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Urban Primitive

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

19:08 / 03.09.02

This book follows the whole "Modern Pagan working magik in the big city" deal. And does it a hell of a lot better than Christopher Penzack, in my opinion.

I've read only the first four chapters so far (I just stop in Borders on my way to work and knock out a chapter or two), and I'm liking it. It's simple, it's not lame or hokey, but at the same time it's got some good stuff in it. The authors have a sense of humor about the whole thing, which I always appreciate.

Will report more when I have read more of the book. If City Magick interested you, but it's lameness turned you off, give this book a try.

19:28 / 03.09.02

Hey, ya big stoner, who wrote it??

20:40 / 03.09.02

Is the full title The Urban Primitive: Paganism in the Concrete Jungle ?

Amazon has it listed here , but they say it won't be out until October.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

23:14 / 03.09.02

Hey, ya big stoner, who wrote it??

D'oh! Can't remember. Oh, wait, Raven Kaldera and Tannin Schwarzstein, a couple of big-city witches. From reading the book, I get the feeling that these two are the kind of pagans that I would love to hang out with, so similar are our ideas on things.

19:55 / 05.09.02

This book is actually out already. I picked up a copy at Border's on my lunch hour today, but I have to say that at a glance, it hasn't overwhelmed me. I actually liked a lot of the things in City Magick (e.g. discovering sigils in graffiti), but I suppose that's what makes horse races.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

20:37 / 05.09.02

When I went through City Magick the first time I loved it. The second time I through it down as New Age mishmash crap.

Anything particularily good in this new book, stone mirror?

ps don't get Penzack's spirit allies pure new age shite.

19:05 / 06.09.02

Well, I've taken a quick spin through this book, and I cannot recommend it at all on that basis. It seems like an example of the worst of Llewellyn's wares: a hack job scaled at 16 year-old Wiccan-wannabe goth girls.

There's a ton of silliness in there. Pages and pages about different kinds of piercings (in a section on body modifications), stuff about various crystals that could have been cribbed from any of dozens of other books. Loose ends all over, e.g., mention of using a warding sigil hidden behind a picture in a frame to protect one's workspace in a non-overt way, but no mention anywhere of what a warding sigil is.

There's an entire chapter (way too much) of silliness about the "Urban Triple Goddess" (including "Squat, the goddess of parking spaces") and the "Urban Triple God" (including "Screw", evidently the god of one-night stands).

I may nurse some degree of nostalgia for City Magick, since it was responsible for introducing me to The Invisibles, but I think there was a lot more original (and interesting) thought in Penczak's book compared with this one.

Thumbs down.

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

19:16 / 06.09.02

It seems like an example of the worst of Llewellyn's wares: a hack job scaled at 16 year-old Wiccan-wannabe goth girls.

I really need to read more of it to contest you further, but what's wrong with this? Those precious little girls are high on my list of people I wish would find some magick in thier lives.

19:34 / 06.09.02

Oh, by the bye, according to the authors, if you're looking for a quick sexual release with a random partner, you can invoke Screw by tying a knot in anything made out of latex, e.g. a condom or a rubber glove, etc., asking for what you want and leaving it somewhere. Never fails, they say.

Had I but known this in high school.

(WTF!?)

19:36 / 06.09.02

I really need to read more of it to contest you further, but what's wrong with this?

Other than the fact that the information being purveyed is fluffy crap? Nothing much.

There are plenty of good books on magick available. Visual Magick by Jan Fries is a great place to start. One might actually learn something.

21:20 / 06.09.02

A friend read my mini-review and responded

I know the person who wrote this.
Take it very tongue in cheek.
It's meant as a joke....

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

18:25 / 07.09.02

Other than the fact that the information being purveyed is fluffy crap?

But it could easily work for some people. And if it does, who the hell are we to say it's crap? Let them believe what they want. So they believe a bunch of crap about one field of magick rather than another. Big deal. It'll work all the same, if they go about it correctly.

05:11 / 08.09.02

Hm.

Johnny, are you saying that since anything might stand a chance of "working" (for some value of "working") for somebody at some time or other, then it doesn't matter whether the information being presented in a given book is senseless? Why bother reading 'em at all? Why bother with a discussion of it, for that matter? (Hm.)

"Skor", the goddess of dumpster diving? Hey, if that's what floats your boat, have at it.

Anyone want a copy? I've got one to sell.

Sirhan Sirhan Solo

02:28 / 12.09.02

Just poked through a copy in the local Barnes and Noble, and I've got to agree: this book is typical Llewellyn garbage, aimed at the "crystal and candle" crowd. Moreover, though, it's far too personalized to the authors for it to have any significance to the average reader.
I've tried looking this as a funny little joke.
I've tried looking for the tongue-in-cheek tone.
My opinion: A book that is no more than a poorly-written in-joke is not worth my time or money.

As an aside, what sort of topics should be included in a serious book on urban occultism?

07:39 / 12.09.02

Sirhan Sirhan: I'd suggest as a start, the Situationist ideas on psychogeography: approcahing the city as a flux of impressions and getting out of the proscribed channels of interaction with it ie: work > tube> tv > work.
Some stuff here:www.psychogeography.co.uk/
and here

http://www.lgu.ac.uk/psychology/ungar/lecturenotes/documents/sidocs.html

(sorry, Im don't know ho to do that clever bit of HTML hyperlink insertion)

Also, the jargon heavy madness of situationsist theory seems appropriately urban, oui?

00:21 / 18.09.02

I paged through it today.

As mentioned, the urban goddess has three faces: squat, score, and scram (to find parking/housing, to find stuff, and to avoid trouble).
The urban god has three as well: slick, sarge, and screw), for a glib tongue, motivation, and sexual prowess.

The book seems funny, yeah. I didn't get to the part about the toilet-brush ritual, sadly.

01:37 / 16.10.02

It's interesting to hear Urban Primitive compared to City Magick. Not unexpected, but certainly interested. I got the impression from looking at "City Magick" that it came from a Ceremonial Magick/Wiccan background. While certainly poppy in many senses, Urban Primitive is more-dare-I-say "shamanistic" in that it assumes that there are conciously living incorporeals to cohabitate with....

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

15:30 / 16.10.02

Hm.

Johnny, are you saying that since anything might stand a chance of "working" (for some value of "working") for somebody at some time or other, then it doesn't matter whether the information being presented in a given book is senseless?

If it works for someone, why is it still considered senseless?

20:27 / 16.10.02

If it works for someone, why is it still considered senseless?

Because anything can "work" for someone, sometime, under some circumstances. If I share unsterilized needles and manage to avoid catching hepatitis C or AIDS, that doesn't make the idea that sharing needles "works" one worth conveying.

I thought we stopped talking about this a month ago...

21:54 / 28.10.02

Earlier in this thread, I reported that I was informed by an acquaintance that the authors of Urban Primitive intended the book "as a joke".

In the interests of equal time, I've had some private mail from one of the authors of this book, Tannin Schwartzstein, who assures me

I asked Raven if he had made the comment noted in your post, and he said he hadn't. I didn't either. The style of our writing was intended to be tounge in cheek, but we didn't fabricate any of the concepts, spirits (or "personality matrixes", if you preffer), and whatnot "just for a joke". After that, we're kinda out of Authors, so... (Grin) maybe the Cosmic Joke is on us!

As I told Tannin, I don't make the news, I just report it.