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Category: weird

  • Pirated movies of Christmas past: The Adventures of Mark Twain

    Pirated movies of Christmas past: The Adventures of Mark Twain

    It was the 1980s and every holiday season, school would get out on the Friday before Christmas, which meant I’d spend the next 2 weeks with my grandparents while my mom was at work. My grandfather, a computer engineer (read as: middle class hacker), would pirate movies with his coworkers in their downtime. As soon as I arrived to their house, he’d hand me a box filled with VHS tapes, with titles written heiroglyphically on masking tape, plastered to the sides of them. I’d look into the box, see all the tapes, and look up at him, BEAMING with joy. The first film I plucked from the box: The Adventures of Mark Twain.

    For those who’ve never seen it, it’s the tale of the famed American writer, Mark Twain, coming to the decision that humanity is utterly irredeemable, and so he plans his death by meeting up with Halley’s Comet, while some of his most famous literary creations aim to convince him otherwise.

    One of the best scenes is where Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and Becky Thatcher are at a special machine, viewing the various tales that have come from the depths of Twain’s own mind. At one point, they land on ‘The Mysterious Stranger’; a tale that Twain never actually finished, but featured a character he called both “Satan” and “No. 44”.

    My pirated copy of this tape found its way over to my friend Lindsey’s house, which was just 3 doors down. Her mother ooohed and ahhhed over the tape, curiously praising Twain’s literary legacy as “wholesome” and “exemplary of “traditional Christian values.”

    Obviously, having never actually read any of his work, she was quite disturbed when, one day, after I’d left the tape at their house, Lindsey’s mother declared a family movie night. As the movie went on, she proceeded to get more and more uncomfortable, finally ejecting the tape after the scene described above. I wasn’t allowed to play at their house after that due to my new “child of Satan” status. My grandpa just laughed. Frankly, so will you after you watch this awesome film!

    The artistry of the claymation figures is just wonderful, the story is thought provoking and poignant, and despite all the dark content, it’s a great movie to watch with your kids … or you can just send them off to your parent’s place, pour a drink and smoke hashish, and enjoy it. It is your winter time holiday.

    You can watch the full movie here while it’s available.

  • Training AI on 2020 headlines … get a grip, it’s funnier than you think

    Training AI on 2020 headlines … get a grip, it’s funnier than you think

    Janelle Shane started to train a GPT-3 on its headlines, just to see which ones it’d come up with on its own, and I honestly can’t think of a more insightful way to end this ridiculously miserable, hell hole of a year than that.

    Reading through the rest of her tumblog is a jaunt through brilliance … AI creating recipes and recipe reviews, AI creating romantic how-tos based on Victorian tutorials, Halloween costumes that AI thinks your friends and neighbors will notice and hate, even AI generated posts about her AI posts.

  • Mushroom or Musician??

    Mushroom or Musician??

    The description on this latest YouTube find states: “Through the magic, or rather, science of bio-data sonification, this flush of oyster mushrooms get a shot at playing a eurorack modular synthesizer before they become dinner.”

    Sigh … I think I just found my new favorite channel. This guy’s hooking friggin’ cordyceps mushrooms and giant amethysts up to this synth! New channel, but even with only 19 videos in as of this article, I’m subscribed.

  • The Psychic Capitol of the World

    The Psychic Capitol of the World

    On the latest episode of ‘Excuse me,what?’, they visit the people of the “psychic capitol of the world.”

    Cassadaga, Florida, USA … a tiny, 57 acre, unincorporated community, built by a leader in the American Spiritualism movement, which peaked in popularity in the latter half of 19th century. This town has more psychic mediums per capita than anywhere else in the world, and quite an interesting past.

    A Mr. George P. Colby was a famed, travelling Spiritualist medium (1848-1933). At the bright age of 12, he was baptised at a church in Minneapolis. Minnesota, and soon afterward, began to experience the abilities of clairvoyance and psychic healing.

    According to him, he was visited by many spiritual guides, but the most clear and frequent called itself ‘Seneca’ and described itself as the spirit of a great Native American chief. George said that Seneca had told him as a child that he’d found a great Spiritualist community in the American South, and in 1894, that’s exactly what he did.

    The Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association was founded by George in December of 1894, and has remained something of a refuge for the psychically inclined ever since. It even found a place on the US National Registry of Historic Places.

  • AfterSkool with Randall Carlson

    AfterSkool with Randall Carlson

    I noticed the other day that the YouTube channel AfterSkool had created a condensed version of Randall Carlson’s work, and thought you’d appreciate it. Watch that new video featuring Randall Carlson and his work here.

    I had the opportunity to see Randall Carlson in Minneapolis, back in 2014, at the (now defunct) Paradigm Symposium . The lecture he gave was exciting, rife with geology, the occult traditions, semiotics, myths and legends and more. He really encouraged the audience to look at human history from a perspective using modern science and technology to unravel ancient tales and symbols in order to understand ancient human experiences, and apply them to our future understanding of the world around us.

    However, not everyone agrees, of course. A quick Google search of his name immediately brings up everything from questions of his sanity to the breadth and depth of his actual knowledge, and all the Joe Rogan pocasts he’s been on, including the 3 episodes he did with the writer Graham Hancock.

    You can find Randall’s website here, his old YouTube channel GeoCosmic Rex there, and his new YT channel, plus his podcast ‘Kosmographia’ here.

  • The senseworldcafe subreddit

    The senseworldcafe subreddit

    In order to try and make a place for discussion of these posts and topics and in order to avoid running a forum or allowing comments on the site itself we’ve created a subreddit devoted to just those things. Come by have a visit and make your voice heard. We take suggestions and criticism well, so feel free to chime in on what we post. Reddit community guidelines do apply, but we won’t ban your post just because you didn’t like something. Join the conversation!

  • The Astrology of Cults, UFOs, and Alien Abductions

    The Astrology of Cults, UFOs, and Alien Abductions

    Acyuta Bhava (Adam Elenbaas of Nightlight Astrology) has a brand new video out about the astrological significances shared with famous cults, UFO sightings, and even alien abductions that all made the headlines. He covers Heaven’s Gate, Stalinism, the famous Betty and Barney Hill case, Carl Sagan’s orginal Cosmos series, even Nike’s Air Jordan logo.

    This video is the 4th in a series he put out on the Grand Conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, in the sign of Aquarius. You know a 4 part series is gonna be a deep dive, and Acyuta really delivers when it comes to explaining the importance of certain transits for astrology beginners out there, but also brings the heady/good shit for those viewers who’ve already tapped into the insights that a knowledgeable basis of astrology can bring.

    You can find Acyuta’s work on his YouTube channel , or at his website.

  • Ouija Sessions with Mary

    Ouija Sessions with Mary

    I discovered a guy in a hidden subreddit who’s been keeping written notes and videotaping his Ouija board sessions with an entity calling itself “Mary”.

    Mary details the ins and outs of the universe, covering quite a lot of surprising ground. Not gonna lie … sometimes it reads like a transcript of an irritated 10 year old’s futile attempts to describe the basic construction of a multidimensional reality in a mmp game to its grand parents. At other times, though, it is weirdly insightful, giving out just the information that you’d want an extra dimensional being to be able to tell you.

  • The White Lady

    The White Lady

    I was hosting a dinner party at my house one freezing fall evening. We spent the night eating, laughing, and regaling one another with an earnestness that only wine can afford. Around 10 pm, myself, my friend Aaron, and his girlfriend Sarah were all that were left.

    We got onto the topic of horror films we’d recently watched, when I felt the urgent call of more wine and water, and excused myself to the kitchen. Aaron excused himself to the restroom. Sara remained on the sofa in the living room.

    I came back a few minutes later, holding a new bottle of wine, some glasses of water, and a plate of crackers and cheese. As Aaron entered the living room, we started the conversation where we left off. I was standing up facing him, glass of water in hand. He was slightly off to my right. Sarah was looking towards the both of us. All of a sudden, as Im sharing the plot of “It Foolows”, a being made of light appeared with a very loud cracking sound.

    That’s right, a Being Made of Mother Fucking Light, just glowing it up in my living room.

    As soon as it happened Aaron let out a high-pitched shriek. I gave out a loud, “Ahhh!”, and, after it disappeared, I managed to gasp out, “Oh my god! Did you see that?”

    “What do you mean ‘did I see that?!’,” he yelled, in the most disgusted tone, like I just asked to buy his first born for dinner, “Of course, I fucking saw that! What the hell was it?”

    Frankly, I was relieved he’d seen it. I’d been seeing things in that house for months now … but never mentioned it to anyone on the chance I was just going nuts so, me being the analytical, skeptic/douchebag that I am, I had to perform a series of empirical observations and social cost/benefit analyses before deciding whether to mention it to anyone.

    Aaron and I spent the next couple of hours describing what we saw, how we felt emotionally both during and afterwards, the sound it made as it appeared, zero anthropomorphic features, but we KNEW that it was female, the tone/tint of the light enveloping her, that she was Good, and we had the very distinct impression that she was holding her hands out for us to “join her in Peace.” It was actually an incredibly depthful bonding experience for Aaron and I, however, Sarah never saw it.

    Yep, never. She was looking right at both of us, right where it stood, but she didn’t see it at all. Initially, she thought we were making it up because, we’d both been gone for a few minutes and then, we came back, had this experience, and couldn’t stop talking about it, despite the fact she was sitting right there and did not see a single thing. After discussing the directions that he and I were looking in and where this being appeared to us, we figured it was because Sara was looking directly at it, whereas he and I had it in our 20° to 30° peripheral field of vision … not quite dead on, just a bit off.

    The very next day, I went to my downstairs neighbors (we lived in a duplex), and I asked the wife whether she’d ever seen anything strange in the house. She said that she hadn’t, but that her husband had been swearing up and down since the day after they moved in that the place was haunted.

    I asked him, “Hey, y’ever seen anything strange around here?”

    “Like that goddamn White Chick? “

    “White chick?”

    “Yeah, a lady ghost made of a bluish-white light that shows up all the time, and bothers me,” he said,” She’s always following me around, holding her hands out, and wanting me to grab a hold of ‘em, or something. I’ve seen a couple a shadow midgets, too, a black dog-sorta thing, friggin’ orbs … The works! ”

    Bingo!

    I shared my story with him, told him that my friend saw it too, that I’d also seen the other phenomena he’d mentioned, and as he walked back into the house, he yelled to his wife, “See! I told you I wasn’t a fucking nutcase!”

    Whatever you’re thinking, this was absolutely not a positive experience for me. This being just appears to us, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything, and yet, somehow, we feel tremendous amounts of peacefulness? That doesn’t make any sense. That proverb that you’ll “know them by their works” rings true here for me, and all that she did was Appear.

    Regardless of my feelings about her, I think about this being all the time. I’ve consulted tarot cards, pendulums … a bunch of divinatory mediums, and they’re all inconsistent in their takes on her intentions. Here … let’s ask the I Ching right now … What were the WLs intentions towards me when she appeared to me?

    Hexagram 26 line 1> 18 “Danger is at hand. It furthers one to desist.”

    Well, shit, ok… what was the danger the WL was protecting me from?

    Hexagram 52 line 5> 53 “Keep your cheek bones at rest: in harmony with this central position, you act correctly.”

    You heard it here first, folks … this was absolutely not a visitation of a higher dimensional being with New Age-y tidings of Peace, Love and Light type bullshit, it was just an ethereal asshole telling us to STFU with the spoliers, or else.

  • The Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

    The Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

    If speculative fiction is your thing, you might want to check out this free zine that’s been going on blogspot since 2009. The creator has a pretty wild yarn about how the thing started, and I don’t want to spoil it, but read the editor’s note. Let’s hope he keeps receiving transmissions.

    The Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction