Category: Uncategorized
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A Short Theory of Rest
We Americans, and probably those of us in the wider West, have a strange relationship to rest. We have to be always moving, doing something – not just something, but something productive. How often have we felt that simply resting (like taking a nap) was wrong by its very nature of being unproductive? How many of…
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Bureaucracy As Accidental Hero
Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City” and Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem” Major Bergmann (right), played by Harry Feist, in Robert Rossellini’s Rome, Open City. Next to him is Ingrid, a German spy, played by Giovanna Galletti. Rome, Open City – the 1946 Italian neorealist film directed by Roberto Rossellini – is ostensibly about resistance fighters in The Eternal…
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5 Reasons to Drop a Bad Book
Or, The Argument Against Being a Book Completionist The “World History” shelf at the Joyner-Green Valley Library in Green Valley, AZ. The author is not saying any of the books in the above photo are bad.Photo by the author, taken on Oct. 10, 2023. It’s the dawn of a new year, so let’s have ourselves a desert dispatch listicle! …
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Capitalism Always Rings Twice
The economics of creative destructionand the death of the smartphone Will it eventually be game over for smartphones?Photo taken by the author on February 21, 2023. Looking backward I come to bury the smartphone, not to praise it. Consider this a premature and slightly open-ended obituary for that once-futuristic and now ubiquitous and quotidian piece…
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Magic and Science in the Mojave Desert
Jack Parsons, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Babalon Working The Mojave Desert strethes into four US states, including California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. Joshua Tree National Park (pictured) is in the California section of the Mojave. There are certainly worse places to hold a magick ritual.Photo by the author, taken on Nov. 10, 2023. The…
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Desert Poetry
Housekeeping, two poems, and what’s to come in 2024 This time of year is always busy – no matter the faith or creed, or lack thereof. That extends even to yours truly. In between festive gatherings and holiday cheer, I have been researching and writing several new (and somewhat lengthy) articles: one is a discussion…