There is a difference between psychedelic experiences and psychedelic people

When I listen to John Dowland, I don’t just hear a great English lutenist and composer of the late Renaissance/early modern period. I also hear the first singer-songwriter, the godfather of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and Elliott Smith. Dowland wrote for the lute, for one thing, that feathery godfather of the guitar, but the real link is the creative and self-cherished melancholy that saturates songs like “I saw my Lady weep,” “Come, heavy sleep,” and the killer “In darkness let...

“Messages from beyond” are forms of information, and information is a trickster

When I listen to John Dowland, I don’t just hear a great English lutenist and composer of the late Renaissance/early modern period. I also hear the first singer-songwriter, the godfather of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and Elliott Smith. Dowland wrote for the lute, for one thing, that feathery godfather of the guitar, but the real link is the creative and self-cherished melancholy that saturates songs like “I saw my Lady weep,” “Come, heavy sleep,” and the killer “In darkness let...

Terminal. What other journey, you might ask, begins at the end?

When I listen to John Dowland, I don’t just hear a great English lutenist and composer of the late Renaissance/early modern period. I also hear the first singer-songwriter, the godfather of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and Elliott Smith. Dowland wrote for the lute, for one thing, that feathery godfather of the guitar, but the real link is the creative and self-cherished melancholy that saturates songs like “I saw my Lady weep,” “Come, heavy sleep,” and the killer “In darkness let...

But what if the medium is the message?

When I listen to John Dowland, I don’t just hear a great English lutenist and composer of the late Renaissance/early modern period. I also hear the first singer-songwriter, the godfather of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and Elliott Smith. Dowland wrote for the lute, for one thing, that feathery godfather of the guitar, but the real link is the creative and self-cherished melancholy that saturates songs like “I saw my Lady weep,” “Come, heavy sleep,” and the killer “In darkness let...

It is too close, too far-out, its sacred transmissions too muddled with the scandalous grit of its concrete historical unfoldment

When I listen to John Dowland, I don’t just hear a great English lutenist and composer of the late Renaissance/early modern period. I also hear the first singer-songwriter, the godfather of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and Elliott Smith. Dowland wrote for the lute, for one thing, that feathery godfather of the guitar, but the real link is the creative and self-cherished melancholy that saturates songs like “I saw my Lady weep,” “Come, heavy sleep,” and the killer “In darkness let...