Happy Birthday, Philip K Dick

Can you imagine what Dick himself would make of today's review of The Exegesis of Philip K Dick in the New York Times appearing on what would have been his 83rd birthday? First, what would he think about its publication? I can't help but imagine that he'd be pretty pleased with himself. What would he think about the review? Well, it's impossible to say, but it is - I think - really important to notice that this review (done by none other than Charles Platt, a writer intimately familiar with Dick's work and weirdness) fails to say anything concrete about WHAT IT IS DICK IS THEORIZING ABOUT IN THE EXEGESIS! Sorry, but it kinda bugs me. Sure Dick is wondering what the heck happened during 2-3-74, but I would argue the Exegesis is much more concerned with fairly conventional theological questions: 1) If God is real, why is there so much suffering in the world? 2) Are our minds accurately perceiving the world around us, or are our instruments of perception faulty? Are our minds clouded by the seemingly important stuff like, you know, rationality, and all of that? 3) Does God exert direct control over our lives or is he a detached, uninterested observer?

I think the review I'm waiting for will at least acknowledge that the 'endless theorizing' is broadly addressing these questions. And that Dick is taking part in what I consider almost conventional theology. Once you set these parameters, the book (and Dick's exegetical work) make a lot more sense. Charles Platt calls Dick's philosophizing 'tiresome.' I guess I would agree to the extent that it is exhausting to think about this serious stuff, and the diary-like entries make sussing out the outlines of Dick's theories all the more difficult, but you wouldn't call Spinoza's or Hume's work tiresome, or if you did, you would hedge the complaint by saying 'for the average reader' or whatever.

I, for one, am enjoying watching Dick's 900 page meditation on the nature of the Universe collide with our society's predilection for ease and convenience. I enjoy watching real religious faith, in all its complications and doubt, set against the easy faith of modern, mega-church Christianity with all its feel-good intolerance. And I really appreciate Dick's hardbound reminder that the tough questions you ask yourself are the most important, and if reading Dick's Exegesis prompts others to ask these questions, the way it has for me, the endeavor is an obvious success. Even if it wears us all out and exhausts us.

Another Weekly Amalgamation of PKD Reading (This week with Listening!)

We have yet to hear even the rickety ignition sequence of Philip K Dick Article Machine, but I imagine it's coming out of mothballs this weekend with the release of The Exegesis last Tuesday. There are two reviews of the book at Amazon already, both of which are positive. Slate published a nice excerpt here. It's from earlier on in the text and is part of a letter.

Our own Mr Hand has already received his copy and is digging in over at his Philip K Dick and Religion blog.

Jonathan Lethem is out on tour in support of his pair of books released last week. Here's the New York Time's review of his collection of essays The Ecstasy of Influence. And here's Lethem on video talking about the Exegesis on video.

And here's a cool entry on PKD written by fellow Exegesis Annotator Gabriel Mckee over at freq.uenci.es... "a collaborative genealogy of spirituality."

Doug Mackey contacted me by email to say he's written up and posted a review of Ganymede Takeover on his book review blog Orbis Biblios.

Here's a blogger digging into some of the later stuff in the Exegesis, a very interesting set of themes about a dead king and a usurper that ties in Hamlet and the end of Flow My Tears.

I read here that they printed 100,000 copies of The Exegesis, whoa.

Annotator and Afterword author of The Exegesis, Rich Doyle posted his talk, Stairway to Eleusis, about PKD here.

The Science Channel is premiering a new series, Prophets of Science of Fiction, and one of the upcoming episodes is about Philip K Dick, and it looks, from the screengrab they are providing as a publicity still that Philip K Dick will be played by a re-purposed, animatronic Abraham Lincoln, with a cheap, fake beard. Don't believe me?:

The Dick episode is this Wednesday, November 16, 2011.

Reader and blogger MDK is raising money via Kickstarter for a memoir. Check that out here.

Speaking of PKD coinkydinks (MDK has had a few) check out this blog entry I stumbled on about Dick's apartment in Wash - 35.

That ought to keep you busy for a couple of days. If you've got your copy (or even if you don't), head to the comments section to talk about it.

Now Read About Last Year (2010)

I wish I could find this scene from the blooper reel to the movie 2010: The Year We Make Contact, during which Roy Scheider tries over and over again to get a ball-point pen to sit suspended in the air in a harness made of fishing line to try to depict the zero-g environment of space travel. Try as he might, the stupid thing will not stay. It's a nice metaphor for 2010, which felt at times like an endless blooper reel.

I thought we'd have seen both the Adjustment Bureau and Radio Free Albemuth adaptations in 2010, but neither materialized - though RFA made a strong showing at NYC's Gotham Screen Film Fest. Adjustment Bureau is now due out in Spring of 2011. So Inception was the closest we got to a PKD adaptation in 2010 - and it apparently was inspired by Scrooge McDuck. I actually plan on seeing the film this week and hope I can write something up about it.

Highlights of 2010 included:

The Philip K Dick festival was held in August 2010 in Colorado. Definitely my funnest vacation of the year. A great time was had by all of the dozen or so who showed up. (Does this mean we're only a year and a half away from the next PKD Fest scheduled for the Bay Area 2012?! Yikes!)

Word arrived that two new Exegesis volumes are headed our way.

The arrival Laurence Rickels's nearly-indecipherable book I Think I Am: Philip K Dick - a long-awaited examination of Dick's irv made by a shining star in the academic community which, like many things in life, straddles the line between clever literary analysis and opaque, post-Freudian academic wankery.

A new edition of Anne Dick's memoir Search for Philip K Dick, was released by Tachyon publications (with a new Introduction written by yours truly). A fun read, an important resource, and now... even easier to get...

Scott Timberg's pair of great articles about PKD: one about his time in Southern California and one about Anne and her memoir. The ratio between good, insightful articles about PKD and the glorified press releases we've read about PKD in the past is headed in the right direction.

Cornell University selected Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as their incoming freshmen read for 2010 and I made a fun trip to Ithaca to talk about the book at the local public library.

It was a great year for me personally. The New York Times article and my Introduction of Anne Dick's memoir are accomplishments I'm quite proud of, and I hope to be able to build on these in 2011.

What else is there to look forward to?

Another academic book about PKD! This one by Italian Dick-head Umberto Rossi who has been kind enough to share some of his work right here on this blog. I have high hopes for Rossi's book.

I can't think of anything else to look forward to... besides burritos and stuff. Oh and maybe this year we'll see Radio Free Albemuth in theaters in addition to Adjustment Bureau. That would be cool. If two PKD movies hit theaters this year, well, you know what that means: prepare yourself for the onslaught articles examining 'Hollywood's Fascination with the Unlikely King of Sci-Fiʼ...

This may sound insincere coming from a Total Dick-Head, but I couldn't do this without you, gentle readers, so keep those insightful comments and gossipy emails coming this year. In fact there's gonna be some really cool never-before-seen stuff.... in the very next post!

I almost forgot to mention that this blog has received the coveted Top Kidney Disease Blog award of 2010 from the prestigious Certified Nursing Assistant website, based (I'm guessing here) upon the number of times the word PKD appears (which for many, sadly, does not stand for Philip K Dick but Poly-cystic Kidney Disease). And this is like the most Dickian thing ever, right?! I mean this weird, grammatically-awkward operation, Certified Nursing Assistant is giving away awards based on a computer's misreading of subtle linguistic quirks! Oooh, and a banner!

(note this content was removed in 2013 when the nurses contacted me repeatedly and asked to have it removed. Why did you send it to me in the first place, I was tempted to ask). 

I heard a numerologist on right-wing radio (WTF?! Right?!) and she was saying that the eleven in 2011 is a door, and we can be whoever we want to be when we go through that door - and this is our year to do that. Phil Dick reminded us in his novels that time is door we can pass through in only one direction, no matter how hard we may try to do otherwise. So choose your two-thousand-and-eleven-door wisely dear readers.

Obsessive Blogger Featured in The New York Times

Not just any obsessive blogger - me! The New York Times is running a great piece by Scott Timberg about Anne Dick's newly-released edition of The Search for Philip K Dick. Apparently the Times felt a little weird linking to a blog titled Total Dick-Head, but we have seen a spike in hits from the Google Search "David Gill, blog" so some fans are going the extra click to get here. Welcome! Timberg has posted some really good outtakes from his interviews with Lethem and me on his Misread City blog. Check it out. I'm going to update my CV! Buy the book at Amazon:

QOTD - Maureen Dowd

Every once and a while, someone with absolutely no clue about Philip K Dick will make reference to him in an effort to sound hip and connected. Here's Maureen Dowd's turn in today's New York Times:

"Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet headed to Detroit, travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe."

I guess we can safely conclude Maureen is not a reader of this blog.