E. J. Gold
Encyclopedia
Eugene Jeffrey "E.J." Gold (born 1941) is an artist
, author
, jazz musician and spiritual teacher in the "Fourth Way" tradition of G.I. Gurdjieff. Gold's large-scale JazzArt paintings have served as backdrops for Herbie Hancock
, Wynton Marsalis
, Nancy Wilson
, Oscar Peterson
, and Toots Thielemans
. His artwork has appeared in the set of Sister, Sister
, International Association for Jazz Education, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and other jazz venues. Gold has written and self published over 50 books. In addition to starting an online science fiction
museum
, he is a voting member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
. His science fiction stories and articles have been published in a number of monthlies including Omni Magazine. In 1992, his artwork was part of a collaborative show with writer Margaret Randall at the Cedar Tavern
in New York City
.
of Galaxy Science Fiction
magazine
. He collaborated on several novels with his father during the 1960s, and they worked on television scripts
during this same period. He grew up in New York City
and has stated he is friends with many of the writers from science fiction's golden age
. He has appeared on panels with Isaac Asimov
, Harlan Ellison
, and Alfred Bester
at science fiction conventions.
As a child, he created and presented his artwork at the Children's Art Carnival at the Museum of Modern Art
(1944–49). He has numbered among his friends many of the artists of the Woodstock
Art Association where he spent his summers. In the summer of 1953 he attended Camp Woodlands, in Phoenecia, NY. In 1956, he moved to Hollywood, where his mother worked as a story editor for the Ellery Queen
and Alfred Hitchcock
television shows. He attended Los Angeles City College
, Otis Art Institute and showed at Robert Comara and Joan Ankrum Galleries with friend/mentors Fritz Schwaderer and Peter Jan Hirschfeld.
magazine. His photos of Harry Nilsson
were used by RCA
for album covers. He edited Mod Teen Magazine in the 1960s. He also worked as a continuity writer for the Bob Crane
radio show on KNX
.
Gold staged the "Saints' March" Art Happening where 40 saints were dropped from the official Vatican
calendar of saints
. The event generated news items in Time magazine and Newsweek
leading to several television interviews with Joe Pyne
and Richard Dawson.
By the early 1970s, Gold emerged as a sculptor and painter associated with the "California Nine" group.
or "in-between" states. The fundamental emphasis of Gold's teaching, like that of Gurdjieff, is on the concept of spiritual "Work" in daily life and a constant effort to increase and maintain heightened awareness in all activities. The state of an individual "in the Work" is thus contrasted to what is taken to be the state of the "ordinary" unawakened individual, who is presumed to go through life in a condition of quasi-automatism or mere social conditioning ("asleep," in the metaphorical terminology of this tradition.)
, Necronomicon
, and other online first-person shooters. He has worked with Quake's Capture The Flag and with Team Fortress, both online team games used as teaching tools.
Gold also hosts workshops in onstage comedy
and theatre. He is responsible for the creation of the "You Can Paint" art instruction series which is now used at a few universities
and art associations. He has also personally conducted public art classes into the 21st century.
Gold has created a line of hand-crafted fiber art beads and his painted celebrity-gear clothing line has been shown at various performance venues. His comedic/tragic play "Creation Story Verbatim" has been performed at several colleges.
) (Introduction by Robert Anton Wilson.)
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, jazz musician and spiritual teacher in the "Fourth Way" tradition of G.I. Gurdjieff. Gold's large-scale JazzArt paintings have served as backdrops for Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
, Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson (singer)
Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist...
, Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
, and Toots Thielemans
Toots Thielemans
Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans , known as Toots Thielemans, is a Belgian jazz musician well known for his guitar and harmonica playing as well as his whistling. Thielemans is credited as one of the greatest harmonica players of the 20th century...
. His artwork has appeared in the set of Sister, Sister
Sister, Sister (TV series)
Sister, Sister is an American television sitcom about identical twin girls Tia Landry and Tamera Campbell , who were separated and adopted at birth, when one day they come face-to-face after 14 years apart....
, International Association for Jazz Education, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and other jazz venues. Gold has written and self published over 50 books. In addition to starting an online science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
, he is a voting member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
. His science fiction stories and articles have been published in a number of monthlies including Omni Magazine. In 1992, his artwork was part of a collaborative show with writer Margaret Randall at the Cedar Tavern
Cedar Tavern
The Cedar Tavern was a bar and restaurant in New York City last at 82 University Place between 11th and 12th Streets. It was famous as a former hangout of many prominent Abstract Expressionist painters and beat writers...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Early life and career
Gold is the son of Horace Gold, founding editorEditor in chief
An editor-in-chief is a publication's primary editor, having final responsibility for the operations and policies. Additionally, the editor-in-chief is held accountable for delegating tasks to staff members as well as keeping up with the time it takes them to complete their task...
of Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
. He collaborated on several novels with his father during the 1960s, and they worked on television scripts
Teleplay
A teleplay is a television play, a comedy or drama written or adapted for television. The term surfaced during the 1950s with wide usage to distinguish a television plays from stage plays for the theater and screenplays written for films...
during this same period. He grew up in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and has stated he is friends with many of the writers from science fiction's golden age
Golden Age of Science Fiction
The first Golden Age of Science Fiction — often recognized as the period from the late 1930s through the 1950s — was an era during which the science fiction genre gained wide public attention and many classic science fiction stories were published...
. He has appeared on panels with Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...
, and Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books...
at science fiction conventions.
As a child, he created and presented his artwork at the Children's Art Carnival at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
(1944–49). He has numbered among his friends many of the artists of the Woodstock
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...
Art Association where he spent his summers. In the summer of 1953 he attended Camp Woodlands, in Phoenecia, NY. In 1956, he moved to Hollywood, where his mother worked as a story editor for the Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
and Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
television shows. He attended Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College
Los Angeles City College, known as LACC, is a public community college in the East Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California. A part of the Los Angeles Community College District, it is located on Vermont Avenue south of Santa Monica Boulevard...
, Otis Art Institute and showed at Robert Comara and Joan Ankrum Galleries with friend/mentors Fritz Schwaderer and Peter Jan Hirschfeld.
Happenings
In the 1960s, Gold worked as a jazz musician, composer, and as a photographer for Tiger BeatTiger Beat
Tiger Beat is an American fan magazine marketed primarily to adolescent girls. It is currently published by Laufer Media, Inc. of Los Angeles, California, which also produces its sister publication, Bop....
magazine. His photos of Harry Nilsson
Harry Nilsson
Harry Edward Nilsson III was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. On all but his earliest recordings he is credited as Nilsson...
were used by RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
for album covers. He edited Mod Teen Magazine in the 1960s. He also worked as a continuity writer for the Bob Crane
Bob Crane
Robert Edward "Bob" Crane was an American actor and disc jockey, best known for his performance as Colonel Robert E...
radio show on KNX
KNX (AM)
KNX is an all-news radio station in Los Angeles, California, USA. The station operates on a clear channel and is owned by CBS Radio. KNX broadcasts from facilities shared with sister stations KFWB, KCBS-FM, KTWV, and KAMP on Los Angeles' Miracle Mile...
.
Gold staged the "Saints' March" Art Happening where 40 saints were dropped from the official Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
calendar of saints
Calendar of saints
The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the feast day of said saint...
. The event generated news items in Time magazine and Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
leading to several television interviews with Joe Pyne
Joe Pyne
Joe Pyne was an American radio and television talk show host, who pioneered the confrontational style in which the host advocates a viewpoint and argues with guests and audience members...
and Richard Dawson.
By the early 1970s, Gold emerged as a sculptor and painter associated with the "California Nine" group.
Spiritual teaching
Gold has for many years acted as an independent spiritual teacher whose work and style bear a strong affinity with the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way school of thought. Gold's particular style, as evinced in his published writings such as The American Book of the Dead, also demonstrate a strong influence of Tibetan tantric teachings such as the concept of bardoBardo
The Tibetan word Bardo means literally "intermediate state" - also translated as "transitional state" or "in-between state" or "liminal state". In Sanskrit the concept has the name antarabhāva...
or "in-between" states. The fundamental emphasis of Gold's teaching, like that of Gurdjieff, is on the concept of spiritual "Work" in daily life and a constant effort to increase and maintain heightened awareness in all activities. The state of an individual "in the Work" is thus contrasted to what is taken to be the state of the "ordinary" unawakened individual, who is presumed to go through life in a condition of quasi-automatism or mere social conditioning ("asleep," in the metaphorical terminology of this tradition.)
Current works
Today, Gold is one of the older online gamers and he has participated in the production of Quake 2, Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the LairDragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair
Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair is an action-adventure video game released in 2002 by Dragonstone Software. The game is based on Cinematronics' 1983 laserdisc arcade game Dragon's Lair, and follows a similar story; the hero, Dirk the Daring, must enter the evil wizard Mordroc's castle to...
, Necronomicon
Necronomicon
The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in the stories by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in...
, and other online first-person shooters. He has worked with Quake's Capture The Flag and with Team Fortress, both online team games used as teaching tools.
Gold also hosts workshops in onstage comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
and theatre. He is responsible for the creation of the "You Can Paint" art instruction series which is now used at a few universities
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
and art associations. He has also personally conducted public art classes into the 21st century.
Gold has created a line of hand-crafted fiber art beads and his painted celebrity-gear clothing line has been shown at various performance venues. His comedic/tragic play "Creation Story Verbatim" has been performed at several colleges.
Consciousness, death and dying
(Also appears in script format for play.) (with Dr. Claude Needham) (with Parker Dickson, et al.) (with Dr. John C. LillyJohn C. Lilly
John Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher and writer....
) (Introduction by Robert Anton Wilson.)