SoCal L.O.W.F.I

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Skylaire Alfvegren will be discussing L.O.W.F.I., her own personal anomalous experiences, reports she’s received, and all kinds of coolness this Sunday, 5-7pm PST, 7pm CST… on L.O.W.F.I. Texas bureau chief Smiles Lewis’ PsiOp Radio!!! Call-in Number: (512) 879 – 3805

I don’t mean to get all political here, but I finally saw Carly Fiorina’s campaign ad–she’s staking a spot to run for California senate–and I can’t stop laughing.

Already tagged as one of the 20 worst CEOs in US history, Fiorina ups the ante here with one of the most ridiculous political ads I’ve ever seen. What’s next? “The phone rings at 3 am… sheep have come to dose you with LSD…” I can’t wait for next spot.

Is Pee wee trying to tell us something?

http://peeweesstore.com/popup_image.php?pID=42

Maybe that’s why he’s taking his stage show to Las Vegas…

Here’s a blast from the (relative) past, our man about town in Dublin Ireland, Daev Walsh, photographer extraordinaire and Fortean of good report–on his visit to the house Charles Fort occupied in London between the years of 1921 and 1928.

http://www.photoshelter.com/c/davewalshphoto/img-show/I0000LXS06gbD1YE

“California–you’re supposed to be the out-there, wild ones!” Comedian Eddie Izzard remarked, after the California smoking ban was passed in bars. Once upon a time, all the loose cannons rolled west. I won’t take any responsibility for the Governator–who balks at legalizing pot, which would balance the state budget, but champions the idea of privitizing the state prisons. In Los Angeles, Mayor Villaraigosa can’t possibly cut police and fire services, which I’ve heard, account for 75% of the city budget (that can’t be right). I’m all for firemen–but here in West Hollywood, where both the county police and sheriffs have jurisdiction–I suspect it has more to do with the LAPD lobby than any pretense of public safety.

Who needs parks, or education, or health services? How is it, exactly, that a county which contains the 5th LARGEST ECONOMY IN THE WORLD–can be on the brink of bankruptcy?

The Los Angeles State Historic Park — site of the Anabolic Monument, past site of Not A Cornfield — is under threat of being shut down.

LASHP is not alone. 220 of California’s 279 state parks, beaches, and preserves are on a budget-cutting hit list. Here’s a Los Angeles Times summary. Here’s the Downtown News on the local park. Finally, here’s the website of the California State Parks Foundation, a “friends-of” group to the California State Parks Department.

As far as I know–my little slice of the world has yet to play host to even a single crop circle. When he was governor of California, forward-thinking Ronald Reagan proposed turning the Santa Monica mountains into a giant trash dump. Yeah–the out there, wild ones.

HEY GANG! THE GOOD FOLKS AT ANCIENT WISDOM ARE OFFERING L.O.W.F.I. A DISCOUNT ON TICKETS FOR JORDAN MAXWELL’S EVENT SUNDAY! COME DOWN AND ASK FOR IVY WEST, AND MENTION L.O.W.F.I.–$20 OFF PER TICKET! ONLY GOOD IF YOU BUY TICKETS ON-SITE–this is a very special and generous offer–AND LOOK FOR THE ELF IN THE BLACK LEATHER COWBOY HAT! (that’ll be me!)

Also, some very interesting folks will be at the Cheap Trick show at House of Blues in West Hollywood, February 25th… shameless plug for a mighty band… sadly, I will be in Laughlin…

I often determine whether or not I am “going in the right direction” depending on the level of coincidence and synchronicity I find in my life at any particular time… this past week or so, it’s been off the charts, I thought I’d share some of it, and invite you to share your own synchronistic experiences with us!

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I have a cat. He is a ridiculous cat, whose birthday falls five days after that of my boyfriend. Cats I’ve always found aloof, but the Orange Baron is special. He appeared in my living room, with a woman named Michelle, a foster mom to abandoned kittens rescued in various locations around Los Angeles, about a year ago.

It was her deceased brother who had helped me get my first $1 a word writing assignment over a decade ago. She passed on the news that his long-time companion had recently passed away in his sleep; that fellow had been very close friends with a now-dead former room-mate of mine, by coincidence

Some nights ago I scanned an ancient interview with psychedelic researcher, Terence McKenna. Nine pages in, at the very end, my co-author pokes fun at the fact that Terence is trying to set my up with his only son, born the same year I was. His name is Finn. So is my cat’s.

*********

Just the other day, I asked for a guest list spot for a friend’s lecture. No problem, he says, and asks me when Cheap Trick is coming back to town, who we had seen together last year. I go online; they’ve got a one-off show in Boston. No local luck, even though they play 200+ shows a year. In the morning, I click on the radio. Cheap Trick ticket give-away coming up; a local show had been announced that morning. No tour, just two random gigs, one a mile from my house, the other in Boston.

A few hours later, I get a call… from Boston. My boyfriend had been the victim of a hit-and-run there, asks me to price out body shops. I post a plea on Facebook, and get one and only one response, from a fellow whose acquaintance I first made when he was doing publicity for a band I was writing about.

The band, of course, happened to be Cheap Trick.

*********

I get tea with some friends that come to Mr. Cheap Trick’s lecture with me. Around us, tables have numbers on them–78, 53. The waiter places #9 on ours, my long-time lucky number. The next night, I meet my uncle, his Illuminati/Masonic conspiracy friend, and the singular, mystic entity known as “Stevie D.”

There to see Terry Gilliam’s fantastic new film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, it’s playing in theatre #9, of a possible 12. Stevie D hands me my ticket– #23, as my uncle’s friend comments on the black and white checker motif in the film’s trailer–23 being an interesting number, whose significance is far-reaching, “the magic synchronistic number,” as its called by some.

Earlier in the evening, I posted my first thing on this very blog. (Luddite that I am, I had been having our webmaster post everything for me.) “Did you notice,” he writers, after I return from the theatre. “…that your first post was the 23rd? And also, I added a translator widget… the 23rd widget… how’s that for Erisian synchronicity?”

*********

Last year, I got it in my head that I should become a Mason, although I am female. After a handful of conversations with a member of a major local lodge, I lost interest.

A few nights ago, Masonry crept back into my consciousness… I don’t recall exactly how. I get a call from the road, would I please check the temperature in Denver over the course of the night (Denver airport, of course, being a major spot of Masonic speculation). I go online; the temperature is and continues to hold steady for the next dozen hours at 33 degrees.

The next afternoon, I stumble upon a lodge practicing co-Masonry, or Adoptive Masonry, which is to say, it includes women. I am elated, as they have three lodges in the U.S., and the only one on the west coast happens to be here in Los Angeles. (Say what you will of the Masons, my opinion is that one cannot condemn what one is ignorant of.)

Out of the blue, someone reminds me of a lecturer I am going to see this Sunday. “He is very kind to the neophytes,” I read in one screen on my computer as I write the organizer for a special ticket discount for LOWFI. Tickets for us, she writes, will be $33. I think that odd, and write her back to clarify. “I meant $35. Don’t know why I wrote that!” She said.

Chores finished, I got for a stroll down Melrose, and in front of a rack of women’s dresses in the window of a shop I frequent, was this t shirt:

(It was designed by the same fellow who created the Obama HOPE poster, although I’m not trying to make a connection between the two, of course.)

*********

The germ of this post began the day after Thanksgiving. My family is fractured and strange. My grandmother had a sister, who had a daughter, who I learned lived in southern California. In the two years I had her number, I couldn’t bring myself to call. What would I say? I am no fan of awkward pauses.

I call her the night after Thanksgiving, leave a message at her home number, even though the outgoing message explains she’s out of town, please call there. I don’t want to bother her, and wax poetic about the passage of time.

Much to my surprise, she calls me the next day. “We do not suffer from insanity, we rather enjoy it,” a theatrical voice tells me. Oh, yeah, we’re related! She had been holding onto her mother’s ancient checkbook cover, and it told her to check her messages at home. She had been looking for me for seven years.

We speak on the phone, and meet at her friend’s Christmas party. Too long to spell out here, the encounter would be better suited to celluloid–it was THAT funny. She has embraced our Indian heritage, tells me many things; yes, I am related to the McCoys (of the Hatfields and McCoys), yes, my grandfather was a visionary and did want to be a priest, until he met my hot grandma; yes, she really is a sage farmer… On our way out, she follows my boyfriend and I banging a native American drum and chanting.

I had asked her what her birthday was; she was born the very minute the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. When I get home, I leaf through a pile of clippings someone had sent me; on top of the pile is an article about Lucile Ball, for no apparent reason. Her birthday: August 6th. Funny, that’s my relative’s birthday, as well…

I crack open one of my favorite books, The Secret Language of Birthdays, a fabulous astrological resource which has a detailed, metaphysical and practical astrological profile for each of the 365 days of the year. When ever I do an interview, I consult The Secret Language for insight into the character of the individual I am about to interview.

I am curious about this wacky relative of mine, turn to her pages, and discover that her day is said to be “The Day of Unique Happenings.”

My eyes drift to the right hand corner, for it is there that I scribble names of people born that day, that I know, love, admire, have interviewed, or despise. Who do I find shares my crazy relative’s birthday?

My patron saint, my favorite philosopher, and the inspiration for this group… Charles Fort.

British raconteur/anarchist/proto-punk sci-fi author Mick Farren reads from his new collection, Zones of Chaos accompanied by master axman Andy Colquhoun. (And copies of Zones of Chaos can still be obtained for the super-low price of ten bucks. Just shove a ten spot in an envelope and mail it to Doc40 with your address. Email byron4d@msn.com for where to send it.)

Anyone for some Arctic roll? Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway

Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing display to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or shock wave – although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet.

Google translated:

Spectacular phenomenon in the skies over northern Norway.

Published: 09/12/2009 at 08:23

In the morning rush hour, at 07.47, showed the special phenomenon in the sky. It is described as a glowing ball in the sky, which rotated and “thrown out” luminous rings. The phenomenon grew rapidly in a spiral, with bright white rings towards the edges and blue, bright rings in the center. Spiral grew steadily larger, until it eventually was significantly greater than both the moon and other things it will be normal to find in the sky.

“Spiral” also walked across the sky, leaving a bright blue track.

[---]

The whole thing lasted just under one minute and then spiral in the sky collapsed, leaving it in a dark, circular “hole” in the night sky.

Continue…

Full Story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1234430/Mystery-spiral-blue-light-display-hovers-Norway.html

10 December 2009
www.dailymail.co.uk

More pictures here:  www.altaposten.no…

Direct link to the article in Norwegian here:  www.altaposten.no…

Another Norwegian article here:  www.tv2nyhetene.no…

Update – Here are two brief videos of the oddity, one at the start, one at the end… Norwegian Swirl Anomaly 1
Norwegian Swirl Anomaly 2

by Skylaire Alfvegren

El Coyote is Movieland‘s idea of a Mexican restaurant: the lighting is garish, the margaritas stiff. Waitresses clad in petti-coated, off-the-shoulder cotton fiestas have been serving, as they call it, “authentic California style Mexican food” to actors and others since 1931, but the blood-red leather booth in the back played host to its most infamous party on the night of August 8^th, 1969, when actress Sharon Tate dined there with Jay Sebring, Wojciech Fryowski and Abigail Folger. Later that night, the group would be slain by followers of Charles Manson at Tate’s home at 10050 Cielo Drive.

Tall, blonde, and forever gripping a camcorder, odd-teur John Aes-Nihil (director of the gory cult classic, Manson Family Movies) gathered his unusual band of miscreants for “the Last Supper,” this past Saturday night, as he has done every August 8^th since 1979. Manson’s long-standing appeal? “It was the first time the hippies struck back,” one diner commented. Or was it?

Never a true crime buff nor serial killer dilettante, I had long viewed Manson symbolically–a guitar-strumming eco-terrorist with a Messiah complex who effectively extinguished the Age of Aquarius, but on this, the 40^th anniversary of the Tate/LaBianca slayings, a different picture emerged.

Manson, suspected of being both an FBI informant and agent provocateur, may well have been a patsy. “The FBI took out the Black Panthers, the Yippies, the Weather Underground, and it’s a contention that the murders were orchestrated,” author Adam Gorightly pointed out between sips of a margarita. Manson’s connections to military intelligence, the Church of Scientology, government-sponsored mind control experiments and the ‘60s occult underground ripple through The Shadow Over Santa Susana, Gorightly’s definitive Manson tome, recently re-released by Creation Books.

Manson referred to his family as “slippies,“ and only grew his hair long in the months proceeding the murders; but because of Manson, “it was a long time before you saw longhairs portrayed in a positive light.”

Aes-Nihil’s group of historians, writers, musicians and film makers traded stories of the weird, twisted Hollywood of old, attracting the attention of a pudgy blonde industry type, who, with no prompting, described the “peaceful vibe” surrounding Tate’s house when Trent Reznor recorded “Helter Skelter” there with a not-yet famous Marilyn Manson. Archivist Aes-Nihil (short for “aesthetic nihilism”) poked his ever-present camera in the man’s face, adding to the hundreds of hours of Manson-related footage he’s acquired over the decades, smirking all the while.

In all the years I’d known John Aes-Nihil, I’d always thought it was the Family’s creep factor that had attracted him. Many of my teenaged Saturdays were spent riding the bus all the way to his house in Winnetka (oddly enough, the childhood home of trickster artist and LA Weekly pal, Jeffrey Vallance), where I’d gorge myself on Jodorowsky and Cecil Taylor before waking up at four a.m. to hawk copies of movies from his archive at various swap meets around the southland. Our booth was always popular, even though a lone copy of Time magazine with the Manson cover hung from the entrance.

“There’s infinitely more to the Manson thing than Tex Watson killing people,” he explained. “I’m obsessed with the effect the murders had on the ‘60s since I was there, part of a group somewhat like the Family. When the story came out, we didn’t believe it for a second.” A man of infamously few words, he resumed shooting the party‘s chatter.

Church of Satan founder, Anton La Vey had cursed Tate’s husband, director Roman Polanski, after they’d had a falling out on the set of Rosemary’s Baby. Drug-addled orgies at the house on Cielo Drive were filmed, and later sold on the black market by crooked LAPD who’d stolen them from the crime scene. Family member Patricia Krenwinkel, in correspondence with researcher John Judge, swore she had been a victim of mind control. The acid Manson gave his followers was allegedly of the same, government-issued variety “Son of Sam” killer David Berkowitz had been dosed with while in the military… standard dinner party conversation.

Gathering the assembled for a post-dinner portrait, Aes-Nihil continued. “Charlie and Sharon [Tate] have been baptized in the well of eternity via mass culture and universal myth. As for Charlie, he’s a modern-day Nietzsche.” This is apparent, he says, in Manson’s unedited interviews. “If a lot of what Charlie has said had been attributed to someone who is politically correct, it would be hailed as genius.” I hear him out, knowing that many people don’t, and smile for the camera.