Philip K Dick Class by John David Ebert

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:01]For the next class at my school, we will be reading through eight of Philip K.

[00:00:05]Dick's best novels or the ones that I think are his best out of the 15 or so that I've read. Um, and those novels will be Time Out of Joint. That'll be the first one. I think that's the earliest of this batch. That's 1956.

[00:00:19]And it is the source for Andrew Nichols screenplay for The Truman Show. Uh, although he does not credit it, but it is clearly a transformation. The Trimman Show is a transformation. It was directed by Peter Weir um but written by Andrew Nickel who then went on to write some science fiction films uh such as Sim 1 and and others u what's the one about the genetic engineering titles Gatka um flow my tears the policeman said yubic which I think is his best the three stigmat of Palmer Eldrich the transmigration of Timothy Archer a scanner darkly martian time slip and then uh the man in the high castle we'll read them in the in which they were written. So, I'll look up the dates and organize them uh in those terms. So, the class will begin Saturday, June 6th at noon MST and we'll continue for a total of eight Saturdays until July 25th. And as I say, the first book we're going to read on June 6th, I'll presuppose that we've already read time out of joint when we meet for a discussion. And um to attend class live, the enrollment fee is $250. uh the usual fees or if you just want a subscription to the videos, uh the fee is $150. Uh and if you want to enroll, just contact me at my email, [email protected].

[00:01:38]Uh you can also contact me there for astrology readings, private tutoring, or any questions about my school. Um we're finishing up uh Peter Slodike's spheres number one, which is bubbles. So we're just about done with that. So that'll be a complete class here shortly. And we are working our way through uh the history of European art part two where we have so far gone through the impressionists and now we're moving on into modernist art with Picasso and Paul Clay and all that all those guys. So we're having a a lot of fun here with these uh classes and uh as I say so uh Phil K. Doug he is uh I regard him in a way that is similar to the way I regard Marcel Duchamp. If you think of Duchamp's work um with all the little gimmicks that he did like the the urinal that he writes our mut on and puts it in a museum and we're supposed to regard it as a work of art. They're all pranks. Uh but there he's laying the foundations for contemporary art within the epoch of modernist art. So he doesn't really fit very well and he realized that he didn't fit well within that epoch because he was a herald for postmodernity which is the epoch of contemporary art. I think of Phil Phil K. Dick as a similar kind of literary uh phenomenon who doesn't really belong in postmodernity but belongs in hyper modernity. He is foreseeing the realities that we are facing today and taking for granted within hyper modernity. The primary earth symbol for rich is the multiverse where we have alternate realities, alternate timelines, um multiple wormholes, uh two tunnels, uh multiple dimensions, universes stacked around and on top of each other.

[00:03:20]And it just goes on and on for for infinity. And I think that Deck already foresaw that. Indeed, he had some very spooky uh visitations. uh he claimed that he was visited by aliens at one point uh who put information into his mind. Who knows whether that's true or not. Uh but he's a fascinating guy and he's worth sitting down and uh and studying these novels as as a kind of map for the coming of hyperodernity and what the structural characteristics of it are going to be like and how they differ from those of postmodernity. So that those will be discussion points that we will uh emphasize in the class.

[00:03:54]All right. Uh there's that and I hope to see you in class.