883: I really feel like he is setting people up for a mass suicide.

The borderlands between social branding and cult behavior have always on my radar. Long ago I predicted that actual cults will distill out of the pollution of 21st century-style marketing and no surprise – here they are…

“I really feel like he is setting people up for a mass suicide. He talked about ‘The Harvest.’ I always had a weird feeling.” – Former core staff member

Inside Bentinho Massaro’s cult that grafts together new age self-realization philosophy salad with the malignancy of tech bro narcisscism. Here comes Silicon Sedona. Beware.

“If anyone has an issue with me, turning against me, they stand to lose all these people they’re really close to”

Teal Swan, guru/cult leader.

“The C.E.O.s, inside they’re hurting. They can’t sleep at night.”

Esalen Institute rebrands itself to help Silicon Valley power brokers figure out why technology didn’t work in the way they expected. (my gut reaction… fuck them. their souls could stand to burn some more.)

I spent a week with 8,000 worshippers of the fake, fantastical cult of zumba.

Links:

The photography book shows a world most of us will only ever see in images. Wealth so glaring it is almost insulting. Inequality so massive it becomes preposterous. I’m not entirely convinced that we needed more visual testimonies of a situation we’ve been reading about day after day since the onset of financial crisis but the selection is excellent. I should probably add that the majority of the photographers in the book are men and/or from Europe or Northern America. Now that’s what i call perpetuating privileges.

We Make Money Not Art takes a look at Privilege in a Time of Global Inequality – the photobook of the exhibition.

Robert Blakeley, Who Created a Sign of the Cold War, Dies at 95.

What Happened to the $2.2M Marina Abramović Raised to Build Her Institute?

The slow death of the Ludlow Cafe.

Allison Bennett teaches you how to play The Smiths (and more) on guitar.

Week 869: I really do think we just got the Mayan date system wrong

2017firehurricane GOES R

NOAA’s GOES-R looks at a bruised continent yesterday. Smoke from fires in the west. 3 hurricanes in the east. Not shown: earthquake in Mexico. DPRK missiles.

Week 868: I assumed the ratings would be far higher

Weekly Links: March 16 – March 22

White+ at Los Globos last week:

  • A 26-Story History of San Francisco: a psychosocial history of the former Pacific Bell building at 140 New Montgomery in San Francisco
  • A short history of the Public Storage building on Beverly & Virgil. I’ve been mildly obsessed with this building on the Silver Lake/Hollywood border for a long time. Never suspected that it was designed out here, it always felt as if it was a east coast-styled building transplanted over here
  • A New York Times profile of surrealist Alejandro Jodorowsky.
  • Nick McCabe talks about his favorite albums.
  • 360 degree view of the Milky Way as seen via the Spitzer Space Telescope.
  • The Next America – The America of the near future will look nothing like the America of the recent past. Everyone who makes a living from futurism needs to get hip to what the demographic landscape is going to look like.