Penguicon wrap up

I went to only one Penguicon program item Sunday before leaving Michigan to go home and nurse my cold -- a presentation by the Science Fiction Oral History Association. I listened to recordings of SF luminaries such as Isaac Asimov, Roger Zelazny, Arthur C. Clarke and C.L. Moore and paid $5 on the spot to sign up as a member.

There would seem to be an intersection between these guys and my other interests. I wonder how interested they would be, for example, in Robert Anton Wilson audio?

Notes on the new counterculture

I believe it is Timothy Leary who is credited with observing that personal computers fueled a new counterculture in a way that's analogous to LSD and the older counterculture. I also know that Robert Anton Wilson was interested in computers and had planned to write a book on the Internet, "Tale of the Tribe."

This weekend, I have been attending Penguicon, a combined science fiction and digital culture convention, with particular emphasis on open source software and open source culture in general. With the sort of timing that seems to attend such things, I caught a cold shortly before the convention, so I haven't attended as much programming as I would like -- I've been taking naps, avoiding staying up late, etc.

Still, I've been going to events and taking pictures, and I thought I would share some to give you an idea of what's going on.

In some ways, the convention is better-run than the usual SF conventions.

The hotel here, the Hyatt Regency, is the biggest in Michigan, the convention folks say. It's in Dearborn and it looks like a fortress.

The hotel wanted to charge me to use wi-fi, but Penguicon set up its own wi-fi network in the convention area, which is what I am using now.  Weeks before the weekend of the convention, Penguicon began publishing details of its programming on its unusually detailed Web site.

Many aspects of the convention resemble the usual SF convention.

The con suite, where free food and drinks are served, has a good selection. It even has beer, and something called Open Cola, open source soda pop made by soda geeks. Unfortunately, it is  a bit cramped and often the visitor has to stand.

Security for the con suite:

Registration turned out to be a dreadful experience. I had preregistered weeks in advance, but after I stood in a long line and it finally came to be my turn, the guy said he could not find a record I had paid in his computer. I had to go back to my room and get a receipt I had taken the precaution of printing out  when I packed. When another convention person finally convinced the gatekeeper that the receipt was valid, they handed me my preprinted badge and other materials.


As in other conventions, hall costumes are part of the fun. Here is a dragon.

.

Here is a bit of elevator fandom.

I missed much of the programming because I was in my room lying down instead, and because I don't feel well I'm not going to make this an exhaustive con report, either. But here are a couple of other examples of what makes Penguicon different from regular SF conventions.

To an unusual degree, Penguicon encourages attendees to use ribbons to express their interests, or solidarity with certain forms of programming. Each ribbon has an adhesive so it can be be attached to a badge, and many attendees have a long series of ribbons dangling from their badges.

Here is a ribbon which expresses exactly what kind of relationships you would welcome with the other attendees:

As you can see, the idea is supposed to be that you cross off the aspects of relationships you are not interested in (such as, for example, monogamy). I crossed off most of the stuff on my badge to indicate I was only looking for friendship. Monogamy seemed to be generally taking a beating.

One of my favorite panels was presented by Scrub Club Records, an open source record label which makes all of its music available as a free download from its Web  site. It specializes in nerdcore, i.e., rap music aimed at nerds. I had a lot of questions, and they were very open and helpful in answering them.

From left are Scrub Club artists Soup or Villains (the first two gentlemen, including the one who is standing), King Pheenix, Starf and Mad Hatter.

A steampunk couple:

How psychedelics can help teminally ill patients

The New York Times runs an interesting story, "How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death." The researchers take pains to distance themselves from Timothy Leary, but the research itself underscores a point that Robert Anton Wilson made -- that scientists ought to be allowed to conduct research on the possible benefits of psychedelic drugs.

Ken Campbell on how RAW turned him on to Philip K. Dick

[Jesse Walker, still working on his book but back to work at "Reason" magazine, kindly passes on a cool find: The late Ken Campbell, the British theatre genius who mounted a stage production of "ILLUMINATUS!," once wrote a piece on how Robert Anton Wilson turned him on to PKD's Valis. Here is the piece. -- The Mgt.]

ENANTIODROMIA - I shall be using that word frequently in my next one-man show, Pigspurt. Enantiodromia - I shall be the fourth person to use it, ever, in the world. Heraclitus was the first, C G Jung was the second, Philip K Dick was the third, and I shall be the fourth. It means: sudden transformation into an opposite form or tendency; sudden shifting to the opposite pole of attitude, belief and emotion. So R L Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde is an enantiodromic classic - but Robert didn't know the word!

Actually I didn't find it in Heraclitus or Jung, I got it from Philip K Dick. In Pigspurt I shall be giving enantiodromic demonstrations of my own devising. My last show, Recollections of a Furtive Nudist, was also a tribute to the visionary Dick.

I have a love of conquering outlandish words. When I played Maurice in Heathcote Williams's AC/DC I spent a whole morning wrestling with the pronunciation of dimethoxyphenylathylamide. DI-METH-OXY-PHENY-LA-THYL-A-MIDE over and over again until I had the monster tripping off my tongue - and then in the afternoon the meaning: 'The pink spot in the urine of every schizophrenic.'

The director (Andrew Dallmeyer, Liverpool Playhouse, Studio, 1972) said the line had to be delivered at white heat - I can still do it: 'Dimethoxyphenylathylamide' - the pink spot in the urine of every schizophrenic!' (At white heat!)

Most older actors have their line - the line they say to themselves, or the wall, before they go on - their great line of some memory. The late Stuart Pearce had a good one. He'd say to the wall, or world, or self before launching off into the unknown of a first night: 'A knife in the back is not what we call a normal death, Carstairs!'

An actress of the Margate Theatre Royal (name escapes me) impressed me much with her line, obviously a line which she'd worked on and delivered brilliantly one time: 'It's useless, useless . . . as a leg.'

But before any first night, before I go on, I will declaim to wall, world, whatever: 'Dimethoxyphenylathylamide - the pink spot in the urine of every schizophrenic.' It's my line. I'm the best at it.

Last October I was attending the International Philip K Dick Celebration in Loughton. Heavy Americans had come. Lawrence Sutin, author of Divine Invasions - A Life of Philip K Dick; Gregg Rickman, To The High Castle - Philip K Dick: A Life; and Paul Williams, Only Apparently Real - The World of Philip K Dick.

Dick enthusiast though I was, I was daunted, yet wishing to shine in this company - (this is in the bar the night before) - I steered the conversation so I could casually say: 'Dimethoxyphenylathylamide - the pink spot in the urine of every schizophrenic.' American voice - was it Lawrence? Was it Gregg? Was it Paul? - I don't know. But the reply came certainly and easily: 'Dimethoxyphenylathylamide is found in the urine of everybody.' I was called. I offered: 'But I think you'll find that dimethoxyphenylathylamide is found in greater proportion in the urine of schizophrenics.' He said: 'It's not a study we've made. I thank you for the point.'

Wow! Boys. I'm only just in. A fringe Dick Head. Dick-dom, Dick-fandom, whatever you want to call it, it's like nothing else. You know how the Illuminati were a secret society inside Masonry - well the Dick Heads were a secret society inside science fiction.

There are two factions of Dick Head: the Pre '74s and the Post '74s. If you're Pre '74 you're into Solar Lottery, The World Jones Made and The Man in the High Castle; Martian Time Slip, Clans of the Alphane Moon and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

If you're Post '74 it maybe happened like this . . . you got given Valis (it was the most given Christmas present between ex and older hippies in 1982, and it wasn't like anything you'd read before).

I remember Robert Anton Wilson, co-author of the Illuminatus! trilogy, who used to stay with us sometimes until my wife objected to his using the washing machine for only one shirt. Anyway, late one night, in awed tones, he said: 'Have you read Valis?' He gave me my first copy. Literally mind-twisting, it's one of those books you wind up buying loads of copies of. Because you're either going to have to move on to new friends who have read it or force old friends to get into it.

The hero of Valis is Horselover Fat. (Philip in the Greek means admirer of the equestrian arts and Dick is the German for fat.) Horselover Fat spends much of his time writing his Exegesis - a theological term meaning a piece of writing that explains or interprets a portion of scripture: 'Fat believed that the information fired at him and progressively crammed into his head in successive waves had a holy origin and hence should be regarded as a form of scripture.'

The opening aphorism of Fat's Exegesis is: 'One Mind there is; but under it two principles contend.' A suggestion that the phenomenon of enantiodromia is of Divine Origin? A furthering of this enquiry is one of the main strands of Pigspurt.

On 2 March it will be 10 years since Philip K Dick died. I will be co-hosting a literary evening at the ICA alongside psychotherapist Ernesto Spinelli. Spinelli is a real fan. He's not only read all of Dick's books, he's currently re-reading them in chronological order. We'll take those present on a journey - a journey through the books, the life of the writer and into the science of fiction. Brian Aldiss, Fay Weldon and Geoff Ryman are some of the writers contributing, while bio-physicist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart (Does God Play Dice?) come at it from a scientific viewpoint.

The evening will feature events including Desert Island Dicks, in which celebrated fans reveal their favourite eight books from his oeuvre, and a consideration of Dick's work in the light of recent scientific insights on parallel universes, the practical difficulties of infinity and the peculiar nature of time.

ENANTIODROMIA!

DIMETHOXYPHENYLATHYLAMIDE!

* Philip K Dick - The Other Side of Infinity, ICA, Monday 2 March, 7.30pm (071 930 3647). Pigspurt, written and performed by Ken Campbell, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, 4-28 March, 8pm (081 748 3354).

A post on RAW's reading habits

"Bob later suggested to me that if I wanted to improve my prose style I should read Ulysses forty times."

Eric Wagner posts about Robert Anton Wilson's reading habits.

Oz Fritz continues bardo training posts

I don't quite know what to make of Oz Fritz's posts about bardo training and surviving death -- I certainly don't know enough about what he's talking about to offer an informed opinion -- but his posts certainly are a wild ride, and they offer the opportunity to learn about music, too.

Two new posts: One in which jazz legend Ornette Coleman tells our hero, "You won't believe this, nobody does ... what I am trying to do with my music is conquer death." Robert Anton Wilson also is cited in the post, which is dedicated to Levon Helm.

The follow-up post reiterates Oz Fritz's main points and then goes into a discussion of Harry Nilsson and a dramatic anecdote about the death of Oz Fritz's father.

Both posts are really interesting.

RAW defends satire

[This is an email sent out by Robert Anton Wilson on April 1, 2004, to a group email list that included Eric Wagner, R.U. Sirius and others. In this one, RAW responds to Bruce Kodish, who takes him to task for allegedly blurring the lines between real antisemitism and a more satiric variety. Michael Johnson, who seems to know everything, explains, "Bruce Kodish is one of the more prominent writers on the current Institute for General Semantics scene, and published a bio of Korzybski not long ago, although none of the 60-odd libraries I have acccess to have bought it. Kodish wrote a book called Drive Yourself Sane. After that book came out he revealed his rather obvious partisanship for the Israelis and not for the Palestianians. This set RAW off. I remember him writing "He should drive himself sane." Eric Wagner shared this with me, and so I share it with you. I've put RAW's comments in bold. -- The Mgt.]

Dear Bob,
 Where does guerilla ontology end and helping spread rumors begin?
Regards,
 Bruce


You came in too late on this one. I passed on a
 JFK theory blaming  Israel
along with a parody by meself blaming extra-terrestrials


 I didn't think that I came too late. I read what you were passing on, the
"L.B.J. is a Sephardic Jew," etc. stuff.   And though it goes without
surely don't consider you an antisemite. Not at all, not at all. 

[Why, thank you,sir. Wd you go so far as to say you don't
consider me a fascist, a cannibal or a CIA disinformation
agent? Wot with the death of humor in this moribund republic,
I badly need testimonials on all those issues,
among udders....
--Damned Old Crank]


Guerilla ontology ends where satire becomes invisible...
 which depends on IQ and hilaritas of each reader.

However.....8-)

[Oh damn here it comes..
-D.O.C.]

 Where satire approaches invisibility (For example, foo's later missive?) 
then the possibility exists for the 'satire' to get taken seriously and to
affect readers and listeners in a multitude of ways, perhaps negative
ways. And then--does the satirist have any responsiblity for some of those
results? Maybe.

[How much responsibility wd you assign Swift for any English
owners who began buying and eating the babies of their
Irish tennants?
 Or Mark Twain for  those who decided
the oyster really exists to provide a gourmet treat
for JD Rockefeller?
 Or Flaubert for any increase in
adultery among French housewives?
More to the point -- how much do you blame J Joyce
for the anti-semitic ravings of citizen Cusack
in Ulysses?
How strict yr form of Political Correctness?
--DOC]

 Yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre may qualify as the paradigm of
irresponsible speech. Can passing on conspiracy theories, even with
satirical intent, become irresponsible in a similar way? Maybe. When and
where does it begin to do so? Well, it seems like a matter of degree,
depends upon context, etc.

[Without irony, I cite Rev Ivan Stang as one who
has more sense of humor and more unnerstandin' of my
dumb ideas than you have-- he says  I recognize strong
maybes and weak maybes. http://www.maybelogic.com/
You seem to brood inordinately over very
very very very very weak maybes.
--DOC]

 Antisemitic speech doesn't insult me. I take it seriously because as you
know "as the thinker thinks..." and antisemitic doctrines help create and
perpetuate toxic neuro-evaluational environments. People's lives may be at
stake, including my own and those of close friends and relatives. The
antisemitic garbage that you were 'passing on' and then parodying has
reached pandemic levels in the Arab/Islamic world, thinly masked within
anti-zionism, and has grown among many educated Europeans (especially
leftists) and many of their American academic 'friends', among others.
Synagogues have been bombed in Turkey and North Africa, and burned and
vandalized in Europe. Jews are getting attacked and murdered again for
'being' Jews.


[So I shd fight that yr heavyhanded moralistic way,
and not the way for which
I seem to have some real talent, namely satire a la Swift
and reductio ad absurdum a la Voltaire?
--DOC]


 I have no objection to displaying examples of antisemitism for
examination, critique and parody. I   object to how it is done. For
example, when the example is presented with insufficient quotes, i.e. ,
without framing of the material as an example of "bullshit" or with
insufficient critique. Or if a satire has enough invisiblity that it may
get mistaken for the 'real' thing. Then the satirist may become a
promoter. Or mistakenly get 'identified' as an antisemite. It could
happen.

[See my essay "How to Read" in COINCIDANCE:A HEAD TEST
or az Hugh Kenner once said,
"The  fear of the Word is the beginning of reading"
--DOC]

 Such considerations might at least inspire writers and speakers to think
twice or thrice about possible consequences of what they put out--unless
they think of themselves as all-knowing or just could not care less. 
Call it cogitus interruptus to avoid premature verbal ejaculations.

   I do try to follow my own advice, as I don't consider myself exempt.

  [As I wrote 2 years ago ---   http://www.rawilsom.com/thoughts
Bloomsdayy 2001


  Schrodinger's Jew

       97 years ago today Leopold Bloom, a fictitious man, wandered the
streets of Dublin, a real city; and Joyce scholars still argue about his
odd odyssey. I would like to add to the confusion with a note about Bloom's
"Jewishness."

"Is" Leopold Bloom a Jew?

Not according to Orthodox Rabbinical law, which defines a Jew as the child
of a Jewish mother. Bloom as the child of a Protestant mother "is not" a
Jew.

According to Nazi law, however, a Jew "is" a person with a known Jewish
ancestor. Bloom as the son of Rudolph Bloom [born Rudolph Virag], "is" a
Jew.

See how easily a person can "be" and "not be" a Jew at the same time?

On the third hand, most humanists define a Jew as one who believes in and
practices the Judaic religion. By this definition, Bloom who neither
believes in nor practices any religion "is not" a Jew. But Marilyn Monroe,
who practiced and probably tried to believe in Judaism while married to
Arthur Miller, "was" a Jew by that definition-- for those few years, if not
before or after.

Extensionally or phenomenologically, a Jew "is" somebody considered Jewish
by all or most of the people he meets. By this standard the multi-ordinal
Bloom "is" a Jew again.

Once more: in terms of pure existentialism a Jew "is" somebody who chooses
to consider themselves Jewish. Bloom obviously doesn't consider himself
Jewish but Irish, most of the time. Only when under verbal assault by the
anti-semitic Citizen in Barney Kiernan's pub does Bloom define himself as
Jewish ["And Jesus was a Jew too. Your god. He was a Jew like me."] Here he
obviously has in mind the "known Jewish ancestor" rule, because he adds
"And so was his father," to which the Citizen replies, as a correct
Catholic, "He had no father," and Bloom, unfamiliar with that theology --
logic played with deuces, eights and one-eyed jacks wild -- can only
pragmatically reply, "Well, his uncle then."

But recalling the incident later, Bloom says "And he called me a Jew, which
as a matter of fact I'm not." Here he returns to his customary "believer in
Judaic religion" definition.

I suppose Joyce made Bloom such a tangled genetic and cultural mixture to
expose the absurdities of anti-semitism; but I also suspect that he wanted
to undermine that neurolinguistic habit which postmodernists call
"essentialism" and which Korzybski claimed invades our brains and causes
hallucinations or delusions every time we use the word "is."

--Dam o' Crnk]

 Bruce Kodish's Weblog at
 http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v256

 "Words are powerful enough to lead to love,
but can lead to hatred and terrible pain as well.
 We must be extremely careful how we use them."
 --Joseph Telushkin


[Postscript--

I confess that I have never written anything "in prose
or worse" not sbject to misunderstanding. Vide infra, dig?

"Both  Leary and Wilson have been funded by the CIA since at least the late
sixties....Wilson does have a sense of humor, but remember his smirking
antics are at your expense." --Anonymous leaflet, NYU, 30 April 1990

"Wilson describes himself as a 'guerilla ontologist,' signifying his intent
to attack language and knowledge the way terrorists attack their targets:
to jump out from the shadows for an unprovoked attack,  then slink back and
hide behind a hearty belly-laugh." -- Robert Sheaffer, Skeptical Inquirer
Summer 1990

"A male feminist...a simpering pussy-whipped wimp." -- Lou Rollins,
Lucifer's Lexicon

Douglas Rushkoff managed to misread my unbelief in absolutes
as dogmatic belief in Fundamentalist Materialism.

Etc

--ye olde crank


olga666@rattlebrain.com
http://www.gunsanddope.com/
http://www.rawilson.com/
http://www.maybelogic.com/
http://raw23.home.comcast.net/
http://www.alphane.com/raw.htm
http://www.deoxy.org/learyraw.htm
a midi pommes bleues

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil,

it multiplies it... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot
drive out hate; only love can do that.
    --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong
there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?
          --KungfuTse

Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time. Hatred ceases
by love. This is an old  rule.
    --Gautama Buddha

"I am not that kind of libertarian, really; I don't hate poor people." -- Robert Anton Wilson.

More Manic Doodling here. You can also follow on Twitter (@SteveBellitt).

RAW and reality tunnels

A blog that I was previously not familiar with, Mea Tulpa, recent ran a post on Robert Anton Wilson and reality tunnels (although it doesn't use the term.)

Excerpt:

The example which RAW gives is that, in the midst of various arguments with Catholics in his daily life, he decided to choose to believe like a Catholic for a week. That is, he took all the precedents and precepts of the faith (well known to him from his childhood) and as much as possible let himself trust in them. He talks about how great the comfort this offered him in some areas was, and how great the sense of resentment he felt against those who disagreed with him.


The idea that leapt out at me from this was not how to better sympathise with and understand Catholics, but rather that it is possible to choose the beliefs which we carry with us in our daily life and that, in doing so, we can change how we feel about and react to the world.

Bobby Campbell comic at Maybe Logic

Bobby Campbell reprints a comic, "Reality Tunnels."

Bobby comments, "Boy did people not like this comic! but RAW loved it or at least was kind enough to say so. He also remarked that McLuhan had told Pound to use comic books to popularize his ideas about finance, and that he liked the idea of me doing that for his neuro-semantics. More of which coming soon!"

Lovecraft, giving advice

H.P. Lovecraft answers your relationship questions.

Via Supergee.

Eric Wagner on RAW and Beethoven

Don't miss Eric Wagner's warm memories about Robert Anton Wilson and Beethoven, posted at Eric's new blog.

"He also said he once took LSD and listened to all nine Beethoven symphonies, taking a bit more before each symphony, climaxing with the Ninth at sunrise."

Big things afoot at Maybe Logic Academy

Here's an announcement that caught my eye over at Maybe Logic: "On July 23, 2012 we're opening the floodgates to celebrate all things Robert Anton Wilson. All MLA courses, tele-seminars and Erisian happenings this year will be dedicated to, inspired by and focused on our dear Pope Bob. More info coming soon. Hold tight."

Obviously, when I learn more I will pass it on.