“I let personal circumstances interfere with my attendance. My situation is stable now.”
61 minutes
Author: Gib
Stranger
Stranger Edleman
2002(?) — 2019
Last week I had to say goodbye to my best friend. Stranger and I were together for nine years. The last four were a struggle with cancer. When I first met Stranger she was so small that I thought she was a baby. She’d been hanging out outside neighbors of my dad’s out in the country. According to them this area, near the woods of the Boy Scout Camp, was a popular drop off sight for unwanted pets, and they speculated that her owner might’ve died and then the person’s family didn’t want her. Stranger emerged from the shadows of that dark night, quietly approaching me. She seemed to be asking to be my cat, my friend. She sniffed me out for a while and then I picked her up and held her in my arms for the first of a million times.
When I took “the baby” to the vet they informed me that she was not a baby, that she was about 7 years old, that she had already had babies of her own and had since been spayed. Dad saw the disappointment in my face, and asked what’s the matter, you wanted a virgin? It wouldn’toccur to him that I was thinking about how this meant I would have to say goodbye to her sooner.
That first night she laidon my chest in bed, and I told her that if she could just get through the plane ride that I would always take care of her. The plane ride was traumatic, and she must’ve felt like she was being abducted, but she made it and I kept my word.
Stranger was a mystery. I would always ask her who she was and where she had come from. She wouldn’t answer of course, she’d just look at me with those big, wide saucer eyes. I don’t know anything about her life for those first seven years except that someone must’ve taken real good care of Stranger because she turned out to be the sweetest cat I’ve ever met—always cuddling up on my lap, chest, neck, or directly on my head. She loved to go outside and soak the sun into her soft black fur. In the evenings she would rub her face on mine until my glasses would come off and then rub some more. In the morning she would lick my head. She always knew when i was upset, and would give me love when I needed it most.
When she was diagnosed with cancer in 2016, the vet said she would only live a few more months. when I fell apart on the floor, crying please don’t leave me, she kissed my face and tried to reassure me. SHE was worried about ME. She proved the vets wrong of course and lived 3 more years. I tried to be a good friend. I tried to give her everything she needed and take care of her as she got sicker and drifted further and further away.
Last week was very hard. Today I threw out a medicine bottle that read Stranger Edleman, and fell apart again. I don’t really know what my purpose is now that I don’t have anyone to love and take care of. And I wish I had taken more pictures of her. If you know me in real life and have any pictures of her, please send them, especially from 2010 to 2015. And please don’t post anything snarky. I’m in a lot of pain and can’t take it.
In the Jungle
In the jungle there’s a parasitic fungus that penetrates the exoskeleton of ants. It grows inside their bodies, eating the ant from the inside. Soon the ant is as much fungus as it is ant. Once inside the brain, the fungus modifies the ant’s behavior, making it leave the colony and climb to a leaf overlooking the colony’s path where it grips a leaf with its mandibles to secure a sniper’s perch. After the ant starves to death up there, a stalk emerges from the ant’s brain. The stalk even knows which direction to grow in order to best position itself, before erupting and raining spores down on the ants below.
Sometimes I think a similar parasite has infected humans, one that uses mind control to ascend specific individuals to great heights where their behavioral and idealogical influence rains down on the public.
TV Knows No Night
Check out my conversation on The Liminalist with host Jasun Horsley, in which we finally get to the bottom of it all! From the face to face lie to the big faceless lie we face daily . . . From the dark void to the first fire . . . Ignore the pic—I was having a bad hair year.
https://auticulture.com/the-liminalist-184-tv-knows-no-night-with-gib-strange/
“Return conversation with Gib Strange, on True Detective season one, occult pedophiles, Eyes Wide Shut, True Detective season two, the world as bad guy, a face for evil, haunted houses, Killing the Messenger, an invisible octopus, All the President’s Men, the mechanics of melodrama, Hitchcock’s villains, the manipulations of media, Trump as traveling wrestler, Oliver stone & JFK, demonology without theology, God vs. the devil, guilty scapegoats, Randy Quaid, diffuse hatred, the big orange blob, Moon landing C-theory, Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love, Whitley Strieber’s voice, the need for discernment, the Ziegler test, an honest scoundrel, the biology of denial, evolution-Terminator, Satan as principle of Matter, Satanism & materialism, The House Jack Built, the will of matter, science & the apocalypse, why demons may be closer to God, denying the father, occultism & pessimism, a decision between Mars & extinction, True Detective’s nihilism, validating a perspective, the appeal of nihilism, finding meaning, post-nihilism self-help, staring at the abyss, projecting malevolence onto the unknown, In the Dust of the Planet, the Enlightenment as precursor to Gothic horror, Lovecraft’s terrifying vistas, the Hadron collider, TV knows no night, stories & fire, the divine spark, Promethean gift, the externalization of inner resources, community of fire, the primal fear of isolation, survival vs. socializing, grounding activities, an alternative 1%, settling into a natural order, the first boil.”
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas, dear reader and listener.
I have a couple updates—first, the manuscript is finally finished. It’s nearly twice the length that it was when I recorded these episodes last year. And now I am back to seeking a publisher. I had taken down some old episodes, as I thought having too much up might decrease its chances of getting published. But I’ve changed my mind and will be putting some of the old episodes back up over the next week. Today Episode 2: Plato’s Cave-In has been reinstated.
I have also cleaned up the website a bit. There’s a nice shiny Itunes logo now. You’re welcome. And after a couple people reached out asking how they could support my work, I decided to add a Paypal donate button. All donations will go toward new episode recording and possibly publishing.
Huge thanks to Darren Westlund, Jasun Horsley, and Dennis McBride for the very nice blurbs on the home page. I’ve also added a tag line under the title banner. It reads, “SETI to yeti. Do you copy? Over.” What do you think? Here are some of the other contenders—
“Is that your life flashing before your eyes, or are you just scrolling through your phone?”
“Do you feel as if you are observing yourself from the outside, looking inside?”
“Toddler to Siri: ‘I love you.’ Siri responds.”
What line from the book do you think belongs up there?
Today as I was listening to Episode 2 for the first time since I recorded it I was struck by how sad I sound. Jasun Horsley calls it my “Eeyore voice.” And I also heard a live reading recently—the difference is subtle but consequential. At 3 AM when you’re alone with the machine reading words for the millionth time it’s hard to recreate the natural energy you feel when actually connecting with people in real time. Someday I would like to rerecord the full version of the book with an engineer to worry about the tech, and maybe even a live audience to exchange energy with. But for now, this is it.
I’m also thinking of making more videos. Probably readings of short pieces unrelated to this project. What do you think? Did anyone watch the Halloween video?
Feel free to reach out to say hello and offer feedback. Someone told me there was a problem where it wouldn’t allow them to comment or email but I think I’ve fixed it. Thanks to everyone for listening, writing reviews, and sending encouraging words and support. I really appreciate it.
Happy solstice. May you get through the coming market-sanctioned, culturally designated time for love without killing loved ones.
Love,
Gib and Stranger
Something to See
Five years ago I made a film called “Something to See.” The first few minutes are a painfully accurate expression of my experience of panic attacks in the city, but if you can get through that there’s beauty on the other side.
The Liminalist: A Replicant Awakens
Listen as Jasun Horsley of The Liminalist and I finally get to the bottom of it all. I.e. find ourselves up invisible creek without an imaginary paddle—
https://auticulture.com/the-liminalist-175-a-replicant-awakens-with-gib-strange/
Topics discussed include: Horsley’s Neuro-Deviant, Notes from Underground, the outsider archetype, Taxi Driver, the unsympathetic alienated, Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, the anti-villain, misery makes the fiend, existentialism as product, Gib’s avatar in Notes from Uncanny Valley, Edgar Poe’s Imp of the Perverse, taboo and social control, monoculture vs. diversity, space for the damaged, socially accepted rebellion, counterculture as psyop, Catcher in the Rye, what’s behind the zeitgeist, the synthesis of fiction & nonfiction, distrust for success, Mad Men, individually targeted markets, youth culture and identity formation, increased bifurcation, a fetish menu, maternal psychic enmeshment, girls with daddy issues, A.I., recreating the mother’s body, The Overlook, Phillip K. Dick & siphoning neuro-deviants, a control mechanism, life in a simulation, the door to nihilism, believing in nothing, the question of meaning, super-egoism, a replicant awakens, action vs. philosophy, radio signals to the brain, delusions for sale, the Illuminati meme, Paul Hellyer, information saturation, acclimatization to acts of abomination, a polarity of gullibility, a split in the psyche, increased polarization, disappearing transition seasons, imagination, the power of certainty, sleeping better without uncertainty,gender identification at odds with sexual orientation, the search for tolerable uncertainty, Hollywood Illuminati, when people lie, experiencing DID & fragmentation, the CIA’s authorized disclosures, gas-lighting, homogenized insanity, pre-Apocalyptic climate, Trump & Kanye West, celebrity meltdown,Joaquin Phoenix, simulated meltdown, Jim Carrey’s plausible deniability, Kidding, the shadow & the persona,when psyops become sexy, Stranger Things & ripping off internet conspiracy culture, seeding the internet with disinformation narratives, CIA & Hollywood, early film propaganda, 2001 & “benign” propaganda, 2001’s impact on science, The Imitation Game & how to militarize autism, history & conspiracy theory, Phillip K. Dick’s weak ego, living in someone else’s world, selective skepticism, the test of a first-rate intelligence, susceptibility to lying, ironic detachment & the opposite of literal, borderline personality disorder, Icke’s reptiles, the growing trend of neurodiversity & postmodern subjective reality, white nationalism and the attempt to find solid ground, negative identity syndrome.
Happy Thanksgiving, or as we call it in the biz, Brown Thursday.
