This Weekend in Portland, OR: 5th Annual EsoZone Alternative Culture and Thought Festival
The fifth annual EsoZone Portland event will be held this weekend at p:ear, Friday evening November 18th and Saturday November 19th (see the website for schedule and location information).
EsoZone is festival celebrating alternative culture and thought. It follows a hybrid unconference/conference model, meaning that in addition to pre-programmed content, participants can propose their own sessions to share their own ideas, projects and skills with the group.
This years presentations include:
- Tom Henderson, author of the forthcoming book Punk Rock Mathematics, on illusory nature of self.
- Eric Schiller of Beyond Growth on “digital hipsterism” and the rise of anti-intellectualism in social media.
- Yoga for Slackers lead by Loren mccRory.
- Grant Writing for Artists and Other Alien Beings lead by Amanda Sledz.
- Anarcho-Sewing lead by Jillian Ordes-Finley.
Plus music and performances, and whatever sessions are proposed by this year’s participants.
So You Think You Can Laugh? ‘Laughology’ Inspires First-Ever Laughter Championship
Contestants and their fans will converge in Montreal on October 27, 2010 for the first ever laughter competition — Le Grand Championnat de Rire de Montreal. Comedy contests are common, however this will be the world’s first televised laughing contest. The contest was inspired by my documentary Laughology, currently distributed by The Disinformation Company, in which I demonstrate that people can laugh spontaneously by using various “active laughter” techniques.
Contestants across Quebec will compete in diabolical laughter competitions, contagious laughter face-offs, and competitive laughter duels to see who will be crowned the “Best Laugher in Quebec.” The show is a pilot for an eventual international laughter competition to demonstrate that laughter could itself be a competitive sport.
The Championnat is a based on the revolutionary concept that because laughter is contagious: laughing makes people laugh. It involves games designed to produce natural contagious laughter. The whole event is also being filmed for Rire Extreme, a documentary for CANAL D. I got the idea for my documentary Laughology after meeting Doug Collins, an American who is said to have the most contagious laugh in the world:
I believe that because of Quebec’s tradition of Joie de Vivre and Quebec may have laughers who are as good or better than Collins. This summer Laughter contests where held at major Quebec festivals, including le Festival du Grand Rire in Quebec, The Western Festival of St. Tite and le Festival de Poutine du Drummonville. The winners of those contests have been invited to the Championnat which takes place at in Montreal in a special ring.
We really found some extraordinary laughers. I’m afraid to imagine what happens when we get them all in the same room. I hope that the idea of a laughter competition is to spread the positive, healthy emotions of laughter. And I’m trying to prove that laughter could be a competitive sport.
Contestants are coming from around Quebec however, we have left one spot open for one last great laugher. Auditions will be held on Oct 27th at Salla Rossa at 5 p.m. Please email hey@laughology.info. to be put on the list.
EsoZone Portland 2010 Starts This Weekend
EsoZone Portland is back for another year! Once it again, the event is an unconference — an event in which the schedule is set by the participants on the fly at the event. Anything can happen, but some of the possible subjects include:
Outsider Art • Discordia • SubGenius
The Occult • Satanism • Conspiracy Analysis
Life Extension • Intelligence Enhancement
Space Migration • Psychedelic Futurism
Consciousness Expansion • R/evolutionary Living
Renegade Metaphysics • Radical Psychotherapy
Aliens • Neo-Shamanism • Temporary Autonomous Zones
Body Modification • Alternative Sexuality • Fringe Culture
Human-Dolphin Communication • DIY Media
Cybernetics and Systems Theory • Pranks
Atheism • Zen • Martial Arts • Recession Hacking
There will also be performances by artists such as Cult of Zir and Ogo Eion and Psychetect in the evenings.
Dimensional Shift with Graham Hancock & Alex Grey
Reality Sandwich invites you to embark on a five-day transformative journey into the mystical realms of tomorrow at our RS Fall Retreat, Dimensional Shift. Explore, discuss, and manifest new dimensions of possibilities with visionary artists and Cosm co-founders Alex and Allyson Grey, renowned “Fingerprints of the Gods” author and “Inter-dimensional Indiana Jones” Graham Hancock, “Heaven’s Mirror” photographer Santha Faila, RS publisher and digital democracy pioneer Ken Jordan, Evolver.net director and Bioenergetic healer Jonathan Talat Phillips, and RS creative director and Universus artist Michael Robinson. Mitch Shultz, director of “DMT: The Spirit Molecule” will host a special screening and Q&A about the film; sculpture artist Harlan Emil Gruber will have us soaking up the “evolving energies” and sacred geometry of the Earth with his Sapphire Portal, and Scott Whitaker will spin electrifying dance beats with his mobile, solar-powered DJ booth and art installation, The Solar Saucer. Also featuring Evolver SF’s yogini Regina Gelfo and…
Laughter Disrupts New York Morning TV (Video)
The “Laughman” Doug Collins arrived in New York this morning in a way that the hosts of the popular morning show on WPIX 11 TV won’t forget for some time. He had them laughing so hard they couldn’t read the news, as you’ll see in this clip (make sure to watch till the end).
The Laughman is in New York City for the Great Union Square Laugh-In, taking place at Manhattan’s Union Square South at 4:00 PM EST, Saturday September 25, 2010. If he can do this to a few people in a sterile TV studio, one can only imagine what’s going to happen to the hundreds of people planning to attend. For details of the event check out the Facebook Page.
Wall Street Vampire Slayings
Tomorrow, September 22, at 11:09 pm in downtown Manhattan, the Aaron Burr Society will gather for a “Wall Street Vampire Slaying” that from the description provided, lands somewhere between more recent anti-war die-ins and the use of the absurd by the situationist movement to draw attention to the greed and self-indulgences of Wall Street and Western Capitalism:
“On the night of September 22, 2010 there will be a Vampire Slaying of Wall Street Bloodsuckers, traitors who wrap themselves in the flag.
Symbolic Slaying 11:09 p.m., arrive at 10:30 p.m. in front of the New York Stock Exchange at Wall & Nassau Streets, NYC 10005. Slayers after–party TBA.”
The mood should be light, as participants are asked to “Dress up, bring lights, noise makers & proper shoes to dance on their collective grave”.
See you there!
Enter Reality Sandwich’s Dimensional Shift Contest
The web-magazine Reality Sandwich is hosting a contest for inspired “evolutionaries” to win a free ticket to their “Dimensional Shift” Fall Retreat with Supernatural author Graham Hancock and visionary artists Alex and Allyson Grey.
To enter, simply create an Evolver video or blog entry saying why the retreat would be a life-changing, “galactivating” event for you. Entries can be funny, serious, cosmic, or tricksterlicious. Give these posts your own creative swagger, sharing your personal desires, wishes, and gifts for embarking on this transformational journey in one of the most beautiful spots in the American Southwest.
Videos should be under 2 minutes and posted in the blog section of Evolver.net (just look for the “Video” field). Blogs should be less than 500 words. Once your video or blog is up on Evolver.net, send the link to all your friends, family members, and community allies to “grok” (vote). The entry with the most groks wins free entry to the retreat (a…
Evolver: 2012, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Dimensional Shift
Where will you be when the 5,125 year Long Count Calendar of the Classical Maya ends on December, 21, 2012? Will you be hiding in an underground cave from global cataclysm and magnetic polar reversal? Will you be entering a multidimensional realm of hyperspace triggered by mass activation of the pineal gland? Will you be picking up the pieces of a ruined world or dancing the night away at the party at the end of time?
Considering that nobody knows what’s going to happen in 2012, the end of the Mayan Calendar functions as a tremendously intriguing meme upon which we can project our hopes and fears, dreams and desires. Hollywood has now offered up a massive collective shadow projection in the form of a $250 million disaster epic that takes the aesthetics of annihilation to a new pitch of perfection. Paradoxically, this doom-riddled blockbuster could create a great opening to offer…
EsoZone – Free, This Weekend
This is it! EsoZone is upon us. The weekly PDX0 meetup is tonight at Watershed, and then EsoZone kicks off tomorrow night, starting a weekend of mutated conversation and participatory detensing, art, and rituals.
If you want to support us, it’s not too late to donate or buy a t-shirt. Or, show up and spend money with our sponsors!
And don’t forget, after EsoZone on Saturday the one and Ivan Stang will perform along with a variety of other SubGenius at the Cyclone of Slack.
Can’t make it to Esozone? Astral Project!
