New Gold City

David Jay Brown covers the far edge of consciousness research. I stumbled into his work while reading a weekly report on entheogens at Reality Sandwich. Brown recently did a piece for the Santa Cruz Patch on telepathy and precognition studies performed on subjects under the influence of LSD. You can read that article HERE .  There really is a lot of movement going on out there in the world of psychedelic and entheogen research. It's surprising how dramatically things are changing but how quiet this research still is. Brown probably covers this information better than anyone with his Catch the Buzz column, and has been called "the altered statesman."  What he's best known for is his in-depth and intelligent interviews with consciousness visionaries. He is the author of at least 8 books, many of which are compendiums of his interviews with everyone from Deepak Chopra and Allen Ginsberg to Terence McKenna and Jerry Garcia.  His web site, Mavericks of the Mind , is like a...

James Parker, a contributing editor to The Atlantic magazine, is one of the best writers of cultural criticism working today. I subscribe to The Atlantic partly because I know I'll get a scatter shot of weird imagery, little known facts, untwisted spin, and, usually, surprising empathy and insight from him. In the past year he's written intelligent and entertaining criticism on everyone and everything from Glenn Beck, "Game of Thrones," the band R.E.M., and the Goosebumps books. His R.E.M. piece in particular demonstrates his sophisticated drive to get at the deep meaning always embedded in popular culture.  The new Atlantic just arrived at my house yesterday and once again Parker's talent is presented as he gives us his essay, "A Long, Strange Trip: How a new 14-DVD box set turned me on to the Dead." It's my favorite James Parker yet. He admits from the outset that he could care less for The Dead. "I had an aural impression of the Dead sou...