Some good events coming up at The Idler Academy

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These are my own particular favourites, but you can find the full programme of events here.

30 March 2011 - Gavin Pretor-Pinney: The Art of Cloud Collecting
6 April 2011 - Will Self: Philosophers’ Forum
20 April  2011 - John Nicholson on John Michell
30 April 2011 - How to Escape the Nine to Five with Tom Hodgkinson and Graham Burnett
11 May 2011 - Louis Theroux
14 May 2011 - Edible London: Learn to Forage and Feast in the City with Robin Harford
18 May 2011 - Bill Drummond: IMAJINE
7 June 2011- A Symposium with Oliver James: What Is Sanity?
8 June 2011 - Prof Ronald Hutton: The Battle for Merry England
29 June 2011 - Anarchist Question Time with Penny Rimbaud, Ian Bone and Peter Good
 

Get Brion Gysin's Dreamachine on your iPhone

(download)

Not quite the same as owning your own full-sized Dreamachine, but to tie in with their recent Brion Gysin retrospective, those enterprising folk over at the New Museum of Contemporary Art have released Brion Gysin: Dream Machine, a free iPhone app inspired by Gysin's original sculpture-cum-drugless turn-on which is designed to turn your iPhone into your very own miniature flickering Dreamachine.

BBC2 give us some M R James for Christmas

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Every Christmas from 1971 to 1978 the BBC produced an original ghost story adaptation under the series title A Ghost Story for Christmas. Some of the most popular of these were adaptations of stories by M R James, generally acknowledged as the master of the English ghost story.

The BBC revived the tradition with a new adaptation of James' A View From a Hill in 2005 and followed up with Number 13 in 2006. But since then nothing.

Although it isn't billed (at least yet) as A Ghost Story for Christmas, BBC2 have announced a new James adaptation to be broadcast at Christmas 2010. The BBC first tackled M R James' story Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad in 1968 with Jonathan Miller's atmospheric production Whistle and I'll Come to You starring Michael Hordern. Although this was in fact part of Omnibus, the BBC's arts documentary series, rather than A Ghost Story for Christmas, it set the tone for what was to follow. The 2010 version, under the same truncated title, is going to be a more modern adaptation however, similar perhaps to Yorkshire TV's modern day take on Casting the Runes.

The BBC say:

"Whistle And I'll Come To You, written by Neil Cross, is the thoroughly modern re-working of the evocative Edwardian ghost story "Oh, Whistle and I'll come to You, My Lad" by M.R. James.

Cross's adaptation delves into themes of ageing, hubris and the supernatural, adding a terrifying psychological twist in the tale to this family hearthside favourite.

Directed by Andy de Emmony, it will be a cinematic, moody, poignant and unsettlingly spooky addition to the Christmas schedules, taking its lead from L'Orfanto, The Shining and Japanese horror movies.

The story focuses on one man's encounter with an apparition on a desolate British beach - and how this haunting begins to hound him."

There aren't many details available at the moment, but as soon as I hear more, I'll post them here.