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Thursday, February 11, 2016

Thursday links


Hakim Bey, the "Temporary Autonomous Zone" guy 

Five strange facts from Stranger Than We Can Imagine. 

Discordian telegram: "Your cucumbers have been poisoned."

I'm glad Michael Johnson has read Johnathan Haidt, because now I feel I don't have to. 

Peter Lamborn Wilson ("Hakim Bey") sound anthology.

Hillary Clinton lost, but she won, anyway. 

K.P. van der Tempel on Magick Will.

4 comments:

Chad N. said...

Relating back to an earlier post this week, I'm nominating PLW's catalog in general as the most important work I've never read.

I listened to a few YouTube interviews with him and knew I had to read his stuff. Went out and bought an anthology of his essays and it's collecting dust on my bookshelf.

He wrote a great obit for RAW. Anyone who hasn't read it should: http://arthurmag.com/2007/12/05/peter-lamborn-wilsons-obituary-for-robert-anton-wilson/

And I believe RAW has a really cool review of TAZ in Chaos & Beyond.

michael said...

I love PLW's books. TAZ is a must-read (he inhabits his "Hakim Bey" persona and it really does seem like another writer, which I find marvelous). I read _Pirate Utopias_ last year and was enchanted. His _Escape From the Nineteenth Century_ is PLW at his most counterkulch-intellectual best, as I currently see it. He can get REALLY esoteric when he writes about Islamic mysticism. He's heavily influenced by the scholar Henry Corbin. I haven't followed up on the NAMBLA stuff. He co-edited/co-wrote a thick book on the history of cannabis use that I really like: _Orgies of the Hemp-Eaters_. I like his _Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy_, which I read 10 yrs ago, was one of a number of books I read in the wake of 9/11 that obliterated the idea I knew anything about Islam. The picture we get from the mainstream media seems absurdly one-dimensional.

Chad N: yes, RAW gave a great review to TAZ in Chaos and Beyond, pp.227-229. He and PLW enjoyed each other's company, but RAW complained in a talk in San Francisco around 2001 (?) that PLW was still living in the 19th century - despite the title of his then-recent book - : they could correspond more if PLW got an email account. PLW doesn't trust the rush to digital media.

The history of great "Wilson" thinkers is another book I would have loved to read.

Chad N. said...

Wow. Thanks for those recommendations, Michael! I wasn't aware of any of those others except Pirate Utopias.

I looked up Hemp Eaters (unfortunately it's $200 on Amazon) and 19th Century. I will have to buy the latter assuming I enjoy TAZ and the rest of the anthology I have.

Based on his lectures and RAW's praise for him, I have a feeling I'm going to like his writing.

JCG said...

@michael: is there a copy of the lecture where RAW mentions PLW still living in the 19th century, or did you hear it live?

There is also a video of them lecturing together:
http://esbuzz.net/trends/watch/vid88gCZ9hdAl6q8

Another tid-bit: they co-edited an anthology of cyberpunk together, Semiotext(e) SF