky is about ten feet tall when standing on its hind legs, and around thirty feet in length.

Godzooky              CR 7 XP 3,200 N Huge magical beast Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, Perception +14, scent Defense AC 19, touch 10, flat-footed 17 (-2 size, +2 Dex, +9 natural) hp 85 (9d10+36) Fort +9, Ref +8, Will +7 Resist acid 10, cold 10, fire 10 Offense Speed 40 ft., swim 40 ft., fly 60 feet (poor) Melee bite +11 (1d8+4), 2 claws +11 (1d6+4) Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. (10 ft. with claws) Special Attacks smoke breath, yowl Spell-like Abilities CL 9th, concentration +10 3/day—miserable pity (DC 12, self only) Statistics Str 18, Dex 15, Con 17, Int 6, Wis 14, Cha 13 Base Atk +9; CMB +16; CMD 28 Feats Alertness, Blind Fight, Flyby Attack, Iron Will, Toughness Skills Fly +0, Perception +14, Sense Motive +6, Swim +19; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception Languages Common (can’t speak), speak with monsters Ecology Environment any warm or temperate Organization solitary or pair Treasure incidental Special Abilities Smoke Breath (Su) As a standard action, a godzooky can breathe smoke in a 30 foot radius. Treat this smoke as concealing vision like a fog cloud, and all creatures in the smoke must succeed a DC 17 Fortitude save each round they remain within it, or be staggered for 1 round from coughing. A godzooky can use this ability three times per day, but must wait 1d4 rounds between uses. A godzooky is immune to the choking ability of its smoke, but doesn’t have any ability to see through it. The save DC is Constitution based. Speak With Monsters (Su) A godzooky can communicate through a series of grunts, yelps and whines with any animal, dragon, magical beast, plant or vermin. The level of information communicated with these organisms is equivalent to that conveyed by a speak with animals spell. Yowl (Ex) As a standard action, a godzooky can scream so loudly that all creatures within 60 feet must succeed a DC 17 Fortitude save or be deafened for 1 minute. A creature that succeeds this save is immune to the yowl of a godzooky for the next 24 hours. The save DC is Constitution based.

[rjzimmerman]

Manyara Ranch: African Wildlife Foundation

Good story from the African Wildlife Federation. Tap/click on the caption to get to the PDF version of the report.

Excerpt:

A long time ago, the people of Tanzania and their livestock adopted to living alongside wildlife. For millennia, the Maasai have tracked the movements of wildebeests to identify good grazing; the favorite hideouts of lions to avoid attacks on cattle; and the presence of oxpeckers to know if dangerous buffalo are nearby.

In the past 60 years, however, drastic changes have come to the Maasai Steppe, a large semi-arid grassland ecosystem in north-central Tanzania. Large-scale farms, the expansion of safari tourism, the creation of national parks, and restricted access to once communally used land have squeezed the rangeland available to livestock. With more cattle on less land, grasslands are becoming overgrazed. The spread of human settlements and agriculture have blocked age-old wildlife migration routes, leading to more frequent—and sometimes deadly—confrontations between people and animals. And climate change, which has intensified droughts and upended rainfall patterns, is escalating competition for green grass and fresh water, pushing even more pastoralists to agriculture.

Anchoring the Maasai Steppe are Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks, where the shores of the eponymous river and lake abound with wildlife in the dry season. The steppe is home to some of the world’s most abundant and diverse wildlife, including one of the largest—and growing– populations of elephants in Africa (recovering from heavy poaching in the 1970s and 1980s) and the only stronghold of the eastern white-bearded wildebeests. The ability to move between the parks and beyond them into the plains is crucial for the survival of many of the ecosystem’s most iconic species, including elephants and wildebeests. But safe, unimpeded pathways are becoming scarce. In between the two parks, in the all-important Kwakuchinja wildlife corridor, sits a patchwork of villages, farms, large herds of livestock, grasslands—and Manyara Ranch.

Since 2001, the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) has championed a unique conservation model for the ranch, starting with negotiations with the government to form a land conservation trust to make the ranch a conservation space. Beginning in 2013, we took over direct management of the ranch, balancing the working cattle ranch with habitat restoration and wildlife conservation—a new model for Tanzania.While Tanzania’s pastoralists generally are prohibited from bringing livestock into national parks, cattle are a nonnegotiable part of the region’s economy and culture. Therefore, successful conservation of land outside formal protected areas depends on the sustainable coexistence of livestock and wildlife, particularly along migration routes where wildlife move outside of the boundaries of the parks. Manyara Ranch is a vital link along one of those migration routes. It helps connect the national parks to each other and to the wet-season grazing grounds of the Northern Plains, described as the “last, best remaining breeding ground” for the ecosystem’s migrating wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, and others. In addition to the migrating animals that seasonally pass through, the ranch today is home to resident giraffes, lions, and many other iconic African species—as well as more than a thousand cattle.

The lease to the land is now held by the Monduli District Council, and the day-to-day running of the ranch is managed by the Manyara Ranch Management Trust, composed of representatives from the Monduli council, two local villages, the Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority, and AWF.

“The vision for a project like this is to bring management expertise to the local stakeholders. We want to think inclusively and really focus on creating local partnership in decision-making regarding operations,” said Pastor Magingi, AWF’s Tanzania Country Coordinator.

[justforbooks]

The novelist Christopher Priest, who has died aged 80 after suffering from cancer, became eminent more than once over the nearly 60 years of his active working life. But while he relished success, he displayed a wry reserve about the ambiguities attending these moments in the limelight.

In 1983 he was included in the Granta Best of Young British Novelists, a 20-strong cohort, most of them – such as Martin Amis, William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Graham Swift and AN Wilson – significantly younger than Priest, whose career had begun almost two decades earlier, and who had at least 15 books and 50 stories in print by the early 80s. He clearly felt that it was not so much the quality of his work that delayed his “promotion” to the literary establishment, but his reluctance to deny, when asked, that he wrote science fiction.

His large body of work never fitted easily into any mould. Only in recent years has it become widely understood that the sometimes baffling ingenuity and thrust of his fiction has been of a piece, no more detachable into convenient genres than, say, Amis’s or Ishiguro’s tales of the fantastic.

Like them, he wove visions of Britain drifting into a post-empire future without secure signposts. Those stories, and the characters he let loose without a paddle, sink and dodge into realities that no longer count. Lacking much in the way of science-fiction gear, even his early work seems to describe the point that we have now arrived at.

His first novel, Indoctrinaire (1970), jaggedly initiates that scrutiny of a near-future, self-hallucinated Britain that terminated only with his last novel, Airside (2023). His next, much more mature, tale, Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972), is the first of several to envision Britain as islanded both literally and in terms of the traumatic solitude endured by those who live in it. It depicts a land devastatingly isolated by ecological collapse, threatened by uncontrollable waves of the world’s dispossessed. The tale is broken into 69 sections (or islands) in no chronological order.

Inverted World (1974), a brilliantly realised study in how perception can transform a world, and The Space Machine: A Scientific Romance (1976), a wry but genuine homage to HG Wells, step away from his central focus. But in A Dream of Wessex (1977), in some stories from An Infinite Summer (1979), and in a further novel, The Affirmation (1981), he created what he came to call The Dream Archipelago, a sequence of tales set in a variety of similar Britains, all transfigured into differing landscape-dominated worlds, sometimes enjoying a Mediterranean climate, each individual tale following paths into watery labyrinths.

The influence of Richard Jefferies’ After London: Or, Wild England (1885) is clear. The protagonist of The Glamour (1984) is so islanded from reality that he becomes literally invisible.

Born in Cheadle, Cheshire (now Greater Manchester), Christopher was the son of Millicent (nee Haslock) and Walter Priest, a senior executive in the firm of Vandome and Hart, manufacturers of weighing machines. On leaving Cheadle Hulme school at the age of 16, he became an accountancy clerk, work that he was able to leave in 1968. Much later he published the stories he wrote from this period as Ersatz Wines (2008).

The first significant hint of a way forward into his mature vision seems to have come through reading Brian Aldiss’s Non-Stop (1958), a tale whose disruptive questioning of science-fiction conventions borrowed from the US, married to a loud pessimism about humanity’s hopes of dominating any future world, was electrifying.

The boisterous Aldiss soon introduced him to the small but intense literary world in Notting Hill Gate, west London, that Michael Moorcock was beginning to create in the early 60s through the magazine New Worlds.

In an early piece, Priest himself first applied the term New Wave to the experimental fantastic narratives of this era, but was ambivalent about how much he wanted to identify with what he found in New Worlds. He gave up clerical work, began to write full-time, and in 1969 married Christine Merchant. They moved to London and divorced after four years.

The New Worlds/New Wave vision of a world that had lost all sense of itself, with no stories to show a way out, was inspiring: but from the beginning Priest recognised the central influence and mentoring genius of JG Ballard, who made hypnotic stories out of the seemingly unstoryable, for his uncanny intuition that past, present and future were an “inner space” we must explore and live with.

Though his works are formally more ingenious, everything Priest wrote acknowledges his mentor’s foreknowledge that we now live in that inner space, where the lighting is treacherous. His last book, not quite completed at the time of his death, is a study of Ballard.

After the US author Harlan Ellison withdrew one of Priest’s stories from his indefinitely postponed blockbuster anthology Last Dangerous Visions, Priest published The Last Deadloss Visions (1987). It was a ruthless documentation of Ellison’s failure to release this volume, while retaining at least 100 stories, some from as early as 1972, and all the while promising immediate publication (when Ellison died in 2018, the anthology was still in manuscript). Priest treated the vituperation from Ellison’s followers as an inevitable consequence of his honesty, but shrugged it off. Others in the US respected him for speaking out.

In 1981, Priest married Lisa Tuttle; they divorced in 1987. The following year he married the writer Leigh Kennedy, and they had two children, Elizabeth and Simon.

His novel The Prestige (1995), about two feuding 19th-century magicians, won both the James Tait Black Memorial prize and a World Fantasy award. The successful film adaptation by Christopher Nolan (2006) starred Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as the illusionists sparring over a teleportation stunt.

Responding to this new upsurge in his reputation, Priest wrote about the experience in The Magic: The Story of a Film (2008). Meanwhile, The Separation (2002), a dark alternate history of the second world war featuring Rudolf Hess and Winston Churchill, won an Arthur C Clarke award.

He and Kennedy divorced in 2011, and he and the writer Nina Allan began to live together, soon moving to the Isle of Bute. They married in 2023.

His remaining years were prolific. The Islanders (2011) was soon followed by three further and summatory Dream Archipelago tales. An American Story (2018) takes a contrarian view of the assassination of JF Kennedy. Expect Me Tomorrow (2022) plays an intricate game involving doppelgangers, geology and climate change.

His last novel, Airside, conveys with eerie aplomb the seemingly simple tale of a Hollywood star who escapes the potential wreck of her career by travelling through something like an escape-hatch housed in the Heathrow “airside”: an Escherian space, neither here nor there, that any traveller must somehow traverse without becoming abandoned.

The French director Chris Marker’s most famous film, 200 stills comprising the 20-minute La Jetée (1962), which Priest cites in this novel, is partially set in an airside where past and future intersect. The sadness of that intersection is fathoms deep, serenely knowing. The voiceover for that film, and the narrator of Airside, speak to us in the same tone of voice: a tone that seems to grasp the future in hindsight.

At the end of his career, Priest had finally brought off his greatest trick: to bring us home to where he awaited us.

In his written work, he could be acerbic and taxing (though usually persuasive). My own friendship with him, which deepened over half a century, revealed an urgently kind man, witty, loyal, amused, gregarious. He had the rare gift of taking himself fully as seriously as he warranted: but no more. His laughter was infectious.

He is survived by Nina and his children.

🔔 Christopher Mackenzie Priest, author, born 14 July 1943; died 2 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[mariacallous]

Hale Zukas had a need for speed. In Berkeley, accompanied by his high-velocity wheelchair and trademark helmet, Zukas would zoom down Telegraph Avenue at a sprinter’s pace, his mop of grey hair fluttering in the wind.

Born with cerebral palsy, Zukas had places to be and things to say to policymakers about building a Bay Area that is accessible to all. Despite significant speech and mobility impairments, his righteous temper and sharp wit forced them to listen.

“I don’t beat around the bush,” Zukas mused in a 1998 oral history, where he sat for multiple lengthy interviews. He communicated using a wand affixed to his helmet that pointed to letters on a word board. “I know at least as much as anyone about what I’m talking about.”

Zukas died on Nov. 30 at the age of 79, but not before his civil rights activism for people with disabilities shaped the way millions navigate this country’s public spaces.

“People knew that when Hale was speaking, you listened,” said Judy Heumann, a leading disability rights advocate who worked with Zukas in the 1970s. “He really did have a bigger vision.”

From public transit to sidewalks, Zukas’s reach can be felt across the Bay Area.

He designed Berkeley’s first generation of wheelchair ramps in the 1970s as the city became an early model of mobility access. Known as “curb cuts,” these ramps turned local sidewalks from a gauntlet of miniature cliffs to usable pathways for wheelchair riders. His advocacy also pushed BART to become the nation’s first transit system to be fully accessible to people with disabilities.

Among the laundry list of accessibility improvements touched by Zukas are BART’s elevators, which placed their buttons at lower height based on his input.

Zukas’s activism is rooted in 1960s Berkeley. As protesters rallied against the Vietnam war and for free speech, a burgeoning contingent of quadriplegic students also harnessed the city’s unique counterculture environment. At the heart of the movement was the Center for Independent Living, which Zukas co-founded in 1972, under the philosophy that people with disabilities should speak for themselves on matters of advocacy and life choices. Berkeley’s CIL played a pivotal role in altering the urban landscape, shifting cultural assumptions, and would go on to sprout over 400 centers in the U.S.

At CIL, Zukas was arguably the organization’s foremost expert in the nitty-gritty of accessibility policy. He was also skilled at bending bureaucracy to his will.

Memories of Zukas as told by peers and fellow activists are often colored by his iconoclastic approach. Heumann affectionately jibed Zukas as an “old fart” due to his stubbornness and wry humor. Wheelchair designer Ralph Hotchkiss described him as a “wild man” thrilled by the rush of a speeding chair. And Kitty Cone, another prominent activist who died in 2015, praised him as an “unsung hero” whose immense impact was often overlooked due to his speech impairment.

Born in 1943 in Los Angeles, Zukas credited his mother for pushing for his education in the face of a medical establishment arguing he should be institutionalized. “She finally decided that she knew more than the doctors,” said Zukas, who went on to major in mathematics and study Russian at UC Berkeley.

Zukas remained in Berkeley after graduating in 1971. He was there in 1977 when activists staged a landmark sit-in at San Francisco’s federal building, setting the stage for the Americans With Disabilities Act. Under the appointment of President Jimmy Carter, Zukas also served as vice-chair of a federal board that crafted federal accessibility standards in the 1980s.

Underneath Zukas’s confident politicking lay deep-seated insecurities. His perennial frustrations over the revolving door of personal assistants upon whom he relied to feed and clothe him often boiled over in exasperation. “I see myself as a mass of contradictions,” he said in interviews stored at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft library. “On the one hand, I’m very activist in trying to influence various issues, sometimes being very assertive about it. On the other hand, I have very low self-esteem, and I don’t like to deal with employment issues at all. Probably because I don’t see myself getting a job.”

The limitations of his disability required him to painstakingly spell out words for people unfamiliar with his verbal queues. But he also saw advantages, describing his approach to advocacy as a form of “mental jujitsu.”

“I imagine when many people see me, they figure I am intellectually sub-par. So when I start talking (about) things that make it clear that I’m not, it makes all the more of an impact,” said Zukas. “And besides, I’m somewhat of a spectacle.”

Zukas embraced spectacle. Before the pandemic, he was a fixture at government meetings, crisscrossing the Bay Area to get where he needed to go.

But to many, the man zooming by in a wheelchair adorned with a “They hate us because we’re pretty” sticker was just another Berkeley eccentric. Even administrators at UC Berkeley, where Zukas frequented lectures, were unaware of his place in civil rights history. That’s according to Brad Bailey, who attended the university’s journalism school and filmed an award-winning 2017 documentary on Zukas.

“He had been overlooked not just in the disability movement, and Hale was very frustrated at that,” said Bailey. While fellow UC Berkeley graduate Ed Roberts emerged as the public face of disability rights, Zukas said he developed a resentment for the media’s anointed “father” of the movement.

“This may be somewhat heretical: For all his great gift of gab, I found him rather superficial,” Zukas said in 1998 of Roberts, who passed away three years earlier and captured the nation’s attention with his life in an iron lung. Although in the same conversation Zukas added that he may have “gone too far” in criticizing Roberts. “After all,” said Zukas. “My first trip to Death Valley was in his van.”

Hotchkiss, who won a MacArthur “Genius” Grant for his work designing wheelchairs, remembers the first time he met Zukas in the early 1970s. They were touring the Washington, D.C., subway together so Zukas could write a report on disability access for Congress.

“Before I knew it, I was hanging on to the back of his high-powered wheelchair racing through Washington and wondering if I’d make it there alive,” said Hotchkiss, who relied on a slower wheelchair. On that day Zukas got into the “dirt of the system” and “smashed through it as best he could.”

“If he could have lived 1,000 years, he would have taken the chance,” Hotchkiss said. “He would have kept on smashing his way.”

[myraelvira]

Glenn Rambo

Glenn Marshall Rambo was born on December 4th, 1970 in Alice, Jim Wells County, Texas. His father was Gary W Rambo, and mother, Rebecca Anne Roark. Though he had siblings on his mother’s side, I’m unsure if there are any on his father’s side.

There wasn’t a whole lot that I could find about Glenn’s life, other than some old forum posts that talked of him posthumously. On my death space, there was a post from the user “Puke”, who copied and pasted a letter/description about Glenn Rambo, and the life that he lived.

Glenn was raised by his mother and grandmother in Violet, Louisiana, St. Bernard Parish, the New Orleans area. He was “blessed/cursed’ with a unique appearance “which some found strange or evil”, and would lead him to be harassed on a daily basis, by closed-minded law enforcement and those who called him and his family “witches”. Others in St. Bernard would always see Glenn walking everywhere, with a big boombox on his shoulder, taking his time and listening to his music. He soon acquired the affectionate nickname “Lilac Ozzy”, finding a safe haven connecting with “freaks” like himself in the growing underground Hardcore/punk/metal scene in New Orleans.

Eventually starting a band called Nuclear Crucifixion in the mid 80’s with friends Donovan Punch, Brian Patton, Dave Moran, and Darren Shallenberg. This band would eventually morph into the early iterations of Soilent Green. Their shows would be memorable not only for their “ahead-of-their-time” fusion style, but also Glenn’s outrageous stage persona. He was a true performance artist, as recalled, and would eventually end up singing with bands like “Nun Molesters”, “GM Pussy Bitch”, and “Swarm”. Glenn is remembered as the guy that, “knew every lyric, every riff, and who had such an extensive knowledge (of) music in general, that you could talk for hours and hours with him, and he’d just keep recommending new bands, or pulling out obscure and arcane types of music you may not have heard of”.

Despite people thinking that he was sinister, he was actually “one of the most genuine, loving, intelligent people you’d ever meet.”. He’s remembered for his dark and piercing appearance, while also having an absolutely hypnotic speaking voice. Low, modulated, and subtle; a true Southern gentleman. Glenn loved reading, obtaining information, and devoured books. He was always thirsty for knowledge, and a deeper understanding of spirituality. “No garden variety Satanist”, Glenn was more interested in human nature and all its darkness. Wise beyond his years, he was also very sensitive. You could talk to him seriously about any number of topics. He also had a keen sense of humor, and a sense of absurdity. Glenn was a lover of animals, who he adopted a whole flock, and called them his babies. He’d walk around the French Quarter with his beloved ferrets stuffed in his pockets, sneaking up his jacket, curled around his neck.

Glenn had epilepsy, which caused him to be on meds his whole life; the condition gave him seizures, but he considered it a blessing in disguise, because it “gave him visions that other people couldn’t see.”. His mother had epilepsy too.

He would take something potentially tragic, and turn it into something unique and magical. When he’d see you, he’d come over to give you a hug and a kiss. Glenn is recalled as a healing presence, a truly enchanting soul.

Glenn stayed in Voilet, Louisiana because he and his mother didn’t have a car, his leg was broken, and he didn’t have anywhere to evacuate to. He thought that they could just bear down, and ride out the storm. They may not have wanted to leave the comfort of their home, when they didn’t have anywhere to go to. But, “when the levees broke, they didn’t stand a chance.”.

One of his favorite quotes was, “Invoke me under my stars! Love is the law, love under will. Nor let the fools mistake love; for there are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent. Choose ye well! He, my prophet, hath chosen knowing the law of the fortress, and the great mystery of the house of God.” Liber al vel Legis 1:57, Aleister Crowley.

♦♦♦ [Music History] ♦♦♦

On the metal archives, Glenn’s musical history is still rather vague. It lists that he sang for the bands mentioned before, though the only ones with dates or links seems to be Soilent Green and Nuclear Crucifixion, as of June 2023. I’m not sure what the exact time frame was for the other bands.

Nuclear Crucifixion is listed as having been from New Orleans, Louisiana; one source states Metairie in particular. They formed in 1987, and lasted through 1988, though the archive also states 1989. I don’t know the info about that specifically. This iteration of the band had 2 demos, the first being “Killing Ourselves To Live”, in 1987, and the second, “Torture of Humanity”, in 1988. The former starts with a song titled, “Nuclear Vomit”, which was later reworked into some Soilent Green songs, like “Numb Around The Heart”. Both demo releases were on cassette, no label. The band was also listed as being spelled “Crucifixtion”, with a T, and at some point it was called “Seveth”.

The band’s music was very underground, with this general old school Death Metal feel, which is right on par with the nearby Florida Death Metal scene that exploded around that time period. Though it may be obvious to those my age and older, for the younger audience, it seems that the band’s name was inspired by the idea of nuclear fallout. During this time period in the US, with the cold war, many pieces of media reflect this fear; the first to come to mind for me, is ‘Retaliation’ by Carnivore.

The first NC demo was spelled “Nuclear Crucifixtion”. The band photo that is found on the metal archives was taken by Al Hodge of Tungsten, in what was Donovan Punch’s grandmother’s garage. The garage was where they practiced, the area previously having been used as a dance studio by his grandma. Soilent Green also practiced there when they formed, and in the early 90’s Jason Pizzolato’s band Apostasy would play shows with Soilent Green.

Sammy Duet, second to the left, wearing a ‘Nun Molesters’ shirt.

While “Nun Molesters” isn’t listed as its own page on the metal archives or discogs, a few videos from Jason Pizzalato dates the band at having played from 1989-1991. I assume that this was virtually a name change for the band Nuclear Crucifixion, since it had similar members. The band had a man named Joey Hall who was on vocals for the demos and shows, but it should be noted that the band would switch instruments, and invite friends and audience members to join them on stage. Glenn is actually listed as having played drums here.

Glenn would include their Nun Molester recordings at the end of some demo tapes for Soilent Green that he dubbed and sold. As Pizzolato said, “Classic Nun Molester songs include, ‘We Like Smoking Weed’ and ‘Big Pussy’.”. Joey Hall is listed as having later become a cop.

Nun Molesters seemed like a hilarious band to see live, as the demos were quite silly. Though musically great, the eloquence of “I like to eat vagina” cannot be understated. Or maybe that was Nuclear Crucifixion? :p

A video from the amazing ‘Acid Bath Archive’ actually shows a small snippet in time of Nuclear Crucifixion’s life, where Glenn Rambo and Brian Patton were interviewed. The interview was from Pagan Fest, July 22nd, 1988, which took place in Dallas, Texas.

A cassette of the first NC demo is shown, with some footage of the band playing. Glenn stated that they decided to play at Pagan Fest because they really like Dallas, and how the people would listen to music and “accept it for what it is, instead of denying it for it ain’t.”. When asked if he’d still help underground bands if they got famous, Glenn said that he absolutely would.

In 1988, Soilent Green was formed. Also having Rambo, of course, the band’s first iteration seemed to consist of him, Brian Patton, Donovan Punch, Marcel Trenchard, and Tommy Buckley. Some of the earliest demos, as posted by Jason Pizzolato, state that Soilent formed after the ashes of Nuclear Crucifixion. Once again, the time frame is a little confusing, and I don’t know if Nun Molesters was its own separate entity from Soilent. The metal archives states that Soilent was formed after Rambo, Punch, and Patton left Nuclear Crucifixion, though I am unsure what their reasons are, for why they left that band.

The early iteration of Soilent Green is vastly different from the records we know today. A 1989 demo provides a thrashy feel, and the ones from 1990 have that underground early Death Metal feel. The tracks posted by Pizzolato remind me a lot of Macabre’s album “Dahmer”, which actually came out 10 years after those! Early Soilent had this fantastic Death Metal feel which could have really turned them into a major forerunner of the genre, at least, in my eyes. Or ears. It feels like the sound that they achieved in 1990 seemed to be somewhere that Glenn wanted to achieve, as his vocals settled in the Death range, and to me, were great! I’m reminded a lot of bands like ‘Ripping Corpse’, ‘Death’, and ‘Baphomet’. It almost makes me sad that this iteration of the band didn’t continue on.

In 1989, the band released their first demo, which was on cassette. According to videos of the demo by Pizzolato, the demo was recorded at Protech Productions, in Marrero, Louisiana.

In 1991, a demo was released called ‘Satanic Drug Fog’ which was recorded in 1990 in Baytown, Texas. This was recorded the same time as their other demo, ‘Squiggly’. Squiggly is also known as ‘Squiggly Demons’ and ‘Soilent Green’. Both were on cassette. Ten songs were recorded total, with 2 being left off the tapes. I am unsure why, let alone whatever happened to those songs.

In 1991, a 7” vinyl was released that had 4 songs, one being from Soilent Green. The song was “Circle of Death”, which was on side B. The other songs included were, “Waiting in Silence” by Slugs (also on Side B), “World View” by S.I.K., and “Brainwashed Society” by the Detrimentz. Interesting to note, Slugs was the band that Kirk Windstein and Todd Strange were in, before it turned into Crowbar.

In 1992, Soilent Green released a demo, though there is no official art or title for the project. An interesting note about this demo though, is that Donovan Punch had broken his arm the night before, at an Exhorder concert, and couldn’t play guitar. As such, he is only backing vocals. Pizzolato was friends with the guys, and he and his brother listened to a cassette that Punch brought of the recordings, so that they could record the guitar parts from him. This demo was to be released in 7” format by Relapse Records, but it never happened. Years later, the band ended up putting out a handful of releases on the label. This demo would be the last to feature Glenn Rambo, and as far as I know, might have been the last piece of music that he’d ever record.

I’m not sure why, or how, Glenn Rambo ended up leaving Soilent Green, but in 1993, he was replaced with Ben Falgoust. In an interview with Richard Metal Fan, in may of 2023, Ben stated that he’d help Soilent when they’d play shows in the Texas area. He said that there was some kind of situation with their singer at the time, and they parted ways; which later, Ben was offered to join the band.

But I’m not sure what that reason was, let alone what happened to Glenn after that. Between the years of 1992-2005, I have no idea what might have happened in his life, though it doesn’t seem like he created anything musically.

On August 29th, 2005, Glenn passed away, having been found dead in his mother’s home. His ex-girlfriend Stacy, and some National Guardsmen went to his mother’s house, because they hadn’t heard from them since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The bodies of Glenn and his mother were still in the house. A friend named Melissa posted on the (now defunct, not archived site) nola underground:

“Glenn had a broken leg, and he and his Mom had no car to evacuate. If you know them, you probably know that his family didn’t have much money. I’m not sure where they are going to bury them, or if there are any next-of-kin that could help. Maybe we can all take up a collection to make sure that they are buried properly and have grave markers. I don’t even know how to go about doing something like that. It just makes me sad to think that after we have all lost so much, we are now finding out that we have lost good friends as well. Glenn was an important part of the NOLA scene, and a good friend to many of us. He will be dearly missed, and fondly remembered. -With Love and Sadness, Melissa October 2nd, 2005”

Glenn M. Rambo was buried at Saint Bernard Memorial Gardens, in Chalmette, Louisiana. He was 34.

His mother, Rebecca Anne Roark, was buried in the same location, she was 61 (June 8th, 1944-August 29, 2005). They were survived by family, as listed in their obituaries, which was published by the Time-Picayune, on January 3rd, 2006. Their funerals were on January 4th, 2006.

Glenn’s death was a shock to many, as there are still accounts online which have blogged, or commented about their sadness. One in particular is Paranoize, who was friends with Glenn, and played shows with him in the past.

While Glenn may not have spent that much time on Earth, I believe that it is still important to acknowledge his influence on the music scene. Going through the history of Soilent Green, and the music before that point, it’s clear that his musical endeavors helped form the eventual NOLA sludge scene, which grew to prominence in the ‘90’s. My heart goes out to his friends and family. I can only pay my respects, and say thank you, for everything he made.

Thank you Glenn, may you rest in peace.

My video on him:

♠♠♠ [Sources] ♠♠♠

This write up would not be possible without the Metal Archives, The Acid Bath Archive, and most importantly, Jason Pizzolato. Thank you so much.

[Web Sources]

https://youtu.be/68nQOuxqkiI https://youtu.be/tAmuZAv-U-w https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GDJM-1NJ https://youtu.be/icx0adFemoU https://youtu.be/nI8DXC1h9b0 https://youtu.be/q97egKqJDqc https://myspace.com/glennrambofest http://mydeathspace.com/vb/showthread.php?3358-Glenn-Rambo-(35)-victim-of-hurricane-katrina https://youtu.be/Z7GU0jwL8gU https://youtu.be/eGJ3uJ1D7pM https://youtu.be/pI9VgyJKuiU https://youtu.be/HCOwGIgUoUo https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Nuclear_Crucifixion/Killing_Ourselves_to_Live/141704 https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Nuclear_Crucifixion/28688 https://paranoize.livejournal.com/23230.html?utm_medium=endless_scroll# https://youtu.be/cAvKzqemxYk https://youtu.be/bfCEN2xpBBg https://youtu.be/eGJ3uJ1D7pM https://youtu.be/etR5jf7nP90 https://www.youtube.com/@JasonPizzolato https://youtu.be/oHFSXVt3tWA abt 5 min https://bravewords.com/news/ex-soilent-green-singer-glenn-rambo-found-dead-in-mothers-home https://blabbermouth.net/news/former-soilent-green-vocalist-glenn-rambo-found-dead https://www.discogs.com/release/11231697-Various-Housecore-Records-Compilation-Volume-1

[burlveneer-music]

Lori Vambe - Space-Time Dreamtime - Strut Records reissue of 2 private-press percussion albums from 1982

Occasionally, you find music outside the commercial mainstream, outside of everything – the music of visionaries, eccentrics, inventors, loners, the keepers of secrets, the path-finders. Moondog, Daphne Oram, Harry Partch are from this mould. And so too is Lori Vambe. New on Strut, the first ever reissue of Vambe’s privately pressed original albums from 1982, Drumland Dreamland and Drumgita Solo. A self-taught drummer, inventor, and sonic experimentalist, Lori Vambe is a unique figure in British music. Creator of his own instrument, the drumgita (pronounced ‘drum-guitar’) or string-drum, Vambe intended to create a kind of music that had never been made in order to pursue access to the fourth dimension. Vambe was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and his father, Lawrence Vambe, was a noted Zimbabwean journalist and author. Moving to London in 1959, Vambe immersed himself in the Brixton squat movement of the early 1970s, teaching himself to drum and creating a short-lived performance group, The Healing Drums of Brixton (Vambe, the sculptor Alexander Sokolov and outsider musician Michael O’Shea). Vambe later had a dream-vision involving a feeling of ecstasy while playing an unknown instrument that extended from his own umbilical cord; the instrument would manifest itself as the drumgita. In 1982, he privately produced a pair of home recordings, the diptych set Drumgita Solo and Drumland Dreamland, releasing them on his own label Drumony. On these records, he rejected any commercial aesthetic and employed tape effects, temporal shifts, reversed sound and overdubbing to investigate space-time and access the fourth dimension. Combining layered drums with the rhythmic throb of the drumgita and, on Drumland Dreamland, an improvised piano performance by Brazilian concert pianist Rafael Dos Santos, the albums are both hypnotic and perturbing. Both albums were cut at Portland Studios by Chas Chandler and stand as a concealed monument of Black British experimental music. 500 copies of each record were originally pressed, and both were released together. The albums were never performed live. For this first ever reissue of Drumland Drumland and Drumgita Solo, Strut presents the two albums in their original artwork, housed in a deluxe slipcase including an additional 8-page 12”-sized booklet featuring unseen photos, liner notes and an interview with Lori Vambe by The Wire magazine writer Francis Gooding. Both albums are fully remastered by The Carvery. 

[arthistoriansdiary]

Splitting

Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting (1974). Super-8 film, black-and-white and colour, silent, 10:50 min., transferred to video.

Gordon Matta-Clark, trained as an architect at Cornell University, transitioned into an artist renowned for his transformative interventions into derelict urban spaces. Splitting (1974) stands as one of his pioneering works, where he sliced a suburban New Jersey house in two, creating a radical sculptural environment that challenged traditional notions of architecture and space.

A Monumental Act of Subversion: In the economically depressed and crime-ridden New York City of the 1970s, abandoned buildings were abundant. Matta-Clark's artistic vision led him to explore these neglected structures, seeking to unearth hidden narratives and possibilities within them. Splitting emerged from this exploration, as he received permission from art dealer Holly Solomon to carve into her suburban New Jersey house, slated for demolition.

The Artistic Process Unveiled: With the assistance of craftsman Manfred Hecht and other helpers, Matta-Clark executed his audacious plan. Using a power saw, they bifurcated the house, meticulously jacking up one side to create a slender central gap, allowing sunlight to filter into the newly revealed spaces. The resulting sculptural environment disrupted conventional architectural forms, inviting viewers to reconsider their relationship with built environments.

Revealing New Vistas and Passages: Matta-Clark's "cuttings" series, including Splitting, challenged the established boundaries of architecture, merging traditional sculptural elements with contemporary concerns of urban decay and social structures. By slicing shapes into walls and floors, he transformed stagnant spaces into dynamic vistas, liberating individuals from suburban isolation and revealing the hidden layers of domesticity.

The Temporal Nature of Artistic Intervention: Despite its monumental impact, Splitting was destined to be ephemeral. Demolished three months later to make way for new apartments, it exists now primarily through documentation: photographs, sketches, an artist's book, and a film capturing the transformative act of architectural-sculptural performance. Matta-Clark's legacy lives on not only in the physical remnants of his interventions but also in the enduring dialogue they provoke about the nature of art and space.

Unravelling Spatial Perspectives: How does Gordon Matta-Clark's Splitting challenge your perceptions of architecture and space, and what implications does it hold for contemporary discussions about urban development and artistic intervention?

[frank-olivier]

Jeffrey Mishlove (New Thinking Allowed)

Heidi Jurka is author of 'The Making of a Psychic'. During the period from 1976 to 1979 she worked closely with parapsychologist Andrija Puharich on his "space kids" project. She was living in Puharich's house in August 1978 when the place was set on fire by an arsonist.

Here she provides many details concerning her work with Puharich, the "space kids" and "mindlink" projects, and the arson fire that put an end to this chapter in her life.

Heidi Jurka: Andrea Puharich and His Space Kids (February 2024)

Andy Puharich

Dr Andrija Puharich, medical and parapsychological researcher, medical inventor, physician and author.

Exerpts taken from interviews with his offspring for the 2023 documentary 'Mind Traveler'.

Puharich Personal (May 2023)

Psi Clips

Andrija Puharich, M.D. surveys his career researching psi, including studying the gifted subjects Eileen Garrett, Peter Hurkos, Uri Geller and others. Recorded at the Mind Science Foundation in San Antonio, Texas, USA on 21 February 1989. Dr. Puharich was Research Director there in the early '60s.

Much discussion also on ELF, psychotronics, government-sponsored psychic warfare and remote viewing of sub-atomic particles and fields (through Sharron Jacobson).

Dr. Puharich asserts that Peter Hurkos served as the top psychic for President Ronald Reagan. This was confirmed by Lee Sannella, M.D.

Andrea Puharich: Psi Explorations From Garrett to Geller And Beyond (February 1989)

Michael Salla

One of the most intriguing aspects of Gene Roddenberry’s creation of the Star Trek franchise was his relationship with a mysterious extraterrestrial group calling itself the Council of Nine that were being channeled by the psychic Phyllis Schlemmer in the 1970s. Roddenberry sat in on channeling sessions from 1974 to 1975, and participated in Q & A’s that were recorded in Schlemmer’s 1993 book, the Only Planet of Choice.

What lent credibility to the Council of Nine was that their existence was confirmed in the famous Law of One channeling sessions held from 1981 to 1984, which are widely regarded as the most authoritative channelings ever conducted due to the strict scientific protocols used by a retired applied physics professor, Don Elkins.

These historical events provide important context for Elena Danaan’s most recent contact experiences where she claims to have been taken to Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede, where she met with the Council of Nine, and was told why Rodenberry was chosen to prepare humanity for a Star Trek future.

This is an audio version of an article published on November 4, 2021, and narrated by the author Dr. Michael Salla.

Michael Salla: Contact with the Council of Nine & Roddenberry's Star Trek Future (November 2021)

Uri Geller

A book popped through my letterbox recently entitled Memories of a Maverick by H.G.M. Hermans. The maverick in question was Andrija Puharich (1918-1995) and the author, ‘Bep’ Hermans was his second wife. Her book has prompted this tribute to a great and much misunderstood scientist of great vision, versatility and courage and a wonderful human being. But for him, nobody outside Israel would probably ever have heard of me, and it is no exaggeration to say that I owe my career and my success to him.

H.G.M. Hermans: Memories Of A Maverick (1998)

L/L Research

Don and Carla were interviewed on WKQQ for their "UFO Awareness Week" in 1977, sharing information about their work in UFO investigation and communication.

Jim McCarty heard this interview on the radio, prompting him to seek out and join Don and Carla for their public meditations. Eventually, Don and Carla invited Jim to join efforts and form a trio, leading to the receiving of the Ra contact.

Interview with Don Elkins and Carla Rueckert (WKQQ, May 1977)

Monday, February 26, 2024

[rollerwavegallery]

Night Gallery (1970-1973)

All of us enthralled with horror and speculative fiction have, at one point or another, wanted to visit the Night Gallery in real life. You can’t deny the pull of these accursed paintings- masterfully brought into being by Tom Wright, they go today for thousands of dollars, each one a captivating original which represents a well-written tale of the paranormal or occult. And if the Night Gallery were a real place- a tangible museum rather than a manufactured set- it would attract thousands who wished to explore its dimly lit passages, with the captivating Gil Melle tune beeping and reverberating throughout. 

Many have accused Night Gallery of failing to live up to Rod Serling’s grand vision as a playwright, yet it contains all the proper Serling elements which made Twilight Zone such a hit initially. While it lacks much of the moral and philosophical nuance that have made Twilight Zone a timeless classic, I don’t think Night Gallery was ever intended to carry the same tonal weight, and I believe its lighter, more playful, anything-goes attitude is actually a benefit. 

Today, Night Gallery is indicative of a bygone era, which only props up its surreal, abstract intentions. The artistically inclined theme the show carries is no accident- this is the ultimate anthology series for the countercultural discontent of the early 1970s. Its editing is spastic, stories end on a dime with no definite resolution, the cinematography can become disjointed and trippy at points, and behind it all are some of the best celebrity performances you’re ever likely to witness, from the likes of Roddy McDowell, Sondra Locke, Joanna Pettet, Burgess Meredith, Rene Auberjonois, and more. 

While science-fiction episodes are rare, when they do appear, they’re great examples of the Rollerwave aesthetic, featuring technological bravado that could only have sprung from the imagination of Serling and his team. The segment “The Nature Of The Enemy” is what first inspired me to write this entry- set within a NASA laboratory during moon contact, it features the optimism of the Space Race, well-polished technicians and rows of beeping consoles, all coordinated to achieve lunar domination. Today, this fanatical dedication to spatial conquest is almost unbelievable. The gap between Earth and the Moon is palpable, held together only by thin radio signals and a blurry image on a screen. I won’t go into the plot here, but suffice to say, this is some of Rollerwave at its finest. 

Or take “The Little Black Bag,” featuring what I believe is a deliberately corny interpretation of 2098, complete with radio headset and computer. This is not only one of Burgess Meredith’s finest roles, equally on par with “Time Enough At Last,” it may be one of the greatest science-fiction episodes of any show, ever. It’s a tale of technological disparity and man’s cold inhumanity to man- a story which draws an ultimately misanthropic conclusion regarding our inability to exercise responsibility and good judgment when endowed with privilege. Its final scene is deliciously morbid. 

The greatest example of the Rollerwave aesthetic at work, however, comes up in the episode “Tell David,” wherein a woman is lost during a drive in the middle of the night and inexplicably travels forward in time from 1971 to 1989. An eccentric couple, David and Pat, living in a modern home with equally modern accommodations, show her such technological wonders as a computer phone and a gorgeous radio beeping out electronic tunes. The greatest achievement on display, however, bar-none, is one of the most accurate predictions I’ve ever seen in any sci-fi, let alone from the 1970s. This episode features Google Maps.

Yes, you heard that correctly- Night Gallery, in 1971, predicted a computerized, satellite-driven index of street names, addresses, and geolocational data. This machine might appear quaint to modern audiences, however being 34 years ahead of its time (Google Maps wasn’t launched until 2005) it’s an insanely forward-thinking, practical apparatus. David, in the episode, is revealed to have an obsession with gadgets, one of his chief characteristics, likely stemming from the childhood trauma he endures as a result of his father’s murder and his mother’s subsequent suicide. His preoccupation with technological innovation and modernity is in all likelihood a means for him to escape the horrors of his troubled past. This is not stated outright in the episode, of course, yet it comes across well enough as a subtext. Little else should be said regarding the intricacies of the episode- rest assured, it’s one of the Gallery’s finest. 

Here we must ultimately pass judgment on this show- does it constitute Rollerwave? I would argue that it does, at least when it attempts to tackle futuristic or scientific elements. These semantic concerns are ultimately what keeps this blog interesting- and why I began it in the first place. As a young, relatively unexplored genre, Rollerwave requires canonization- that is to say, an expert who can define what it is and isn’t. This expertise requires intuition, the ability to play it by ear, for the most part. Not all science fiction from the 1970s is Rollerwave- Alien, for instance, definitely isn’t.. By the same token, not all Rollerwave films are science-fiction, as is the case with Taxi Driver. 

I would be remiss not to include Night Gallery here, it’s a quintessential assortment of quirky 1970s fashion and attitude, and is, after all, the namesake for this project. Yes, that’s how much of a sucker I am for this program. Make of that what you will. 

[signalwatch]

Doc/ Review Watch: That's Entertainment (1974)

Watched:  12/31/2022

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Haley Jr.

I'm not clear on where this first showed - I guess wide release?  It has a box office take listed, so I guess it was put out in theaters.  Which is pretty wild.  The movie is essentially a review/ clip show of MGM musicals and the greatest generator of a punchlist for movie nerds I can think of.  

What's even wilder is that the movie was released as a 50th Anniversary celebration of MGM - and we're about 50 years from the release of this film.  Time.  It does roll on.  

The film is hosted by an array of folks who were still living and vibrant, from Frank Sinatra to Bing Crosby to Elizabeth Taylor to a Mickey Rooney (who'll de damned if he's gonna shoot in the sun and manages the worst lighting you'll see in a major release as he wanders down a tree-lined sidewalk).  But it's all a celebration of what made the movie musical great - and it makes a stunning case for the idea.  Spectacle, talent, artistry and a bit of hokum all combine in an electric mix across about 100 clips supporting the thesis and the arguments presented for the musical. 

Clips cover everything from the Depression-era Busby Berkley opuses to Andy Hardy films to Eleanor Powell, Ann Miller and of course Fred and Ginger (and Fred and Cyd).  And a reminder that the most insane Hollywood may have ever gone was staging Esther Williams movies.  It's impossible to imagine happening in the past 40 years.  

1974 - the year of release - is an interesting inflection point.  Liza Minnelli appears to remind you she's the daughter of Judy Garland and Vincent Minnelli and that she just won an Oscar for a musical.  It's the promise of a new generation taking on musicals, which may have seemed possible in '74.  But, clearly, that's not what happened.  Sure, these days we get one or two a year, and most Disney cartoons are musicals for all intents and purposes, but as much as westerns would fade, musicals became a novelty.  And, frankly, it seems like people my age feel weirdly threatened by musicals that don't start as Broadway shows.*

Trotting out the old guard is a fine idea for a retrospective, but in 1974, there's no home video.  They weren't going to re-release 45 years of musicals, I don't think.  So what was this for?  One last hurrah and a trip down memory lane?  The stars walk the now clearly dilapidated sets, around a decaying MGM lot, and I have to ask "why?"  Why would MGM show their own sets in such a state of disrepair?  I don't know what happened to MGM in the 1960's, but the story of MGM by the 1980's was about purchases, mergers, real estate sales...  the company had gone from being a force of nature to a has-been.  Even today, MGM seems to exist to put out Bond movies and not a whole lot else.  If this film hoped to push people to clamor for musicals, I guess - not so much.

That said, it's a stunning reminder of what Hollywood - at least MGM - did on the regular to deliver wildly imaginative productions, the kind of talent they had on staff, and what movies can do.  And maybe what we lost when the 1970's taught us to rely on "realism" in film, or at least pivoted us to space epics for our visions of flights of fancy.  

Clearly Broadway tells us there's still an audience for musicals, and you do wonder - with today's techniques - what would an Esther Williams film look like?  Who could star in it?  Can an audience sit for a tap number?  Do people still get swept up in ballroom dancing by the best, or just when it's a reality show with D-level stars trotted out for two minute numbers and people pretending to be judges?

And, honestly, even TCM doesn't play musicals like it used to.  I'm sure the numbers track better to other kinds of films for whatever reason, but it would be nice to have some play of those big spectacle flicks.

MGM produced enough of these musicals that it spawned several sequels - That's Entertainment 2 and 3, as well as That's Dancing.  So clearly they were making some money off of these things.  

*I will never get the hostility to La-La Land

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Josephine 'Jojo' Mayfair - Mayfair Witches

[40-50, hospital board member/witch/prophet, trans woman, she/her, pansexual, fc: Jen Richards]

Born to the infamous Mayfair family in the late 1970s, Jojo lived a life of privilege with a father who loved her and used his status and money to provide her with everything she could ever want or need. Jojo grew up without a mother and her father was a somewhat erratic figure in her life with both his job and his desire to party, her only source of real stability being a nanny and her school routine. Despite the mild instability, Jojo has many happy and normal memories with her father and considers herself to have had a fairly normal childhood that she wouldn't change anything about.

Ever since she was a child, Jojo has experienced visions and dreams of the future that always proved true in one way or another. Some proved hard to understand and others were clear as day. Some happened within minutes and others happened decades down the line. She has an incredibly good memory for these things, but it also proved useful to write them down. Jojo was not the first person in the family to show signs of magic, in fact their family had a long history of witches going back centuries. Not all Mayfairs had powers, but quite a few did and it was considered normal. Some parts of the family accepted them as gifts from god or another benevolent figure to be stoked and grown while others believed them to be a mark of the devil to be suppressed and burnt out.

As an adult, Jojo has learned to follow these visions and use them to help others. She's also taught herself, with the help of her father and a handful of family members, other types of magic that she's gained through a near literal deal with the devil. Most of her time though is spent simply trying to enjoy life for everything it has to offer, but she does work on the local hospital's board in an attempt to make sure her father's money goes to the places that really need it. She has considered becoming a doctor, but has yet to have any real desire to pursue the career and put the work in.

Josephine is the type of person who loves finding any excuse to celebrate (a trait she gets from her father), but she also finds it incredibly easy to get serious when the situation calls for it. She's incredibly protective over those she cares about and has no issue cursing those who wrong her or the people in her life. Her shoulder is available for those who need a place to cry and she's capable of either finding a needed distraction, the space to feel emotions, or offer real advice, depending on what the other person wants or needs. She isn't often emotionally in distress, but when she is, she can find it hard to open up to those in her life, not often to any emotional detriment though. Her biggest emotional obstacle currently is her inability to carry a child, but she does believe that when it is her time, she will either conceive a child through magical means or adopt a child who is truly meant to be hers. She doesn't currently believe she has any trauma outside of small instances of transphobia and various other things, but there are things in her past that she has yet to uncover that may very well break her entire view of her family and quite possibly her entire life. She also knows there will be many instances of hard times in her future, but she has decided that there's no reason to worry about things that have yet to happen. She will face them head on whenever they may crop up.

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Hidden Historical Landmarks of Salt Lake City Beyond Temple Square

Salt Lake City, often recognized for the iconic Temple Square, is brimming with historical landmarks that tell the story of its rich past. While Temple Square is undoubtedly a must-see, there are numerous other sites that offer a deeper understanding of the city's heritage. Join me as we uncover the hidden historical gems of Salt Lake City.

The Devereaux House

The Devereaux House, a stunning example of mid-19th-century architecture, stands as a testament to Salt Lake City's early development. This house is more than just a pretty façade; it's a gateway to understanding the city's formative years.

Architectural Significance

Built-in 1857, the Devereaux House features a blend of Gothic Revival and Victorian architecture. Its intricate woodwork and grand interiors reflect the craftsmanship of the era, making it a unique landmark in the city.

Historical Events and Notable Figures

Throughout its history, the Devereaux House has hosted many significant events and notable figures. It served as a social hub where dignitaries, including President Ulysses S. Grant, were entertained, cementing its place in Utah's social history.

Lavish Design and Architecture

The McCune Mansion boasts a mix of French Renaissance and Victorian styles, with exquisite detailing in its woodwork, stained glass, and furnishings. The grandeur of its design reflects the wealth and status of its original owner.

Role in Utah's Cultural Heritage

Beyond its architectural splendor, the McCune Mansion has played a pivotal role in Utah's cultural landscape. It has been a venue for numerous cultural events, weddings, and social gatherings, preserving its legacy as a cultural landmark.

Fort Douglas

Established in 1862, Fort Douglas is a significant historical site that offers a glimpse into Salt Lake City's military past. Originally built to protect the overland mail route and telegraph lines, it has since evolved into a cultural treasure.

Gilgal Sculpture Garden

Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood, Gilgal Sculpture Garden is one of Salt Lake City's most unique and intriguing landmarks. Created by Thomas Batters by Child Jr., this garden is filled with eccentric sculptures and symbolic artwork.

Creator's Vision and Legacy

Child's vision for Gilgal Gardens was to create a "sermon in stone," a place where art and spirituality converge. His legacy lives on in this whimsical and contemplative space, inviting visitors to explore its deeper meanings.

The Utah State Capitol

The Utah State Capitol is not only a center of government but also a beacon of architectural beauty and historical significance. Completed in 1916, this neoclassical building stands proudly atop Capitol Hill.

Architectural Grandeur

The Capitol's design, inspired by the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., features a grand dome, impressive columns, and intricate interior details. Its commanding presence is a testament to the architectural ambitions of the early 20th century.

Historical Milestones

Over the years, the Utah State Capitol has witnessed many pivotal moments in the state's history. It continues to serve as a symbol of Utah's political and cultural evolution, making it a must-visit for history enthusiasts.

Trolley Square

Once a bustling hub for the city's trolley system, Trolley Square has transformed into a vibrant shopping center while retaining its historical charm. This unique blend of old and new makes it a fascinating destination.

Evolution from Transport Hub to Shopping Center

Trolley Square was originally built in 1908 as a streetcar depot. After the decline of the trolley system, it was repurposed into a shopping center in the 1970s, preserving many of its original structures and features.

The Cathedral of the Madeleine

The Cathedral of the Madeleine is a stunning example of Gothic architecture and a center of religious and cultural activity in Salt Lake City. Completed in 1909, it remains a vital part of the city's spiritual landscape.

Gothic Architecture

The cathedral's design features soaring spires, intricate stained glass windows, and detailed stone carvings. Its architectural beauty is a testament to the craftsmanship and vision of its builders.

Religious and Cultural Significance

Beyond its architectural appeal, the Cathedral of the Madeleine serves as a place of worship and a cultural hub. It hosts various events, including concerts and community gatherings, enriching the city's cultural fabric.

Pioneer Park

Pioneer Park, located in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, is a historic site that commemorates the city's early settlers. This green space offers both historical insights and recreational opportunities.

Architectural Beauty

The mansion's design features grand columns, intricate stonework, and elegant interiors. Its architectural beauty reflects the wealth and influence of its original owner.

Historical Relevance in Utah Politics

The Kearns Mansion has served as the official residence of Utah's governors since 1937. It remains a symbol of the state's political history and a cherished landmark in Salt Lake City.

The Masonic Temple

The Masonic Temple in Salt Lake City is a striking building with deep symbolic meaning and historical significance. Built in 1927, it continues to be an important site for the Masonic community.

Transportation History

The depot played a crucial role in the development of Salt Lake City, facilitating the movement of people and goods. Its history is intertwined with the growth and expansion of the city.

Preservation Efforts

Today, the Union Pacific Depot has been repurposed for modern use while preserving its historical elements. It stands as a tribute to the city's past and a testament to successful preservation efforts.

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Lessons on Effective and Inclusive Leadership from Films and TV Series

In the dynamic landscape of leadership and human resources, finding inspiration from various sources can offer profound insights. Films and TV series, with their rich narratives and diverse characters, provide valuable lessons on effective and inclusive leadership. Here are some exemplary titles that highlight essential leadership qualities and practices.

TV Films

Remember the Titans (2000)

This sports drama highlights the integration of a high school football team in Virginia in the early 1970s. It showcases how team members and coaches overcome racial tension to achieve success. From this film, we learn that inclusive leadership involves recognising and addressing biases, fostering a culture of unity, and leveraging diversity to build stronger, more cohesive teams. Treating all players equally and focusing on mutual respect and shared goals is a prime example of how to lead inclusively.

The Help (2011)

Set in the 1960s, "The Help" portrays the lives of African American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi. The film underscores the importance of empathy, courage, and the willingness to challenge societal norms. Leaders can learn the value of giving a voice to the marginalised, understanding their struggles, and advocating for their rights, which are crucial for fostering an inclusive environment.

Hidden Figures (2016)

"Hidden Figures" tells the true story of three African American women mathematicians at NASA. It highlights issues of race and gender in the workplace. This film teaches that effective leadership means recognising and nurturing talent irrespective of race or gender and actively working to dismantle systemic barriers. The support and advocacy by leaders within NASA demonstrate how to create opportunities and inclusive policies that empower all employees.

The Color Purple (1985)

Based on Alice Walker’s novel, "The Color Purple" follows African American women facing oppression and abuse in the early 20th-century South. It teaches the importance of resilience, empowerment, and creating supportive networks. Leaders can learn the significance of fostering environments where individuals feel valued and empowered to overcome personal and systemic challenges.

Selma (2014)

"Selma" focuses on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches led by Martin Luther King Jr. The film emphasises the power of vision, moral courage, and strategic planning in leadership. It highlights that inclusive leadership involves advocating for justice and equality and rallying people around a common cause to drive social change.

Moonlight (2016)

"Moonlight" follows a young African American man grappling with his identity and sexuality in a rough Miami neighbourhood. This film underscores the importance of understanding and supporting the diverse experiences of individuals. Leaders can learn to create safe spaces where people can express their identities without fear of judgement or discrimination.

Coco (2017)

"Coco" celebrates Mexican culture and traditions, focusing on the importance of family and heritage. This animated film teaches that inclusive leadership involves respecting and celebrating cultural diversity, understanding the importance of family and community, and creating environments where people can share their cultural heritage.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

This biographical film depicts the life of John Nash, a mathematician who struggled with schizophrenia. It highlights issues of mental health and acceptance. Leaders can learn the importance of supporting mental health, understanding the unique contributions of individuals with mental health conditions, and fostering an inclusive environment that accommodates and values everyone’s strengths.

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020)

This documentary explores the origins of the disability rights movement in the United States, starting from a summer camp for disabled teenagers. It teaches that inclusive leadership involves advocating for accessibility, recognising the potential of individuals with disabilities, and actively working to remove barriers that hinder their participation in society.

The Intouchables (2011)

"The Intouchables" tells the story of the friendship between a wealthy quadriplegic man and his caregiver from a poor background. It emphasises themes of social inclusion and mutual respect. Leaders can learn the value of empathy, building relationships across different social strata, and understanding that effective teamwork often involves diverse perspectives and experiences.

Wonder (2017)

"Wonder" follows a young boy with a facial difference attending mainstream school for the first time. It highlights themes of empathy, kindness, and acceptance. Leaders can learn the importance of fostering inclusive environments where everyone feels accepted and valued for who they are and encouraging empathy and kindness within their teams.

Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

This comedy-drama about a young British-Indian girl who dreams of playing football explores cultural expectations and the pursuit of one's passions. It teaches that inclusive leadership involves supporting individuals in pursuing their passions, respecting cultural differences, and breaking down stereotypes to create opportunities for everyone.

Philadelphia (1993)

"Philadelphia" is a legal drama about a lawyer who is fired because of his HIV status. It addresses issues of discrimination and the fight for justice. Leaders can learn the importance of standing up against discrimination, advocating for the rights of all individuals, and fostering inclusive policies that protect employees from bias.

A League of Their Own (1992)

This film tells the story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League during World War II. It showcases the challenges and triumphs of women athletes. Leaders can learn to recognise and support the contributions of women, create opportunities for underrepresented groups, and challenge gender stereotypes.

My Name is Khan (2010)

"My Name is Khan" follows a Muslim man with Asperger's syndrome on a journey across America. It highlights issues of racial profiling and autism. Leaders can learn to embrace diversity, advocate for marginalised groups, and foster understanding and acceptance of individuals with different abilities and backgrounds.

TV Series

The West Wing (1999-2006)

This political drama focuses on the lives of the staff in the West Wing of the White House. It highlights the complexities of leadership in government, ethical dilemmas, and the importance of collaboration and integrity. Leaders can learn the significance of ethical decision-making, the impact of leadership on policy and society, and the value of teamwork.

Band of Brothers (2001)

This miniseries follows the Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division during World War II. It explores leadership under extreme conditions and the bonds formed between soldiers. Leaders can learn the importance of resilience, trust, and camaraderie in building effective teams and leading through crises.

Mad Men (2007-2015)

Set in the 1960s advertising industry, "Mad Men" offers insights into different leadership styles and the personal and professional challenges of leading in a competitive industry. Leaders can learn the impact of leadership on organisational culture, the importance of adapting leadership styles to different situations, and balancing personal and professional lives.

The Crown (2016-present)

This historical drama chronicles the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It provides a detailed look at leadership at the highest level, the responsibilities of a monarch, and the personal sacrifices required. Leaders can learn the significance of duty, the balance between tradition and change, and the personal costs of leadership.

Succession (2018-present)

This dark comedy-drama follows a family struggling for control of their company. It explores the toxic side of leadership and power struggles. Leaders can learn the detrimental effects of toxic leadership, the importance of ethical leadership, and the impact of family dynamics on business.

Friday Night Lights (2006-2011)

Set in a small Texas town, this series focuses on the high school football team’s coach and his leadership both on and off the field. Leaders can learn the importance of community, the impact of leadership on young people, and balancing personal and professional pressures.

House of Cards (2013-2018)

This political thriller examines the darker side of leadership through the ruthless rise of a political figure. It explores themes of manipulation, ambition, and power struggles. Leaders can learn the dangers of unethical behaviour, the impact of ambition unchecked by ethics, and the consequences of power without accountability.

Billions (2016-present)

This drama series explores power dynamics in high finance, pitting a hedge fund manager against a U.S. Attorney. It showcases different leadership styles and the ethical and moral challenges they face. Leaders can learn the importance of integrity, the impact of leadership on organisational culture, and navigating ethical dilemmas.

Breaking Bad (2008-2013)

Following the transformation of a high school chemistry teacher into a drug kingpin, "Breaking Bad" offers a unique perspective on leadership, morality, and consequences. Leaders can learn the importance of ethical decision-making, the long-term consequences of actions, and the impact of personal choices on professional life.

The Office (2005-2013)

This mockumentary sitcom provides a humorous take on office life and the leadership style of a bumbling manager. It highlights the importance of effective leadership, team dynamics, and creating a positive work environment. Leaders can learn the value of empathy, the impact of leadership on team morale, and the importance of effective communication.

Parks and Recreation (2009-2015)

Following the employees of the Parks and Recreation Department in a small town, this series showcases various leadership styles and the challenges of public service. Leaders can learn the importance of perseverance, creativity in problem-solving, and fostering a positive work culture.

The Expanse (2015-2022)

Set in a future where humanity has colonised the solar system, this sci-fi series explores political and military leadership in a complex and diverse interplanetary society. Leaders can learn the importance of adaptability, the impact of decisions on a large scale, and the value of inclusive leadership in diverse environments.

These films and TV series provide valuable lessons on effective and inclusive leadership, showcasing the importance of empathy, integrity, resilience, and ethical decision-making. By understanding and applying these principles, leaders can create more inclusive, supportive, and effective teams and organisations.