"I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying. Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd."
- RAW days before his death
"If there were no death, there would be no sex. If there were no sex, there would be no death. And without sex, there would be no evolution towards intelligence, no human race. Therefore death is necessary. Death is the price of orgasm." - RAW
I'm stuck at work as tears fall down my face unbidden. I knew that he was sick and getting old, that death was waiting for him and that he was unafraid, but as a midwesterner I conveniently ignored these things and hoped that the Longevity Research that he so dearly loved and studied would come to fruition and keep that brilliant mind of his with us for many more years to come. Robert Anton Wilson has passed from this incarnation. I know I shouldn't be sad, that this is just another round in the cycle of Life, but I can't help but feel that one of the Great Teachers to come to us has left us poorer in his absence.
Wilson was often over everybody's heads, or more accurately, inside our heads, showing us how we think, fucking with us to snap us out of our Tunnel Realities, our narrow modes of thought. He wrote numerous books that had educational value, huge entertainment value and valuable lessons we could use to help better ourselves and gain mastery over our minds and bodies. He wrote on many levels, and he always challenged me. He often pushed me a little bit further than Iwas ready to go, but in each case, I went willingly. It often took several reads for me to get what he was saying, or even to realize that he was saying something. I usually found that by the time I re-read the book, I had sought out those things that I didn't understand and knew more about them when I came back.
To say that Wilson was one of the greatest minds this world ever produced is not a controversial statement: He held his own with the best and the brightest physicists, research scientests, shamans and holy folk, among others. His understanding of people, the world, the universe, was vast. His imapct on my being - incredible. I cannot begin to parse the pieces of me that were matured through the Wilson Filter. His books had the net effect of an acid trip without the acid. Each time I read one, I would emerge renewed, invigorated, and a little bit looser, smarter and more in command and in tune with my world. He turned me on to so many brilliant minds through his work, I can only hope to point people towards some of these things as they may need them.
I thank you Robert Anton Wilson for that which you have given me, the world, and the universe. You will be missed, but not forgotten.
All Hail Eris.
- junebug
Some links:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/01/12/062113.php
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/05/note_from_robert_ant.html
http://hostgator.rawilson.com/main.shtml
http://tenthousanddays.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-have-seen-fnords.html
http://www.weirdamerica.com/tag/robert-anton-wilson
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/01/11/robert-anton-wilson-1932-2007/
Books written or co-authored by RAW:
* Playboy's Book of Forbidden Words (1972)
* Sex and Drugs: A Journey Beyond Limits (1973)
* The Sex Magicians (1973)
* The Book of the Breast (1974)
* The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) (with Robert Shea)
o The Eye in the Pyramid
o The Golden Apple
o Leviathan
* Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977)
* Neuropolitics (1978) (with Timothy Leary and George Koopman)
* The Game of Life (1979) (with Timothy Leary)
* The Illuminati Papers (1980)
* Schrdinger's Cat trilogy (1980-1981)
o The Universe Next Door
o The Trick Top Hat
o The Homing Pigeon
* Masks of the Illuminati (1981)
* The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles
o The Earth Will Shake (1982)
o The Widow's Son (1985)
o Nature's God (1991)
* Right Where You Are Sitting Now (1983)
* Prometheus Rising (1983)
* The New Inquisition (1986)
* Wilhelm Reich in Hell (1987)
* Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy (1987)
* Coincidance (1988)
* Neuropolitique (1988) (with Timothy Leary & George Koopman) [[revision of Neuropolitics]]
* Ishtar Rising (1989) [[revision of The Book of the Breast]]
* Semiotext(e) SF (1989) (editor, with Rudy Rucker and Peter Lamborn Wilson)
* Quantum Psychology (1990)
* Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth (1991)
* Reality Is What You Can Get Away With: An Illustrated Screenplay (1992)
* Chaos and Beyond (1994) (editor and primary author)
* Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death (1995)
* The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997)
* Everything Is Under Control (1998)
* TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution (2002)
* Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences (2004)
* Email to the Universe (2005)
* indicates a must read
- All Hail Eris!
- RAW days before his death
"If there were no death, there would be no sex. If there were no sex, there would be no death. And without sex, there would be no evolution towards intelligence, no human race. Therefore death is necessary. Death is the price of orgasm." - RAW
I'm stuck at work as tears fall down my face unbidden. I knew that he was sick and getting old, that death was waiting for him and that he was unafraid, but as a midwesterner I conveniently ignored these things and hoped that the Longevity Research that he so dearly loved and studied would come to fruition and keep that brilliant mind of his with us for many more years to come. Robert Anton Wilson has passed from this incarnation. I know I shouldn't be sad, that this is just another round in the cycle of Life, but I can't help but feel that one of the Great Teachers to come to us has left us poorer in his absence.
Wilson was often over everybody's heads, or more accurately, inside our heads, showing us how we think, fucking with us to snap us out of our Tunnel Realities, our narrow modes of thought. He wrote numerous books that had educational value, huge entertainment value and valuable lessons we could use to help better ourselves and gain mastery over our minds and bodies. He wrote on many levels, and he always challenged me. He often pushed me a little bit further than Iwas ready to go, but in each case, I went willingly. It often took several reads for me to get what he was saying, or even to realize that he was saying something. I usually found that by the time I re-read the book, I had sought out those things that I didn't understand and knew more about them when I came back.
To say that Wilson was one of the greatest minds this world ever produced is not a controversial statement: He held his own with the best and the brightest physicists, research scientests, shamans and holy folk, among others. His understanding of people, the world, the universe, was vast. His imapct on my being - incredible. I cannot begin to parse the pieces of me that were matured through the Wilson Filter. His books had the net effect of an acid trip without the acid. Each time I read one, I would emerge renewed, invigorated, and a little bit looser, smarter and more in command and in tune with my world. He turned me on to so many brilliant minds through his work, I can only hope to point people towards some of these things as they may need them.
I thank you Robert Anton Wilson for that which you have given me, the world, and the universe. You will be missed, but not forgotten.
All Hail Eris.
- junebug
Some links:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/01/12/062113.php
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/05/note_from_robert_ant.html
http://hostgator.rawilson.com/main.shtml
http://tenthousanddays.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-have-seen-fnords.html
http://www.weirdamerica.com/tag/robert-anton-wilson
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/01/11/robert-anton-wilson-1932-2007/
Books written or co-authored by RAW:
* Playboy's Book of Forbidden Words (1972)
* Sex and Drugs: A Journey Beyond Limits (1973)
* The Sex Magicians (1973)
* The Book of the Breast (1974)
* The Illuminatus! Trilogy (1975) (with Robert Shea)
o The Eye in the Pyramid
o The Golden Apple
o Leviathan
* Cosmic Trigger I: Final Secret of the Illuminati (1977)
* Neuropolitics (1978) (with Timothy Leary and George Koopman)
* The Game of Life (1979) (with Timothy Leary)
* The Illuminati Papers (1980)
* Schrdinger's Cat trilogy (1980-1981)
o The Universe Next Door
o The Trick Top Hat
o The Homing Pigeon
* Masks of the Illuminati (1981)
* The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles
o The Earth Will Shake (1982)
o The Widow's Son (1985)
o Nature's God (1991)
* Right Where You Are Sitting Now (1983)
* Prometheus Rising (1983)
* The New Inquisition (1986)
* Wilhelm Reich in Hell (1987)
* Natural Law, or Don't Put a Rubber on Your Willy (1987)
* Coincidance (1988)
* Neuropolitique (1988) (with Timothy Leary & George Koopman) [[revision of Neuropolitics]]
* Ishtar Rising (1989) [[revision of The Book of the Breast]]
* Semiotext(e) SF (1989) (editor, with Rudy Rucker and Peter Lamborn Wilson)
* Quantum Psychology (1990)
* Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth (1991)
* Reality Is What You Can Get Away With: An Illustrated Screenplay (1992)
* Chaos and Beyond (1994) (editor and primary author)
* Cosmic Trigger III: My Life After Death (1995)
* The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1997)
* Everything Is Under Control (1998)
* TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution (2002)
* Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences (2004)
* Email to the Universe (2005)
* indicates a must read
- All Hail Eris!
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
lavonne:
Thank you! I'd love to learn the upright bass actually. And many more instruments. If I was rich I think I would have all sorts of instruments and take some music lessons. I play the trombone already but I've gotten so rusty.
lavonne:
Thanks 