Fantastic Voyage

Happy New Year? Luckily, we made it to another Friday. Let’s celebrate this win with some links.

The hostile telepaths problem.

The hostile telepaths problem is when you’re dealing with a being (a) who can kind of read your internal experiences and (b) whom you don’t trust won’t make your situation worse due to what they find in you.

There are lots of solutions to the hostile telepaths problem. I don’t claim to know all of them. But recognizing some common ones has helped clarify a lot of my thinking — particularly around self-deception and akrasia.

And getting very clear on the nature of the problem makes identifying real solutions way easier. This fact produces some previously-surprising-to-me predictions, especially for trauma processing and for making emotionally difficult decisions.

Lorna Simpson is iconic.

At Lorna Simpson’s Show, a Constellation of Galactic and Human History. Lorna’s website and instagram. Lorna’s Earth and Sky exhibition runs to January 11th.

With ‘Earth & Sky,’ Lorna Simpson debuts a new body of work exploring our relationships—physical and metaphysical—to unseen forces that work upon us individually and generationally, alternately challenging and empowering our sense of our own humanity. The exhibition encompasses a series of massive paintings inspired by a 1929 textbook ‘Minerals from Earth and Sky,’ along with a pair of monumental paintings depicting the impact of fired bullets.

Tomorrow, January 4th, while you are wearing a few extra layers due to the cold, Earth will be at perihelion, the closest it gets to the sun during its elliptical orbit.

Movie of the week:

Overall, an ok film on space travel. The imagery was amazing BUT … I also laughed a few times because this movie is definitely geared to those people who enjoy sci-fi movies but do not think about the science fiction. For instance, the Neptune sling shot and the killer monkeys. Add in Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones, and this movie could be a real stinker if you care about the overall package. I could get behind a movie, though, about moon pirates, which see a very brief moment of in this movie. Recommended if you just want to be entertained but leave everything else. Also, more Ruth Negga in sci-fi films please!

Listening to:

Moonrise podcast.

“Truer, but also darker.” This is the real origin story behind America’s decision to go to the moon.

Trying to wrap my head around:

Marco photography of sand.

Have an extra $25,000 laying around?

Celestial Chess & Backgammon Set.

If money is tight, I’ll take this backgammon board instead. Relatively cheap at $8,300.

Hey there, took a little break from websites and updating them. Blame the holidays! Regardless, we made it to Friday, again. Did you have a good Christmas Day? Here’s some stuff I’ve been reading, watching and thinking about.

Currently reading:

Thought Forms: A Record of Clairvoyant Investigation. Sacred Bones reprinted this book and it looks great. Pretty sure this book is in the public domain. The Sacred Bones release, though, is packaged in a beautiful book form that feels and looks great in your hands or your bookshelf.

Music:

Three Great Things with Jason Pierce. And an interview with Jason about the upcoming Pure Phase shows.

Sky Stuff Currently Obsessed with:

Lunar Impact Videos.

One of the best websites/articles about the moon I’ve found on the internet.

In the vastness of empty space surrounding Earth, the Moon is our closest celestial neighbor. Its face, periodically filled with light and devoured by darkness, has an ever-changing, but dependable presence in our skies.

In this article, we’ll learn about the Moon and its path around our planet, but to experience that journey first-hand, we have to enter the cosmos itself.

The Parker Solar Probe:

The Fastest Spacecraft Ever Heads for Its Close-Up With the Sun.

NASA: Parker Solar Probe.

Execution of Parker Solar Probe’s unprecedented flight to the Sun and early results. I cannot get enough of NASA diagram and chart aesthetic.

Movie Recommendation:

Star Pilot.

1966 Italian Sci-fi B-movie. Typical with the 60s vibe, the women are dressed pretty proactively, the script is on par with corny Christmas movies and the special effects are not very special but the set and photography is pretty eye catching if you dig 1960s futurism. While it is another alien sci-fi movie about the evils of nuclear destruction, it’s a fun watch and you can see the movie’s influences as well as it’s influence of others that come later in the genre.

The Fastest Spaceship In Science Fiction

Podcasts!

One of my favorite podcasts of 2024 was Every Single Sci-fi Film Ever.

This recent episode was a doozy. I need to try to get Ayesha Khan on Fantastic Voyage.

Hope you all have a fun and safe New Year. I’ll be back live this Sunday at 4pm.