The new biography of Wilson seems very promising

RAW biographer Prop Anon

No, I haven't been offered an advance look at the book. But R.U. Sirius has just done a new interview with Prop Anon (aka Gabriel Kennedy), author of the forthcoming Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson,  and it's very good, full of new information about Robert Anton Wilson's life and suggesting that the new book will be accurate and fair, and won't shy away from touchy subjects such as Wilson's attitudes toward feminism.

I also could not find any mistakes in Prop's statements, a good sign. Prop doesn't strike me as a libertarian, but his discussion of Wilson's libertarian beliefs, and how Wilson differed from more conventional libertarians, is quite good.

Here's a bit, about Wilson and Robert Shea: "Wilson and Shea became fast friends at Playboy. They would hang out together at the bar on payday. They, and their wives, would all hang out, smoke weed, watch TV or listen to records and think of funny sketches that made each other laugh. They had a lot in common: Both raised Irish Catholic, both left the Church young, both seeking to become full time free-lance writers. They both really dug into the Anarchist perspective."

Read the whole thing.

Also,  here is a Mondo article about a punk rock documentary Prop appears in.

Book note: 'The Genius Plague'

One of the best science fiction novels I have read recently is The Genius Plague by David Walton, in which a plague created by a fungus threatens to take over the world, to the advantage of the fungus and to the detriment of the human race. The people infected by the fungus become a collective ready to kill and control everyone else. In Robert Anton Wilson terms, the fungus threatens to put everyone into the same reality tunnel. I've nominated it for the Prometheus Award.

'Grab the nearest book'

"He walked to the next patch, this one on the ground, and found the same thing -- an area full of fungi, but only this one small patch glowing."

(The Genius Plague, David Walton).

From Bob Stierle in Robert Anton Wilson Fans on Facebook.

Why I hate politics

                                                          Mug shot of Emma Goldman

Supergee did a post not too long ago on why he hates politics. I have to pay attention to politics because of my day job, so I am reasonably well informed, although if I ever get to retire I hope to be able to not "keep up."

Robert Anton Wilson said somewhere that if voting made a difference, it would be made illegal; a similar statement is attributed sometimes to Emma Goldman.

My chief complaints are these:

(1) Much of politics is a waste of time, in the sense of being political theater. While we engage on loud noisy debates over, say, the exact circumstances in which Christian bakers can refuse service, or whether women working for Catholic employers should have to pay for their own birth control (issues that will ultimately be decided by the courts rather than elected officials), we apparently can't have a serious debate on whether the U.S. should be endlessly at war, or have a gigantic defense budget far beyond what we need to actually defend our shores.

While I think Bryan Caplan exaggerates a little bit, I agree with him that the differences between Republicans and Democrats are not as great as people like to pretend.

(2) I agree with Gene Healy that politics makes people worse. If my Twitter feed is any indication, it certainly seems to make people seem mean and dumb.   Of course, I can't stand Trump, but are Democrats any better? They produce people like Amanda Marcotte, who actually makes a living misrepresenting others' views and trying to foment hatred.  I can't believe even Democrats like her, or that even Republicans like Trump or Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh, although obviously tastes differ.

I realize that for many, misrepresenting the views of others and inciting hatred is the point, but that's not what my favorite commentators do. The sorts of folks I cite here, such as Tyler Cowen and Bryan Caplan, express plenty of opinions, but they don't resort to smearing to get their points across.

Meme I liked

Via Jake Shannon on Twitter.

Thursday links

"Advert for the 1985 Dublin World Premiere of Robert Anton Wilson's 'Wilhelm Reich in Hell' from Hot Press magazine." Source. 

Nick Herbert poem on the universe next door.

Gurdjieff action figure. 

Bobby Campbell mourns Halladay. (British friends and others outside U.S., an American baseball player killed in a plane crash.)

"How the Denver airport became an icon of the Illuminati."

Church of the SubGenius documentary Kickstarter succeeds

Projects that use Kickstarter to raise money for projects have to live on the edge: It's all or nothing on the site, and if you don't meet the goal the project fails. I'm pleased to report that the Kickstarter for "Slacking Towards Bethlehem," the planned new documentary about the Church of the SubGenius,  met its $199,999 goal. The deadline was Wednesday, and as of Tuesday night, it had reached $202,697. More information here.

'Beginner's Guide' to RAW

Samuel Morningstar

Disinfo.com has launched a new "Beginner's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson" series with a Part I article written by Samuel Morningstar.

"In this three-part series, I will present the books I (and other RAW fans) consider the foundation of his work, the bare minimum you need to read to gain an understanding of the man and what he was trying to accomplish. For sanity’s sake, I’m limiting this to just his non-fiction works," Morningstar writes. 

Part One is about Cosmic Trigger. It's a nice piece that covers model agnosticism and other matters.

"The other important point that Wilson makes over and over (and people tend to miss) is how vital it is to maintain a compassionate, forgiving, and loving attitude. Compassion is important not only for surviving in a human world where selfish, predatory behavior is rewarded more often than not, but also for navigating the often rocky waters of divine revelation. There’s a reason every spiritual path on the planet places its primary focus on love and forgiveness.  This was one of the hardest lessons for me to learn, being a natural curmudgeon. I can attest from personal experience that trying to perform magick or run the energy orbits while angry or upset is a great way to screw up your life, including, but not limited to, giving yourself some really spectacular migraines," Morningstar writes.

I like RAW's fiction best of all, but I like the nonfiction, too. Let's see if I can guess the other two titles Morningstar will cover. I'm going to say Prometheus Rising and Quantum Psychology.  Probably not Cosmic Trigger II, my personal favorite among the nonfiction works.

More on Samuel Morningstar. 

A new Ezra Pound book

Mug shot of Ezra Pound, when he went into captivity in 1945. 

Supergee reviews a new book about Ezra Pound, The Bughouse by Daniel Swift. 

"Some critics I respect (Hugh Kenner, Robert Anton Wilson) love him; others (Christopher Hitchens, Clive James) do not; and the latest book about him—The Bughouse, by David Swift—suggests an explanation. Swift says that bad poetry is hard to write about, and there is much of that in Pound, but the good parts are good enough to keep the critics busy," Supergee observes. "As the title suggests, The Bughouse deals with Pound’s years in St. Elizabeths Hospital (which is now headquarters for Homeland Security; you can’t make these things up) after World War II."

The conclusion? "If you are interested in Pound, this is a part of the story well worth reading."

More here.

Church of the SubGenius documentary planned

Ivan Stang 

There's a Kickstarter going on, ending Wednesday, for a Church of the SubGenius documentary. At present, it's a bit short of the the goal. Lots of goodies for those who chip in.

This purports to be a documentary that will "tell the true and unabridged story of the Church of the SubGenius."

The Rev. Ivan Stang plays is straight in an interview about the planned film with Texas Monthly, although unfortunately no one thought to ask about the influence of Discordianism or Robert Anton Wilson.

Still, it's an interesting interview. At one point, Stang (explaining why he's playing it straight this time) says, "Another thing is, look what happened to other put-ons when nobody was around to say, 'Hey look, this started as a put-on.' Scientology, the Mormons, the entire New Age basically sprang from joke pamphlets done by a couple guys with fake names four hundred years ago. A lot of people don’t know that history. I’m acutely aware of it, and I don’t want the church of the SubGenius to turn into Scientology. There’s people who would do that. Who would actually try to make it into a little army, where certain types of thinking is correct and incorrect."

RAW haiku

Pipzi Williams on Twitter often Tweets haiku that references the work of Robert Anton Wilson. Three recent examples:

it's not one of mine

elmyr has forged a haiku

no. wait. is this mine?

#haiku @AsiaArgento xxxxxxx.

Universe contains

a yes, no, maybe, so what,

bollocks, and fuck me

#haiku #senryu

no fucking first line

no wife, no horse, no mustache

nothing else matters

#haiku

Butterfly Language's 'Mutant Days'

Butterfly Language author Val D'Orazio

It is really yourself that is the final arbiter. If you keep yourself as the final arbiter, you will yourself be less susceptible to infection by cultural illusion. Now, the problem with this is that it makes you feel bad to not be infected by cultural illusion because it’s called alienation…the reason you feel alienated is because the society is infantile, trivial and stupid. And so the cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation.

—Terence McKenna

I really like the above quote. Because it reminds me that I need to get around to reading more Terence McKenna. Because I feel alienated, particularly so these days, from many of my fellow Americans. I can't forgive Republicans or the Republican Party for making Donald Trump president, but the left in the U.S. often seems just as mean and dishonest as the right.  I'm also irritated by many libertarians, at least the ones who have become Donald Trump fans. 

But I also like the quote because it beings a new autobiographical series of posts at Butterfly Language that I found particularly interesting, "Mutant Days." Part One is here. Then you can read Part Two. I am looking forward to more.   

Ebook bargains

Transatlantic Fan Fund free ebooks. New on the site, according to Dave Langford's Ansible: "Running Amok in the Fun Factory_ is an anthology of favourite UK convention reports selected and introduced by Graham Charnock. _Temple at the Bar_ by sf author and early UK fan William F. (Bill) Temple, edited and introduced by the ever-industrious Rob Hansen, collects Temple's humorous fanzine writing from 1938 to 1960 -- with many a dig at his good friend Arthur C. 'Ego' Clarke. Further titles are on the way, including at least one December release."

Speaking of Clarke, the Collected Stories — all of his short fiction, a huge anthology — is $1.99 for Kindle in the U.S. this month.