Friday links

 

Cover art for the new Pynchon novel, via Eric Wagner.

Rumble strips that play Beethoven.

Are Trump Accounts a step toward a UBI?

Comments after reading Moby Dick.

Is life too short to wash and dry?

Neuromancer TV show on the way.

A comics recommendation

 

From Joseph Matheny's latest newsletter:

"I discovered his series in the 80s when I saw Timothy Leary at Cross Currents in Chicago, and Del Close invited himself on stage to hawk his new comic series. Want to read a comic where people like Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, and Philip K. Dick (to name a few) appear as characters? Look no further. Available in digital format these days and rumored to be around on free platforms, Wasteland stands the test of time."

The newsletter has other interesting bits at the link.

Meme from Rasa quoting RAW

 

Via Facebook. 

Pittsburgh Maybe Day meetup called off

After discussing the matter with Apuleius Charlton, I have decided to call off our planned July 23 Maybe Day dinner meetup at a Pittsburgh restaurant. About a week ago, I fell down and got various injuries, the most significant being a bone fracture in my wrist. My wife thinks it would not be prudent for me to do a long car drive in the near future, and after thinking it over, I decided she was likely right. (I will have what I hope is an interesting Maybe Day blog post instead). See above, and please consider attending Bobby Campbell's event if you can. 

'Vineland' online reading group, Chapter 3

 

Photo by Elaine Glusac

By OZ FRITZ
Special guest blogger

"But the games Joyce played – and the games played by Welles, and M.C. Escher, and Borges, and Pynchon, and a lot of our current post-modernists – while just as cute as Doyle's games, have a serious side, just like cutting-edge science and philosophy, which also have encountered Uncertainty. A Final Answer seems impossible, to post-modern artists ... Ergo, the post-modern artist now offers us, not the Problem Solved, but the Problem as Puzzle." – Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger Vol. III.

Hector Zuñiga, Sylvester the cat to Zoyd's Tweety bird, experiences this great uncertainty with his career as described at the top of page 25. His uncertainty with life gets compared to the labyrinthine Casbah topography. The Casbah describes the old, fortified part of a North African city. I know the Casbah of Tangier, Morocco which proved extremely easy to get lost in with its narrow, winding streets and high walls. We were strongly advised not to enter that area without a guide. In Tangier, multilingual kids with 5 or 6 languages hang around the hotels hoping to get hired as a guide. Casbah architecture makes a good metaphor for Pynchon's writing, in general.

Last week I got some sense of the Vineland locale when I went there to record a Queer Country show in Mendocino. I arrived the day before at the house of their drummer and bassist Reyna Cinnamon Coupe and her partner Cynthia Coupe who generously put me up. Reyna met me at the door and we talked for about an hour about the area before I left to record another show in Fort Bragg. I don't recall how we got there but when she mentioned the bombing of Earth First! activist Judi Bari in 1990 and the apparent collusion of the FBI with said bombing, it started sounding like the same violent and fascist tactics employed by law enforcement in Vineland. With all the humor, satire and parody Pynchon uses in his story it's easy to regard the over-the-top police tactics as fiction, but after hearing about some of the things that went down in that era, I realized this shit really happened; Pynchon isn't making it up. We returned to the subject at a later time.

Reyna herself had been an Earth First! type of activist in a former lifetime engaged in non-violent civil disobedience with the intention to protect the environment from destruction by the thoughtless, careless and destructive tactics of the timber industry. In an interview in The New Settler, issue 68, July 1992, Todd, as they were known at the time, details step by step their protest method of tree sitting and how to go about doing it. He even describes how to monetize climbing trees by collecting seeds for the California Department of Forestry. Cinnamon reports that at the time, "they paid $35 a bushel for Douglas fir seeds, $45 a bushel for incense cedar, $20 for Ponderosa pine, and $45 for Redwood. You can get three or four bushels in an hour." After the bombing, Reyna became Judi Bari's virtual bodyguard for the next few years. Darryl Cherney was in the passenger seat when the bomb exploded, but fortunately had relatively minor injuries. He made a low budget film called Who Bombed Judi Bari which is available on You Tube. Along with Bari, they sued the F.B.I. and the Oakland Police Department for negligence (they didn't conduct an investigation), false arrest, illegal search and seizure, and falsifying evidence. "A predominantly conservative jury awarded Judi's estate and Darryl Cherney $4.4 million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages." Quoted from The Ghost Forest - Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods by Greg King. 

Though not central to the story, the malfeasance of the logging industry plays in the background in resonance with the war on drugs. The first American edition of Vineland shows a black and white photograph of a massive pile of dead trees. It's the same image used in the introductory post for this group. It was taken by Darius Kinsey known for his photographs of the logging industry. This one shows a logging camp with the title "Crescent Camp Number One." It makes a great visual metaphor for the struggles and battles in Vineland. Trees, in general, play their part in Vineland, especially at the end.

I asked Reyna and Cynthia if they recalled anything about the war on drugs. They said all through the 1980s it was like a war zone. Choppers were constantly flying overhead. The CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Production) program as it appears in Vineland was a real thing operated by the California Department of Justice from 1983 - 1996. A multi-agency task force, it comprised one of the largest conglomerates of law enforcement at the time. Now we have Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the top of the American fascist heap. Coincidentally, Gabriel ICE, a tech billionaire, shows up as the evil and antagonistic character in Pynchon's Bleeding Edge (2013).

The third chapter describes the relationship between government agent Hector Zuñiga and Zoyd starting with when they first met. The cartoon duo Sylvester and Tweety seems an apt comparison. Hector brings various Spanish words and phrases into the novel. According to Christine Wexler, Pynchon's lover at one point, he knew enough Spanish to read in it. Looking at the Spanish spoken by Hector in this chapter, it starts with an exclamation, "Caray" (p. 28) = Wow in English followed shortly by ése = that; next we see "Ay se va" = Oh it's gone; then "¡Ja ja!" = ha ha; finally "¡Madre de Dios! = Mother of God. The Spanish in this chapter reiterates the theme: Wow, that, oh it's gone ha ha Mother of God.

Pynchon's fondness for the letter "v" comes out in this chapter. Van Meter, one of the Corvairs hopes to score from Hector. The latter uses the phrase "Vaseline of youth" later on. My favorite in this week's offering (p.28):  "there's gonna be some local person about your age come runnin' up, two fingers in a V, hollerin, 'What's your sign man,?' or singíng 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' note for note.

Two fingers in a V symbolized peace in the 60's. In the 40's Winston Churchill used it to represent V for victory. Some say it also presented a semiotic weapon to counteract the swastika, a symbolism of fascism in Nazi Germany. A well-known story in the music biz holds that the song "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly was originally supposed to have the title and lyrics "In the Garden of Eden" but the singer got too stoned to sing that properly so it became as we know it now. Whether true or not, Bart Simpson used it for a joke on an unsuspecting congregation.

p

The bit on p. 25 where Hector plays with his food to sculpt something meaningful only to him recalls a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This foretells the UFO scenario coming up, but it also qabalistically connects with Hector giving Zoyd news about his ex-wife Frenesi. I believe this marks the first mention of her in the story.

I'll end with a statement by Hector that can be heard in at least two different ways (p. 30):

"'The Lord, as they call him around my office, created all of us, even you, with free will. I think it's weird you don't even want to find out about her.'" The "her" refers to Frenesi whom they've been discussing, but it can also refer to the Lord in that sentence. This seems another possible link to E.J. Gold who wrote a two person play called Creation Story Verbatim featuring the Lord God Herself and the Archangel Gabriel. 

Next week: please read chapter 4, pages 35 - 55.

Normal blogging to resume

Unsplash.com photo by Johnny Gios

Here is some information that may turn out to be useful for other people, even if you don't have a fractured wrist. It turns out that Google documents will allow users to use their voice to dictate text.

Unfortunately, the feature was turned off on my phone, and it took me about 90 minutes to find the one person on the internet who could supply a fix. Anyway, now that it is easier to write without hurting my hands, I expect to be able to resume normal blogging.

RAW letter to William Burroughs

William Burroughs (Creative Commons, source).

Something I had missed: RAW biographer Prop Anon posts a letter from Robert Anton Wilson to William Burroughs, then writes commentary. If you are a serious RAW fan. you should get a copy of Prop's book.

Hat tip, Jesse Walker.

Prometheus Awards announced

 

[As I have mentioned before, I am an active member of the Libertarian Futurist Society. RAW was the presenter for the first Prometheus Award and Robert Shea was active in the Libertarian Futurist Society. -- The Management]

The Libertarian Futurist Society, a nonprofit all-volunteer international organization of freedom-loving science fiction fans, has announced Prometheus Award Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction winners.

The 45th annual Prometheus Awards will be presented online in a Zoom awards ceremony open to the public, most likely on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in late August or early September. David Friedman, an SF/fantasy novelist and a leading economist and libertarian thinker, will be a speaker and guest presenter.

The Prometheus Award for Best Novel

In the Belly of the Whale, by Michael Flynn, won the 2025 Prometheus Award for Best Novel for novels published in 2024.

The posthumous work, published by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy, explores the complex lives, work, challenges and conflicts of 40,000 human colonists aboard a large asteroid ship two centuries into a projected eight-century voyage to Tau Ceti.

With its intricate world-building, believable characters in conflict, and profound grasp of human nature, the epic social novel freshens the SF subgenre of the multi-generational colony ship while raising deeper questions about the enormous difficulties of our species expanding beyond our solar system.

Beyond the usual technological and interpersonal issues of maintenance and survival that naturally arise, the colonists suffer from a dysfunctional bureaucracy, crew class divisions, and a traditional shipboard command structure that has calcified into an authoritarian hereditary aristocracy with enforced eugenics and a loss of focus on the mission goal.

Flynn’s kaleidoscopic novel is a wise cautionary tale and poignant libertarian tragedy about the underestimated challenges facing our species as we dream of someday establishing a beachhead of human civilization beyond our solar system.

Without sustaining the culture of liberty, self-reliance and voluntary cooperation that helped lift Earth civilizations to unprecedented levels of knowledge and prosperity, humanity may be doomed even if such ships reach their distant destinations.

Reflecting Flynn’s well-earned reputation for a high level of craftsmanship and a wintry poetic style, his last novel is an ambitious saga of power, decay and revolution embodying an enduring theme: The price of freedom (and survival) is eternal vigilance.

Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of In the Belly of the Whale that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

In the Belly of the Whale was the last novel Flynn wrote before his death in 2023 at 75. Flynn previously won two Prometheus Awards for Best Novel for In the Country of the Blind (in 1991) and Fallen Angels (in 1992), the latter co-written with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

The other 2024 Best Novel finalists were Alliance Unbound, by C. J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher (DAW); Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come, by Danny King (Annie Mosse Press); Beggar’s Sky, by Wil McCarthy (Baen Books); and Mania, by Lionel Shriver (HarperCollins Publishers).

The Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction

Orion Shall Rise, a 1983 novel (Timescape) by Poul Anderson, won the 2025 Best Classic Fiction award and will be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame.

First nominated for the Prometheus Award in 1984, when it was a Best Novel finalist, Orion Shall Rise explores the corruptions and temptations of power and how a free society might survive and thrive after a post-nuclear-war apocalypse on a largely depopulated Earth.

A nearly pure example of social scientific world-building in its plausible economies, polities and cultures, the novel depicts four renascent but very different civilizations in conflict over the proper role of technology. Among them: the Maurai, a constitutional monarchy derived from Polynesian societies; the Mong, a feudal society descended from Russian, Mongolian and Chinese refugees who conquered much of North America; and Skyholm, a technologically advanced aristocracy centered on France and dominated by a lighter-than-air city structure.

Perhaps most intriguing is the Northwest Union, a decentralized and strongly technophilic society that extends roughly from Oregon to Alaska: a culture founded in resistance to the Mong invasion. The Union’s minimal central government, voluntary Lodges and other strong tendencies to libertarianism embody one of Anderson’s more attractive portrayals of this idea.

Avoiding a straight-forward clash of good people with evil, the story creates believable and sympathetic characters representing the best of each culture. Anderson plays fair to all sides, a hallmark of the work of the SFWA Grand Master.

Ultimately, Orion Shall Rise offers a hopeful vision of forward-thinking visionaries who dream of reaching for the stars while trying to revive the forbidden nuclear technology that destroyed their previous civilization.

Visit the Prometheus blog for a full review of Orion Shall Rise that illuminates how it fits the distinctive dual focus of the Prometheus Award on quality and liberty.

Anderson (1926-2001), the first author to receive a Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001, was a major American science  fiction writer who won the Hugo Award seven times, the Nebula Award three  times and the Prometheus Award seven times (including this year’s award).

This is Anderson’s fifth work to be inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame, following Trader to the Stars (in 1985), The Star Fox (in 1995), “No Truce with Kings” (in 2010) and “Sam Hall” (in 2020.)

The other Prometheus Hall of Fame finalists were “As Easy as A.B.C.,” a 1912 story by Rudyard Kipling; ”The Trees," a 1978 song by the Canadian rock group Rush; and Singularity Sky, a 2003 novel (Ace Books) by Charles Stross.

Prometheus Awards History

The Prometheus Awards, sponsored by the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), was first presented in 1979, making it one of the most enduring awards after the Nebula and Hugo awards, and one of the oldest fan-based awards currently in sf.

For more than four decades, the Prometheus Awards have recognized outstanding works of science fiction and fantasy that dramatize the perennial conflict between liberty and power, favor cooperation over coercion, expose the abuses and excesses of coercive government, and/or critique or satirize authoritarian systems, ideologies and assumptions.

Above all, the Prometheus Awards strive to recognize speculative fiction that champions individual rights, based on the moral/legal principle of non-aggression as the ethical and practical foundation for peace, prosperity, progress, justice, tolerance, mutual respect, civility and civilization itself.

All LFS members have the right to nominate eligible works for all categories of the Prometheus Awards, while publishers and authors are welcome to submit potentially eligible works for consideration using the form linked from the LFS website’s main page at www.lfs.org

While the Best Novel category is limited to novels published in English for the first time during the previous calendar year, Hall of Fame nominees — which must have been published, performed, broadcast or released at least 20 years ago — may be in any narrative or dramatic form, including novels, novellas, stories, films, television series or episodes, plays, musicals, graphic novels, song lyrics, or verse.

The Best Novel winner receives a plaque with a gold coin, and the Hall of Fame winner, a plaque with a smaller gold coin.

Update

I have a wrist fracture. Blogging may be a bit light for a little while.

News from Bobby Campbell

Hurt my wrist so this will have to be short, but please see Bobby Campbell's latest news. Tales of Illuminatus, Maybe Day, music news and more! 

'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.