We Are Living In J.G. Ballard's World
From the contemporary space race to industrial music juggernauts and psychotherapy, we are living in J.G. Ballard's world.
A. I wrote about the contemporary space race in 1997 and 1998 for Australia’s 21C Magazine and for the Disinformation website. Thanks to billionaires it has now become a 21st century industry of the future - a revival of the post-Project Apollo, L5 Society and British Planetary Society period in the 1970s that influenced my childhood. But the focus now is on geostrategic primacy in space. The New Republic’s Samanth Subramanian reports on current developments.
B. I’ve known about Francine Shapiro’s EMDR Therapy for over a decade. I have long-term grief from early maternal death and cumulative betrayals in a blended family, and via retraumatisation involving paternal family members who have sought to reinforce family control systems (and conformity with it). I haven’t been able to afford EMDR Therapy yet. The New Yorker’s Amanda Petrusich explores how EMDR Therapy has changed her life and has helped her to deal with her husband’s death.
C. Romance scams often use money mules to make cross-border unlawful financial transfers. There are three very easy ways to deal with this. First, restrict what you use online and cut down on social media platforms. Second, get a pet (yes, even a capybara). Third, join the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, and read Becky Holmes’ hilarious Keanu Reeves Is Not In Love With You: The Murky World of Online Romance Fraud (London: Wilson Square, 2026).
D. Today’s MIT OCW free course is Music and Technology (Contemporary History and Aesthetics) created by Professor Christopher Ariza (Google Scholar and his Academia.edu hosted CV).
E. A Harvard Kennedy School event on how private equity is restructuring the United States economy. PE is also used to operationally manage United States and Australian universities (including their human capital) to ensure “risk transfer” arbitrage, value capture, revenue growth, and profit maximisation.
F. I was lucky to interview the late author J.G. Ballard (best known for the books that became the films Crash, High-Rise, and Empire of the Sun) in 1994 for Perth’s REVelation Magazine. It was my first freelance magazine sale. Here is why the very prescient Ballard still matters today.
G. An audience filmed playlist that captures most of the Nine Inch Noize set at Coachella in 2026. The set looks as if it was professionally filmed in multi-cam, so an official release might occur in the future. As one audience member is overheard saying: “This is a once in a lifetime set - it’s probably their best performance.”
H. Faith No More’s full live set from Coachella in 2010.
I. An introductory lecture by Dr Yaron Brook for the Peterson Academy. Brook represents an Ayn Rand / Objectivist stance - see Rand’s book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (New York: New American Library / Signet,1966).