The New York Times reports the unexpected news that a new translation of Finnegans Wake into Chinese has become a bestseller.
The BBC has a story on the same phenomena (thanks for the link, Nick Helweg-Larsen).
From the BBC dispatch: "Joyce's Ulysses was warmly received when it was first translated in the mid-1990s.
"But some critics say the latest translation, of a work that has divided critics with its stream of consciousness style and unusual language, has pandered to a superficial demand among some Chinese for high-brow imports."
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Lots of links
Promiscuous Neurotheologist, Vol. 5 (or so) by Michael Johnson.
I like Oz Fritz's description, in the comments, of what many of us are interested in: "the gnostic approach to agnosticism. Experience = gnosis."
Michael Kinsley on publishing a magazine before the Internet age.
How manuscripts were sent from New York City to Washington, D.C.: "If a piece was too long to be dictated by phone, we would order the author to LaGuardia looking, like Diogenes, for an honest man or woman in the Eastern Shuttle boarding area. The author would beg this person to take our precious cargo of words to National Airport (not yet Reagan National) where someone from The New Republic would try to spot him or her and retrieve the manuscript."
Ode to Joy on broken crockery. (Hat tip, Ted Gioia and Roman Tsivkin.)
Great American Novelist tournament. (H/t Roman again.)
Aaron Swartz prosecution actually looking even worse. (Hat tip, Supergee.) Also, see this excellent Harvey Silvergate piece.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
The real Vietnam War
Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse is a new book, apparently carefully documented, that reveals that atrocities against civilians during the Vietnam War was much more common than most people realize.
Here is a review in the Washington Post, and here is the "Fresh Air" interview, which I heard on the radio Monday.
The "Fresh Air" site includes a downloadable MP3 and also a transcript.
After Turse stumbled across records in the National Archives that documented many atrocities, his advisor wrote him a check and advised him to make copies of the records right away. Excerpt from the transcript:
So within 24 hours I was in my car and I drove down to the National Archives, and I put every cent that he gave me into copying. And I would copy from the moment the archives opened in the morning until they kicked me out at night, and then because I put all the money into copying, I went and slept in my car in the archives parking lot.
And I did this for a couple of nights, and by the end of it I had the whole collection, and you know, I thought my advisor was being a little paranoid, but you know, it turned out to be excellent advice because sometime after I published my first article on this, the records were pulled from the archive shelves, and they haven't been on the public shelves since.
Here is a review in the Washington Post, and here is the "Fresh Air" interview, which I heard on the radio Monday.
The "Fresh Air" site includes a downloadable MP3 and also a transcript.
After Turse stumbled across records in the National Archives that documented many atrocities, his advisor wrote him a check and advised him to make copies of the records right away. Excerpt from the transcript:
So within 24 hours I was in my car and I drove down to the National Archives, and I put every cent that he gave me into copying. And I would copy from the moment the archives opened in the morning until they kicked me out at night, and then because I put all the money into copying, I went and slept in my car in the archives parking lot.
And I did this for a couple of nights, and by the end of it I had the whole collection, and you know, I thought my advisor was being a little paranoid, but you know, it turned out to be excellent advice because sometime after I published my first article on this, the records were pulled from the archive shelves, and they haven't been on the public shelves since.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Living inside our novel
A couple of passages from The Trick Top Hat on "living inside our novel" caught my eye:
The first quote is in a passage in which Blake Williams is talking with Natalie Drest:
"You know, Professor" -- Natalie sits up and gives him a level glance -- "I met a midget once, a nasty little son-of-a-bitch, but he told me something I never forgot. All that exists is metaphor, he said, and whoever controls our metaphors controls us.
"As an anthropologist," Blake Williams said, "I must agree. Are we living in an occult thriller, a porn movie, a philosophical treatise, a sci-fi novel? It depends on which parts of our experience we chose to highlight. That brings us to the question: Are we writing our life-scripts, or is there a Hidden Variable, as the new quantum theories suggest?"
(Pages 274-275 of the omnibus edition of Schroedinger's Cat, in the "The Universe Decides" chapter.)
The second quote is Simon Moon, writing down "the important things he had learned in his out-of-book experience":
1. A novel, or a Universe, is a Whole System.
2. Who we are, and what we do, depends on which novel or universe we are in. Every part is a function of the Whole.
3. It is very hard to remember the whole novel or universe because our horns won't fit the
[this is where the text says he is "losing the meaning of Mooning"]
Page 322, in the chapter "Wise Guys and Nebbishes."
As more one writer has pointed out, reading a novel is an exercise in creation on the part of the reader; the "Elizabeth Bennet" created in my mind when I read Pride and Prejudice is never the person I see onscreen when I see a film adaption. If we are conscious of what kind of novel were are in, as Blake Williams is, perhaps we can be "co-authors" of our own reality.
Incidentally, in the bit about the horns in the second excerpt, RAW is tripped up by the cuts he made in the book; the original version of The Trick Top Hat has a zen parable about a monk who meditates upon the ox, and then achieves illumination when he finds that his horns are so wide he can't leave his cell. It's not in the omnibus editon.
As more one writer has pointed out, reading a novel is an exercise in creation on the part of the reader; the "Elizabeth Bennet" created in my mind when I read Pride and Prejudice is never the person I see onscreen when I see a film adaption. If we are conscious of what kind of novel were are in, as Blake Williams is, perhaps we can be "co-authors" of our own reality.
Incidentally, in the bit about the horns in the second excerpt, RAW is tripped up by the cuts he made in the book; the original version of The Trick Top Hat has a zen parable about a monk who meditates upon the ox, and then achieves illumination when he finds that his horns are so wide he can't leave his cell. It's not in the omnibus editon.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
RAW fans = serious music people?
I just finished my Schroedinger's Cat class at Maybe Logic Academy under the tutelage of Eric Wagner.
Everyone in the class was very good and made useful comments in the forums. I noticed that one of my classmates in particular, Colin MacDonald, was particularly prolific in commenting and always offered insights.
Colin MacDonald, it turns out, is a modern classical music composer, classically trained saxophone player and music teacher. His Web site is here.
The more I thought about it, I more I realized that many of Robert Anton Wilson's biggest fans and top scholars have a serious interest in music. Michael Johnson is a musician who has played in rock bands and has wide-ranging tastes. Eric Wagner is a Beethoven expert and seems to know quite a bit about classical and jazz. He easily could have become a musicologist. Many of author Lewis Shiner's novels are about rock music. Steve Pratt plays in a band and seems to be very familiar with rock, electronic music, blues and jazz. PDQ writes about rap music. Oz Fritz is a professional recording engineer who often writes about the intersection of magick and music on his blog. Jesse Walker worked at a student radio station at the University of Michigan. I'm sure I'm forgetting many folks. I listen to everything. I'm particularly interested in classical music thetse days, but I went through a jazz obsession a few years ago, followed rock very closely for many years (I read "Cream" and used to tape MTV's "120 Minutes" every week) and also have blues, ska, and other stuff in my collection. I notice most of the other folks are music neophiliacs, too. What should we make of this?
Everyone in the class was very good and made useful comments in the forums. I noticed that one of my classmates in particular, Colin MacDonald, was particularly prolific in commenting and always offered insights.
Colin MacDonald, it turns out, is a modern classical music composer, classically trained saxophone player and music teacher. His Web site is here.
The more I thought about it, I more I realized that many of Robert Anton Wilson's biggest fans and top scholars have a serious interest in music. Michael Johnson is a musician who has played in rock bands and has wide-ranging tastes. Eric Wagner is a Beethoven expert and seems to know quite a bit about classical and jazz. He easily could have become a musicologist. Many of author Lewis Shiner's novels are about rock music. Steve Pratt plays in a band and seems to be very familiar with rock, electronic music, blues and jazz. PDQ writes about rap music. Oz Fritz is a professional recording engineer who often writes about the intersection of magick and music on his blog. Jesse Walker worked at a student radio station at the University of Michigan. I'm sure I'm forgetting many folks. I listen to everything. I'm particularly interested in classical music thetse days, but I went through a jazz obsession a few years ago, followed rock very closely for many years (I read "Cream" and used to tape MTV's "120 Minutes" every week) and also have blues, ska, and other stuff in my collection. I notice most of the other folks are music neophiliacs, too. What should we make of this?
Saturday, January 26, 2013
New hope for solar power?
Noah Smith, a finance professor who has studied both physics and economics, has an interesting blog post that argues that solar power is on the cusp of truly becoming much cheaper. It's about to become a breakthrough technology that will have transformational effects, he says. (Debate is lively in the comments, but at the end of the day I think he makes a pretty good case.)
Hat tip, the invaluable Tyler Cowen on Twitter.
Smith is silent on whether cheaper solar technology (and the efforts of companies such as SpaceX to make putting cargo in space cheaper) would revive the notion of space-based solar power, as promoted by Robert Anton Wilson in the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy. I posted a question about that in the comments and will update if I manage to coax a reply from Professor Smith.
UPDATE: No response from Professor Smith, but "Brett" in the comments argues that space based solar is not economically feasible: "It would have to lower the price of cargo to orbit a lot, as in several orders of magnitude. I don't think that's going to happen.
"The costs of not just launching the panels into orbit, but also assembling the array, maintaining it, and replacing panels when they stop would be exorbitant. You could probably build a fair amount of ground-based power plants for the cost of one space-solar array, and it would be vastly easier to maintain the ground ones.
"It's the same type of reason that the US and other powers with nuclear weapons and launch capabilities didn't try putting them in orbit (treaty aside). The launch and maintenance costs are staggering."
Hat tip, the invaluable Tyler Cowen on Twitter.
Smith is silent on whether cheaper solar technology (and the efforts of companies such as SpaceX to make putting cargo in space cheaper) would revive the notion of space-based solar power, as promoted by Robert Anton Wilson in the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy. I posted a question about that in the comments and will update if I manage to coax a reply from Professor Smith.
UPDATE: No response from Professor Smith, but "Brett" in the comments argues that space based solar is not economically feasible: "It would have to lower the price of cargo to orbit a lot, as in several orders of magnitude. I don't think that's going to happen.
"The costs of not just launching the panels into orbit, but also assembling the array, maintaining it, and replacing panels when they stop would be exorbitant. You could probably build a fair amount of ground-based power plants for the cost of one space-solar array, and it would be vastly easier to maintain the ground ones.
"It's the same type of reason that the US and other powers with nuclear weapons and launch capabilities didn't try putting them in orbit (treaty aside). The launch and maintenance costs are staggering."
Friday, January 25, 2013
About Camden Benares
Yesterday's posting about the new Bobby Campbell cover art for Zen Without Zen Masters by Camden Benares reminded me of something: Robert Anton Wilson praised it highly in the original version of his novel Schroedinger's Cat II: The Trick Top Hat, reprinted in shorter form in the one volume edition of Schroedinger's Cat that's the current version in print.
The original version had a chapter, "Not to Cross," that's chopped out of the later version. It includes a reference to Operation Mindfuck that's on page 171 of the original Pocket paperback.
OM, the chapter explains, is "Wilson's name for the group art-work including the Illuminatus volumes, Dr. Timothy Leary's What Does WoMan Want? Gregory Hill's Principia Discordia and Camden Benares' Zen Without Zen Masters."
Obviously, that puts Benares' book in some pretty heavy company.
As it turns out, Arthur Hlavaty used to correspond with Benares. This interesting blog post reveals that Benares died in 2000 (read the comments after you read Arthur's post).
The original version had a chapter, "Not to Cross," that's chopped out of the later version. It includes a reference to Operation Mindfuck that's on page 171 of the original Pocket paperback.
OM, the chapter explains, is "Wilson's name for the group art-work including the Illuminatus volumes, Dr. Timothy Leary's What Does WoMan Want? Gregory Hill's Principia Discordia and Camden Benares' Zen Without Zen Masters."
Obviously, that puts Benares' book in some pretty heavy company.
As it turns out, Arthur Hlavaty used to correspond with Benares. This interesting blog post reveals that Benares died in 2000 (read the comments after you read Arthur's post).
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Assorted links
Interesting article on Aaron Swartz by Tim Carmody (hat tip, Timothy Lee.)
Maybe Logic review of JMR Higgs' book on the KLF (and RAW).
Toby Philpott posting on "The Great Secret." ("Can it be that the great, supreme secret is absolute agnosticism?")
Bobby Campbell cover art for new edition of Zen Without Zen Masters by Camden Benares.
John Crowley on Giordano Bruno. (Hat tip, Supergee).
A link between the KLF and Twin Peaks? Maybe not.
Maybe Logic review of JMR Higgs' book on the KLF (and RAW).
Toby Philpott posting on "The Great Secret." ("Can it be that the great, supreme secret is absolute agnosticism?")
Bobby Campbell cover art for new edition of Zen Without Zen Masters by Camden Benares.
John Crowley on Giordano Bruno. (Hat tip, Supergee).
A link between the KLF and Twin Peaks? Maybe not.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Michael Johnson on the Leary biographies
After I made the offhand comment at one of Michael Johnson's blog posts that I plan to soon read I Have America Surrounded, the JMR Higgs biography of Timothy Leary, Michael responded that Higgs' book it the best Leary biography available, and proceeded to reveal that he had read all of them.
Once I got over feeling depressed over the realization that I will never be as well read as Dr. Johnson, I decided this his comment deserves to posted in a blog post over here. For obvious reasons, Robert Anton Wilson fans have an obvious stake in knowing where to go to find out more about Leary, a huge influence on Wilson's writings. Here are Michael's comments, with links to the books he is referring to:
Leary said everyone gets the Tim Leary they deserve, or something like that. I'd read at least four bios of TL before Higgs's and his was the first one that reflected the Leary I felt. I never met Tim.
The Leary I got through film footage, RAW's books and Leary's own large and uneven oeuvre finally glinted through with I Have America Surrounded.
A difficult-to-find bio by underground press writer John Bryan (Whatever Happened To Timothy Leary?, pub while TL was quite alive and healthy), was the previous best bio I'd read.
The Leary that shows through in BH Friedman's Tripping was an interesting Tim, as were parts of Charles Slack's Timothy Leary, The Madness of the Sixties, and Me, which has Slack as a Harvard colleague and admirer, but not so much the evangelical drug stuff: more the irrepressible Irish modern-day Bruno/Zelda Fitzgerald of the 60s, very disappointed to track Leary down in Switzerland to see TL doing smack. When he encounters TL (who knows what the real story was with Hauchard?) doing smack, it reminded me of Mr. Bernstein coming to a darker understanding of Charles Foster Kane.
The Rbt Greenfield bio is one of the weirdest biographies I've ever read: incredibly well-researched, but seeming to miss the point totally. It's hard for me not to think that Greenfield blames his Sixties for being derailed by Leary, which to me is ludicrous. Greenfield goes a long - inadvertent? - way in showing that alcohol was the drug that brought Tim down, not LSD.
I enjoy the Leary I got in Flashbacks and other autobiographical writings.
There are little fugitive articles (pun intended) by people who knew him that are filled with, as Pound said, "luminous details." I forget who wrote a little piece about partying with Tim, and someone puts on a Billie Holliday song and Leary starts crying for the sheer pain in her voice.
Once I got over feeling depressed over the realization that I will never be as well read as Dr. Johnson, I decided this his comment deserves to posted in a blog post over here. For obvious reasons, Robert Anton Wilson fans have an obvious stake in knowing where to go to find out more about Leary, a huge influence on Wilson's writings. Here are Michael's comments, with links to the books he is referring to:
Leary said everyone gets the Tim Leary they deserve, or something like that. I'd read at least four bios of TL before Higgs's and his was the first one that reflected the Leary I felt. I never met Tim.
The Leary I got through film footage, RAW's books and Leary's own large and uneven oeuvre finally glinted through with I Have America Surrounded.
A difficult-to-find bio by underground press writer John Bryan (Whatever Happened To Timothy Leary?, pub while TL was quite alive and healthy), was the previous best bio I'd read.
The Leary that shows through in BH Friedman's Tripping was an interesting Tim, as were parts of Charles Slack's Timothy Leary, The Madness of the Sixties, and Me, which has Slack as a Harvard colleague and admirer, but not so much the evangelical drug stuff: more the irrepressible Irish modern-day Bruno/Zelda Fitzgerald of the 60s, very disappointed to track Leary down in Switzerland to see TL doing smack. When he encounters TL (who knows what the real story was with Hauchard?) doing smack, it reminded me of Mr. Bernstein coming to a darker understanding of Charles Foster Kane.
The Rbt Greenfield bio is one of the weirdest biographies I've ever read: incredibly well-researched, but seeming to miss the point totally. It's hard for me not to think that Greenfield blames his Sixties for being derailed by Leary, which to me is ludicrous. Greenfield goes a long - inadvertent? - way in showing that alcohol was the drug that brought Tim down, not LSD.
I enjoy the Leary I got in Flashbacks and other autobiographical writings.
There are little fugitive articles (pun intended) by people who knew him that are filled with, as Pound said, "luminous details." I forget who wrote a little piece about partying with Tim, and someone puts on a Billie Holliday song and Leary starts crying for the sheer pain in her voice.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Reading 'Masks of the Illuminati'
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I plan to re-read Masks of the Illuminati in 2013 and asked if there would be any interest if I hosted an online discussion of the book. Reaction was positive, so now it's time to talk about how to do this. I will offer suggestions below, and you can tell me if they are reasonable or need to be modified.
Masks seems like a good introduction to Robert Anton Wilson's fiction; the newbie can commit to just one book, rather than having to tackle a trilogy. It's also a relatively conventional book, at least compared to Illuminatus! or the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy. Some of you have suggested it's a good introduction to his work. At the same time, there's plenty of substance for serious RAW fans.
Like all of RAW's fiction, it remains readily available. You can buy a trade paperback or get a digital edition on Amazon. There's a Nook version, too. Or you can hunt up a cheap used copy (Amazon will help you do that) or check it out of the library. (Checking out books from the library is a good way to support helping your favorite writer become known. Books that are checked out are less likely to be "weeded out" from the shelves when a library buys new books.)
In any event, it seems like a good idea to give people a reasonable time to hunt up a copy of the book, particularly if someone cannot afford to buy a copy, so how about if we begin the week of Feb. 17?
Then there's the question of the pace to set, and how to host the discussion.
I don't want to rush through the book, but I don't want to drag out the discussion for months, either. Would eight weeks be reasonable, e.g. a pace of less than 40 pages a week, or is that still a bit too fast?
I think perhaps the form of the discussion could be like this: At least once a week, I will post about a section of the book. Everyone is invited to post comments. All of the "Masks" posts will be tagged, so that it's easy to look at them all together, and I also will post all of the links together in one place, as I've done with the Quantum Psychology discussion. I reserve the right to put up additional Masks posts during the week, either with my own thoughts, or using a comment that I want to "promote" from the comments into a separate blog posts. I may also consider emailing questions about aspects of the book to some of my favorite bloggers, then posting a link to their posts, if they bite.
What do you think?
Masks seems like a good introduction to Robert Anton Wilson's fiction; the newbie can commit to just one book, rather than having to tackle a trilogy. It's also a relatively conventional book, at least compared to Illuminatus! or the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy. Some of you have suggested it's a good introduction to his work. At the same time, there's plenty of substance for serious RAW fans.
Like all of RAW's fiction, it remains readily available. You can buy a trade paperback or get a digital edition on Amazon. There's a Nook version, too. Or you can hunt up a cheap used copy (Amazon will help you do that) or check it out of the library. (Checking out books from the library is a good way to support helping your favorite writer become known. Books that are checked out are less likely to be "weeded out" from the shelves when a library buys new books.)
In any event, it seems like a good idea to give people a reasonable time to hunt up a copy of the book, particularly if someone cannot afford to buy a copy, so how about if we begin the week of Feb. 17?
Then there's the question of the pace to set, and how to host the discussion.
I don't want to rush through the book, but I don't want to drag out the discussion for months, either. Would eight weeks be reasonable, e.g. a pace of less than 40 pages a week, or is that still a bit too fast?
I think perhaps the form of the discussion could be like this: At least once a week, I will post about a section of the book. Everyone is invited to post comments. All of the "Masks" posts will be tagged, so that it's easy to look at them all together, and I also will post all of the links together in one place, as I've done with the Quantum Psychology discussion. I reserve the right to put up additional Masks posts during the week, either with my own thoughts, or using a comment that I want to "promote" from the comments into a separate blog posts. I may also consider emailing questions about aspects of the book to some of my favorite bloggers, then posting a link to their posts, if they bite.
What do you think?
Monday, January 21, 2013
Michael Johnson on Kerry Thornley
I thought I had a fair idea of what the Kerry Thornley story was about, until I read Michael Johnson's article. I hadn't even heard of the Gorightly book, which I'll now have to read.
Here is a good sentence from Michael's piece: "If this material is new to you and it seems like I'm making it up...I often feel like I'm making it up, but it's true."
Here is a good sentence from Michael's piece: "If this material is new to you and it seems like I'm making it up...I often feel like I'm making it up, but it's true."
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Housekeeping matters
I've updated some of the links on this page to include material recently posted on this blog that is worth a permanent link.
The "Feature Articles and Interviews" links now includes RAW's interview with Bucky Fuller, a RAW letter in "No Governor" (Robert Shea's fanzine), my interview with JMR Higgs on his book on the KLF (and Robert Anton Wilson) and RAW's "Truth Comes on Swift Wings" article. (Links to the Bucky interview, RAW letter and "Truth" article all have been added to RAWilsonfans.com.)
"Resources" now includes RAW360.net
"Sangha" has added "Finnegans, Wake!" which is the new PQ blog.
As always, I welcome your suggestions on what I should be writing about or linking to.
The "Feature Articles and Interviews" links now includes RAW's interview with Bucky Fuller, a RAW letter in "No Governor" (Robert Shea's fanzine), my interview with JMR Higgs on his book on the KLF (and Robert Anton Wilson) and RAW's "Truth Comes on Swift Wings" article. (Links to the Bucky interview, RAW letter and "Truth" article all have been added to RAWilsonfans.com.)
"Resources" now includes RAW360.net
"Sangha" has added "Finnegans, Wake!" which is the new PQ blog.
As always, I welcome your suggestions on what I should be writing about or linking to.
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