The is possibly the weirdest book you will ever read.
I mean that in the best of ways.
The Televisionary Oracle is an epic love story between an avatar of the goddess and an aging rock star. It's a how-to manual for saving the world with peace, love, sex, and television. It's a guide to picking up earth-loving magic-seeking chicks, and a meditation on myths, dreamscapes, soulmates, and popsicles.
Rapunzel Blavatsky is the goddess avatar of a secret worldwide feminist society who've been joylessly worshipping the Sacred Blood since the dawn of time. Rockstar just wants another gig to go well when he trips over Rapunzel's lavender Converse, catching her in an act of artistic disobedience. He is instantly smitten, but Rapunzel won't have any of it, telling him he must join her quest to unite the sacred masculine and feminine and kill the apocalypse before he can woo her. His adventures are interspersed with Rapunzel's history as a mystery cult's foundling, child avatar, and rebel runaway, and sacred performance artist. Each narrative is punctuated with dispatches from the Televisionary Oracle itself, tiny bursts of wisdom and funky love notes from the universe.
Rob Brezsny's writing is like tripping into a hallucinogenic Dada wonderland. It's grotesque, provocative, and tenderly passionate, full of surrealist imagery from a deranged but loving goddess's childhood: magical salamanders, holy brassieres, guerilla spiritual carousing and shamanic rock shows.
When my life with Jumbler got underway, I took my apostasy one step further. Beginning on that first night in the Villa Inn in San Rafael, high on pranks and tears and erotic thrills, the two of us, a loving couple, found a way to pull off a feat which as far as I knew no two flesh-and-blood magicians had ever done before: fly away together on a shamanic journey.
As the light from Jumbler's eyes caressed the light from mine, as our hot sweet breaths mingled in each other's lungs, as our almost unbearable pleasure mutated our brain chemistry out of its habitual groove, we disappeared into a gossamer net of shimmering light whose warp was gold and woof was silver. It collapsed gently around us, turning into a soothing, slow-motion tornado that soared and fluttered and finally set us down, many sighs later, in a dreamy landscape that seemed perfectly real. I never once lost sight of Jumbler even though the whole world changed around us.
We found ourselves lying on a grassy hill on a bright day with a very big sun directly overhead. There was an exuberant blend of smells in the air: spearmint, baking cake, varnish, brewing coffee. We were wearing the same clothes we had on back in the tear-stained bed.
"Doesn't this place look like a cemetery to you?" she asked with a matter-of-fact curiosity that made me laugh. How could she be so poised after a wild ride like we just had?
"It's rather festive for a cemetery," I said, trying to match her nonchalance. "Look at the prayer flags hanging from the trees. And the flower-bedecked floats over there. As if there's been a parade. Plus I smell all sorts of delicious aromas."
"Check out the women in their underwear dancing around the maypole," Jumbler said. "That's the wackiest lingerie I've ever seen. My favorite is the two floral shower caps attached to make a poofy bra."
"Do you mind if I ask you a stupid question?" I said.
"They're my favorite kind," she replied.
"Where are we?"
This isn't a story for everyone; The Televisionary Oracle is earthy, frank, and more than a little blasphemous, but with the best intentions. It's a wake-up call, feast for the extrasenses, and community action guide for a more peaceful and playful future.
*Like what you've read so far? The entire text of The Televisionary Oracle is available to read on Brezsny's website
*PopMatters review, alongside the companion album Give Too Much
*Free Will Astrology is the only horoscope I ever read. He's scarily prescient.
1 comments:
Tehehe, you know i actually remember my mom reading this book when i was much younger. i was totally captivated by the cover and spent long periods of time just looking at it. maybe i should actually read it now :)
p.s.- reading brigid lowry. awesome stuff! i wish i would have found her when i was younger :)
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