Dr. Bruce Damer's Levity Zone

Dr. Bruce reports in from Islamabad, Pakistan where he is on a round the world tour from the Science and Nondualists of San Jose, to the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador, to Mars rover roboticists in Pasadena, and from here onwards to China. He gave perhaps the first talk on the origins of life and search for life in the Universe in Pakistan at the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. His host, renowned physicist and activist Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, hosted this talk at the Physics department auditorium. Dr. Bruce "inflamed the minds" of Pakistani students and professors alike as he took them on a rapid romp through life's possible origins on Earth to the search for evidence for life on Mars in 2020, icy Enceladus in the next decade and onwards to the likelihood of life on exoplanets. Dr. Bruce Damer and Pervez Hoodbhoy (presenters), Elixir Technologies Pakistan (recording and photo). [released 18 November 2017]

Dr. Bruce returns after a magickal mystery tour of epic proportions performing and speaking at the Oregon Eclipse festival and then on to Burning Man. Join John Zielinski, Michael Moore and Dr. Bruce on a hillside above the Eclipse stage to witness the union of darkness and light as totality swept across Eastern Oregon on August 21, 2017. The boys wax poetic on what all of this means as the totality tells the story of perfect chance that pulled us into existence. Shpongle provides a surprise musickal gift to the thousands of gob smacked revelers. Credits: Michael Moore, John Zielinski and Dr. Bruce Damer (conversants), John Zielinski (cover art photo), Mystical Sun (intro and outro music). [released 29 Sept 2017]

Dr. Bruce returns after a two month hiatus with the first of two talks from the June 2017 Science of Consciousness Conference in La Jolla, California. The first, an interview by Nick Day of Consciousness Central, is a wide ranging conversation exploring the implications of the new Hot Spring Origin of Life hypothesis for biology, physics, philosophy and the origin and phenomenon of consciousness. Credits: Nick Day (interviewer), Dr. Bruce Damer (interviewee), Consciousness Central (recording and cover photo). [released 31 July 2017]

Dr. Bruce marks the sad passing in April 2017 of Bob Taylor, the innovative father of much of the digital technology that we use every day. Bob funded Doug Engelbart's lab in the mid 1960s creating the first interactive computing information environment using a mouse and conceived of and headed the ARPANET project, forerunner of the Internet. In the 70s he directed the Xerox PARC Computer Science Lab which brought us the Alto. the first networked personal computer, and ran DEC labs in the 80s-90s launching the first Web search engine before Google. This is the first of several interviews conducted in October 2014 by Dr. Bruce and author Adam Fisher at Bob's home in Woodside, California. Credits: Adam Fisher, Dr. Bruce Damer (interviewers), Bob Taylor (interviewee), Xerox PARC (cover photo). [released 19 April 2017]

Dr. R.P. Kaushik returns to the Levity Zone to describe how listening to the body and becoming the observer separate from mind can open us to a healing and transformative intelligent energy. This energy can unify us with what is: the source of life itself. Dr. Bruce has recently been engaged in practices that are taking him closer to opening to this energy, so his heart was wide open to Dr. Kaushik's telling of this link between the body, the mind and this path to transformation. As our world is increasingly dominated by fear and anxiety through politics and the pressures of life, we need such sage guidance more than ever. When it comes right down to it, as Dr. Kaushik says... "there is only one problem and one solution". Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (introducer), Dr. R.P. Kaushik (presenter), Mystical Sun (music), Jacob Aman (site and cover art). [released 21 March 2017]

Dr. Bruce returns for another TubCast with Allan Lundell in a pot boiling historical hot tub conversation about the origins and evolution of the power structures, brokers and abusers we find ourselves surrounded by today. Part One of this investigation takes us through the shaping of power from the temple at Eleusis through the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution up to Dr. Bruce's 1986 meeting of "Kojak and the Serpent". Dr. Bruce then offers a ray of hope through science and the shaman's understanding of childhood traumas that underlie all of the old and new pathological abuses of power we see rising. Dr. Bruce puts forth that it may be possible to call forth a larger intelligence to heal these traumas and open up the path to a sustainable and brilliant future for humanity. Allan Lundell and Dr. Bruce Damer (recording and cover art). [released 28 February 2017]

Dr. Bruce shares some heartfelt words on the recent so-called "election" of 2016 in the USA. Recorded on the eve of the new year 2017 and offered on the eve of the so-called "inauguration" of a non-elected "president". It reflects a Canadian but also a human view of the broken nature of the US national political system and its need to be radically remade some time in the future. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (recording and cover art). [released 19 January 2017]

Dr. Bruce is interviewed by the "VR The Movie" documentary film crew in April of 2015 on his past and current views of Virtual Reality. This sweeping discussion starts with the story of Jaron Lanier escaping to Silicon Valley in an old car to create the first VR headset and glove in the late 1980s, We then motor on through the mid 90s revolution in online "avatar" virtual worlds and drive up to the second coming of VR with Oculus Rift in the 20-teens. We finally look through the windshield for a forward view of VR and AR given to us by science fiction and James Cameron's film "Avatar". Througout the trip Bruce compares the medium of VR and virtual worlds to the birth of film and the cinema a century ago. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer and Zach Jankovic (conversants), slugware (music), Dr. Bruce Damer (cover art). [released 30 November 2016]

Join Dr. Future (Al Lundell) and Dr. Bruce in another Tubcast, a spirited (and bubbly) hot tub conversation ranging from the cosmic destiny of life beyond Earth, to our own ancestry at the birth of our world, to how we might best survive and thrive for another five hundred years. Is all we have to do to wake up to how rare we are and to the wonder of *what is* rather than falling into stories invented by others? Please join us again in the Levity Zone for dialogues at the edge of the west, or at least the edge of the wet! Credits: Allan Lundell and Dr. Bruce Damer (conversants), Bo Millward (audio editing), Peter Fae (cover art). [released 26 October 2016]

For the 50th Levity Zone podcast Dr. Bruce offers: "Fire in the Sky" a four part full tilt poetic journey from the birth of the cosmos through the origin of life and human conscious awareness. This piece was later performed on stage with Android Jones and Val Santana at the 2016 Lightning in a Bottle festival. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (performer), Lisa Cory (cover photography), Val Santana/DJ DISSOLV (recording and music mixing). [released 29 September 2016]

Dr. Bruce returns with a report on science field work in Australia and at the Bumpass Hell volcanic springs in California. And then following on to our last episode "Primal Theory" which took up questions on how the universe might work, Dhiren Dasu and Dr. Bruce sit down in the studio and take up the more pertinent, personal question of where humanity might be going next. We asked ourselves the question: "what is your prime driver?" We cycled through whether we should live in tune with rhythms, seeking equlibrium or be driven by cause and effect. Should we always expect to be in reaction, find vision only through strong drivers like psychedelics, be ruled by difference and inequality or come to rest in the magic of just "being here now".Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (speaker), Dhiren Dasu (interviewer and audio recording), Ryan Norkus (cover art), Mental Physix, Paradiso and Rasamayi (music and mixing). [released 31 August 2016]

Dr. Bruce returns for a Studio Session with Dhiren Dasu recorded back in 2012 where he dove into his primordial thinking behind the recently published hypothesis on the origin of life, musings on the origin of the cosmos, and the unique place of life and God in the universe. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (speaker), Dhiren Dasu (interview and audio recording), Ryan Norkus (cover art) Mental Physix (theme music). [released 2 July 2016]

Apple Computer's 30th birthday was celebrated back in November 2006 when Dr. Bruce and his DigiBarn Computer Museum hosted a lively, nerdly and funny panel featuring Steve Wozniak, Randy Wigginton, Chris Espinosa, and Daniel Kottke. The theme was: "Apple in the garage" when these four gentlemen along with Steve Jobs assembled Apple 1 computers in his parents' garage, cooking up what would eventually become the world's most valuable company. This episode is released to coincide with Apple's 40th anniversary on April 1st, 2016. Credits: Dr. Bruce Damer (host), Allan Lundell (video and audio recording), Bo Millward (sound cleanup) Kyle Espenshade (theme music). [released 31 March 2016]

Roll open the doors to the DigiBarn Computer Museum as we enter a new theme in the Zone. Apple's co-founder Steve Wozniak gets a grand tour of Dr. Bruce's vintage computer collection. Deep nerd wisdom is mixed with whimsical techie banter as first person true stories of Apple and the rise of the personal computer are shared. Credits: Steve Wozniak, Dr. Bruce Damer, Allan Lundell, Sellam Ismail (speakers, recording and editing), Bo Millward (sound cleanup) Kyle Espenshade (theme music). [released 29 February 2016]

Returning for the second half of the Merry Pranksters visit to the Levity Zone, Prankster Lee Quarnstrom reads from his autobiography "When I was a Dynamiter" with a spectacular telling of the 1965 bust at Ken Kesey's house in La Honda. Yours truly, Dr. Bruce, shares Leon Tabory's hitherto untold tale of the accidental painting of Kesey's magic bus before its epic 1964 New York trip, a chance inspiration that colored up the whole 60s. And John Leopold, First District Supervisor of Santa Cruz County introduced the set and setting of the 50th anniversary of the first Acid Test then introduced Nicholas Meriweather, archivist for the Grateful Dead collection at UC Santa Cruz. Nick gave us historians view of the importance of the acid test, through the the words of beloved departed Jerry Garcia. A fine time was had by all and the bus rolls on. Credits: Lee Quarnstrom, John Leopold, Nicholas Meriwether (presenters), Dr. Bruce Damer (recorder and editor), Slugs N' Roses (closing music). [released 29 January, 2016]