Wishing I were in Europe

Not only am I missing awesome live theater in Prague, the green love of Amsterdam, all of Ireland, and the birthplace of The Doctor, I'm also apparently missing out on a pretty cool Dia de los Muertes celebration next Saturday in Glastonbury.

If you're a European looking for something to do, check it out. Scarlet Imprint and Hadean Press will be represented at booths, and Jake Stratton-Kent will be speaking, among others.

I gotta see if there's something going on in Baltimore I can participate in.

Blood, Love and Rhetoric Present: The Caretaker

You ever have one of those things that you really meant to do all week, but then forgot because other shit came up, and then it was late and you hadn't done what you really meant to do on time?

Well, for my readers in the Prague vicinity, I meant to tell you about a play you should really go check out. One of our Gentlemen for Jupiter is involved in the production, and from what I've seen of his work it's going to be brilliant. He's done stage adaptations of Lovecraft's work in the past, so ... you can imagine.

Here's the plug that I meant to publish all fucking week long. The last show is Saturday night, I think. So hopefully you get this before you make plans for tonight, you Eastern European readers, and make every effort to attend.

Blood, Love and Rhetoric present "The Caretaker" - Pinter's dark and poignant drama about life on the lunatic fringes of a collapsing society - an evening of menace, suspense, violence, terror and torture.

Re-imagined by Blood, Love and Rhetoric, "The Caretaker" is transported to a 2012 post-holocaust London. Thursday sold out but tickets still available for Friday (21st) at 7pm and 9pm or Saturday (22nd) at 5pm and 8pm. email blrtheatre@gmail.com for more information. Looking forward to seeing you at the show.

Mardukite Magick

Michael Cecchettelli, author of Crossed Keys, has recently released Mardukite Magick, an ebook covering a technique for Working the 50 Names of Marduk in harmony with the Jupiter current. It's available at his blog, another thing you should check out.

This book is quick and to the point, and I enjoyed it immensely. It's everything a book about magic should be, in my opinion. It provides the basics of what you need to know, and then it jumps right into the magical rites. It forms the framework, and then it fleshes it out to the point where you can start filling in the details on your own.

This is not as much a book about Marduk as it is a book that puts you in contact with Marduk so you can find out about him first hand. That's awesome. It reminds me a lot of my own Modern Angelic Grimoire, in that it provides a quick and easy reference guide to everything you need to get started, tells a little about personal experiences, but is mostly focused on getting you in touch with the entities so you can get on with doing the Work yourself.

And I really love the tone Michael has in his writings. He's got this formal informality about his writing that is both authoritative and yet approachable at the same time. In this book, he focuses on the traditional Sumerian sources for his information, and the ritual format and style flows readily and easily. This approach doesn't take a lot of specialized tools, and the rites themselves are fun. Just reading through them, I felt the Jupiter Current Michael is tapping begin to flow.

My favorite part is the table at the end with the traditional 50 names of Marduk and the description of each. It's chock full of goodness and insight into the many facets of this Jovian deity. I found things in there that I will be incorporating into my own Work that I hadn't thought of, like how there's a facet of the Jupiter current that sustains all things all the time, an ongoing maintenance that I hadn't thought about before.

All in all, this book provides the information you need to establish a Working relationship with the Jupiter Current through the God Marduk, and the details you need to develop that relationship over time. I can easily see a magician immersing themselves in this system for years, and still only just scratching the surface of its potential.

Generation X Wants its Slack

Eventually.

Remember when Clinton went on Arsenio Hall and played the sax?

Remember when your biggest fashion conundrum was resolved entirely by figuring out which flannel shirt smelled the least bad?

Remember when we saved the world from Y2K?

Remember when we built the internet?

Remember when we didn't really have any hope for the future, but it was alright, because there was slack?

Where did the slack go? I'll tell you where it went.

The 1% took all the slack.

Sure, some of us are a bit bitter and resigned still, some of us are having the same reaction I had at first to this OWS thing.

"Oh, you're getting fucked? Welcome to my world, trapped between the boomers and Gen Y, and nobody's ever given a shit about us, but we do everything useful anyway."

Here, it's put much better in this Gizmodo article: Generation X is Sick of your Bullshit.

But some of us are not putting up with it. Some of us are remembering you can't steal slack.

And we're taking it back.

Revolution Within: Small Business

Because this is how it happens.

Ok, so I gave everyone a heaping pile of SHIT about meeting at Starbucks to plan OWS, did I not?

Well, I was APPARENTLY a bit hasty. Check this shit out:

Here’s the idea they came up with: Americans themselves would start lending to small businesses, with Starbucks serving as the middleman. Starbucks would find financial institutions willing to loan to small businesses. Starbucks customers would be able to donate money to the effort when they bought their coffee. Those who gave $5 or more would get a red-white-and-blue wristband, which Schultz labeled “Indivisible.” “We are hoping it will bring back pride in the American dream,” he says. The tag line will read: “Americans Helping Americans.”

THIS.

This is what I was talking about. Subsidize small business, I said. Get small businesses moving, and the jobs will follow. And it's STARBUCKS, the very corp I was knocking who's making it happen. Fuckin' figures.

But fuck it, I support this.

Start your own online business for under $100. 

Jump into the gig economy. (Got that link off Gordon's latest Apocalypse post, which is chock full of nougatey goodness.)

Plan on growing your business over the next year to where you are the job creator. Don't wait for corporations to do it for you, even though apparently they aren't all evil greedy bastards with no solutions, only ways to get more money. Don't wait for Government to do it for you, though I'm starting to feel this weird feeling of hope that there might actually be something good that comes from all this OWS stuff. I still suspect nothing good will come of it, but ... it would be nice if I'm wrong.

And then magic your Business to Success.

And while I don't think it's entirely necessary to use credit to expand and grow in the digital age, we now have access to it if necessary. Maybe a couple grand here or there will get you the materials you need to take things to the next level in your product line, increasing demand and allowing you to hire people. Who knows? It's an option though, when a couple weeks ago it was not.


Do it yourself. I've already got one part time employee helping me out with my online business. She's gathering materials for talismans, handling incoming orders, taking care of shipping, and doing a lot of the administration, freeing me up to concentrate on providing the occult services and writing. Business is booming. I'm telling you, it's not only possible, it's effective.

Things are really changing. Who knew?