Fondest and Loudest Farewell:
Robert Anton Wilson 1932-2007
I will dedicate a book to this man one day. I'm quite choked up let me tell you.
I have in my head various bits and pieces of RAW's writing that sustain me with their lucidity and intelligence and visionary humour; I will post them up in tribute over the weekend.
********************************************
(The above is my original post from the 11th Jan when Bob died, I want to keep it at the top for time being; my subsequent thoughts are below)
http://hostgator.rawilson.com/prethought.shtml
I found the following in RAW's 'thoughts' page while looking for another of his posts on Gaugins division of artists into the revolutionaries and the plagiarists; it is about 9 years old and seems quite poignant and appropriate now:
"I have lost several friends and colleagues in the last couple of years (Leary and Burroughs are only the most famous ones) and it has finally really dawned on me that I am not just "getting older;" I am getting old, period. Now another friend has cancer, and another is recovering from a massive stroke.
I'm glad I have a lot of young friends, because the old ones are all leaving me.
Burroughs wrote a lot about preparing for the big casino by getting out of your body while still alive, via Tibetan and Egyptian methods. Leary also tried those methods (aided by a Lilly isolation tank) and may or may not have had his head preserved cryonically, depending on whose story you believe. I don't regard either of these ideas as preposterous or silly: Since I know nothing for sure, nothing seems really unthinkable.
Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time.
Every day is full of wonderments to me: Death will probably come to me as the greatest wonderment of all. "
Amen.
4 comments:
Hey dude, I saw yer post on the RAW Data blog. If you're interested in doing a meme-orial in Europe visit the blog I set up for this at http://reverendclarry.blogspot.com
Know other people who might be interested, let them know. let's get that lasagna skyborne!
*grin*
also someone responding to your post asking about RAW memeorials in UK.
I have heard buzzings of something in London (I believe the words were, even if it's just a down the local booze-up).
Planning a memorial isn't that difficult, I'm finding. Certainly not as difficult as maintaining a blog which endeavors to connect folks with local RAW memorial events.
Check out http://rawremembered.blogspot.com for details on events around the world. I'm following at least one event in the planning stages for UK. :D
Full details about the London evening memorial event (Sunday 18th) from http://rawmemoriallondon.blogspot.com/
Hi. Thought you'd like to know that some picsfrom the comic used in the Meme-Orial are now on line at the myspace link below. Thanx for everything!
www.myspace.com/icarus_23
Post a Comment