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First part of a return conversation with Jason Wilcox, on the culture industry, growing up with movies, the process of disillusionment, censorship & selection, Jason W’s work as literary agent, the commercial agenda, directing values, the two types of writer, unconscious & conscious drives, The Godfather, how the film industry seeks outliers, self-censorship, what’s the opposite of censorship, the job of the guardian, creating the crucial fiction, staying on the edge of what we know, what’s outside the page, moving deeper into the margins, how conscious are the agendas, combining humans with machines, how to program human beings, how to turn culture into a program, directing behavior by changing the program, Aldous Huxley’s Island, Brave New World & 1984, the environmental mandate, the fear factor, the question of resources, what’s the currency, Huxley’s cultural elite, creating the counterculture, pacifying the masses, Gerald Heard & flying saucers, Frances Saunders and the cultural cold war, two kinds of people, herding the masses, who wants to be controlled?, Anthony Burgess, Ape & Essence, preventing individuation, the elitists’ comfort zone, Eton & Oxford oligarchy, Isis & the Thames, The Hellfire Club, mingling with commoners, finding people to talk to, romantic relationships with traumatized women, masks of trauma, becoming conscious of trauma, recognizing the tells of trauma, being drawn to the mystery, the question of charisma, the lure of the charismatic, power & love, ecstasy & oblivion, Leonard Cohen’s mesmeric powers, communal rituals, before shamanism, art & economy in tribal culture, ritual and language, monument-building egos, the pathology of the self, Huxley’s childhood, ghosts as trauma victims, paranormal & intelligence fields, inducing psychism, charisma as currency.
Songs: “El Mariachi” by The Freak Fandango Orchestra; “Soul Challenger” by Cullah; “Hush Away,” by The Violets; “Apple Spell” by My Bubba Mi.