Dr. Bruce Damer's Levity Zone

Latest Episodes:

S4E8 - Fire in the Sky Sep 29, 2016

Show notes

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]]

S4E7 - Prime Driver Aug 31, 2016

Show notes

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]]

S4E6 - Primal Theory Jul 02, 2016

Show notes

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]]

S4E5 - The DigiBarn does Apple @ 30! Mar 31, 2016

Show notes

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]]

S4E4 - Steve Wozniak visits the DigiBarn Feb 29, 2016

Show notes

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]]

S4E3 - Merry Pranksters - Lee Quarnstrom and the Acid Test at 50 Jan 29, 2016

Show notes

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]]

S4E2 - Merry Pranksters - The Acid Test Turns 50! Dec 17, 2015

Show notes

The Merry Pranksters return to Santa Cruz to mark the 50th anniversary of the first Acid Test! Hear George Walker, Mountain Girl Carolyn Garcia and Ken Babbs on stage at Don Quixote's hold forth on deep counter-cultural history. Hosted by County Supervisor John Leopold, this important historical event, which back in 1965 spawned the Grateful Dead, is commemorated by a proclamation, and a historic marker... a bus stop! Santa Cruz honors its Psychedelic history and Dr. Bruce was there to capture it for you here the Levity Zone. Credits: John Leopold, George Walker, Jami Cassady, Carolyn Garcia, Ken Babbs (presenters), Dr. Bruce Damer (recorder and editor), Rob Menzies and Galen Brandt (cameo appearances), Slugs N' Roses (closing music). [released 17 December 2015]]

S4E1 - TubCast #1 with Dr. Bruce, Future Al and Mythic Peter Nov 28, 2015

Show notes

Returning from the Deep 90s back to the future in 2015 Dr. Bruce joins Allan Lundell and his mythic friend Peter Fae for a hot tub confab high on the mountaintop of Future Peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Not only is Al a true bon homme but he is also a keen observer of the cyber-culture and developing trends in tech and the social landscape, chronicling all of this in his KSCO Santa Cruz radio show, Dr. Future. Realizing a twenty year dream of networking hot tub conversations, Dr. Bruce, Al and Peter present their first ever TubCast for the Levity Zone. Dip in as the three tubsters ply the waters of topics as diverse as the veracity of spiritual teachers, the interplay between science and Gaia, an upcoming schmooze cruise with the billionaire set, recent insights on a new theory of the origin of life, and living within the avatars of our mythic selves. Emerging from the epic soak Al piloted his brand new high-def drone on its maiden voyage high off Future Peak to a fate uncertain. Credits: Allan Lundell (TubCast host and recorder), Dr. Bruce Damer (Tubster) and Peter Fae (Mythic Threader and Documenter), Jim Matus (theme music). [released 28 November 2015]]

S3E12 - Deep 90's - AvaBruce on NPR - TechNation 1998 Oct 30, 2015

Show notes

In the next "Deep 90s" episode in the Levity Zone we roll the clock to January of 1998 when Bruce Damer appeared on National Public Radio's TechNation program with host Dr. Moira Gunn. By this time Internet virtual worlds had exploded as hundreds of thousands of users, clothed in digital representations called avatars, had homesteaded their way into second lives in Cyberspace. Well before Internet voice chat and video, social networks, and networked games these worlds hosted group building, families, football games, school classrooms, architecture competitions and even the youngest ever user of the Internet. It was a wonderful pioneering time as the Contact Consortium had just held its first conferences and Dr. Bruce's first book "Avatars" had just been published. Credits: Dr. Moira Gunn (interviewer for NPR-KQED San Francisco), Bruce Damer (interviewee), Bo Millward (sound editing). [released 30 October 2015]]

S3E11 - Deep 90's - DigiBruce - 1995-96 Sep 24, 2015

Show notes

In the next of our "Deep 90s" episodes join Dr.Bruce back in 1995 and '96 in two seminal conversations with journalist Darek Milewski on the emergence of a new medium: Internet virtual worlds with users represented as "avatars". Dreams of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" metaverse were being realized by users placing millions of 3D objects into personal homesteads in Alphaworld. Bruce relates how his new organization, the Contact Consortium, was also building its first experimental project: Sherwood Forest Towne and planning its first real-world conference. Hear some of the first musings of the medium that later grew into popular platforms like Second Life and Minecraft. Credits: Darek Milewski (interviewer for KALX Radio at UC Berkeley), Bruce Damer (interviewee), Bo Millward (sound editing). [released 24 September 2015]]

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