BACK IN THE SADDLE! We finally return to the world of audio podcasting after a few weeks of video capture and training (coming June 2009). This week we dream of android-sheep, with cultural critic and social theorist Erik Davis. In this (the first of many we hope) interview, we decided to focus on Erik's study of visionary-author Phillip K. Dick, as well as a brief look at Davis' own 'Techgnosis' studies. In this episode, we discuss Phillip K. Dick's bizarre life, the 'pink laser' experience, the Valis-trilogy, Dick's exegesis, Technosis and much more.

While our first-officer, Claire Lumiere, remains aurally-absent again this week; our sub-mariner, Daddytank, and his navy of musical vessels, defend our shores of the alternative once again with his excellent 'Myspace Heroes'. This week's high-yield torpedoes come in the shape of:

Migration - They Said That Committed Suicide

Join us next week, and we mean next week this time, with an amazing interview with returning guests Douglas Rushkoff and Richard Metzger!

Erik Davis Biog:

Erik Davis is a San Franciso-based writer, culture critic, and independent scholar. His book TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information was released by Harmony Books in the fall of 1998. It has been translated into five languages, and has achieved, in certain circles, the vaguely enviable status of a "cult classic." Davis is a contributing writer for Wired magazines, and wrote "The Posthuman Condition" column for the sadly departed online magazine Feed. His essays have appeared in over half a dozen books, including Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics (Chronicle), The Disinformation Book of Lies (Disinfo), Prefiguring Cyberculture (MIT Press) and Paul "DJ Spooky" Miller's Sound Unbound (MIT). He has contributed articles and essays to a wide variety of publications, including Bookforum, The Wire, ArtByte, the LA Weekly, Gnosis, and the Village Voice. His articles have been translated for publication in countries ranging from Japan to Brazil to Hungary.

Davis has taught at the California Institute of Integral Studies, the New York Open Center, and Esalen, and was one of the organizers of Planetwork, a conference on information technology and global ecology held in San Francisco in 2000. He has been interviewed by CNN, has popped up on radio shows internationally, and appeared prominently in Craig Baldwin's underground film, the SciFi media critique Specters of the Spectrum. His in-depth studies of the science fiction author Philip K. Dick have been acknowledged by the New Yorker. Davis has also lectured internationally on topics relating to media arts, contemporary electronic music, and spirituality in the postmodern world.

Davis is a fifth-generation Californian, and is currently working with the photographer Michael Rauner on California Visions, a photo-essay travelogue through the Golden State's landscape of alternative spirituality. He is also at work on a short book about Led Zeppelin, and various fragments of bardo fiction.