Cloudbusting
November 2, 2015 1:57 AM Subscribe
Everyone knows that “Wuthering Heights”, Kate Bush’s debut single of 1978, was inspired by Emily Brontë’s gothic tale of unfulfilled passion and madness on the moors. But how many people know how one boy’s relationship with his father, a disciple of Freud who fled Nazi-occupied Austria to pursue his studies on the orgasm in America, came to inspire another, similarly cherished piece of pop-culture history? The story behind Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting video from Dazed [Article is SFW, Dazed website is NSFW]
If there was one bit of mad science that I wish was actual science, it would be orgone. We could fix global warming and major health problems through sex!
Also, if you like this music video, you should also check out Kate Bush's "Experiment IV" - very high budget, very cinematic.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 2:17 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also, if you like this music video, you should also check out Kate Bush's "Experiment IV" - very high budget, very cinematic.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 2:17 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I absolutely LOVED Cloudbusting when I saw it for the first time as a teenager, not knowing one bit about the story behind it, and learning about everything that led to its creation made it grow ever more beautiful in my mind, and this here is perhaps the final touch - thank you.
Funny that until I leaned about the Reichs it never occurred to me that Kate Bush plays a boy in this video, I always saw her as a girl in a practical outfit.
posted by hat_eater at 2:19 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Funny that until I leaned about the Reichs it never occurred to me that Kate Bush plays a boy in this video, I always saw her as a girl in a practical outfit.
posted by hat_eater at 2:19 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Pretty sure Reich is the spiritual father for the "Chem Trail" crowd. He built orgone boxes and orgone generators and there was little to suggest that his fringe science had any validity. A quick search will show that you can still buy epoxy resin embedded with key turnings and other metal shavings to raise your orgone level. I read about this stuff decades ago and always lumped Reich in with folks like Bernarr McFadden who also exploited human fears and frailties.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:21 AM on November 2, 2015
posted by kinnakeet at 2:21 AM on November 2, 2015
Pretty sure Reich is the spiritual father for the "Chem Trail" crowd. He built orgone boxes and orgone generators and there was little to suggest that his fringe science had any validity. A quick search will show that you can still buy epoxy resin embedded with key turnings and other metal shavings to raise your orgone level. I read about this stuff decades ago and always lumped Reich in with folks like Bernarr McFadden who also exploited human fears and frailties.
Reich was definitely a crackpot. I don't know enough personally to say whether he was a scam artist or a true believer.
posted by atoxyl at 2:33 AM on November 2, 2015
Reich was definitely a crackpot. I don't know enough personally to say whether he was a scam artist or a true believer.
posted by atoxyl at 2:33 AM on November 2, 2015
For a weird moment there, I thought Steve Reich was responsible for orgone, presumably as a radical side project of tape loops or something. That'll teach me not to read the comments before the article.
posted by thetortoise at 2:48 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by thetortoise at 2:48 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Robert Anton Wilson (of Illuminatus! fame) wrote a stage play titled Wilhelm Reich In Hell. RAW regarded Reich highly, at least as a martyr to a combination of puritanism/McCarthyism/rationalism that, in the sixeventies, embodied the Discordian folk devil known as Grayface.
posted by acb at 3:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by acb at 3:20 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
I thought it was interesting that Kate's polar opposite, Patti Smith, also wrote a song about Reich ("Birdland", fromHorses).
posted by pxe2000 at 3:33 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by pxe2000 at 3:33 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
This video makes Kate Bush and Jack Bauer brothers, or something.
posted by Beverley Westwood at 3:47 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Beverley Westwood at 3:47 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Hee, this summer I made the long drive up to Orgonon, Reich's research institute/memorial in Rangley, Maine. For the tour, they start you off with a video that pretty much sums Reich up as Tortured Genius Victim and then take you on a tour of the house. No Pictures, and the tour lady was on top of our small group so there was no way I could sneak into the orgone accumulator or aim the cloudbuster at the nearby lake. I did sneak a few pictures while the guide was in the other room showing off the Shrek artist's illustrations for one of Reich's books, but one of the other visitors was a True Believer and would have squealed if I tried to fiddle with the accumulator.
They really do try to gloss over the weirder aspects of Reich's career but since my nose was a bit out of joint from their tour lockdown, I ended up grilling her in regards to Contact With Space, one of Reich's final books and the one that covers him blasting UFOs with cloudbusters in the desert. They really do not like that book - I think it tips Reich's hand. While they have bound reissues of his other books in the gift shop, Contact With Space remains a $50 spiral-bound-at-Kinkos version stuck on a distant shelf.
So yeah, I picked that up along with a t-shirt. There is a really nice picture of Reich with a cloudbuster inside that I hoped they would have in poster form, but no dice.
I don't think Reich knew much about the chemtrail dudes. His work inspired them, for sure, with mentions of the UFOs releasing DOR - Deadly Orgone Radiation - that needed to be filtered via cloudbuster, but nothing about actual chemicals/mind control drugs. The guide crew was pretty evasive when I started asking about Reich's larger impact in the fridge community.
Orgonon is a really nice building and was pretty cool to explore. There is definitely a culty vibe given off by the old pictures of the place in action. Reich's big house/lab on a hill, its open floor plan, the isolated location, and the "assistant" housing down by the main gate. I left to make the long trip back to Storyland to pick up my family with the ABSOLUTE BEST Wilhelm Reich inspired song blaring, windows down, on my stereo.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:49 AM on November 2, 2015 [18 favorites]
They really do try to gloss over the weirder aspects of Reich's career but since my nose was a bit out of joint from their tour lockdown, I ended up grilling her in regards to Contact With Space, one of Reich's final books and the one that covers him blasting UFOs with cloudbusters in the desert. They really do not like that book - I think it tips Reich's hand. While they have bound reissues of his other books in the gift shop, Contact With Space remains a $50 spiral-bound-at-Kinkos version stuck on a distant shelf.
So yeah, I picked that up along with a t-shirt. There is a really nice picture of Reich with a cloudbuster inside that I hoped they would have in poster form, but no dice.
I don't think Reich knew much about the chemtrail dudes. His work inspired them, for sure, with mentions of the UFOs releasing DOR - Deadly Orgone Radiation - that needed to be filtered via cloudbuster, but nothing about actual chemicals/mind control drugs. The guide crew was pretty evasive when I started asking about Reich's larger impact in the fridge community.
Orgonon is a really nice building and was pretty cool to explore. There is definitely a culty vibe given off by the old pictures of the place in action. Reich's big house/lab on a hill, its open floor plan, the isolated location, and the "assistant" housing down by the main gate. I left to make the long trip back to Storyland to pick up my family with the ABSOLUTE BEST Wilhelm Reich inspired song blaring, windows down, on my stereo.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:49 AM on November 2, 2015 [18 favorites]
(also, if people like reading about stuff like this, I'm considering starting up a Fringe Topics bookclub on FanFare when the option opens up)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:49 AM on November 2, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:49 AM on November 2, 2015 [11 favorites]
The guide crew was pretty evasive when I started asking about Reich's larger impact in the fridge community.
The dystopian future in which refugees from Armageddon are forced to live in old Westinghouse appliances. Not too old, though; you have to avoid the ones with locking handles.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:07 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
The dystopian future in which refugees from Armageddon are forced to live in old Westinghouse appliances. Not too old, though; you have to avoid the ones with locking handles.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:07 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Thank you so much for this, I'm a huge fan and always wondered about that video.
posted by Jubey at 4:20 AM on November 2, 2015
posted by Jubey at 4:20 AM on November 2, 2015
"There's some rain
In your neighborhood.
Who you gonna call?
Cloudbusters!"
posted by I-baLL at 4:29 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
In your neighborhood.
Who you gonna call?
Cloudbusters!"
posted by I-baLL at 4:29 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
The thing I like about Reich is that while lots of people seem to agree that he did go crazy, no one seems to agree when he did.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:34 AM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:34 AM on November 2, 2015 [10 favorites]
AFTER THE FDA INJECTED HIM WITH ORGONE-RESISTANT MICROBES.
(Also, so glad robocop lies bleeding linked that, saving me yet another joke at my own expense about how I'm a <55 year old man that knows all of Hawkwind's back catalogue). I am down like a motherfiddler for the Fringe Topics fanfare.
posted by longbaugh at 5:10 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
(Also, so glad robocop lies bleeding linked that, saving me yet another joke at my own expense about how I'm a <55 year old man that knows all of Hawkwind's back catalogue). I am down like a motherfiddler for the Fringe Topics fanfare.
posted by longbaugh at 5:10 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Don't forget Makavajev's Kill KIll Kill for Peace Which he made before Sweet Movie
posted by growabrain at 5:37 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by growabrain at 5:37 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Reich's books got burned by the US government in the fifties. He also was arrested for publishing his books (and died in jail).
That these things could occur just after the nazi bookburnings in the supposedly free west seems even weirder than his theories to me.
posted by Kosmob0t at 5:40 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
That these things could occur just after the nazi bookburnings in the supposedly free west seems even weirder than his theories to me.
posted by Kosmob0t at 5:40 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hounds of Love came out my first year of college and basically was the soundtrack of everybody's life that year.
30 years ago. I'm old.
posted by eriko at 5:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
30 years ago. I'm old.
posted by eriko at 5:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [5 favorites]
Wonderful video and great backstory. One of the outdoor locations is Uffington, in Oxfordshire. Y0u can see the white horse at about 5:19.
posted by carter at 5:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by carter at 5:42 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
I remember the song and video very well from the charts at the time. To say Kate was playing a boy I think is stretching credulity, she just has a hairstyle that was popular in the UK at the time.
Reich was an interesting character but firmly in tinfoil hat territory. Orgone indeed.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 6:02 AM on November 2, 2015
Reich was an interesting character but firmly in tinfoil hat territory. Orgone indeed.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 6:02 AM on November 2, 2015
Terry Gilliam's cloudbuster machine looks much spiffier than the pictures I have seen of Reich's.
It was with some horror, and considerable indignation, then, that I reacted to the news, in 1957, that the U.S. Government had seized all the scientific books and papers of Dr. Wilhelm Reich and burned them in an incinerator in New York City.
posted by bukvich at 6:05 AM on November 2, 2015
It was with some horror, and considerable indignation, then, that I reacted to the news, in 1957, that the U.S. Government had seized all the scientific books and papers of Dr. Wilhelm Reich and burned them in an incinerator in New York City.
posted by bukvich at 6:05 AM on November 2, 2015
Wilhelm Reich's orgone theory was also a key influence on Devo's trademark "Energy Dome" headgear.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:12 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:12 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
A few years back, somebody did a Metatalk compilation of all the things that "everyone knows" according to MeFi.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:13 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Navelgazer at 6:13 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Hounds of Love came out my first year of college and basically was the soundtrack of everybody's life that year.
30 years ago. I'm old.
eriko -- if it makes you feel any better, that was my LAST year of college. **feeling even older**
posted by briank at 6:13 AM on November 2, 2015
30 years ago. I'm old.
eriko -- if it makes you feel any better, that was my LAST year of college. **feeling even older**
posted by briank at 6:13 AM on November 2, 2015
That these things could occur just after the nazi bookburnings in the supposedly free west seems even weirder than his theories to me.
He had been a Communist, and thus at the height of McCarthyism, the rules of liberal democracy did not apply to him; he was regarded essentially as a plague rat of Marxism, to be liquidated before he could spread its germs to the wholesome American body politic.
See also: Ethel Rosenberg, who was almost certainly innocent of the charges she was executed for, but was a Communist (and also, like Reich, Jewish, but let's not jump to conclusions).
posted by acb at 6:41 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
He had been a Communist, and thus at the height of McCarthyism, the rules of liberal democracy did not apply to him; he was regarded essentially as a plague rat of Marxism, to be liquidated before he could spread its germs to the wholesome American body politic.
See also: Ethel Rosenberg, who was almost certainly innocent of the charges she was executed for, but was a Communist (and also, like Reich, Jewish, but let's not jump to conclusions).
posted by acb at 6:41 AM on November 2, 2015 [6 favorites]
I remember the song and video very well from the charts at the time. To say Kate was playing a boy I think is stretching credulity, she just has a hairstyle that was popular in the UK at the time.
The song is written/sung from the point of view of Reich's son, and that's the character Kate is playing in the video, so it's not stretching credulity at all. It's being accurate.
(A lot of Bush's songs are written/sung from the pov of a male character).
posted by erlking at 6:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
The song is written/sung from the point of view of Reich's son, and that's the character Kate is playing in the video, so it's not stretching credulity at all. It's being accurate.
(A lot of Bush's songs are written/sung from the pov of a male character).
posted by erlking at 6:44 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
Explanations like this are always irresistible and interesting, but I like songs as ambiguous, amorphous music-and-lyrics things that I feel. When you start sticking actual facts to them, you risk (for me, anyway) diminishing them. "Cloudbusting" was a song on slightly hissing cassette about someone dreaming of childhood and father and something impossibly nostalgic and romantic about making rain and defying the world and remembering. Aurally, was a steam engine racing along and then pulling into the station. The strange thing she still dreamed of remained just a strange word, maybe something imaginary. When I later saw the video, it managed not to spoil that impression. But I'm not sure whether I like the song more or less knowing details about the actual Orgonon and the crackpot (swindler? both?) father and his large load of pseudoscience.
posted by pracowity at 6:54 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by pracowity at 6:54 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
My first Kate Bush album was the compilation The Whole Story. I had friends in the online WoD MUSH community who went nuts for Kate Bush, and I, random teen who was gaming with these college and post-college folk online, desperately wanted to a) be cool with them, and b) be interested in something that my peers had no clue about. My family had just moved back to Portland after years on the east coast and I didn't know anyone around, and was going through a pretty rough patch.
So I went down to Everyday Music on Sandy and I think this must have been the only Kate Bush album they had in. I'm not sure why I would've picked it over another one. The first track was... well, it was Wuthering Heights, and I'm not sure what kind of appeal that song had when it came out, but it definitely wasn't what I was looking for.
Second song: Cloudbusting.
All haunting vocals and staccato strings, right up front. I had no idea what it was about (and didn't for years). Got into my brain and hung out there for a long time. Still one of my favorite songs from her, and generally the first song on any KB playlist I make.
posted by curious nu at 7:08 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
So I went down to Everyday Music on Sandy and I think this must have been the only Kate Bush album they had in. I'm not sure why I would've picked it over another one. The first track was... well, it was Wuthering Heights, and I'm not sure what kind of appeal that song had when it came out, but it definitely wasn't what I was looking for.
Second song: Cloudbusting.
All haunting vocals and staccato strings, right up front. I had no idea what it was about (and didn't for years). Got into my brain and hung out there for a long time. Still one of my favorite songs from her, and generally the first song on any KB playlist I make.
posted by curious nu at 7:08 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
if you feel this song needs a little bit of a different Kate, you can always dig "Orgonon Gurlz"
posted by koeselitz at 7:14 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by koeselitz at 7:14 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
One of the things I've always loved about Kate is knowing that she worked from specific inspirations, that she seemed to work outward, through her inspiration and beyond,toward something universal and accessible . . .
And thank you, chavenet! You sent me from reminiscing to uncovering this gem, a video of Hamlet Gonashvili & ensemble Rustavi singing "Tsintskaro", which is the choral piece in Hello Earth, the last song on Hounds of Love. Lovely!
posted by pt68 at 7:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
And thank you, chavenet! You sent me from reminiscing to uncovering this gem, a video of Hamlet Gonashvili & ensemble Rustavi singing "Tsintskaro", which is the choral piece in Hello Earth, the last song on Hounds of Love. Lovely!
posted by pt68 at 7:25 AM on November 2, 2015 [4 favorites]
The dystopian future in which refugees from Armageddon are forced to live in old Westinghouse appliances.
And what are they doing in old Westinghouse appliances, you might ask?
Just westing, thanks.
posted by Floydd at 7:39 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
And what are they doing in old Westinghouse appliances, you might ask?
Just westing, thanks.
posted by Floydd at 7:39 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
And just to bring this full circle, those old appliances aren't simply housing -- they're also orgone accumulators.
posted by notyou at 7:49 AM on November 2, 2015
posted by notyou at 7:49 AM on November 2, 2015
I'd split the difference on Reich's legal problems. The accusations of fraud--which appear to have been ginned up by a writer for Harper's and The New Republic--for which Reich was jailed and his equipment and books destroyed, were clearly overblown; it would be like sending someone to the pen for selling crystals. (Reich's case wasn't helped by his appearing to lose his mind; at one point, he claimed to have used his cloudbusters to win an interstellar war.) On the other hand--well, just read the section titled "Orgonomic Infant Research Center."
In terms of other pop culture referenced to Reich, Alan Moore put a teenaged Reich in his run on Supreme, in a group of time-traveling teenagers, some based on real-life people, that was an homage to the Legion of Super-Heroes (his Supreme run being an homage to the Silver Age Superman in general), and there are other references to orgone in his work.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:59 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
In terms of other pop culture referenced to Reich, Alan Moore put a teenaged Reich in his run on Supreme, in a group of time-traveling teenagers, some based on real-life people, that was an homage to the Legion of Super-Heroes (his Supreme run being an homage to the Silver Age Superman in general), and there are other references to orgone in his work.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:59 AM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
A Book of Dreams is such a lovely book. I don't think it comes down on one side or the other as to whether Wilhelm was a fruitcake. He was (as I remember it) a loving, if a bit removed father, though.
posted by cleroy at 8:04 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by cleroy at 8:04 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
puts up hand: I knew this!
posted by supermedusa at 8:11 AM on November 2, 2015
posted by supermedusa at 8:11 AM on November 2, 2015
Man, I love Kate Bush threads. I'm not too proud to admit that that song still sends chills down my spine every time I listen to it. And I'm sure I've heard it hundreds of times over the years.
posted by blucevalo at 8:38 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by blucevalo at 8:38 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
Very interesting, thanks! I didn't know about any of this; about Reich, that Terry Gilliam was involved, that Kate Bush was a pothead (not the *most* surprising thing in the world, but still)...
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:41 AM on November 2, 2015
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:41 AM on November 2, 2015
(Hamlet Gonashvili (Georgian: ჰამლეტ გონაშვილი) (20 June 1928 - 1985), sometimes referred to as "the voice of Georgia"..... He died at the height of his fame, as the result of a fall from an apple tree...)
posted by growabrain at 10:02 AM on November 2, 2015
posted by growabrain at 10:02 AM on November 2, 2015
I knew this, too. Reich is a major hero of mine, despite the fact that he did crack up towards the end... I still hold out some hope for a decent scientific explanation of at least some of his orgone phenomena. Did you know, he corresponded and on one occasion even met with Einstein? His work on body armour, the physical facet or imprint of mental trauma in the muscular system has a lot of merit, and his work is a largely unacknowledged but profound influence on much of today's bodywork and somatic therapies. His criticism of Freud and the bourgeois nature of the psychoanalytic movement was spot on, I think. Listen, Little Man! is one of the best sustained rants at our society that I have ever read. The posthumous collection of his essays entitled Children of the Future is still completely relevant. Fury on Earth by Myron Sharaf is a good biography. I think he was increasingly given to illusions of grandeur towards the end of his life: in the trial that led to his arrest and imprisonment (and death), he told the judge that he was not qualified to judge him until he read all his books (he did give the judge copies). Listen to the man himself.
posted by holist at 10:36 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by holist at 10:36 AM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Reich is a major hero of mine. — holist
Possibly eponysterical.
posted by acb at 10:50 AM on November 2, 2015
Possibly eponysterical.
posted by acb at 10:50 AM on November 2, 2015
Possibly eponysterical.
Oh yes. Honestly, I am not sure which came first, but I think I've used the name longer. More than 25 years, at any rate.
posted by holist at 11:05 AM on November 2, 2015
Oh yes. Honestly, I am not sure which came first, but I think I've used the name longer. More than 25 years, at any rate.
posted by holist at 11:05 AM on November 2, 2015
More than for any other thinker I am aware of, specific features of Reich's subsequent work can be explained in terms of a singular trauma that befell him in adolescence: when he was fifteen, Reich's mother committed suicide -- after Reich had informed his father that she was having an affair with Reich's tutor.
With this in mind, the Orgone energy box can be seen as his mother's coffin, and the rigor mortis of his mother's corpse is at once 'character armor' (through Reich's sympathetic identification with her in her grave -- becoming the loved one you lose, or introjection, in Freud's terms), and (via psychoanalysis' identification of woman with the penis), the rampant stiffness of Reich's pubescent penis, as well.
Coming out of the box then, renewed and temporarily free of character armor, is a release from the horrors of identification with mother in the coffin, the post-orgasmic detumescence of the penis, and bringing his mother back to life, all at the same time.
No wonder he saw orgasm as redemptive
posted by jamjam at 11:51 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
With this in mind, the Orgone energy box can be seen as his mother's coffin, and the rigor mortis of his mother's corpse is at once 'character armor' (through Reich's sympathetic identification with her in her grave -- becoming the loved one you lose, or introjection, in Freud's terms), and (via psychoanalysis' identification of woman with the penis), the rampant stiffness of Reich's pubescent penis, as well.
Coming out of the box then, renewed and temporarily free of character armor, is a release from the horrors of identification with mother in the coffin, the post-orgasmic detumescence of the penis, and bringing his mother back to life, all at the same time.
No wonder he saw orgasm as redemptive
posted by jamjam at 11:51 AM on November 2, 2015 [3 favorites]
When I lived in Sheridan, Wyoming in about 1986, a friend and I went to an older gentleman for some massage treatments now and again. Over time it came out that our unusual friend was working on a sort of a miraculous box that focused energy. You would sit it in, it would heal cancer and all sorts of other things, blah-blah-blah.
After all his talk, we were just dying to give the thing a whirl, for the laughs if nothing else, and because he'd built it up to be this thing that was simultaneously mysterious and all-powerful. And yet a rather ordinary guy was building it in his apartment with some scraps of lumber and metal--and a lot of work. He always took pains to emphasize that. V-e-r-y complicated.
But we weren't about to pay the $100/minute or whatever he wanted to charge for sitting in it and for some reason he didn't want to give us a free test ride.
When I read about Reich and the orgone accumulator bells started going off in my head like crazy.
Yeah, this is exactly the box that our mysterious Wyoming alt-health guru was building in his apartment. A chip off the old block--who would have guessed it?
And now I'm double kicking myself that we didn't figure out some way to finagle a ride in it. I doubt it would cure anything much beyond some excess heaviness in the old wallet, but it would have been a real ride in some real crazy history . . .
posted by flug at 12:04 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
After all his talk, we were just dying to give the thing a whirl, for the laughs if nothing else, and because he'd built it up to be this thing that was simultaneously mysterious and all-powerful. And yet a rather ordinary guy was building it in his apartment with some scraps of lumber and metal--and a lot of work. He always took pains to emphasize that. V-e-r-y complicated.
But we weren't about to pay the $100/minute or whatever he wanted to charge for sitting in it and for some reason he didn't want to give us a free test ride.
When I read about Reich and the orgone accumulator bells started going off in my head like crazy.
Yeah, this is exactly the box that our mysterious Wyoming alt-health guru was building in his apartment. A chip off the old block--who would have guessed it?
And now I'm double kicking myself that we didn't figure out some way to finagle a ride in it. I doubt it would cure anything much beyond some excess heaviness in the old wallet, but it would have been a real ride in some real crazy history . . .
posted by flug at 12:04 PM on November 2, 2015 [2 favorites]
thanks so much, its been way too long since I have listened to Kate Bush and I'm really enjoying the marathon I am listening to right now!!!
posted by supermedusa at 12:14 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by supermedusa at 12:14 PM on November 2, 2015
> a singular trauma
His biography page on the wikipedia looks like one trauma after another. On page xx of the preface to the first edition of Character Analysis:
"In a city the size of Berlin there are millions of neurotic people, people whose psychic structure and capacity for work have been severely impaired."
He wrote that when he was living in Berlin in 1933.
(By the way on page 5 he says every neurosis without exception is sourced prior to age four so he would have argued against the singular trauma that befell him in adolescence theory.)
posted by bukvich at 12:21 PM on November 2, 2015
His biography page on the wikipedia looks like one trauma after another. On page xx of the preface to the first edition of Character Analysis:
"In a city the size of Berlin there are millions of neurotic people, people whose psychic structure and capacity for work have been severely impaired."
He wrote that when he was living in Berlin in 1933.
(By the way on page 5 he says every neurosis without exception is sourced prior to age four so he would have argued against the singular trauma that befell him in adolescence theory.)
posted by bukvich at 12:21 PM on November 2, 2015
The "Museum of Questionable Medical Devices" that used to exist in Minneapolis had some Orgone tech, including an Orgone Box. I was talking to the proprietor once and he said he had caught someone who had sneaked into the box and was...conducting hands-on research. Eww.
(I also had my head measured phrenologically by the "psycograph". I still have the printout).
posted by librosegretti at 12:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
(I also had my head measured phrenologically by the "psycograph". I still have the printout).
posted by librosegretti at 12:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Lovely song, I had no idea what it was about!
I was introduced to Kate Bush the second time I went to college, at nights in 1988-90. A friend lent me The Whole Story and I fell in love immediately upon hearing "Wuthering Heights". Eventually I learned the vocal track had been redone for this release, and fans weren't pleased. After tracking down the original, I remember being disappointed. I don't think I would have liked her based on that (which is probably some sort of blasphemy to Kate Bush fans who loved her so long before I did).
So, yeah...I'm feeling kinda old now, too.
posted by lhauser at 1:24 PM on November 2, 2015
I was introduced to Kate Bush the second time I went to college, at nights in 1988-90. A friend lent me The Whole Story and I fell in love immediately upon hearing "Wuthering Heights". Eventually I learned the vocal track had been redone for this release, and fans weren't pleased. After tracking down the original, I remember being disappointed. I don't think I would have liked her based on that (which is probably some sort of blasphemy to Kate Bush fans who loved her so long before I did).
So, yeah...I'm feeling kinda old now, too.
posted by lhauser at 1:24 PM on November 2, 2015
I did! I did!
posted by thebrokedown at 2:21 PM on November 2, 2015
posted by thebrokedown at 2:21 PM on November 2, 2015
A few years ago I was unexpectedly asked to give a talk at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I talked about how Peter Reich's memoir filters through "Cloudbusting" and Patti Smith's "Birdland" and... there's an esoteric twist, but I won't give it away.
posted by Scram at 10:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Scram at 10:55 PM on November 2, 2015 [1 favorite]
Presented without additional commentary: What happens when I try to combine one of my favorite songs with one of my least favorite songs :|
posted by effbot at 9:22 AM on November 6, 2015
posted by effbot at 9:22 AM on November 6, 2015
« Older You Look Weird, Charlie Brown | Oh fuck this spring forward/fall back crap Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Meatbomb at 2:15 AM on November 2, 2015