Death of a Fug

Tuli Kupferberg, one of the founding members of The Fugs, is dead at age 86.

I haven't heard the band's music, but I've been curious about The Fugs for years because the band is mentioned in ILLUMINATUS! (e.g. in this passage "Simon [Moon] began humming as he drove; Joe [Malik] recognized the tune as 'Ramses II Is Dead, My Love'." Page 124). The same song also is mentioned in the THE HOMING PIGEONS.

Here is the Wikipedia and Kupferberg, and here is Wikipedia on The Fugs. Robert Christgau's "Consumer Guide" reviews are here.

RAW and Zelenka

Robert Anton Wilson loved classical music -- one of the many things I like about him -- and particularly championed the music of Ludvig van Beethoven. But he also made a point in his writings to call attention to a much more obscure composer, Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745).

The THE HOMING PIGEONS (third in the SCHROEDINGER'S CAT trilogy), Frank Dashwood hears Zelenka's Concerto for Harp on the radio in the first chapter and notes that it sounds "like Bach" and comes from the Baroque period. In the "No Limits Allowed" chapter towards the end, Dashwood reads about Zelenka when Dr. Hugh Crane hands him a book called THE ANSWER.

Wilson's THE ILLUMINATI PAPERS describes Justin Case (at the end of "Beethoven as Information") as a music critic who likes Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and Zelenka.

After I saw that, I looked up Zelenka in the Wikipedia (the above link). See also the Discover Zelenka Web site, which asserts, "Most musicologists dealing with music of this period [e.g, the Baroque] agree that the compositions of this long-forgotten musical giant approach or equal those of his contemporaries Bach, Händel, Vivaldi and Telemann in their advanced use of counterpoint, their extreme demands on the players and singers, their ingenuity and resourcefulness, and their overall beauty. "

I plan to check out some of Zelenka's music from the local library.

Where are the papers?

Robert Anton Wilson is not the first writer I have become very interested in. Years ago, I became fascinated with offbeat science fiction writer R.A. Lafferty, to the point where I went to the University of Tulsa, where his papers are deposited, and read some of his correspondence and unpublished fiction. Years later, after I had gotten interested in surrealistic poet Charles Henri Ford, I read some of his papers at the University of Texas at Austin.

So where do I go to read Wilson's literary papers? I have not been able to obtain an answer to this question. In a way, this seems like a greedy question, because in addition to his fiction, there are many volumes of nonfiction in which Wilson discusses his ideas at great length. There's plenty of material in print for the Wilson fan and scholar to read. Not to mention the wonderful archive at Robert Anton Wilson Fans.

But there's more out there that hasn't become available. For example, much of his correspondence cannot be read. In COSMIC TRIGGER III, MY LIFE AFTER DEATH, in Chapter 4, about Robert Shea, Wilson writes about his correspondence with Shea, "for 23 years we wrote about every important idea in the world and filled enough paper for several volumes. I hope some of that will get published some day."

I'd like to read it, preferably in a book, but I don't know even know where it is, or if it's been preserved. Mike Shea, who has done an admirable job making his father's work available at the official Robert Shea page, has not come up with any leads about where this correspondence is. I will keep asking people who might know.

But wait! What about Beethoven?


STARSHIP: Does writing come easily to you? Do the words flow smoothly and effortlessly?

WILSON: Oh, yes. It comes as easily to me as tennis comes to a professional tennis player. It's my game. To me, it's the third best thing in the world, after sex and Chinese food.

(From a particularly good interview, archived here.)

RAW's 'lost' books

In the comment section for my July 3 post, sage RAW scholar Royal Academy of Reality 1132 says, "I keep waiting for the Library of Dreams to get in my copy of THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. I've had it on reserve for weeks."

Haven't we all. RAW had originally intended to write five "Historical Illuminatus" novels, but the fourth, THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN, was never written, or at least never completed.

We're also in for a long wait for BRIDE OF ILLUMINATUS, the sequel to ILLUMINATUS!, although according to this Wikipedia article, an excerpt was published in Wilson's magazine, Trajectories. (PDF is here.)

TALE OF THE TRIBE, which concerned the Internet and no doubt other topics, also never came out. I would love to have read it.

RAW instructs blogger on precise speech

In a posting about "better living through improved diction," blogger Zachary Burt writes about how his study of RAW's QUANTUM PSYCHOLOGY convinced him to try to be more precise in his speech. He concludes, "I'm going to experiment with removing the word 'is' as much as possible from my prose."

Not a bad prediction for 1982

"The major battle of the 1980s will be over the control of microprocessors. The techno-managerial elite, the American Civil Liberties Union and those scientists who are true to the spirit of science will unite to attempt to accelerate the flow of information with these marvelous new tools. All conspiracies, and all scientists working for conspiracies, will attempt censorship, blockage, legal restrictions. Marshall McLuhan long ago predicted that we are entering the age of information; it is now happening. How much freedom of electronic 'speech' we are allowed in the next ten years will determine whether conspiracy or the Bill of Rights is going to dominate our future."

That's the last paragraph of the article "Neurogeography of Conspiracy" in RAW's book, RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE SITTING NOW.

Nowadays, it's a commonplace to talk about the Internet's importance in the free flow of information, how it provides a refuge from government repression, etc., but I wanted to point out that RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE SITTING NOW was published in 1982, before the rise of the Internet. Cory Doctorow, the well-known science fiction writer and Internet freedom activist, was 11 when the book was published.

Of course, these days there is an ACLU of cyberspace, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, founded in 1990.

Download “the most beautiful book in English”

Eric Wagner’s AN INSIDERS’S GUIDE TO ROBERT ANTON WILSON mentions that Ovid’s METAMORPHOSES is one of the books that RAW recommended in his “Brain Books” list in Wilson’s magazine “Trajectories.” Wagner then notes that Ezra Pound called METAMORPHOSES a “holy book” and that Pound considered Arthur Golding’s translation of it “the most beautiful book in English.”

An online version of Golding’s translation into Elizabethan English is here. Downloadable copies (in various formats) are available here.

In the “Brain Books” article, Wilson wrote, “I wish everybody would read Ovid. The great myths of our particular culture - the Greek and Roman myths - can't be found in any one book, except Bullfinch or Ovid, and Ovid has a much better style than Bullfinch. So read Ovid and get the whole panorama of classical myth. Classical myth has so much meaning that it permeates every bit of modern psychology. The myths of other cultures have much to offer, but we still need our myths. So we might as well face up to them. It's our culture; let's not lose it. And let's find out something that happened before 1970.”

I should note that metamorphosis is hardly an alien element in Wilson’s fiction. Many of the characters in the SCHROEDINGERS’S CAT trilogy undergo radical changes -- Epicene Wildebloode from a man to a woman, Simon Moon in THE HOMING PIGEONS changing from a gay man (the “Sincerity in Spelvins“ chapter) to a straight man who likes redheaded women (the “Symposium” chapter), and so on. (Note: All references in this blog to SCHROEDINGER’S CAT refer to the three original separately-published novels. I don’t even have the truncated omnibus edition.)

Wilson: The 'next Philip K. Dick'?

I would like to think that the strong interest that persists in Robert Anton Wilson could lead to a wider acceptance of his writing.

The model I am thinking of is science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. When I first began reading Dick, his readership was pretty much limited to science fiction fanatics. The titles were largely published as mass market, original paperbacks -- much as Wilson's early fiction was published.

Now, there's a Library of America edition of Dick. You can actually buy a three-volume Library of America boxed set, which collects 13 novels, including some of those little paperbacks I used to read as a teenager. Could mainstream acceptance be possible for Wilson?

A book about RAW

There are many ways to learn more about Robert Anton Wilson once you become interested in his work, but here is one: There's actually a book about him, written by someone who knows him well.

AN INSIDER'S GUIDE TO ROBERT ANTON WILSON by Eric Wagner, was put out in 2004 by New Falcon Publications, the small press publishing house which continues to do a good job of keeping much of Wilson's work in print. Wagner's book is still in print; my son gave me a copy for Father's Day. Thank you, Richard.

The back cover says that Wagner "has traveled from Ingolstadt, Bavaria, to Aswan, Egypt, from Country Kerry, Ireland, to Honolulu, Hawaii, attempting to understand the ideas behind Wilson's works." This is impressive, but it is also relevant to point out that Wagner corresponded with Wilson for many years and spoke to him many times.

If you love Wilson, check him out

Here is a way to support Robert Anton Wilson's writings, even if you have no money and little time: Check his books out of the public libraries you patronize.

All libraries have a limited amount of space, and even the most poorly-funded ones add new materials this year. This means that every library has a weeding process to get rid of books on the shelf. It might have a policy, for instance, to get rid of every book that hasn't been checked out in the last 18 months. When you check out a book by RAW, you are increasing the chance it will remain on the shelf to be discovered by other readers.

No. 23 for the Cleveland Cavaliers

I've never noticed any indication in his writings that Robert Anton Wilson was a sports fan, but RAW's Boswell, Eric Wagner, loves basketball. That will have to suffice as an excuse for mentioning that LeBron James wears number 23 on his uniform, but plans to switch to 6, out of respect to Michael Jordan, who wore no. 23.

When James was 23, he became the youngest person to score 10,000 points in his career.

Michael Jordan's father, James R. Jordan Sr., was murdered on July 23, 1993.

The folks at New Falcon

Run a search for Robert Anton Wilson's name on Amazon and you'll get a bunch of hits for books that are still in print and still available.

But it also can be fun to shop, or at least browse, at the Web site of Wilson's main publisher in later life, New Falcon Publications. The publisher has put out or reprinted many of Wilson's books, enjoyed a good relationship with Wilson when he was alive, and since his death has worked to keep his books in print. The site features an online catalog and often has specials on certain titles.

There was some kind of schism in the New Falcon world a couple of years ago, and so there is now a rival company called Original Falcon Press. I have no obligation to take sides, and I like them both. Original Falcon is the publisher of the new Robert Anton Wilson audiobook I mentioned recently. I bought it from iTunes and have enjoyed listening to it.