What happens to Timothy Leary's ashes?

I guess I didn't follow the articles about the death of noted film director Tony Scott closely enough. Nick Helweg-Larsen wrote to me to point out that Scott kept Timothy Leary's cremated ashes in a bathroom.

I ran searches to confirm the tip found several references to that. For example, here is an article in a British newspaper: "He kept his friends close, sometimes even after death. Tony inherited the ashes of long-time pal and LSD guru Timothy Leary, keeping them in the toilet of his Beverly Hills home."

So what happens to the ashes now?

Why do 'hard' novels give pleasure?

Over at Ask Eric, Eric Wagner tackles a question posed by Michael Johnson: ""I wonder what you'd say about the role of difficulty in reading books like The Cantos, Finnegans Wake, Ulysses, Zukovsky, Gravity's Rainbow, WSB, The Wasteland, the S-Cat Trilogy, even Illuminatus! (Just today someone on Internet labeled Illuminatus! as 'unreadable.')?"

Eric chews on this, remarking, "I don't think I have a very good answer." But he does pretty well, I think.

I don't have a very good answer either. If a book is too hard, i.e. I can't get much out of it, I don't tend to like it. At the same time, there's no question that my taste in fiction often favors fairly difficult books, i.e. I've always loved Vladimir Nabokov, who isn't exactly a pulp writer, and I love ILLUMINATUS!

I think that part of the answer is that dumb, silly fiction seems flat and lifeless to me, and fiction which is complex seems particularly vivid, as it seems to work for me on more than one level. It is denser with information. I think that's part of what RAW meant, in a quote that Michael includes in his comment on Eric's post, that RAW liked works that were "inexhaustible." He liked books that were so  dense with information there was always more to be retrieved.

Michael's question inspired an interesting blog post of his own.

Another 'Principia Discordia'

Jesse Walker has sent along a link to the original Principia Discordia, which differs from later versions, as a follow-up to my earlier post.  Mr. Walker remarks, "A better link, with lots of old Operation Mindfuck correspondence at the end."

Assorted links

The BBC explains who this "Ayn Rand" person was, and discusses the popularity of her work (thanks, Nick Helweg-Larsen.)

A Tumblr blog devoted to James Joyce (hat tip, Steve Bellitt.)

Eric Wagner answers my question about his favorite classical writers.

Michael Johnson discusses Edward Luttwak, who is mentioned in ILLUMINATUS!

Robert Anton Wilson in 1956

(Photo credit: Estate of Alfred Korzybski).

The photograph, above, is reprinted on this blog with the permission of Bruce Kodish, literary executor for the late Alfred Korzybski. It depicts a 1956 seminar workshop on General Semantics, almost certainly in the New York City area. And at this point, I'm guessing that many of you have figured out why I have the picture posted here. Mr. Kodish says that Robert Anton Wilson is the gentleman sitting on the ground, on the far left. (Click on the photo to make it bigger.)

Korzybski had a very strong influence on Wilson's own philosophy, as we know from reading his books. My thanks to Jesse Walker for passing this on. (Mr. Walker is hard at work on the RAW-related chapter of his upcoming new book, The United States of Paranoia, available next year. More on the book here.)  And thank you to Mr. Kodish for letting me post the photo.

Boom on not jumping to conclusions

From my favorite music blog: Boom on the dangers of jumping to conclusions about other people on the basis of partial information. 

Quantum Psychology, Chapter 9

(I enjoyed Chapter 9, and I will simply reproduce the exercizes here; if you think any of them are hard to do on the Internet, just skip the ones you don't like -- Tom)

1. Try to explain the difference between a Playboy centerfold and a nude by Renoir. Discuss among the whole group and see if you can arrive at a conclusion that makes sense when stated in operational-existential language.

2. Perform the same delicate semantic analysis upon a soft-core porn movie and a hard-cover porn movie. Remember: try to keep your sentences operational, and avoid Aristotelian essences and spooks.

3. When U.S. troops entered Cambodia, the Nixon administration claimed this "was not" an invasion, because it "was only" an incursion. See if anybody can restate this difference in operational language.

4. The C.I.A. refers to certain acts as "termination with maximum prejudice." The press describes these acts as "assassinations." Try to explain to teach other the difference.

Also, imagine yourselves as the victims. Do you care deeply whether your death gets called "termination with maximum prejudice" or "assassination"?

5. In the 1950s, the film The Moon is Blue became a center of controversy and actually got banned in some cities because it contained the word "virgin." How does this seem in retrospect? Discuss. (If anybody finds Mr. Carlin's paraphrased jokes offensive let them explain why the above film no longer seems offensive.)

Origin of Principia Discordia manuscript

Keen-eyed John Merritt looks carefully at the Principia Discordia noted by Jesse Walker (see Friday's post) and notices something interesting:

"Reference copy, JFK Collection HSCA (RG 233)" along right edge of each page. Thornley served w/ Lee Harvey Oswald in USMC.

This apparently refers to the files of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, from the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records in the National Archives.

Doesn't this sound like something from the pages of ILLUMINATUS?

Enrique Freeque on 'Masks of the Illuminati'

Blogger Enrique Freeque -- who seems to be rather widely read in fiction -- discusses Masks of the Illuminati and marvels at RAW's ability to convincingly portray characters such as James Joyce, Carl Jung and Albert Einstein. Excerpt:

That Robert Anton Wilson (RAW) could make so many disparate historical icons sound humorously real on the page is mystifying. Did he journey back in time and tape record them? That he could accomplish such a chameleon's feat without sinking toward what could've been easy-cheesy parody for writers gifted with lesser wit and talent than he, is a minor miracle. That he could meld so many writer's voices, styles, syntax, biographies, world views (whether faux or fact) and have enough creative chutzpah left to make the farfetched narrative, in its entirety, coalesce into a plot that's wild yet cogent, always compelling, tells me he could've conceptualized launching a land rover to Mars and then nailed its impossible landing. With his eyes closed. He's that good.

I've been meaning to re-read Masks of the the Illuminati. I'll probably take it on after I finish with Quantum Psychology.

Early 'Principia Discordia'

On Twitter, Jesse Walker shares this link, remarking, "The original 1965 edition of the PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA. Basically a different book than the one that circulates now." I can't seem to figure out how to see more than the first couple of pages; am I doing something wrong?

UPDATE: Jesse explains in the comments how to access the rest of the document.

'Lost' Timothy Leary manuscript

Boing Boing founder, guru of cool and in-house Robert Anton Wilson fan Mark Frauenfelder reports that an unpublished Timothy Leary manuscript is being made available for auction.

Fraunfelder writes, "Timothy Leary wrote The Periodic Table of Energy while he was in Vacaville state prison in 1974. "The work explores 'correspondences among the Periodic Table of Elements, the Neurogenetic Theory of Evolution, the Tarot, the I Ching, [and] the Zodiac.' The 203-page typescript is profusely annotated and edited in manuscript, and illustrated with images, advertisements and articles clipped from newspapers and magazines."

Auction house press release is here.

Boing Boing's Robert Anton Wilson posts (lots of good stuff) is here.

The 'Atlas Shrugged of historical revisionism'?

World War II revisionism is a fertile topic for folks of the antiwar persuasion (such as RAW) and I thought I would put in one more observation before Gore Vidal's death becomes yesterday's news.

Antiwar.com head honcho Justin Raimondo's obituary for Gore Vidal called my attention to Raimondo's earlier review of Vidal's The Golden Age, where Raimondo wrote, "Ironic, idealistic, world-weary and, in the end, optimistic, Gore Vidal has, in The Golden Age, cemented the capstone of his historical saga with what is truly a crowning achievement. A novel that works as history, that breaks fresh (if not entirely new) ground historically: here, at last, is the Atlas Shrugged of historical revisionism, a fictional but all-too-true retort to the court historians who peddle the Disney-ized mythology of the 'greatest generation' to a nation that has lost its memory, and, therefore, its conscience."

Raimondo's article also pointed out to me a book that I had not heard of before, Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States: 1939-44, by Thomas Mahl. Says Raimondo, "Mahl’s 1998 book is based on declassified documents that tell some of the story of how British intelligence agents permeated the political and social elites in Washington and New York, pushed a reluctant 'isolationist' America into war – and put us on the road to empire."

Buckminster Fuller's lectures

The excellent Open Culture Web site has posted "Everything I Know," 42 hours of lectures by Buckminster Fuller. (I have an interview of Fuller by RAW that I will post when I manage to find time to transcribe it.)

Pipzi Williams chips in with a haiku:

bucky fuller spoke
and other dimensions leaned
to listen closely

UPDATE: In the comments, Bogus Magus notes that transcripts are available here. I'll be loading some into my Kindle.