Wednesday links

One of the Duncan Harvey photos of Robert Anton Wilson

February Eris of the month. 

New collection from Nabokov fan Martin Amis. 

Good roundup on Iain Banks' great Culture series.

New Yorker story apparently draws from early Nabokov novel. 

The classical liberal roots of abolitionism. 

Review of 'Autonomous' by Annalee Newitz.

Dangerous Minds on Ken Campbell's Illuminatus! production, etc. But the credit for the RAW photo should be Duncan Harvey, not "via John Higgs."

'The Adventures of Acidman' looks interesting

Here is the blurb for The Adventures of Acidman: Psychedelics and the Evolution of Consciousness in Science Fiction and Superhero Comics from the 1960s Onward by Ian S. Garlington:

This research project explores the connections between psychedelics and the ways that SF and comics writers have envisioned superhuman or evolved human consciousness. More specifically it considers how the writing techniques associated with high literary modernism (Joyce, Pound and so on) would be employed in revolutionary new ways within an emerging sub-genre of SF of which the superhero narrative in its pure, non-ideological form, is but a single instance. The introduction will explain why this project is a cosmic imperative and the subsequent chapters will offer evidence for these absurd claims through in-depth textual analyses of the works of Thomas M. Disch, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Crumb, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. Lick the Leary epigraph to see if you are one of the lucky 23!

It sounds interesting; has anyone read it? I only heard of it when I saw Adam Gorightly's blog post, "Emails from the Acidman."

Pale Fire online reading group, Week Seven

Mary McCarthy. Public domain photo  by Dick DeMarsico, World Telegram staff photographer - Library of Congress. Via Wikipedia bio of McCarthy. 

This week: Commentary for Lines 181-182 to commentary for Line 334. Pages 108 to 123 in my old paperback, but your mileage may vary.

Line 230 commentary: " ... his picture of Hazel is quite clear and complete; maybe a little too complete ... " Talk about an unreliable narrator, here is an unreliable commentator, actually complaining about the poem being about the poet's dead daughter, rather than the commentator!

Line 238 commentary: If you wondered what a cicada looks like:

Annual cicada: Creative Commons photo by Bruce Marlin. 

Line 247 commentary: "a king sized botfly." Could refer to Prof. Botkin, possibly Kinbote's real identity. Bot flies, also known as gadflies, have larvae that are internal parasites of mammals.

One of Poussin's Arcadian Shepherds paintings, e.g. "Et in Arcadio ego" paintings. 

Line 286 commentary, first paragraph: "Even in Arcady, am I, says Death." A translation of "Et in Arcadio ego."  Which is the title of a well-known painting.  Which connects to the work of Robert Anton Wilson. As the Wikipedia article I just linked to puts it: "The authors of the pseudohistory The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982), under the false impression that 'et in arcadia ego' was not a proper Latin sentence, proposed that it is an anagram for I! Tego arcana dei, which translates to 'Begone! I keep God's secrets', suggesting that the tomb contains the remains of Jesus or another important Biblical figure." The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail theory is referenced in RAW's work. See for example RAW's reference to the painting in "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" in Email to the Universe.

Readers of this blog also will enjoy a private amusement that this paragraph of Nabokov's has the number 23. It's also amusing that this famous modernist novel can be connected, however fleetingly, to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

I recently discovered that Mary McCarthy's famous review of Pale Fire is online. Read it here.  For a time, McCarthy was married to Edmund Wilson, once an important friend of Vladimir Nabokov.

"This centaur-work of Nabokov's, half poem, half prose, this merman of the deep, is a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality, and moral truth. Pretending to be a curio, it cannot disguise the fact that it is one of the very great works of art of this century, the modern novel that everyone thought dead and that was only playing possum." -- Mary McCarthy

Fan art for Team Human

Team Human, a podcast created by Douglas Rushkoff, features folks such as R.U. Sirius.

Recently, one of the listeners to the podcast created artwork for the podcast. The listener was Bobby Campbell! Above, his rendition of Rushkoff.

More examples here, includes R.U. Sirius.

Crowdfunding effort launches for Terence McKenna archives

An effort has been launched at GoFundMe to benefit the Terence McKenna archives. There are several different projects that will benefit from the money, and the catalog of goodies you get if you decide to chip in is huge, so I won't try to summarize it here. Go look at the website.

One of the reward items, at $100, is "Robert Venosa's Illuminatus with text by Terence McKenna. Large, hardcover fine art book. "A fantastic journey into the canyons of the imagination." -T. McKenna"

On Twitter, @advantardeodus remarked to me (privage message), "The Venosa art book 'Illuminatus' could be the link to the H R Giger art piece called Illuminatus as he is mentioned in relation to the book on Amazon."

A $2,012 donation results in a bunch of goodies, but you also get to make "focused research requests" to the archivist. Are there any RAW fans out there with money? @advantardeodus also points out, "The $2,012 donation level could perhaps lead someone to ask for a deep look into any RAW connections."

It always stings a little when I hear about the McKenna or Leary archives. There's no comparable Robert Anton Wilson or Robert Shea archive, alas.

Finding free ebooks by Robert Shea

These days, Iluminatus! co-author Robert Shea is less well known and less discussed that his writing partner, Robert Anton Wilson.

From 1981 until his death in 1994, however, Shea was a successful writer of historical novels, including All Things Are Lights, a personal favorite of mine that I've described as a "thematic prequel" to Illuminatus! All of his books are worth reading.

Recently, while researching Shea for an upcoming project, I discovered that many of his titles have become available as free ebooks. His son and literary executor, Michael E. Shea, has been more interested in keeping his father's works and ideas alive than in trying to squeeze out the last bit of book royalties.

Here's a guide to what's available as free ebooks. Many of these books also can be purchased as modestly priced used books.

All Things Are Lights

Set in the 12th century, All Things Are Lights is about a knight and troubadour named Roland. He gets himself into many adventures, including participating rather against his well in Crusades against the Cathars in southern France and the Muslims of Egypt, and also has a complicated love life.

As I've implied, All Things Are Lights can be read as a straightforward action novel. But as I wrote earlier, "there is rather more material than I expected about secret societies and secret occult teachings. The Templars and Cathars feature prominently in the book, and Gnosticism, paganism, sexual tantra and the Assassins also are referenced. The book's hero, Roland de Vency, has a skeptical attitude toward authority and an agnostic attitude toward religions."

Simon Moon in Illuminatus! explains Shea's title: ""An Irish Illuminatus of the ninth century, Scotus Ergina, put it very simply— in five words, of course —when he said Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt:
'All things that are, are lights.' "

I've read quite a few historical novels, and All Things Are Lights is one of my favorites. You can download it as an HTML file, which formats nicely on a Kindle ebook reader. The opening of the book draws you in.

Shaman

A frontier novel that focuses on Native Americans. Available as a free download in Various formats from Project Gutenberg. 

Saracen: Land of the Infidel and its sequel Saracen: The Holy War 

The son of the main characters in All Things Are Lights is one of the characters in these two related novels. Available as free ebooks at Project Gutenberg. 

Shike: Time of the Dragons and Shike: Last of the Zinja 

The two Shike books are available for purchase as Kindle ebooks. The reviews on Amazon complaint that there is text missing from Shike: Time of the Dragons. I called this to Mike Shea's attention and he promised to look into it.  He is unhappy with the publisher and will fix the situation in May, when he can reclaim the Kindle rights.

Although it isn't publicized on BobShea.net, the Wikipedia article on the Shike books has a link to a Creative Commons version of the two books. 

Unreleased book

BobShea.net also lists an unpublished book, Lady Yang.

I asked Mike Shea about his plans for the book. It won't be available in the near future because it would require considerable work to get it ready for publication.

Thursday links

RAW on the Second Amendment. Obviously, since he campaigned for the Guns and Dope Party, his feelings were complicated. See also this.

Related to that second link above? 

Tarot cards controversy roils Virginia town.  Via Jeff Wolfe on Twitter. 

Podcast on Jack Parsons. 

Slavoj Žižek on Jordan Peterson.

Iain Banks Culture novel to become TV series. 

I just liked this picture. 

Interesting Twitter exchange

Bobby Campbell's illustration for his @RAWilson23 Twitter account 

"The Number 23" WAS A Tribute To Robert Anton Wilson! https://t.co/ThBbpDSHE1 pic.twitter.com/SXF7GzHxqh

— Robert Anton Wilson (@RAWilson23) February 19, 2018

Yeah, it’s a shame they made this multi-million-dollar movie about his work without paying RAW a penny *while he was dying in poverty* - such a tribute.

— Cat 'Nazi Tweets Sod Off' Vincent (@catvincent) February 19, 2018

While currently treating him as a “brand” and an icon and a guru with bumper sticker catchphrases and “official merchandise” is good because the family gets money...that’s also not an entirely faithful tribute to the actual philosophy he wrote. But that’s just my reality tunnel.

— Valerie D'Orazio (@StuffValWrites) February 19, 2018

That is mostly an American stance; in UK, we work more with his actual legacy, as in the Cosmic Trigger play (written with family permission).

— Cat 'Nazi Tweets Sod Off' Vincent (@catvincent) February 19, 2018

Fair enough!

— Valerie D'Orazio (@StuffValWrites) February 19, 2018

Worth noting that the RAW brand & merch stuff was around while he was still alive, and done by the same people doing it now, and the money not only goes to his family, but they then put it back into keeping his books in print. Seems faithful enough to me!

— Robert Anton Wilson (@RAWilson23) February 19, 2018

I mostly mean the shallow icon thing.

— Cat 'Nazi Tweets Sod Off' Vincent (@catvincent) February 19, 2018

Everyone gets the RAW they deserve :)))

— Robert Anton Wilson (@RAWilson23) February 19, 2018

More at the link.  

'The Number 23' inspired by RAW

The Number 23 is apparently an infamously bad movie. The 2007 flick has picked up many bad reviews. But Val at the Butterfly Language blog has discovered something interesting: The screenwriter was inspired by Robert Anton Wilson.

Val had always suspected some RAW inspiration in the film but finally found proof when she found a report of an article originally published on Feb. 23, 2007, in the Sacramento Bee. Excerpt from Rachel Leibrock's article:

If there's an unofficial patron saint of the 23 set, it's novelist Robert Anton Wilson, whose 1977 book "Cosmic Trigger" explored the number in Burroughs' works as an attempt to connect the digits to the universe on a larger scale.

It was Wilson, who died in January, who inspired screenwriter Fernley Phillips to pen "The Number 23" script.

"I'd always been interested in numbers and math, and how they work together," Phillips says on the phone from L.A. "We all know about (the significance) of seven and 13 -- but we don't know about 23 and how it blends the weird with the scientific."

That's when 23 started popping up all over Phillips' world.

"I'd see it in newspaper headlines, clocks, license plates and street addresses," he says.

Pale Fire online reading group, Week Six

Cover of January 1964 issue of Playboy magazine, which included an interview with Vladimir Nabokov. 

This week: Commentary for Line 149 to Commentary to Line 181.

I read this particular section on my birthday, enjoying the sentences and the witticisms. There are so many good sentences in this book, and I particularly like this one: "I saw a world-famous old writer, bent under the incubus of literary honors and his own prolific mediocrity, arrive in a taxi out of the dim times of yore when Shade and he had been joint editors of a little review." (From the commentary to line 181).

Comments on some other bits:

Line 149 commentary: Kinbote seems to be repulsed by the sort of young women who delight most men and his artfully phrased repugnance is a recurring amusing motif in the novel: "A sleepy and sullen expression blurred whatever appeal her snub-nosed round face might have had for the local shepherds .... " Is it just me, or is the whole section about Garh an inversion of the old dirty jokes about the farmer's daughter?

Line 172, books and people: "Prof. Pnin....happily, Prof. Botkin..." Pnin is presumably a reference to Nabokov's novel, Pnin. Pay close attention to the references to Prof. Botkin.

Line 172, books and people: It seems to me that this is Nabokov speaking directly, under the guise of Shade -- the comments attributed to Shade sounds like the statements Nabokov made in his interview with Playboy magazine. 

A couple of bits from the interview:

Nabokov: I think my favorite fact about myself is that I have never been dismayed by a critic’s bilge or bile, and have never once in my life asked or thanked a reviewer for a review.

And also:

Nabokov: To return to my lecturing days: I automatically gave low marks when a student used the dreadful phrase “sincere and simple”—“Flaubert writes with a style which is always simple and sincere”—under the impression that this was the greatest compliment payable to prose or poetry. When I struck the phrase out, which I did with such rage in my pencil that it ripped the paper, the student complained that this was what teachers had always taught him: “Art is simple, art is sincere.” Someday I must trace this vulgar absurdity to its source. A schoolmarm in Ohio? A progressive ass in New York? Because, of course, art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex.

"Art at its greatest is fantastically deceitful and complex." The credo behind his most "complex" and "deceitful" novel, Pale Fire?

'Community' according to the Eight Circuit model

Bobby Campbell's rendition of the character Annie Edison from Community 

I don't pay close attention to TV, so I'm not familiar with the Community TV show, although apparently it was a well-regarded situation comedy. 

Bobby Campbell obviously knows the show, however, and has posted an analysis of the show, relating the characters to the Eight Circuit model of consciousness. I don't know the show, but admire Bobby's mastery of the model.

 Actress Alison Brie, who played Annie Edison. Creative Commons photo by Gage Skidmore. 

Saturday links

Cybernetic Samurai won the Prometheus Award in 1986.

Author Victor Milán (Prometheus Award winner) has died.

Headline of the day.

Frederick Douglass, individualist. Piece by Jesse Walker. 

Jeff Sessions' cruel prescription for pain. 

Former Canadian minister says Illuminati runs the world. 

Online discussion group news

As the online discussion of Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire continues, I have dates to announce for the planned online discussion of Joseph Kerman's book, The Beethoven Quartets.

The Kerman discussion will be led by Jeopardy champ Eric Wagner (author of An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson) and will focus not just on Beethoven and Kerman's book but on Robert Anton Wilson's interest in Beethoven and how Beethoven's music connects to Wilson's work.

"I plan to write weekly pieces on the Kerman Beethoven book starting August 6, with the official group beginning August 13 and running eighteen weeks until December 10," Eric says.

About the Kerman book, Eric says, " I gave copies of this book to both Robert Anton Wilson and Rafi Zabor. I took a copy of it with me when I appeared on Jeopardy."

Wait, what? I asked Eric the obvious follow-up question.

" I won $10,001 and the home version of the game when I appeared Jeopardy November 30 and December 1, 1999, and I got to talk with Alec Trebek about E-Prime and Aleister Crowley on national television. My Double Jeopardy categories included "Shakespeare" and "Movie Quotes". When my wife in the audience saw the categories, she turned to her son and said, "We're going to Paris."

Eric trampling his opponents. And he didn't even get any Beethoven questions!