In his book Speaking into the Air (University of Chicago Press, 1999), John Durham Peters points out that if telepathy — presumably the only communication context more immediate than face-to-face interaction — were to occur, how would one know who sent the message? How would one authenticate or clarify the source? Planting an idea undetected into another’s mind, subconsciously in this case, is the central concept of Christopher Nolan’s Inception. [Warning: I will do my best to spoil it below.]

Looking down on empty streets, all she can see
Are the dreams …

In 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006),* Daniel Pinchbeck extends Heisenberg’s idea that observation influences the observed into a Hegelian wordview that consciousness constitutes the core of reality, as if the physical world and our perception of it are merely two sides of the same phenomenon. Taken wholesale, it’s not quite solipsism, but it’s close. Either way, the veneer between the two is definitely permeable, but one needn’t believe in magic to see how.

From my friend Gary Baddeley at Disinformation:
Come out for a night of thought-provoking cinema and conversation on one of the most fascinating subjects of our time. On December 21st, 2012, the “Long Count” of the ancient Mayan Calendar comes to an abrupt end, finishing off a grand cycle that spans 5,125 years. Some believe it portends an apocalyptic End Times of earth-shattering cataclysms; others disagree, claiming the date as the start of a new era of enlightenment and advanced human consciousness.

When pressed about his motivation for painting in the documentary Style Wars (1982), graffiti artist Duster explained that the elder writers give you a name and tell you to see how big you can get it. After watching this movie again recently it struck me that branding and advertising are charged with similar motivation and similar challenges.

I used to work as a juvenile rehab counselor at a maximum security facility in Washington state. There were third-generation gang members locked up there, caught in the crossfire where the rules and mores they’d grown up with clashed with those of the larger society.

In a 2005 Daniel Robert Epstein interview, Pi director Darren Aronofsky likened writing to making a tapestry: “I’ll take different threads from different ideas and weave a carpet of cool ideas together.” In the same interview, he described the way those ideas hang together in his films, saying, “every story has its own film grammar so you have to sort of figure out what the story is about and then figure out what each scene is about and then that tells you where to put the camera.”

Marié Digby was lauded as the internet’s next big find, a phenomenon that had grown organically through digital word-of-mouth, but the media’s multi-roomed echo chamber told on itself. Maybe it was too much, too quickly, but just after Digby’s couple of homey, simple YouTube videos started spreading online, she was featured on radio stations, MTV, iTunes, announcing that she’d been signed to Disney’s Hollywood Records. The official press release headline read, “Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marié Digby Signs With Hollywood Records.” What didn’t come out until later was that her name …

Something about this Belvedere Vodka commercial has haunted me since its constant airing during the holidays last year. I must’ve seen it fifty times. I’m not shilling for Belvedere here. Hell, I’ve never even tasted the stuff, but I can’t get this ad out of my head.

V. Vale sent this out in his most recent newsletter (thanks, Vale). It’s a mini-documentary of a six-second drum break from the B-side of a Winstons’ record, a track called “Amen Brother,” that’s been sampled, looped, and reapproriated — by everyone from N.W.A. to car manufacturers — since its release in 1969. This is Nate Harrison’s meditation on that break, the “Amen Break.” It is “Amazing Grace” to his Bill Moyers, and this is a deep monologue on the ownership of cultural artifacts, the legality of sampling, and this six …

No, it’s not some new awesome, all-purpose web widget. That was the subject line of an email I just received. The next one read “Butterfly Drink Book Army Data Base Aeroplane Space Shuttle,” and “Worm Data Base Rainbow Jet fighter Compass Pocket Telescope” was after that. They were spam of course, and, as much as it still frustrates me that there’s an entire industry dedicated to intruding my inbox (and phone line, and hard drive), I’m trying to see the positive.
The subject lines above are perfect fodder for Mind Hack …