Night of Pan in London

Brian Butler, the guest of our latest podcast (see the frontpage), is screening his new film ‘Night of Pan’ for free at London’s Horse Hospital tomorrow night.

As well as an appearance by Butler himself, the film features seminal film-maker Kenneth Anger as the Magus, and Buffalo 66’s Vincent Gallo as Pan.

Brian will be performing live music on the night with Death in Vegas’ Richard Fearless, who will also be DJing the event.

Check this mini-version of the film:

The event kicks off at 7:30, admission is free, but we recomend getting there early to avoid disapointment.

The Horse Hospital : Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1HX

Ken Eakins

DO WANT...on Verizon!

4chan site owner m00t has posted to the 4chan blog, and Twitter, that Verizon wireless, are blocking both in and outbound web-traffic to 4chan.

Unlike a recent scare involving AT&T last year, m00t believes that this time it’s for realsies, from the 4chan blog:

Over the past 72 hours, we’ve been receiving reports from Verizon Wireless customers having difficulty accessing the image boards. After investigating, we found that Verizon is dropping traffic to/from boards.4chan.org, only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional. A call was placed to their support staff last night, and we were told that the ticket would not be looked at until Monday at the earliest, and: “You’ll need the customer to call to request it be unblocked…”

Note: Users with mobile browsers that proxy (BlackBerry, Opera) won’t necessarily have issues accessing the boards.

We’ll watch this story with interest as it unfolds, as it could point to the first in what some belive to be an upcoming war for Net Neutrality.

Ken Eakins

He is correct. Pic 'Tanya N'

Anonymous, the masked protesters that have spent the last two years protesting the Church of Scientology, have responded to a creepy Today Show report on the aid-work being conducted by the Church in Haiti.

Anonymous, best known for their masked street-protests, have responded by issuing the following statement (sourced from Gawker):

Hello [audience]. We are Anonymous.

We wish it it were under more favorable circumstances that we have chosen to address the world. However, after the demonstrably inaccurate interpretation handling of the victims of the Haiti earthquake as per the work of the Scientology ‘Volunteer’ Ministers, Anonymous could not remain silent.

The Volunteer Ministers are volunteers only in name. Their self-proclaimed humanitarian efforts have been shown to be harmful and self-serving time and time again. In the wake of the September Eleventh attacks at the World Trade Center, they impeded the work of the New York City Fire Department, and falsely claimed to have been given a reward for their efforts. These efforts involved little more than handing out pamphlets for the works of L. Ron Hubbard, while intentionally hindering the work of mental health professionals aiding the victims.

This same pattern of self-promotion at the expense of victims of disasters does not end there. Following the tsunami at Sri Lanka, the Volunteer Ministers attempted to convert the vulnerable and suffering victims into their cult, promising them aid and salvation at the expense of their livelihood***. These actions were repeated following the terrorist attack at the Ramada Inn in India*** and the Subway bombings in London, England.

In short: Scientology does not see a disaster as a tragedy, but rather, as a business opportunity.

First-hand accounts [[LINK TO GAWKER ARTICLE]], condemnations from legitimate aid groups [[SCREENSHOTS OF ARTICLES]], and even leaked documents from Scientology’s corporate heirarchy itself [[SCREENSHOTS OF DOX]] all confirm the cowardly and parasitic nature of the self-proclaimed Volunteer Ministers.

The very same self-serving, opportunistic proselytizing has been taking place in Haiti. Scientology has taken every opportunity to release their own manufactured press releases, taking credit for the work of legitimate relief groups. They arrived completely unprepared [[SCREENSHOTS OF THE COWBOY BOOTS REPORT HERE]], and were told to leave by the United States military [[SCREENSHOT HERE]].

An untrained Scientologist was alleged to be assisting a surgeon, using tools that had not been sterilized. This is blatant medical malpractice. John Travolta has also left several trained medical professionals behind at an airport, instead making it his priority to bring untrained Scientologists into the country with the sole intent of disseminating L. Ron Hubbard materials to an already vulnerable and suffering population.

Know this, Scientology: We are watching you. With every move you make, every victim you exploit, and every piece of choreographed propaganda you release into the mainstream media, the public already knows the truth about your organization. You are not fooling anyone, and no amount of proselytizing will change this. You have already been convicted in the court of public opinion. It is now only a matter of time before you are convicted in a court of law.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

Anonymous begun their campaign in Feburary 2008, after a spat with the Church over the now infamous ‘Tom Cruise Address’ internal promotion video being posted onine.

Ken Eakins

Click for further details

Digital Nation – a PBS Frontline documentary I’ve been working on for, gosh, two years now – is finally airing this coming Tuesday evening, Feb 2, at 9pm on pretty much all PBS stations in US. (I know: that’s during the Lost premiere that even Obama feared going up against. But you can Tivo Lost, watch us live, and watch Lost after without the commercials.) For those of you outside the viewing area or without TV’s, you can watch the whole thing anytime from broadcast onwards by going to http://pbsdigitalnation.org.

The entire doc is now availble to watch below. It’s very good (if there is a problem with Part 5, goto the site for Digital Nation, and select part 5 in the included player):

Meanwhile, I’m happy to announce that Frontline has agreed to let me host a series of Roundtable discussions following the broadcast. One per month, with invited guests and running commentary from you. (I’m shooting for something like the Talmudic format Steven Johnson used for Feed magazine – still the best threaded dialogues I can remember happening online between a central conversation and the general public. With any luck, these Roundtables will be the next main thing I’m doing – and I really do need quality conversation to happen there to keep it alive.

The above clip – Patrick Stewart on Twitter, the iPhone, and his passion for gaming – is not in the show. But it is an example of the kind of conversations and guests we’ll be having in the Roundtables – both by text and video.

Doug has produced two other great documentaries, The Persuaders and The Merchants of Cool, which you can also watch free (follow links).

Ken Eakins

(Source: Rushkoff’s Site)

Douglas Rushkoff has also appeared on our shows, Open Source Reality with Douglas Rushkoff, and What Happened to the CounterCulture, check them out.

More awesome than 10 awesome things!

Now, I know that you might be asking yourself “hey Ken, isn’t this site meant to be about underground and weird stuff?”, and normally, I’d reply “yes you’re right sir/madam”.

However, I’ll make an exception in two cases: 1.) MacGyver, and 2.) The Lonely Island. SO, if you like both Macguyver AND The Lonely Island, this trailer is one-stop-shopping:

Need more proof of the awesome directing talents of the Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone?:

That’s a fantastic facial-hair/cardigan combo there Jorma!

Ken Eakins

Check here for updates on this work of genius

Weird Weekends happen here!

The Centre for Fortean Zoology is the only professional, scientific and full-time organisation in the world dedicated to cryptozoology. We’ve had the pleasure of speaking to one of its founders Jonathan Downes on our show, and after listening to him explain some of the research conducted by his team, you can only be awed by the effort that goes into what they do.

Now the CFZ need your help to stay afloat. They are a non-profit making organisation, and none of its directors are paid for all the effort they put in, I’ll let Jessica explain what you can do to help:

The Weird Weekend is a really unique event, and we at SittingNow WILL be attending this year (the gods have stood in our way previously), so make sure you get your tickets, and find some way to help keep this fantastic and unique organisation alive and kicking.

Ken Eakins

Killing in the name of...

The Daily Mail is reporting that shocked troops in Afghanistan have discovered bible codes on the sites of their rifles:

The sights for the Sharpshooter assault rifle, bought this week to boost the fight against the Taliban, are etched with the characters JN8:12.

This is a reference to chapter 8 verse 12 in the book of John, which reads: ‘When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”.’

Bible Code

The Ministry of Defence said last night it was ‘not aware’ of the biblical markings on the 400 Advanced Combat Optical Gunsights, bought as part of a £1.5million package.

Critics said references to New Testament scriptures could be used by extremists to persuade Afghans that UK forces see their work as a crusade.

LibDem defence spokesman Willie Rennie said: ‘It’s pretty shoddy that the MoD missed this.

‘It may be used by some of our enemies as evidence to convince its followers that we are engaged in a religious war between Christianity and Islam.’

The equipment was produced by U.S.-based Trijicon, which was founded by a devout Christian.

Truly killing in the name of…

Ken Eakins

(via The Daily Mail)

Vincent Gallo in 'Night of Pan'

Vincent Gallo in 'Night of Pan'

Wow! This is quite a combo:

“Night of Pan” is a seven and a half minute film featuring film auteur Kenneth Anger and actor Vincent Gallo. The film has been screened in various versions internationally – Beijing, Lisbon, Cannes, Athens, Rome, Berlin and elsewhere, but never in Butler’s base, Los Angeles.

In the film, Anger, Gallo, and Butler depict an occult ritual that symbolizes the stage of ego death in the process of spiritual attainment.

Brian Butler is a multidisciplinary artist who creates works around dark magical themes. He had worked extensively as a producer on director Kenneth Anger’s recent work. Additionally he has written for Dazed & Confused and performs along with Anger in the band Technicolor Skull.

(Source:Brian Butler & Dangerous Minds)

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argh!! it's the future!

It often said that Science Fiction author Phillip K. Dick was somehow channelling the future when hammering out his dark-future classics like ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ (aka Blade Runner), and ‘We Can Remember it for you Whole-Sale’ (aka Total Recall). So once again I bring you another ‘from page to reality moment’, all the way from Japan.

Japan Today is reporting that Japanese retailer Sogo & Seibu, as a special new years sales event, will be offering two robots made to look like the people who buy them. The eerie simulacras will cost the lucky consumers $225,000.

The company will be recruiting Kokoro to manufacture the robots. The company were made famous last year when they exhibited their ‘Actroid Der‘ at various events. One model of the robot even appeared in a Japanese TV advert:

Sogo & Seibu are not planning on continuing the sales of the robots as a regular feature of the store, however, they have said that they may consider another sale of two more robots drawn from a lottery.

Ken Eakins

"We didn't listen!!"

"We didn't listen!!"

At an event hosted for young inventors, US President Obama voiced a threat to impending…and it is impending…robot menace. From Weekly World News:

President Barack Obama started his “Educate to Innovate” campaign, which aims to improve the science, technology, engineering and math education in public schools.

Part of the initiative is to invite winners of national competitions to attend an annual White House Science Fair, as a reward to the young people who may be future American leaders in science.

While speaking to a room of young mathletes and robot designers, Obama made sure to emphasize another reason for his plan, notably the threat of the robot uprising:

Keep an eye on dem robits!

Ken Eakins