Sunday links

 Mike Gathers on "My Lyme Journey." 

Radio interview of Joseph Matheny from 2003. 

Lessons from Steven Spielberg. 

New supersonic airliner is on the way. 

New interview with Steve "Fly" Pratt

Steve's album for the Tales of Illuminatus project, available on Bandcamp. Also, see my interview. 

R.U. Sirius interviews Steve "Fly" Pratt about his use of AI in making music. Here's the first question and answer of the Mindplex magazine interview:

RU Sirius: How do you view your creative project (in the broadest lifelong sense) as a process that benefits from integrating current AI systems?

Steve Fly: The latest iteration of my quarter-century (and counting) of research into Robert Anton Wilson’s Tale of the Tribe is a collaboration using some AI tools. Tale of The Tribe is a mountain range whose size and scope requires training to traverse, hill-climbing toward coherence. So far I’ve produced over 65 stanzas with corresponding audio. The first iteration is structured on 60 stanzas to represent the 60 vertices of the Buckminsterfullerene. This is prompted from a line in Ezra Pound’s Cantos “buckie has gone in for structure.” The structure of the poem/album is a tribute to Buckminster Fuller, whom RAW admired and studied with, and it snugly sits as one of the 13 primary inspirations in the way RAW conceived/perceived the universe.

These first 60 stanzas are a proof of concept, to be built on in the next iteration. The goal is for each stanza to also function as a concept for a new core ontology, the totality of the 60 stanzas. As Ben put it: “an overlapping yet somewhat diverse set of perspectives on the core ontological concept”.

More here. 

Timothy Leary's space migration plan

A space colony from Gerard O'Neill's book,The High Frontier. (Public domain image, via Wikipedia). 

In "Mine the Moon, Seed the Stars," the space migration part of Timothy Leary's SMI2LE proposal gets a nice writeup in the November 1976 issue of Mother Jones magazine. The writeup by  Don Goldsmith does a good job of covering the details of Gerard O'Neill's proposal for colonies in space. 

Goldsmith's article opens with a description of Leary talking to several dozen listeners in a house in Berkeley. "The man's name is Timothy Leary. Berkeley made him a PhD, Harvard a professor, LSD an ex-professor, the media a devil, the government a convict, prison a space-oriented philosopher. He is, perhaps, sane. But what is this elixir he is pushing? Space travel to other star systems? The aging process slowed by a factor of ten, halted entirely before long? Can you get behind it?" I thought the article would tell us more about Leary, but it shifts quickly to O'Neill and the pros and cons of his proposal. 

Goldsmith, 82, has written many space-related books and also is an astronomer.

Hat tip, Jesse Walker. 

The number 23 from RAW Semantics

 

From RAW Semantics on Bluesky: "Oh crap - after all the time I spent trying to get this "Escher" 23 blueprint image right, I forgot to add it to my goddamn blog post! Now inserted, near the end. (And it's a good, long blog post - check it out!)"

I really liked the artwork, so I am sharing if you missed it in the earlier version of the post. 

Jesse Walker reviews the RAW biography

 Jesse Walker in Reason magazine: The time an "acquaintance informed me that he had met a member of the Illuminati at a Grateful Dead show ... Every now and then, one of them would approach him at a Dead show just to check in on how he was doing and how well he was working toward his innate potential. Then another Deadhead piped up to say that he'd had the same experience."

This is part of a roundup reviewing two books: Ghosts of Iron Mountain: The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today, by Phil Tinline and Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson, by Gabriel Kennedy.

About Chapel Perilous, Jesse writes, "Gabriel Kennedy has drawn on everything from Wilson's early journalism to his cameos in the Chicago Red Squad's surveillance files. Not just an in-depth look at Wilson's life and career, Chapel Perilous is an ably conducted tour through the many milieus that Wilson passed through—worlds of mystics and atheists, scientists and Playboy staffers, the antiwar and civil rights and libertarian movements. Not to mention pranksters and conspiracy theorists."

Read the whole thing.

Tuesday links

From Bobby Campbell on Bluesky, quoting Israel Regardie's intro to Prometheus Rising. 

Many of these probably deserve a blog posting all to themselves, but there's been a lot of news lately, so I am getting caught up.

New blog posting from RAW Semantics: "Cosmic Trigger 4 'is' you." As usual, the art is good, too. Spookah and I have weighed in, come  join us. 

Vayse podcasting interviewing Sequoyah Kennedy, co-author of Ong's Hat: COMPLEAT. In his newsletter, Joseph Matheny strongly recommends it, writing, "I’d go so far as to say this episode can be considered a COMPLEAT companion piece while retaining its strength as a stand-alone."

New John Higgs newsletter. New London dates have been added to the book tour. 

The Mycellium newsletter from Michelle Olley: Three new Discordian events at The Cockpit in London. 

Michael Grossberg on Lionel Shriver's novel, Mania. 

Moby Dick online reading group, chapters 131-134

 

This Week: Chapter 131, "The Pequod Meets the Delight," to Chapter 134, "The Chase -- Second Day."

By OZ FRITZ
Special guest blogger

Around about the early 1850s Herman Melville predicted that America would be the most powerful country in the world by the turn of the 20th Century and it most definitely required a robust national literature equal to its stature. This goes a long way toward explaining why he put so much into Moby Dick – all the Biblical and Shakespearean references and allusions and a plethora of other academic indicators afforded by a broad, rich and interested education in the arts combined with well-traveled life experiences; his philosophical questions and realizations; the vast panoramic scenes used as a canvas to create his masterpiece. Moby Dick became a cornerstone of the new, American Literature. 

 D.H. Lawrence helped codify this nascent body of writing with the publication in the early 1920s of Studies in Classic American Literature featuring two chapters on Melville, one of them on Moby Dick. According to Deleuze, Lawrence described “the new messianism, or the democratic contribution of American literature” … as a “morality of life in which the soul is fulfilled only by taking to the road, with no other aim, open to all contacts, never trying to save other souls, turning away from those that produce an overly authoritarian or groaning sound, forming even fleeting and unresolved chords and accords with its equals, with freedom as its sole accomplishment, always ready to free itself so as to complete itself.” 

Perhaps we now see this from the other side – having been a Great Power since the end of WW II, America seems to be exiting stage left (as Snagglepuss* might say) from the world stage with its new protectionist policies, trade wars, and threatened abandonment of allies. Not to mention the brutal, scorched earth policy of dismantling government.  American ideals may yet survive in its literature having outlived their existence in the morality of the power possessors who steer the ship of state (currently like drunken sailors).

*Snagglepuss, a pink, anthropomorphic mountain lion with a black tie and upturned collar, was a character in Hanna-Barbera cartoons, known for his catchphrases like "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" and "Exit, stage left!" After reading or watching the news these days I often catch myself exclaiming “Heavens to Murgatroyd!”

Great American literature with its joyful and tragic expressions of freedom from oppression will live on; there appears much to discover.  A case in point, partly built on the template of Moby Dick, is Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon. In the first week of this reading group Jesse Bob commented:

“Lately, I've had my nose in another American novel that explores America's history, and many mysteries of metaphysical, existential and Fortean nature: Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon, who influenced Robert Anton Wilson, but perhaps not as much as Moby Dick influenced both of them. Mason & Dixon presents itself in the style of an 18th century novel -- more Gulliver's Travels than Moby Dick -- but one can nonetheless detect the influence of Melville in its pages. Mason & Dixon places our heroes in Sumatra to chart the transit of Venus in its second episode. Moby Dick has Lazurus reaching for the Northern Lights before placing him in Sumatra in its second chapter.”

Sumatra mentioned in chapter 2 in both novels shows a direct resonance, the same opening note. I will point out more. Pynchon turns the Northern Lights into a communications medium for Jesuits at their headquarters in Quebec to send signals over the North Pole to conspirators. I’m also of the opinion that RAW influenced Pynchon – evident in Mason & Dixon (M&D). 

I find M&D an excellent read after Moby Dick (MD). In one sense, it could be its 20th Century sequel, taken several levels beyond. Like MD, M&D doesn’t concern itself with lot of plot or action. It’s framed around the work and partnership of an astronomer and surveyor. What the former does for whaling and the sea, the latter does for the land, the earth, and drawing precise lines on it. Both novels use the stars to navigate, one on land, the other in the sea; a little more so in Mason & Dixon. The detailing of every aspect connected with drawing the famous Mason & Dixon line including the context that led up to it, from complicated engineering details to a wide variety of human interactions with the locals and their crew and the politics of everything going on in America in the mid 1760s reminds one of the scale of Melville’s comprehensively covered ocean world.

Mason and Dixon has its own Ishmael, the Rev. Wicks Cherrycoke who ostensibly narrates the entire book in the form of bedtime stories to his nephews and nieces and surrounding relatives. He was the  Chaplain on the expedition and, earlier, also happened to accompany Mason and Dixon on their mission to observe the transit of Venus around the southern tip of Africa. Like Ishmael, Cherrycoke sometimes becomes an omniscient narrator, relating things it seems the character couldn’t possibly know or have seen.   

By chapter 4 Pynchon has the two, newly met, on a long ocean voyage aboard the Seahorse (a name combining the sea with a land animal; also horse = Horus) recalling the nautical mood of Moby Dick. The back story of Dixon is that he had a teacher, Emerson, – a sort of incognito magician/wizard and early electromagnetic technician who gives a nod to Moby Dick: “– a Ship to him is the Paradigm of the Universe. ‘All the possible forces in play are represented each by its representative sheets, stays, braces, and shrouds and such, – a set of lines in space, each at its particular angle. Easy to see why sea-captains go crazy, – god-like power over realities so simplified ….”

Earlier I presented Deleuze’s view that great writers create a foreign language within the language they write in. For Moby Dick that foreign language consists of the ocean and whales. Spookah pointed out that the foreign language of Finnegans Wake often appears more prevalent than the English language it’s written in. Mason & Dixon has the foreign language of 18th Century literature that takes a little getting used to; written as if done circa 1786. So, we find a lot of Capitalization, mostly, but not always nouns; also not all nouns get capitalized – Pynchon has fun with this Style. Often, usually at the end of a word, the letter “e” gets replac’d by an apostrophe. Some words are too strong for the religious sensitivity at the time to spell out completely like the D___l, or d___‘ d.  Famous historical figures turn up like Ben Franklin and George Washington. The details around the drawing of the Mason and Dixon line seem obsessively accurate. He also throws in anachronisms from the future without warning such as having Mason take the Staten Island Ferry which didn’t come into existence until 1817. This recalls the kind of guerilla ontology Robert Anton Wilson puts into his novels. We find overlaps, folds and atmospheric resonance between Wilson’s final Historical Chronicles novel, Nature’s God and Mason & Dixon. The former novel came out in 1991, the latter 6 years later in 1997.  

Learning to comprehend and assimilate the foreign language of great writers like Melville, Joyce, Pound, Wilson, Pynchon, (who, btw, all use Cabala) and others (Burroughs, Kerouac, P.K. Dick, Heinlein, Bester, etc. etc. etc.) seems an entertaining and effective method of Intelligence Increase. Learning this language  comes from frequent reading and re-reading. Often I’ll reread a paragraph or section of Mason & Dixon  right away, sometimes a few times until a flicker of understanding begins to kindle.  Occasionally the brain just kicks in, going inside the language to easily to follow the text. At that point you’ve earned another notch on your neural wings, so to speak. It appears a tautology that solving one maze or puzzle makes it easier to solve others even more difficult. Cracking Joyce might help you to understand Pynchon or vice versa. Reading Moby Dick has made you smarter, possibly helping to open the door upon Joyce or Pynchon or the deeper strata found in Wilson, or now for something completely different. 

Similar to Moby Dick, what I especially love about Mason & Dixon is the frequent Bardo Exploration the reader traverses through. On one level it has all the earmarks of a Book of the Dead. Entry to the Bardo comes through a variety of surrealistic ways like paradoxes of time or dreams or encounters with non-human Intelligence of one stripe or another. The story begins with Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke coming to Philadelphia to attend Charles Mason’s funeral in 1786. He’s late getting there, misses the funeral, but visits Mason’s grave every day for his months long visit. Cherrycoke is able to stay with his sister and brother-in-law, the LeSparks, on the condition that he entertain his young twin nephews and older niece with stories, which of course, turn out to be all about Mason & Dixon. The book ends shortly before Mason’s death.

This form of a postmortem looking back on a main character’s life up to their death bears a strong similarity to another classic of 20th Century American literature, Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, another Bardo classic with a strong presence of Magick. Lowry’s novel begins on the Mexican Day of the Dead one year after the demise of the main character, Geoffrey Firmin aka the Consul. The rest of the novel looks back on the Consul’s life leading up to his death on the very last page. Pynchon possibly pays homage to Lowry by naming a minor character in M&D, a revolutionary, Captain Volcanoe. Another parallel: Under the Volcano starts with a look at the lay of the land: “Two mountain chains traverse the republic roughly from north to south, forming between them a number of valleys and plateaus.” The lay of the land, how it’s affected by drawing lines upon it and various other telluric effects (ley lines, Fung shui, Geomancy, etc.) appears a major theme of M&D. We see the word “traverse” in Lowrey’s first sentence, a word that Pynchon utilizes in M&D, but rises to great prominence in his next novel, Against the Day, where he makes Traverse, the surname of his primary protagonists. Traverse has bardo implications; one always traverses the Bardo, going from a “death” to a “rebirth,” never remaining in a static or steady-state in that territory; the only constant is change.  Both novels show a strong influence from Moby Dick. According to the AI Overlords, “Lowry's text contains multiple allusions to Moby-Dick," including references to the final words of Chapter 1 of Moby-Dick: ‘one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.’” Lowry would explicitly acknowledge the influence of Melville.

The emphasis on Death and the Bardo begins immediately in Mason & Dixon. After establishing the presence of Cherrycoke in his sister’s household and mentioning the purpose of his daily visit to Mason’s grave: “– “that like a shade with a grievance, he expected Mason, but newly arrived at Death, to help him with something”, the Revd begins his story of Mason and Dixon:

“’It begins with a hanging.’

‘Excellent!’ cry the Twins.

The Revd, producing a scarr’d old Note-book, cover’d in cheap Leather , begins to read. ‘had I been the first churchman of modern times to be swung from Tyburn Tree, – had I been then taken for dead, while in fact but spending an Intermission among the eventless corridors of Syncope,. . .’”

Corridors appear often in the Bardo domain. Tyburn Tree marks the spot in London of the principal location of public executions for over 650 years. 

For the majority of the novel, Mason is haunted by the death of his wife Rebekah: he experiences multiple Bardo encounters with her, in dreams and alternate realities. In one of the final chapters after completion of the Line, Mason reflects back on his life and her death: 

“That other Tract, across the Border, – perhaps nearly ev’rything, perhaps nearly nothing, – is denied him. “Is that why I sought so obsessedly Death’s Insignia, it’s gestures and forumlæ, its quotidian gossip, – all those awful days out at Tyburn, – hours spent nearly immobile, watching stone-carvers labor upon tomb embellishments, Chip by Chip, – was it all but some way to show my worthiness to obtain a permit to visit her, to cross that grimly patroll’d line, that very essence of Division?” He has another encounter with Rebekah in the next paragraph. She seems to be advising him what to do now that the Line is finished.

It's no secret that Pynchon loves puzzles, codes, cabala, cryptography, conspiracies, secret societies and mysteries of all sorts. The “sc” letter code seems on steroids in M&D particularly in the first half to two thirds of the book. It feels like Pynchon hits you over the head with it, so blatantly obvious does it appear. I don’t fully understand why (I have my guesses as you know) and tend to regard this “sc” ubiquity along the lines of a Zen koan. The code even turns up in the name of our faithful narrator, Revd Wicks Cherrycoke with the last letter of his first name followed by the first letter of his last name.

I’ll leave it here, for now, with one last quote that strongly suggests the influence of RAW:

“The Ascent to Christ is a struggle thro’ one heresy after another. River-wise up-country into a proliferation of Sects and Sects branching from Sects, unto Deism, faithless pretending to be holy, and beyond, – ever away from the Sea, from the Harbor, from all that was serene and certain, into an Interior unmapp’d, a Realm of Doubt. The Nights. The Storms and Beasts. The Falls, the Rapids, . . . the America of the Soul.

"Doubt is of the essence of Christ. . . . The final pure Christ is pure uncertainty.”

This comes from Undeliver’d Sermons by Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke. It can also easily read as the same “Christ” Crowley writes about being able to produce in “Postcards to Probationers” Equinox I Vol. II. Two allusions to Crowley: his initials, AC, at the top of the quote, and “Beasts” later on. Crowley’s oft mentioned and taught by RAW early piece on Skepticism, “The Soldier and the Hunchback: ! and ?” appeared in Equinox I Vol. I.

You may not want to read another difficult and dense novel immediately following Moby Dick, but I highly recommend giving Mason & Dixon a try at some point especially if one likes historical novels. In my opinion, it’s one of the greatest books ever written. Meanwhile, back on the Pequod the pace picks up.

Chapter 131 “The Pequod meets the Delight” foreshadows their final fate. There seems a reason Melville called the other ship the Delight, a paradoxical moniker given the circumstance, he calls it “most miserably misnamed.” 

Chapter 132 “The Symphony” does indeed have a very lyrical prose style reminiscent of Tolkien for its excellent descriptions. Starbuck starts to play the counter-melody of trying to get Ahab to change course.

Chapter 133 “The Chase–First Day”. Ahab smells Moby Dick before she’s spotted. These are some of the more epic chapters in the book . . . the Symphony starts to build to its climatic crescendo. 

Chapter 134 “The Chase–Second Day.” I found this bit very interesting for its synch with Thelema: 

“for of what present avail to the becalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that assures him he is exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his port.

"Inferable from these statements, are many collateral subtile matters touching the chase of whales.”

For the last note of this Symphony I’ll quote different famous literary cetaceans: “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

Next week: Almost done! Please read  Chapter 135, "The Chase -- Third Day" and "The Epilogue."

Hilaritas podcast interviews Gabriel Kennedy

 The Hilaritas Press podcast released today features an interview of Prop Anon/Gabriel Kennedy, author of the Robert Anton Wilson biography, Chapel Perilous: The Life and Thought Crimes of Robert Anton Wilson. Zach West serves as the guest host for the episode, although regular host Mike Gathers does an intro.

The home page of the podcast has links to various Prop Anon sites and sites promoting the book, although as usual the podcast should be available in a wide variety of podcasting sites and apps. 

Jim O'Shaughnessy launches new book publishing company

[Jim O'Shaughnessy, as many of you know, is a Wall Street wizard and a big promoter of the work of Robert Anton Wilson, so his announcement Friday that he is launching a book publishing company seems like good news. And when I read the press release for the announcement, I recognized the name of Jimmy Soni, the CEO and editor in chief for Infinity Books. Soni is the coauthor, with Rob Goodman, of A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age, a book I gave five stars to on Goodreads when I read it in late 2022. Of course, one of the reasons I read the book was because of Wilson's interest in Shannon. Here is the full announcement, more interesting than the usual press release. The Management].

NEW YORK, March 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- O'Shaughnessy Ventures LLC (OSV) today announced the launch of Infinite Books, a new publishing venture reimagining the relationship between publishers, authors and readers. Award-winning author Jimmy Soni has been appointed CEO and editor in chief.

Infinite Books will publish a wide range of fiction and nonfiction works that stand the test of time, combining the quality standards of traditional publishing with innovative approaches to contracts, editorial support and marketing.

"The publishing industry is at an inflection point," said Soni. "While books remain magical, almost everything about how we discover, create and share them has evolved. At Infinite Books, we're building the publishing house that authors deserve—combining editorial excellence with the speed and flexibility modern creators expect. By rethinking everything from contract structures to the editorial process, we believe we can create a new model that serves both authors and readers better."

Jim O'Shaughnessy, executive chairman of Infinite Books and founder of OSV, commented: "In Jimmy, we've found a leader who uniquely understands both the creative and business sides of publishing. His track record speaks for itself—he's written acclaimed, bestselling books of his own and helped shepherd numerous other authors to success." O'Shaughnessy is himself a veteran author, having written the investment classic "What Works on Wall Street," now in its fourth edition and widely regarded as one of the most influential books in the field of quantitative investing.

Jimmy Soni (provided photo)

About Jimmy Soni

Soni brings substantial publishing credentials to the role. His most recent book, "The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley," was a national bestseller and was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker. Based on hundreds of interviews, including exclusive conversations with Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman, the book earned widespread acclaim, with The New York Times calling it "an intensely magnetic chronicle" and Walter Isaacson praising it as "an indispensable guide to modern innovation and entrepreneurship."

His previous work, "A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age," won the prestigious 2017 Neumann Prize from the British Society for the History of Mathematics and the Middleton Prize from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Soni's other works include "Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato" and "Jane's Carousel," co-authored with the late Jane Walentas.

As a ghostwriter, Soni has penned commencement speeches, inaugural addresses and several No. 1 New York Times bestsellers for some of the nation's leading voices in business, politics and media.

Initial Publishing Slate

Infinite Books has picked up early momentum, having already published its debut title "Two Thoughts: A Timeless Collection of Infinite Wisdom," and relaunched Melanie Conklin's beloved "Counting Thyme." Upcoming works include former professor and renowned podcaster Dr. Alex Petkas's exploration of the ancient concept of Zeal; "White Mirror," a collection of fiction stories from Tinkered Thinking; and a new edition of Michael Gibson's "Paper Belt on Fire."

"Our initial slate represents exactly what Infinite Books stands for," said Soni. "From fresh philosophical explorations to powerful fiction to books that deserve a second life—these works exemplify our range, ambition and commitment to enduring ideas and excellent writing."

Infinite Books continues to accept submissions and plans to announce additional titles throughout 2025. For more information, visit infinitebooks.com and follow Infinite Books on X/Twitter @InfiniteB88ks. Authors and agents interested in submitting manuscripts can contact us at contact@infinitebooks.com

Jim O'Shaughnessy

About O'Shaughnessy Ventures

OSV is a creative investment firm that empowers and inspires creators to bring their ideas to life. Founded by O'Shaughnessy, a pioneer in quantitative investing, founder of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, and author of four books on investing, OSV aims to provide financial support and to partner in growing the next life-changing creative ideas.

OSV combines O'Shaughnessy's deeply rooted interest in art, science, investing and tech with his long-held desire to establish scenarios designed to help promising creators and their inspiring ideas succeed, regardless of age, location, job history or level of education. For more information, visit OSV's website.

Coming next month: 'Straight Outta Dublin'

Straight Outta Dublin, Eric Wagner's new book on James Joyce's influence on Robert Anton Wilson, is coming out April 23, according to a post from Eric on Facebook. The book also has a substantial essay from R. Michael Johnson. The arresting cover is from Rasa.

Preorders for the Kindle are available on Amazon; information on other editions should be coming soon. 

Mike Gathers on his planned book on the Eight Circuit model

Mike Gathers. Photo from the Mike Gathers Coaching website. 

Mike Gathers, known to many of you as the founder of the RAWilsonFans.org website and the host of the Hilaritas Press monthly podcast, is hard at work on his planned new book on the Eight Circuit model of consciousness invented by Timothy Leary and promoted by Robert Anton Wilson.

That's the news in his latest Substack newsletter, Intelligence Increase, his first newsletter in just over two years. 

Mike has some other writing topics he wants to pursue, but the Eight Circuit project is the main focus of the newsletter, which details how he has worked with Grok 3 to get going. 

"I went from fleshing out ideas that were half baked to generating a detailed outline of the book. I have been feeling recent pressure to write this book and haven’t made much progress in the six or so years I’ve been 'seriously' thinking about writing a book, but I have made a huge amount of progress in the last month," he writes.

The newsletter has an outline of many of the ideas Mike has come up with for the book, and more writing via Substack is promised soon. The newsletter is free. 

Wednesday links

 RAW Semantics responds (on Bluesky) to my recent post about the ebook for Everything Is Under Control being on sale in the U.S. for about $2: "Definitely worth it for the long intro alone, which I've been raving about for years as one of Bob's best pieces of writing."

Last interview with Orson Welles in 1985. RAW Semantics posted the link on Bluesky (which unlike X.com doesn't punish users for posting links) and wrote, " 'I'm not being fake-modest talking about luck. I do really think it has everything to do with anybody's life' - from the last interview of a real genius (as opposed to the self-regarding born-rich billionaire frauds imposing themselves on us)"

New book on how the "empire never ended." 

Jefferson Morley on the release of the JFK files. Also, here is a link to the files. 

The Discordian Ordination of Jefferson Poland

What did we learn from torturing babies? 

Tyler Cowen interviews Ezra Klein. 

Joseph Matheny announces big 'Ong's Hat: COMPLEAT' sale

Joseph Matheny has announced a sale for the Ong's Hat COMPLEAT package of an ebook and an audiobook. 

Starting today, and extending through Saturday, March 22, the U.S. Amazon site will offer the Kindle ebook for free. 

During that same time period, the accompanying audiobook at the SendOwl audiobook, ordinarily $14.99, will be offered at a 10% discount. Go to the website  and " enter your email and the discount code COMPLEAT-PRINT for 10% off on the audio bundle."

"That’s a $14.99 E-book free and a 10% off of the audio bundle.

As I’ve said numerous times, this work is in two parts. The text version is one half, and the audio is the other half—two components of a whole," Joseph writes.

More information here, including a video explaining the package and early reviews.