Photo by Matthew Brodeur on Unsplash
Marijuana legalization has suffered some setbacks recently in the U.S., but now there's some good news to report on the "war on some drugs": Marijuana legalization has been approved in Delaware. Jacob Sullum at Reason, who always does a good job with this issue, has the details.
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John Barth (Creative Commons photo by John Mathew Smith, source).
A followup to yesterday's post: Robert Anton Wilson was a John Barth fan.
After Robert Shea noted John Gardner's comment about Barth and RAW, Wilson wrote (in a letter to No Governor 11)
"I can't answer Arthur Hlavaty's question about what John Barth thinks of my novels, but I can easily answer his second question. I enjoy Barth's books enormously. I think his Sabbatical covers the malaise of our time better than professional spy-thriller writers like Ambler and Le Carre have ever done. Just because one is never sure if the CIA killed the man on the boat or is trying to kill the hero, Sabbatical leaves one with precisely the sense of uncertainty and dread that has hung over this nation since democracy was abandoned in the National Security Act of 1947 and clandestine government became official.
"Sometimes I find it astounding that we have lived under fascism for 40 years while continuing the rituals of democracy -- and that hardly any "major" novelist has tried to grapple with this issue. I salute Barth for his subtlety and the eerie atmosphere he creates in describing our increasingly Machiavellian world. To be brutally frank and eschew false modesty, I think only Mailer, Pynchon and myself have captured the terror of the situation as well as Barth did in that book.
"Oh, yeah, I like Barth's other books, too. Sabbatical just happens to be my favorite."
I had an earlier post about this, but it seems timely to repeat the RAW quote. Here is Arthur Hlavaty on Barth, and see the comments in yesterday's post.
John Gardner (public domain photo)
The American novelist John Gardner, author of fiction such as The Sunlight Dialogues and Grendel, also wrote books of literary criticism and writing. He was only 49 when he died suddenly in 1982, in a motorcycle accident. Robert Shea used to read a lot of literary fiction, and books about writing, and he noticed that Gardner had praised Robert Anton Wilson.
In his newsletter No Governor issue No. 9 (I have all of them available via a link on this page, on the right, under "Robert Shea Resources"), Shea writes, "I've been reading On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner, a very fine writer whose life was cut short a few years ago by a motorcycle accident. (Some time I must vent some of my feelings about motorcycles). To my surprise and pleasure I ran across a nice compliment to two of my friends, one being our own BobW, on page 94. Talking about science fiction (and tell your snobby friends John Gardner refers to it is "sci-fi") he lists a number of writers he likes and winds up with, 'One finds a fair amount of literary merit in Algis J. Budrys' Michaelmas or the work of Robert Wilson whose novels (for instance Schroedinger's Cat) out-Barth John Barth without sacrificing the primary quality of good fiction, interesting storytelling.' One could do worse than out-Barth Barth. I look forward to the day when a literary critic remarks that some work by John Barth 'almost out-Wilson's Robert Anton Wilson'."
Shea published some science fiction short stories in the 1950s and was invited to join the Hydra Club. He knew various science fiction figures and was friends with Budrys and science fiction magazine editor Larry T. Shaw. I read a Barth novel, The Floating Opera, when I was in college. I've read two John Gardner novels, Grendel and Mikkelson's Ghosts.
The 20th episode of the Hilaritas Press podcast has been released. More information and useful links at the link.
"Hilaritas host Mike Gathers with musician and Chaos magickian Zach West, about Probability Engineering and his Eight Circuits of Music in Episode 20 of the Hilaritas Podcast."
"http://www.hilaritaspress.com/podcasts/zach-west-on-probability-engineering-the-8-musical-circuits-episode-20/
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Scene from the 1916 film Intolerance (Alfred Paget as Prince Belshazzar).
In the latest regular Hilaritas podcast, featuring Eric Wagner on Ezra Pound, Eric contends that to really understand Robert Anton Wilson, the reader must wrestle with Ezra Pound. Eric is, as I've mentioned before, the author of the revised edition of An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson; I keep the Kindle on my phone for ready reference.
One important point Eric makes early in the hour-long podcast with Mike Gathers is that regardless of what one thinks of Pound's more dire views,which he recanted late in life, he played a major role in assisting many of the top writers of the 20th century, including James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway. Eric also makes reading recommendations for Pound, but see also his recommendations in the comments for my earlier post on the podcast.
One other point: Eric remarks in passing that Illuminatus! "based on" D.W. Griffith's movie Intolerance. While I knew Wilson admired the film,, I didn't know (or at least didn't remember) that the movie influenced Illuminatus!, so I did some searching. In this interview of RAW by Neal Wilgus, RAW, referring to Illuminatus!, says, "The narrative technique is based on D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, which I think is the greatest movie ever made." (The interview is excerpted in The Illuminati Papers, but not the bit about Intolerance.)
Intolerance is a three-hour epic, but evidently I need to get around to watching it.
A question for Eric: Robert Shea's acknowledgements for All Things Are Lights mentions RAW. Should we guess that RAW recommended Pound's The Spirit of Romance, and that the book influenced Shea's novel?
On Twitter, Prop Anon spots an article by Ray Bradbury, "Zen and the Art of Writing," from the October 1958 issue of "Writer" magazine, available at the Internet Archive. In the article, Bradbury offers writing advice, and tells his readers to hunt up a copy of Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel. (Bradbury apparently gets the title slightly wrong.)
Prop wrote on Twitter that the Bradbury piece was "influential."
It certainly influenced Robert Shea. In the Science Fiction Review interview with Shea, which I referenced yesterday, Shea talks about how the article had a big influence on him. Shea also talks about his Zen practice, and his habitat of meditating every day. It's a very in-depth and interesting interview.
I plan to do a "Robert Shea Week," probably in late May, and I've invited people who read this blog to read his historical novel All Things Are Lights and discuss it with me when I post about the book that week. I plan to reread the book.
Here is Shea on the novel, from a 1985 interview by Neal Wilgus published in Science Fiction Review, a big SF fanzine in those days.
SFR: Could you describe All Things Are Lights for us?
SHEA: The title comes from a medieval philosopher, Scotus Erigena, who said, “All that are, are lights.” The main characters have an outlook that is as mystical as that statement, only their mysticism is not of the orthodox variety. The main character is a troubadour who achieves illumination in an adulterous affair with a countess through the rites of courtly love, which I portray as a Westernized version of tantric yoga. The troubadour is also in love with a woman minister of the heretical Cathar sect. Nowadays they tell women they can’t be priests; in those days they burned them at the stake for trying. These people get caught up in the disastrous Seventh Crusade led by King Louis IX, known today as St. Louis. The crusaders are eventually defeated by the Egyptian Mamalukes. The survivors, including the King, are held as hostages by the Moslems and try to save their lives by paying an enormous ransom.
Illustration for new track posted at Steve "Fly" Pratt's new Substack.
Steve "Fly" Pratt posts a short piece by RAW that resonates with all of the recent news about advances in AI. I don't want to spoil it by summarizing it; it's not very long, just read it.
Also, note that Steve has launched a new Substack.
About ten years ago, I did a brief blog post about the solar system's dwarf planet, Eris, and the astronomer who named it, noting the scientist's apparently Discordian background.
A new article, "Kerry Thornley: Dwarf Planet Eris, Discordianism and the John F. Kennedy Assassination," by Alden Loveshade, goes over the Discordian history that will be familiar to some of you. The naming of the dwarf planet Eris is what I know the least about, so I was most interested in that part of the story, and would like to know more. I guess I need to get around to reading astronomer Mike Brown's book, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming.
There isn't a good photo of the planet Eris available yet apparently; I've shared what's shown at the Wikipedia article. The story of the goddess Eris and her role in starting the Trojan War, wielding a golden apple because she didn't get invited to an important social event, is told in Illuminatus!.
Hat tip: William H. Stoddard, president of the Libertarian Futurist Society, the folks who give out the Prometheus Award.
Joshua Norton, emperor of the United States and protector of Mexico.
Emperor Joshua Norton, mentioned of course quite a few times in the Illuminatus!, has been honored by having a section of street in San Francisco named after him. A posting at the Boing Boing website explains:
"In a delightful update from San Francisco, Emperor Norton I, the charming 19th-century eccentric, is being honored with a street named after him in Chinatown. The 600 block of Commercial Street, located between Montgomery and Kearny Streets, is now officially known as "Emperor Norton Place." Interestingly, Norton actually lived on this very block in a building called the Eureka Lodgings from around 1864-1865 until his death in 1880."
More at the link. The author of the Boing Boing piece is Rusty Blazenhoff, a byline I don't recognize, but apparently Rusty is a regular contributor. Good for Rusty for spotting this.
Graham Hancock. Creative Commons photo. Source.
I think it's safe to say there are at least some Robert Anton Wilson fans who are interested in Graham Hancock, the British writer who claims there were advanced Ice Age civilizations before the known civilizations of antiquity. Jesse Michels, the purported "modern-day Robert Anton Wilson," has featured Graham Hancock on his YouTube show. The Daily Grail website, has 154 results when you search for "Robert Anton Wilson," and 459 if you search for Graham Hancock.
So I thought sombunall of you might be interested in "Against Ice Age Civilizations," a piece by Substack blogger Scott Alexander.
Alexander says there are actually three separate claims (1) Civilizations about as advanced as the people who built Stonehenge (2) Civilizations about as advanced as Pharaonic Egypt and (3) Civilizations about as advanced as 1700s Great Britain, and says Hancock is making the third claim.
Alexander then considers the evidence, such as the lack of surviving sites, the absence of cultivated crops that can be traced back to the Ice Age, and the lack of evidence for high levels of lead until about 1,000 BC.
"I think there’s pretty strong evidence against lost Egypt- or Great Britain- level Ice Age civilizations," Alexander says "I don’t want to rule out a lost Stonehenge or Gobekli Tepe level civilization, but there’s not much positive evidence, and there’s some negative evidence."
Image of a reality tunnel, from Dr. Richard Waterloo's Twitter. Made by Midjourney with Waterloo's prompt.
Will the next SpaceX launch advance space migration?
The case for Milton Friedman's negative income tax, a form of UBI that RAW was interested in.
More monitoring of social media expected.
New vaccines coming against cancer and heart disease. Hat tip, Nick Helseg-Larsen.
Antero Alli has been releasing new work since his serious illness was announced, and now he has released what may be his last book, Sacred Rites, available from Original Falcon Press. (Note that Amazon has dropped Mobi file support for send to Kindle and that sending an Epub file now works fine for that option).
Here is the publisher description:
"Sacred Rites documents the author’s personal experiences with the transformative ritual medium of Paratheatre that he has developed since 1977. Through his private ritual journals written over eleven years (2000–2011), Alli bypasses historical definitions of ritual beyond the costumed spectacles of the robes and wands of Western occult ceremonial magick, the archaic history of pagan nature rites, and the somber pomp of the Catholic High Mass with its wafers, cheap wine, and sermons chanted in the dead language of Latin. His Production Notes explain how his ritual labs transformed into public performances, and inspired the creation of his underground films. Also featured are Ritual Journal Entries of a dozen individuals who trained with Antero, plus an outline for the facilitating Introductory Workshops."
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