I have profiles scattered across the 'Net but I don't pay too much attention to most of them. Many of them are linked via my ClaimID page: claimid.com/shadygrove and you can visit them if you want to learn various and sundry things about me. I blog a lot on Tribe, but I've also got a WordPress blog on portopulpit.blotterati.com and one on LiveJournal.

My home pages are www.popeshady.com , www.shAdygr0ve.com and www.blotterati.com and I hope to keep refining them as time goes on to more completely reflect my vision for them.

Tribe.Net is my social network of choice.

Drop a line any time -- popeshady(at)blotterati.com -- if you feel so inclined.

Has evolution labored for three and a half billion years just to produce a well-suntanned, gracefully exercised, politically correct, organically fed, poly-orgasmic, self-actualized somatic technician living in a fucking condominium?

Answer: NO!

Nothing left to do but S.M.I2.L.E., S.M.I2.L.E., S.M.I2.L.E.!

After studying Dr. Timothy Leary's assessment that the Tactics of Evolution are: Space Migration, Intelligence Increase, and Life Extension (S.M.I2.L.E.), and that the Goal of Evolution is: Fusion at higher and higher levels of intensity, acceleration, and aesthetic complexity, The Mysterious Dr. Fou, futant extraordinaire and the first scoundrelsaint of The Born-Again Pagan, Christian Mystic, Zen Gypsy Warlock, Psychedelic Mind Fucked Church delivered the following transmission on applied hedonics: Y.H.B2.W2.!

YEE-HAW! BOOGIE-BOOGIE WAH-WAH!

Shady Backflash, is the Lord of Misrule and Purple Pope of the Born Again Pagan, Christian Mystic, Zen Gypsy Warlock, Psychedelic Mind-Fucked Church, High Holy Bollweevil of the Wholly Apocaleptic Order of Eris to the Infinite Power and Gonzo Evangelist of the Cosmic Giggle...

as for where he come from, well, legend has it that...

in the time before Time, the entity who was not yet Shady was in an apple grove in the land of Hy Brasil. life was groovy, i'd almost say peachy, but it was an APPLE GROVE after all, not a peach grove, and this entity was content.

but then there was a Great Schism that happened across the multiverses. some call this the Fall From Eden, and during the Schism, this entity was forced from the contented place of Unity and forced into Incarnation.

because of the need for Incarnation, this entity created Identity and thusly came to recognize that It was going to take on the mask of the Divine Masculine, call itself a He and give itself a Name. as the grove he'd come to call HOME (heaven on multiverse eden, but now more commonly thought to mean "heaven on mother earth") was shady, he called that HOME Shady Grove and called Himself Shady Backflash.

thusly impressed by his ability to Create, he stumbled out into the newly incarnated and thusly divided multiverses to troublemake. in due course, he was summoned by THOTH, The Hippie Of The Highest, and the Secret MisChiefs of the Hermetic Order of the Grateful Dead and commissioned to head out and deliver papyrus manuscripts containing a codex for FUNdalini Energy Raising that might allow other beings torn from the state of Unity (which ruptured the fabrics of reality during the aforementioned "fall from edenness") to find their way HOME.

in time this entity came to recognize that Hy Brasil and Avalon and Atlantis and Elysium and Eden and suchforth were all essentially parallel Other Worlds that pointed to the same Edenic State.("divided for Love's sake for the chance of Union" and alla that mystic mumbo-jumbo.)

so Shady Grove is a nice little apple orchard in Avalon. has a crystal cave out behind it with a library and an alchemical laboratory, too, with a great sound system and some pretty cool art and lighting. state of the art occultech stuff.

the sanctum sanctorum of Shady Grove is known as the Akashic Junction.

when the Great Schism (Fall from Eden) happened, everything that was once Unity had to take a side in the newly formed Duality. (y'know, be male or female, be alive or dead, be in the past or the present, be in the present or the future, be a proton or a neutron, a night or a day, here or there...)

and while, sure, the Biblical historians screwed the whole thing up by postulating the Creation and the Fall waaaaaay after the hairless apes had already populated the planet, it was clear from early on that the Schism that forced All into The Manifest would also bring with it its attendant Drama. so everyone took sides. some sided according to the newly formed concept of Gender, some according to Race, some according to Religion and others for equally absurd reasons.

being separate from Unity meant having to take a side. be "male" or "female"; "alive" or "dead"; "awake" or "asleep";

everything in the manifest multiverse had to have a "state of being" and this was true for Shady as well.

the place once called Avalon was no different. it became a mystical sorority and the No Boys Allowed sign made it tough for Shady (who'd chosen the Other Gender) to go back and sit in the shade in the apple grove and read comic books. (Since the Schism hadn't yet happened, Shady had access to the full collection in the Akashic Junction and could read the works of authors who had yet to conceive of conception. Neil Gaiman's work became particularly enticing.)

and so it came to pass that, alas, Shady, too, had to accept a role in the coming Division.

rather than go and do something silly like Get A Job, he proclaimed himself Gonzo Evangelist of the Cosmic Giggle and set about to deliver the techniques of FUNdalini Energy Raising to those unfortunate souls who'd lost their sense of humor somewhere in the Rupture of the Multiverses.

it didn't pay well, but what the hell, he thought. it was better than working at Wal-Mart.

so he hijacked the Ship of the Sun, filled the ship with Fools from the local Fool's Guild (The Balloonatic Fringe) and set sail to spread the Gospel of FUNdalini Energy Raising.

at present, Shady Backflash is believed to be the spirit of a disincarnate lima bean which transchannels through the beanie propellar of a Generation X flower child. some say that he is on a mission from THOTH (The Hippie Of The Highest) and the Secret MisChiefs, wandering about in the hijacked Ship of the Sun, getting scurvy on the high seas with the Balloonatic Fringe struggling to reassemble the scattered members of the lost secret society The Hermetic Order of the Grateful Dead. others simply speculate that he is a Lost Sailor who's been way to long at sea.

"Magic is the meta-belief that belief is a tool for achieving effects." -- Peter Carroll

Tarnished Galahad: The Prose and Pranks of Ken Kesey:
www.ulster.net/~shady/thesis.html

Interview With Ken Kesey:
www.ulster.net/~shady/keezintv.html

Deadisticism: The Magic and Mysticism of the Grateful Dead
www.ulster.net/~shady/deadisti.html

Fiyo On the Playa: How I Survived My First Burning Man: newyorkstate.tribe.net/thread...9e2cd3d

Burning Man and the World I've Returned To
www.burningman.com/blackroc...lash.html

If You're Not Outraged, You're Not Paying Attention
www.lowbrowink.com/06_manif...rage.html

Apartheid In Arizona
www.ulster.net/~shady/bmount.html

Reflections on Redwood Summer
www.ulster.net/~shady/redwood.htm

Anarchism in Theory and Practice
www.ulster.net/~shady/anarchism.html

What Would King Solomon Do? (2000 Election)
www.ulster.net/~shady/preaching.html

The Shady Grove Library's Annotated Bibliography

Howdy Folks! This is only a leaping off point for an idea that I hope will catch on. If there are titles that you think I might enjoy (or think I might have read and wonder why they haven't been added to this list) please feel welcome to e-mail me with input. The idea behind this is to give folks some pointers if they are interested in exploring any of the subjects listed below. Being as the Born-Again Pagan, Christian Mystic, Zen Gypsy Warlock Psychedelic Mind-Fucked Church subscribes to no central dogma, we are also more than a little wary of turning to any single collection of printed words for our Scripture. When the Egyptian God THOTH (The Hippie Of The Hightest) brought forth writing for the human race, we believe he also brought forth the ability to shift, rearrange, reinterpret and redirect its elaborate symbol system to suit any one of any zillion number of individual reality tunnels or belief systems. Therefore, we are inherently suspicious of all Scriptures, and just as eager to embrace them in order to see what gold can be distilled from the volume of dross.

If that intro wasn't too verbose to send you fleeing to the hills, lemme give you a rough outline of some of the subjects of interest that I hope to cover in this bibliography:

In recent years my reading has been concentrated in these basic categories:

Celtic/ Arthurian legends

Tarot, Kabbalah and occultism

The American Indian Movement and US/ Indian Affairs

Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters and Haight Ashbury psychedelia

General entertainment reading.

The following list contains many examples of each. With non-fiction, I have a tendency to read sections of books and jump around a lot, whereas with fiction, I'm far more likely to read a book cover to cover.

If the list seems overly academic at times that is, in large part, because much of the list was lifted verbatim from an "annotated bibliography" that I submitted a decade ago as part of my MFA "reading list." The Wayne's World book was included on that MFA list to amuse myself and see if it would annoy my teacher. (She didn't comment one way or the other.)

Celtic folklore
Arthurian legends:

From Ritual to Romance by Jessie Weston New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1920, 1993.

The Golden Bough by James Frazer New York: Gramercy Books, 1890, 1981.

The White Goddess by Robert Graves New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1948, 1966.

The Mabinogion translated by Lady Charlotte Guest Chicago: Academy Press Limited, 1877, 1978.

The Mabinogion is the essential collection of Celtic mythology. I chose to read Lady Guest's translation because it is the only one to contain the tale of Taliesin, the legendary bard who gains otherworldly powers when he tastes the elixir of Ceridwen's Cauldron of Inspiration. This book is out of print. My copy was obtained by calling the publisher.

In addition to reading sections of this translation, I read four fantasy novels by Evangeline Walton which tell the tales contained in the four branches of the Mabinogion:

Prince of Annwn New York: Ballantine Books, 1974.
The Children of Llyr New York: Ballantine Books, 1971.
The Song of Rhiannon New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.
The Island of the Mighty New York: Ballantine Books, 1970.

The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by Evans-Wentz New York: Carol Publishing Group. 1966, 1990.

The book is a series of testimonials about different peasants and townspeople who have encountered the Little People. I did not read this extensive study cover to cover but I find it to be a fascinating collection of fairy sightings.

Tarot/Occultism

Qabalistic Tarot by Robert Wang York Beach: Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1983.

This is by far the most useful book on the Tarot that I have found to date. It takes four prominent Tarot decks (The Smith (Rider)/Waite deck, the French Marseilles deck, Aliester Crowley's Thoth deck, and the deck used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn) and compares each of the 78 images in light of its in-depth presentation of the Kabbalah.

The Practical Qabalah Charles Fielding York Beach:Samuel Weiser, Inc. 1989.

Real Magic Isaac Bonewits York Beach: Samuel Weiser, Incorporated, 1989.

This is a fun book on the subject of magic by a mage who was the first ever to graduate from UC Berkeley with a degree in thaumaturgical studies. The book is more of an overview of various schools of magical thought, than a how-to approach to any one school. What I found most interesting was his approach to color-schools. Instead of the boring "black magic" --"white magic" (which I find dull and also a bit unsettling when considering the racial connotations of white as good and black as evil) Bonewits encourages practitioners to explore "yellow magic," "red magic," "purple magic," and so forth, giving a brief description of each.

The Middle Pillar by Israel Regardie St. Paul: Llewelyn Publications, Incorporated, 1978.

Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune and Aliester Crowley, taken together, form what I consider the pillars of most nineteenth and twentieth century ceremonial "magick." (The spelling with a "k" is Crowley's -- it is used to distinguish it from stage magic.) Of the three, Regardie does the best job of presenting dense material clearly. Crowley was too much of an obfuscator, and Fortune deliberately omitted material that she was bound by oath to conceal.

The Eye in the Triangle Israel Regardie. Phoenix: New Falcon Publications, 1993.

This book is a biography of Aliester Crowley, the man who signed his name "666" and relished in the titles "The Great Beast" and "The Wickedest Man Alive." The book was written by Regardie, his personal secretary, and presents a compelling view of Crowley and his system of ceremonial magick, including insight into his \'d2Book of the Law\'d3 in which Crowley presents the law of Thelema ("Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law. Love under Will.")

The Secrets of Western Tantra Christopher Hyatt Phoenix: New Falcon Publications, 1989.

This book documents the system of sex magick utilized by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the magical order that Aliester Crowley, William Butler Yeats, Dion Fortune, and A.E. Waite belonged to.

The Tarot, a Key to the Wisdom of the Ages Paul Foster Case Los Angeles: Builders of the Adytum, 1947, 1990.

There are numerous books on the Tarot, and I try to read as many of them as I can, but I find most to be either superficial or turgid. I found this one to be neither. It is a clear presentation of a particular approach to Tarot in light of the Kabbalah.

AIM/ US/Indian Affairs

Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall Boston: South End Press, 1988.

Anyone who ever needed a reason to hate the government should read this book. Even more, anyone who ever thought that people who hate the government are reactionary punks should give this book a good deal of thought. The book recounts the FBI's secret wars on the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. It includes documentation of assassinations, sterilization programs, character assassinations and a brutal misuse of the Justice Department. The book is a clear indictment of the ruling class' racist agenda, and concludes with evidence that the FBI's COINTELPROs (Counter Intelligence Programs) are not merely a thing of the past.

Lakota Woman Mary Crow Dog New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Incorporated, 1991.

This is a moving personal account by a woman who grew up on Pine Ridge in South Dakota. Pine Ridge is the subject of a good deal of the previously listed book. Mary Crow Dog tells of friends and loved ones whose lives were devastated by the FBI's ruthless attempts to immobilize AIM. The two books taken together are incredibly painful, but depict a reality that cannot be ignored. And one that may be far more prevalent than we would like to admit.

Ken Kesey and the Psychedelic Revolution

No question that Uncle Sam Bozo Kesey has had a tremendous influence on me for years. Returning to Kesey for my master's thesis was a great delight. What has made it that much more enjoyable has been the enormous amount of new material I have been able to find since junior year of high school when I did a term paper on Kesey and used only his first two novels, Garage Sale and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as primary sources. Here are some new goodies I have been able to get my hands on:

By Ken Kesey:

Kesey. Edited by Michael Strelow. Eugene, Oregon: Northwest Review Books, 1977.

This book is a must for anyone interested in understanding Kesey\'d5s writing process and the way in which his mind constructs thoughts. It gives in-depth coverage of Great Notion, his most complex work to date.

Demon Box. New York: Viking Press, 1988.

The Further Inquiry. New York: Viking Press, 1990.

Caverns. (with O.U. Levon) New York: Viking Press, 1990.

Sailor Song. New York: Viking Press, 1992.

This is Kesey's first novel in almost thirty years! (If you'd told me five years ago that I would be camping out at Kesey's house with the director of my graduate school's writing program during the release party for his new book, I woulda freaked. As it was, I freaked anyway!)

Last Go Round. (with Ken Babbs) New York: Viking Press, 1994.

Spit in the Ocean Vols. 1-6. Pleasant Hill: Intrepid Trips Information Service, 1974-1981.

Kesey's literary comic books

Twister! (unpublished manuscript) courtesy of Emily Hunter.

Zoo (unpublished manuscript) courtesy of The Kesey Collection, University of Oregon Library

Ken Kesey's unpublished novel (on loan from the University of Oregon Special Collections) about an Oregon farm boy who journeys to North Beach during the early 60's and comes in contact with such colorful bohemian characters as Sagacious (The Sage). Obviously autobiographical in many respects, this is Kesey's On the Road.

On the Bus Paul Perry with additional text by Ken Babbs New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991.

The Kool-Aid Acid Test as an oral history with pictures. 'Nuff said.

The Haight Ashbury, A History by Charles Perry. New York: Vintage Books, 1985.

I first picked up and read this book in 1987 in Great Expectations book store in the Haight during my first summer of hitchhiking the West Coast and going to shows, but it was so tremendously influential, that six years later I bought another copy to help with my Kesey thesis and reread a number of parts. I consider it on a par with The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test for understanding the Haight as a prototype for a psychedelic utopia (what Kesey calls "Psycheldephia.") The book gives an excellent perspective on San Francisco Mime Troupe as well as the Diggers.

Ringelevio: A Life Played for Keeps New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1990. by Emmett Grogan

For a more biased view of the Diggers, there's Emmett Grogan's account. I couldn't stomach the whole book. At least not yet. But it does present a tough street wise account of what it was like to deal with thousands of blissed out flower children descending on San Francisco with no food, housing or pragmatism, and how this would be Robin Hood for the turned on generation tried to do a little damage control by ripping off the Establishment and declaring everything FREE. Nice primer for Rainbow Family Living.

Garcia: A Signpost to New Space, The Rolling Stone Interview. Charles Reich and Jann Wenner. San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1972.

An interview with Jerry in the early seventies by Charles "The Greening of America" Reich and the editor of Rolling Stone magazine, calling it as he sees it.

Captain Trips Sandy Troy New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1994

This somewhat superficial biography of the Fat Man was released in paperback the day before Jerry Garcia died. Having spent a decade of my life listening to the Grateful Dead and going to their concerts, I wanted to see if there was anything new I could learn about the man or the band. This book didn't offer much, and was even less help in terms of new information to incorporate into the Kesey thesis.

The First Third Neal Cassady San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1971, 1981.

Other Fiction

Prince of Chaos. by Roger Zelazny New York: Avon Books, 1992.

The final in the Amber series by my favorite "fast food sci-fi/fantasy" writer. Everyone's gotta have a favorite easy reading author.

Schrodinger\'d5s Cat Trilogy Robert Anton Wilson New York: Dell Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1988.

Robert Anton Wilson continues to spew his noseful of nonsense with Quantum Weirdness, Illuminati Mindfuck, and general Erisian Discord. (See The Principia Discordia.)

Principia Discordia or "How I Found the Goddess and What I Did To Her When I Found Her" The Magnum Opiate of Malaclypse the Younger Port Townshend: Loompanics Unlimited, undated.

The essential book on Operation Mindfuck (OM) and the strange religion that worships Eris, the Greek Goddess of Chaos. "Wherein it is explained," the cover promises, "absolutely everything worth knowing about absolutely anything." Is this a religion posing as a joke or a joke posing as a religion?

The Illuminati Conspiracy, The Sapiens System Donald Holmes Phoenix: New Falcon Publications, 1993.

This book is fairly stupid and one of the least interesting books on the subject of "The Illuminati" -- the rumored secret society that has been ruling the world from behind the scenes since time immemorial. The book's most redeeming quality is an extensive introduction by Robert Anton Wilson, in which Wilson examines many of the historical riddles that continue to fascinate and baffle conspiracy theorists.

In Watermelon Sugar Richard Brautigan New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1968.

Wow! What a delightfully weird book!

Naked Lunch William Burroughs New York:Grove Weidenfeld, 1959

This book is unsettling, to say the least, but I have to admit that I think it is a work of genius. It took me putting it down a few times before I felt I really understood what the value of the book was. I had read Junky back in high school, and was expecting another similar book, but instead found myself getting lost in a maze of hallucinatory weirdness. Then I felt like I "got" it -- Burroughs was being so self-indulgent to parody the indulgence of our society and its collective neuroses (as well as his own.) I'm sure that's not the only interpretation of this very complex work, but it made a lot of sense to me.

Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut, Jr New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1959.

I've always loved Vonnegut. This is one of his best. (Then again, aren't they all?)

A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole Avenal: Random House Publishing, Incorporated, 1994. Having lived in the French Quarter once again over the winter (November, 1994 - February 1995) I decided to pick up another copy of this book and finally read it. It captures all of the magical weirdness that makes the French Quarter a magnet for loose screws. I spent my days sitting on Jackson Square reading fortunes with Tarot cards, and spent my evenings living in The Rebel Arms, a rooming house above a Decatur street bar, so I felt I was living A Confederacy of Dunces while reading it. One comment on the book -- it is exceptionally tight. Toole doesn't so much as make a character sneeze without making that a significant event. I loved that, and tried to learn from it. Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice New York: Ballantine Books, 1976 Along with A Confederacy of Dunces, this is another book I decided was "required reading" since I spent my winter in the Crescent City. Yea, it's fast food reading, but also a welcome change from Stephen King (whom I read in high school quite a lot.) I was intrigued by the fact that her horror is erotic rather than brutal. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Douglas Adams New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1989. Douglas Adams is a nut. Having read all of his Hitchhiker books, I thought I'd give this a try. As I expected, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Dune Frank Herbert New York: Berkley Books, 1965
Dune Messiah Frank Herbert New York: Berkley Books, 1969
Children of Dune Frank Herbert New York:Berkley Books, 1976

While this is considered by many to be the greatest science-fiction trilogy of all-time, I found it to be a bit overrated. But it is excellent.

Wayne's World -- Extreme Close Up by Mike Meyers and Robin Ruzan. New York: Cader Books, 1991.

Most excellent book by modern philosophers Wayne and Garth. Includes such insightful passages as "Top 10 Things That Make You Blow Chunks," "Top 10 Female Cartoon Characters We'd All Like to Have Sex With," "How to Schwing," and even a section of "Poetry." We're not worthy? Shyeah Righttt!!! And monkeys might fly out of my butt!!

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. New York: Fawcett Book Group, 1984. Who was Myrddin Emrys? This is a fun account of the ancient Celtic mage who inspired modern fantasy writing.

American Gods by Neal Gaiman
Stardust by Neal Gaiman

Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson

Imajica by Carl Barker

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore

In A Class All Its Own

TAZ: Temporary Autonomous Zones, Ontological Anarchy and Poetic Terrorism. Hakim Bey Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1991.

After two years at Naropa, working as his teaching assistant, taking his "Utopian Poetics" workshop, reading his reactionary roast of Kesey's "Twister!" and proof-reading Rembert Block's MFA thesis on TAZ, I finally sat down and read the book. I have to say that he does an amazing job of synthesizing and crystallizing a number of concepts from the so-called radical underground into an excellent manifesto for free spirits exploring the bohemian fringe. It's interesting to see how and where this work fits in with other works I've read, such as the Haight-Ashbury history and Ringelevio. (Believe it or not, the Haight was a TAZ before the media arrived.) Also, Discordianism is one of the alternate spiritual paths cited in the passage on Weird Religions. Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!