The TV network Showtime wants to lend South by Southwest attendees a hand — a hand filled with digital tarot cards. The cards, which will appear in the SXSW app, will help people map out the hottest events, parties, bars and restaurants to check out in Austin in March.
Users will pick three tarot cards to get a “reading” of the top trending activities based on real-time data pulled from the SXSW schedule, Foursquare and Twitter.
The tarot cards — disguised as ads because Showtime sponsors the app— will look like this:
IMAGE: SHOWTIME
Tarot cards, which are often used to map spiritual pathways, make frequent appearances in Showtime’s upcoming horror series Penny Dreadful. The show will premiere May 11 and tell the origin stories of such scary literature characters from the Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and Dracula sagas.
Users can tap the banner ad to access the tarot cards, then pick three cards to get a read of where to go next. Results will include trending locations, timely sessions, themes and hot topics.
My latest book, Astrology for Writers, is hot off the presses — and to celebrate, I’ve put together a companion workbook for novel writers. What’s more, the companion workbook is free for the next 30 days!
The Astrology for Writers Thirty-Day Novel Workbook is for you if you’d like to harness the power of astrology to write a novel in 30 days — whether you’re taking part in a month-long writing challenge, or you’d simply like to craft the first draft of a novel in four short weeks.
The workbook includes a timeline for writing a 50,000-word novel, as well as worksheets to help you develop characters and storylines. You can use the worksheets to plan your novel before you start writing — but if you prefer to write by the seat of your pants, you can also use the worksheets to shape your story along the way. Later, you can refer back to your completed worksheets as a sort of “story bible,” to help you edit and revise your work.
The worksheets are designed to be used with my latest book, Astrology for Writers: Spark your Creativity Using the Zodiac. It’s available from book sellers, online retailers, or from the publisher at www.llewellyn.com.
The pages of history don’t lie — and neither does the Kimberly-Clark corporation, which referred to ancient Babylonian astrologers in this 1938 ad for their glare-free paper.
I wasn’t asked to advertise or endorse this offer, but I do think it’s a neat way for a new tarot reader to assemble an instant collection of interesting decks.
This has to be the best way for a tarot reader to carry her cards, ever. It’s a purse made out of a knotted scarf! That makes it a purse and a spread cloth in one.
Who actually designed the Rider-Waite Tarot cards? Did A. E. Waite unfairly take too much credit for the deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith? In this two-part webinar we’ll examine the evidence. It seems pretty clear that Waite had something very specific in mind for the Major Arcana, so do the Minors belong to Smith?
It turns out there may have been a specific purpose behind the illustrations to the Minor cards. We’ll closely explore a couple of stories that show an uncanny resemblance to Smith’s Minor Arcana and determine where the Minor Arcana images and meanings came from. But mostly we’ll see how the stories behind the Waite-Smith Minor Arcana can inform your own readings and card interpretations.
Join me for a bit of historical detective work as we seek to make the cards richer and deeper. This pictorial journey through the cards and peek into the lives of Waite and Smith will increase your own appreciation of the deck and enhance your work as a tarot reader.
The eBay painting has a lot in common with those cards, including the use of projective geometry — an artistic technique designed to illustrate perspective. In fact, some of the details in the work look a lot like individual cards. Which ones do you recognize?
If you hurry, the painting can be yours for just $100,000.
Lindsay Nohl and Jenny Bookler are busy setting up the “Tarot, Mystics and the Occult” exhibition at the Light Grey Art Lab in Minneapolis. (Photo by Corrine Kenner)
While I was there, gallery owner Lindsay Nohl and manager Jenny Bookler were busy setting up the exhibition that will showcase the cards, so my daughter Julia and I got a sneak preview of some of the prints. I thought the images were amazing.
Creating the deck was a massive undertaking: 78 different artists collaborated on the project. Yes, you read that correctly: 78 artists — one for each card.
While each artist put his or her own spin on the traditional tarot, I had no trouble recognizing the cards. All of the artists stayed true to the heart of tarot, and references to the classic Rider-Waite deck are easy to spot.
What struck me, though, is that even though the cards themselves are individual expressions of a wide range symbols and themes, the deck itself still seems unified and cohesive. I think it speaks to the fact that tarot is based on symbolism — and symbolism is every artist’s native language.
I’ll be doing readings with the Light Grey Tarot deck next Friday, October 26, at the opening reception for “Tarot, Mystics and the Occult.” I can’t wait!
You know what I always say: If you can’t judge a book by its cover, it’s not being marketed correctly.
Here’s a sneak preview of my next release, Astrology for Writers. Isn’t this a fabulous cover design?
I wrote the book knowing that it would appeal to a lot of the same readers who bought Tarot for Writers — and Kevin R. Brown, who designed both covers, obviously kept that in mind, too.
Astrology for Writers is going through editing and production now, and Llewellyn has it scheduled for publication next May.
Corrine Kenner 