July 13, 2006

• ewige blumenkraft
• .
• I've been expecting this for a while (certainly since his wife died) he was one of the biggest influences on my development in my 20s. I was fortunate to see him speak once (and yes, get my copy of Cosmic Trigger signed) and he was fascinating. He will be missed .
• This news, on top of everything else, has brought me very low.
• for chyren
• sad news.
• chy, might be worth reading this.
• Fnord.
• Interesting to see him called pomo -- always think of him as New Age type.
• I think he only ever took the piss out of it, really, bees. His major influence was Joyce, funnily enough.
• Those datura seeds of mine are looking tempting right now. :(
• I managed to get a message thru to Bob tonight, via a mutual aquaintance. Just a short note of thanks, I do hope it means something. I also sent him this, which I hope he is well enough to view. It is a YouTube vid made by another pal, the Shuttle booster cam footage set to Bowie's Space Oddity. I have been watching it & thinking of RAW.
• Great vid.
• What a lovely thought Chyren - I hope it brings him comfort. What a day. :(
• Cheerful reflections on death and dying.
• Yeah, when he puts it like that, it all sounds so logical. I have always wished I could maintain a tranquil state of mind like he does, or appears to do.
• That sucks. The world will be a much less interesting place without him.
• . magical 'entities,'...'not as real as the IRS' since they were 'easier to get rid of...
• Medusa, thanks for the kitty porn!
• Why is anyone going to miss him? Is there somewhere else he’s going? I think he knows how much he’s loved and supported. No tragedy here.
• Well, thanks for that, mr Vulcan. Unfortunately, the rest of us don't have that kind of control over our emotions. I'm not gonna weep or mourn for Mr Wilson, but I will miss him in a world that increasingly needs voices of alternate viewpoint & reason, in the same way I miss Frank Zappa. Such people are valuable to the human race.
• Amen. I haven't read any of his works (mostly because I avoid anything remotely Sci-Fi) but what I've read about him from the links in this thread makes me think he's an extremely interesting man. Maybe I'll give one of his books a try.
• I would recommend the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles, rocket88. They are set in the past & have links to his other works, but read much more like classic historical fiction, and are in fact very, very good. He seems to have just sat down & written a straight adventure story (albeit with heaps of real historical detail) without any of the alternate-universes, quantum physics mumbo jumbo. Unfortunately, the last book won't be finished :( but I think Bob probably intended it that way.
• . (aww, dammit!)
• masks of the illuminati is also good fun. it too me a very long time to track down a copy of volume 3 of the historical... series. it seems to have been printed in much smaller quantities than vols 1 and 2.
• Everyone seems to say that volume 3 is rare, but I got all of 'em in one go. There are a couple of good bookshops in Perth that stock a lot of Wilson's best stuff. Any of you with Ebay accounts oughta check out the search because ol' Bob is selling off a lot of stuff, he's calling it his garage sale. You can pick up autographed stuff & whatnot. I guess he figures he's gonna get rid of it before he shuffles off this mortal coil.
• "All phenomena are real in some sense, unreal in some sense, meaningless in some sense, real and meaningless in some sense, unreal and meaningless in some sense, and real and unreal and meaningless in some sense."
• > Everyone seems to say that volume 3 is rare, i should correct myself here. i recently found out that there was a reprint of volume 3 in 2004.
• I bought mine circa 1992.
• the historical chronicles seem to have passed through various publishers' hands, with vols 1 and 2 getting reprinted in the early to mid 1990s but not vol 3. there was some discussion on usenet about this several years ago (alt.fan.rawilson, maybe). the result was that vol 3 ended up in short supply relative to the other volumes. anyway, it's a good thing that nature's god has been reprinted. even if i did pay over the odds in 2002 to finally get a copy.
• It's still too short. But has the best ending. Thanks, Bob, way to keep us fucking hanging! Like I say, I have a feeling he never meant to complete the series. That would be most apropos. The initiation that never ends.
• By the way, I am only able to post here by the grace of Eris, since my CPU is actually dead. Maybe it's Schroedinger's CPU, which is both dead and not dead at the same time. As soon as something collapses the state-vector, then I probably won't be able to post any more.
• I suggest you not open your case and look inside, then. Also, don't put a kitten in there. Or masturbate.
• YEah, because you know what would happen, you'd be at the vinegar strokes, & then the computer would freeze & bomb out.. wow that would be bad.
• > my CPU is actually dead. from the register in february Quantum computer solves problem without running
• Wow, I read that, and I have absolutely no idea what it meant. Could someone please explain, in layman's terms, what the importance of this quantam computing might be? Also, as someone who knows absolutely nothing abour Robert Anton Wilson or his works which of his books would it be recommened to start with?
• i think the historical illuminatus chronicles, as noted by chryen above, are a good place to start: the earth will shake the widow's son nature's god the illuminatus! trilogy, written with robert shea, is probably the most famous. masks of the illuminati is also a good entry point, imo.
• I second the Illuminatus! Trilogy recommendation for a way to start.
• Illuminatus! Trilogy is rather all-over-the-place and is not a very good introduction to Wilson, IMHO. Actually I think the Schroedinger's Cat trilogy is a better intro. Illuminatus! is a bit of a slog for some people.
• R.I.P., RAW
• All hail Discordia.