Who on Earth was Philip K. Dick?
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- Who on Earth was Philip K. Dick?
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#sciencefiction #scifi #sf
“A Scanner Darkly” is my favorite, PKD was a visionary, when we can at this time, look back at the history of the war on drugs. Now to me his most peculiar and interesting ideas were his development and description of what was later developed by the Wachowski Bros into “The Matrix.” His idea of what he has described in interviews as “living an alternate separate timeline,” this idea has become widely discussed today, even evolving into the idea that we may literally be living in a massive computer generated simulation, perhaps from a civilization in the future even. Highly speculative sci-fi topics are now mainstream nearly. Thank PKD for bridging the gap from obscure to mainstream.
to me, a hidden impressive part of this reading challenge is finding copies of all the novels.
you can find them.
I went on that journey back in 1990 with the help of a local small bookstore. Quite the experience...always a highlight when, after months, a new paperback would show up and I'd get the call that a book on the list had been found.
It wasn't so easy back then before his books began to be republished...
You can never get enough Dick.
No kidding, especially if you're on a budget
Thanks so much for the great presentation. You make an excellent case for how knowing the life of this author in particular aligns with a greater appreciation of his writing.
“Intergalactic Pot-Healer” was the first PKD novel that found its way into my hands as a teenager. A breezy read and I gift it occasionally as it’s a good intro to his sensibilities as a science fiction writer.
Well done and well researched dude!!! You make me want to read more of his material
Thank you
I read "Ubik" and "Second Variety" this year, and loved them both. PDK is amazing
Use only as directed.
Enjoyed the re-watch!
Thank you
To try and out do you I will rewatch this three times.
FINALLY!!!!!!!!! ~ another (hotly anticipated) PKD post! LOOKING FORWARD... to your reviews for the other half of the novels. (I have already finished the list, not that I'm bragging.)
This video was so good. Great detail
Thank You
Where are all your book recommendation videos my guy you were my go too 😢
I’m reading time out of joint at the moment . Love PKD like you working my way through all his work in a random fashion. Great video Moid.
Thank you
Philip K. Dick was also very popular in France. The first novels I read were The Man in the High Castle and Ubik. Later I read almost all his novels and short stories.
The trouble with separating the art from the artist is it blinds you to the influence the author's beliefs had on their work. You cannot properly discuss Lovecraft without also talking about Lovecraft's intense bigotry or the Ender's Game series without bringing up Orson Scott Card's messed up politics.
Acknowledging an artist's flaws or problematic views doesn't mean you can't enjoy their work. Going back to Lovecraft, he is still one of my favorite writers even with his awful views. I would never say somebody shouldn't read The Dunwich Horror or The Shadow Over Innsmouth but if we try to discuss art in a vacuum, we end up leaving out crucial elements of the conversation.
Wife number 2 should be designated Second Variety.
Followed by Radio Three Albemuth, Remember it Fourth You Wholesale and Now Wait for Last Wife. :)
*chef's kiss* of an analogy. Thank you.
Wow, one of your best videos so far.
Thank you
Definitely!
Dick Bag Bingo is genius. 😂😅
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I had the whole slew of your PKD viddies in my watch later queue for one big ol' binge-a-rama some night and then they all disdapeareded from the channel on me right around the time I'd watched everything else and was getting ready to tuck in for some dessert. whoo hoo, dessert for sleepytime tonight!
The problem i have found, is if you spend enough time researching him, you eventually start finding information that contradicts itself. (a fitting outcome perhaps). Some people say he spent years popping pills, some say he only ever took the one drop of acid, had a bad trip (which he wrote about in comedic fashion) and then stuck to weed. There's reports of him having worked in an abattoir, and having threatened one of his wives with a gun during an argument. In the end, the picture of the man becomes blurred. One thing i can be sure of is that his stories had a lot of empathy in them, but whether he practiced what he preached, i have no idea.
Agreed, but there is a general consensus
You must erase your personal history.
-- don Juan Matus to Carlos Castaneda
Also: Do you know where said acid trip is written up? Appreciated.
Great vid. Thank you.
Since you don't mention your sources I don't know if you have read High Weirdness by Erik Davis but in case you have not, I highly recommend it for further context. As a bonus it also talks about Robert Anton Wilson and Terrence McKenna.
Hi Raf, hope you're well.
No, I haven't read that but i'll check it out, thank you
A juicy, meaty, nourishing video. Thank you kind sir
I love these new videos...but where did all the old ones go? I wanted to rewatch your BotNS breakdowns.
Currently working on the only BOTNS video you will ever need
@@MediaDeathCult sweeeeet
Oh! Not a video game reference!
Gene Wolfe sent me to the OED with a longer list than anyone! Back when it was 1.5 shelves in a library.
Many words constructed of Greek roots.
Also rich and poignant story line.
It was the adaptation of I ching to pkd that got me. Caught the little phrases that say you also know your douglas adams too. I had to subscribe for these reasons.😊
If you had never read any science fiction, but had read a lot of post-modernist stuff from the 60s and 70s, and of PKD's output, the only thing you had read was VALIS, it would fit perfectly into that post-modern American literary ouvre. I recently read VALIS and was struck by how much it was clearly influenced by writers like Pynchon and De Lillo and Burroughs, and to me it felt like that is what Dick was trying to do with that novel. I don't think I would even consider it SF, it is much more firmly within that American mid-20th century post-modernist lane. That doesn't mean it isn't also SF, just that to me it felt like Dick was deliberately stepping outside the SF genre and trying, belatedly, to fit into what was considered really serious literature at the time. If you haven't read Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon, I strongly recommend it.
Also, sorry but I'm broke as, so I'm taking the low road. I'll join the Cult once the cost of living crisis is over
Great comment and i agree, Valis is something different
Have you checked out Versions of Baroque? I find that not only "modern" novels could be defined as mainly Baroque, but most brilliant, "off the wall" modern writers' (such as PKD) works are in this fashion.
Very good video, I enjoyed it. By the way, what happened to all your older videos? Is youtube f##king up again or did you pull them down for some reason?
Did each subsequent wife not know about his history of marriage? Clearly, he was a personal charmer as well as a literary charmer.
Time out of Joint, Martian Time Slip, Man in a High Castle for me catch the essence of Dick, strangeness, paranoia, but also deftly brilliant writing. The other writings, though some of his short stories are brilliant , are fascinatingly deranged, but lack the creative precision of truly original fiction. But I admit not to have read his later works like Ubik, Valis, A Scanner Darkly,I think because I feel that in the the earlier books he had produced, for me, a perfection which I did not want spoiled.
Great video man, new subscriber, congratulations , U have arrived 😊
Thanks, and welcome
What happened to the discord?
I did my higher English in the 90's on Humpty Dumpty in Oakland and got a right slagging off by my teacher. It was very Steinbecky.
When you said "praise the lord for failure and drugs", I literally spit out my coffee lol
I've only ever read Man in the High Castle but I've got a handful of others on my shelf. I'll read them someday I promise!
Rest in peace, Dick..
I might be out of the loop, but what happened to all of Moids videos? There is barely anything left on this channel?
I was gonna look at one of the old tier list for inspiration for something to read, but they are all gone.
UA-cam copyright issues I believe so easier to pull them down than risk the 3 strikes and have no channel.
UA-cam sucks! Yet it’s also the reason we get to watch things like this so… swings and roundabouts.
@@rustyshackleford1875 He said he deleted them because he didn't think they were any good
@@Revanchist Oh fair play then my apologies for spreading false information! That’s what a friend told me when I asked!
Mad respect to Moid for that! I mean it’s his art at the end of the day and he can do what he wants but to newer viewers it shows the quality from the start if you get what I mean. It’s consistent. From the early vids he said he wanted to make a living doing this and I think his new content really pushes the boundaries and separates him from booktube. Each video is almost like a BBC Panorama episode or something. Also, it makes the old cult members have something to make them feel like true OGs of the channel.
Sorry mad rant over. All hail the great cult leader!!! 🙌
@@Revanchistthat was a joke
@@rustyshackleford1875this is correct
he's been inspiring me since bladerunner... then the word universe showed me transmigration from warp, and i found again the transmigration of timothy archer. thank you for a highly entertaining and edumacational vid
My pleasure
Amazing insight. Didn't realise Valis was a trilogy.
Thanks, it's a loose trilogy, based on the same general theme but Valis is the main one, and Radio Free Albermuth is a different draft of the same story, still good though
@@MediaDeathCult After watching your video I've dug out my P Dick bag of books from my garage. Mostly short story compilations I've picked up on my travels. Take care.
If anything, P.K.D. taught us that reality is overrated.
cool
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said would make for a great flick.
Unrelated, but: I finally read Ender's Game based on your earlier recommendations, and it was excellent. Interestingly, though, many people hate the book!
Pretty good, but I liked Alvin Maker Better.
And all the Formic stories I could check out from the library on CD told the same story over from different angles.
Alright already, after awhile!
At least I enjoyed those with my hands and eyeballs free.
The "weirdness" happened in the 1960s when he saw the sinister "face in the sky" that inspired "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch". It seems that the amphetamines were having a very adverse effect on his mind. That and his loneliness as a writer. It was also Gnostic in appearance, something he was very interested in, and he was sure that "God" was after him. What he thought was true and afraid of was projected from his mind and "realised". The nightmarish sequences in the novel, was what he felt at the time he had the vision. It was "autobiographical". He said that his later experiences were rooted in this "event". What happened to him in the 1970s was not isolated or probably unanticipated, but this time he wasn't afraid. It was more personal and obsessive though, that effected the writing of the later novels. I prefer "The Divine Invasion", that's more like vintage Dick. "Radio Free Albumuth" required a rewrite, but came-up with the prolix "Valis" instead. He did intend to have "Radio Free Albemuth" published as a separate novel, but it he never got the chance to revise it, so it appeared as it was, after he died.
I don't think he believed everything he said about his strange experiences, including the famous Metz Speech. You can't take him literally. If he was crazy, at least he was aware of it. He liked to play with theories and concepts and alter them as he felt like it. He was having fun too. In "Valis", it's Horselover Fat, his shadowy side, who has the crazy visions, not the "real" Philip Dick, and they're told through his observations of him. Of "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch", he said that it wasn't about insanity because it is insanity. I think then that he also didn't entirely believe the veracity of what he thought he see during that period in his life.
Great comment, thanks
@@MediaDeathCult Really pleased that you like it.🙂
Solid
Филип Дик - мой любимый писатель ❤
This was a phenomenal video. Honestly your channel is my favorite and one of only 5 i have notification active. But i struggle to recommend your video's to friends because of the channel NAME. Have you thought of a name change? It would help the UA-cam Algorithm. Regardless, looking forward to the next video. Cheers.
Thanks Barry, Death Cult forever
Didn't his kid have a medical emergency and he had a precognition about the cause? Iirc they rushed to the hospital and he told the doctors to look for a specific thing and perform a certain scan and it was exactly that and it was quite rare or something unexpected of some sorts. However, this could be part of his mysterious persona as well, after all.
During my research i discovered that this was of course, complete bollocks, but it does illustrate my point that he was partly living in a world of his own fiction.
He was not a precog.
@@MediaDeathCult Thank you very much for the answer! He had too much of a good thing.
Didn't PKD make himself a character in VALIS? Or maybe it was Radio Free Albemuth?
Both, sort of
I recall the name Horselover Fat in "VALIS". That was an alter ego or projection of a personality he thought he had, I think.
Call me "moral lowdown Steve", thanks for the video.
The drug use is why I find Philip K Dick so difficult to read, I know from experience how such a brain works
00:29 you don’t look anything like him.
Do you think his later work reflected his early interests at college, philosophy and psychology, leading him to draw conclusions about life but he didn’t develop them in an L.Ron kind of way?
Thank you, Cult Leader Moid.
Thank you so much
This a re-run?
A remake of an old video i had to ditch
I seem to vaguely remember Moid doing this already too. But I have not always been sober so...
Ditched because of copyright issues? Too much quoted, or what? Great vid, btw. 👍
It's complicated but sorted now, and i really enjoyed reshooting this one
It was mostly cocaine...
PKD is my Prophet.
What happened to all of your own videos? So confused by your channel right now
Sneaky St Vincent musical cue?
I don't know what that is
@@MediaDeathCult The little bit of music used at 7.44 sounds like an orchestral version of Pills by St Vincent.
I use Epidemic Sound for all my music, not sure what that track was called
Maze Of Death.
One of my favourites, underrated i think
I absolutely love your channel! Keep doing what you're doing! PKD was someone very special! I really enjoyed learning more about him.
@@michellevey9608Thank you, we’re just getting started
Did you say a bit Metal? Or a bit mental?
Either Or
Hi just wondering why making a video you are packing? Is it dangerous or an American thing? Thanks Rod
He was the best...duh.
Or, he was right.