Bobby Campbell on Maybe Night

Bobby Campbell, who has been putting together Maybe Day celebrations for years on July 23, last year created a smaller spinoff celebration, Maybe Night. Bobby recently announced that Maybe Night will return on Dec. 21 this year. 

More information at that link, but I also asked Bobby to take a couple of questions about Maybe Night, and he immediately agreed.

RAWIllumination:  Last year, you launched Maybe Night, a midwinter spinoff of your Maybe Day program. Were you happy with it? Is that why you are bringing it back? 

Bobby Campbell: I was indeed quite pleased with last year's Maybe Night event! It's pretty niche subject matter, so my expectations were rather reasonable to begin with, but I was delightfully surprised that we were able to connect with so many Wakians out there in the world.

The plan was always to make it an annual event, understanding that it would start small, but ideally growing into something that can exist on its own without my organization. Following the Bloomsday model. Same for Maybe Day actually! How likely that actually is, IDK, but it's fun to have an excuse to play around with this stuff.

RAWIllumination: Is Finnegans Wake one of your favorite books? Do you want to encourage people to read it, and explore how it influenced RAW?

Bobby Campbell: Finnegans Wake is for sure one of my favorite books! Though it's such a categorically different kind of text that I almost don't even consider it comparable to other books. I think of it more like a data repository, or a code base, or even a grimoire.

So far as recommending FW to others goes, I can only attest that I have found it a tremendously rewarding reading experience, and specifically for RAW fans, that once you get into it, it becomes patiently obvious why RAW made it such a central part of his work. That same whimsical current of satori inducing synchronicity that pervades Wilson's works is fully present in FW.

If you're the type that likes going down rabbit holes, this one is a triple black diamond!

RAWIllumination: If people want to participate in Maybe Night, what should they do?

Bobby Campbell: To participate in Maybe Night as a contributor simply create any type of media (writing, visual art, music, video, etc) related to Finnegans Wake and/or James Joyce and send to weirdoverse@gmail.com on or before December 15th.

(Your contribution does not need to be new or exclusive to Maybe Night, I'm happy to signal boost pre-existing works!)

I recommend sending in links to wherever your creations normally live, but if you don't have a platform I'm happy to host it directly on the Maybe Night site.

I'm also interested in anything related to Terence McKenna, Grant Morrison's Invisibles comic book series, and of course, Robert Anton Wilson!

To participate as a reveler, simply tune in to www.maybeday.net/night on or after December 21st 2024 and we will have a presumably robust program of hypnagogic delights! The current plan is to share a live stream of our winter solstice Maybelogues panel discussion starting at 1PM EST.

Or, of course, do your own thing!