Chad Nelson talks about the new Robert Anton Wilson book

Last year, as one of the volunteers who helps Rasa with the publications at Hilaritas Press, I helped copyedit what is now the newest Hilaritas book by Robert Anton Wilson, Natural Law Or Don’t Put A Rubber On Your Willy And Other Writings From A Natural Outlaw. 

The book is not simply a reprint of the long essay, long out of print, in which Wilson argues against the idea of "natural law" as a basis for libertarianism, an argument he carried out on the pages of New Libertarian in 1985. In the new book, the reprint of "Natural Law: Or Don't Put a Rubber On Your Willy" takes up about 80 pages. But there are another 145 pages of additional Wilson -- articles and two interviews -- selected by Chad Nelson, the book's editor.

The book originally was intended as a collection of RAW's political writings. Instead, as Nelson writes in the book's introduction, the book's material actually focuses on model agnosticism, a bedrock RAW philosophy. Or to put it another way, it's not a libertarian book, it's a RAW book, and a really good one.

I read the new Natural Law last year, minus Nelson's introduction and the reprint of John Higgs' "Happy Maybe Day" newspaper column for the Guardian. I became very enthusiastic. I resolved to do my best to promote the book when it came out. (Full disclosure: I am mentioned in the acknowledgements, although I actually had little to do with helping the book take shape.)

Nelson is an attorney and Robert Anton Wilson scholar.  He is the Senior Planned Giving Officer at the Rhode Island School of Design and also a practicing estate planning attorney. (The name of the school nagged at me, it somehow seemed familiar, until I realized it was where the three founding members of Talking Heads, David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, had been). 

When I asked Chad if he would take some questions about the book, he agreed, so here we go: 

RAWIlliumination.net: What do you think of the new book? Are you satisfied with how it came out?

Chad Nelson: I am thrilled with how the book came out. I'm biased, of course, but it might be my new favorite in the Wilson essay collection genre. 

I'm as much thrilled with the finished product as I am with the process it came out of. It evolved conceptually in a way Wilson fans might find interesting. It was initially conceived of as a collection of essays showcasing Wilson's political thought over the course of his life, with Natural Law, Or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy, as the lead essay. We were  thinking of a companion to TSOG, but one that covered more of Wilson's earlier political thought from the '50s through the '70s. 

Eventually, after we had assembled about 20 "political" essays, we realized that most of them were concerned far less with politics than with model agnosticism. There is certainly overlap between the two themes in much of Wilson's work, but we decided that model agnosticism was really the predominant theme we were seeing in what we had pulled together. I also tend to think it's more foundational to Wilson's philosophy.

So we had a "lightbulb moment," as it were, where we looked at each other and said, "Gee, maybe we can pivot and create something far more interesting than we'd originally envisioned." We shelved several of the more overtly political tracts and focused exclusively on Wilson's writings on model agnosticism. The project really became fun when we made that pivot explicit. Wilson scholars know how much model agnosticism underlies his worldview, so the idea that there would be a newly published book of essays and interviews spanning five decades where we get to see him riff on that theme very directly, over and over again, in a variety of different ways, was one of the coolest moments for me. 

I've probably read the book 5 times through the course of editing it, and with each read I realize just how special the content is. Of course, there is no single book one can pick up and understand the breadth of Wilson's scholarship. You really need to take it all in. But if there was one non-fiction piece to start with, this might be it.

Chad Nelson

RAWIllumination.net: When you talk about "we" as the book evolved, do you mean discussions between you and Rasa? Were you given complete leeway to make the final decisions on what would be included in the book? And how hard was it to obtain the various permissions? 

Chad Nelson: Rasa and I collaborated on content decisions. He gave me pretty broad license on decision-making though, and in the end, everything I felt belonged in the book wound up included, and the essays I didn't feel were a good fit got shelved. We were both reassured knowing that we had you and Jesse there to offer input on what you'd seen as well.

Getting permissions was a surprisingly easy process. All of the publications that are still in existence offered their material without issue. It was fun to engage with them and explain what we were up to.

RAWIllumination.net: Have you read "Email to the Universe"? I ask because the new edition of "Natural Law" reminds me of "Email," i.e. a carefully curated collection of some of RAW's best short pieces, written over a span of many years.

Chad Nelson: I love Email. I wanted "Left and Right: A Non-Euclidian Perspective" in this volume, but Rasa reminded me that it was already in Email.

Murray Rothbard (Creative Commons photo)

RAWIllumination.net: I loved the bit in your introduction about Murray Rothbard coining the term "Natural Outlaw" to refer to RAW. [Note the full title of the book: "Natural Law, Or Don’t Put A Rubber On Your Willy And Other Writings From A Natural Outlaw."] Who were the six people in the debate, and who was the other "Natural Outlaw"? Have you read Rothbard? He and RAW were both antiwar, although obviously they had differences.

Thanks! The others in the debate were Wilson, Samuel Edward Konkin III, George Smith, Jeff Riggenbach, Robert LeFevre and L.A. Rollins. Rollins was the other "outlaw". It was amusing to see the natural law proponents refer to themselves unironically as "lawmen." What self respecting libertarian wants that moniker?! 

I do have a profound respect and appreciation for Rothbard. He's a personal favorite of mine -- I've learned so much from him. Even when he went in a right-wing, "paleolibertarian" direction later in his career, advocating for national borders and strict immigration controls (notions I despise), I enjoyed his writing. It was always full of flair and he was often very humorous. I appreciate those qualities in political talking heads, even if I don't like their underlying views. Most of today's political "thought leaders" seem utterly devoid of humor and incredibly boring. 

RAWIllumination.net: What's your opinion on the cover? As the editor, did you participate in discussions with @amoebadesign, or was that between Rasa/Christina and @amoebadesign?

Chad Nelson:  I was very surprised at how different it was from Amoeba's previous Hilaritas covers, and how well it fit the content. 

I'm sure Rasa had input, but I think we largely let Amoeba do his thing. I wasn't involved at all in the process. I know the green grass evokes some very specific material in the book that I'll leave as a surprise for readers, but it also seems to me to be a larger metaphor for the book's ideas. To me the simplicity Amoeba dialed up is a perfect visual reprentation of the vast openness, lightness, clarity, bliss -- all of those things that one experiences when they begin to play with model agnoscistism. [See this post for more on the cover.]

RAWIllumination.net: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you get involved in the "Natural Law" book project?

Chad Nelson: I was first turned on to Wilson ten or so years ago after watching some of his "stand up philosophy" performances on YouTube, and reading the Illuminatus! Trilogy. But it was really his non-fiction work that I dove into after Illuminatus! which turned my fascination with his ideas into what now seems like a full-time study. The two that really grabbed me were Quantum Psychology (1990) and The New Inquisition (1986). It's not a stretch to say that reading Wilson has transformed the way I think and operate in life. Thanks to RAWIllumination.net and the handful of other sites devoted to archiving and keeping his work alive and circulating, I've never felt like there is a shortage of new places to turn. 

In any event, Rasa recently pointed out to me that I first contacted him when Hilaritas Press was founded, offering my services. I think it was in 2015. I was willing to do basically anything to assist their work. I really just wanted to be involved in whatever he and Christina planned on doing with Hilaritas. I had previously been involved with Center for a Stateless Society (c4ss.org) and Antiwar.com as an editor, so I thought I had something to offer. Rasa and I maintained an ongoing dialogue after that (which mainly consisted of me trying to pry secrets out of him -- i.e., what they were working on and when their next title would be released). Then around this time last year he asked if I would edit the new Natural Law edition, which of course I jumped at. Natural Law is particularly important to me because I've always felt it's the most underappreciated book in the Wilson canon. I've never told Rasa this, but when I first saw it on the list of scheduled Hilaritas publications, I sort of mentally flagged it as the most exciting one they planned to put out -- that maybe this time it would get the attention it deserves.  So I guess the stars really aligned here. 

H.P. Lovecraft's grave (photo by Chad Nelson)

RAWIllumination.net: You live in Providence, which of course is where H.P. Lovecraft lived, and which as a result is one of the named settings in Illuminatus! Have you visited any of the places associated with Lovecraft? 

Chad Nelson: I have visited all of the ones I know about. A few of them I have unintentionally stumbled upon. That's always amusing when it happens: "Oh look, a Lovecraft monument on this random street light." His gravestone is probably the coolest site. It's in this beautiful private cemetery called Swan Point  where a lot of Rhode Island's prestigious families are buried. It's always adorned with the most random stuff, and I understand there are "weird" ceremonies around it at different points of the year. I wish somebody would invite me to one of those! 

RAWIllumination.net: Don't you actually own a sculpture of Robert Anton Wilson? Where do you display it? Weren't there actually negotiations with your wife on where to display this priceless piece of art?

Chad Nelson: I do, but it fell and part of RAW's nose broke off so it lives in a drawer now. All of that negotiating for it to be displayed on the bookshelf was for naught, I guess. I do have a RAW coffee mug that I use most days, at least!

RAWIllumination.net: You mentioned reading "Illuminatus!" I have read it over and over again. Have you read RAW's other fiction, or do you prefer the nonfiction?

Chad Nelson: Me too, though I haven't re-read Illuminatus! in a while. Sometimes I pick it up off the shelf looking for a specific Hagbard Celine quote though. The one I've wound up reading over and over again is the Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy. The new Natural Law collection actually includes a 1972 short story from the inaugural issue of Gallery that wound up being adapted into one of the characters in Schrodinger's Cat. That Gallery piece may be my favorite single individual writing from Wilson, and I was so glad it found a permanent home in this book. Gallery described it as a story about "the life and death of a Reichian rebel." I look at it as the story of a fictional hero who takes many of Wilson's ideas (including model agnocistism) to the extreme.

All that said, I do have a strong preference for Wilson's non-fiction.

New Hilaritas podcast on Kerry Thornley

Kerry Thornley (Creative Commons photo by Sondra London)

Episode 5 of the Hilaritas podcast has dropped, and it looks like a good one. Adam Gorightly is interviewed on the life and ideas of Kerry Thornley. 

Available at the link, and also Podbean, Apple, Google, Spotify and TuneIn. 

Prometheus Rising exercise and discussion group, episode 66, Chapter 11

Photo by Maria Lupan on Unsplash

In Chapter 11, Robert Anton Wilson talks about various ways to activate the fifth of the eight circuits, the neurosomatic circuit, including tantric sex, cannabis, yoga and pranayama. Apuleius Charlton in his recent post seemed to have a good understanding of the subject matter, and I won't attempt to top him here. 

But I did want to offer a few notes on one of Wilson's observations. He seems to think that music can help activate the circuit. More specifically, he is interested in talking about the music of Beethoven.

Beethoven comes up quite a bit in this chapter. Beethoven is said by RAW to be "genetically inclined to right brain activities, that is, to sending coherent wholes, to plunging into neurosomatic bliss almost 'at will,' and to sensory-sensual raptness and rapture. Everybody 'knows' that the Sixth Symphony is 'pantheistic,' but whether Beethoven was an ideological pantheist or not, that way of responding to nature is normal and natural right-brain Circuit V functioning."

Wilson also writes that Beethoven could communicate his Circuit Five experiences, "which is precisely what the ordinary 'mystic' cannot do."

Wilson also writes about obtaining control of the neurosomatic circuit, a progression "from primate emotion to post-hominid tranquility," and says of this "Next Step" that "you can hear it in most of Beethoven's later, major compositions."

You will see that there is more about this in Chapter 12, including this paragraph:

" 'I am He that was, and is, and shall be,' a sentence from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, in hieroglyph and in his own handwriting, was found on the desk where Beethoven composed the Ninth Symphony and all his later, aeon-spanning 'evolutionary' music. One judges from this, and from the music itself, that Beethoven had opened the neurogenetic circuit."

However you judge such passages, certainly it is true that there are RAW fans such as Eric Wagner and myself who have a major Beethoven habit. 

Anyone interested in this way of looking at Beethoven's music should read the short piece "Beethoven As Information" in The Illuminati Papers.  I almost hate to excerpt it -- RAW is on fire from beginning to end in this three-page piece -- but here is one bit:

" 'Anyone who understands my music will never be unhappy again'," Ludwig is alleged to have said. Some biographers doubt the source from which we get this; but it doesn't matter. If he didn't say it, he might as well have; the music certainly says it for him. It is the music of a stubborn individual who is willing to suffer anything, pay any price asked, to achieve greater organic vision than has existed in the world before him.

"To be blunt about it, what went on inside Beethoven's head was more important, in the long run, than everything going on outside that head in those years."

RAW, in the new book, on Ulysses

First edition of Ulysses from 1922

Feb. 2 this year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses. 

The new Robert Anton Wilson book, Natural Law  Or Don’t Put A Rubber On Your Willy And Other Writings From A Natural Outlaw, edited by Chad Nelson, has two interviews with RAW, both of them good,. 

In one of them, a KBOO-FM interview by Cliff Walker, he's asked about Joyce. Here are a couple of sentences from the answer:

"What I love about Joyce (besides introducing me to Jameson's and Guinness Extra Stout, -- the two greatest products that ever came out of Dublin) is he wrote the first relativistic novel, Ulysses. Ulysses seems to me the only realistic novel of the twentieth century, because it's the only novel that contains at least one hundred different interpretations of itself, within itself. Therefore it's contemporary with quantum mechanics and Gödel's proof in mathematics and Cubist painting and movies like Citizen Kane, where you get five versions of the same story; Joyce anticipated all of modern science, modern philosophy, and modern art. And he was very funny, too, like most Irish writers."

Natural Law's cover art

On Twitter, the RAW Semantics Twitter account says, "Excellent cover for the new Hilaritas Press edition of RAW's 'Natural Law'  (by  @amoebadesign I believe)."

Yes, it was done by @amoebadesign, Scott McPherson, and as Rasa remarks, it references a RAW quote, "Every perception is a gamble, in which we see part, not all, (to see all requires omniscience) and 'fill in' or project a convincing hologram out of minimal clues. We all intuitively know the obvious and correct answer to the Zen koan, 'Who is the Master who makes the grass green?' "

I remarked to Scott on Twitter that Chad Nelson and I both admire the cover and thought it seemed like a departure from his previous covers, and he remarked, "Aye, this one is aimed at the general public and wellness mob ;)  it's meant to look like an appealing  book you would see in the Sunday papers.... it's a trojan horse design ;)  meant to suck you in.....

"Going for the non RAW fans with this one  .... the gateway drug I call it."

I remarked, "Yes, it kind of reaches out to the unconverted, doesn't it? I thought it was a really good collection. I suspect many RAW fans will like it, but I also hope it reaches other people, and you've contributed to that cause."

Scott replied, "The content is king ;) doing that type design style cover helps get it through to unsuspecting types I'm hoping ;)"

Hilaritas releases two books

Hilaritas Press has announced the publication of two new titles, Natural Law, Or Don’t Put A Rubber On Your Willy And Other Writings From A Natural Outlaw by Robert Anton Wilson and From Now to Now, the autobiography of German abstract artist Marlis Jermutus.

The new edition of Natural Law is essentially a new book; although it reprints a long essay RAW wrote which had been published as a short book earlier and has now gone out of print, the new edition also adds a dozen pieces of additional material, both essays and interviews, making it essentially a new book. The editor, Chad Nelson, did a fine job of selecting the additional reprints, and when I served as a volunteer copyeditor for Hilaritas, I discovered Chad had put together an excellent book, one I'm really excited about. I'm interviewing Chad now, and that interview about the book should appear soon. See the link to the Hilaritas announcement for links to buy the book. As of now, Hilaritas is still struggling with Amazon to get the Kindle available, but it should be there soon. 

The Hilartitas Press announcement has quite a bit about From Now to Now, including a review of the book by Christina Pearson, RAW's daughter. "I love this book. As a mature woman of these times, as a childhood abuse survivor, as a hard worker, as a trailblazer, as someone who never wants to be boxed in, and has always wanted to do and be the best me I can, she spoke directly to my weary heart in so very many ways," Pearson writes. 

You can read my 2018 review of an earlier edition  and there is also my interview with Jermutus, which includes discussion of her friendships with Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson (Leary influenced her decision to move to California.) 

New RAW reading group: Sex, Drugs and Magick

Apueleius Charlton, who lead a reading group recently at his Jechidah blog on Robert Anton Wilson's Ishtar Rising, has announced a new online reading group on Wilson's Sex, Drugs and Magick, also reissued recently in a new edition by Hilaritas Press. Apuleius mentioned that in his last Prometheus Rising post, and there is also an announcement at Jechidah.

The reading group starts Feb. 28,  giving everybody time to get a copy, and I believe it will follow the same format we've followed here, i.e. Apuleius will post, and everyone contribute via the comments. 

Hilaritas published the new Sex, Drugs and Magick in April 2021 with an unusually large number of guest pieces, with essays from Grant Morrision, Damien Echols, Phil Farber, Cat Vincent, Rodney Orpheus, Andrew O'Neill, Alexis Mincolla and Arden Leigh. 

Wednesday links

Arden Leigh

F23 podcast released, featuring Arden Leigh. 

New Prop Anon music track. Meditative hip hop. Buy it here. 

Canada allows psychedelic drugs for therapy. 

"Drug-laced beer may have forged ancient Peruvian empire."

Democrat angles for libertarian vote.  I'm probably underselling it; check it out. 

Happy RAW birthday, new interview

Today is Robert Anton Wilson's birthday, and Martin Wagner at Robert Anton Wilson Fans Germania celebrates by posting an interview from late in RAW's life, "Throwing Shoes Down The Rabbit Hole With Robert Anton Wilson, An Interview by Rev. Dr. Shé D’Monford," giving answers that mostly are not terribly serious. A couple of Q and A's: 

I wouldn’t put it past you to do that or at least create a rumour that you have. However, we can lay one rumour to bed here and that is: ‘Robert Anton Wilson is dead’… In fact he is still ‘really living!’ Apart from living, what are you doing now?

Wilson: Teaching courses online through the Maybe Logic Academy. That’s at www.maybelogic.org

What is your aim with the online school?

Wilson: To use Internet to accelerate evolution and of course to annoy people who already think evolution has reached its peak.

Prometheus Rising exercise and discussion group, Episode 65, Chapter 11

By Apuleius Charlton
Special guest blogger 

I’ve been looking forward to writing about Chapter 11 since the nascent planning stages of our Prometheus Rising group. I vividly remember this chapter and how it “opened a door” for me to understand some of the experiences I had had since beginning practicing magic. After rereading the chapter, I realize that Wilson (and many, many other writers) is correct…the ineffable doesn’t lend itself to translation…also, most of my experiences with neurosomatic consciousness are intensely private. Talking too much about one’s personal experience with the fifth circuit is akin to telling someone else about your dreams…unless you’re Coleridge or Steve Moore, you’re probably not going to come up with anything of interest. 

Some notes on the chapter: the drawing at the beginning of the chapter is not by Aleister Crowley but rather Lady Frieda Harris, though it was executed according to Crowley’s specifications. Crowley’s remarks on pranayama come from The Book of Lies and Book 4, Part 1 respectively. To disagree with Uncle Bob, I think that Crowley’s Liber E provides clear enough, if overly ambitious, instructions for pranayama. The years when I regularly practiced pranayama were some of the most productive in my life- and while I never achieved a regular regimen of an hour each day, for some time I practiced it for around forty minutes morning and evening. After fifteen minutes I would almost always feel a “shift” inside myself and would spend the remainder of practice blissfully snorting and blowing away. I think resuming pranayama will be the main exercize I follow from this chapter, and hopefully my sinuses will cooperate. 

When I read this chapter the first time I wasn’t particularly struck by the material on Christian Science and faith healing. While Mary Baker Eddy was a fascinating woman, and I always think of her when I stumble on ice, my exposure to people who really, really believe in “laying on of hands” and possess, in my opinion, an unhealthy reliance on homeopathy did not set me up to have much sympathy for such ideas. Today’s pandemic of anti-scientific thinking in the face of a global crisis has alienated me further from such beliefs. What would have appealed to me was Wilson’s sober-minded exploration of the Dark Night of the Soul and the unpleasant side of the fifth circuit and his whizz-drunk recounting of Hassan-i-Sabbah’s pleasure gardens. While I had read about the Old Man of the Mountain in other places and in Wilson before, I love his luridly detailed recreation of history. (And, I must say that I am incredibly skeptical of the level of detail added by Wilson or whatever historian Wilson was using as a source. While I’d like to believe that Sabbah had some time-released-fun-pills, I doubt it.)  

Wilson’s remarks about Hassan-i-Sabbah and whatever philosophies he liked to group under “tantra” appealed to me enough to soon try the third exercize from this chapter and explore Sex, Drugs, and Magick which would lead to some experiences that would greatly affect my own comprehension of reality and pleasure. Again, this is mostly highly personal experimentation that isn’t comfortable to write about nor would it be interesting to read. That said, I think it is time to begin thinking about beginning the Sex, Drugs, and Magick reading group on Jechidah- I’m thinking the new group will most likely begin February 28th, which should give me time to finish up some other projects before moving on to something else. Let me know what everyone thinks! 

YouTube course on Prometheus Rising

 Eric Wagner's excellent post last week for the Prometheus Rising online discussion group drew a bunch of comments, including one from Spookah that shared some news I had never run across before: An online course on Prometheus Rising hosted by YouTube, presented by the Virtual Reality Mystery School. 

"The Virtual Reality Mystery School (re)connects people with the world’s heritage of spiritual, esoteric and mystical philosophy and practice, through a sharable VR experience. From ancient wisdom to modern science’s cutting edge, to make the most of now," the About section explains.  

There's a playlist of 18 different videos. 

"This series started out as a group-reading and discussion but quickly turned into a fully fledged course on RAW's classic work 'Prometheus Rising'.

"This series was created by and recorded at VR Mystery School (https://vrmystery.school) and contains:

"- The full text of Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson

"- Dissection of the subject matter by Alley Wurds (https://linktr.ee/elephantwords), Bachelor of Philosophy & expert on RAW's eight-circuit model

"- Questions from & discussion with the audience"

Illuminatus! the musical?

Ben Graham (Twitter photo)

An amusing followup to yesterday's David Bowie discussion: My post generated some chatter on Twitter, and writer Ben Graham remarked, "As a personal OM project a couple of years back I was trying to push a story that in the late 70s Bowie had bought the film rights to Illuminatus! and was determined to make a musical version in which he played Hagbard Celine."

David Bowie remains a big rock star and fascinating person

 

David Bowie (Creative Commons photo by Adam Bielawski)

People have wondered for awhile whether David Bowie, the talented and fascinating British rock star, might have been interested in Robert Anton Wilson.  Here are a few sentences from Oz Fritz, who wrote about Bowie in 2016 after the sudden news arrived of Bowie's death from cancer. (In spite of his stardom, Bowie has managed to keep the news of his illness private, so the news was a terrible shock. But despite having no warning, Oz wrote a very substantial article, as you can see.)

I recall someone in the online Crowley course RAW gave posting a rumor or anecdote that David Bowie had been seen at a RAW talk in the LA area in the early to mid '70's. I never did discover the actuality of that, but it seems plausible. Bowie lived in LA at that time and traversed similar experimental territory with RAW. They both practiced qabala and magick and both used it in their artistic expression.

Bowie also appeared completely dialed in to the space migration, extra-terrestrial intelligence, Starseed Transmissions gestalt that RAW and Leary were promoting in the '70s ..... [Much more at the link.]

I have thought about Bowie again this week, after running across "Hunky Dory Turns 50," about the album sometimes seen as one where Bowie found his stride. 

Hunky Dory is the album that includes "Changes." When I looked up the album on Wikipedia, I discovered that it has a song, "Oh! You Pretty Things" that "reference the teachings of the occultist Aleister Crowley and his Golden Dawn and the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly with the lines 'the homo superior', 'the golden ones' and 'homo sapiens have outgrown their use'."

The Hunky Dory article also mentioned something else that's interesting: 1971 apparently is considered a year that provided the peak of classic rock:

"The classic rock era arguably launched in 1971, seeing the release of a multitude of iconic LPs. Specifically, these foundational and ground-breaking albums ranged from the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers to Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain; and from Joni Mitchell’s Blue to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On; and from Carole King’s Tapestry to Led Zeppelin IV. As the year ended—on 17 December—a 24-year-old British singer-songwriter David Bowie released Hunky Dory, a record whose musical versatility and genius rivals any of the Beatles’ late ’60s catalog."

There's a book about this, Never A Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded by David Hepworth.

I am not a David Bowie expert but I have an old friend, Gary Shindler, who actually is, and so I asked Gary if he could help me by giving me his list of the top five Bowie albums. Gary kindly obliged, so exclusively for this blog, here is Gary's list:

1. Scary Monsters
2. Man Who Sold the World
3. Station to Station
4. Low
5. Aladdin Sane

"His catalog is vast and simplifying it to five albums isn't easy," notes Gary, a fan of the Hunky Dory album.