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The Bibliophibians Reading Group discussion and coffee (And melange, maybe) will be held on 1 September 2018, Saturday, at Tin-Aw Art Gallery in Somerset Olympia on Makati Avenue, beside the Manila Peninsula (Old Swiss Inn is in the same building). Everyone is welcome, provided you’ve read Dune by Frank Herbert, OR have designed and are wearing your own stillsuit for surviving Arrakis. Drop us a line in Comments or send a message to @jessicazafrascats on Instagram to reserve a seat. Thanks to Dawn of Tin-Aw for hosting us.

You can read Frank Herbert’s Dune as

1. The coming of age story of a young man who may be the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy about one who can be many places at once (the Kwisatz Haderach), who can remember the entire past and see the future.

2. A political saga of noble houses fighting for control of the spice melange, which makes interstellar travel possible, promotes heightened awareness and prescience, and increases lifespan. The spice can be found only on the desert planet Arrakis, aka Dune.

3. A technological thriller set in a society where AI and computers have been banned and replaced by humans with heightened cognitive abilities (mentats, BG reverend mothers).

4. An ecological drama about the plan to transform Arrakis into a green planet by terraforming. This aspect of Dune is especially riveting in this era of climate change, global warming and desertification.

5. A treatise on the uses of religion, rife with references to Middle Eastern religions.

6. A novel on the decline and fall of empires.

7. An anthropological study of the Fremen, a human culture that has existed for thousands of years on “uninhabitable” Arrakis, and a zoological study of the giant sandworms on the planet.

Add to this list. Post a comment.

8. (from Edrie) An allegory about the Middle East and Western Civilization’s dependence on petroleum to keep the industrial machine running and how we will never have true lasting peace when resources are scarce.

9. (from Edrie) A meta-story about patriarchal white people’s obsession with “leaving a legacy” and how these can be warped by their own progeny (Leto, Paul, Leto II). Works even better when juxtaposed with Frank Herbert’s works and the mediocrity of the ones written by his son.

Jodorowsky is wise.

My friends and I like to consult tarot card readers. Such readings can bring up alternative outcomes that would never have occurred to us. Some readings are as good as psychotherapy.

Of course, 90 percent of professional tarot card readings are bullshit. The charlatan will fish for information, guess at what you really want, and promise it to you. The salesperson type of card reader will read something scary in your cards—An elemental is in love with you so he is thwarting all your relationships!—and then offer to sell you a spell or amulet to counter the elemental’s powers. Or else the card reader says there is something fabulous in your future—But you have secret enemies!—then offers supernatural countermeasures, for a fee.

Years ago, I tagged along with my friend Otsu to a card reading. This fortune-teller did not use tarot cards, preferring ordinary playing cards. He laid out the cards, looked at Otsu, and said, “In the 70s, you lived in Forbes Park.”

He was correct.

“Your house was white, with a green gate, and there was a path made of stones leading to the front door.”

Otsu nodded in amazement.

“Your mother is very strict and intimidating,” the fortune-teller continued.

“Yes. That’s amazing! You can see all these in the cards?” Otsu asked.

“No, miss. I was your houseboy in Forbes in the 70s.”

At least he was honest.

I knew a spookily gifted tarot reader. (Don’t ask me for her number, she died some years ago.) She said: “You will receive a job offer. Accept it, it will be good for you.” The very next day, Abe Florendo called to say he was organizing the lifestyle section of a new daily broadsheet and would I be interested in writing a column?

We are always looking for gifted tarot card readers, so let us know if you find any.

Here’s a tarot reading with a cat.

The avatar of Chris Marker’s cat Guillaume-en-Egypte, who represents Chris Marker in machinima.

The photograph of Linda Hamilton on the set of the new Terminator movie reminds me of the only time in my life I ever considered enrolling at a gym (so I could do one-arm chin-ups and fire a shotgun with one arm), and of the film that must’ve inspired Terminator (and 12 Monkeys, and Red Spectacles, and others): Chris Marker’s La Jetee. Which is really a series of photographs with a voice-over narrator, and only one scene where someone moves. Apparently Marker only had a film camera for one day. Now we can make movies with a basic phone, and none of them are La Jetee.

Chris Marker would’ve been 97 years old last July 29. He also died on July 29, a coincidence which would’ve been appreciated by an artist whose work deals with time and memory. Let’s watch La Jetee again. Are we sure we’ve seen La Jetee? That scene we remember–has it already happened? Is it a memory, is it the future?