Gilding the Lily: The Remastered Beatles
on Nov 7, 2009As with every mystery, literal and metaphorical camps battle over the interpretation of the Beatles. The literalists want there to be a literal, comprehensible, even if awful, solution to the mystery of the Beatles. The search for the pseudonymous bo...

This Week in the Secret History: The Gothic Novel Alters Western Consciousness
on Oct 18, 2009Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. As a genre, it is generally believed to have been invented by the English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel T...

This Week in the Secret History: The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels (September 29)
on Sep 29, 2009"Autumn is poignant. It belongs to the angel who carries a point, the Archangel Michael, who wields sword and spear for the people of God against the powers of darkness. The point of Michael’s spear is the poignancy of autumn that pierces our heart...

This Week in the Secret History: The Feast of Michael and All Angels (September 29)
on Sep 29, 2009"Autumn is poignant. It belongs to the angel who carries a point, the Archangel Michael, who wields sword and spear for the people of God against the powers of darkness. The point of Michael’s spear is the poignancy of autumn that pierces our heart...

This Week in the Secret History: Ken Kesey, the Indiana Jones of Consciousness
on Sep 18, 2009September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001Farmer, wrestler, author, Intrepid Traveler “To hell with facts! We need stories!” “The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answe...

This Week in the Secret History: Carter Files Report of UFO Sighting
on Sep 18, 2009On September 18, 1973, future President Jimmy Carter files a report with the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), claiming he had seen an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) in October 1969.During the presidential campaign of 1...

This Week in the Secret History: The Still-Smoking Gun
on Sep 7, 2009Richard Helms, Director of the CIARichard Nixon, President of the United StatesExcerpts from the Nixon White House Tape dated June 23, 1972, subsequently known as "The Smoking Gun Tape" in which Nixon and his aide John Haldeman discussed blacmkailing...

In Music: Lords of the Highway
on Sep 4, 2009Lost Highways: American Road Songs 1920's to 1950'sVarious ArtistsViperIn Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the Kid, played by Kris Kristofferson, is preparing to leave the Lincoln County Jail, having just disposed of two of Pat Garret's...

This Week in the Secret History: Do the Horn Dance
on Sep 3, 2009The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is generally accepted as the oldest continuously performed folk ritual in Britain, and one of the oldest in all of Europe. Six dancers in Elizabethan dress each carry on their shoulders an enormous set of reindeer antle...

This Week in the Secret History: British Rockers & the Dream of Childhood; or Tragedy at Pooh Corner
on Aug 20, 2009"The true subject of English psychedelia was neither love nor drugs but nostalgia for the innocent vision of the child. ...[P]op's late-60's preoccupation with the lost domain of childhood [was]... initiated by Lennon and McCartney with the single, '...