Oregonian circulation falling

OPB reports that... only the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times had bigger drops in circulation than The Oregonian. According to Editor and Publisher magazine, the Portland-based daily saw circulation fall by 6.8%.

Now that's what I call secure!

From Microsoft's Knowledgebase: Error Message: Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords

The watchlist

I guess there must be a Michael Taylor who is considered a threat to security, because virtually every time I fly a call has to be made to the TSA before it is determined that I am not the guy they are after. This story from focusses on the effectivity of the list. An excerpt:
In New York, Kroft spoke to the group, all of them named Robert Johnson; all said they have trouble getting on airplanes. They don’t look like a very dangerous group. There is a politician, a soccer coach, businessmen, even a member of the military. Yet they say they are pulled aside and interrogated, sometimes for hours until someone at the Transportation Security
...
The Robert Johnson meant to be on the No Fly List would seem to be the known alias of a 62-year-old black man who was convicted of plotting to bomb a Hindu temple and a movie theatre in Toronto. After serving 12 years, he was deported to Trinidad. But the airlines ticket agents don’t have any of that information on their computer screens. They just have the name, not even a date of birth.

Rite of Venus

The Rite of Venus: A Rock Opera - CoHo Theater - Portland, Oregon - June 9, 2007 e.v.

Kudos to Lon

Lon DuQuette reports that he has just been informed that on November 1st USABookNews.com... will announce the winners and finalists of its "BEST BOOKS 2006" NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS and has named my newest book; THE KEY TO SOLOMON'S KEY: Secrets of Magic & Masonry "Award-Winning Finalist" in the category of "Religion: General".

Good for Lon. He is deserving of a wider mainstream readership for his unique blend of wisdom and humour.

Oldie: NAEQ horrors

I was reminded the other evening of this spoof of my friend Gerald's book New Aeon English Qabalah Revealed. I'm glad that people are enjoying it.

Newport log cabin museum

We were on our way out of town by the time we visited the Log Cabin Museum in Newport, operated by the Lincoln County Historical Society, so did not have sufficient time to browse thoroughly. It's a smallish museum, but there is enough there for me to recommend a visit. Of special note are the various historical photos of Newport and Nye Beach.

Newport - Cafe Stephanie

We had a lovely short vacation on the coast, staying at a yurt in Beverly Beach State Park. Going away on a weekday ensures that the parks a good deal quieter than they are over the busy weekends.
We didn't get many good photos, unfortunately. We did discover a wonderful new restaurant, though: Cafe Stephanie on Nye Beach. We went there for breakfast both mornings that we were on the coast (and they had Matisyahu playing both times - good for them.) The crab and artichoke quiche was bloody excellent. As were the scones, which come complementary with every breakfast. Add to that cute and friendly staff and you can't go wrong - I highly recommend Cafe Stephanie.

Aleister Crowley in the Media III

It's been a week since the last 'Crowley in the media' post, so I may have missed a couple of things.

Lonelygirl15 is still making the news after all these weeks. Who the hell cares? The Stanford Daily has a fairly decent article on the subject, though.

More interesting is Slate's story on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. They briefly rehash Hubbard's involvedment with Jack Parsons:
In the mid-1940s, he [Hubbard] fell in with John Parsons, a wealthy and brilliant young rocket scientist in California, who also happened to be under the tutelage of the infamous satanist Aleister Crowley (no relation to yours truly, thankfully)... followed by the whole sad yacht incident.
Infamous Satanist indeed. Just when we thought Crowley was beginning to get a fair shake in the media.

From the Los Angeles City Beat comes a nice article on symbolism in Led Zepplin's music. Of course Jimmy Page's interest in The Beast is mentioned:
The real attractions for Page were Crowley’s theories on self-liberation... If he signed his own deal at his own crossroads, somewhere outside swinging London, any devotion to the occult was private, a quiet avocation. In 1998, the reunited Page & Plant invited the young violinist Lili Haydn to join the tour as opening act. By chance, her father had published a volume of Crowley writings in the ’60s, but Page had no interest in discussing it. No comment at all. He just smiled and nodded.

Metroactive (a Silicon Valley weekly) has a review of Eric Davis' book on spirituality in California, The Visionary State. Crowley gets a mention in the discussion of Spencer Lewis and AMORC:
The man who claimed to have disinterred Rosicrucian documents from California's soil was H. Spencer Lewis, an energetic Egyptophile and adman who founded the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis in New York in 1915. Lewis was initiated by a Rosicrucian master in Toulouse and spent time as well in the Ordo Templi Orientis, an occult order led by the notorious Aleister Crowley; Spence took AMORC's Rosicrucian emblem from the pages of Crowley's journal, The Equinox.
I suppose that 'notorious' is rather better than 'infamous Satanist.'

And finishing off this bumper edition is the San Francisco Bay Guardian's account of a visit to the publishers Red Wheel-Weiser-Conari, an outfit that has its roots securely planted in a to-die-for occult backlist that includes Aleister Crowley’s life’s work — the whirlwind novel Diary of a Drug Fiend, the massive, lifetime’s-worth-of-reading-material Magick, the ever-popular Thoth tarot deck — the publisher has a foundation of street cred.

Help Robert Anton Wilson pay the rent

I got this via email from my friend Adam Gorightly, who in turn got it from this blog entry. I've cut it somewhat.
...Robert Anton Wilson, whose infirmity and depleted finances have put him in the precarious position of not being able to meet next month’s rent.In case the name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, Bob is the guy who wrote Cosmic Trigger - still the best narrative on how to enter and navigate the psycho-spiritual realm, and co-wrote the Illuminatus Trilogy, an epic work that pushes beyond conspiracy theory into conspiracy practice.
Robert Anton Wilson will one day be remembered alongside such literary philosophers as Aldous Huxley and James Joyce. But right now, Bob is a human being in a rather painful fleshsuit, who needs our help. I refuse for the history books to say he died alone and destitute, for I want future generations to know we appreciated Robert Anton Wilson while he was alive....
Any donations can be made to Bob directly to the Paypal account olgaceline@gmail.com.You can also send a check payable to Robert Anton Wilson to Dennis Berry c/o Futique TrustP.O. Box 3561Santa Cruz, CA 95063.