[..] Walt Disney’s King of The Elves, based on the Philip K. Dick story about a gas station attendant who receives a knock on the door one rainy night. It’s a group of elves. Small, maybe a foot tall each. They are all green, with leaves and foliage growing off of them. They beg him for shelter from the storm. Despite his better judgment he allows them to stay and as reward he is made king of the Elves.

Directed by Bob Walker and Aaron Blaise. It’s pretty far out from release, of course, but they showed some art. The elves I described a little above. The art was very painterly and the idea is that these little green buggers live in modern day Mississippi and have been undiscovered based on their appearance. With the leaves growing on their bodies if a human enters their domain they can just ruffle their foliage, duck their heads down and be completely undetectable.”

(via Ain’t It Cool. H/T: The Website @ the End of The Universe)

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“In my book Gods of Aquarius: UFOs and the Transformation of Man [Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976], I introduced the concept of the Star People, individuals who feel that they bear within their genes awareness acquired by extraterrestrial interaction with humans in prehistoric or ancient times and who have now been activated by DNA memory to fulfill a mission in assisting others in their spiritual and evolutionary advancement.

Sometime after the book’s publication, I received a letter from Philip K. Dick, who told me that he suspected that he was such an individual as those whom I had profiled in the book. He had first realized this in 1974 when his own “DNA memory packet” began to fire within his psyche.”

(via Alternate Perceptions Magazine )

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The west coast premier of 800 Words: The Transmigration of Philip K Dick is this weekend in Seattle.

Details.

Pics.

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Until his death, of a stroke, in 1982, Dick never stopped crying out. He was buried at last beside his infant sister, Jane, the missing half he had longed for and eventually made into a part of his cosmic mythology, the much mourned female God. The vision of an unending struggle between a humanity longing for a fuller love it always senses but can’t quite see, and a deranged cult of violence eternally presenting itself as necessary and real—this thought today does not seem exactly crazy. The empire never ends.

Full Story: The New Yorker.

(via Hit and Run).

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In the second half of our show on Philip K. Dick, the Vikings meander through the multiple mind states of our fearless author picking apart the events and aftermaths of what came to be known as the V.A.L.I.S trilogy.

We discuss the final work of PKD which, unfortunately, was never completed and how that project known as “The Owl in Daylight” shows PKD prophecizing his own demise 2 weeks before it’s occurrance.

Throughout his work PKD not only defined a new class of sci-fi hero - the delinquent savante - but also challenged our notion of what it means to be sane, what it means to be insane, and what it means to come to realize that our defining organism - the artist who created this whole mess of several worlds, the organism we all may be but fingers upon fingers of the same self within - may itself be as batty as the most batty amongst us.

MP3 on Viking Youth Power Hour.

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Catching up on the R.U. Sirius Show and NeoFiles:

Richard Linklater on the R.U. Sirius Show.

Sheldon Norberg on the R.U. Sirius Show.

Antero Alli on NeoFiles.

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Grab a drink and fill that pipe full kids, this week the Vikings indulge themselves in the greatest Science Fiction writer of our time and a modern day christian/gnostic prophet, Philip K. Dick. While you may be familiar with the many films adapted from his novels (Blade Runner, Minority Report and A Scanner Darkly among others) you may not be aware that in February of 1974 - around about the same time R.A. Wilson was having some strange visits from the Sirius star system and Tim Leary was busy bouncing his ethereal body up over the walls of San Quentin - PKD believed that a satellite, V.A.L.I.S, which might have been part of a Russian covert operation, part of a nervous breakdown, or perhaps even God itself, blasted a pink laser into his head. The subsequent effects of this experience left Dick speaking languages he did not know, accurately diagnosing illnesses he should not have been aware of, and living in two realities simultaneously…one as PKD, the other as an early christian under prosecution from the Roman Empire. What resulted for the rest of the world were two of the most unique and important science fiction novels in the history of the genre, “VALIS” and “The Divine Invasion”. AJ was our editor, satellite Viking Channel Null offers up our closing hymn.

MP3 (on Viking Youth Power Hour).

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He [Dick] got it, because he always had a human character base. He wasn�t about these highfalutin ideas about where consciousness, the world or technology was going. He was like, �Yeah, people, what are they going to do next?� He knew that at the core of the future, there is always going to be some schlubby guy struggling, trying to get laid, and being frustrated. [Other science fiction writers] create these fantastic worlds where humans have suddenly lost all humor and they�ve become automatons, but Dick always granted everyone their full humanity, and that�s his enduring appeal. His characters are flawed and oh-so-human. When I read Scanner, I intuitively felt that it was probably his most personal work. It felt like he had lived this world, [the characters] felt like every roommate he had and half the roommates I had at a certain time in my life. It felt very familiar, the way you just sort of �end up� around people. You can see how that house became a kind of crash pad. One group moved out � his family � and another group, these ne�er-do-wells, move in. It�s fun for a while, but then it spins out of control.

Full Story: Film Maker Magazine.

(via Robot Wisdom).

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LVX23 provides the exact reference in Comment 24 of Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis:

The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us what Heaven’s kingdom is like.” He said to them, “It’s like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.” (Gospel of Thomas)

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I’ve been meaning to post this for a while: Philip K. Dick’s Tractates Cryptica Scriptura from VALIS.

(via Key 23 del.icio.us).

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Wes points out that that philipkdick.com has pictures up from the set of the Scanner Darkly movie. Doesn’t look bad.

Link

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“[…] an interesting graphic interpretation of a series of events which happened to [Philip K.]Dick in March of 1974. He spent the remaining years of his life trying to figure out what happened in those fateful months.”

This eight page graphic novel (Weirdo #17) is archived on the Internet for your enjoyment.

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“I Understand Philip K. Dick” by Terrence McKenna.
Link (via Die Puny Humans)

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Orange County Weekly has a piece up about Philip K. Dick’s relationship to Orange County.
Link.

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There’s a longish piece on Slate today on why Minority Report isn’t film noir, comparing it to past noir masterpieces. I think the author makes his case, though I’m not sure what the relevence is.
Link.

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How much do you know about Philip K. Dick? I scored an 8/10.
Link (via Boing Boing).

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Philip K. Dick is finally being recognized as a “serious” author by Time Magazine as part of a cover story on Minority Report.
Link.

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The latest issue of Wired has an interview with Steven Spielberg about Minority Report.

I thought Ridley [Scott, director of Blade Runner] painted a very bleak but brilliant vision of life on earth in a few years. It’s kind of acid rain and sushi. In fact, it’s coming true faster than most science fiction films come true. Blade Runner is almost upon us. It was ultranoir.

Link.

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And speaking of Dick, Slate reviews the past, present, and future of Philip K. Dick’s work in film. I’m bursting with anticipation for Minority Report; I actually like Tom Cruise, and I thought AI was Spielburg’s best film in years.
Link.

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How did I miss this one? Waking Life’s Richard Linklater is in talks with George Clooney and Stephen Soderbergh’s production company, Section 8, to write and direct an adaption of Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick. I would’ve sworn I posted the news that Section 8 had aquired the rights to Scanner, but I can’t find it in the archives. Damn Sirius transmissions!
Link.

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Infamous comic artist Robert Crumb did a comic adaption of infamous science fiction author Philip K. Dick’s “religious experience” for Weirdo Magazine- and you can now find it online!
Link (via Boing Boing).

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