Philosobro Mangum Mail

Hey there. These are some interesting philosophical or poetic things I wanted to share with you. I'd be really interested if you could send me that poem "Dumpbefunken"(?). I'd like to show it to a friend. Also, I feel I should inform you that I did preorder your book. Anyway, I didn't realize, but I got to typing and ended up with much more than I had intended. I hope you don't feel overwhelmed by it all.

  The Mad Man in the Lab.
http://pastebin.com/i1bjMZR0
A response I had to a comment. Musing about God and why our world seeming 'too perfect' not to be created is not very good evidence of God.


  Animation comparing heliocentrism to geocentrism
http://i.imgur.com/AReqgfP.gif


  Dear Esther Script
Playthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlGdbziSwEY
Plain Script Reading: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD9zHDgWha0
http://dearesther.wikia.com/wiki/Dear_Esther_Script
"I’ve begun my voyage in a paper boat without a bottom; I will fly to the moon in it. I have been folded along a crease in time, a weakness in the sheet of life. Now, you’ve settled on the opposite side of the paper to me; I can see your traces in the ink that soaks through the fibre, the pulped vegetation. When we become waterlogged, and the cage disintegrates, we will intermingle. When this paper aeroplane leaves the cliff edge, and carves parallel vapour trails in the dark, we will come together."
...
"The moon over the Sandford junction, headlights in your retinas. Donnelly drove a grey hatchback without a bottom, all the creatures of the tarmac rose to sing to him. All manner of symbols crudely scrawled across the cliff face of my unrest. My life reduced to an electrical diagram. All my gulls have taken flight; they will no longer roost on these outcrops. The lure of the moon over the Sandford junction is too strong."

  Dear Esther Soundtrack
https://jessicacurry.bandcamp.com/album/dear-esther
Beautifully unsettling. To listen to while reading the script

Dear Esther is a video game about “a deserted island…a lost man…memories of a fatal crash…a book written by a dying explorer.” Not a game in the traditional sense. Many in the gaming community get very heated when it's even referred to as such. Very polarized. Usually a sign of something interesting.


  Ergo Proxy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN511egtpvA&list=ELZtzLXGkuq2A&index=2
Very interesting psychological anime focusing on AI, the nature of "utopia", how someone created for one reason functions without that reason, robots becoming more human, humans becoming more robotic, etc. ... There's actually an allusion to Hamlet at least at one point (and I know you love Hamlet). I find much of the overall plot structure resembles The Odyssey.


  "The Listening" by Lights
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lights/thelistening.html
"Can I let the trees do the talking?
Can I let the ground do the walking?
Can I let the sky fill what's missing?
Can I let my mouth do the listening?"


  "River" by Lights
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lights/river.html
"Out across the cities I see buildings burn into piles
And watch the world in wonder as mountains turn into tiles
And trees losing their leaves, and our faces becoming tired
I wish I could discover something that doesn't expire
...
Such are the things that make a kingdom rumble and shatter
The same dynamic that another day would never matter
It really just depends on who's giving and who's receiving
And things that don't make sense are always a little deceiving
Come and stumble me"


  Tenshi no Tamago (Angel's Egg)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIhKqaNp4Dc
A surreal animated film. Mostly silent. About a girl with a large egg and a mysterious man meeting in an empty town. Biblical references/imagery.


  Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishima:_A_Life_in_Four_Chapters
A very interesting film about one of the most celebrated Japanese authors of the 20th century. It incorporates dramatic re-enactments of his books, tells of his childhood growing up, and his final day.


  Axiom Verge
"Sound is a deafening throb.
Sight is a kaleidescopic fire.
Smell and taste open up entire worlds of terror.
The worst is touch, a tingling, writhing, itching mass."

"The Old Machines, those perennial tokens of bad fortune, were our one-time salvation.
Eternal harvest. Eternal happiness. Eternal life.
How did we learn to fear such things?
Human nature.
We are trained to expect bad to follow from good like night following day.
We have an instinct not to drink too deeply of the sweetest nectars,
and sometimes this instinct swings to the other excess."

I was playing this game and read that last quote and was immediately reminded of when you said we tend to see a situation where everything is going good, as a bad omen. Things can't stay good forever, so when we are at a peak, things can only go down from there.