Category: Books
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The Occult Triangle Lab Reading List: From Hell
When I first came across From Hell (by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell) in a bookstore, I took one look at the sketchy, back-of-a-napkin-sketch art, the spindly, difficult-to-read lettering, and the sheer thickness of the book and decided it was one of those weird, high-concept, avant-garde graphic novels that get lauded by critics and ignored…
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Occult Reading List: Taschen’s “H.R. Giger”
Recently, I’ve been reading Taschen’s H.R. Giger, and I’ve really been enjoying it! I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on it, as a writer and worldbuilder. My first encounter with H.R. Giger came in high school, when my friend Joel (the same person that created the artwork of body modification styles in the…
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New Books! Wabi-Sabi and Tibetan Buddhism
So I swung by the Spoonbill & Sugartown Bookstore in Brooklyn today while running errands and some cool books. The bookstore itself was fascinating and had a lot of cool, eclectic titles, including the Atlas Obscura and the new Non-Stop Metropolitan. There was a surprising amount of stuff on magic and mysticism, which caught my…
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The Occult Triangle Lab Review: Ubik by Phillip K. Dick
I first heard about this book when reading through Philip K. Dick’s biography, I Am Alive and You Are Dead, which took its title from one of the more chilling lines in Ubik. It seemed to have everything I could ever want: existential crises, meditations on eternity, entropy, and the human spirit, and a mind-bending journey through an illusory…
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THE OCCULT READING LIST VOL. 3: Three Body Problem, Language as Magic, and New Retro Wave
This is Vol. 3 of the Occult Reading list, where I collect all the interesting stories and strange pieces of trivia I’ve picked up over the past week from books, articles, and webpages. Also included are the songs that have been on repeat for me this week. Guaranteed to make you more interesting at parties. Disclaimer: There’s…
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The Occult Reading List Vol. 2: Quantum Computing, Alchemy, and Cicada 3301
This is Vol. 2 of the Occult Reading list, where I collect all the interesting stories and strange pieces of trivia I’ve picked up over the past week from books, articles, and webpages. Also included are the songs that have been on repeat for me this week. Guaranteed to make you more interesting at parties.…
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The Occult Reading List: Zen, Martial Arts, Annie Lennox, and Tickets to the Moon
I have a bad habit of reading, listening, and watching too many things at once, and at the end of every week I end up with a new list of fascinating things to check out. I thought it would be fun to share some of the stuff I’ve read and listened to in the past week, including…
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The Occult Triangle Lab Review: I Am Alive and You Are Dead by Emmanuel Carrere
This past week I finished I Am Alive and You Are Dead, a biography of Philip K. Dick, the author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (the inspiration for Blade Runner) and The Man in the High Castle. Dick won the Hugo Award in 1963, and ended up being the namesake of his own sci-fi award. I’d read Do Androids years…
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ERGODICA, Part 2: Interdimensional Necromantic Blues
New, from Chris Mahon’s Occult Triangle Lab: interconnections between Kierkegaard’s existentialism, Buddhism, immortality, Kabbalah, fractals, Godel’s Incompleteness theorem, and a piece of experimental literature about an interdimensional necromancer trapped between two infinities.
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Ergodica: House of Leaves, Puzzle Boxes, and Experimental Literature
Like a clock tower sniper, you study House of Leaves, but you don’t copy it.
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The Occult Triangle Lab Review: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
The Eye of the World had 270 pages to give me a reason to keep reading. It failed.
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The Occult Triangle Lab Review: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
The Occult Triangle reviews the cryptographical masterpiece by Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon.