'Vineland' online reading group, week two

Vaslav Nijinsky in his rose costume for 'La Spectre de la Rose'

This week: Chapter 2, pg. 14-21 

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger 

Attitudes towards mental health have changed since 1984. The phrase “laughing-academy outpatient” (pg. 14) probably would not occur on the news in 2025.  The discussion of the personality which prefers jumping out of windows reminds me of Nijinsky’s leap out the window at the end of the ballet La Spectre de la Rose choreographed by Fokine. Bob Wilson discusses this leap in Prometheus Rising. That ballet portrays another dream narrative, when a young lady (about Prairie’s age) comes home from her first dance with her first rose, and she dreams of dancing with the rose. 

Isaiah Two Four’s idea about a gun themed amusement park seems to presage the rise of Republican ad’s featuring politicians firing guns and Christmas cards featuring their armed families.  

I like the way Pynchon creates fictitious movies in the novel, as well as the way he gives the dates for real movies. 

How do you read?

I've enjoyed the responses to yesterday's post.  If you read Brian Dean's comment, he writes, " I tend to have several tomes on the go at once, which I dip into and read over a long period, rather than "Wham bam thank you ma'am, my quota sorted for the week!" and then gives a long list of books. (Alissa Nutting one of the authors he mentions, used to live in Cleveland, and talked to my book club about Tampa shortly after it came out. It's the only book of hers I've read.) 

I wasn't clear on how many books Brian will read at the same time, but it sounds like a lot.

I typically have 3-4 books going at the same time, although I typically concentrate on finishing one. I just finished Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer (it's due today and the library won't let me renew it, so I had to get it done.) I am currently reading Platinum Pohl by Frederik Pohl (essentially a selected stories) and Sell More Books! Book Marketing and Publishing for Low Profile and Debut Authors: Rethinking Book Publicity after the Digital Revolutions by J. Steve Miller. Also the two online reading group works, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon and the Testament comic book series. 

I'm pretty sure Mark Brown usually has several books going and in fact keeps them in separate rooms of the house. I am mostly sitting in my favorite chair in the living room, though I will sometimes read in the bedroom, on a plane, etc. I go back and forth from paper books to Kindle. I have also been known to read entire books on the phone; that's what I had to do with Tampa, mentioned above, it was the only way I could read it on short notice before my book club meeting. 

While I have a library of paper books at home, I have tended to whittle it down to the essentials. I have hundreds of Kindle ebooks, mostly bought on sale. 

I am on Goodreads as "Tomj." 

What we read last month

 

What I read in June:

The KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, John Higgs. This is the updated version with the thousands of words of new footnotes, a good excuse to read it again. Some comments here. 

Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. I'm told Jill Biden has instructed Biden diehards not to read the book.

Lake of Darkness, Adam Roberts. A horror story about black holes, pretty well done. Mentioned in this blog post. 

Eight Million Ways to Die, Lawrence Block. I have been reading all of the Matt Scudder novels. This is the fifth in the series. 

What RAW fan  Mark Brown read in June (I have myself read the Silverberg novel more than once)

The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick  6/2   

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit  6/6   

A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg 6/24   

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman  6/30

Pittsburgh Maybe Day 2025: Meet the RAW bloggers

Bobby Campbell has asked people to hold in person events on July 23 this year for Maybe Day. 

Bobby is holding a major event on the East Coast, the free Wilmington Comic Fest from 5-9 p.m. July 23 at The Queen Wilmington in Wilmington, Delaware. 

This seems like an excellent event, but I just can't be present. So instead, I've arranged to meet Apuleius Charlton, of the Jechidah blog, who also can't make it to Wilmington. We will meet for dinner at 6 p.m. July 23 at Church Brew Works, 3525 Liberty Ave. in Pittsburgh. Other RAW fans are welcome to join us.

"I think RAW would approve of meeting in a brewery inside a church," Apuleius says. 

So now there are two Maybe Day events, and I'll announce others as they become available. 

Santa Cruz weirdness, Neil Young edition

The Ducks: From left, Johnny Craviotto, Bob Mosley, Jeff Blackburn and Neil Young. (Creative Commons photo, via Wikipedia.) 

Santa Cruz is not a particularly large California city (about 63,000 people) but it has its share of weirdness. For one thing, Robert Anton Wilson lived there for many years in the last years of his life.

I have been listening to a lot of Neil Young lately (my favorite albums so far are Harvest and Rust Never Sleeps) and I recently read about the odd story of The Ducks, a short-lived summer of 1977 rock band that featured Neil Young and three lesser-known musicians. The Wikipedia article details various oddities, such as the fact that Neil Young's contract with Crazy Horse said he could only tour with them, so The Ducks could only play in Santa Cruz and could not leave the city to tour. Young tried to live in Santa Cruz but suffered important losses in a burglary, one factor  that apparently helped spark his exit from the band.

I want to live in a town where I am in a bar with a live band, and I suddenly notice that the bar band has a guy who looks and sounds a lot like Neil Young. 

Is Trump hampering SMI2LE?

Timothy Leary in 1970 (public domain photo).

Richard Hanania, apparently commenting on the Trump administration's attacks on research funding, science, the university system, etc., boldface mine: "The idea that 'let's just shake things up and see what happens' might have made sense at one point, but it's become increasingly clear that with a movement like this, the worst will rise to the top, as will those whose instincts and ideas are closely aligned to right-wing twitter and the uneducated and geriatric Republican TV watcher. This is not how you get to genetic engineering, radical life extension, and space travel." (Source, item 14).

The Peter Thiel interview Hanania references deals with SMI2LE topics. 

Ada Palmer's humility on opinions

I have been reading the new Ada Palmer nonfiction history book, Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age. I was surprised to come to a chapter that reminded me of RAW. 

The book has a short chapter, "Are You Remembering Not to Believe Me?" 

Here is a section from the chapter:

"At this point I must remind you that you promised to read this section keeping in mind that Ada Palmer started studying the Renaissance because she was excited by how the First World War shaped twentieth-century literature and Freud's death instinct. The shelf this book came from had ten other books which all agree the classical revival was core to the Renaissance, but which will give different versions of its cause. Most of them are also right."

While the book has many opinions, it also gives many examples of controversies in which there are well-informed historians on both sides, e.g. the character of Savanarola, what Lucrezia Borgia was like, etc. This is unusual compared to the history books I usually read, which typically have the author telling you what to think in any given controversy. 

Compare with the document at the front of TSOG, in which RAW offers a "Contract" with the reader, e.g. in part, "2. Readers must warrant and give assurance that they will not believe or disbelieve any part of parts of this book until they have give some time to careful examination of such a part or parts; and that they will file everything herein under 'maybe' until and unless slowly arriving at 'true' or 'false'."

'Vineland' reading group, Chapter One

 

Zoyd Wheeler AI image generated by Brisa and Clara

This week: pages 3 – 13 (Penguin edition)

By OZ FRITZ

Special guest blogger

“Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive”

– Jackson Browne, Running On Empty

“Quite simply, one of those books that will make this world – our world, our daily chemical-preservative, plastic-wrapped bread – a little more tolerable, a little more human”

– Frank McConnell, L.A. Times Book Review on Vineland

Reading Vineland feels like eating comfort food to me. Not because it goes down easily or has a straight-ahead plot, far from it. Though much friendlier to digest than the Pynchon Epics, nevertheless, it still requires more than average attention to follow all the plot twists and turns and the constantly shifting  time perspective. It takes place in 1984, but with many flashbacks to the ‘60s or 70s and occasionally a

look back into earlier times for background context. It seems, sometimes, to have flashbacks within flashbacks. This period piece comes chocked full of extensive cultural references to recreate the mood and ambience of that era. Trekkies, this is for you! Though I often say, “nostalgia ain’t what it used to be”, the nostalgia within these pages comforts me.

Vineland proves without a doubt that a book can be both highly enjoyable and didactic. Pain management seems one of its great lessons/transmissions frequently coming through the delicious, but often dry humor that pervades these pages like banana peels in silent films. The opening quote from Johnny Copeland reveals the first pun: cope + land. How do we cope with this land in these crazy times? But I get ahead of myself.

I started reading Thomas Pynchon after Eric Wagner invited me to participate in a group about to start in on examining Against the Day. His pitch to me: “I think you’ll enjoy it.” Before accepting, I found and perused the beginning of it online. After reading the first couple of pages, I immediately said YES! I saw clearly that Pynchon uses a lexicon of associations and correspondences familiar to me. This surprised the heck out of me. The only other contemporary fiction writers using a similar lexicon I knew of were Robert Anton Wilson and EJ Gold.

The lexicon derives in part from Hermetic processes, James Joyce, Sufi-style thought like the 4th Way, and all the pop culture references. You don’t need to know any of that to enjoy the allegorical depth of the book. The interested and attentive reader will construct their own lexicon of connections possibly without realizing it. From the music references alone one can come up with a concordance of evocative imagery. These correspondences, associations, connections, inside jokes and “easter eggs” provide a non-verbal, telepathic-like form of communication.

Vineland is a fictional town on the coast of Northern California. Enough references to real places are given to roughly place it somewhere above Eureka. It’s believed Pynchon lived in the area for about a decade sometime during the 70s and 80s. He’s rumored to have spent time in Arcata which is slightly north of Eureka. Most, but not all of the locations in Vineland really exist.

I assert that Robert Anton Wilson had a more profound influence on Pynchon than appears commonly recognized. I have seen more than one resonance between Schrödinger’s Cat and Vineland; meaning Wilson strikes a note and Pynchon tunes into and amplifies the same vibration as if in a literary universe next door (maybe). Pynchon’s dedication to his parents that begins Vineland when transposed to Cabala = the Hebrew letter Daleth which has the English translation “door”. Looked at from the angle of Literary Alchemical Manuals, Vineland appears the universe next door to Schrödinger’s Cat.

RAW begins The Universe Next Door, which begins SC, with (allegedly) a quote from Jesus in The Gospel of Thomas: “Not until the male become female and the female becomes male shall ye enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Along with Wilson the integration of female intelligence with male to lift off the Earth has been strongly advocated in recent times by Timothy Leary, James Joyce, Aleister Crowley, Gilles Deleuze and E.J. Gold, among others.

Meet Zoyd Wheeler as he wakes up to a new day. Zoyd reminds me of the character Zonker Harris from the comic strip Doonesbury. His “job” is to cross dress as a woman, jump through a window, and act crazy to continue collecting government benefits. Scenes of him interacting with real macho lumberjacks who themselves appear a touch more feminine than usual by being all gussied up emphasize the theme. He pulls out a ladies chain saw; observe the shaman in action surrounded by “men” i.e. earthbound domesticated primates:

“’Easy there cowgirl, now things’re just fine,’ the logger stepping back as Zoyd, he hoped demurely, yanked at a silk cord on a dainty starter pulley, and the ladies pearl-handled chain saw spun into action.” Going one level deeper, pearl corresponds with the moon, a traditional association with the feminine and one that Pynchon explores explicitly later on.

The window Zoyd crashes through, an annual televised tradition to collect benefits, represents the forces that oppose the integration of Female Intelligence, the resistance that has to be jumped through – unbalanced, destructive, fascist male energy; the kind that starts wars. Pynchon will directly connect penis with a gun more than once as we climb the vine. Window is the English translation of the Hebrew Ayin which corresponds to The Devil in the Tarot. This card represents unbridled male force which can be creatively used. TRP, as he gets signified on the internet (Thomas Ruggles Pynchon) gives a clear image of this male force opposition near the end of the chapter. The establishment where Wheeler jumps through the window in front of TV cameras is the Cucumber Lounge: “News-crew stragglers were picking up a few last location shots of the Cuke and its famous rotating sign, which Ralph Jr. was happy to light up early, a huge green neon cucumber with blinking warts, cocked at an angle that approached, within a degree or two, a certain vulgarity.”

Again, one level further: Cucumber Lounge, C + L = 38 = “To make a hole, hollow; to violate”; the alchemical process as it concerns the formation of bodies in the Higher Dimensions (Circuits 5 – 8 in Leary’s model). The creation of these bodies involves an accumulation of substances until they crystallize into a more stable form which isn’t easy. Prior to this crystallization, these accumulated substances can be taken, stolen or lost. This explains why Leary (a great TRP lover as has been mentioned) calls extended awareness in the higher circuits volatile. 38 signifies this “spiritual” substance getting lost or stolen. This theft, occurring either internally or externally, can often be traced to subtle or brutal unbalanced male force. A prominent theme in Vineland concerns this dichotomy or battle between unbalanced yang and receptive yin and the resolution in their marriage or partnership . . . or not. An image of this resolution begins Vineland with TRP’s dedication to his parents. This battle appears most evident between the two primary characters, Brock Vond and Frenesi Gates. Vond enters the picture in chapter 4, but is mostly spoken of in the third person until the end. Frenesi, frequently present by her absence (a Joycean technique I learned about from RAW) shows up in the first person at the beginning of chapter 6. Zoyd Wheeler, the protagonist in the first five chapters, exits stage left when Frenesi comes on set and doesn’t really substantially return until the end of the book.

Some further notes on chapter one: we meet another primary character, Zoyd and Frenesi’s daughter Prairie, in the second paragraph. Like her mother, Prairie’s presence gets introduced by her absence. She leaves a note saying she left with her friend Thapsia. To my recollection, which could be incomplete, Thapsia never gets mentioned again in the book. The name comes from a plant found in North Africa along the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic coast of Morocco and Portugal, thapsia, used in ancient medicine as a pain reliever. The chemical compound derived from it is currently in clinical trials for cancer treatment. It’s been shown to kill tumor cells.

Pairing Prairie with Thapsia underscores the pain management theme. Prairie will experience some of the deepest and most obvious pain in the novel with the search for her mother whom she never knew. The search for Mother in the archetypal sense appears a main theme of Vineland. Like Finnegans Wake, and probably many other profound works of literature, Pynchon introduces his main themes right away.

The squadron of blue jays stomping around the roof that morphed into carrier pigeons bringing subconscious messages to Zoyd in his dreams connects with Binah, the qabalistic sphere home to the Great Mother archetype through its correspondence with the color blue. This association, blue = Binah, gets affirmed when we learn that Frenesi has “eyes of blue painted blue” as Pynchon writes to emphasize their blueness. Both Frenesi’s mother Sasha and Prairie have startlingly blue eyes. Crowley as Aiwass describes Nuit, his Goddess figure as “a lambent flame of blue.” Pynchon connects blue in this way in other instances my favorite being when he randomly brings up: “from faraway Anaheim Stadium, came the sounds of a Blue Cheer concert” (p. 247). Heim is German for home making Anaheim the home of Ana connecting Blue Cheer with Joyce’s Mother archetype in Finnegans Wake, Anna Livia Plurabelle. All that being said, I don’t think that every time the color blue comes up that it necessarily points to Binah; skepticism and intuition seem integral to reading these semiotics.

Possible synchronicities: with Zoyd dressing in drag I find it significant that we start this voyage on the last day of Pride month. Yesterday, someone used colored chalk to draw a ladder-like hopscotch type of thing on the sidewalk by the kids area of the gym I go to. They captioned it: “climb the vine.” I have a gig in Fort Bragg on the northern California coast coming up on July 3 rd and 4th . It’s a little south of the novel’s titular location, but in the same relative neighborhood and physically the closest I’ve come to staying in Vineland. Pynchon is rumored to have lived in Fort Bragg for a spell. I’m there to do a live recording of a local band called Queer Country.

Fans of the original Star Trek series will love all the references to it throughout the book. These begin in the first chapter. The show Wheel of Fortune makes a pun on Zoyd’s last name and a tarot card at the end of this chapter. Vineland has been accurately called a black comedy. I find “black comedy” synonymous with “pain management.”

Next week: Please read chapter 2, pages 14 – 21.

Maybe Day is getting closer

Just a reminder that Maybe Day, July 23, is getting closer, and Bobby suggesting that everyone try to set up in person events this time. (See above for Bobby's event.)

Here's Bobby: "I'd very much like to encourage other Maybe Day events to be held around the world! Or if not events, maybe friendly gatherings, or even casual outings. Hell, just take a nice long walk and look for some quarters! Anything that brings the spirit of Maybe Logic out into the real world, in whatever way great or small, public or personal.

"If you are planning a public event, please feel free to share the details, so we can help promote it! Send Maybe Day event listings to weirdoverse@gmail.com."

I am kicking around some ideas, nothing to  announce yet. 

The Friedrich Nietzsche podcast is worth a listen

I wanted to mention that I recently had a long car drive and so found it convenient to listen to all of the May Hilaritas Press podcast on Friedrich Nietzsche, with Mike Gathers interviewing Eric Wagner. I found it a worthwhile use of my listening time. Eric worked hard on this podcast, re-reading a great deal of Nietzsche to prepare for it. He remarks that while Nietzsche, like RAW, tends to pull the rug from under the reader, RAW is cheerful about it while Nietzsche has a tendency to be hateful. Eric also offers thoughts on where the new Nietzsche reader might begin. 

My 2017 post on RAW and Nietzsche is here, the comments to the post are useful. 

Wilson and Shea on 'Moon of Ice'

The late Brad Linaweaver won the Prometheus Award in 1989 for his novel, Moon of Ice. The book apparently has gone out of print, but I thought I would note that both Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea praised the book, and obviously anyone who wishes may hunt up a used copy. 

In Quantum Psychology, Chapter 16, Robert Anton Wilson writes, "The Nazis believed the Moon consisted of solid ice. Brad Linaweaver's superb science fiction novel, Moon of Ice, concerns a parallel universe where World War II ended in a truce, rather than total victory for the allies. In Nazi Europe, the "moon of ice" theory still reigns supreme in government-run universities, learned societies, etc. while in anarchist America (in that universe, we become pacifist, isolationist and finally anarchist) the orthodox model of the moon remains dominant. When tbe Nazis land a spaceship on the moon and find no ice, all the data of the flight becomes Top Secret and the Europeans never learn of it."

Robert Shea, in the summer 1989 issue of the Prometheus, newsletter of the Libertarian Futurist Society:

June 23, 1989

Dear Editor:

I quite agree with Victoria Varga that more favorable reviews of Moon of Ice by Brad Linaweaver may be redundant, but I can't resist adding a few more words of praise to her comments in the last issue of Prometheus. Moon of Ice, clearly the product of libertarian thinking, performs the valuable service of showing us what the U.S. might be like as a much more free society than the one we've got. It is also an artistic achievement with an ingenious structure that allows us to compare two opposite societies and two opposite personalities. Moon balances a U.S. better off than the one we've got today, portrayed in the frame story, against a Europe far worse off than the one that exists in the "real" world, as portrayed in the diaries of the Goebbels, father and daughter. The contrast of liberty and tyranny is carried through in the juxtaposition of the diaries of the anarchist Hilda Goebbels and her Nazi father Josef.

Both Hilda and Dr. Goebbels are wonderful characters. Hilda's dry—and sometimes gallows— humor is delightful. And not too many authors have been able to present us with a credible and understandable portrayal of the mind of one of the principal architects of Nazism. These two creations are feats of imaginative empathy. With all due respect to the other contenders, a Prometheus Award for Moon of Ice would be well deserved.

--Robert Shea

Testament reading group continues

I wanted to note that the third episode of the Testament reading group has been posted at Jechidah. The first and second episodes remain up, so it's easy to get caught up. 

How to make a video about the Illuminati

 

Nieman Lab, a website aimed at journalists, has an article up about a new app aimed at helping journalists turn an article until a video for smartphones.

Eagle-eyed Ron Hogan wrote to me to point out something amusing: The example in the illustration, above, concerns the Illuminati.

If you are having trouble reading it, some of it (there are variations between the two examples) says,

"Did the Illuminati start as a parody?

"Yes, and that's quite a twist.

"They invented tales of a secret society,  the Illuminati, to make people question reality.

"This myth, born from a parody text called Principia Discordia...

"This anti-establishment text inspired  influential thinkers like Robert Anton Wilson and Kerry Thornley." 

Ron Hogan has a Substack. 

The app's inventor, Sophia Smith Galer, possibly a RAW fan, has an official website. 

Hilaritas podcast: Mariana Pinzón

 

The latest Hilaritas Press podcast, released Monday, features guest host Zach West interviewing Mariana Pinzón on Octomantic Neuro-Hacking and more. See the official page for links that provide more information. 

Pinzón also was interviewed for episode 22, by Mike Gathers, on "on ChaoSurfing the eight circuits of consciousness and the eight colors of chaos magick."

'Vineland' online reading group begins

By Eric Wagner
Special guest blogger 

Vineland Introduction 

My friend Paul Chuey first told me about Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 in 1982. We both loved Wilson and Leary's writing, and Leary's writing about Gravity's Rainbow intrigued us. Paul got me Gravity's Rainbow for Christmas in 1983. It took me four years to read it, and I then read The Crying of Lot 49, V and Slow Learner. In 1990 when Vineland came out in 1990, I found myself broke, but I kept having dreams about buying Vineland, so I splurged on the hardcover. I expected a struggle reading it, but instead I finished it in four days. I felt like I had climbed a flight of stairs and at the end stumbled because I expected more steps. I loved that book so much, and I still do. I have reread it over and over again. I bought his next four books on the first day of publication. 

In the eighties, before the announcement of the publication of Vineland, people speculated that Pynchon might never write another novel after Gravity’s Rainbow (1973). Various rumors spread about Pynchon. He had become obsessed with The Brady Bunch. He had lost all his money and wrote Godzilla screenplays. When I first read Vineland, I loved how Pynchon incorporated these theories into the novel.  

For this study group we will read one chapter a week, starting next Monday, June 30. Oz Fritz will write the posts for the odd numbered chapters. I will write the posts for the even numbered chapters, and we will finish up just in time for the publication of Pynchon’s new novel Shadow Ticket on October 7 

June 30        Chapter 1 

July 7           Chapter 2 

July 14         Chapter 3 

July 21        Chapter 4 

July 28        Chapter 5 

August 4        Chapter 6 

August 11        Chapter 7 

August 18        Chapter 8 

August 25        Chapter 9 

September 1     Chapter 10 

September 8    Chapter 11 

September 15    Chapter 12 

September 22    Chapter 13 

September 29    Chapter 14 

Wilson and Shea's obituaries

Robert Anton Wilson and Robert J. Shea both largely launched their literary careers with the publication of Illuminatus! in 1975. I say "largely" because they both had publications in magazines for many years before, a couple of Wilson's Playboy Press books had come out before Illuminatus!, etc. I think it is a fair observation that that Illuminatus! is what made them known to most readers.

Most RAW fans will know that Wilson quit his job at Playboy and embarked on writing many other books, such as Cosmic Trigger 1 (1977) and the Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy (1979-1981). Shea did not leave Playboy, he was pushed out in a layoff, but it forced him to make good on his plan to develop his career as a novelist, and Shike came out in 1981.

Wilson became a "cult" author with a large following, while Shea, while successful, did not become famous, and their receptions when they died illustrate that.

Wilson's death prompted a decent-sized obituary in The New York Times. You can read it here.  He also got an obituary article in the Los Angeles Times, e.g., "Robert Anton Wilson, a futurist, philosopher and coauthor of the Illuminatus trilogy, a cult science fiction series about a secret global society, died Jan. 11 at his home in Capitola, Calif. He was 74." 

It is listed as a combination of "staff and wire reports," although I don't know what wire service carried the news. (My search of  the Associated Press archives did not turn up anything.)

I can't find any evidence that Robert Shea ever got any ink in the The New York Times.

But his did at least get a staff-written obituary in a big hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. Here are the first five paragraphs:

Robert Shea, 61, a writer, was co-author of the fantasy Illuminatus! trilogy books. He also wrote several historical novels and a book, "No Man's Land to Plaza del Lago," about the area along Sheridan Road that buffered Evanston and Wilmette.

A resident of Glencoe, he died Thursday in Christ Hospital and Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

The three volumes in the Illuminatus! series are "Eye in the Pyramid," "The Golden Apple" and "Leviathan." The books, written with Robert Anton Wilson, are satires of various conspiracy theories.

He and his co-author were associate editors of Playboy in the late 1960s before collaborating on the fantasy trilogy, which was first published in 1972.

His historical novels include a volume on medieval Japan, "Shike;" one on medieval Europe, "The Saracen"; and a story of the Blackhawk War in Illinois, "Shaman."

John Higgs at Glastonbury

 In his latest newsletter, John Higgs reports he will be appearing at the Glastonbury Festival:

The festival is June 25-29, and John reports, "I’m being interviewed by Robin Ince about Exterminate / Regenerate on Thursday at 3pm on the Science Futures Laboratory Stage. I’ll also be appearing at some point that evening on Robin’s ‘Nine Lessons for the Summer Solstice’ event on the same stage, where I’ll be reading something appropriate from Watling Street."

Still no announcement on John's new book, but "I’ll have news about my next book in the next newsletter, but I can tell you that it’s is coming pretty soon - it will be published in November."

There's other news, plus an essay on how bad social media has gotten. 

Today in library news

 

Branka Tesla writes to let me know that Straight Outta Dublin by Eric Wagner with R. Michael Johnson, published by Hilaritas Press, is now available at the UC Berkeley library. 

"I walked into their Main Library two weeks ago, had a pleasant conversation with the librarian and she handed me the Purchase Request Form and now Eric Wagner, Michael Johnson and Hilaritas Press are on the shelf.

"(I do not want to take all the credit for doing it. Maybe someone else also contributed.)"

This raises a couple of interesting points.

One, many libraries do allow patrons to request purchase of a title. I wanted to read the new Ada Palmer book, Inventing the Renaissance. It's kind of expensive and I filled out a form asking Cuyahoga County Public Library to buy it. The library purchased it and I am reading it now. Part of the reason I did that is that I want to support Ada Palmer, and now that the book is on the shelf (well, when I return it) other people can discover her. I'm guessing that Branka can in fact take credit. 

Also, don't forget that libraries have limited space. All libraries, as they acquire new books, have to get rid of some of the old ones to free up shelf space. I assume that some of that can be done by getting rid of multiple copies of former bestsellers that are no longer hot, but single titles that haven't been checked out in a long time also are obvious candidates. So when you check out a book by a favorite author, you are helping to keep that person's book in circulation. 

Would Illuminatus! be a publishing success today?

RAW fans, talking about how many times they have read Ulysses or about their Finnegans Wake discussion groups, seem out of step with the culture today. Literary fiction seems to be going out of style.

A Substack piece called "The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction" seems to document that literary fiction once sold well and now does not sell at all. It states, "No work of literary fiction has been on Publisher’s Weekly’s yearly top ten best-selling list since 2001."

I don't know that I agree with every claim made by the author, Oy, but most of his assertions seem to be correct.

A couple of other articles: In a blog post in April, I mentioned another Substack article, "The average college student today," which asserts, "Most of our students are functionally illiterate. This is not a joke. By 'functionally illiterate' I mean 'unable to read and comprehend adult novels by people like Barbara Kingsolver, Colson Whitehead, and Richard Powers.' I picked those three authors because they are all recent Pulitzer Prize winners, an objective standard of 'serious adult novel.' Furthermore, I’ve read them all and can testify that they are brilliant, captivating writers; we’re not talking about Finnegans Wake here. But at the same time they aren’t YA, romantasy, or Harry Potter either."

Earlier this month, I read Lake of Darkness, the latest novel by British SF writer Adam Roberts. Its setting in the future depicts a society in which even scholars such as historians seldom have the ability to read and write. Why should you learn to read when an AI can read to you? It seemed like a convincing depiction of what we are moving toward. (Mostly, the book is a horror novel about black holes. I am fascinated by Roberts, who doesn't seem to get a lot of attention in the U.S.)

Illuminatus! was a riveting read for me when I stumbled across it in college, but at the time, I was also reading Nabokov and other literary fiction and a pretty wide variety of science fiction, including the more challenging stuff. Some people have found Illuminatus! a difficult read. Would it have done well if it (or something like it) were published today? I also feel uneasy about the reception Richard Powers, another of my favorites,  would receive if he were just starting out today. Would he sell enough books to be able to make a living and keep doing it? 

The world is in a dark place

 

A huge explosion in a building as a result of a bombing by Israeli warplanes. Photo by Mohammed Ibrahim on Unsplash, published in February, 2025. 

Last week, when Brian Wilson died and I visited Leon Russell's recording studio, I wondered what Robert Shea would say about the Beach Boys and Russell. (I am under the impression that Shea paid more attention to rock music than RAW. Shea for example was a big Beatles fan. ) This week, I wonder what the two Bobs, Wilson and Shea, would say about about all of the warfare in the world. Both were involved in the antiwar movement during the Vietnam War. Shea participated in more than one protest in Chicago, not just the one described in Illuminatus!. 

Let's see, the war between Russian and Ukraine is raging and if anything seems to be more intense. Israel, still fighting in Gaza, has bombed Syria and is now bombing Iran. One of the New York Times articles I read said the strikes and counter strikes between Israel and Iran may last for weeks, not days. So, what do we need to stumble into World War III? China deciding the world is distracted and it's a good time to make a move on Taiwan? Or is there some other trouble spot I'm not thinking of? The world seems in a dark place. 

Hilaritas Press nears completing original mission, issues new catalog

Some news from  Hilaritas Press, the publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson Trust.

The small press has just issued a new catalog, download your PDF copy here.  You'll get a 40-page catalog of books by Robert Anton Wilson and other interesting authors.

It's also worth taking a moment to note that the original purpose of Hilartas Press was to reissue the works of Robert Anton Wilson in definitive editions, making them easily available to his faithful readers. That original mission is almost done! If I am counting correctly, there have been 23 RAW titles republished or published. There are a few titles that the Robert Anton Wilson Trust does not control (such as, for example, Illuminatus!) but most of the books that Hilaritas has the rights to have been published. A reprint of a remaining title, Playboy's Book of Forbidden Words, is in the works.

It's not as if Hilaritas is going out of business. Other books are in the works. Keep your eye out for news!

H.P. Lovecraft on Star Trek?

 

On X.com, a screenwriter named Zack Stentz writes (with a clip), "This episode was written by beloved horror author Robert Bloch, who's doing an homage to his friend and mentor H.P. Lovecraft's novella "At The Mountains of Madness," also about a race of artificially created servants who destroyed their creators (also called "the Old Ones.")

Apparently it's this episode.  I wonder if RAW spotted it? 

The costuming would appear to be a tribute to some of the old covers SF magazines used to have. 

Hat tip: Tracy Harms. 

A different look at 'Ulysses'

Photo of Dublin by Gregory Dalleau from Unsplash 

Here is an interesting article that analyzes James Joyce's Ulysses in terms of Dublin's poor public transport: 

"A wide-awake city of tech firms, theatres and tourist attractions, Dublin is one of the EU’s richest metropolitan areas; it is also the only large western European capital without a metro. No Dubliner would have been more frustrated with the situation’s absurdities, and MetroLink’s slow progress, than Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce’s Ulysses."

The article, by Dermot Hodson, gives a close reading of Leopold Blooms travels around the city, and his thoughts on how public transport in Dublin could be improved: "Ulysses is a peripatetic story. For 17 or so hours, Bloom walks across Dublin, encountering friends, acquaintances and foes ....  Bloom covers nearly nine miles on foot. It is little wonder how tired he is by the time he climbs into bed next to Molly."

An interesting piece. Hat tip, Tony Smyth in the comments in Tuesday's post. 

Maybe Day 2025 announced

 

Bobby Campbell has announced plans for Maybe Day 2025. There's a new approach, an emphasis on actual events with face to face interactions, although online stuff is still cool, too. Here's Bobby:

"MAYBE DAY 2025 IS COMING!

"But this time w/ a twist :)))

"MORE INFO HERE: https://maybeday.net."

Follow the link; the festival, below, is what Bobby is hosting. Other folks are encouraged to set up events, too. 

Leon Russell's recording studio in Tulsa

 

An equipment case for "Eric Clapton group" in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Many of Clapton's band members at one time were based in Tulsa. Of course, I liked the number. 

RAW fans, can you name the pop/rock star who advised his fans, "Find out all you can about Buckminster Fuller." 

That would be Leon Russell. I am in Tulsa this week, visiting relatives, so I visited the restored Church Studio that Russell owned. 

Russell is not well remembered now, but he had a huge career, as this Wikipedia article explains. 

The Church Studio in Tulsa. 

Philbrook's 'Shike' exhibit

Charging Samurai warriors

I am currently in Tulsa visiting my mother, and yesterday I went to a local art museum, Philbrook, formerly a 1920s period mansion owned by a rich oilman, converted into a museum. The current main exhibit is "SAMURAI: Armor from the Collection of Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller," and the exhibition of samurai armor and weapons includes the time period of Robert Shea's first two "solo" novels, the Shike books. 

If you haven't read them, the Shike novels, Shike: Time of the Dragons and Shike: Last of the Zinja, are set in medieval Japan and cover fictionalized versions of two exciting events: A famous Japanese civil war and the Mongol invasion of Japan. As the Wikipedia article explains, secret societies also are part of the plot: "Shike posits a clan of grey-clad warrior monks, the "Zinja", which, it is stated by Abbot Taitaro, is related to several other secret societies throughout history, including specifically the White Lotus Society in China, the Hashishim (assassins) in the Middle East, and the Knights Templar in Europe, among others. Through an aside in All Things Are Lights, the Zinja are therefore linked, however tenuously, to Shea's other writings on secret societies, most notably his work with Robert Anton Wilson in The Illuminatus! Trilogy."

It was cool to see an exhibit that helped bring the Shike books to life. 

A naginata, a Japanese pole weapon, and a sword.

Portuguese edition of 'Illuminatus' from Brazil

 

Via Nick Helweg-Larsen, I learned that a Portuguese language edition of Illuminatus! has been published in Brazil. Here is the website for the project.  It is a limited edition, funded via a crowdsourcing campaign. The site does not accept international orders, but a direct sale may be arranged via the email address contato@editorafnord.com.br. (Shipping is likely to be expensive, blame the Brazilian government, not the publishers). Payment can be accepted via via Wise transfer or PayPal. 

Information from the website, via Google Translate:

LIMITED EDITION

Only 1023 copies of this edition were printed.

There are only 323 copies left, which are being made available to the general public.

We will not be reprinting in the future.

Funded on 09/13/24 with 101% of the goal, our campaign on Catarse achieved the publication of the Illuminatus! Trilogy, the masterpiece written by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, for the first time in Brazil in a limited, special and unique edition.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a revolutionary literary work written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Conceived during the 60s and published in the 70s, it was a pioneer in exploring themes such as conspiracy, secret societies and government manipulation, in a chaotic odyssey full of philosophy, occultism, satire and counterculture. The trilogy was a major milestone in experimental literature for challenging traditional narrative conventions, abusing techniques such as non-linearity, jumping between places, dates and characters without warning, and metafiction, such as moments in which the characters question whether they are just characters in a book.

Its irreverent nature and unique narrative style made it a cult work, considered by many to be one of the most important works of the last century. The idea of ​​"controlled chaos" permeates the work, challenging conventional notions of order and meaning. Influenced by the flourishing of Discordianism, a movement described by its followers as a religion disguised as a joke disguised as a religion, the trilogy addresses complex and sensitive topics without taking them too seriously, but with unparalleled competence. It is up to the reader to take responsibility for their own analysis of the data presented, forming their own view without the influence of chewed-up interpretations.

Although it was initially published as a trilogy, Illuminatus! was written as a single book, later divided by the publishers. The idea was to publish a small part of the text to test the public's reception, which embraced the book and made it an absolute success, leading to the publication of the other two volumes.

Hilaritas Press podcast: RAW and Friedrich Nietzsche

 

I am a bit late on reporting on this, but the most recent Hilaritas Press podcast sounds very interesting and I will listen soon: Mike Gathers interviews Eric Wagner about RAW's interest in Friedrich Nietzsche.

The official site with links is here, but you should be able to find this podcast at many of the usual places. 

“More than any other writer in the history of philosophy, Nietzsche set out to refute everyone who came before him, without exception and without mercy, and he had the intellect to do a damn good job.  He tears down so many accepted ideas that you’re left floating in a kind of nihilistic void.  Many people find this terrifying.  I find it exhilarating, and I manage to recover from it every time I subject myself to re-reading something by Nietzsche.”

– Robert Anton Wilson,

from the essay, "Brain Books,"

from Trajectories, and

now in Beyond Chaos and Beyond

•••

“Wilson’s attitude toward Nietzsche is my attitude towards Wilson.”

– Mike Gathers

Reminder: There's now a Hilaritas Press edition of Beyond Chaos and Beyond, and it's a good book. 

Unique art book from J. Christian Greer

 

I should have mentioned this earlier, but it looks interesting: VOID MACHINES: The Paper Shrines of J. Christian Greer "showcases over seventy-five 'paper shrines,' psychedelic collages created by J. Christian Greer. Printed in full color, this oversized collection provides a whirlwind look at Greer's sublime visions of divine friendship, abject terror, and erotic delight. Offering a panorama of sacred forces, the paper shrines showcased in this book were created with materials taken from manga (including Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, Shigeru Mizuki’s Kitaro, and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto’s Neon Genesis Evangelion, etc.); comics (Jack Kirby’s Silver Surfer, Jeff Smith's Bone, etc.), mass-market publications on Persian rugs, precious gems, medieval manuscripts."

More here, see the reviews. 

Ireland 'the most educated country'

 

Trinity College Library, Dublin. Photo by Zach Plank on Unsplash

Interesting, in the light of Ireland being a literary hotbed: 

"Ireland’s population are the most educated in the world — with 52.4% (1.8million) of the population aged between 25-64 having a bachelor’s degree or higher.

"While, of course, the whole numbers of people with bachelors degrees may be higher in countries with a higher number of people, percentage wise Ireland is the most educated; beating out countries such as Switzerland (46%), Singapore (45%), Belgium (44.1%) and the UK (43.6%) who round out the top five."

Source.  Article via this blog post. 

A revisionist historian

Robert Anton Wilson was deeply skeptical of the official account of World War II, and for example in this interview by Lewis Shiner, he said, "I'd also like to write a book about Pearl Harbor. The revisionist historians have been thoroughly slandered and are mostly out of print. I wouldn't be adding much original; I think everything worth saying has been said by Charles Beard and Harry Elmer Barnes and James J. Martin and a few others. But their books are out of print or hard to find. My book would be just one more effort against what Barnes called 'the historical blackout.' One more effort to put the facts on record." (Of course, the book was never written but this Jeff Riggenbach book, which I read years ago, has a similar intent). 

RAW would perhaps be interested in Thaddeus Russell, a historian who has made World War II revisionism something of a specialty. Russell has a new Substack newsletter, with pieces such as "Even Hitler Wasn't Hitler"  and "The Fate of the Free World Depends Upon You Liking Winston Churchill."  All of the pieces so far have been previews -- you have to pay a few dollars to read the whole thing -- but enough is posted for free, you can get the idea. 

Here is Jesse Walker's 2011 interview with Russell.

Here is a brief biography. He graduated from Antioch College, the university associated with Simon Moon in Illuminatus! Above is the image for one of his books, A Renegade History of the United States. 

More on the latest edition of the John Higgs KLF book

As I wrote recently, I recently read the 10th anniversary edition of John Higgs' The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds. I guess it counts as a re-read, although the edition I read has thousands of words of footnotes, as John comments on the book in hindsight.

The footnotes make an unusual book even more unusual. As I read it, I noticed some synchronicities with my own life -- for example, Reykjavik, Iceland, figures in the book as a place where the band Echo and the Bunnymen played a concert, and the book is largely about Illuminatus!  I recently worked on an Illuminatus-related project with Spookah, who lives in Reykjavik. 

And then I came across John's footnote on page 78: "One of the consequences of writing this book is that I am regularly contacted by people who have read it and then been plagued by a storm of synchronicities of their own." This gave me the odd feeling that John was talking to me, as in the incident (mentioned in the book) when RAW is watching "Harvey" on TV and a character suddenly talks to "Mr. Wilson."

I wrote to Spookah to ask if he is an Echo and the Bunnyman fan (I was going to freak out if he said, "Yes, it's my favorite band. Why?"). Spookah has read the book twice, too, and his reply was interessting:

Yes, I have indeed read the book, twice now. The second time around was a couple of years ago, as I grabbed a copy of the tenth anniversary edition signed by John Higgs.

I like his footnotes, I find it interesting to see him thinking out loud, reflecting on his own writing.

Actually, this book originally came to me in what I see as a pretty synchronistic way. I was at the time backpacking around the planet, and had been reading Illuminatus! for the first time while in Hawaii and New Zealand. Then I arrived in Bali, and found a copy of John's book in a second hand bookstore. I picked it up because, browsing it, I saw that RAW was often coming up in it.

John's book really provided me with a most welcome context for Illuminatus, and these two together got me started on all things RAW and Discordianism.

I think John Higgs does an excellent job at presenting RAW's ideas in a fun and clear way to people who might not be familiar with it.

I don't know if I would call myself a 'fan' of Echo & the Bunnymen, but I certainly think they were one the best British rock bands of the 80s, and albums such as Heaven Up Here or Ocean Rain are some of my favorites of that decade. Crocodiles and Porcupine are very good as well.

(the photograph on the cover art of Porcupine is at a waterfall in Iceland that is now amongst the most visited places in the country, it's called Gullfoss)

John Higgs remarks,

Most of the time when people tell me of their synchronicities, they lose something in the telling. What they find meaningfull is pretty personal and hence their stories often sound more like coincidences than anything more. But there is an exception to that - which is the stories that involve rabbits. They often sound far weirder. I think I included in those footnotes the story of a woman who was reading the stuff in the book about Pookahs while her daughter played in the garden - only to come inside and tell her mum she had been playing with a giant invisible rabbit. That freaked her out!

Also, John promises his new book will be announced soon. 

Joseph Matheny on doing your art your way

Joseph Matheny has a new piece out, "Knives Float on Water,"  It's largely about "just doing the art you want to do, however you wish. Your art. Your way." It's a really interesting essay, prompted by Matheny's decision to self-produce a movie. I had no idea Joseph had done a limited-edition book that he plans to never reissue. 

There are also other interesting bits in his latest Substack newsletter, including about AI and how we should support each other's ventures. 

What we read last month

Here's what I read last month. Only three titles, but the Roman history book was very long, so I did do as much reading as usual in May, it just doesn't look like it:

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I was really pleased to read this again after several decades, see my comments. 

The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium, Anthony Kaldellis. excellent history book, one of the best I've read in awhile. Here is Kaldellis on the Crusades. 

Every Tom, Dick & Harry, Elinor Lipman. I always enjoy her romantic comedies, this is her latest. 

Posted on Facebook, here is what Mark K. Brown last month. Notice that he read Eric Wagner's book twice, a pretty good recommendation! Also, the Greg Bear really impressed me when I read it years ago: 

Blood Music by Greg Bear 5/13   

Straight Outta Dublin: James Joyce and Robert Anton Wilson by Eric Wagner (x2) 5/13  

This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin  5/17   

A Messiah at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock  5/19   

Love and Death in the American Novel by Leslie Fiedler  5/22   

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan  5/29

The Drummond-Cauty partnership, and the partnership of Wilson and Shea

I just finished reading the 10th anniversary edition of John Higgs' The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds. This is the edition that has thousands of additional words of footnotes. So, confusingly, I don't know if this counts as reading it or re-reading it, a dilemma appropriate to such an oddball book, which purports to be a band biography but which seems to really be a book about Robert Anton Wilson, Illuminatus! and the effect the book had on the KLF. This may be my favorite Higgs book. I will likely do more than one blog post on the book.

This is a passage which struck me (boldface is mine), page 258:

The corporate music industry was perhaps no place for someone like Drummond, but it did allow him to meet Jimmy Cauty. Drummond and Cauty understood each other, even if nobody else understood them.  Cauty was more deeply involved in the actual creation of music than Drummond was. He was also someone you could rely on to get things done. The pairing was a positive feedback loop. With each justifying the other, they would go further together than they would apart. Sometimes all  you need is for someone to see what you are planning and not look bemused. 

Compare that with what Robert Shea wrote (in a mailing comment to Robert Anton Wilson in his zine in The Golden APA on what happened when he and Robert Anton Wilson met at Playboy magazine:) 

I was stunned by your comment [to] Kevin, wherein you say you brooded over why you couldn’t finish a long book and then, collaborating with me, finished one. You see, I’ve been going around telling people that I never completed a book project before writing Illuminatus! and it was my collaboration with you, and your example of joyful productivity that taught me how to write and finish novels. I never realized that Illuminatus! was a breakthrough book for both of us. I guess I sort of assumed that you had never before written a book simply because you hadn’t gotten around to it, whereas I, who had started a number of novels and never finished any, had a “problem.”

Of course, Illuminatus! helped launch two literary careers; almost every Wilson fiction book reads like the narrative in Illuminatus!, and every Wilson nonfiction book resembles the appendices. And the publication of Illuminatus! also helped Shea launch his novel-writing career. 

Incidentally, in his book, John often attributes Illuminatus! simply to Robert Anton Wilson, rather than Wilson and Shea. There's a similar imbalance to the treatment of Drummond and Cauty; I learned a lot about Drummond reading the book, but there's little about Cauty. 

Barry Longyear has died [UPDATED]

Barry Longyear (Creative Commons photo, source). 

Science fiction writer Barry Longyear has died. He was 82.

Longyear was best known for his 1979 novella "Enemy Mine," which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards and which was made into a movie. He won the Prometheus Award in 2021 for The War Whisperer Book Five: The Hook. 

The main idea behind The Hook is that a libertarian society can protect itself through targeted assassination rather than full scale war, an idea possible inspired by Hassan-i-Sabbah and the Assassins in Illuminatus! It's not clear whether Longyear got the idea from there or from another source, see this post. 

UPDATE: Obituary at the Libertarian Futurist Society blog. 

Grant McPhee news update

1. My last post about Pool of Life, the upcoming Liverpool documentary by the Scottish filmmaker Grant McPhee covering the Ken Campbell area, the wave of bands after the Beatles, etc., ended on a bit of a down note, as I quoted the guy writing for the Liverpool Post, ""Sadly, if you want to see Pool of Life, you may have to wait." 

But I contacted Mr. McPhee, and he gave me a more upbeat report: "No news at the moment but there may be something more positive in the near future. Thanks for all your support with it, much appreciated. [Pool of Life]  needs a sound mix and colour grade. The other two films in the trilogy are nearly finished, and there's going to be an accompanying oral-history book to go into some of the topics in far greater detail." (Note that the project has now grown into a trilogy, as the article referenced in the previous post explains). 

2. I am late in noting this, but the British Film Institute published a list of 35 great British horror movies, and Grant's Far from the Apple Tree made the list. 

New Tales of Illuminatus! publication policy

Yesterday, covering Bobby Campbell's latest Substack newsletter, I highlighted the fact that the Kickstarter for Tales of Illuminatus! No. 2 ended today.  I also managed to get the cover artist wrong for the new alternate cover for the first issue, so please note that and I apologize to Leosaysays. I had a long day away from the computer Friday, out and about with my sister visiting from Oklahoma, and I was away from the computer, so I'm sorry I didn't fix that earlier. 

Update an onward, I hope. 

Bobby also had something else interesting I wanted to call attention to:

"I’ve been working on a lot of the big picture, heavy lifting, world building for TOI lately, and entirely delighted with the way the dots are connecting. Super psyched to share my discoveries, but also taking to heart the feedback from issue #1, which suggested folks would rather just enjoy the comic as a finished piece, rather than a constant drip of serialization.

"I’ve got two weeks of teaching left and then we’re off to the races!"

Thinking about it, I think that's how I feel, too, about the "constant drip of serialization"; I want the experience of holding the new comic book in my hands and experiencing it as largely new.

That apparently doesn't preclude Bobby posting bits to show us what's in the works; above is a "quick sneak peak to hold you over for a spell" from Todd Purse's work for the second issue.