In Bright Axiom
This post will be unusual for this blog, but still, I think, of interest.
Note: In the past few months, I met an amazing woman and we got married. I have meant to post one final entry on the saga of The Mission, which is still in the works; between getting married and being in the process of moving to the Bay Area of CA from FL, I have been a bit busy. Excuse the messiness of this post - I'm writing it as I am in the middle of moving.
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Around 2008, an acquaintance posted images of strange flyers that were found in San Francisco that belonged to something called The Jejune Institute, which they thought would be of interest to me as at that time I was into the TV show Lost, and one of the things I loved about that show was the DHARMA Initiative, a weird science cult that was revealed through bizarre films (I, of course, love degraded media and strange 60s/70s cults). From that I followed the trail to the Unfiction forums, which were centered around things which included what would later be termed "ARGs," or alternate reality games (which Lost also created between seasons). I lived in FL and then PA at that time, so I was nowhere near San Fran and Oakland, but I was pretty caught up in what was going on and the mythology that began to emerge from what I later found out was called the
Games of
Nonchalance, which has its own fascinating and quite engrossing mythology about the
Jejune Institute and the Elsewhere Society, complete with
extremely fascinating audio (which I have sampled for my own musical experiments in the past) and some wildly fantastic and incredible art. The whole venture played out until around 2011, with a climactic event that signaled the end of the Games, though with promise of a possible future experience on the horizon.
The mood, mythology, and especially the art and music that was part of this experience veered very much into the realm of hauntology.
In 2014, a wonderful documentary (which, to be fair, included some moments that blurred the reality of things in a beguiling way) premiered called
The Institute. At the end of that, there was a strange logo for something called
The Latitude Society.
I didn't know much about that - I read some things here and there, but I wasn't able to follow along like I had been with the Games of Nonchalance. I was aware that the same people who ran that one were running this one. It sounded very different - it seemed to be purposely leaning into the secret society aspect of things and was far more mysterious. I was intrigued, but because the way my life was at that time along with less info online, I didn't know much about it. But the Games of Nonchalance always sort of stuck with me and would pop into my head every now and then.
More recently, I was made aware of a new ARG around the fall of 2019 which was rumored to be connected to Nonchalance or an extension of the old Jejune Institute stuff. The New Noology Network, it was called. I was just getting out of a relationship and didn't have a lot to do, so I followed along pretty closely and participated, even making videos when the game asked. It came to be known that it was connected to a new TV series that seemed to be based on the old Institute / Games called Dispatches From Elsewhere (which had been the title of the Commander 14 radio broadcasts from the Games of Nonchalance back in 2008). The show premiered in early 2020, just as the COVID crisis and lockdown went into effect, so I was able to obsess over it, even participating in online groups and Tweetalongs of the show, even interacting with some of the shows stars and participating in some YouTube post-show reviews by some somewhat prominent pop culture review channels. I was super into it.
I became aware at some point that there was another documentary about The Latitude Society. I wasn't sure the status of its release due to the pandemic.
(Sidebar: I haven't written much about my health issues here, but two years ago I was diagnosed with MS. There have been some scary moments along the way, but all seems to be well at the moment. Hopefully it will just be a chronic condition that is manageable. So, enough about that.)
On a whim, I sent the creator of the Games of Nonchalance and The Latitude Society, Jeff Hull, who Jason Segel referred to as "a Willy Wonka type figure," an email. I told him what following along with what he has done has meant to me and how I've felt inspired by it and asked him if it would be possible for me to see In Bright Axiom from my home. To my surprise, he answered, sending me a link and a secret password.
The documentary is amazing. It was just released for the public and is available for streaming on iTunes and elsewhere. I would recommend
going here for links as well as an interesting possible way to participate and become a part of the experience.
Here is my review of the film that I posted on iTunes (written, to be fair, in the middle of the night when I had a chance to sit down to write something, so forgive the messiness and slight stream of consciousness of it all):
"This is a wondrous film that blends a documentary about a social experiment in awe and wonder using the guise of a "secret society" and narrative filmic elements that flesh out the world contained within the social experiment/game - with both coming crashing together at one climactic point in an actually quite beautiful and moving way. The documentary side explores a new "urban playground" social game started by the masterminds behind The Games of Nonchalance (see the doc/film "The Institute," also wonderful and a must-see) called The Latitude Society. This "game" is a spiritual successor to the prior Games, but it is really quite different - while still built on the premise of helping people realize the awe and wonder around them, be it in art or nature or just assisting a player/inductee in seeing the world through a new prism, it is built much more around the idea of a society (which begins with much in common with a secret society or a "cult") which is a bit more of a lone experience for players while still providing ways for interactive events if an inductee so chooses to participate in which allowed them to interface with each other - which is also part of where things began to go wrong. The doc/film goes into what happened with Latitude and why the experience / experiment ended, including the perspectives of the people who joined and lived this experience as well as those who created it. It's quite fascinating to see how this was all put together, the mindset of those involved, what it took to run such an endeavor, and how the social experiment was built and managed and eventually broken down. The more filmic / narrative elements are quite good, with incredible visuals and a story that gets into the mythology behind the Latitude Society and, as I wrote before, the two sides of the film meet in a very satisfying way. The musical and sound elements of this film are wonderful, especially how it all comes together over the closing credits. Highly recommended just as an interesting, engrossing, wonderfully strange film - as well as a very good documentary...a mood piece, a psychological/sociological curiosity..."
I think that is a decent review of the film itself. I can't recommend it enough - one does not need to be familiar with what came before or anything surrounding it to enjoy it - it stands alone as its own thing, an extremely fascinating and gripping story of how an art project based in providing awe and wonder / secret society / social experiment was created, experienced by the people participating, and how it was put together and run by the people who created it and how the who thing eventually fell apart (but, I'd argue, fell apart in a somewhat frustrating but kind of beautiful way), with closure to the story and experience provided by the film.
In the past few months, I met a wonderful woman, flew across the country to be together, fell madly in love, got married, and am now finalizing my move to be with her. By chance, she lives in the Bay Area, in Oakland, and grew up in San Francisco.
My personal connection to this...
By chance, as I wrote above, I met and fell in love with someone from the Bay Area. She was vaguely aware of the Games from the earlier 2000s, and we watched The Institute together. When I went there and we got married and I spent time with her in Oakland and San Francisco, I was still in light communication with Mr Hull and just decided to let him know I was in the area. He got in touch with me and proposed some sort of meeting. After my wedding and all, we made plans to meet at Fairyland, which is walking distance from my new home in Oakland (and also plays a part in the mythology of Mr Hull's life and therefore Nonchalance). My wife, who is familiar with the whole thing, came along with me as I am still new to the area.
Before I went to the park, Mr Hull emailed me an orientation email:
I went to the park, and searched for the envelope. It was, as stated, not too hard to locate.
The secret envelope and its contents:
I did as it said. On the bandstand was a family playing. My wife was next to me and wanted to time how long I stood there with the blindfold on at three minutes. I felt a little self conscious, but I took a breath and put the blindfold on and stood on the bandstand.
After a moment, there was the sound of children playing, particularly the sound of a young girl. I could see nothing. After a moment, there was a faint sound of music, playing Satie's "Gymnopedie No. 1," which has significance to the Games of Nonchalance story of Eva (it's sort of her theme), but which just happens to have a significance to me that dates back to my childhood as well. The song got louder, interspersed within the sounds of the music were the sounds of a laughing, happily playing child. This went on for three minutes. There was a nice breeze. The sounds of the people picnicking in the park sort of faded out as I focused on the music. I closed my eyes within the blindfold. At one point I heard the sound of my wife softly tell me there was a minute left. I honestly felt at ease, calm and somewhat transported. The music ended, the sounds of the world around me faded back in, and my wife softly told me it was okay to take the blind fold off. At this point, if this was all there was to this experience, I would be happy. I felt like I'd had a short meditative experience. It was not at all what I was expecting when I had been asked a few weeks earlier to meet.
I looked at my wife and she too looked like she'd had a bit of an experience, though she still hasn't been able to tell me what it was. (All she could tell me was "Eva was here." I understood.) She presented me with a box.
I hesitate to post all of what was in this box. It feels a little bit personal to me. Maybe I will follow up and post photos at some point. Most importantly, Jeff Hull gave me a beautiful experience that also served as a pretty incredible welcome to the neighborhood.
A photo of me at Fairyland with my magical box:
My wife and I at Fairyland following this experience:
(This got a bit more personal than I might have expected and definitely more so than my usual posts here.)
I'd recommend checking out the
Nonchalance site in general, but especially for
In Bright Axiom and
The Latitude Society. I would also recommend checking out the page on
The Jejune Institute, and for musical content, the gentleman who did a lot of the audio for Jejune / Nonchalance and Latitude has a
Bandcamp page for his music, a lot of which is quite good and interesting. Also very much worth checking out is
this broadcast from the original game, which is just straight up a fun listen and incredibly sample-worthy if you're into that sort of thing. There's also quite a bit of writing on the Institute if you want to read about the experience, such as
here (this is quite long but exceedingly well written and worth the time) and
here. For some reading on Latitude Society, I'd recommend
here and
here. The
Nonchalance Twitter is also worth a look and follow. And above all, go watch
In Bright Axiom (and
The Institute)!
I am on Twitter
here.
