1) Shrinking Essays/A Trend/Jason Sanford  The other day, a well-known author was asked that oft-asked and irritating question, "What advice do you have for new writers?" Her reply:  "Make sure what you have to say is worth reading, because our libraries are being filled up by minutia."

Jason leads off the Omniversica Oral Essay wagon; from Omniversica Show #1 (1/30/03).

2) ***Oldies, but Goodies: Click for an essay on James Emanuel, & to read some of the poems by this Great Neglected Poet! From Omniversica Show #2 (2/8/03)

3) Click for the poems read by Dorion Sagan & an Emily Dickinson poem read by Lynn Margulis on Omniversica Show #3 (3/6/03)

3a) Unemployment/Archaeology/Jason Sanford  You go for a job interview--selling life insurance to people who can barely afford food, let alone a future sense of security. But you need the money. So when the human resources flak waves to come in, you walk over, sit across the desk from her. She's friendly, smiling--her job, after all, is to get you to open up so she'll have a reason not to hire you. She asks why you want to sell life insurance....

Insights into the human condition- then & now. On Omniversica Show #3 (3/6/03).

3b) 2 Loren Eiseley Poems read by Art Durkee on Omniversica Show #3 (3/6/03)

4) Bobby Womack/The Man/Marc Taylor A prolific songwriter, singer, and guitarist whose career has spanned four decades, Bobby Womack had an important influence on the development of postwar black music. With roots in the gospel field, Womack was able to parlay his talents as a writer and guitarist in the mid-1960s into a significant career as a soul artist. In the early to mid-1970s he scored with a series of hits, such as “Woman’s Gotta Have It” and “Lookin’ for a Love,” sung in his raspy, almost gravelly tenor. After a brief dry spell at the end of the decade, Womack made a tremendous comeback in the early 1980s with “If You Think You’re Lonely Now.” With several of his songs being covered by artists ranging from the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin...

Portrait of a troubled talent; from Omniversica Show #4 (4/9/03).

4a) FreeJazz/The Movement/Robert Levin  More or less officially unveiled with the first New York appearance of the Ornette Coleman Quartet at the Five Spot Café in the fall of 1959, free jazz (or new black music, space music, new thing, anti-jazz or abstract jazz  as it would variously be identified), gave a new dimension to the perennial "where's the melody?" complaint against jazz....

The men, the movement; from Omniversica Show #4 (4/9/03).

5) ***Oldies, but Goodies: Click for an essay on Atheism by Joe Homrich, & a review of Pascal Boyer's Religion Explained, by Dan Schneider! From Omniversica Show #5 (5/14/03)

6) Race/The Semiotics/Jason Sanford  I have been Alabama--growing up alone, angry, while the world asks what the hell is wrong with me. When people ask what I am--if there's any need to ask, since most only see the white man they've been programmed to see--there's no answer I want to give....

The continuum of self is briefly engaged; from Omniversica Show #6 (6/11/03).

7) Click to hear some George Dickerson poems read by the man, himself, on Omniversica Show #7 (7/9/03).

8) Click to hear poems by & read by David Alpaugh, Frederick Glaysher, Jessica Schneider, Art Durkee, & Dan Schneider on Omniversica Show #8 (8/20/03)

9) Stellar Heart/Prologue/Fiorella Terenzi  I am five years old. I am walking hand-in-hand with my grandmother in the country outside of Milan. Our bare feet pad across the soft, damp grass. Along side us, my little dog, Birba, scampers excitedly. Suddenly, my grandmother halts and points above us to the heavens. "Guarda! Look!" she says. "That star!  The brightest one -- she is looking at us!" I laugh, but she goes on seriously....

That 1st time...., from Omniversica Show #9 (9/10/03)

9a) Psi/The Research/Jeffrey Mishlove  How are we to evaluate the evidence for psychic interactions? Psi research offers a mass of experimental evidence that prima facie requires us to take psi seriously. If we apply the same standards used to judge non-controversial claims in the behavioral and social sciences, we would have little choice but to accept that extra-sensorimotor interactions have been experimentally established. The critics argue that psi claims, if accepted, would dramatically change our self-image and world view. Therefore, they claim, we must use extraordinary care in evaluating the data....

Lifting the covers, from Omniversica Show #9 (9/10/03)

10) Click to hear poems by & read by Dylan Garcia-Wahl, Cindra Halm, Jen Hanel, Don Moss, & Jessica Schneider on Omniversica Show #10 (10/8/03)

11) Big Brain/Narrow Pelvis/Leonard Shlain An excerpt from Sex, Time, Power by Leonard Shlain  Since our genetic makeup has changed very little in the last 150,000 years, I will make the key assumption that the main features of modern men's and women's reproductive life histories do not differ substantially from those present at the outset of our species. There can be no doubt that culture can affect sexual behaviors, but the features I will be referring to are more basic....

 Stirring the pot, from Omniversica Show #11 (11/1/03)

12) Ethics/Radio Waves/Jason Sanford You just have to know the music is there. Walking beside you on those dim gravel roads. Bouncing radio electrons through the passing pine trees and weeds. Beating past your skin, skull, intestines, and bones....

Ethics: The beginning & end of a man, from Omniversica Show #12 (12/17/03)

What Academics Fear!    From the Sursumcorda website!

Cosmoetica Links