Having been ill for some time now, the author Robert Anton Wilson died today. It’s been at least 15 years since I’ve read a word that he’s written, so I’m going to make some time tonight to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and the “Principia Discordia.”
[I don’t have any plans to similarly commemorate the death of Yvonne “Lilly Munster” De Carlo (slightly NSFW). I do have Munsters comic book around here somewhere that I could read, if I wanted to, but I don’t feel the same impulse. No Munster ever fucked with my head they way RAW did.]
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The one good thing about his illness, if anything about it could be called good, is that he got to see how much his fans cared about him. I found that really touching
A dozen years ago, this post would have been a great post, chocked full of “Illuminatus” references. Today, however, all you get is a single, “Hail Eris.” (My memory is my worst feature, and that’s saying a lot.)
Sad news — although it’s good he’s no longer suffering.
I had a lot of fun recently reading the “Cosmic Trigger” series. He was good.
I read “The Illuminatus! Trilogy” in two days when I worked at the plumbing company. I remember hearing him talk to Rev. Ivan Stang on Bob’s Slacktime Funhouse just a couple years ago.
He devoted himself to spreading intelligence and optimism — not an easy thing to do, given some of the awful things that happened to him — and he did it with style and humor. What a loss.
In his memory, I hope we all remember to refer to “belief system” by its initials now and then.
For those of you unfamiliar with Wilson, here is part of his Wikipedia entry-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson
The whole situation is very sad, especially when you think about all the struggles (as Skinner alludes to above) that RAW went through in his life, and the positive attitude he managed to maintain in spite of it all.
Since I heard the news, it’s made me very self-conscious of my own mortality, but specifically in regards to my mortality as an American citizen. This is a truly amazing country, where a person can touch the lives of millions, inspire several generations of readers, and still end up virtually destitute as a result of our ‘Bootstrap’ mentality (Bucky Fuller once observed similarly that the concept of “Earning a Living” is ridiculous, since it’s basically saying you have no right to be alive if you don’t have a steady job your entire life, regardless of its benefit to society. Not to get all biblical, here, but the Jesus line about “every bird has a nest, but only man can be homeless” also comes to mind).
Sorry for the digression, but this whole situation has me feeling very disgusted with our system’s treatment of RAW, especially as I know that in most other ‘civilized’ nations a 74 year old man bedridden with polio would be provided at least the security to cover his rent and basic expenses, regardless of what he did earlier in his life.
Anyway, I started re-reading the ‘cosmic trigger’ books, and as I’ve been re-experiencing the high weirdness of coincidences in my own life resulting from this reading, it does occur to me that some good will come of all this, as maybe his death was the only way that people like me (and mark) would pick up his works again, and people who never heard of him would start reading him for the first time, and our society certainly needs a good injection of discordian thought at this juncture.
And yes, with the exception of a few of Grandpa’s one-liners, the Munsters weren’t much of a mindfuck, although I did always like DeCarlo’s faithful performance as the show’s “Straight (wo)Man”, which was the only element that made it even approach the quality of its rival the Addams Family (not that I liked her nearly as much as Carolyn Jones, mind you, but I thought I should say something positive).
For those of you who didn’t follow the earlier links, RAW was, a few months ago, going to be thrown out of his house, even though, at the time, he’d been given little time to live. It was a money thing. Fortunately, someone got the idea to spead word over the internet. And, before you knew it, his bills had been paid. He was, as you might expect, blown away by the act of kindness. I suspect that he knew his works were of vital importance to a great many of us, but I don’t think he knew just how much they meant. Anyway, I think he probably died a very happy man, having gotten to experience that. Given the story lines that run through his books, and the way synchronicity always plays such a role, it’s a kind of fitting end. It just kind of organicly came about… But he’s not typical. Another man in his circumstances would have been evicted, left to die in a homeless shelter, and it’s not right. The system needs to change. And I don’t mean that we need a welfare state. People who can work, should work. But clearly 74 year old men and women shouldn’t be put on the streets to die.
The “NY Times” gave RAW a snotty little obit. His work was pretty much dismissed as all drug-related. It was a shameful little obit, and more than a little bizarre.
Older artists aren’t valued in the US. I remember that Martha Graham was turned down for an NEA grant because she was too old. Any other country would have honored her as a cultural icon.
As for Yvonne de Carlo, she had a long career before the “Munsters.” She should be remembered for more than that!
I heard Tony Curtis once brag to David Letterman about Yvonne De Carlo being the first starlet that he’d bedded in LA… Let this be a lesson to all of you folks out there, men or women, who would like to have my respect. The quickest way to lose it is by rutting with Tony Curtis…
As for the “New York Times” obit, you’re right. It did seem to trivialize his work… Here it is, for those of you who haven’t seen it.
I wonder if his daughter’s head is still frozen.
I’d wondered the same. I thought it was just her brain, though.
This site talks about the matter, and since they don’t say otherwise, it would seem that she’s still being kept someplace.