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Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Blog, Internet resources, online reading groups, articles and interviews, Illuminatus! info.
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
News from Bobby Campbell
Monday, July 7, 2025
'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.
Sunday, July 6, 2025
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."
Saturday, July 5, 2025
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
Friday, July 4, 2025
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.
Thursday, July 3, 2025
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.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
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.
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
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'."
Monday, June 30, 2025
'Vineland' reading group, Chapter One
Sunday, June 29, 2025
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.
Saturday, June 28, 2025
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.
Friday, June 27, 2025
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
Thursday, June 26, 2025
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.