'Lost' Beethoven work found

Classical music lovers like to try to figure out who was the greatest composer of all time. Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are usually nominated for the honor, and scholars have been studying the three for years. So it's a surprise to periodically read about a lost work by Beethoven being found.

Here is the latest such article, about a lost hymn that Beethoven modified. The article includes links to pieces about other lost works. (Hat tip, John Merrit).

It would be great if a really major Beethoven work could be found, but alas, this NPR story about the discovery of Beethoven's 10th Symphony came out on April 1.

Eric Wagner's 'Cat' course

With Eric Wagner's Maybe Logic Academy course on the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy drawing near (it starts Nov. 19) I thought I'd note that for me, one of the highlights of Eric's Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson was his essay on The Homing Pigeons.

Lots of other Maybe Academy courses that are coming up look interesting, too; Erik Davis has a class on Cosmic Trigger and classes also will be offered by David Brown, the Rev. Ivan Stang and Lon Milo  Duquette. Full list of upcoming offerings is here.

Quantum Psychology, Chapter 19

[In this chapter, I have mostly copied the exercise, modifying just a bit for the online circumstances. -- The Mgt.]

Let each member of the study group say aloud, "I do this exercize because ... "and then attempt to state "all" the reasons. For instance, you will do this exercize because you are participating in this online discussion group. Why did you join it? How did you get interested in the topics discussed in this book? How  did you find the discussion? How did you arrive at this particular blog among all of the Internet sites around the world?

Carry the analysis further. How did you happen to be born? That is, how did your parents come to meet and mate? How did they come to be born? Amid all the wars, earthquakes, famines and other disasters of human history how did those genetic strains which combined in you survive when so many other genetic strains disappeared?

How did this continent emerge in geological evolution? Can you estimate how many migrations, wars of conquest, economic upheavals etc. led to the genetic strains of your father and mother coming together?

Attempt in at least a rough, vague way to account for the formation of the planet Earth and the appearance of life on Earth.

When each  member has had a chance at this game consider the improbability of all of you coming together at this location on the Internet, at this time, to do this exercize.

It will probably prove necessary to do this exercize at least three times before the full meaning sinks into the neurons.

Fly's RAW radio show

I finally got a chance to sit down and listen to Steve 'Fly' Agaric's recent radio show, COZCON: Fly by Night with Steve the Fly 06,  an episode from Radio Amsterdam, produced by Steve and John Sinclair. (It's hard for me to find time to listen to a streaming program uninterrupted. I don't have a smart phone, so I have to do it at home, rather than during my long daily work commute.)

Anyway, I enjoyed it. The show artfully mixes music with RAW sound bites, and the music is mostly jazz of the sort that RAW enjoyed. (Pretty bitching Charlie Parker track on the show, by the way. I have quite a bit of Bird's music but didn't recognize "Cosmic Rays.")

 Steve's other RAW shows on Radio Amsterdam are SCHROEDINGER'S CAT: Fly by Night 09,  and Nutty Logic With Steve Fly.

I like the Facebook group

I said some grumpy things about Facebook in my last posting on Dan Clore's new group, but I do like the group and hope more of y'all will join.

At the end of the day, the main virtue of Facebook in 2012 is that it's where the people are. The group already has 137 members, and it's fun to join the group just to go through the list and see who's there. I saw some familiar names, and also some names that were  unfamiliar to me, such as Donald Meinshausen, who "Helped found the current libertarian movement by act of ceremonial magick or the draft card burning at the 1969 YAF convention," and folks such as Gavriel Discordia PsyIndustries, George Dorn (he's listed as a member), Raw Fnord, Zanryu Darkheart and Johnny Occupy Lemuria.

It's worth pointing out, I think, that being connected can involve not being on Facebook very much. One I joined, all of the postings on the wall were emailed to me. I only have to log in if I want to make comments and post something myself. You can join and still prefer Twitter, as I do, or join and still hold social media in general in disdain.

UPDATE: Mr. Dorn has now confirmed me as a Facebook friend. Thanks, George!

A new Kennedy assassination theory

Over the years since President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, there have been many theories about what actually happened. The conflicting ideas are not easy to summarize in a short blog post. But most of these theories fall into two categories: (1) Oswald did it all by himself (2) There was a conspiracy involving other folks.

Well, now you don't have to choose! There's a new theory — propounded by a former British diplomat in Moscow, Robert Holmes — that Oswald was the assassin, but was controlled by a KGB rogue element that wanted revenge for the Soviet Union's humiliation the previous year in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Holmes believes that if Oswald hadn't been shot by Jack Ruby, the KGB somehow would have disposed of Oswald to keep him from talking. A new book by Holmes, A Spy Like No Other, advances the theory. It's apparently only out in Great Britain now, but if you're in the U.S. and you can't wait, Amazon will connect you with some sellers.

Thanks to John Merritt for calling the book to my attention.

"Who the hell was Zelenka?"

In the first chapter of The Homing Pigeons, the first book of the Schroedinger's Cat Trilogy, Frank Dashwood turns on the radio and hears a catchy Baroque tune:

Zelenka, he said. Who the hell was Zelenka? Same period as Bach, I'm sure.

I asked Eric Wagner if RAW was a particular fan of composer Jan Dismas Zelenka. Eric's reply is here.

The Allmusic bio of Zelenka makes the composer sound like someone RAW would like: "Zelenka was best known, in his own time as in ours, for his harmonic and dynamic daring. An indefatigable experimentalist, he pushed the often conventional harmonic language of the Baroque to its limits, frequently using chromaticism in general and unresolved chains of suspensions in particular. Zelenka's dynamic markings, quite unusual for the Baroque, bring to mind a composer of the Romantic era. It is to his credit that the unusual devices he employed were woven into a composition's basic concept, and not treated as mere tricks."

For more, see Discover Zelenka.

Pot legalization issues on ballot in three states

Three western states in the U.S. have marijuana legalization issue on the ballot on Nov. 6, Washington, Oregon and Colorado. Jacob Sullum has a roundup on the latest polls at Reason's Hit and Run blog. Sullum is consistently excellent in covering "war on some drugs" issues; you can follow him on Twitter.

RAW on General Semantics and sex

Bruce Kodish, a General Semantics expert who is writing the first full length biography of Alfred Korzybski and who blogs at Korzybki Files, has generously shared a previously "lost" Robert Anton Wilson article with me, "Sex1, Sex2.......etc." which I have posted under "Feature Articles and Interviews." It's taken from a 1959 issue of the "Training Division Newsletter" of the Institute of General Semantics. (Incidentally, Wilson refers at the end of his article to a planned sequel, but Mr. Kodish has not found any sign of it in the archives.)

Quantum Psychology, Chapter 18

[I reproduce the exercizes unchanged here. As with many of them, they will likely make the most sense of you have actually read the chapter in question. -- The Mgt.]

1. J. Edgar Hoover, head of our secret police for over 50 years, now appears to have lived the life of an active homosexual. He kept files on the sexual behavior of politicians, business people, actors and anybody who could advance or harm his career, and used these files for blackmail.

Try to figure out Mr. Hoover's imprinted and conditioned selves, according to the above analysis.

2. Try the same on Jesus Christ.

3. Try Thomas Jefferson.

4. Let each member of the study group pick some subject or victim -- not part of the group, but someone the member sees daily. Let the member study that person carefully and analyze which selves appear most often, how frequently the selves shift, and which self (if any) appears dominant most of the time.

5. This exercize will seem the hardest in the group, but try it, anyway. Observe yourself for a week, and try to see which selves appear most often, if one self appears dominant, etc.

alt.fan.rawilson members mull a move

The folks who participate at the alt.fan.wilson Usenet group have been discussing whether their platform is cool because it's old school or a crummy old platform that makes them less visible to the Internet at large. The discussion was kicked off by Brian Shields, who wrote, "I love interacting with you guys but I just never go to Usenet anymore (most of my friends under the age of 25 have never HEARD of Usenet).

"So can we reform this as a Facebook group or some other platform that people actually use and thus we might reach a new audience instead of just talking to ourselves?

"Or am I being unrealistic?"

The gist of the discussion that follows is whether the group should increase its visibility by migrating to Facebook. The downside of this is that everyone would have to hang out on Facebook.

In related news, Dan Clore has created a new Facebook group for Wilson fans. I've joined, although to tell you the truth, I don't like Facebook very much. The upside is that is where the people are, although the Usenet group would never been completely invisible as long as sites such as this one and Maybe Logic Academy link to it. I guess nobody wants to hang out at Google Plus? I should add that there are lots of postings already at the Facebook group, which I guess validates Mr. Shields' original point. High drama -- will Eric Wagner and Michael Johnson join Facebook?

More Illuminatus! bibliography items from Andrew Crawshaw

Andrew Crawshaw, who has been posting a series of entries on his blog that provide a bibliography for Illuminatus!, has posted a new entry, for for Malkuth (i.e, the Tenth Trip, in Leviathan.) His previous Illuminatus! entries, including previous bibliography posts, are here. I've added a link under "Resources."

No Governor No. 10 posted

I have posted issue no. 10 of "No Governor," Robert Shea's "Zine of Illuminated Anarchism," in the "Feature Articles and Interviews" links on the right side of the page. Issue No. 10 has no Robert Anton Wilson material this time, but there are discussions about RAW and about topics explored in Illuminatus! That said, I would add that my interest in Shea has grown since I began this blog and that Shea, and not just Wilson, is worth paying attention to. Issues of "No Governor" are posted with the permission of Robert Shea's son, Mike Shea, who maintains the official Robert Shea web site. Again, I would like to thank the kind folks at the University of Michigan library for making these materials available.