{"id":7840,"date":"2008-12-12T08:30:25","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T13:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=7840"},"modified":"2011-05-17T06:08:44","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T11:08:44","slug":"friday-edition-astrology-as-the-art-of-bullshit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/friday-edition-astrology-as-the-art-of-bullshit\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Edition: Astrology as the Art of Bullshit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Friend and Reader,<\/p>\n<p>The Friday edition of <a href=\"http:\/\/planetwavesweekly.com\/sales\/home.html\">Planet Waves Astrology News<\/a> will be available to subscribers momentarily. And not to brag, because I&#8217;ve been working on it all week, but this is a really good edition.<\/p>\n<p>First of all, it features the debut of Genevieve&#8217;s weekly horoscope: she&#8217;s taking over for Eric for the next few weeks as we finish up <a href=\"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\">Next World Stories<\/a>, the annual edition that will knock your socks off (or your sandals if you&#8217;re somewhere warm).<\/p>\n<p>As our 10th anniversary approaches, we&#8217;ve also opened with the first Planet Waves essay ever: &#8220;Astrology as the Art of Bullshit,&#8221; with a new introduction written by Eric:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As part of our commemoration of the 10th anniversary of Planet Waves, we&#8217;re reprinting what I consider to be the first-ever Planet Waves essay. It was written in Munich the spring of 1998, more than six months before PlanetWaves.net went on the air. I was in an email dialog with Brad Blanton, author of Radical Honesty, and he was taking his at times annoying position that astrology is bullshit; that I should give it up and do something real with my life, such as take his classes.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In a moment of revelation and revolt, I considered his viewpoint for a moment, and seized the territory as my own. In about an hour, I jammed out this essay. I sent the piece to Rob Brezsny, who loved it so much he published it that week and left it linked from his homepage for nearly two years. I am sure that I have met a number of you through this piece of writing. A decade on, it&#8217;s clear that I was setting the agenda for Planet Waves. I think you will see what I mean.<\/p>\n<p>I went on to write a series of articles that summer and autumn for Rob&#8217;s site (then called Real Astrology), covering the Clinton impeachment, my exploration of early holocaust sites in Erfurt and, further setting the Planet Waves agenda, publishing &#8220;Coming to the Revolution&#8221; (my first missive on masturbation) and &#8220;Options to Romance&#8221; (a kind of alt-sex dictionary). In retrospect, it was authentically gutsy of Rob to print those pieces on an astrology website, and revealed his true-to-life open mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We&#8217;ve also begun a briefs section, written by one of my favorite Planet Waves&#8217; contributors, Shanna Philipson. The briefs will cover major astrology and astronomy headlines from the week, along with other interesting\/funny\/weird news that comes up as well. For example, Sarah Palin was Google&#8217;s fastest rising search in 2008. Now you know.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to a generous collaboration, I&#8217;ve also been including the work of wonderful artists in the subscriber editions. You may have seen some of their work appearing on this page, but on Fridays I have the opportunity to really utilize their work. It comes out as a virtual gallery; and if you&#8217;re in any way visually inclined, this is not something to miss.<\/p>\n<p>A subscription to Planet Waves Astrology News costs $7.33 per month. <a href=\"http:\/\/planetwavesweekly.com\/sales\/home.html\">Click here for your subscription options<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Yours &amp; truly,<br \/>\nRachel Asher<\/p>\n<p><em>To see more from contributing artist Beverly Naidus, <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/faculty.washington.edu\/bnaidus\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>click here<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Friend and Reader, The Friday edition of Planet Waves Astrology News will be available to subscribers momentarily. And not to brag, because I&#8217;ve been working on it all week, but this is a really good edition. First of all, it features the debut of Genevieve&#8217;s weekly horoscope: she&#8217;s taking over for Eric for the &#8230; <a title=\"Friday Edition: Astrology as the Art of Bullshit\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/friday-edition-astrology-as-the-art-of-bullshit\/\" aria-label=\"More on Friday Edition: Astrology as the Art of Bullshit\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[697,1],"tags":[36,52,117],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}