Recently read and watched

A few things that I’ve been spending time on:

Currently playing: Black Mesa Blue Shift

Working my way through the new release from the Black Mesa: Blue Shift team. HECU Collective just released Chapter 5 “Focal Point” and I’m enjoying replaying the first four chapters and seeing Chapter 5 for the first time. The screenshot above is from Chapter 5.

Recently read

The Illuminatus! Trilogy (Shea and Wilson). I took about two months to finish this. There is a lot going on in the book and I kept getting bogged down and found myself going back and rereading sections.

The Soft Machine: The Restored Text (William Burroughs, edited by Oliver Harris). I enjoyed this a lot more when I started reading it out loud and imagining Burrough’s voice. Definitely not a traditional storyline.

The KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds (John Higgs, 2012/2024). This was the book that got me to finally read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. I had read that the KLF were intertwined in some ways with the Trilogy (for example, the classic “Kick out the JAMs” line is taken from the book, as is “The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu”, albeit with a typo…) so I decided to read the Trilogy before reading the KLF book. I am very glad that I did. I’m also glad that I have some knowledge of Robert Anton Wilson’s work, and Alan Moore’s work, as they both feature prominently in the KLF book.

Recently watched: Gladiator (2000) and Sicario (2015).