New writing gig

It's been a few days since my last post, so I wanted to take an opportunity to give you readers an update on what I've been up to. Never fear I have a few projects in the pipeline that will return us to your regularly scheduled Forteania postings that you've all come to love so much. As many of you are already aware, in addition to blogging here at Forteania I also write a column for Tim Binnall at his Binnall Of America website that's entitled Fortean Ramblings. Well you can add another url to your list of places to find my writing. As of Monday August 6, I began writing for Disinfo.com. My first (and so far only) post went live Monday evening in celebration of Charles Fort's birthday. What better way to celebrate not only my new gig at Disinfo, but also Fort's birthday? Below I'll give you a snippet of that post, but you should really follow the link below to check out the whole thing.

Happy Birthday Mr. Fort!

August 6, 2012 marks the 138th birthday of the great cataloger of the strange and unusual Charles Fort. Writing in the early 20th century, Fort would pen a total of seven books in his lifetime. Two early works, X and Y, were sadly never published as the author burned them during one of his many bouts of depression. Another title, The Outcast Manufacturers, was a fiction book that enjoyed some moderate success. The works that have made him rather famous (or infamous depending upon who you ask) are The Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo!, and Wild Talents. Through the use of the New York Public library, Fort set about to dig up the data he felt that science had too long neglected. Almost right from the beginning Fort laid out his intentions pretty clearly. In his first work, The Book of the Damned, Fort wrote:

“A Procession of the damned. By the damned, I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded”

Follow this link in order to read the whole thing. Also be sure to keep checking back on Disinfo for more of my writing. That's all I have for now, tonight should see normal posting resume here. Until then, Stay Classy internets!

The once and future Closet Anomalist

OK Day 2 of my being more proactive at not being a Closet Anomalist anymore. As recounted last week, I had tried joining MUFON as a means of alleviating this feeling of isolation that I get from my interest in all things Fortean. (At least from actual meat space you know? Yeah I have people that I talk to about this online, and I have you dear readers of this blog. But that's really more of a monologue, than a dialogue. I digress) I have once more ventured from my domicile in my continuing attempt to break out of my Fortean shell (I used that because 'popping my Fortean Cherry' sounded far too disturbing). As I am typing this I am sitting at one of the hundreds of Starbucks that litter the town in which I live.

My goal is to seek out someone I know, at least casually, and strike up a conversation with them about something Fortean. Probably Ghosts or UFOs, as I would be willing to bet they are the most well known and popular Fortean topics out there. So far I have had no luck, I may have to move my location so that 'Operation Don't be a Closet Anomalist Anymore' can really get under way. (For what its worth the name is still in the beta testing phase). What I will do is sign off for now and report back later with more information. Stay posted. Alternatively you can follow my Twitter, to find up to the minute information. ( I don't normally pimp my Twitter account, however in this case tweeting from my phone is a little less cumbersome than digging out my net book). Until later this is your friendly neighborhood Closet Anomalist saying 'klaatu barada nikto'

I'm not the only one ..... right?

Among the many consequences of being a Closet Anomalist is that you often don't get a chance to talk with others about how they feel about strange or Fortean things. Many times since becoming fascinated by these kinds of topics I have wondered, 'Am I the only one who is interested in these topics?' I know logically I can't be. Just look at the proliferation of 'ghost hunting' TV shows. Clearly some TV executives somewhere are green lighting these programs because they know the shows will be profitable. I'm talking more about on an interpersonal level. You know day-to-day life.

I sit around in public places, either on my net book at conspiracy/paranormal websites or reading paranormal books, and watch other people around me and wonder; 'Have they ever seen a ghost? A UFO? Been to a séance?' For some reason I believe that a lot of others in the paranormal/conspiracy field (at least those that aren't prolific in some way, like Nick Redfern, Paul Kimball, or Greg Bishop. These are all guys who are at least fairly well known within the field) feel the same way as I do, in that they keep it as a dark secret. This can definitely lead to the feelings of superiority that some give off, especially in the Conspiracy Theory arena. You know that whole 'I know the Truth about Fluoride in the water and/or the Illuminati', but it also exists to a degree within the UFO field especially.

I realize that the best way to get over this would be to begin to ask my close friends these kinds of questions. For whatever reason though, I can't seem to make it over that hurdle. It would be nice to know that others have at least entertained these thoughts. Before I began listening to podcasts, like Tim Binnall's Binnall of America or Greg Bishop's Radio Misteriso, or really before I ever got on the Internet, I really did think I was the only one thinking about these topics. I realize now that a whole lot of people are fascinated by these topics, and for good reasons. If any of these things are true or happening they could radically change how we perceive reality.

I think I will begin to make baby steps in the direction of being more open about this aspect of my personality. I don't mean that I will make up business cards that say “Tony Morrill Fortean Philosopher” or anything like that (unless of course I could get a good deal on some). But you know it would be cool to get other's perspectives on these topics. That's definitely one of the reason's I have but also it's given me a chance to talk to people I may not have been able to talk to before. Not because I didn't think they would have answered, but that I have gotten more confidence from doing this blog. As a matter of fact I commented to my girlfriend last night that it was a lot easier to get involved in this Ufological 'field' than I had thought.

Well that's all I have for now, I was supposed to be doing my homework and studying for a test. But I had to get this out for the time being, don't worry there will be another post at the regularly scheduled posting time. Until then behave yourselves Internet. Hopefully by tonight I will be able to report that I will have at least talked to one person about UFOs. Wish me luck!

Misadventures in PC Buying

OK so I took the day off from work because I felt like crap. In addition to that I start back to class tomorrow and I figured I could get away with missing a day in order to have a 'mental health day'. It felt great. Not only did I get to sleep in a few hours later than normal, my girlfriend and I ended up going to Best Buy to pick me a net book.

It wasn’t my intention today to actually buy the damn thing, after all we do have a laptop that we share. But in the last week or so since I have been posting more frequently, I have kind of been hogging the computer. With the possibility that I may end up actually writing articles for magazines, plus the fact that my classes will be starting tomorrow, we decided that the benefits out weighed the cons. So we purchased the strangely named Eee PC from ASUS. Now this is by no means a paid advertisement for ASUS, but if you are going to buy a PC definitely get an ASUS.

Anyways, I had figured that after the purchase of the net book I would quickly be able to get back to working on my article. Boy oh boy how wrong could I be? Once we got home I had to do the initial boot of the computer. That took about 15 minutes. Next I had to go about the oh so important process of installing necessary programs (read Mozilla Firefox, IE 8 can go jump off a bridge). When finally this was accomplished, I was able to set up my home group in order to move over my old documents. These included my articles for Binnall of America, backups for Forteania, and my article for the magazine. Once this was accomplished I decided to get working back on the article. Once I opened (or attempted to open) the document. Blam! A little pop up came that extolled me to either activate my version of Microsoft Office 2010 (don't have one), purchase a version from the online store (definitely not going to happen), or use the kind of shitty Microsoft Starter version of Word. So as I didn't want to do any of those things, I opted for downloading Open Office. The download took all of about 3 hours.

3 grueling hours later Open Office was finally ready to be installed. Once this process completed, which surprisingly didn't take all that long to do. It was at this moment that the computer happily informed me that 31 updates were ready to be installed for the computer. Evidently these were vital updates that, if they were not installed, could possibly result in the destruction of all mankind. Well you can sleep well tonight with the knowledge that I decided to spare all of your lives by installing the necessary updates. (No thanks needed, just send money). Finally everything was updated and I was good to go. So I opened up my article.... only to discover that I was actually working with an older version that had about 1000 fewer words than my new one. Luckily I had a jump drive nearby , loaded the latest version of the article.

So here we are almost 8 hours after the purchase of my net book and I am finally ready to get started on my article. Of course it was about that time that I realized I hadn't blogged all day, and that about brings you up to speed. I will be posting again a little later tonight, after I have hopefully gotten a chance to make a dent into my article. Until then this is your friendly neighborhood Closet Fortean (and proud new owner of an ASUS net book) saying catch you on the flip side.

Closest Anomalist no more?

Today marks a full week since I opened back up my Blog and attempted to write at least one post each day. And I am happy to report that I have been very successful. You know with the exception of some unexpected ‘downtime’ that occurred earlier in the week. So far I have put up a few posts each night that I don’t think sacrifice content by trying to write every night.

I have to say that even though I have only blogged seriously for the last week I can already see a big change in myself. First, I feel like my writing has gotten more coherent and also possibly enjoyable to read (hey a guy can dream). The old saying goes, of course, that practice can make perfect. So making myself post something to the blog each night has made me write a lot. I think that if you were to go back to my earlier stuff when I had first started this blog (back in October) you would be able to see a lot of improvement. It doesn’t hurt that I have also written a bunch of articles for my column, Fortean Ramblings, over at Binnall of America. Although only two have been posted up so far, I have already written something like 4 or 5 total.

The second change I can see is that I am becoming more confident in having people read my work. This is most evidenced by the fact that I figured what the hell why not send in some of my writing samples to see if a magazine would publish it? So far the response seems great, so now I just have to not be lazy (or worse procrastinate) and get the article re-tooled so that they can have it to publish. As of right now that‘s not looking so great, I am finding it terribly difficult to concentrate in order to write the article. As a matter of fact I am writing this post at the moment rather than working on the article which is actually open in another window. Oh well as much as things change some things always stays the same. Although after I post this blog my hope is to make a large dent into the article tonight, because as of Wednesday I will finally be returning to school to finish my Biology degree.

The final change that I have begun to see in myself is that I am starting to not be as hesitant about admitting my fascination with these kinds of topics. Or in other words maybe I am becoming less of a Closet Anomalist/Fortean. Just today at breakfast in a restaurant I found myself freely discussing what I think is the origin of at least some of the UFO phenomena (here is a hint as to what I think the origin is, they aren't from Zeta Reticula). The point being I didn’t lower my voice into a whisper as though I were discussing some kind of dirty shameful thing. After all if the visitor information that I have seen for my blog has told me anything, it’s that there is a worldwide interest in these topics. Why should I feel ashamed because I am interested in mysteries? I mean come on let’s be honest we are not talking about belief systems here. Although I loved David Duchovny’s character from The X-Files I don’t just ‘Want to believe’, I want to know or learn about these mysteries.

I think that was what had me being a Closet Anomalist in the first place. For the majority of people any interest in these kinds of topics, especially UFOs/Aliens, was automatically assumed to be a belief. Hell the question that a lot of people have asked me over the years is “Do you believe in aliens?”, as if it were a replacement religion of some sort (which I suppose for some people it is). But I don’t ‘believe’ in UFOs. I know for a fact that certain qualified persons have seen craft that they are unable to identify and which seem to perform maneuvers that are current technology are incapable of replicating. That doesn’t necessarily scream alien as the answer however.

I could go on and on about this part but I think I will save it for another post, and finish this one up by saying thank you. Thank you to whoever has been reading this for the last week, because of you I have been able to have a place to get out some of my thoughts and opinions on some Fortean topics. Also I have been able to get enough confidence to send some work to a magazine. And of course I will be continuing to do this for the conceivable future. Who knows maybe one of these day’s I will finally step fully out of the closet.

Follow up to my quest for a Fortean Group

I finally received an email back from the State Director of MUFON. She said that at this time they are not holding any meetings and that I could join MUFON on the web and receive their journal. Well unfortunately that doesn't really solve my problem of being a Closet Anomalist/Fortean. I guess I will just have to find a way to start my own group locally.

Closet Anomalist/Fortean Updates!

The other day (or today because of the recent Blogger maintenance issue) I posted about how I consider myself to be somewhat of a Closet Anomalist/Fortean. Which just as a quick intro, but I recommend following the link to learn more, means that I tend not to be terribly open about my interest in Fortean or Anomalous topics. Well after I posted that blog, I decided that I would try to change that about myself. The easiest way that I could think of to be more ‘open’ about that part of me was by trying to be around others like myself.

I mean Comic book fans (read nerds [by which I mean no offense I also love comics]) have Comic conventions, or more accurately in the southeastern United States where I live they have Dragon*Con. So I naturally I turned to the magic of the internets in the hopes of locating a Fortean or anomalous group that is located in the Southeastern region (within reason because gas is crazy  expensive and I am by no means rich).  The first place I decided to look was at my local MUFON chapter. Now I will save my opinions on MUFON for future posts, but suffice it to say I am not their biggest fan. However it was the first organization that came to mind. Well I looked up the South Carolina chapter of MUFON and this page is what I found. Now I’m not one to knock anyone’s website design, but I will say that from the looks of it not very many people have been to the site. Nor for that matter does it appear to have been updated anytime within the last 11 years.

So unfortunately MUFON seemed to be out of the question, although I have emailed the State Director and hope to hear back something soon but as of this post I haven’t received a reply.  I then decided to try the website Meetup.com , as I seemed to remember something about it from a few years ago. Again no dice unfortunately, oh to be sure there were some anomalous groups but they were more of the Ghost Hunting variety. Which there is nothing wrong with and I may still look into those, but that isn’t specifically what I was looking for. Lastly I decided to check Yahoo! Groups which also proved quite disastrous. The most recently active groups were last active around 2008 (apparently people don’t use Yahoo! products anymore who knew, says the guy on Blogger that has a Gmail account).

Finally after a few hours of searching I came up empty. I did find one group that had momentarily looked promising, but they were a little new-agey for my tastes. It looks as though for the moment I am stuck without any alternatives. Oh I guess I should specify what it is exactly that I am looking for. Basically in my mind I envision like a kind of old fashioned forum, where you could go and talk in person about all manner of Fortean or anomalous topics. Anything would be open for discussion, so like a discussion group or forum online but you know in actual meat space. Because unfortunately at the moment the only person that I really can talk to about all these things are my girlfriend, and all though she is super cool and listens and contributes, but  after a while she gets tired of talking about these topics (which who can blame her I guess). That and unfortunately she does not have the same base level of reading or knowledge about the topic that I have.

I suppose that in the mean time while I search for a local group I will cope by blogging here each day. It’s nice to be able to get out some of my thoughts about these topics, even if no one is necessarily reading them. Plus there is always talking on twitter with Paul Kimball, which is great. Well until tomorrow, I’m your friendly neighborhood (temporarily closeted) Fortean Philosopher Tony saying have a good one and take it easy.

Closet Anomalist/Fortean?

In yesterday's post I lamented about the label or charge of being called an armchair researcher and how perhaps we should come up with the alternative term Fortean Philosopher. Well today I am back to talk about another term that I haven't seen on the internets before so it may actually be a first. (Also apparently it is labels week for me or something, oh well I just sort of go with the flow around here).

 Today's term is 'Closet Anomalist/Fortean'. What I mean by this is someone who is interested in anomalous things, either because they read books on it, listen to podcasts on topics, watch tv shows, or in some other way participate in the genre. But they don't share this with other people in their social circles, whether at work or amongst friends and family. I got to thinking about this because I realized that with the exception of a few close friends, family, and my girlfriend, many people in my life don't realize that I am interested in Fortean topics. (And for that matter many probably don't even know what the term Fortean means) It dawned on me that for some reason I have hidden a fairly big part of my personality from those around me unless I feel comfortable with them.

I began to wonder why this was exactly. It's not that I'm 'ashamed' from my interest in these topics, on the contrary its such a fundamental part of who I am that in a way I feel like I am living a double life of sorts. When I brought this up to my girlfriend she remarked that perhaps I don't tell people because of the tendency people have to label those that are interested in these topics as crazy. To some extent she maybe correct. I can recall when I was in elementary school, I think it was around 3rd grade, that I began reading books on aliens and UFOs. At the time my classmates teased me and called me 'alien boy', and because of this it was a long time before I was able to let people in on what I considered my dark secret.

What I have come to realize in the ensuing years however is that a lot of people, to one degree or another, are also interested in the Anomalous. But it seems like until one person in their social circle openly admits the rest are content to keep it quiet. I can't tell you how many people I have heard over the years so something along the lines of "Once they found out I was the UFO guy they all came to me with their UFO stories." Really you can replace the word UFO in that statement with any Fortean topic (i.e. Bigfoot, Ghosts, Psychic Powers, etc.) and it would still hold true.

I find it fascinating that there is a kind of stigma around these topics that prevent many people, myself included, from talking openly about it. I can't help but think of how many times I have been asked in my life 'What are your hobbies?' and my only answer has been reading. Whereas it should have been "Oh well during the week I like to research ghosts and then on the weekend I go looking for them". I'm hoping that by blogging and posting here more frequently, and by writing my column for Binnall of America, it will help me to feel more comfortable with this aspect of myself. After all I don't think that there is anything shameful in being inquisitive about the mysteries that seem to pervade our daily lives.

As an addendum I am wondering if anyone else feels like they might be a 'Closet Anomalist/Fortean' and if so why are you uncomfortable with divulging this aspect of your personality. On the flip side if you  are open about it, what allows you to be so comfortable with it? Anyway just something to think about from your friendly neighborhood (Closet) Fortean Philosopher. Until next time, this Tony signing out.