NOMAD CODES: ADVENTURES IN MODERN ESOTERICA - ERIK DAVIS

I got to meet Davis a few years ago, when he came to Seattle to talk about his latest book HIGH WEIRDNESS, which is very good. Very cool guy who comes off in person the same way he comes off in this book. This volume is from much earlier in his career, when he was writing for magazines and his website and basically doing smaller scale stuff. Davis’ “beat,” so to speak, is weirdness in all its forms. He concentrates on new religious movements, California culture in general, unusual music, and general strangeness. This book offers straightforward essays as well as reviews and travelogues. I would say he’s best when he’s discussing American 20th century religion, specifically his essay about Buddhism's spread in America (and its intersection with psychedelia, to which he draws a fascinating comparison with the ways Buddhism merged with Bon in Tibet) or his experiences at Burning Man. When he travels further from American culture he gets muddier. There’s an essay about Legba/Eshu and one about Burmese Nats (which also has the misfortune, I don’t think it’s maliciousness, of using the word “tranny” multiple times) which are much more surface level,  there are better sources for both subjects. He has an essay about Gak, the Nickelodeon slime that was popular when I was a kid which puts the “slime craze” of a few years ago into perspective. Perhaps slime obsession is on a twenty year cycle? He has an interesting review of the second Matrix movie that was a bit of a throwback. There’s a very good essay about the end of Terrance McKenna’s life. I learned that Sublime Frequency records, a label that has put out some cool, obscure stuff I’ve enjoyed, is a Seattle thing, founded by some weirdo with a strange band that, I guess, was underground famous in the 90’s. These essays, about strange “world music” (an awful term), bring up interesting issues about appropriation and the politics of enjoyment for Global North folks who are interested in the obscure and unusual and exotic from the Global South. This tension and outlook, it’s pitfalls and advantages, is, to me, the most interesting theme of the book. The sort of outlook that Davis has, one where you search the world for the weird and the strange, learn about it while maintaining some sort of distance, seems both very Gen X and much more fraught these days. The pendulum has swung, and lots of this global syncretism would be seen as approprative and exploitative. I think Davis does a good job defending his stance on these issue and, at minimum, seems aware of the implications and tensions involved with his project, tho maybe don’t ask me, given how sympathetic I am to his outlook and style. I do think he’s done a good job, in the years since this book has been written, of zeroing in on what he’s best at, ie PKD, California, Western Drug culture, etc., and dropping the rest. He’s quite erudite and a readable writer, it’s sad that magazines that would publish stuff like this basically don’t exist anymore. That being said, he still churns out great books, HIGH WEIRDNESS is his most recent and best, so this is something of an interesting time capsule. 90 gram doses.