Each year, during the Dog Days of
summer, I get the urge to re-read Robert Anton Wilson.
It would be easy to dismiss the impulse
as nostalgia- after all, reading Bob was part of my passage to
manhood- stoned, anti-establishment hippy-punk manhood. I spent many
a blistering summer afternoon in crummy, un-airconditioned apartments
smelling of dirty cat boxes, stale beer and Nag Champa, expanding my
mind to
books like
The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple,
Leviathan, Cosmic Trigger, Prometheus Rising, Schrodingers Cat and
Right Where You Are Sitting Now. I don't think it's just nostalgia,
however, to re-read RAW. There is something magical about the
Dog Days, and it always seems like an appropriate time to re-visit the
work of one of the late 20
th century's most underrated
masters of High Weirdness.
July 23
rd was designated as
Robert Anton Wilson Day by the City of Santa Cruz, California in
2003. Wilson had become a beloved resident character in Santa Cruz,
and a political activist for Medical Marijuana (which he used to
treat the symptoms of the post-polio syndrome which was slowly
killing him) and against what he called the “TSOG” (Tsarist
Occupation Government).
Mayor Emily Reilly declared:
“WHEREAS ROBERT ANTON
WILSON MAY BE CONSIDERED AS BOTH THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY'S LEADING
REALITY THEORIST, GUERRILLA ONTOLOGIST, PSYCHEDELIC MAGICKIAN,
STATIRIC OLD CRANK, OUTER HEAD OF THE ILLUMINATI, QUANTUM
PSYCHOLOGIST, SIT-DOWN COMIC/PHILOSOPHER,
NEW AGE TEACHER, AND
DISCORDIAN POPE; and...
WHEREAS ROBERT ANTON
WILSON EMPLOYS WITH AND HUMOR SPANNING FIVE DECADES TO RESIST THE
IMPERIAL SCHEMES OF NATIONAL POLITICOS, THROUGH SUCH ACTIONS AS DAILY
EMAIL TO ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN ASHCROFT DETAILING HIS PERSONAL
ACTIVITIES, THEREBY SPARING GOVERNMENT THE EXPENSE AND TROUBLE OF
KEEPING HIM UNDER SURVEILLANCE; and
WHEREAS ROBERT ANTON WILSON IS A MAN OF SUCH MODESTY
AND PURITY OF HEART THAT HE VIEWS HIS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT AS HIS
LIFETIME LOVE AFFAIR WITH HIS WIFE, THE LATE POET, ARLEN RILEY
WILSON:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, EMILY REILLY, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF
SANTA CRUZ, DO HEREBY PROCLAIM JULY 23, 2003 AS" ROBERT ANTON
WILSON DAY" IN THE CITY OF SANTA CRUZ AND ENCOURAGE ALL CITIZENS
TO JOIN ME IN COMMENDING HIM FOR CONSISTENTLY EXTENDING THE
BOUNDARIES OF MODERN THOUGHT AND PROVIDING A MODEL OF COURAGE AND
INTELLIGENCE IN AN AGE SADLY SHORT ON HEROES.”
July 23rd is the most appropriate day to
remember Bob, and choosing the date, rather than his birthday,
exhibits the sense of humor of the Santa Cruz city government so
absent among most bureaucrats. For it was on July 23rd,
1973, that Bob claims to have been contacted by aliens. Or a Giant
Rabbit from Count Kerry. Bob was also quick to point out that it was
Monica Lewinsky's birthday.
July 23rd coincides with the rising of
“the Dog Star”, Sirius (the root of the term “Dog Days”)
which has mystical significance for ancient cultures from the
Egyptians to the Romans, to the African Dogon tribe. For me, it is
has always been time for the greatest interaction with the “the
cosmos”. The night skies are spectacular. The days are long, but
getting shorter- garden and outdoor projects take on a greater
urgency. At the same time, the heat, and all of the related
malfunctions both personally and technologically that come along with
it, tend to add to the “weirdness” factor. Cell phones,
computers, cars etc. tend to go “on the fritz”. Animals act
strangely. Insects are in full assault on all fronts. This year,
the Midwestern drought adds to the biblical (or Mayan) “end times”
vibe, while the skies around our little organic compound are abuzz
with crop dusters bombarding the corporate monocrop corn/bean fields
with pesticides, hoping to rescue what they can from the parched
genetically-modified franken-plants.
But as Bob said, “Humans live through their
myths and only endure their realities,” and so each summer I drag
out some of RAW's books. During a season when the high priests of
technology are locked in a death match with the ghost in the machine,
faieries, aliens and giant rabbits from County Kerry, it helps to
remember that our reality is what we make of it, both technologically
and mythically.
So each year, we celebrate the life and writing on Robert Anton
Wilson, on this, the weirdest of all days. As you go about your day,
look for the Sirians. They are there. They will talk to you, if you
listen.
FNORD.
“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. “ - Robert Anton
Wilson
