Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Spiritual Leader, Dies

Aum Asato mā sad gamaya
Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya
Mṛtyormā amṛtam gamaya
Aum śānti śānti śāntiḥ

From ignorance, lead me to truth; From darkness, lead me to light; From death, lead me into immortality"

Surreptitiously discovered yesterday was the birthday of Augustus Owsley Stanley III "the unrepentant patriarch of LSD". Here a very interesting interview conducted around '93. He's living off the grid in Aussieland and has got some tidbits to share.
2007 interview with SF Chronicle scribe Joel Selvin.
Wikipedia entryOwsley

It's about time to link our dear friend Nathan Wright. He's available for weddings, events, commercial, portraits, creative photography and movie stills.

Over here! He's got MySpace and Facebook too. So if you wanna be friends with a famous author....

I, Walt Whitman, A Blogger

The Blog of Henry David Thoreau

Samuel Pepys Diary

BBC Obituary: Norman Mailer: "Norman Mailer, who has died aged 84, was the bad boy of post-war American literature. Short and stocky and with opinions on almost every subject, he combined a formidable writing talent with the streetwise attitude of a prize fighter.
(...)
He once beat up a sailor on a Manhattan street because he believed that the man had questioned the sexuality of his dog.
(...)
In 1971, he head-butted his fellow writer Gore Vidal before a television chat-show after Vidal had written that 'there has been from Henry Miller to Norman Mailer to Charles Manson a logical progression'."

Wikipedia:
"Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, playwright, screenwriter and film director. Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, Mailer is considered an innovator of creative nonfiction, a genre sometimes called New Journalism, but which covers the essay to the nonfiction novel. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award once. In 2005, he won the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from The National Book Foundation."

And How Are You Tonight, Mr Wilson?

Check out the Alan Moore Interview Index

Via Metafilter.com

This dude has two rare interviews with the comic genius from England up on YouTube. It's cut into pieces for some reason....

Did we link our dear friend Zam Johnson yet? I think we forgot.

"born and raised in los angeles, california, zam has worked in the record
industry, countless television commercials, film scores, and the avantgard music scene, in the United States, Europe and Japan."

He has done a million interesting things and we all love him. And he gave us a nice little p.a.-system the other day... well, thanks, man!

If you want a creative professional to do your soundtrack or wax your ears in general, he's the man, guys!

There's also Zam Johnson, the painter. That's the same guy. Just a different MySpace, ha, ha.

Cultural icon, poet and author Jack Kerouac defends the Beat generation. (1959)

Just received a message from an old friend formerly known as the queen of Berlin's slam beat poetry scene (or whatever they call it today...)! Since May she's been living in South Korea and she finally managed to register on MySpace! She's so good! Add her to your list of friends!

Her homepage is over here!

People keep asking me about her. Go and look up her story on Wikipedia yourself.


Nina Hagen - "Ziggy Stardust"



Nina on YouTube

Cool, we got a picture for the christmas-flyer already!

Stolen from www.grossefischekleinefische.de

More about Rashidii: www.transitionsabroad.com

Guardian> The Scottish crime writer Val McDermid has re-ignited a row about violence in detective fiction written by women.

Speaking at the Edinburgh books festival, she attacked bestselling local author Ian Rankin for suggesting that "the people writing the most graphic violence today are women ... they are mostly lesbians as well".

No, seriously!

Wikipedia: Ahmet Ertegün

Larry Kramer in the LA Times and Elton John in the Guardian says "Shout the bigots down"

hello alan, here is my contribution to the blog, unfortunately i am exteremely dull, will try to be better next time...