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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

New RAW audio and video

The other day, I covered an appearance at an Ohio library of best selling historical novelist Tracy Chevalier. During the question and answer session, she did something marvelous. Every time someone asked a question, she repeated it aloud so that everyone could hear it  and know what she was answering.

I wish Robert Anton Wilson had learned to do this, because it would make the discovery of two new videos (also available as MP3 audio downloads) even better -- some of the answers would be better if I could hear what the original question was.

Still,  this is pretty good: A joint appearance with Karl Hess (about two and half hours) and a solo performance (about an hour and a half ). Both videos were made at the Libertarian Party's 1987 nominating convention and are made available on Libertarianism.org. It works pretty well as MP3 files (the only way I had time to take them in -- I have a long commute) but you'll have to watch at least the first part of the Wilson-Hess video to figure out why you keep hearing those mysterious cigarette lighter noises.

This videos are useful for learning what Wilson called himself in 1987 (instead of "libertarian"), for  learning what women want and for finding out who Wilson named as the "greatest man who ever lived" (not the person I was expecting.)

5 comments:

Steve Fly Agaric said...

thanks Tom, once again a wonderful treat.

tony smyth said...

Woooo thanks for that. Just listened to a little but the man seemed on great form there. Cant understand why he looks tanned though if he'd just got back from living in Ireland!!!

Jesse said...

I originally heard the Hess/Wilson appearance on audiocassette, and the audience questions were much more audible in that version. Someone should track that version down and combine it with the video.

PQ said...

That was excellent, thanks for sharing.

Really enjoyed RAW's take on writing. You rewrite every paragraph until its perfectly balanced and contains a bunch of jokes no one will catch and a few that they will, then try to present it as a commercial product for a publisher.

gacord said...

I'm still listening to the Hess one. After reading the comments above, I chose to listen with headphones and turned it up real good. Then I could hear most of the call outs.

What a great find. Thanks!