Category Archives: Austin

Anomaly Archives eNews – New Location in 2018!

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Landing in Downtown Austin Mid-January 2018

Source: Anomaly Archives eNews – New Location in 2018!

The Anomaly Archives Weekly Email Newsletter

December 14th, 2017 – Austin, Texas . . .

 

New Anomaly Archives Location!

Landing in mid-January 2018

55 North IH-35, Suite 256

Austin, Texas 78702

In the Meantime . . .
Come See Us At
The Awesmic City Expo!!! 

Anomaly Archives at the KOOP Radio Booth: F-65 on ROW-F

SMiles Lewis’ Lecture, Sunday the 17th @1pm: Awesmic Talks ROW-A

Anomaly Archives at Awesmic City Expo

Visit us at the Anomaly Archives Booth this weekend in Booth F-65 at the …

4th Annual – ACE-2017
AWESMIC CITY EXPO

Palmer Events Center Exhibit Hall No. 2

December 16th & 17th, 2017

Entrance Fee is $5, or FREE when you bring can good donations or toy donations to our KOOP 91.7 food or toy drop located inside the ACE 2017 Palmer Event Exhibit Hall 2, Dec. 16-17, 2017.

Thanks to the Community Group Member Organizations of KOOP 91.7 Radio!

 – SMiles Lewis
Anomaly Archives Founder & INACS Board Member

Contact: Miles@AnomalyArchives.org

 

 

 


Book of the Week…

The Super Natural
A New Vision of the Unexplained
by Whitley Strieber & Jeffrey J. Kripal

From C. M. Mayo’s review…

“[i]f we, as scholars of religion, cannot take this text seriously, if we cannot interpret it in some satisfying fashion, if we cannot make some sense of this man’s honest descriptions of his traumatic, transcendent experiences, then we have no business trying to understand his spiritual ancestors in the historical record. We either put up here, or we shut up there. I decided to put up.”

Now to the Kantian cut. It is to distinguish between the appearances of things and what may actually lie behind them. In making that cut, we recognize that while our physical senses provide us with essential survival-oriented information, in no way do they even begin to convey to our consciousness awareness the totality of reality. As Kripal writes, this cut “is a very reasonable and appropriate response to our actual situation in the cosmos.” Furthermore, “Once one makes such a cut, one can, in principle, take any religious experience or mythical world seriously and sympathetically without adopting any particular interpretation of it, much as one suspends disbelief to enjoy a good novel or watch a science-fiction movie.”

In other words, we don’t need to accept nor reject Strieber’s reports of UFOs and “the visitors”— yes, we can keep the lids on our coconuts while adopting the stance of radical empiricism in considering large-scale quantum phenomena! 

Put yet another way: if we can simply look at such experiences as Strieber’s, sit with them, consider them “seriously and sympathetically, without adopting any particular interpretation”—we can then, to quote Kripal again, “begin to study their  patterns, histories, narrative structures, sexual dimensions, and philosophical implications.” The Kantian cut thus gives us the power to then spiral up to a broader, richer view. It is an astonishing power.

. . .

Many people know Strieber as “that guy who wrote about being abducted by extraterrestrials.” In fact, Strieber reports his perceptions of his experiences, but as to what they actually are, he says, “I am a wanderer, lost in a forest of hypotheses.” Strieber also echoes Kripal in arguing that, “it is not necessary to believe in such things as flying saucers, aliens, ghosts, and other unexplained phenomena in order to study them.”

But to study such things without puckerlips, and all brain cells firing, one must make that Kantian cut—and one needs courage to persist, for that Kantian cut must be made again and again in the face of our inclination towards easy polarities, to either believe or, more commonly, reject, bristling with hostility or scornful laughter. 

As Kripal puts it, one must “learn to live with paradox, to sit with the question.”

SOURCE: Literal Magazine – C. M. Mayo
“A thought-provoking, intelligent reconceptualization of supernatural events.”

SOURCE: Kirkus Review

Got To: Anomaly Archives Book Page…

Book Page at Anomaly Archives…


Headlines

Here are some headlines of note for this week:

SAI Anomaly Archives eNews

 Anomaly Archives Flipboard RSS Feed

 

Check out more news links at the

Anomaly Archives Flipboard

[NOTE: Inclusion of news & event info is purely informational

and does not indicate endorsement.]

 

 

Source: Anomaly Archives eNews – New Location in 2018!

Anomaly Archives at Awesmic City Expo – ACE-2017

Visit us at the Anomaly Archives Booth this weekend at ACE-2017:

4th Annual – AWESMIC CITY EXPO

Palmer Events Center Exhibit Hall No. 2

December 16th & 17th, 2017

www.AwesmicCityExpo.com

Anomaly Archives Booth KCOG F-65, ROW-F

SMILES LEWIS LECTURE . . .
SUNDAY – Dec. 17, 2017, @1pm
AWESMIC TALKS – ROW A

Entrance Fee is $5, or FREE when you bring can good donations or toy donations to our KOOP 91.7 food or toy drop located inside the ACE 2017 Palmer Event Exhibit Hall 2, Dec. 16-17, 2017.

Thanks to the Community Group Member Organizations of KOOP 91.7 Radio!

 

UFO: Underground Freestyle Olympics!

We experience the Awesmic Starship atmosphere and participate in the Cosmic Cultures neon/black light dance and judged freestyle dance tournament with Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Houston directed by B*Truarts &  Incredicrew of Austin, Texas.

INSIDE THE AWESMIC STARSHIP… Underground Freestyle Olympics

Dance Tournament:  An Awesmic Blueprint

Sunday – Dec. 17
Statewide – Dallas, Houston, San Antonio to participate in the tournament hosted by ACE – B*Truarts & Incredicew and afterwards – a send off Aquarian Dance in neon/black lights atmosphere!  As an added plus we will celebrate and experience multicultural regalia, arts and crafts, performance arts, presentations.

 

Anomaly Archives eNews 3/8/2016

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Source: Anomaly Archives eNews 3/8/2016

The Anomaly Archives Weekly Email Newsletter

March 8th, 2016 – With so many explorers taking the final journey lately, it can be difficult just continuing. I’m so thankful for all the friends and family I have who are still here with me, with us, as we continue moving forward through spacetime.

This week’s newsletter was particularly difficult… I’ve been meaning for some time to mention the passing last year of “Texas ParaCryptozoologist” Rob Riggs. I’d known him since late 2001, early 2002, after I became aware of his book In the Big Thicket: On the Trail of the Wild Man. We went on an overnight expedition together into the wilds along the Sabine River with fellow Texas bigfoot seeker, Chester Moore. I’d see Rob speak of his alternative perspectives at various Texas Bigfoot conferences and host him and friends in my living room, interviewing him for a feature article in the Austin Para Times newspaper I was editing. When Rob was managing the local Natural Awakenings magazine, he sponsored the Anomaly Archives’ biggest ever event, the Texas Ghost Lights Conference featuring me as Master of Ceremonies, plus speakers including Rob, Nick Redfern, Paul Devereux, and James Bunnell. The last time I saw Rob was at his July 2014 presentation to the Anomaly Archives. Then last November, I got word that he’d passed away. I was asked to speak at his memorial and I did. I told his friends and family about my experiences with him, about how his research was received by fellow bigfoot seekers, told them about his support of the Anomaly Archives and about our strange experience on the Sabine River with Chester Moore. I also heard many wonderful stories from his numerous friends and spiritual seekers. It was a truly moving memorial for a man who dared to ask about possibilities. You can read more about him and his legacy at the links below. At that link you can also find photos of the the text of his last book, Bigfoot: Exploring the Myth & Discovering the Truth, for pages 100-103 wherein Rob relates the trip we took on the Sabine River with Chester… when the engine synchronistically cut-out after repeated mentioning of ‘El Diablo.’

. . . . .

Sadly, Rob was but one of many losses to the Cryptozoology Community this past year or so. You can find many excellent memorials to those other fine researchers as chronicled by researcher Loren Coleman at his CryptoZooNewsand Twilight Language websites in our “Leaving a Legacy” section below.

. . . . .


SouthPop.org

Meanwhile, there has been yet another passing of someone whom I and others found inspirational, right here in Austin, Texas: local artist and “Unofficial Mayor of South Austin” Henry Gonzalez. I met Henry and his wife Leea several years ago when my then girlfriend (now my wife) was working with them on the non-profit that they had founded. South Pop (South Austin Popular Culture Center) “collects, conserves, and exhibits vintage posters and live music ephemera from the 1960s through today to educate future generations on the rich and unique culture that makes Austin the Live Music Capital of the World.” In 2010 I became better friends with Henry and Leea as they helped me host a fun science-fiction pop-culture film-series outdoors at the South Pop facility on South Lamar. We launched the Summer Flying Saucer Cinema Series 2010, projecting such SciFi classics as Quatermass & the Pit, aka Five Million Years to Earth!Invaders from Mars, and Starship Invasions. Henry lived an amazing and inspirational life. “Primarily known for his murals and outdoor art installations… he was part of the Armadillo Art Squad at the legendary Armadillo World Headquarter… spent time as the stage manager for the Austin Opera House and for the AFM free concert series… [and] on the road with touring bands” [including on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s final tour]. Portrait of Henry Gonzales by Kerry Awn

Just as we’ve been chronicling the passing of giants in our field of study, so too had Henry Gonzalez been chronicling the passing of Austin’s giants in the fields of art, music, and popular culture. One of his many achievements was “maintaining a vast altar to Austin’s departed musicians and artists. No one deserves placement on that wall more than Henry Gonzalez.”

You can read more about Henry in the “Leaving a Legacy” section below, online at our Anomaly Archives page, and in this article (Playback: The Mayor’s Plan to Save Austin Music Mayor – Steve Adler addresses the elephant in the club, Susan Antone honored, and Henry Gonzalez goes to the head of the Austin poster artist altar) by Kevin Curtin, in the March 4th edition of the Austin Chronicle(Volume 35, Number 27 – e-edition | pdf).

[Portrait of Henry Gonzales by Kerry Awn]

. . . . .

In lieu of our usual Book-of-the-Week, we’ve got a brief article by researcherScott Corralles reflecting on his interactions with rare book seller and independent publisher Bob Girard. Scott is the editor of Inexplicata – The Journal of Hispanic Ufology and corresponded with Bob for several years. After you readScott’s article you can read other past memorials and reflections about Mr. Girard at our Anomaly Archives website including our Bob Girard Collection page, searchable Catalog, Clas Svahn’s farewell to Bob Girard, and The Legacy of Bob Girard – An Interview with SMiles Lewis.

. . . . .

As with each issue of our weekly newsletter, we have a wealth of News Headlines from around the globe.

Among those which particularly caught our attention and imagination this week were yet another in a long series of “strange” teaching exercises that have been enacted repeatedly at schools in England. In my 2013 lecture, The Fantastic Facts About UFOs, Altered States of Consciousness, and Mind-at-Large – UFOs & Consciousness: Part Two, I mentioned that there had been at least nine such events like this between 2008 and 2013 in which the Department for Children, Schools and Families had employed staged scenarios involving UFO crashes, alien abductions of teachers, a bloody crime scene, and even a terrifying World War 3 simulation involving sirens, videos of global catastrophe, and fireworks. Well they are at it again… check out the link in the Headlines section below.


Meanwhile, a recent article from RoadTrippers.com highlights the “hidden gems” at the Capitol Reef National Park. This reminded me of the last “Kook Out” that my friends and fellow para-seekers, writers, and researchers from the old 1990s zine scene went on back in 2003. We converged in Capitol Reef National Park and had a wonderful time hiking and sight-seeing. As always with these gatherings, we told weird stories around the campfire and enjoyed each others’ company. In the spirit of that trip I include a picture of myself below in which I am posing in front of one of the barricaded uranium mines, complete with radioactive warning sign.

We hope you enjoy this latest edition of the weekly email newsletter.

We are still in the midst of our Annual Membership Drive! Please consider supporting us by becoming a sustaining member: follow the links below to sign-up for the annually self-renewing membership via PayPal.

See you next week!

SMiles Lewis / Founder

AnomalyArchives.org
SMilesLewis.com


Legacy

Remembering those who’ve inspired us…

Henry Gonzalez (Austin Artist) –

“Quien con la esperanza vive, alegre muere.
He who lives with hope dies happy.

With much sadness in our hearts we mourn the passing of SouthPop founder and father, Henry Gonzalez. The unoffical mayor of South Austin, Henry was the keeper and sharer of the stories that make Austin great. His artwork stands as a testament to his creativity, ingenuity, vibrant spirit, and colorful personality. But all the words in the world cannot illustrate his light and enthusiasm.”  – SouthPop.org

READ MORE…

. . . . .

Charles Robert Riggs (Para-Cryptozoology Researcher)

Rob authored In the Big Thicket: On the Trail of the Wild Man, published by Paraview Press in 2001. I worked with editor Patrick Huyghe and Rob, proofreading, helping out, and reviewing Rob’s book. My review talked of how much I admired his work. I wrote: ”Rob Riggs’s new book takes the reader on a wild tour through one of America’s weirdest wonderlands. Riggs has produced a great collection on such mysterious Texan wonders as the Marfa and Bragg Road ghost lights, and the Big Thicket’s Wild Man, including one delightfully named Ol’ Mossyback. A shamanistic journey.”

Rob also co-wrote Weird Texas (with Wesley Treat and Heather Shade) published by Sterling Press, in 2005, and Bigfoot: Exploring the Myth & Discovering the Truth(with Tom Burnette) from Llewellyn Publications, in 2014.”

Author, Friend, Bigfooter Rob Riggs Dies by Loren Coleman / CryptoZooNews.com

READ MORE…

. . . . .

Chronicling Cryptozoological Legacies…
Loren Coleman, The International Cryptozoology Museum & CryptoZooNews.com

“Loren Coleman’s special appreciation of his fellow cryptozoologists and hominologists has made him the source of biographical insights, and his obituaries and living commentaries on the leaders of the field have been published widely. National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” for example, called on Coleman to speak in tribute of Dr. Grover Krantz who died on Valentine’s Day, 2002.”

Recent coverage of Para-Cryptozoo-Passings…


Scott Corrales on Bob Girard

It was hard to miss the ads for Arcturus Books in the early days, when I took my first steps into the pool of ufology. Overwhelmed with information as I was, I never thought to contact them or get a copy of their catalogue: magazines, ‘zines, newsletters and bulletin board postings (remember the long-gone days of BBS?) provided a dizzying mix of information where abduction claims, tales of underground bases and straight-out conspiracy theory shared the cramped pages like passengers on a subway train during rush hour.

It was much later that Joan Jeffers – a devoted Pennsylvanian researcher of UFO and related phenomena – told me to get a hold of Bob Girard, saying he could find any book or periodical I might remember from the early days of sauceriana, or even material from other countries. Oddly enough, I was sort of in touch with Bob already. His former partner, the late Ron Bonds, had set up Illuminet Press expressing an interest in publishing my translation of Salvador Freixedo’s “Visionaries, mystics and contactees”, a great introduction to the Spanish Jesuit’s vast body of work on the paranormal. Bob’s wife Monica provided the cover art for the project, so when I picked up the phone to call Arcturus, no introduction was really necessary.

Read the rest… at the
Anomaly Archives website.

Scott Corrales is the editor of
Inexplicata – The Journal of Hispanic Ufology

Photo of Bob Girard – Credit: Clas Svahn / AFU


Headlines
Here are some headlines of note for this week:
[NOTE: Inclusion of news & event info is purely informational and does not indicate endorsement.]
See also… other spotlighted news & event links below!