All Discussions - Liminal Nation

Privilege 101

Princess — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:32:45 -0400

It seems a lot of us want to talk about privilege. Whether that's addressing abuses of it by others or asking about the careful management of our own. It seems we want to do that so much that we are destroying other threads.

Oops.

So this is the thread for all of those discussions. Our immediate jumping off point is the posts following Mordant's in this thread.

Game of Thrones

Gypsy Lantern — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:52:53 -0400

This is a thread to talk about the HBO series "Game of Thrones".

I'm enjoying it. I'm five episodes in, and I've actually started reading the book as the story grabbed me and I wanted a new engrossing page turner for the commute into work. I'm slightly further ahead in the book than where the series is at, although a couple of things happened in the last episode that haven't happened in the book yet. I won't give away any spoilers from the book in this thread though.

Tyrion, the dwarf, is my favourite character. Peter Dinklage owns every scene he's in. I like the complexity of it, and how they just keep piling on the characters and the intrigue with every episode. I like how there's this sustained tension, with badness happening beyond the Wall that we don't really know anything about yet, badness happening at the court that we don't really understand yet, and the whole platinum haired bird and her barbarian thing happening in the south. It gives the sense that everything is on the verge of going massively bad from all directions, but for the time being, there's this frayed tension on borrowed time.

Published! Performing! Now Showing!

freektemple — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:57:02 -0500

It came to my attention that some Liminal Nation members have just been published in an anthology.

Personally, I like the idea of reading a book or article written by someone I may interact with. I also think that Liminal Nation is a community and it's important to support people in one's community...

Maybe it's seen as spam, or maybe it's crass, but I believe that if you are proud of your work you should toot your own horn a bit.

So if you have published a book, written an article, released a CD, made a movie, are producing a play, or anything similar: POST IT HERE!!! because I'd like to know and support you if I can.

The Deep

Mordant Carnival — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 06:05:58 -0400

A thread for everything to do with the deep ocean. Reflections on the fact that the vast majority of our world is as alien to us as the voids between the planets (and yet we're still finding exciting ways to fuck it all up down there). Volcanic vents. Marine snow. Abyssal gigantism. Facts, theories, pictures of weird deep-sea fangly-fish.

Occupy Wall Street

Evan — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:05:59 -0400

The Occupy Wall Street movement has got my Commie Sense tingling like it hasn't tingled in a long time.

It's still somewhat small and amorphous, but it's been growing and taking shape over time. Gathering supporters. Defining concerns and goals.

I think a lot of people in the U.S. are incredibly frustrated at the fact that both parties have been entirely coopted by wealthy elites, and that hardly anyone in the political system or the media is taking -- or even seriously discussing -- the steps necessary to address their economic and other political concerns. So they're trying to take matters into their own hands, or at least express their extreme displeasure to the country and the world as a whole.

Are they disciplined? No. Do they have a single message? No. But as noted by Glenn Greenwald in Salon:

very few protest movements enjoy perfect clarity about
tactics or command widespread support when they begin; they’re designed
to spark conversation, raise awareness, attract others to the cause,
and build those structural planks as they grow and develop. Dismissing
these incipient protests because they lack fully developed,
sophisticated professionalization is akin to pronouncing a
three-year-old child worthless because he can’t read Schopenhauer: those
who are actually interested in helping it develop will work toward
improving those deficiencies, not harp on them in order to belittle its
worth.

And now they've released their first official statement, which echoes both the Declaration of Independence and the Port Huron Statement:

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of
the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system
must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to
the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their
neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the
people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the
people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the
process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when
corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over
justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have
peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

I think we might be seeing the birth of a new left-wing, grassroots populist movement in the United States.

I'll try to go down there later this week and check it out. But I'm curious what other people are thinking.

(Plus -- zombies!)

Stop this nonsense AT ONCE! (a music discussion)

grant — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:42:43 -0400

“I dreamed,” said Lady Mary, “that I went yestermorn to your castle,
and I found it in the woods, with high walls, and a deep moat, and
over the gateway was written:

Be Bold, Be Bold.

“But it is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox.

“And when I came to the doorway over it was written:

Be Bold, Be Bold, But Not Too Bold.

“It is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox.

“And then I went upstairs, and came to a gallery, at the end of which
was a door, on which was written:

Be Bold, Be Bold, But Not Too Bold, Lest That Your Heart’s
Blood Should Run Cold.

“It is not so, nor it was not so,” said Mr. Fox.

-----

Conversely, EXODUS:

Iambic lambs. Lammas am eye data.

The Rap Thread Yo.

al gremlin — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:39:51 -0400

From Wu Tang mysticism to kabbalistic horrorcore, from braggadocio invocations to profound meditations on language, rap has an incredibly high instance of "occult" content - some is undoubtedly affected and there because, yknow, it sounds really cool, but equally there seems plenty that comes from an authentic engagement with something of substance. I'd love us to share our favourite beats and raps onna mystical tip.

One of the things I love about rap is the ability to impart a lot of information. Here's an example to kick this off.

(Basically a rundown of The Golden Bough in rhyme.)

Remixing Culture vs. Misappropriation (was 2nd Cultural Misappropriation topic)

Epona — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:17:13 -0500

this seemed like the best place to ask this question.

when is it cultural misappropriation, and when is it simply the morphing of a symbol in the human consciousness that occurs as we change and evolve?

recently a friend stated that the use of Guy Fawkes' masks by anonymous and protesters in the occupy movement is cultural misappropriation along the lines of sweat lodges and whiteface.

i find this analogy problematic at best for a lot of reasons, but i'm not British, so it really isn't for me to say, is it?

one of my arguments is, well it isn't really Guy anymore, it's that character from Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. but catrina dolls aren't really from ancient aztec ceremonies celebrating the dead. do we get to randomly choose from what portion of a symbol's history we're referring to?

i queried one of my british employers about this and he said "i didn't even know it was Guy Fawkes!"

Cult Cinema

Evan — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:52:42 -0400

Clips from your favorite cult cinema classics. Shaw Brothers Kung Fu movies. Sean Connery in a loincloth in Zardoz. Hammer horror.

And this, one of my favorites. Along with Taxi Driver and Midnight Cowboy, the ultimate "NY in decay in the 1970s" movie. And a retelling of Anabasis.

Is Byron Katie Working?

wonderland — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:02:24 -0400

Don't know if any folks have come across Byron Katie's stuff, which she calls "The Work". Claims to be an inquiry method which ends all suffering. Various problems with it though, appears to have roots in the culty EST seminar stuff, using what's known as LGAT (large group awareness training) methodology and covert hypnosis. Rick Ross forum has a lot on it.

Cult TV

genlob — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 06:22:07 -0400

As a companion to Cult Movies, here's a place for your favourite cult TV clips.

I wasn't impressed with the remake.

Lots of sci-fi and spy shows when I was a kid. Some okay, some rubbish and some great. Most of them had fantastic opening sequences.

This badly dubbed and quite violent Japanese version of a Chinese tale used to be on BBC2 after school.

And I remember being both fascinated and disturbed by this East German fairy tale. This quote on Wiki - "Imagine a fairy tale conceived by Wagner and directed by Fritz Lang, with nods in the direction of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and German expressionism, and you'd be close.

STARS.

entity — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:38:08 -0500

My sweetie and I went out to look at stars last night, and we saw Eta Persei for the first time, and I saw Castor(I, II, and III) through a telescope for the first time.

Eta Persei are, to my eyes at least, an orange and purple binary star. That was nifty. The colors are pretty cool looking.

Castor are THREE binaries in one star system—two binaries that are very bright stars very closely orbited by dim red dwarfs and one binary that is two dim red dwarfs orbiting each other. In the telescope it looked like three stars, two close together and bright and one further away and dimmer. If you've got a telescope turn it on Castor at some point in the near future. It's appropriate that Castor is made up of so many twins, since it's in Gemini. They're all actually gravitationally bound, even... although the pair of dim red dwarfs appears to have been added to the system later. And in answer to my agog speculation, my sweetie gently suggested that probably the system is too gravitationally chaotic for a planet to form a stable orbit.

What've you been looking at lately?

Folk music. Music for and by folks.

Grotto of Nolte — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 16:35:00 -0400

Lateshift segued into talk about a folk music thread, so here goes! I'll start with a couple of songs from Norway. The first one is a typical traditional mouth harp solo number:

Next up a solo song, of a variety called a bånsulle:

Last up, a remarkable violinist called Annbjørg Lien plays an old wedding melody:

Have at it! Easy on the psych-folk, please. You know who I'm talking about.

TED Talk - Elizabeth Gilbert on Genius

Erestania — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:55:52 -0500

Hello!

I am very new to LN and this is my first post, but I saw this talk from TED on a friend's live journal, and once I'd finished weeping and rebounding from all of the levels and multifacets of recognition, I thought that it might be something very interesting to share here.

TED - Elizabeth Gilbert on Genius

What I posted to my friends at the time was this very personal, very immediate reaction - "I feel like I really "get" what she is saying. That I recognise that sense of being overtaken by the thing you are creating so that it no longer feels like it is just you creating it, or sometimes not even having the conscious awareness of the creating. I've experienced this in my dancing, in my acting, in my singing, in my writing, in my spiritual work. I "get" this. In all of the permutations of meaning inherent in that phrase.

Just ...... wow!"

What do you think?

Superstition and Magical Thinking

quantum — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:08:12 -0400

This NYT article promoting a book resonated with me on the advantages of magical thinking;
For instance, in one study led by the psychologist Lysann Damisch of the University of Cologne, subjects were handed a golf ball, and half of them were told that the ball had been lucky so far. Those subjects with a “lucky” ball drained 35 percent more golf putts than those with a “regular” ball.

Obviously the author is not going to address the benefits of sorcery, but it's still interesting to see someone assessing the mundane effects of magical thinking and concluding that it isn't just a sign of a weak mind;

Another law of magic is “everything happens for a reason” — there is no such thing as randomness or happenstance. This is so-called teleological reasoning, which assumes intentions and goals behind even evidently purposeless entities like hurricanes. As social creatures, we may be biologically tuned to seek evidence of intentionality in the world, so that we can combat or collaborate with whoever did what’s been done. When lacking a visible author, we end up crediting an invisible one — God, karma, destiny, whatever.
This illusion, too, turns out to be psychologically useful. In research led by the psychologist Laura Kray of the University of California, Berkeley, subjects reflected on a turning point in their lives. The more they felt the turning point to have been fated, the more they believed, “It made me who I am today” and, “It gave meaning to my life.” Belief in destiny helps render your life a coherent narrative, which infuses your goals with a greater sense of purpose. This works even when those turning points are harmful: in a study led by the psychologist Kenneth Pargament of Bowling Green State University, students who saw a negative event as “part of God’s plan” showed more growth in its aftermath. They became more open to new perspectives, more intimate in their relationships and more persistent in overcoming challenges.

I tend to think of superstition as diluted magic (touching wood in place of a tree-dressing ritual or whatever) and both of them as extensions of our innate narrative understanding of the world, what do you think?

Magical Music or Music that gets you in the zone

Core — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:15:28 -0400

Hi there.

This thread is for all the tunes that get you into a magical mood, music that you listen to before a ritual, music that you hear as a banishing, music as a synchronicity, music that reminds you of a ritual, sigil, whatever.

I'll go first.

For a long time, every time I cast a sigil, I listened to AC/DC's Highway to Hell as a banishing. It worked perfectly as a gray area to forget about it, never figured out why.
Lately, Queens of the Stone Age's Rated R album and Mirrored, from Battles, gets me into rituals a lot. What about you?

Mashups

Seth — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:17:00 -0500

I'm not often taken with mashup mixes beyond an the initial thrill of novelty, but this is really rather lovely. It also seems to be a little interactive when it's embedded - you can play with the levels, or with pausing one or the other.

It's Aphex Twin's Avril 14th, matched against itself slowed down 1000% via PaulStretch... very pretty indeed:


YouTube Doubler

Over to you - any mashups floating your boat right now?

Jazz Club

Gef — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:02:23 -0400

(post your jazz faves here...niiiice)

Game of Thrones books - spoilers

Gypsy Lantern — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:58:49 -0400

I've just finished reading George "Rumpelstiltskin Rastafari" Martin's "A feast for crows", and want to talk about the books and their themes with other people who have read them. I haven't read the new one yet, because the hardback is about the size of Crowley's "Magick" and I don't want to lug it around with me everywhere. The joy of those books is that they make my grueling commute easier, so I'm waiting for the paperback. So can we talk about the previous four books and put "Dance with Dragons" spoilers behind spoiler tags for the time being?

I began reading "Feast..." with some trepidation as I had read a load of poor reviews of it, but the people writing those reviews clearly had no attention span. I really enjoyed it. It might even be my favourite in some regards, as there were some very nicely written sections. It was more about the writing than the punchy plot progression, and that suits me fine.

I like how George "Rasberry Rasputin" Martin is handling the magic in these books, and quite intrigued by the Marwyn the Mage chap who turns up near the end. More later, just wanted to start this thread as I know other people on the board have been reading through the books.

Bleach (Manga)

Shin — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:01:31 -0400

This is the thread for discussing the manga series Bleach by Tite Kubo. SPOILERS.

As several people here are fans of this series it seems appropriate to continue the conversations we've been having on other sites that start with B and F. Apologies to people who may be at an earlier stage in the series and not caught up, but this thread begins as at the current Chapter 455 ('End of the Bond: 1') and will, once again, be laden with SPOILERS.