Those dangerous Discordians and transhumanists!

David Livingstone

Thanks to a tip from Jesse Walker, I have made the acquaintance of David Livingstone, a conspiracy theorist and the author of the article "The New Occultism: Chaos Magic, Discordianism and Transhumanism."

It's a rather well-researched article, exploring ties between Discordians, transhumanists, the occult, etc., with name checks for familiar figures such as Robert Anton Wilson, R.U. Sirius, Rudy Rucker, Peter Thiel, etc. BUT (and it's a rather big "but"), Mr. Livingstone is not interested in weighing evidence. He is interested in conspiracy theories that put everyone in the worst possible light. So, for example, whereas Adam Gorightly has written entire books that explore Kerry Thornley's ties to Lee Harvey Oswald, and ultimately concluding that Thornley had nothing to do with JFK's assassination, Livingstone is all in with Jim Garrison and says Thornley "was deeply implicated in the strange and murky world of the assassination of JFK, which has often been suspected by conspiracy theorists as representing the ancient pagan right of killing the 'sacred king'.”

Scholarship, alas, relies upon the ability to weigh evidence. Livingstone's allegiance throughout the essay is to sensationalism.

Here is a biography of Livingstone:

David Livingstone was born in Montreal in 1966 of a Jamaican-Canadian father (a school teacher) and French Canadian mother. At age seven, he asked his parents who Plato and Socrates were. Told they were truthseekers, he was shocked. "You mean people don’t know what the truth is?" He resolved to find it out.

Livingstone studied history as an undergraduate but dropped out in 1992 when he realized he was being indoctrinated. "When I read that the Indo European [Aryan] race emerged from the Caucuses, out of nowhere, I got suspicious, and began the 13 years of research that led to my first book, The Dying God: The Hidden History of Western Civilization." 

While writing that book, Livingstone paid his bills by planting trees in British Columbia and upholstering furniture in Montreal. Raised as an agnostic, he accepted Islam in 1992 after making a study of the major world religions. He married in 2000 and has three children. 

Livingstone's books include Transhumanism: The History of a Dangerous Idea, Terrorism and the Illuminati: A Three Thousand Year History and The Dying God: The Hidden History of Western Civilization.

New John HIggs newsletter

John Higgs

I'm a few days late on reporting on this, but wonderful British writer John Higgs  has issued his second email newsletter. If you still haven't signed up and you missed it, you can read it here. 

Lots of news about John's speaking engagements and about events that I'd like attend if I lived in Great Britain. Also, John's defense of Elon Musk's decision to sacrifice the first Tesla car:

It's worth stressing the historical importance of that particular car. It was the very first Tesla to roll off the production line. It is hard now to remember just how much Tesla Motors were mocked when they were established in in 2003, but electric cars were then considered a joke, both by the industry and customers, that would never match the speed, range or desirability of petrol cars. Fifteen years later, and electric cars are now seen as not only possible but inevitable. The UK parliament has banned production of new petrol or diesel cars after 2040, Scotland is aiming to achieve this by 2032, Jaguar Land Rover plans to end production of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2020 and Volvo by 2019, and the European Parliament has drawn up laws to reduce emissions and incentivize electric vehicles because its electric vehicle industry is far behind China’s. Electric cars are the future, which is great news for the climate.

None of this would have happened without Tesla or Elon Musk, and this makes that first Tesla roadster a car of great historical importance. It makes the car hugely valuable and it would almost certainly have ended up in the Smithsonian, securing Musk's legacy for generations to come. What, then, should we make of his decision to fling it away, out into the coldness of the void?

To my eyes, it was an act of sacrifice. Sacrifice is when something of value is killed, burnt, thrown into a lake or otherwise given back to the cosmos. It is the giving up of something in a manner that offers no rational expectation of material reward, just a momentary glimpse of grace. The concept of sacrifice is found in all cultures around the world and seems to be hardwired into our psyche, regardless of how modern or rational we claim to be. We shouldn't be too surprised to see it continually being re-enacted, even by people who seem bewildered by their own actions.

Thursday links

Source. 

Illustrations from RAW's Right Where You Are Sitting Now. 

"You might think that politics is an area where being analytical is especially useful. If you do, well, I have news for you: Libertarians measure as being the most analytical political group."

Punk drummer turned doctor saves man's life. "Lilja left The Offspring in the late 1980s to deliver offspring." Via Jesse Walker on Twitter.

Yemen war backed by U.S.: 5,000 children dead or hurt, 400,000 malnourished. Don't worry, the most important news is what people think of Facebook.

I agree with Chad Nelson.

Wednesday links

Jordan Peterson. Sage giver of personal advice, right wing troll, or both? 

Twitter discussion of Robert Anton Wilson. "Wilson's 'Guerilla Ontology' would only appeal to those privileged enough to never be the targets of suppression," it's contended. This statement seems wrong to me.

The Slate Star Codex guy, Scott Alexander, likes Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life. (Apparently the book has little of the notorious right wing troll side of Peterson).

Amazon plans to adapt The Three Body Problem.

Ezra Klein on the Charles Murray controversies.  I read Murray but have shunned The Bell Curve, and I think Klein makes a good case and tries to be fair. You can also read a response from Sam Harris. 

"French waiter says firing for rudeness is 'discrimination against my culture'." Reality tunnels! Sometimes the headline seems like enough, but if you like, here's the link. 

The Tao of Ursula K. LeGuin

Ursula LeGuin (with another writer I like, Harlan Ellison). Creative Commons photo. 

Sombunall of you would likely be interested in Taoism. Here is an article on "The Tao of Ursula K. Le Guin," about the late science fiction writer, much admired by both Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea.

Via the reliably interesting Supergee blog.

Pale Fire online reading group, Week 11

Mont Blanc (public domain photo).

This week, a bit shorter read: Commentary for Line 741 to Commentary for Line 949, pages 170-183 in my old paperback.

Line 768: I'm assuming this is one of the letters to his queen that gave away Kinbote's location in the U.S.

Line 782: Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a famous poem about Mont Blanc, but it doesn't have the lines that Kinbote remembers; is there another poem that Kinbote could have in mind?

Line 803: Does this anecdote about a Russian translation offer an anecdote about who Kinbote really is?

Franklin Knight Lane (public domain photo). 

Line 810: Letters of Franklin Lane. A real book! And if you want to act on Kinbote's recommendation, you can get an ebook from Project Gutenberg. 

Franklin Knight Lane (1864-1921) was a prominent Democratic politician. He wrote the lines quoted in Pale Fire when he knew he was going to die soon.  

Commentary to Line 894: The origin of Kinbote's alias, and an admission that the author of Pale Fire is the V. Botkin mentioned in the index?

"He was a so-called Pink": This sounds like Nabokov's own sarcastic opinions. He didn't think much, for example, of Dr. Zhivago.

Line 929: Nabokov thought Freudianism was ridiculous.

Next week: The end is in sight! Please finish the commentary and look at the index.

Zach Leary on his famous father

Timothy Leary during the recording of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance." (Creative Commons photo).

Just a normal American life: "I grew up in what appeared on the outside to be a somewhat normal upper-middle-class household in Beverly Hills, California. Every morning my mom or dad would take me to school, my dad would toss the baseball with me in the backyard and on most nights they would make sure I did my homework."

The "dad" being talked about by Zach Leary is Timothy Leary, and the article, "Having Timothy Leary as a Father Was a Trip," describes what Zach learned about his father after discovering that he was famous.

The article is the excerpt from the forward to a new book, The Timothy Leary Project: Inside the Great Counterculture Experiment by Jennifer Ulrich, a collection of Leary's selected papers and correspondence. The book will be out on April 17.

Saturday links

Don't know who did this; via Jake Shannon on Twitter. 

The story of Laser Books, Harlequin's venture into science fiction.  Some comments from Supergee, who I think seems a bit hard on DAW Books.

Two slices of RAW.

Essay on Joyce's Ulysses, which turns 100 this month.

Another 'lost' RAW article found

An article by Robert Anton Wilson, "Why I Am a Right-Wing Anarchist," is available here. The document is mostly a collection of Robert Shea material, but the first piece has the byline "Ronald Weston." Someone has written "Robert Shea" next to the byline, but Jesse Walker notes, "It is on the Shea site, and John Zube has penciled in Shea's name as the author. But Weston was one of Wilson's pseudonyms, and anyway I'm 90% sure I saw this article attributed to Wilson elsewhere."

Thanks, Jesse!

Interview with Sylvia Beach

What was it like to open a bookstore in Paris in its heyday, frequented by James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway? Ask Sylvia Beach!  (The above is a still image, follow the link.)

A fascinating video interview (about 24 minutes) with the woman who published Ulysses, after her pal Joyce complained "My book will never come out" and "sat there with his head in his hands."

Good on you, Steve Pratt, for posting this at Only Maybe. Steve writes, "I find Sylvia's voice unique and strangely soothing, while her conversation on the tale of the tribe proves illuminating.  That it was mostly women who were determined to help get Ulysses published reinforces, to me, the importance of Joyce studies within gender/identity politics in 2018."

So many great writers Sylvia Beach hung out with, at a time when books were king. Such a cool writer.

Oh, and Joyce was nice to everyone. He was a popular guy.

Are they really bad books?

Moby Dick, doing his thing. 

Something for readers: Via Supergee, a list of 10 "literary classics" that many readers hate, from Literary Hub. Supergee comments:  "Any list of overrated classics that includes both On the Road and Catcher in the Rye can’t be all bad, but did we need two Hemingway books?"

I would tend to echo Supergee. I don't like On the Road and Catcher in the Rye either, and I liked the two Hemingway books when I read them years ago (A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises.) I liked Animal Farm as a teenager, but the review I disagree with most  is Alicia Kroell dissing Moby Dick. I know Herman Melville is a dead white male, and Literary Hub is a rather PC publication (that also runs many interesting articles), but come on.

Meme I liked

No time for a long blog posting today, but here is a meme I liked on Twitter. Source. 

Pale Fire online reading group, Week 10

Oz Fritz in the recording studio. Like Nabokov, Oz wants you to pay attention. (Photo by John Tabor).

This week: Commentary to Line 579 to commentary for Lines 734-735 (pages 153-170 in my old paperback, but your mileage may vary).

Commentary to Line 596: "As many people of little culture, Gradus was a voracious reader of newspapers, pamphlets, chance leaflets and the multilingual literature that comes with nose drops and digestive tablets..." Perhaps the modern Gradus would be those who consume social network posts to the exclusion of reading books.

Here is one of my favorite passages: "How much happier the wide-awake indolents, the monarchs among men, the rich monstrous brains deriving intense enjoyment and rapturous pangs from the balustrade of a terrace at nightfall, from the lights and the lake below, from the distant mountain shapes melting into the dark apricot of the afterglow, from the black conifers outlined against the pale ink of the zenith, and from the garnet and green flounces of the water along the silent, sad, forbidden shoreline."

Compare Nabokov talking about the virtue of being "wide-awake" with Robert Anton Wilson's remarks in his essay "How to Read/How to Think" in Coincidance. See also Oz Fritz's remarks about paying attention in his classic "The Art of Listening" blog post, which was part of a series.

I liked Oz Fritz's comment in the last installment: "Deleuze says that writers of what he terms "minority literature" write for a "people to come." Their audience doesn't exist when they write, their literature has to find readers who will grasp it. This seems similar to Nietzsche's philosophy. Joyce wrote for readers of the future. You have to become smarter and broaden your awareness to comprehend his later works. Nabokov teaches how to be such a reader. He creates a bridge for the current reader to become one of those "people to come" who will understand and appreciate Joyce and perhaps realize Nietzsche's or Crowley's philosophy. Twice already, through Kinbote, Nabokov explicitly expresses an intention to teach, putting the word "teach" in a sentence by itself or with one other word to emphasize this intention."

Compare with the famous anecdote about Beethoven: "Legend has it that when the Italian violinist Felix Radicati complained that Beethoven’s Opus 59 Quartets were 'not music', the composer responded: 'Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age'.” (Source).

And I do think that whether he was in the classroom or in the pages of a novel, Nabokov was teaching us to read carefully, and to re-read.