Johann Sebastian Bach in the new RAW politics book

I tend to think of Beethoven as Robertt Anton Wilson's favorite composer, and mentions of Beethoven haunt RAW's writings, including many of the most well-known titles, such as Illuminatus! and Prometheus Rising. So I was interested that Johann Sebastian Bach  was the composer mentioned most prominently in the new RAW book, A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, which I just finished.

The first mention comes in the "Illuminating Discord" interview, from 1976, when RAW is asked about his favorite music, and he mentions "Beethoven's Ninth and his late quartets, Bach, Bizet, Carl Orff, Vivaldi, the less popular and more experimental stuff by Stravinsky."

In the transcript of the joint appearance with Karl Hess (pun intended), the pair are asked to name the "greatest person who ever lived." Hess says his mother and Euclid, RAW answers, "Johann Sebastian Bach."

In the Steve Fly interview, asked about "favorite music albums and recording artists," RAW answers, "I like Bach. I like Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane. I like Harry Belafonte and the Weavers and a lot of other music. I like Mahler. I like a lot of music. Next question."  (But earlier in the interview, when Steve asks for RAW's "favorite sound," he answers, "The end of Beethoven's Ninth: male and female voices singing together about joy and brotherhood and peace.")

A few other Bach bits:

In this post, Tyler Cowen rates Bach "the greatest achiever of all time." While this is a reasonable opinion and Tyler makes a good case, I am not sure why Bach would rank above Mozart,  who wrote an astounding quantity of good music before dying at age 35. Many of Mozart's most famous works date from late in his career, so it is painful to think about what we might have if Mozart had lived until 40. Bach made it to 65, Beethoven was 56 when he died.

Bach is referenced over and over again in the works of Richard Powers, one of my favorite novelists. This is most obvious in The Gold Bug Variations, in which a character gives her lover a copy of the famous Glenn Gould recording of the Goldberg Variations. 

One of my favorite Michael Johnson Substack issues is his Bach piece, "J.S. Bach and the Psychedelic Mind."  Michael likes to play Bach on electric guitar; he should put some of that out on Bandcamp.

I own a lot of Bach's music and also have a lot bookmarked on streaming services. If I had to pick one favorite piece, it might be Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582.  I also listen over and over again to three cantatas: "Wachet Auf," BWV 140; "Christ lag in Todes Banden," BWV 4, and the "Hunting Cantata," BWV 208. 

Hilaritas Press podcast spotlights Robert Shea book

The new Hilaritas Press podcast released today with regular host Mike Gathers features Mike Shea and myself, discussing the new Robert Shea anthology.

Official blurb: "Hilaritas host Mike Gathers chats with Mike Shea and Tom Jackson about the life of Robert Shea, and the new Robert Shea book, Every Day Is A GOOD Day, from Hilaritas Press in Episode 51 of the Hilaritas Press Podcast."

The podcast opens with Rasa's nifty animation of the book's cover. I thought it was a good episode when we recorded it -- not because of me, but because Mike Shea told so many good stories about his father. I thank the Mikes and Rasa for making this podcast happen. 

The Etsy Weirdoverse shop

With the advent of the gift giving season, this seems like a good time to point to the Etsy Weirdoverse shop, filled with various items of Bobby Campbell goodness.

If you missed out on Tales of Illuminatus, you can buy both issues from the shop. But I also want to point to a digital product, Omnibus777, more than 600 pages of digital comics for $5, and the "Discordian God Card Package."

Etsy, if you aren't familiar with it, is a nice way to support small business folk and get unique items. 

Looks like I'm going to read 'The Magus'

 

The recommendations for The Magus by John Fowles are coming in thick and fast. It looks like I need to get around to reading the copy that's been sitting in my Kindle for a long time.

1. The new Robert Anton Wilson book, A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, mentions the book three times, including once as a personal favorite, and also as a "great book." 

2. I recently wrote about book.sv, a book recommendation site recommended by Mark Frauenfelder, the RAW fan, writer, artist and founder of the Boing Boing magazine and website. When I tried it, it recommended The Magus to me. In the comments, Lvx15 said the site recommended The Magus to him as well, and Mark Brown mentioned it's in his "to be read" pile (which I suspect is as big as mine).

3. Robert Shea (in the new book) recommends John Fowles as one of his favorite writers. 

4. Email from Mark Fraunfelder today: "Thanks for mentioning my book recommendation review! I read The Magus earlier this year and loved it!"

OK, OK, I will try to read it soon.

The delay of 'Illuminatus!' and five Robert Shea zines

As I wrote in yesterday's post, Bobby Campbell has released a lot of new Robert Anton Wilson material, but he also took the time to release PDFs of five Robert Shea zines. One of them illustrates that Shea and RAW originally thought Illuminatus! would be coming out much more quickly. It also confirms that the pair originally thought Dell would bring out one big book:

"Two Chicago authors (names kept secret for their protection) are threatening to produce a novel which will give the complete and total truth about the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria. Dell books is threatening of publish it. If all parties involved survive, the book could be out by 1971. Then the Apple will really hit the fan!" (The Universal Instructor in All Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette (formerly the Saturday Evening Post, Number 25, April 4, 1970, available here). 

I will be checking out the RAW material, too, although probably not thoroughly until I can finish reading A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005. 

But I don't want Shea to be overlooked (as if you couldn't tell)  so I've started by looking at  five Shea zines, dating from 1969 to 1970).

Here is yesterday's blog post, with reading recommendations from Bobby and a link to the whole archive -- lots of RAW material -- and links to Shea's five zines in the archive. 

Bobby Campbell releases RAW (and Shea) papers from Princeton library

The Princeton Library. Bobby Campbell photo, I think. 

As I mentioned the other day, Bobby Campbell recently visited the Ed Sanders papers at Princeton University's special collections in the university library, searching for Robert Anton Wilson papers. 

Bobby has now posted a collection of papers to make them available to everyone. 

Here is the announcement at the Maybe Logic blog: 

Enclosed please find a large collection of letters, articles, poetry, prose, and Discordian junk mail created by Robert Anton Wilson, usually under a variety of pen names and aliases, and all sent to, and preserved by, the poet and activist Ed Sanders.

(There is also material by Robert Shea, Arlen Riley Wilson, and even a cameo by Mal 2!)

This material was discovered by the brilliant esoteric scholar R. Michael Johnson, our resident Overweening Generalist, who identified its close proximity to my suburban NJ environs, housed in the Princeton Library's Special Collections Dept, and suggested I might do well to take a gander. Not being the type to turn down a magical quest, I did indeed take a trip up the turnpike and captured the cache of material, converted to PDF, labeled and organized to the best of my ability, and now present to the wider RAW/Discordian community for enjoyment and edification :)))

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS: EARLY RAW - THE ED SANDERS COLLECTION

The majority of the material here was brand new to me, and does not seem to be available elsewhere on the internet, though I'll be curious to see how much of it is genuinely previously unknown writing. I direct your attention specifically to the "I" newsletter section, which appears to be an early forerunner of the Trajectories newsletter. It seems like RAW probably sent this stuff far and wide, but I've never bumped into it before. Maybe it's collected under another name? (Maybe housed in the famed Discordian archives?)

I also direct your attention to two prose pieces:

I Blew Pot at the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Panty Raid at the Pentagon)

& Werewolf Bridge

Both of which Wilson refers to as proposed novels, of which these are presumably very short excerpts.

The Werewolf Bridge material shows up as a recurring theme in his work, but I don't think in this exact form. RAW's first hand description of his experience at the Pentagon protest is riveting! And again, previously unknown to me.

More here. 

Copies of 'Tales of Illuminatus 2' are being delivered

I made a Kickstarter pledge to back Tales of Illuminatus 2 and my comic book arrived on my porch Monday. So if you backed the project, too, and if you don't have your copy yet, I suspect that it will arrive Real Soon Now. Congratulations to Bobby for completing it! A job well done! 

 

'Liminal Currents' podcast interviews Rasa about RAW

Episode 23 of the Liminal Currents podcast features an  interview with Rasa. "On this episode he shares many interesting stories about RAW, his concepts and a bit about Timothy Leary as well!" I have not had time to listen yet, but I will check it out soon. I have linked to the Apple podcasts site, but it appears to be available at many of the usual podcasting locations and apps. The host apologizes for accidentally referring to Rasa as "Robert" in the podcast. 

The Liminal Currents podcast appears to have other episodes that might be of interest to sombunall RAW fans.

RAW and Shea material at the Princeton library

Letter from RAW to Ed Sanders. 

 Bobby Campbell on Bluesky: "I had a great day at the Princeton Special Collections Dept! Documenting a treasure drove of original RAW documents from his correspondence w/ poet Ed Sanders. (On behalf of the OG!) 213 pages of RAW & Shea material. Processing everything now. Decent chance there's some unique gems in here :)))"

Background on Ed Sanders. The Princeton library has a website for Ed Sanders Papers, 1939-2021 (mostly 1960-2010). I look forward to learning more. 

RAW Semantics on the new Shea book

 RAW Semantics on Bluesky: "I'm currently reading Robert Shea's 'Every Day is a GOOD Day' (the new collection edited by  @jacksontom.bsky.social - see my post above) & like it a lot. I've quickly warmed to Shea's voice, but I don't know enough about him to attempt a review such as this one."

Thanks, Brian, and thanks again for the review, Michael! As I noted earlier, Brian has posted notes on the new Robert Anton Wilson book, A Non-Euclidian Perspective. 

More here on Every Day is a Good Day. 

Five books about William Blake

Given that Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea were Blake fans and many RAW fans also love William Blake fans, I thought I would pass on this article recommending the five best books about William Blake, as chosen by Mark Vernon, author of the new book, Awake!: William Blake and the Power of the Imagination.

Don't forget that John Higgs also has written two books about Blake. 

John Higgs' book on David Lynch released

John Higgs announces that his new book on David Lynch, LYNCHIAN,  has been released in the United Kingdom. Go here to see the various places where the book can be ordered online. See the newsletter for new dates for appearances. 

I don't see the book on Amazon, so U.S. readers apparently will want to order the book from Britain and have it shipped over here. 

A new book about Malcolm Cowley

Malcolm Cowley. Public domain photo by Carl Van Vechten. 

Dwight Garner reviews a new book about Malcolm Cowley for the New York Times, and the review (and apparently the book) highlights the role Cowley, a writer, editor and critic, played in reviving the career of writer William Faulkner:

"It’s hard to believe now, but in 1944 every one of William Faulkner’s 17 books was out of print except for 'Sanctuary,' a thriller he’d written to pay the mortgage. He was only in his late 40s but his career was in eclipse. Maxwell Perkins, the venerated Scribner’s editor, had declared: 'Faulkner is finished.' Faulkner’s publisher nudged him further into oblivion when it donated some of his novels’ printing plates — who’ll need these again? — to be melted down for the war effort.

"Among the books out of print were several interrelated novels written between 1929 and 1942, 'The Sound and the Fury,' 'As I Lay Dying,' 'Light in August,' 'Absalom, Absalom!' and 'Go Down, Moses.' Each was set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Miss. Each is now recognized as among the most vital and important novels of the 20th century, but that was hardly the case at the time. Faulkner’s work had never sold well, and it had long ago been pounded into dust by popular critics such as Clifton Fadiman of The New Yorker, who found Faulkner a puzzling bore."

The review relates how Faulkner's fortunes were reversed when Cowley succeeded in getting Viking to let him edit and publish The Portable Faulkner, despite the fact that "Almost no one at Viking thought the book worth doing."

The book Garner reviews is The Insider by Gerald Howard; Faulkner is not the only writer Cowley helped. See the link, above, and the Wikipedia bio. 

I mention this not just because RAW was a Faulkner fan (Faulkner gets a mention in Illuminatus!) but because the new book raises an important point: Who or what will help bring more attention to the works of Robert Anton Wilson (and Robert Shea)? Is there a Malcolm Cowley out there somewhere?

At least, thanks to Hilaritas Press, we don't have to worry about RAW going out of print. There's a lot currently available for any reader who discovers RAW and wants to get more.