Cinema Discordia

Robert Anton Wilson fans should be interested in Maybe Logic, a documentary about the writer that will debut in Santa Cruz tomorrow night.

Wilson will be at the premiere, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports, but probably not at other screenings:

[H]e no longer has the energy to do speaking engagements that involve travel.

"I just can't go near airports," he said. "I guess if my books go out of print I'll have to go on the circuit again, but I'd rather hold up liquor stores."

Comments

[Tom_T]

I dig R.A.W. and have been fairly upset he's barely written anything new as of late. Has he been ill?
I know that his wife passed away and that that may have something to do with his lack of new work.

Eric, most of Bob's later work had less and less to do with conspiracy theories. Check out Cosmic Trigger vol. 2 & 3 (avoid vol. 1 though).

[JJ]

Wilson has been very ill, Tom. His childhood bout with polio is causing serious problems for him again, and he's been stuck in a wheelchair recently.

[Anonymous]

Add to that his wife of 40 years dying of a stroke in '99. Probably put a damper in his productivity that he's only now coming out of (very slowly to to age and health).

[Spotted a Quarter]

Illuminati was hilarious! It is even more funny when you realize it was a huge yoke on the true believers who actually believe in such conspiracy theory nonsense.

[T. Hartin]

Anybody who thinks that old Bob ever believed any of the conspiracy theories totally missed the point of his writing, which I always found to be quite clear on this point. He was making fun of them, using them as an example of the way people project their beliefs and other patterns onto the world.

I learned a lot from Bob that has served me well. Sad to hear he isn't doing well.

[Eric Deamer]

I read a book about the Illimunati trilogy and it made what I thought was a good point which was that when citizens think the goverment is conspiring against them they behave in ways which give the government reason to keep more of an eye on them, which reinforces their belief in the conspiracies etc. etc. in a never-ending cycle. So, essentially, all Rothbardian loons reading this should stop being so paranoid and eventually we can break this cycle.

[Anonymous]

prometheus rising is a good start/introduction! so is e-prime 😀

[dhex]

i'm gonna miss bob when he's gone. i already pre-ordered the dvd.

[Eric Deamer]

So you post this stuff and then take umbrage whenever someone raises the charge of conspiracy theorizing. I know, maybe you're just into these kind of books for fun, but c'mon, just on a PR level you're kind of asking for it.

[Anonymous]

Hopefully it's better than No Maps for these Territories and The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick.

[James Merritt]

Wilson is about a lot more than conspiracy theories. People who write him off for his Illuminati speculations are missing out in a big way.

[Kevin Carson]

Eric,

You're missing out on the tongue-in-cheek aspect of Illuminatus! Wilson had so many gunmen hidden in all the nooks and crannies at Dealey Plaza that their bullets were ricocheting off each other.

His characters included the author of a turgid novel called "Telemachus Sneezed" with an eighty-page speech in the middle, and a crazy libertarian pirate named Hagbard with a golden submarine. Does that sound like he was stepping on any toes?

Every time it looks like the ultimate origins of the Hashishim/Templars/Bavarian Illuminati have finally been traced, another piece of the puzzle shows them to have been the product of an even older and more esoteric conspiracy, until it is finally traced back to a Leviathan from the beginning of time. Come ON!

RAW is a master satirist.