Bertrand Russell's 10 commandments

 Bertrand Russell 

They are here. 

At least of them line up nicely with what many of us learn reading Robert Anton Wilson: " 1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything," and "7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."

Via Supergee, who is sometimes eccentric in opinion. 

New book by Steve Pratt

A friend of us all, musician, writer and RAW scholar Steve "Fly Agaric" Pratt, has a new book out, Fly: Selected Poetry by Steve Pratt. I've just bought my copy.

Free preview here. 

New JFK assassination files, Kerry Thornley and Discordianism

If you can't get enough JFK conspiracy theory stuff, head over to Historia Discordia, where Adam Gorightly discusses the impending release of until-now secret documents on the John Kennedy assassination, and then explains how some of them relate to Discordianism and Kerry Thornley. Adam talks about the controversy over whether Thornley met Osward in Mexico. 

If you've come in late, Thornley, often cited in Illuminatus! as one of the founders of Discordianism, knew Lee Harvey Oswald in the Marines. See Adam's blog posts, and his two Thornley biographies.

New book: The Mysterium

The Mysterium by Jo Keeling and David Bramwell ("Unexplained and extraordinary stories for a post-Nessie generation") has just been released in the UK and comes out in the U.S. next May.

Details from the publisher are irritatingly vague, but Ian "Cat" Vincent's latest email newsletter says contributors include himself and John Higgs, so it sounds good. You can read about the Oct. 13 launch party.

Keeling and Bramwell also did The Odditorium, which I belatedly notice is available in the States now and which I'll have to pick up.

Bobby Campbell discusses his new RAW art

Bobby Campbell has a new post up at the Maybe Logic blog about the new artwork he is doing for the three RAW Historical Illuminatus! books being reprinted by Hilartas Press. As I reported earlier, the new editions will reproduce the drawings in higher resolution than the drawings New Falcon ran.

Bobby writes,

"Presently, The Widow's Son chapter illustrations are proceeding very nicely, as I try to stretch my imagination into a hyperspatial pretzel, so as to do this great work justice. The sketch pictured above [the same one reproduced here -- the Mgt.] is the rather humble beginnings of what eventually became my most complex RAW composition to date :)))

"I've tried to take this opportunity as an invitation to elevate my craft, trying to bring my images up towards RAW's text, meeting on the level, parting on the square, and all that good $#!+."

 

Bobby also talks about the shows he's been watching and the McLuhan lectures he's been listening to, so check him out. 

Upcoming reading groups

Nabokov in 1973

I'll start a reading group in January on Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire. Eric Wagner and I have been talking about that for awhile; the book influenced RAW's use of footnotes in The Widow's Son. I meant to start that up this year, but if we begin now, we'll run into the holiday season, when people tend to be pretty busy. I don't really know how many people will participate, but Eric has promised to take part!

I've read Nabokov since high school, and I like to read another of his every couple of years or so; I finally read Ada earlier this year.

Coincidance is the next scheduled book to be published by Hilaritas, and then the Historical Illuminatus books, which would be suitable subjects for the next series of reading groups.

MC5 in Rock Hall of Fame?

 MC5 in 2005 (Creative Commons photo)

The MC5 have just been  nominated to be included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland (along with 18 other acts). 

I mention that here because there's an amusing reference to the band in Illuminatus! As you will no doubt recall, the Illuminati control all of the companies issuing rock music, and as John Dillinger explains to Joe Malik, "We were ignoring that front until they got the MC-5 to cut a disc called 'Kick Out The Jams' just to taunt us with old bitter memories."

Oz Fritz on the feeling of being "home"

Bron-y-aur. Bron-y-aur Cottage near Machynlleth, Wales. Where Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote many classic songs for the third and fourth Led Zeppelin albums. Wikimedia Commons photo by "Andy." 

Oz Fritz has a nice piece up that I liked about how the music one enjoys helps give people a feeling of being home. Excerpt:

"Like many adolescents, I felt alienated and disconnected from current social expectations and the conventional cultural milieu; any sense of a real kind of home becoming distant, especially after moving out of the parental pod immediately upon turning 16.  Whenever I listened to Led Zeppelin back then, and still to this day, I felt closer to being at home.  A lot of good music in general invokes the home space, the place of sanctuary."


What do you want to bet that wherever Robert Anton Wilson lived, he made sure to have some Beethoven LPs?


Last night, I listened to one of my favorite Tom Petty albums Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) in my living room, enjoying the music but also feeling sad.

Tuesday links

Hugh Hefner. Wikimedia Commons public domain photo by Mark Dunne

Submit to Eris!

Why I've given up watching football.  (Mentions PQ).

Supergee on Hugh Hefner. 

Video: Rare interviews with Orson Welles

Why she went from left-libertarian to right-libertarian.

2023 on sale for Kindle in United Kingdom

From the KLF Update on Twitter: "If you haven’t seen 2023 is in the Kindle Monthly deals."

I followed the link and it's listed at £5.99. I never buy Kindle books from Amazon UK as I'm an American, so I don't know how much of a bargain that is. It doesn't seem to be part of the Kindle monthly deals for the U.S. — it's listed at $10.99 today.

Has anyone out there read this  yet? The early reviews from readers seem to be mixed.

The best militarism money can buy

Tyler Cowen 

The U.S. government spends millions of dollars to have football players stand during the national anthem.

It would be interesting to come up with a total dollar figure for Pentagon spending on propaganda and entertainment, and then compare that figure with, say, the annual budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. It might show what the National Security state that RAW used to write about really values. I'm not necessarily in favor of having the government pay for art, but conservatives tend to single out only one kind of spending.

Tyler Cowen on the national anthem and the NFL: "The awkward, hard-to-admit truth is that the American national anthem is a form of right-wing political correctness, designed to embarrass or intimidate those who do not see fit to sing along and pay the demanded respect."

Don Boudreaux on the NFL protests. "By the way, I myself never pledge allegiance to any flag or sing any national anthem, although when such statist ceremonies are conducted in my presence I stand for them in order not to embarrass whoever is my host who brought me to whatever event might begin with such ceremonies."

Saturday links

YouTube interview with Chinese SF writer Liu Cixin. About 25 minutes, very interesting, I watched all of it. He seems optimistic about technology the way RAW was.

Thoughts on the NFL player protests, from Don Boudreaux.

Amazon to adapt Snow Crash, Ringworld.  Via Cat Vincent on Twitter, worth following. 

Richard Rasa's online alchemy oracle. 

Event that features John Higgs, Cat Vincent, others. 

Bobby Campbell to do new illustrations for RAW novels

The next books being reprinted in revised editions by Hilartas Press are Coincidance: A Head Test and the three Historical Illuminatus books: The Earth Will Shake, The Widow's Son and Nature's God. (Full list of publication schedule available here.)


I've gotten the go-ahead from the Robert Anton Wilson Trust to share some news: Bobby Campbell is doing new illustrations for the Historical Illuminatus books. (I share news as soon as I can, but I support RAW's heirs and don't want to "scoop" official announcements without checking.)

Bobby says:

"I’m currently drawing new chapter illustrations for the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, which is a bit odd, since I had just done this same job back in 2010, but New Falcon has the book rights to my artwork, and so Hilaritas Press asked me to give it another go.

"It's a wonderfully challenging experience, being forced to top my previous best work, but I sure am having fun with it."

Richard Rasa, editor of Hilaritas Press, wants to point out that the new editions will have higher resolution reproductions of the illustrations.

"Really nice updating from his previous New Falcon edition versions! We are also very excited that the new books will have his graphics in 300dpi, unlike New Falcon’s much lower resolution!" he wrote in an email to me. 

The illustration above, which Richard Rasa made for this blog post, illustrates the difference in resolution. Left, a New Falcon drawing, right a new one for the Hilaritas Press edition.