Touring show in Britain focuses on the Illuminati

Scene from MK Ultra. Photography from Brian Slater. 

It turns out that the ongoing Cosmic Trigger, the Play show in London isn't the only live event that will interest RAW fans in Britain.

The production from the Rosie Kay Dance Company is winding up its tour of Britain, details here. 

The Rosie Kay website says,

"Enter the hypnotic world of MK ULTRA. Rosie Kay’s new work is a high energy, supercharged mash-up of thrilling dance, music and imagery. It is inspired by the bizarre realm of pop culture mind control conspiracies.

"Rosie Kay is one of the UK’s leading female choreographers. She is renowned for her athletic movement, rigorous research and intelligent theatricality. Choreographer to the hit film Sunshine on Leith, Kay is best known for the five star award-winning 5 SOLDIERS.

"MK ULTRA is a CIA code word for a real LSD fuelled brainwashing technique developed by the US military. Popular conspiracy theory believes that MK ULTRA is still active and programmes certain pop stars as puppets of the ‘Illuminati’, a shadowy elite intent on creating a New World Order of authoritarian world government."

Hat tip, Adam Gorighty's Historia Discordia. 

Why was 'Email' one of the first Hilaritas Press books?

In light of the fact that our Email to the Universe online discussion group begins Monday (with a discussion of R. Michael Johnson's introduction), I thought I'd take a moment to point out that Hilaritas Press, the publishing imprint of the Robert Anton Wilson trust, made Email one of the first books it has put out.

Hilaritas Press is putting out definitive editions of 19 RAW works. (Certain works, such as Illuminatus!, will continue to be published by large publishing companies.)  

Here are the 19, in planned order of publication. I've boldfaced the books that have actually been published so far, in paper and ebook editions.

1.  Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977)

2.  Prometheus Rising (1983)

3.  Quantum Psychology (1990)

4. Email to the Universe (2005)

5. Coincidance: A Head Test (1988)

6. The Earth Will Shake (1982)

7. The Widow’s Son (1985

8. Nature’s God (1988)

9. Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth (1992)

10. Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death (1995)

11. Sex, Drugs and Magick: A Journey Beyond Limits (1988)

12.  The New Inquisition (1986)

13.  Ishtar Rising (1989)

14.  Reality Is What You Can Get Away With (1992)

15.  Wilhelm Reich in Hell (1987)

16.  The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997)

17.  TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution (2002)

18.  Natural Law, or Don’t Put a Rubber on Your Willy (1987)

19.  Chaos and Beyond (1994)

So, why did the RAW Trust decide to make Email the fourth book that it put out? I put that question to Richard Rasa, metaprogramming director for the RAW Trust. He replied:

"We basically looked at Amazon rankings for all of Bob’s books, and then looked at our list of 19 and gave some thought to why some books were more popular than others (we thought of a number of factors, including the slim availability of some titles bringing their ranking down). Even though most of the list follows the Amazon rankings (which seemed to make sense for a number of reasons), we both had some minor preferences for changes near the end of the list. Email to the Universe always seemed like an obvious choice for top of the list, even if it wasn’t ranked #4. I love the idea of Bob going through decades of his writings, finding gems, editing, and putting it all together as an impressively entertaining retrospective. In recently editing the book for our republication, I kept copying out choice excerpts that I knew would be useful to post somewhere, or just to have handy for when I needed to be reminded of a bit of RAW wisdom or humor. It’s one of those books that can easily get mauled if you are fond of underlining meaningful passages. Some passages are frighteningly prescient:"

A monopoly on the means of communication may define a ruling elite more precisely than the celebrated Marxian formula of "monopoly in the means of production." Since humans extend their nervous systems though channels of communication like the written word, the telephone, radio, TV, Internet, etc., whoever controls these media controls part of the nervous system of every member of society. The contents of these media become part of the contents of every individual’s brain. 

- “Damnation by Definition” chapter in - Robert Anton Wilson’s Email to the Universe

Note: If you want to join us next week, please get your hands on a copy of Email to the Universe and read Michael's introduction.

Wednesday links [UPDATED]

One of the books mentioned in Eric Raymond's essay. 

Prometheus Blog, a new blog on science fiction from the Libertarian Futurist Society. There's an interesting article by Eric S. Raymond up that provides a political  history of SF.

Another review of the Cosmic Trigger play, four out of five stars. UPDATE: The Guardian weighs in. 

Adrian Reynolds on the Cosmic Trigger play.

Conclusion of Adam Gorightly history of the oddball early Discordian Roger Lovin.   Note also that Adam has a new podcast.

Daily Grail interview with Alan Moore. 

Anne Dick has died (Philip K. Dick's ex).

Rare RAW interview

The Robert Anton Wilson Fans website has a great deal of material, but there are some items that aren't posted there, at least yet.

Austrian RAW fan Martin Wagner has been doing some serious digging, and he recently sent me a 1990 interview with RAW by Antero Alli, published in Mezlim Magazine. He sent me a PDF; I have uploaded it to a storage site, and you can read it here. 

Heroes of 'Email to the Universe'

Photos by Branka Krsul

The Email to the Universe discussion group begins in one week. I'll take the first posting, and then we'll turn things over to Greg Arnott.

With that in mind, I thought I'd share some historic photos of RAW fandom that Eric Wagner recently sent to me. As you'll learn when we read R. Michael Johnson's introduction to Email to the Universe, some of these folks helped assemble the material that later became Email to the Universe.

These photos were taken in Santa Cruz, at the RAW "Meme-Orial" in Santa Cruz in late March or early May 2007, after Robert Anton Wilson's death in January 2007.

The fellow on the left in the middle and bottom photos is Michael Johnson. The guy in the purple shirt is Eric Wagner, author of An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson.  The fellow wearing a t-shirt with a platypus on it and tan slacks is Mike Gathers, who suggested what later became the Robert Anton Wilson fans site and in fact is the current host of rawilsonfans.org.

The tall man in black with the video camera is Brian Shields, a prominent RAW fan who died in 2015, see my posting. He documented much of the memorial, and if I understand correctly, much of the video on YouTube is his.

The gentleman in the grey jacket is author, editor and musician R.U. Sirius. 

You'll learn a bit more about some of these folks next week.

RAW at the library

My son Richard, who is just now obtaining his master's degree in library science from the University of Oklahoma, works for the public library in Tulsa. He also is an intern for the library at Tulsa Community College, and recently found himself putting "science fiction" stickers on the spine of Illuminatus!, among other books:

So students at TCC can read it.

The bad news, though, is that the Tulsa Public Library, which serves a pretty good-sized city, does not have any Robert Anton Wilson books. Patrons of the library, however, do have access to quite a few RAW books through the consortiums that the library belongs to.

I just now checked by running a couple of searches, and the Cuyahoga County Public Library, which has multiple branches and serves much of the Cleveland metropolitan area, does not have any Robert Anton Wilson books. (You can do an additional search to go beyond the library system and borrow RAW books from other libraries.) The Cuyahoga County system also has no Robert Shea.

CLEVNET, a network of dozens of northern Ohio libraries including the Cleveland Public Library, does have many of Robert Anton Wilson's books. Also a couple of Robert Shea, but several are missing, including All Things Are Lights.

Which raises a couple of points: Many libraries allow their patrons to suggest new titles. If you are chummy with your local library, you could ask it to buy the new edition of Cosmic Trigger. Also, if you have a library with RAW titles, check them out! Books that sit on the shelves ignored for years get weeded out of the collection.

Early reviews of Cosmic Trigger play

Illustration courtesy Richard Rasa 

Mersa Auda reviews the Cosmic Trigger play for TheUpcoming and gives it four out of five stars: "The lack of a solid thread binding the whole play together is felt (and longed for) at times, but the spirit of the production is exemplary in that it acts as a reminder of what theatre should always strive to do: innovate, experiment, and instigate thought and feeling." (Hat tip, Michael Johnson).

David James of London City Nights awards five out of five stars: "Perhaps this isn't the most objective of reviews - I went in a fan of Robert Anton Wilson and, let's face it, any play that features Alan Moore as a supercomputer called FUCKUP is going to be hard for me to resist - but this was one of the most enjoyable, uplifting and entertaining plays I've seen in quite some time. The cast are all fantastic, the stagecraft is phenomenal, and the writing is sensitive, witty and (when it needs to be) outright heartbreaking."

David, we won't demand objectivity at this blog!

Free RAW inspired comics available today

Today is Free Comic Book Day. To find a comic book shop near you that will hand you free comics, go here. 

Bobby Campbell is celebrating by offering five of his latest comics for free, largely inspired by his interest in Robert Anton Wilson. Details here. 

New Cosmic Trigger audiobook released as play opens in London

Richard Rasa's illustration of Oliver Senton

The Cosmic Trigger play has opened in London, but there is news on this side of the pond, too: Hilaritas Press has just released a new Cosmic Trigger audiobook, and it's narrated by actor Oliver Senton, who portrays RAW in the play.

I had no idea until a few days ago that an audiobook was in the works, so this is a pleasant surprise.

Senton is a British actor -- check out his official website for photos of him playing various roles in Shakespeare's plays, as well as a wide variety of other work -- so I was surprised when I listened to a sample clip to hear a Brooklyn accent. Yes, he portrays RAW on the book recording, just as he does in the play.

I remarked about this to Richard Rasa, metaprogramming director for the RAW Trust, and he replied, "It was a bit weird for us as well to hear a Brit doing a Brooklyn accent. Oliver made one funny mistake that we fixed in post editing. It came from his interpretation of Brooklynese, and was perhaps a little too Hollywood influenced. Overall, I think he really captured Bob’s spirit, and that’s what convinced us when he first sent some samples."

Hilaritas Press has posted an article about how the project came together, so read on!

New 'Waywords and Meansigns' released

The new edition of Waywords and Meansigns has been released. That's the project that sets James Joyce's Finnegans Wake to music. Here is the announcement from the project's leader, Derek Pyle:

Dear Friends of the Wake,

It's May 4th! Finnegans Wake turns 78 today, and to celebrate we're releasing the 2017 edition of Waywords and Meansigns, setting Joyce's book to music.

Since beginning this project in 2014, over 300 people have worked to create what is now some 70 hours worth of audio. Today we release 123 tracks spanning 19 hours 23 minutes and created by contributors from 15 different countries. All freely distributed at www.waywordsandmeansigns.com/listen/opendoor-edition/ This year's album art, seen above, is from Heather Ryan Kelley.

The range of weirdness and wonder gathered here is stunning, to say the least. It's like Finnegans Wake bred with an alien bacteria and gave birth to a whole new species of music.

We're also excited to release a chapter which was originally scheduled for our 2016 edition, Mike Watt and Adam Harvey's recording of "Shem the Penman". Raymond Pettibon also provided us with an image to accompany that chapter.

As previously announced, this will be our final group release for Waywords and Meansigns. But we've made this release an "open edition" -- unlike our previous releases which were unabridged, this one is incomplete, meaning YOU are invited to record your own passage, and we will add to the edition on an ongoing basis. Get involved!

We made this stuff to share with you, so please spread the word! and as always, I love to hear from people, so write me back your thoughts and impressions.

The audio is waywordsandmeansigns.com/listen/opendoor-edition/. You can also locate specific recordings on our Artists page.

On a personal level, I must say thanks to all of you for your support these past three years. It has been an incredible adventure, and the best part has been getting to know so many of you. If you're interested I wrote a note on our blog, reflecting on the journey of this project and lessons I've learned along the way.

And if you're curious about what I'm up to next after Waywords and Meansigns, check out my new website www.derekdpyle.com.

That's it for now.

And again. Really and truly. Thank you for supporting this work.

in wake-ness and weird-ness,

Derek Pyle

Another Penguicon lesson

Rachel Dolezal. Creative Commons photo via Wikipedia. 

When I went to Penguicon, I learned about personal gender pronouns. 

This seems very American to me. I'm thinking of writing a follow-up piece defending Rachel Dolezal. Why not? As a certain writer once said, "Reality is what you can get away with."

Cosmic Trigger podcast worth a listen

Erik Davis. Creative Commons photo by Michael Rausner. 

British writer Alastair Fruish interviews Erik Davis for a Cosmic Trigger podcast which I thought was quite interesting.

Fruish, whom I had not run across before, is apparently an interesting writer in his own right, and  Davis of course is a fine podcaster, writer and lecturer.

A few thoughts after listening to the 42-minute podcast, produced by Nic Alderton:

1.  Fruish does a good job of posing many of the hard questions. How well does Illuminatus! hold up? Not very, says Davis, who finds it a "tough slog." (For me, it's an essential work of fiction, but I've noticed that opinions vary.) What happened to the hundreds of pages cut out of Illuminatus! ? They're lost, Davis opines. I lean toward the theory that The Illuminati Papers has quite a bit of excised material, possibly rewritten. The title of the book is suggestive, and see the Scott Apel interview. What to think of the eight-circuit model of consciousness? Davis thinks the discussion of the first four circuits holds up best; I agree.

2. Davis' favorite RAW book is Cosmic Trigger, followed by Prometheus Rising. Cosmic Trigger seems to be the favorite of many people. I am surprised more people don't mention RAW's fiction.

3. Davis talks more than once about how much he admires RAW, despite Davis' "quibbles" with RAW. Fruish never follows up, so we don't learn what the quibbles are. Davis' remarks about the last days of RAW and Terence McKenna is one of the best parts of the podcast.

Davis is working on a new book, High Weirdness, which seems sure to be good. A lot of people seem to have enjoyed Fruish's Kiss My ASBO.

Happy May Day!

(1) Why the day is important to RAW fans.

(2) The Cosmic Trigger play opens May 4. New interview with Daisy Campbell.