When Rasa was creating covers for Every Day is a Good Day, the new Robert Shea anthology I edited, this was one of the possible covers. It was decided that it was not a match for the optimistic tone of the book, but nonetheless, I enjoyed looking at this dramatic artwork, and (with Rasa's permission) I am sharing it here.
Bobby Campbell has announced the return of Maybe Night. It is the third annual winter solstice celebration of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake and it's set for Dec. 21.
MAYBE NIGHT 2025 is our 3rd annual virtual celebration of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake :))) (The nocturnal equivalent of Bloomsday's commemoration of Ulysses)
We will once again engage the COLLIDEORSCOPE on December 21st at www.maybeday.net/night
We will also be broadcasting a live panel of illustrious Joyceans discussing Jeems Jokes' enchanted chop suey! Join us for this the first official meeting of the international Winter Wakeans Reading Group!
Let this serve as a clarion call for FW and/or Joycean art, video presentations, writing, and whatever else besides!
(I recommend sending in links to your creations, but you can also send things to be hosted on the Maybe Night site directly)
The idea is simple: Make something cool • Share it • Explore the others!
You can contact us at weirdoverse@gmail.com
Approximate deadline for submitting Maybe Night offerings is December 15th
Also! As always, do please feel free and encouraged to create and post Maybe Night content using your own ways and means. A decentralized and self-organizing Maybe Night would be just the thing to wake the Finnegans up, up, and away to ever greater glory!
The two newest books out from Hilaritas Press, the publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson trust, seem to complement each other, so that someone interested in one book likely would find the other one interesting, too. This is probably coincidence, rather than the deliberate intent of Rasa and the other editors, but it seems like a fair observation.
A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, a Robert Anton Wilson anthology and the newest Hilaritas title, concentrates on politics, as the title says. Every Day is a GOOD Day, the Robert Shea anthology I edited released in September, is not ostensibly a politics book, but it has many essays on anarchism and a description of Shea's participation in an antiwar march in Chicago.
Both books have many pieces on anarchism. Both have a strong antiwar tone. Both have an essay on Ayn Rand. The Wilson book has a whole essay on nonvoting and the Shea book has short piece advocating nonvoting.
There is also some actual overlap. "Anarchism and Crime," the piece I speculated the other day might be an outtake from Illuminatus!, is reprinted on both books.
Of course, there are obvious differences in the books by the two Illuminatus! co-author. Shea is consistently an anarchist and Wilson is rather all over the place. They even acknowledge that about each other, Wilson in the "Illuminating Discord" interview, Shea in the acceptance speech after winning the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for Illuminatus!
The RAW Semantics blog has a post on Non-Euclidian, while Michael Johnson reviewed Every Day is a GOOD Day at his Substack.
A freight train on the Trans Siberian Railway runs next to Lake Baikal. (Creative Commons photo).
The new Robert Anton Wilson book just out from Hilaritas, A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson's Political Commentaries 1960-2005, includes an interview of RAW by Steve "Fly" Pratt. I was intrigued by this bit:
FLY: Yeah, I'm thinking of moving to Siberia.
RAW: You've moving to Siberia? That's not such a bad idea. I thought about moving to Amsterdam.
FLY: I found the city of Amsterdam to be one of the more liberal-thinking cities of Europe.
This is not the most important question, ever, but I wondered: Why did Fly want to move to Siberia? (He is quite the world traveler, but Siberia?) Why did RAW think it was not a bad idea? So I finally just asked. I emailed Steve: "I am curious why you wanted to move to Siberia. Did you ever get to at least visit?"
Steve replied, "No, I didn't visit siberia, yet. I'm romantic for tuvan throat singing, would love to take the trans siberia express.... Some day. Write all the way."
Here is my most recent interview with Steve, it links to a couple of others.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, even if you haven't made your dream trip yet.
Chad Nelson alerts me to a book that's coming out in April: The Occult Timothy Leary: The Tarot, Magical States, and Post-Terrestrial Evolution.
The book is apparently part of a series (the publisher, Destiny Books, also displays The Occult Sylvia Plath and The Occult Elvis. The Leary book has a foreword by R.U. Sirius, which seeems like a good sign.
Here is some of the publisher's blurb:
"Timothy Leary, American psychologist and countercultural icon, is well known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs and controversial experiments on human consciousness. What is less well known is his deep interest in Western esotericism, a dimension that Joseph L. Flatley explores in-depth.
"Flatley recounts Leary’s early life and career trajectory, highlighting the esoteric influences that informed his occult activities. The author explores Leary’s thoughts on reincarnation and his futuristic views of computers and human evolution. Readers will learn about Leary’s encounters with twentieth-century groups and figures like Ram Dass, the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, and Robert Anton Wilson, all of whom influenced his psychic explorations and the development of his Eight Circuit Model of consciousness.
"The author also details the role of the tarot in Leary’s life and philosophy, showing how Leary created his own version of the deck. Flatley reveals the correspondences between Leary’s deck and his Eight Circuit Model of consciousness and gives practical suggestions for how to use this tarot for divination."
Author bio: "Joseph L. Flatley is an investigative journalist, author, and host of the podcast A Paranoid’s History of the United States. His short films have been featured at Three Rivers Film Festival (Pittsburgh), NonPlussed Fest (Los Angeles) and Desert Daze (Joshua Tree, CA). His most recent book is New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia and His Cosmic Family."
In the comments for my Nov. 19 post, about the documents Bobby Campbell posted after going through the Ed Sanders papers at Princeton University's library special collections, Jesse Walker posts a question about "Hodge Podge," a three page document written by Mordecai Malignatus, i.e. RAW.
Jesse asked, "Is "Hodge Podge" one of the cut bits from Illuminatus!?
"(It is certainly the first place I've ever seen Robert Anton Wilson make a Merle Haggard reference. My worlds collide!)"
When I read it, it certainly seemed possible to me that it was a bit cut from Illuminatus!.
I had the same question about "Anarchism and Crime," an essay featured in both the new Robert Anton Wilson book, A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, and in Every Day is a GOOD Day, the new Robert Shea anthology.
It was published in Green Egg magazine on May 1, 1974. It is attributed to both Wilson and Shea, which itself seems suggestive, and the date made me wonder if it became available after it was chopped out of the Appendix by one of the Dell editors making cuts in the book, or by Wilson and Shea when they were compelled by Dell to make cuts.
I should also note that RAW's old friend, Scott Apel, maintains that Wilson's book The Illuminati Papers includes material cut from Illuminatus! And in fact, there is independent evidence that Scott is correct.
I tend to think of Beethoven as Robertt Anton Wilson's favorite composer, and mentions of Beethoven haunt RAW's writings, including many of the most well-known titles, such as Illuminatus! and Prometheus Rising. So I was interested that Johann Sebastian Bach was the composer mentioned most prominently in the new RAW book, A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, which I just finished.
The first mention comes in the "Illuminating Discord" interview, from 1976, when RAW is asked about his favorite music, and he mentions "Beethoven's Ninth and his late quartets, Bach, Bizet, Carl Orff, Vivaldi, the less popular and more experimental stuff by Stravinsky."
In the transcript of the joint appearance with Karl Hess (pun intended), the pair are asked to name the "greatest person who ever lived." Hess says his mother and Euclid, RAW answers, "Johann Sebastian Bach."
In the Steve Fly interview, asked about "favorite music albums and recording artists," RAW answers, "I like Bach. I like Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane. I like Harry Belafonte and the Weavers and a lot of other music. I like Mahler. I like a lot of music. Next question." (But earlier in the interview, when Steve asks for RAW's "favorite sound," he answers, "The end of Beethoven's Ninth: male and female voices singing together about joy and brotherhood and peace.")
A few other Bach bits:
In this post, Tyler Cowen rates Bach "the greatest achiever of all time." While this is a reasonable opinion and Tyler makes a good case, I am not sure why Bach would rank above Mozart, who wrote an astounding quantity of good music before dying at age 35. Many of Mozart's most famous works date from late in his career, so it is painful to think about what we might have if Mozart had lived until 40. Bach made it to 65, Beethoven was 56 when he died.
Bach is referenced over and over again in the works of Richard Powers, one of my favorite novelists. This is most obvious in The Gold Bug Variations, in which a character gives her lover a copy of the famous Glenn Gould recording of the Goldberg Variations.
One of my favorite Michael Johnson Substack issues is his Bach piece, "J.S. Bach and the Psychedelic Mind." Michael likes to play Bach on electric guitar; he should put some of that out on Bandcamp.
I own a lot of Bach's music and also have a lot bookmarked on streaming services. If I had to pick one favorite piece, it might be Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582. I also listen over and over again to three cantatas: "Wachet Auf," BWV 140; "Christ lag in Todes Banden," BWV 4, and the "Hunting Cantata," BWV 208.
The new Hilaritas Press podcast released today with regular host Mike Gathers features Mike Shea and myself, discussing the new Robert Shea anthology.
Official blurb: "Hilaritas host Mike Gathers chats with Mike Shea and Tom Jackson about the life of Robert Shea, and the new Robert Shea book, Every Day Is A GOOD Day, from Hilaritas Press in Episode 51 of the Hilaritas Press Podcast."
The podcast opens with Rasa's nifty animation of the book's cover. I thought it was a good episode when we recorded it -- not because of me, but because Mike Shea told so many good stories about his father. I thank the Mikes and Rasa for making this podcast happen.
With the advent of the gift giving season, this seems like a good time to point to the Etsy Weirdoverse shop, filled with various items of Bobby Campbell goodness.
If you missed out on Tales of Illuminatus, you can buy both issues from the shop. But I also want to point to a digital product, Omnibus777, more than 600 pages of digital comics for $5, and the "Discordian God Card Package."
Etsy, if you aren't familiar with it, is a nice way to support small business folk and get unique items.
The recommendations for The Magus by John Fowles are coming in thick and fast. It looks like I need to get around to reading the copy that's been sitting in my Kindle for a long time.
1. The new Robert Anton Wilson book, A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, mentions the book three times, including once as a personal favorite, and also as a "great book."
2. I recently wrote about book.sv, a book recommendation site recommended by Mark Frauenfelder, the RAW fan, writer, artist and founder of the Boing Boing magazine and website. When I tried it, it recommended The Magus to me. In the comments, Lvx15 said the site recommended The Magus to him as well, and Mark Brown mentioned it's in his "to be read" pile (which I suspect is as big as mine).
3. Robert Shea (in the new book) recommends John Fowles as one of his favorite writers.
4. Email from Mark Fraunfelder today: "Thanks for mentioning my book recommendation review! I read The Magus earlier this year and loved it!"
OK, OK, I will try to read it soon.
As I wrote in yesterday's post, Bobby Campbell has released a lot of new Robert Anton Wilson material, but he also took the time to release PDFs of five Robert Shea zines. One of them illustrates that Shea and RAW originally thought Illuminatus! would be coming out much more quickly. It also confirms that the pair originally thought Dell would bring out one big book:
"Two Chicago authors (names kept secret for their protection) are threatening to produce a novel which will give the complete and total truth about the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria. Dell books is threatening of publish it. If all parties involved survive, the book could be out by 1971. Then the Apple will really hit the fan!" (The Universal Instructor in All Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette (formerly the Saturday Evening Post, Number 25, April 4, 1970, available here).
I will be checking out the RAW material, too, although probably not thoroughly until I can finish reading A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005.
But I don't want Shea to be overlooked (as if you couldn't tell) so I've started by looking at five Shea zines, dating from 1969 to 1970).
Here is yesterday's blog post, with reading recommendations from Bobby and a link to the whole archive -- lots of RAW material -- and links to Shea's five zines in the archive.
The Princeton Library. Bobby Campbell photo, I think.
As I mentioned the other day, Bobby Campbell recently visited the Ed Sanders papers at Princeton University's special collections in the university library, searching for Robert Anton Wilson papers.
Bobby has now posted a collection of papers to make them available to everyone.
Here is the announcement at the Maybe Logic blog:
Enclosed please find a large collection of letters, articles, poetry, prose, and Discordian junk mail created by Robert Anton Wilson, usually under a variety of pen names and aliases, and all sent to, and preserved by, the poet and activist Ed Sanders.
(There is also material by Robert Shea, Arlen Riley Wilson, and even a cameo by Mal 2!)
This material was discovered by the brilliant esoteric scholar R. Michael Johnson, our resident Overweening Generalist, who identified its close proximity to my suburban NJ environs, housed in the Princeton Library's Special Collections Dept, and suggested I might do well to take a gander. Not being the type to turn down a magical quest, I did indeed take a trip up the turnpike and captured the cache of material, converted to PDF, labeled and organized to the best of my ability, and now present to the wider RAW/Discordian community for enjoyment and edification :)))
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS: EARLY RAW - THE ED SANDERS COLLECTION
The majority of the material here was brand new to me, and does not seem to be available elsewhere on the internet, though I'll be curious to see how much of it is genuinely previously unknown writing. I direct your attention specifically to the "I" newsletter section, which appears to be an early forerunner of the Trajectories newsletter. It seems like RAW probably sent this stuff far and wide, but I've never bumped into it before. Maybe it's collected under another name? (Maybe housed in the famed Discordian archives?)
I also direct your attention to two prose pieces:
I Blew Pot at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Panty Raid at the Pentagon)
Both of which Wilson refers to as proposed novels, of which these are presumably very short excerpts.
The Werewolf Bridge material shows up as a recurring theme in his work, but I don't think in this exact form. RAW's first hand description of his experience at the Pentagon protest is riveting! And again, previously unknown to me.
I made a Kickstarter pledge to back Tales of Illuminatus 2 and my comic book arrived on my porch Monday. So if you backed the project, too, and if you don't have your copy yet, I suspect that it will arrive Real Soon Now. Congratulations to Bobby for completing it! A job well done!
Episode 23 of the Liminal Currents podcast features an interview with Rasa. "On this episode he shares many interesting stories about RAW, his concepts and a bit about Timothy Leary as well!" I have not had time to listen yet, but I will check it out soon. I have linked to the Apple podcasts site, but it appears to be available at many of the usual podcasting locations and apps. The host apologizes for accidentally referring to Rasa as "Robert" in the podcast.
The Liminal Currents podcast appears to have other episodes that might be of interest to sombunall RAW fans.
Letter from RAW to Ed Sanders.
Bobby Campbell on Bluesky: "I had a great day at the Princeton Special Collections Dept! Documenting a treasure drove of original RAW documents from his correspondence w/ poet Ed Sanders. (On behalf of the OG!) 213 pages of RAW & Shea material. Processing everything now. Decent chance there's some unique gems in here :)))"
Background on Ed Sanders. The Princeton library has a website for Ed Sanders Papers, 1939-2021 (mostly 1960-2010). I look forward to learning more.
RAW Semantics on Bluesky: "I'm currently reading Robert Shea's 'Every Day is a GOOD Day' (the new collection edited by @jacksontom.bsky.social - see my post above) & like it a lot. I've quickly warmed to Shea's voice, but I don't know enough about him to attempt a review such as this one."
Thanks, Brian, and thanks again for the review, Michael! As I noted earlier, Brian has posted notes on the new Robert Anton Wilson book, A Non-Euclidian Perspective.
More here on Every Day is a Good Day.
Given that Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea were Blake fans and many RAW fans also love William Blake fans, I thought I would pass on this article recommending the five best books about William Blake, as chosen by Mark Vernon, author of the new book, Awake!: William Blake and the Power of the Imagination.
Don't forget that John Higgs also has written two books about Blake.
I don't see the book on Amazon, so U.S. readers apparently will want to order the book from Britain and have it shipped over here.
Malcolm Cowley. Public domain photo by Carl Van Vechten.
Dwight Garner reviews a new book about Malcolm Cowley for the New York Times, and the review (and apparently the book) highlights the role Cowley, a writer, editor and critic, played in reviving the career of writer William Faulkner:
"It’s hard to believe now, but in 1944 every one of William Faulkner’s 17 books was out of print except for 'Sanctuary,' a thriller he’d written to pay the mortgage. He was only in his late 40s but his career was in eclipse. Maxwell Perkins, the venerated Scribner’s editor, had declared: 'Faulkner is finished.' Faulkner’s publisher nudged him further into oblivion when it donated some of his novels’ printing plates — who’ll need these again? — to be melted down for the war effort.
"Among the books out of print were several interrelated novels written between 1929 and 1942, 'The Sound and the Fury,' 'As I Lay Dying,' 'Light in August,' 'Absalom, Absalom!' and 'Go Down, Moses.' Each was set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Miss. Each is now recognized as among the most vital and important novels of the 20th century, but that was hardly the case at the time. Faulkner’s work had never sold well, and it had long ago been pounded into dust by popular critics such as Clifton Fadiman of The New Yorker, who found Faulkner a puzzling bore."
The review relates how Faulkner's fortunes were reversed when Cowley succeeded in getting Viking to let him edit and publish The Portable Faulkner, despite the fact that "Almost no one at Viking thought the book worth doing."
The book Garner reviews is The Insider by Gerald Howard; Faulkner is not the only writer Cowley helped. See the link, above, and the Wikipedia bio.
I mention this not just because RAW was a Faulkner fan (Faulkner gets a mention in Illuminatus!) but because the new book raises an important point: Who or what will help bring more attention to the works of Robert Anton Wilson (and Robert Shea)? Is there a Malcolm Cowley out there somewhere?
At least, thanks to Hilaritas Press, we don't have to worry about RAW going out of print. There's a lot currently available for any reader who discovers RAW and wants to get more.
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Harlan Ellison (Creative Commons photo by Pip R. Lagenta, more information)
Jesse Walker spots a "letter to the editor" from Robert Anton Wilson in the October 1981 issue of Heavy Metal magazine.
The text:
"Dear All,
"Loved the Burroughs article on immortality. That man is the greatest prose artist since Joyce. I was less impressed with the Ellison piece. His rhetoric always reminds me of the kind of speech that traditionally ends up, 'And let's get a rope and string the bastards up right now.' Doesn't he ever stop hating everybody and anybody in sight? Oh, well, that's his shtick I guess: different maps for different chaps, different scenes for different genes, different lanes for different brains ....
Live long and prosper,
Robert Anton Wilson Berkeley, Calif."
The Harlan Ellison piece, "Fear Not Your Enemies," is here. It's an essay arguing for gun control that appeared after John Lennon's murder. It's reprinted in the Ellison collection Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed: Essays.
The William Burroughs piece is here. The AI summary when I searched for it says, "William Burroughs' piece 'Immortality' was featured in Heavy Metal Magazine in May 1981. This work is a heavily edited version of an essay that later appeared in his book The Adding Machine. In "Immortality," Burroughs explores themes related to the human desire for eternal life and the implications of advanced medical technologies, such as transplant techniques, on society."
Dr. Gül Dölen
Robert Anton Wilson, defending Timothy Leary, campaigned for research into the benefits of psychedelic drugs, and I often wished he could have lived to see the research efforts that have been going on in recent years. Michael Johnson's latest Substack newsletter, "Recent Psychedelic Drug Research and German Ethology," is an interesting primer on some of the work that's going on. At the end of the piece, Michael loops back to Leary: "The Leary scholar James Penner thought Leary’s ideas around 'de-conditioning' and 'reimprinting' using psychedelic drugs were his biggest breakthroughs."
As this is a blog aimed at people who like to read, I thought I would pass on a suggestion from Mark Frauenfelder, from the latest issue of the newsletter Recomendo:
"book.sv, is a free book recommendation engine built by scraping 43 million Goodreads users. I entered about ten favorite books, and the results impressed me. It surfaced other books I’ve read and loved, validating its taste-matching algorithm. More exciting were the new titles it suggested: intriguing picks I hadn’t encountered before (like Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze). Unlike Goodreads’ algorithm, this feels like getting suggestions from someone who actually understands my reading taste. — MF"
So I decided to try it. I entered 14 favorite books, ones that I had read more than once, and it gave me 30 book recommendations. Most were titles I knew about, all were authors I had heard of. Nineteen were books I had already read, which I guess shows that the recommendations work; I liked almost all of the books I had read, although a couple did not impress me much. There were only a couple of books I don't know much about, Light by M. John Harrison and The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies. But the recommended book I am likeliest to read next is The Magus by John Fowles; Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea were both Fowles fans. I probably should also try The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth. (I read The Floating Opera in college and liked it, but I've never read any other Barth. RAW liked him.)
Photo from Unsplash
Here is some news that combines several of Robert Anton Wilson's interests: Ireland is moving ahead with a program to provide basic income payments to artists. The program was an experiment and is now being made permament.
While I got frustrated trying to find one really good news story that answered all of my questions (what kinds of artists? How many people are likely to qualify in the future?) here are some articles: From Smithsonian, also an article from Ocula, and also an article from Business Insider.
Just wanted to draw a little attention to it. Posted on Bluesky to draw attention to the recent RAW Semantics posting about A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005.
My sister's copy
I recently flew to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to visit my mother. While chatting with my sister in my mother's living room a few days ago, my sister mentioned that the local branch of the public library has a table where people can put books they own they have finished reading, and other library patrons are invited to take them and bring them home. Kind of like the "Little Free Libraries" that are common in the U.S. Susi mentioned there was a book that offered a different history of the 20th century.
The next day, Susi, knowing my interest in history, brought the book over to show to me, and to my surprise it was John Higgs' Stranger Than We Can Imagine. It's one of my favorite John Higgs books. I have my own copy, autographed by the author, and I also had bought a copy and given it to my father. It was one of the last books my Dad read before he passed away.
"I know that guy!" I exclaimed. I explained that Dad had read it. Then I picked up my mother's copy of Every Day is a GOOD DAY, the Robert Shea book published by Hilaritas Press that I edited that came out in September. I showed them the quote on the back cover, from John, endorsing the book.
At this point, you probably are curious what John said about the Shea book, here it is: "“Entertaining, thought provoking and richly varied, Every Day is a GOOD Day is a perfect introduction to the anarchistic principles and humane thinking of Robert Shea - a man more interested in finding flaws in his own beliefs than he is in forcing those beliefs on others.”
The October 2025 issue of The Mycelium has been released, and there's lots of Discordian news, including several events in Britain.
Some of Michelle Olley's newsletter covers news we have mentioned here: The new Non-Euclidian RAW book, the new Robert Shea book, Tales of Illuminatus No. 2 and John Higgs' new David Lynch book. And we appreciate the shoutout for this blog.
Also: A Day of the Dead bricklaying ceremony in Birkenhead Park in Liverpool ("The JAMs return to Merseyside for the annual laying of the bricks in The People’s Pyramid, presided over by Callendar, Callendar, Cauty and Drummond funeral services and our own Bricklayer, Daisy Eris Campbell and Krew"); a screening of David Bramwell's movie, The Haunted Mustache ("The story of a mysterious inheritance, seances, psychedelics and Brighton’s 1990s alt-cabaret scene is woven together with inimitable charm by writer, broadcaster and performer David Bramwell"), Melinda Gebbie's new art book and a new version of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies.
I haven't gotten very far in Non-Euclidian yet, but I have gotten far enough to notice that the editors chose many pieces written early in RAW's writing career. RAW himself, with some exceptions, did not use much of his early work when he was alive and was selecting the pieces for his own anthologies. He sometimes disparaged his early work, although I also wonder if he did not have easy access to much of it.
In any event, the use of early pieces in A Non-Euclidian Perspective means that the reader gets a look at how RAW's writing style and political thought evolved during his career. Some of those early pieces are not really my favorite bits of RAW writing, but I did very much like "Ezra Pound and his Admirers," where RAW confronts his admiration of Pound and his loathing for his politics:
"Two statements which I am arrogant enough to call 'facts' must be placed on record in any intelligent discussion of Pound: (1) He is a great poet and a great thinker; (2) He has deliberately and consistently support fascism, anti-Semitism and other vicious systems and attitudes for 30 years now, and continues to do so ... Placed together, those facts make a paradox which is both tragic and highly alarming. Most of us prefer not to face that paradox, and we reduce Pound to one part of it and ignore the other part."
Later:
"To see Pound as he is -- a man of genius and goodwill, of folly and rage, of love and integrity and hatred and dishonesty -- is to admit that such contradictions can exist in the human personality. That is not a comfortable thought -- it is especially uncomfortable to those of us who are, like Pound, idealists intent on changing the world -- so we prefer to brush it aside and go on playing our life-myth that the universe is one big Western Movie where the 'good guys' (us) are fighting the 'bad guys' (our enemies.)"
I am grateful to the editors for getting this book assembled, so I could read this piece and the other pieces.
Related: Substack from Michael Johnson: "Ezra Pound, RAW and The 'Two Cultures'."
The new Robert Anton Wilson book, above, won't be the last from Hilaritas.
Hilaritas Press already has an impressive catalog of Robert Anton Wilson books, along with books by other authors, but the flow of new RAW titles looks like it is going to keep going for awhile.
Mike Gathers -- Hilaritas Press podcast host, one of the editors who helps Rasa, Substack newsletter author, and so on -- reports that work has begun on a new book that collects Robert Anton Wilson's writings on magick. Mike has assembled 16 essays so far. Possible titles include RAW Magick in Theory and Practice or Maybe Magick.
Don't expect the book to come out right away. "We've got a long way to go to get this into print," Mike said.
Various other ideas for RAW anthologies are being kicked around, but I need to emphasize that at this point there are mostly just ideas and may not result in an actual book:
• Mike has worked to assemble some of RAW's more utopian pieces, possible title, A Vision of the Future.
• Mike has compiled a list of 29 pieces RAW wrote for other books, including forewords, prefaces, etc.
• Mike has a list of 27 book reviews which could form the kernel of a book.
• "And then there's RAW Letters, which could be an endless research project although some are already assembled by Mike Johnson, Martin Wagner and myself, and I'm aware that Gabriel Kennedy has the real inside scoop there," he says.
• "And another idea we've tossed around is RAW Interviews, which would take some transcription work on a lot of the audio stuff running around out there, and, at least the part that intimidates me the most, would be securing the publishing rights to that long and varied list of interviews (I've mentioned this to Rasa several times and he's always seemed unconcerned). Burroughs Live by Semiotext(E) would be the model for that RAW Interview book."
In case you missed my caution above, Mike says, "I want to emphasize that these are all just ideas I've tossed around with Rasa and Chad."
Not a bad book, honest. Cover by Rasa.
Feel free to email me what you read last month to be included in these chronicles, or just post your own list in the comments.
What Mark K. Brown read last month:
The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche 10/18
Brave New Word by Aldous Huxley 10/19
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 10/21
Orphans of the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein 10/25
A Non-Euclidean Perspective by Robert Anton Wilson 10/26
What I read last month:
Every Day is a GOOD Day: Robert Shea on Illuminatus! Writing and Anarchism, Robert Shea. Yes, I read the book I edited when I got my paper copies from the publisher, Hilaritas Press. I thought it was pretty good. Michael Johnson wrote a review for his Substack newsletter, he obviously gave the book a careful read.
Vineland, Thomas Pynchon. I kept up with the reading group.
The Cars: Let the Stories Be Told, Bill Janovitz. New book about one of my favorite rock groups. I obtained a review copy, read it, interviewed the author, and wrote an article about it.
All the Humans Are Sleeping, John C.A. Manley, Prometheus Award nominee.
Don't Try This at Home: Convention Reports, David Langford. I mentioned this in a previous blog post, and I may write a review and publish it here.
In his latest Substack newsletter, John Higgs has a piece which uses the SNAFU principle from Illuminatus! (communication is possible only between equals) and applies it to the dangers of AI chatbots and billionaires:
"There’s been a lot of welcome attention on AI psychosis lately - the ‘insidious risks’ to a person’s sanity that come from talking to chatbots. The sycophantic approving attention that LLMs bestow on us feels safer than the messy unpredictability of speaking to humans, which can lead to an addictive cycle of increasing isolation and divorce from reality. LLMs are a bit like drugs – most people who experiment with them will be fine. But not everyone will."
Also:
"Great wealth means that tech oligarchs can have everything they want - except for people they can relate to as equals. They have no-one who will tell them when they are being an idiot, for fear that this will hurt their position and income. And as a result, billionaires become increasingly deluded and insane as the years pass and their wealth grows. I’m sure we can all think of examples."
I'm hoping that's enough to persuade you to read the whole thing.
Also, the David Lynch book comes out in less than two weeks, and John has talks scheduled on Lynch, William Blake and Dr. Who, see the newsletter for details.
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