News: 'Chapel Perilous' audiobook, Boing Boing covers the lost Leary-RAW book

In his Substack newsletter, Gabriel Kennedy/Prop Anon announces a Kickstarter campaign will begin soon for an audiobook of his RAW bio, Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson. He built his  own recording studio and saw his computer die when he started recording, but it's on the way. Details here. And as for the Kickstarter, here is the link.

Meanwhile, the folks at Boing Boing, specifically Ellsworth Toohey, have taken note of Bobby Campbell's recovery of the lost Timothy Leary-Robert Anton Wilson book, The Periodic Table of Energy. It is good to see the publicity, although a brief mention that Maybe Day is tomorrow and that Bobby is organizing the celebration would have been nice. Here is my coverage of the book.  And you can also get Bobby's original announcement. 

New articles for Maybe Day

Maybe Day is Thursday, but some of us have been posting articles so that we can create links to be included in Bobby Campbell's Maybe Day Roundup.

Below are my two contributions, "Reading about Robert Anton Wilson: Biographies, criticism and more," my attempt to point to books about RAW, and "Robert Shea: A reader's guide," about all of Shea's fiction. 

On his blog, Oz Fritz has posted "Crowley, Joyce, Lewis Carroll and the Night of Pan."

I don't know if it's meant as a Maybe Day piece, but Michael Johnson has a new piece up, "Swamp Gas, Ball Lightning, Anal Probes and the Stench of Disinformation."

Reading about Robert Anton Wilson: Biographies, criticism and more

By TOM JACKSON
Blogger at RAWIllumination.net 

Robert Anton Wilson is credited with more than 30 books. The official website maintained by the Robert Anton Wilson Trust lists 33 titles as of July 2026, and more are on the way. 

But what if you want to read about Wilson or read books that engage with some of his most interesting ideas and topics? This article aims to help with such explorations. I hope the suggestions in this piece will be useful. I am sure there are some really good books I have missed and I welcome suggestions. 

The vast majority of the authors mentioned here have author pages, home pages for individual book titles, newsletters on platforms such as Substack, social media accounts at various locations, etc. etc. I have not attempted to provide links to all of those supplementary sources, but if you look around you should be able to find them -- there's an "official page" for Robert Anton Wilson, Gabriel Kennedy/Prop Anon and Erik Davis have Substack newsletters, and so on. If you are into podcasts, you will want to know that Kennedy/Prop and Eric Wagner have both done many hours of podcasts, and Hilaritas Press has a monthly podcast series focusing on its RAW titles. 

I have in some cases provided a link, particularly when I noticed a bargain or think the book might be hard to find, or when there is a link to an official Hilaritas Press edition, as the latter is the publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson Trust. But in many cases, where a book is generally available, I did not see the need to put up a link or dictate which bookstore or website you should use to acquire a title. 

I am sure I have missed some interesting and worthwhile books, so please post your suggestions in the comments. 

Biographies and Memoirs

Chapel Perilous: The Life & Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson by Gabriel Kennedy, released in 2024, is the only book length biography of Robert Anton Wilson that's been published so far. Self published by Kennedy/Prop Anon, is is deeply researched. See this link for "Where to buy" links. Available as a hardcover, paperback and an ebook. The author has appeared on many podcasts.

Cosmic Trigger 1: The Final Secret of the Illuminati, Robert Anton Wilson. This is RAW's memoir of the period in his life in the 1970s when he was experimenting with the occult and LSD and thought he might have been contacted by entities from the Sirius star system. One of his most popular books. The definitive edition is available from Hilaritas. 

Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth. Robert Anton Wilson. This book also is (mostly) a memoir, and it covers RAW's life from birth to his marriage to his wife, Arlen. Also available from Hilaritas, with supplementary pieces from Christina Pearson and myself. (There's also a Cosmic Trigger 3, also worth reading. It has some biographical information, too, but seems less like a memoir to me.)

High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies, Erik Davis. A book about Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick, and their weird experiences in the 1970s. An interesting book, probably of particular interest to Dick fans and people who enjoyed the first Cosmic Trigger.  Important note from Mr. Davis: "It is currently out of print BUT a new edition (with new afterword and appendixes) will be out this fall from Strange Attractor Press." 

Beyond Chaos and Beyond, Robert Anton Wilson, edited by D. Scott Apel. This is an anthology, mostly of material that originally appeared in the Trajectories newsletter put out by RAW and by Scott. It does have a lot of good material, but I mention it here because it includes a 30,000-word piece by Apel on his long friendship with RAW. Hilaritas Press link. 

Critical studies

An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson, Eric Wagner. A useful guide, which I keep on my phone when I want more information about some aspect of RAW's career. Note that the Kindle version is only $5.  Pay attention also to the fact that this book has been published in three editions; you will want the third edition that came out in 2020.

Straight Outta Dublin, Eric Wagner (with R. Michael Johnson). Another critical study, this one focuses on the influence of James Joyce on RAW. While the main text is by Eric, the book also  features a long essay by Michael Johnson. Available from Hilaritas. 

Fly On The Tale Of The Tribe: A Rollercoaster Ride With Robert Anton Wilson, Steven James Pratt. A collection of short pieces discussing Robert Anton Wilson's work by Mr. Pratt, a British writer, musician and James Joyce scholar. It's inspired by the outline for Wilson's planned but not completed Tale of the Tribe book at the end of Wilson's TSOG: The Thing that Ate the Constitution and Other Everyday Monsters. The paperback remains available for about $11 at various locations, such as Amazon, but Steve, who is working on a revised version, has withdrawn the ebook. 

Books on the Eight Circuit model

There have been many books on the Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness invented by Timothy Leary and modified and popularized by Robert Anton Wilson.

The definitive RAW book on the model is of course Prometheus Rising, but which Timothy Leary book should the reader focus on? I recently posed that question to Mike Gathers and Joseph L. Flatley. You can read their full answers on my blog, but the gist is that Mike pointed me to Neurologic while Flatley suggested Neuropolitique.  Neuropolitique is available from New Falcon.  The ebook is only $4 on Amazon. I have lately been trying to avoid linking to Amazon on my blog, but this title is not listed in any edition on the Barnes and Noble website. As for Neurologic, is is out of print as far as I can tell, but available on the Internet. 

Probably  the latest book to explore the Eight Circuit model is Joseph L. Flatley's The Occult Timothy Leary, which applies the Eight Circuits to tarot but also discusses many of Leary's other ideas.

The late Antero Alli was probably one of the better-known figures who has written about the Eight Circuit model. His books on the subject include Angel Tech: A Modern Shaman’s Guide to Reality Selection and also The Eight-Circuit Brain: Navigational Strategies for the Energetic Body.

According to Flatley's book, The New Hermetics by Jason Augustus Newcomb "incorporates techniques like neuro-liguistic programming (NLP) and hypnosis into ceremonial magick for a system of initiation designed to instill 'complete awareness and control of all your eight circuits'.” 

Flatley's book also mentions The Shamanic Path to Quantum Consciousness by Laurent Huguelit as a book that incorporates the model. 

Other books on the model: 8-Circuit Ascension: A Guide to Metaprogramming the Multidimensional Self by Douglas Wingate and Rachel Turetzky and Nonlocal Nature: The Eight Circuits of Consciousness by James A. Heffernan. 

Adaptations

It is always interesting to see a work written in one medium adapted in another.

The Illuminatus! trilogy is currently being adapted as a series of comic books by Bobby Campbell. As I write this (July 2026) Tales of Illuminatus No. 3 is scheduled to appear later this year. Please see the official website for more information. 

Daisy Eris Campbell produced a theater adaptation in Britain of Robert Anton Wilson's first Cosmic Trigger book. Many of us Americans did not get an opportunity to see it but Hilaritas Press published a book, Cosmic Trigger the Play, with photographs to give the reader an idea of how it was staged. 

Other  useful books

For anyone who shares Robert Anton Wilson's interest in quantum mechanics, there are probably many books that deserve mention, although out of ignorance I will only mention two: How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival by David Kaiser profiles scientists RAW knew such as Nick Herbert, Jack Sarfatti and  Saul-Paul Sirag. I enjoyed the book. Herbert has a book, Quantum Reality, that I haven't read yet. 

RAW liked to listen to classical music, and Beethoven was the composer he mentioned the most in his writings. There are many books about Beethoven, but a 2014 biography, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford is useful if you want to know about Beethoven's connections to the Illuminati. 

If you are interested in the use of conspiracy theories in Illuminatus!, you might be interested in The United States of The United States of Paranoia by Jesse Walker, which shows the role of conspiracy theories in U.S. history. The book includes a chapter that discusses Discordianism and Robert Anton Wilson. 

The KLF: Chaos, magic and the band who burned a million pounds by John Higgs discusses the music duo influenced by Robert Anton Wilson and also RAW himself. It's a great read. Note  that there's now a tenth anniversary edition with new footnotes by John. Also, there are many biographies of Timothy Leary, a big influence on RAW. I suspect many of you would enjoy the John Higgs one, I Have America Surrounded: The Life of Timothy Leary. 

Every Day Is a GOOD Day is a collection of short pieces by Robert Shea that I edited for Hilaritas Press. It offers insight into  the co-author of Illuminatus! 

The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore and Steve Moore is a kind of encyclopedia of magick and would seem to be useful as a primer on many topics that interested RAW. The book has a primer on the Kabbalah, for example. 

Lazy Person's Guide to Framing: Decoding the News Media, Brian Dean. A popularization of George Lakoff's work on framing, but also about RAW's reality tunnels concept. Here is my review, which links to Brian's own explanation of the book. Currently 99 cents on Amazon as an ebook, so grab it now. 

The "Books" area of the Robert Anton Wilson website, has a list of books that influenced RAW's thinking, "Not the 'best' or even my favorites exactly: just the bare minimum of what everybody really needs to chew and digest before they can converse intelligently about the 21st Century." You'll see books listed there that are cited in RAW's writing, such as Ulysses by James Joyce, the Cantos of Ezra Pound and Science and Sanity, by Alfred Korzybski. If you aren't ready for Korzybski's big, difficult tome, Michael Johnson has a blog post from 2016 that discusses popularizations of the book. 

I am not enough of a Joyce scholar to be able to recommend which books about him you should read. I'll just note that much if not all of James Joyce's work is in the public domain (Finnegans Wake appears to be the exception), and you can find ebooks at sites such as Standard Ebooks and Project Gutenberg. I happen to be a fan of Standard Ebooks and it's my preferred site for public domain books. 

If you are a RAW fan, you should regularly browse the Hilaritas Press website, both for new editions of many RAW works and for books  that might interest many RAW fans. 

A few blogs 

While I have attempted to stick mostly to books in this article, there are a few blogs I should mention for people who like to read about Robert Anton Wilson. RAW Semantics  publishes many essays on RAW. Michael Johnson writes about RAW a lot at his Overweening Generalist Substack newsletter.  My own RAWIllumination.net has daily postings, usually connected in some fashion to Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Shea or both of them. The Oz Mix by Oz Fritz is also a great resource. 

Robert Shea: A reader's guide

By TOM JACKSON
Blogger at RAWIllumination.net

When I began my RAWIllumination.net blog, it was pretty much focused on Robert Anton Wilson, although by that time I had realized that Robert Shea was an interesting writer in his own right, and not just as the co-writer of Illuminatus! While I write more often about Wilson at the blog, I also often write about Shea.

I have now read all of Shea's books (with the exception of an anomalous work, From No Man's Land to Plaza Del Lago, a short history book. Plaza Del Lago is a shopping center in Wilmette, Illinois.) So I thought it might be useful to write a short guide to all of the titles.

These books are available free or cheaply as ebooks and inexpensively as used books, although most are out of print. Mike Shea, Robert Shea's son and literary executor, has chosen to privilege making Shea's work available over trying to squeeze every last nickle of royalties and has released all of Shea's novels (except Illuminatus!)  under a Creative Commons license; if you want to make a movie out of one of them you must pay for the rights, but if you just want to read the book you are free to do  so at no cost with Mike's blessing.

I have not chosen to provide links for individual titles, but here are some ways to get both ebooks and paper books.

For ebooks, once you have decided which title you want to try, look at the Project Gutenberg Robert Shea titles (I suggest skipping his early short stories, which aren't very good), checking out the links at the official Robert Shea page, or searching for Shea at the Internet Archive (which seems to have all of his fiction titles.) Or just Google the title. Some titles also are available as properly formatted Kindles at a reasonable price on Amazon. I did buy the Kindle titles for Shike and All Things Are Lights. 

For paper copies, there are many places to look for used books. I recommend BookFinder.com as a good place to find reasonably-priced used books. 

If you only know Shea from Illuminatus!, I should explain that  his solo  novels are straightforward historical novels  with clear prose and little of the literary experimentation of Illuminatus!, which, while a genuine collaboration between Wilson and Shea, owes most of its style and experimentation in form to Wilson. There are connections, however, between Illuminatus! and Shea's solo novels. Most of them feature Illuminati-style secret societies  that have links to secret societies in other parts of the world, and explore many of the ideas featured in Illuminatus! I have written about All Things Are Lights, for example, as a kind of "thematic prequel" to Illuminatus!

Most of Shea's historical novels are set in the Middle Ages in a variety of locales, although his last published novel, Shaman, took him into a new artistic direction as it is set in the United States in the early 19th century and features a Native American hero. Shea was still busy writing historical  novels when he died of cancer in 1994 at age 61. 

Shea's first books, the two Shike novels, were his best sellers. They did really well. The rest of his career could be described as an attempt to repeat that success. His agent, Al Zuckerman, was very oriented toward helping his clients write blockbusters see also this,  and perhaps if Shea had lived longer, he could have come up with another big hit. That said, I enjoy all of Shea's novels. 

OK, here are the books, in chronological order of when they are published:

Shike. A novel set in medieval Japan at the time of the two attempted Mongol  invasions of the island, e.g. the thirteen century. It was Shea's most commercially successful book and sold really well. The books were published as two separate novels in 1981, Time of the Dragons and Last of the Zinja, before eventually being published as one book. 

All Things Are Lights. Following the success of Shike, Shea did not publish another work until 1986, when All Things Are Lights came out. Also taking place in the 13th century albeit in a different area of the globe, and set mostly in France during the reign of Louis IX, it includes descriptions of the war against the Cathars, including the 1243-1244 siege of the Cathar stronghold of Montségur  and the Seventh Crusade ((1248–1254).

All Things Are Lights is the novel which has the most connections to Illuminatus! (there's even a hint that the main hero's sister is an ancestor of Hagbard Celine). I have written about Lights as a "thematic prequel" to Illuminatus!

Here is a blog post with a detailed discussion of All Things Are Lights. 

The Saracen. Following All Things Are Lights, Shea returned to the Shike formula of writing one fictional work in the form of two volumes. So although The Saracen is really one story, it was published in two volumes in 1989, Land of the Infidel and The Holy War. Our hero this time is a Muslim warrior and spy, and the "land of the infidel" is medieval Italy in the 13th century, some years after the events of All Things Are Lights. The Wikipedia article says it "enjoys a strong cult following," and I did enjoy it. The Order of the Assassins are featured, and one of the characters is the son of the main characters in All Things Are Lights.

The Shaman. Shea's last published novel is something of a departure, as it is set on the American frontier in the early 19th century. The hero becomes a Sauk shaman and Native Americans are depicted sympathetically. I like this less well than Shea's other novels, but Mike Shea thinks it may have been his Dad's favorite novel.

 Every Day is a GOOD Day: Robert Shea on Illuminatus! Writing and Anarchism, is a collection of short pieces by Shea. It also includes two long interviews of Shea. I edited the book, which was published by Hilaritas Press in 2025, 50 years after Illuminatus! was first published. You can also get more information here. 

'The Classical Style' reading group, week nine

Haydn around 1792 (John Hoppner painting).

III  HAYDN FROM 1770 TO THE DEATH OF MOZART 

2. Symphony 

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger

“It’s all about the bass.” When I played in the Arizona State Chamber Orchestra in the 1981-1982 school year, we played Haydn’s Military Symphony and Mozart’s Symphony #31. The orchestra only had two basses, whereas the ASU Symphony Orchestra had eight basses. I played in Beethoven’s Seventh with the Symphony Orchestra. The music of Mozart and Haydn usually gets played with a smaller orchestra with fewer players for each of the string parts. I find Rosen’s discussion of this interesting, especially Mozart’s desire for more bass. 

Haydn wrote 104 symphonies. I’ve listened to some of these for over fifty years, but I’ve only scratched the surface. It occurred to me this morning that one might spend two years focusing on one Haydn symphony each week. Of course, the later symphonies seem worthy of greater scrutiny. 

Page 162 mentions the painter Poussin whose The Shepherds of Arcadia shows up in Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Widow’s Son, and the Marquis de Sade shows up on pg. 163. This music emerged from a world that included Adam Weishaupt and other odd ducks. This aspect of the musical world of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven doesn’t particularly interest Rosen. So many different ways to approach this music exist. Part of me wants to linger on this chapter, but I fear falling behind. We have a schedule, and the massive Mozart piano concerto chapter lurks just ahead. Beware!

Bobby Campbell news update: Maybe Day and 'Tales'

 

Bobby Campbell released a newsletter over the weekend.  I have covered much of his news here, but you should read the whole thing; it's not a long issue.

A couple of things I want to highlight: Maybe Day is Thursday, and again, all of you who can make it are invited to Bobby's pop-up art show. Details above.

Also, I want to note this update on Tales of Illuminatus No. 3: 

The KS ended strong, passing the 100 supporter milestone I was hoping for, and with another few weeks of late pledges available, we may yet surpass the first issue total :)))

Also, not entirely impossible we hit our stretch goal of $5K, at which point I'll add in the "Killing of the King Ritual / 1,000 Points of Light" storyline into The First Trip Trade Paperback.

GET IN ON THE ACTION! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bobbycampbell/tales-of-illuminatus-3-opus-chao

I'm about 70% finished with my pages for issue #3, with most of the heavy lifting completed, and everything starting to come together so super nicely.

The current plan is to cut off orders on the last of the dog days of Summer, August 11th, and start fulfillment on August 23rd!

Mozart's son

Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart in 1825. 

It's well known that J.S. Bach had composer children (RAW apparently was a fan of Johann Christian Bach).  But I somehow did not register until recently that Mozart also had a composer son.

His name was Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (1791-1844). He was born about four months before his father died. The Wikipedia biography says he didn't write a huge amount of music, but claims, "The first concerto could pass for one of his father's late (K. 550 and above) works, except for a youthful exuberance and the piano's tessitura which had been expanded in 1795, just after Mozart senior died. The second concerto is more contemporary to the 1810s with a more virtuosic piano part showing hints that the younger Mozart was developing his own style." There are recordings of the piano concertos I haven't heard yet. 

It also says, "He constantly underrated his talent and feared that whatever he composed would be compared with what his father had done." I can see where that would have been a problem. 

Franz Schubert was his friend and he also knew Robert Schumann. He didn't marry or have any kids, and neither did his brother, the other child of Mozart to survive into adulthood. 

 

More Erik Davis news -- Expanding Mind archived on YouTube

 

I recently shared the news that Erik Davis' out of print High Weirdness book will come out again this fall in an updated edition. But I have more Erik Davis news, via his Burning Shore Substack newsletter: The archives of his Expanding Mind podcast have been made available on YouTube. 

The reason he was moved to do this was because of bad behavior by the folks at the Progressive Radio Network, his original host: 

"That said, none of this grooviness mattered much to PRN, or at least to whatever odious asshat flunky decided, last October, to erase the entirety of the show’s files from the hard discs over at Podbean, which hosted PRN’s shows. Despite the value and loyalty I brought to that janky outfit over the years, they didn’t even do me the courtesy of a heads up. When disappointed fans let me know the show was gone, I tracked down someone at PRN on the phone to ask what happened. Despite my calm demeanor, he just hung up on me."

Erik eventually responded by collecting together all of he shows he could (about half a dozen apparently are lost) and putting them on YouTube. He says,

"There are many great shows, but I am particularly proud of my conversations with Elliot Wolfson, Alan Moore, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Greg Tate, and Pauline Anna Strom."

Links to all of those shows in the newsletter, which is worth a read, but above, I've posted the Alan Moore show, which is the one I want to listen to. 

Maybe Day is soon -- new art and an art show

 

Maybe Day is July 23; see organizer Bobby Campbell's website for details! Not too late, perhaps, to come up with something and participate. The RAW Semantics blog apparently has new art in the works; the above, which I thought was amazing, has been posted on Bluesky in advance. 

And see below for a flyer of the art show in Wilmington, Delaware, Bobby is providing for Maybe Day.

Recommendations for Tim Leary on his Eight Circuit model

In the course of working on a Maybe Day article, I had a question about the Leary-Wilson Eight C'ircuit model of consciousness. It's obvious which RAW book one should read to learn about the model, e.g. Prometheus Rising,  but which Timothy Leary title should one read? I posed the question to a couple of people who had done a lot of research on the model, and I'm sharing their answers here.

Joseph L. Flatley is the author of a new book, The Occult Timothy Leary: The Tarot, Magical States, and Post-Terrestrial Evolution. (See this interview).  When I asked him to suggest a Leary title on the model, he replied:

"Obviously the best introduction to the 8 circuit model is Prometheus Rising. As for Leary's work, I would recommend Neuropolitique, which is a collection of articles written around the time of his release from prison. A lot of them refer to the eight circuit model and are very readable. Even the articles that don't refer to the circuits provide a great introduction to the Leary worldview. His two major reference books on the 8th circuit model, Infopsychology and The Game of Life are really hard to get through and I wouldn't necessarily recommend them to beginners."

Many of you know Mike Gathers from the Hilaritas Press podcast, and he is busy working on an article on the Eight Circuit model, about which more below, but first, here is Mike's answer:

"Good question.  Info-/Exo-psychology is weird.  Like Bucky Fuller on Freud and LSD.  Game of Life is just... super weird. Not my thing.  Flatley led me to appreciate it, but not my thing.  You can find PDFs of Neurologic out there pretty easily. There are two different versions that appear to be two different 1973 printings of the same 'edition.'   It runs 40-60 pages depending on the printing.  Higgs felt it was Leary's best presentation of the model."

"The 44 page version of Neurologic can be found here:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/2350894/NeuroLogic-by-Timothy-Leary

https://www.scribd.com/doc/17278486/NeuroLogic-by-Timothy-Leary

https://mirror.explodie.org/Timothy%20Leary%20-%20Neurologic.pdf 

"I have a 74ish page version that I think is the original, full printing, but I don't see it up on the interent anyway for public access."

As for Mike's upcoming article: "The 8 Circuit Ascencion people are putting together an anthology.  So I have a 4-8000 word chapter that will be a "Then and Now."  Half history of the model and half bringing it up to 2026.   I'm thinking I will do a Leary vlog/pod that goes into more detail.   We'll see what follows.  I seem to have found some motivation on the whole thing and am basically retired (or on a one year sabbatical, depending on my mood) and doing what I want.  The deadline for the chapter is 10/31. "

(Footnote to the above: Despite a similarity in titles, Neurologic and Neuropolitique are separate Leary titles. Neuropolitique is actually a revision of an earlier book,  Neuropolitics: The Sociobiology of Human Metamorphosis.

Also, I have been trying to post fewer links to Amazon -- not an anti-Amazon jihad, just a preference to promote actual bricks and mortar bookstores -- but I could not find a Barnes and Noble link to Neuropolitique and opted to post a useful link. I just bought the ebook of Neuropolitique.)

New 'High Weirdness' available soon

While I was researching an article  for Maybe Day, I noticed that High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies by Erik Davis (focusing on Terence McKenna, Robert Anton Wilson, and Philip K. Dick) appeared to be out of print. On Amazon, the hardcover and the paperback are both listed for about $125.

Well, don't buy it! A new edition is coming soon.

From Erik Davis, after I wrote to him about the matter: "It is currently out of print BUT a new edition (with new afterword and appendixes) will be out this fall from Strange Attractor Press."

I'll try to pay attention when it comes out. 

'The Classical Style' reading group, week eight

 

Joseph Haydn around 1770 (source). 

Part III 

HAYDN FROM 1770 TO THE DEATH OF MOZART 

1  String Quartet 

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger

Mozart died December 5, 1791, age 35. 

On pg. 118, Rosen says of Haydn’s Op. 33 string quartets, “Transitional figures and phrases are almost completely eliminated.” I find this interesting because when Ezra Pound edited T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, he mostly eliminated transitional material, seeing it as unnecessary. Before Pound and Eliot, the notion of the three unities of time, place, and action played a big role in Western literature even though writers like Shakespeare rarely followed the unities. Shakespeare’s The Tempest provides a rare exception: the play takes place in one location on one afternoon. Robert Anton Wilson noticed that films prepared audiences for radical jumps in space and time. D. W. Griffith influenced both Pound and Joyce. Later films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Fifth Element would jump thousands of years from one scene to the next. James Bond films would jump all over the world from scene to scene.  

Literature before Pound and Eliot tended to have transitional material. Pound used radical jump cuts across space and time in The Cantos, and he encouraged Eliot to abandon transitional material in The Waste Land. Rosen illustrates a similar process in Haydn.  

I love Rosen’s writing, but one sentence on page 140 bothers me: “Op. 64 no. 3 in B flat major is one of the great comic masterpieces: the listener who can hear the last movement without laughing aloud knows nothing of Haydn.” I don’t like how he puts the reader on the spot here. The first time I listened to this movement in response to this passage, I did laugh aloud, but I wondered if I found myself nervously laughing because of my fear Rosen would think I knew “nothing of Haydn.” I just listened to it again, and I had a similar experience, laughing insecurely but enjoying the music nonetheless. Cannabis users might experiment with this movement and the quartet as a whole.

Late pledges still taken for 'Tales of Illuminatus No. 3'

Although the Kickstarter for issue number three of Tales of Illuminatus is over and the initial pledges have been paid,  late pledges are still being taken at the Kickstarter site.  It will still help with the project and Bobby Campbell would still appreciate your support. A wide variety of rewards remain available. The planned first trade paperback will have bonus material if the Kickstarter can hit $5,000. 

Update: See Bobby's comment,  below.