A visit to the Bob Dylan Center

Bob Dylan holding the placards in the video for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'

I have often been on board with Robert Anton Wilson's artistic judgments, but his condemnation of Bob Dylan in this interview amuses me. ("Dylan seems to me a totally pernicious influence -- the nasal whine of death and masochism. Certainly, this would be a more cheerful world if there were no Dylan records in it. But Dylan and his audience mirror each other, and deserve each other; as Marx said, a morbid society creates its own morbid grave-diggers.") Nobody ever played "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" or "Blowin' in the Wind" for Wilson and suggested he listen to the lyrics?

In any event, as every serous music nerd I know likes Dylan, I thought I would mention my visit to the Bob Dylan Center, a new museum in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, which opened only last year and which houses his archives. 

It's not in a huge space, but I would describe it as information dense, with many documents on display to read, films to watch, songs to listen to, audio narratives to ingest. I spent quite a bit of time there and I feel I would be able to learn more when I get back. 

A Dylan fan from Colorado gave me permission to photograph her as she looked at the exhibits. 

A letter to Bob Dylan from George Harrison. 

Some of my favorite Dylan albums are Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Nashville Skyline, Blood on the Tracks and Before the Flood. My favorite of his live performances is probably at the Concert for Bangla Desh, available on the Internet Archive.  And I really liked the Traveling Wilburys. 

'THE SECOND OSWALD: United States of Conspiracies -- From the JFK Assassination to QAnon'

 

Jesse Walker explains on X, "Video of my conversation with @acodrescu [Andrei Codrescu] about Kerry Thornley, recorded earlier this week at the Bowery Poetry Club after a performance of Andrei's play The Second Oswald." They also talk about Jesse's book, The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory.  Codrescu tells Walker, "I first heard about Thornley from your book." Jesse is in good form, telling stories about Robert Anton Wilson and Paul Krassner, discussing Illuminatus! and Cosmic Trigger, and telling one questioner exactly how many Discordians there were (readers of this blog will get the joke.) 

Previous post about The Second Oswald play. 

Previous post on The Second Oswald podcast series. 

PQ on being in the Guardian

Peter Quadrino (photo from X)

I had missed it when I wrote yesterday's blog post, but Peter Quadrino has weighed in about being featured in the Guardian's article about the Gerry Fialka reading group for Finnegans Wake. Excerpt: 

"I am honored to be a part of this celebration of Wake reading groups around the world. The author, Lois Beckett, did a great job covering the oddity of one-page-a-meeting reading groups dedicated to Joyce's bizarre night-book. To look at a global newspaper and see the front page with all the wars and turmoil and then have this article appear next to all of it feels like a celebration of the eternal forces of creativity and imagination. Poetry, the realm of the mind, the joy of art, language and humanity, remains undefeated."

More here. 

Finnegans Wake reading group finishes first pass after 28 years

Gerry Fialka. (Creative Commons photo by David Healey, source.) 

Two familiar names pop up in the  Guardian's article about a Finnegans Wake study group in Venice, California, that has completed its first survey of the book after 28 years.

Peter Quadrino, 38, joined Fialka’s group around 2008 or 2009. He would drive up three hours from San Diego, where he lived, to attend the meeting. “If you’re really interested in Finnegans Wake, it’s kind of hard to find people who will talk about it with you.”

Because Joyce spent 17 years of his life working on the book and then died not long after it was published, “He didn’t really get to explain it,” Quadrino said. “It’s up to us to figure it out, and figure out why he was so devoted to it.”

When Quadrino moved to Austin, Texas, in 2011, he did not want to stop reading, so he put up fliers around town, put some ads in the newspaper, and started his own Texas-based group. Twelve years in, Quadrino’s group is now about halfway through Finnegans Wake, putting them on track to complete the whole thing in about 24 years.

Joyce scholar (and RAW scholar) Eric Wagner has said one of his favorite maxims is "slowness is beauty." I looked closely at the photo accompanying the article but I didn't see Eric. 

Gerry Fialka, the guy who organized the group, did a long interview with Bobby Campbell that I wrote about a couple of years ago.   Fialka worked for Frank Zappa for years and has done other interesting things, see this Wikipedia bio. 

Just to be clear, Gerry's group hasn't finished but has begun again on studying the Wake. 

RAW biography now to come out in August 2024

Douglas Rushkoff (Creative Commons photo By FRONT from Belfast, Northern Ireland)

On Facebook, Toby Philpott spots some news: The new Gabriel Kennedy/Prop Anon biography of Robert Anton Wilson is now listed as having a publication date of August 6, 2024.

This is the second time the book has been delayed by Strange Attractor Press; originally, the book was supposed to come out this fall, and then it was delayed until February 2024. I know Prop worked really hard on the book and I really want to read it; I guess we just have to be patient. Perhaps it is a positive sign that Strange Attractor wants to make sure the book is done right. 

On Facebook, Prop replied to Toby that he believes this will be "the last push back." 

The publisher's announcement lists the book as having 304 pages and introductions by Douglas Rushkoff and Grant Morrison. 

RIP Antero Alli

Antero Alli

Filmmaker, author and Eight Circuit authority Antero Alli has died. Sad news, but not unexpected. Here is the notice posted on Facebook:

"I have lived by a code of 'amor fati' for many years - in love with What Is; whatever fate comes my way, I accept.  This is no passive acquiescence or subordination to death but a revolution of Spirit to the deep mystery pulsing at the very heart of existence itself."  Antero Alli, March, 2023

Antero came to redefine death as "Genesis" - a new beginning, a portal into the next chapter of his journey.  Our beloved Antero transcended into Genesis yesterday around 12:45pm at home in Portland, Oregon.   In his words, "Honestly, I'm not one to mourn over but to celebrate..."

Arto Antero Alexander Alli

11/11/1952 - 11/9/2023

The Hilaritas Press podcast interview remains available.  You can read the Wikipedia bio. As he wrote in a recent Facebook message, he worked very hard in his last months to get more work out.  If you click the "Antero Alli" tag on this post, you'll see a lot more information from this blog.

Lovecraft series podcast

 

Image from Ong's Hat account on X (i.e. Joseph Matheny). 

I spent the days before Halloween listening to the first season of The Lovecraft Investigations, the BBC drama podcast. ; it is a somewhat free  adaptation of "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." I enjoyed it and I plan to listen to the other episodes.

Sitting Now has posted a podcast interview with Julian Sampson, the show's creator. 

Saturday links

This is circulating on social media but I don't have a source, sorry. 

 Support for marijuana legalization in U.S. the strongest it's ever been. 

Why are American troops still in Iraq and Syria? 

The man carrying the sticks on that Led Zeppelin album cover has been identified. 

Lawmakers ask Biden to drop prosecution of Assange.  It's a mix of "far left" Democrats and "far right" and libertarian-leaning Republicans. 

Drug legalization handbook released. 

Latest Joseph Matheny news

 In his latest newsletter, Joseph Matheny reports that Ong's Hat Compleat, the definitive version of perhaps his best-known work, will be out next  year. He also asks for reviews and offers other news, so check it out. (One of the email addresses for sending him reviews had a typo, so see this.) 

Please note that a spoken word RAW album Matheny produced, The Lost Studio Session, remains available as a free download at the Internet Archive.  I bought it when it came out and enjoyed it. 

'Golden Apple' shop in San Francisco

The owners of Golden Apple Metaphysical in San Francisco. 

I was recently amused to discover that there's a magick shop in San Francisco called Golden Apple Metaphysical. Much of what it offers is online.

The two owners are Diana Rajchel, who "co-organizes the Emperor Norton Pagan Social, a  San Francisco based, non trad specific meetup welcoming magickal people of all paths, even those that might conflict with one another," and Nikki Jobin, also a coorganizer of the Emperor Norton Pagan Social. 

Marijuana legalization passes in Ohio

Photo by Ryan Lange on Unsplash

Issue Two, the marijuana legalization state question, passed in Ohio. Abortion rights (which got much more attention) also passed. Ohio, where I live, is now the 24th state to have approved legal marijuana for all adults. (Oklahoma, where I used to live, technically has only medical marijuana, but it's a very liberal version of medical marijuana that amounts to full legalization). 

There is an important difference  between the two state questions in Ohio. The abortion issue amended the state constitution, making passage difficult for politicians to overturn, but the marijuana question amends state law. So it's possible that the Republican-dominated state legislature could change provisions of the new legalization law or even repeal it. The spokesman for the "vote yes" campaign on the marijuana issue told me he expects lawmakers to respect the results; I guess we'll see.  

As I wrote in one of my other newspaper articles about the ballot issue, if legalization is allowed to go forward in Ohio, it will shift huge amounts of money (and tax revenues) from Michigan to Ohio; prices in Michigan marijuana stores have dropped sharply, and much of the industry's sales comes from Ohio consumers. (As I wrote in that article, the small town of Morenci, Michigan, right on the Ohio border, has no grocery stores but five marijuana stores).

Ohio is hardly a left wing state -- it has been trending Republican in recent  years -- but the legalization measure passed with a solid 57% voting yes. 

Jacob Sullum at Reason magazine is reliably excellent in his "war on some drugs" coverage; here is his article on Ohio's marijuana state question. 

I really enjoyed the Oberon Zell-Ravenheart podcast

 

Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (photo from official website). 

I really enjoyed the Hilaritas Press podcast with Oberson Zell-Ravenheart. He is the pagan author and leader who founded The Church of All Worlds, a religion based on Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Topics included "sharing water" with RAW (a reference you will get if you've read Heinlein's novel), Green Egg magazine, his correspondence with Heinlein,  how paganism relates to the changing of the seasons, raising unicorns and more. He is an interesting and intelligent person. He didn't know Robert Shea well, but was good friends with Shea's widow, Patricia Monaghan. See the podcast website for useful show notes and additional information. Oberon hopes you'll consider picking up his latest book, GaeaGenesis: Conception and Birth of the Living Earth, which he considers his most important. He maintains a busy schedule of appearances; see the calendar on the official website. 

Movie in the works about Illuminatus! play and Ken Campbell

 Grant McPhee, the Scottish film director, cinematographer and writer

A Scottish movie director named Grant McPhee is making a movie about the Illuminatus! play and the Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun. He has posted a teaser clip on X that includes Peter O'Halligan, Ken Campbell, Jim Broadbent, Chris Langham, Robert Anton Wilson, Bill Drummond and Chris Bernard. I particularly liked the brief clip of Robert Shea talking. 

As the clip is not on YouTube, I can't embed the video here. When I asked McPhee on X about embedding the video and for details of the movie, he replied, "Only on Twitter for a few days Tom. Details of the full film release will be here, sooner than later. Thanks!"

McPhee has directed some movies I want to try  and has written a book about Scottish postpunk rock music, he seems quite interesting, see the Wikipedia bio  and also his official page.  I am  now following him on Twitter/X and will provide more information about the upcoming movie as it becomes available, so stay tuned.