I am currently interviewing noted Robert Anton Wilson scholar and Amsterdam DJ Steven Pratt, aka Fly Agaric 23. I am pleased with how it is going so far and believe I will be able to reward loyal followers of this blog with an interesting read.
In the meantime, here is a New York Times article from April 2 that I missed at the time, about a planned right wing crackdown on the marijuana trade in coffee shops in the Netherlands. Check out the photo caption for the piece, "Law Could Hamper Drug Tourism in the Netherlands."
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
When RAW met Ayn Rand
Dangerous Minds, the popular lefty/pop culture blog, unearths this encounter between Robert Anton Wilson and Ayn Rand from the pages of Cosmic Trigger Volume II.
I like Jesse Walker's observation about followers of the two writers: " I've joked that the great invisible divide in the libertarian movement is between the people who were transformed by reading ATLAS SHRUGGED in high school and people who were transformed by reading ILLUMINATUS! I never went through a Rand phase, so you can put me firmly in the ILLUMINATUS! camp."
Also, I'm always glad to slip in a reference to Cosmic Trigger, Volume II: Down to Earth, as I think it is an underrated gem. The first Cosmic Trigger book has many fans, but I think the second one is as good a book as RAW ever wrote.
I like Jesse Walker's observation about followers of the two writers: " I've joked that the great invisible divide in the libertarian movement is between the people who were transformed by reading ATLAS SHRUGGED in high school and people who were transformed by reading ILLUMINATUS! I never went through a Rand phase, so you can put me firmly in the ILLUMINATUS! camp."
Monday, June 11, 2012
The Illuminati -- are they everywhere?
A newspaper in Nigeria, the National Mirror, reports — or should I say "reports," it's kind of hard to tell — that a controversial entertainer named Charly Boy had announced he is gay.
"Even as he made other disclosures about himself, he didn’t forget to add that he is the head of the Illuminati in Nigeria, the same Illuminati that people accuse Jay-Z, D’Banj and Don Jazzy of being members and they keep denying membership. While his audacious revelations might seem like a publicity stunt on his part, let’s not forget the popular saying ‘there’s no smoke with-out fire’. For Charly Boy to say all these things about himself there must be an element of truth in them."
A follow-up story, however, says that "the weird one" is denying the report and threatening to sue. There may be some confusion in Nigeria about who the Illuminati are -- the secondl story says he is denying being a member of the "musical cult group, illumination."
Hat tip, Jesse Walker.
When Jesse sent me this, I thought, "Man, Jesse manages to find the Illuminati everywhere."
I have other interests besides the topics covered in this blog.
Lately, for example, I have been immersing myself in early Byzantine history, by reading the The Wars of Justinian by Procopius. After I got Jesse's email, I ran across this review of a book about Procopius by Anthony Kaldellis, a classics professor at The Ohio State University.
I haven't read the book yet, but it is apparently Kaldellis' opinion that Procopius was secretly a pagan (a dangerous opinion by the sixth century) and that there are hidden messages in his writing.
The reviewer, William Edmund Fahey, complains, "Too often, one has the impression that the final hermeneutic for reading a text remains rather arcane; as Kaldellis explains, 'Hidden truths can be safely discovered by future readers or by those who know how to look past the 'plaster' that lies on the surface' (25; cf., 37). This is a milieu where traditional historians will not be found among the illuminati."
"Even as he made other disclosures about himself, he didn’t forget to add that he is the head of the Illuminati in Nigeria, the same Illuminati that people accuse Jay-Z, D’Banj and Don Jazzy of being members and they keep denying membership. While his audacious revelations might seem like a publicity stunt on his part, let’s not forget the popular saying ‘there’s no smoke with-out fire’. For Charly Boy to say all these things about himself there must be an element of truth in them."
A follow-up story, however, says that "the weird one" is denying the report and threatening to sue. There may be some confusion in Nigeria about who the Illuminati are -- the secondl story says he is denying being a member of the "musical cult group, illumination."
Hat tip, Jesse Walker.
When Jesse sent me this, I thought, "Man, Jesse manages to find the Illuminati everywhere."
I have other interests besides the topics covered in this blog.
Lately, for example, I have been immersing myself in early Byzantine history, by reading the The Wars of Justinian by Procopius. After I got Jesse's email, I ran across this review of a book about Procopius by Anthony Kaldellis, a classics professor at The Ohio State University.
I haven't read the book yet, but it is apparently Kaldellis' opinion that Procopius was secretly a pagan (a dangerous opinion by the sixth century) and that there are hidden messages in his writing.
The reviewer, William Edmund Fahey, complains, "Too often, one has the impression that the final hermeneutic for reading a text remains rather arcane; as Kaldellis explains, 'Hidden truths can be safely discovered by future readers or by those who know how to look past the 'plaster' that lies on the surface' (25; cf., 37). This is a milieu where traditional historians will not be found among the illuminati."
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Latest Vatican bank scandal news
"Hagbard Celine" on Twitter (@amoebadesign) has been tracking the latest weirdness involving the Vatican bank. Here are some links he has tweeted, along with his comments:
"Robert Anton Wilson SNAFU feedback loop €23million+the Vatican+GodsBank+double agent butler+NEW TWIST"
"Saturday's evidence of living inside a Novel, Ex-head of Vatican bank 'planned to give dossier to Pope' "
"The empire never ended, hassan I sabbath is still fighting the crusaders, and the popes a corrupt, money laundering mafia don. #illuminatus" [No link, just a comment]
"Robert Anton Wilson SNAFU feedback loop €23million+the Vatican+GodsBank+double agent butler+NEW TWIST"
"Saturday's evidence of living inside a Novel, Ex-head of Vatican bank 'planned to give dossier to Pope' "
"The empire never ended, hassan I sabbath is still fighting the crusaders, and the popes a corrupt, money laundering mafia don. #illuminatus" [No link, just a comment]
Saturday, June 9, 2012
'Thoughts on Conspiracy Gnosticism'
Writing for Hydra Magazine, Edward Garcia explains why Robert Anton Wilson may be "good food for your mind." (Garcia is completing a Ph.D. in American literature at Yale University.)
Friday, June 8, 2012
Quantum Psychology group reading
I've decided to take up Eric Wagner's suggestion to have a group read of Quantum Psychology, with participants working on the exercises by making comments on the Internet. (See the comments for this posting.)
As Eric suggests, I'll do a chapter a week, over 23 weeks. I'll start June 25, which should give everyone who wants to take part plenty of time to hunt up a copy at the local library, or buy one, or whatever.
As Eric suggests, I'll do a chapter a week, over 23 weeks. I'll start June 25, which should give everyone who wants to take part plenty of time to hunt up a copy at the local library, or buy one, or whatever.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Brian Eno, John Cage and RAW
How can you tie together Brian Eno, John Cage and Robert Anton Wilson? I wouldn't be able to do it, but fortunately Oz Fritz can, and he has a particularly good blog post that shows you how.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
'Can you love a fake piece of art?'
A BBC article raises a question: Are genuine fakes in the art world underrated?
Nick Helweg-Larsen sent me the link, commenting, "I thought you might like this link as RAW loved the film F for Fake and often mentioned Elmyr." Thanks, Nick!
Nick Helweg-Larsen sent me the link, commenting, "I thought you might like this link as RAW loved the film F for Fake and often mentioned Elmyr." Thanks, Nick!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
My latest venture
Be careful about following a Twitter account. You might wind up taking it over.
Apparently I did not have enough quixotic literary crusades on the Internet, so now I have taken up another one. The guy running @surrealpoems on Twitter, Ethan Yang, who had inherited it from founder Brooks Lampe, got tired of it and wanted to concentrate on his other Twitter accounts.
I had been following @surrealpoems for awhile (I have liked Surrealist poetry for many years), and when Ethan asked for people willing to adopt it, I was the only one who expressed interest. He handed it over to me before I had time to come to my senses.
I intend to take this task seriously and use @surrealpoems to promote interest in contemporary poetry in general and Surrealist poetry in particular. (I am still trying to figure out how to do that. It may take awhile, but I'm working on it.) I won't neglect this blog, but I may have to reduce the amount of time I spend on the Prometheus Award.
Apparently I did not have enough quixotic literary crusades on the Internet, so now I have taken up another one. The guy running @surrealpoems on Twitter, Ethan Yang, who had inherited it from founder Brooks Lampe, got tired of it and wanted to concentrate on his other Twitter accounts.
I had been following @surrealpoems for awhile (I have liked Surrealist poetry for many years), and when Ethan asked for people willing to adopt it, I was the only one who expressed interest. He handed it over to me before I had time to come to my senses.
I intend to take this task seriously and use @surrealpoems to promote interest in contemporary poetry in general and Surrealist poetry in particular. (I am still trying to figure out how to do that. It may take awhile, but I'm working on it.) I won't neglect this blog, but I may have to reduce the amount of time I spend on the Prometheus Award.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Review of new James Joyce biography
The Wall Street Journal's Saturday book review section (an excellent resource) runs a review by Joseph O'Connor of a new James Joyce biography, James Joyce: A New Biography by Gordon Bowker.
The nut graph of O'Connor's review: "This is a well-researched, accessible book for the interested amateur reader of Joyce, not for the academic specialist. It is refreshingly free of the jargon of literary-critical theory, which has done Joyce no favors at all. Surely no author in history has been so beslobbered with postgraduate drivel. Mr. Bowker's book contains no sentence that is hard to understand: more than can be said of the work of some Joycean critics and more, for that matter, than can be said of its subject's fictions, increasingly baffling as they became."
The nut graph of O'Connor's review: "This is a well-researched, accessible book for the interested amateur reader of Joyce, not for the academic specialist. It is refreshingly free of the jargon of literary-critical theory, which has done Joyce no favors at all. Surely no author in history has been so beslobbered with postgraduate drivel. Mr. Bowker's book contains no sentence that is hard to understand: more than can be said of the work of some Joycean critics and more, for that matter, than can be said of its subject's fictions, increasingly baffling as they became."
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Michael Johnson on the new David Talbot book
Michael Johnson reviews David Talbot's new cultural history of San Francisco, Season of the Witch. Says Michael, "For anyone who loves San Francisco, this is a must-read book. For anyone who is interested in the epicenter of the "culture wars" in Unistat, this book is essential. For anyone who loves to read well-researched history with a gripping narrative voice, this may be one you'll want to get to over the coming long hot summer nights."
Saturday, June 2, 2012
'Atlas Shrugged' vs. 'ILLUMINATUS!'
The comparison chart you didn't realize you were waiting for is here. Eric Wagner pops up in the comments.
A short autobiography of the author of the post, Mr. John Higgs: "Students of bias may wish to note that, whilst at least one review of my novel The Brandy of the Damned noted the influence of Robert Anton Wilson, no review of any of my books has yet mentioned influence from Ayn Rand."
A short autobiography of the author of the post, Mr. John Higgs: "Students of bias may wish to note that, whilst at least one review of my novel The Brandy of the Damned noted the influence of Robert Anton Wilson, no review of any of my books has yet mentioned influence from Ayn Rand."
Friday, June 1, 2012
Maldonado and Quantum Psychology
The other day, working on a newspaper story, I interviewed a lady whose last name is Maldonado. Her name made me smile, but I didn't say why and didn't ask if anyone in her family happened to be named "Banana Nose."
On another note: A few weeks ago, I purchased a copy of Quantum Psychology. I notice that the book has exercises that are supposed to be done in a group. I don't have a group to join, and I suppose I should just go ahead and read the book, but does anyone have any thoughts?
On another note: A few weeks ago, I purchased a copy of Quantum Psychology. I notice that the book has exercises that are supposed to be done in a group. I don't have a group to join, and I suppose I should just go ahead and read the book, but does anyone have any thoughts?
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