RAW on RAW* -- Take 2

Take 1, generated by this artifact.

"Now then, we really only have two types of people anymore: those who divide people into two types, and all the rest" -- loose translation of a very old Plautdietsch Mennonite joke

Bear with me, as most of this is probably wrong -- dude wrote a lot, most of which I've not read. However:

"Don't say words you're gonna regret..."

Robert Anton Wilson made a variety of controversial claims, two of which I very much admire: 1) he asserted that agnosticism, properly understood, was the more honest and difficult intellectual stance -- much moreso than atheism. I gather he came to this conviction following another illumination, namely: 2) most either/or postulates are so fundamentally flawed as to be worthless.

From here, he and his wacky wacketeers proceeded with "Operation Mindfuck," sowing mischief where certainty -- particularly of the political variety -- abounded. Through the '90s and into the Aughts I thought I admired this, also (albeit with reservations). But as events in the past year have made quite plain to even his acolytes, people with motives more malign and pointed have adopted those very same strategies to wide success and devastating results. RAW's bunch are now scrambling to launch "Operation Mindfix" -- which . . . well, good luck to us all.

More anon, hopefully. If curious, here are some further RAW links:

• RAW's own site, faithfully maintained.
• Boing-Boing, the descendants of Mondo 2000, lurvs them some RAW.
• RAW's Cosmic Trigger has been . . . adapted? . . . into a play. Five hours' exposure to anything is liable to trigger something in the beholder, I should think.
• RAW's wiki is, of course, yooj.

RAW on RAW* -- Take 1

*"Ridiculous Anabaptist Wanker on Robert Anton Wilson"

Some ancient history from 1991, when I first started working in the bookstore:

The Receiver there was a slender guy who dressed entirely in black and listened to the Sisters of Mercy. His shelf of special orders was a small collection of Crowley titles. I steered as wide a berth as possible around him and his freaky books (I dug the Sisters, however).

He was in the habit of tying up the company fax machine and sending long, obscenity-filled screeds to the city's radio stations. On the day management finally showed him the door, he collected his books, loped past me, then stopped, turned around, shoved a chapbook of Crowley poems into my hands and left the building.

I never took the chapbook home, but then I never threw it away, either. For all I know it still rests in the basement of that building.

Needless to say I was a tad freaked out.

I mentioned the gift to a co-worker I was slowly befriending. He snickered. "A little worried, are you? You know, there's this form of White Magick...."

My cage now thoroughly rattled, I thanked him for his kindness but declined further involvement of the esoteric variety.

A couple of months later I bought this issue of Mondo 2000 while on lunch break. I left it on the staff-room table and got back to work.

When the afternoon coffee break rolled around I returned to the staff-room and was surprised to see my friend reading the magazine. When he wasn't devouring Jackie Collins, his literary tastes were considerably more refined than my own.

I asked him what he thought of the magazine. He sighed and flipped it back to me. "You do not want to go any further down this road," he said.

I took the magazine home and read it. Even after a thorough perusal I had no clue what he was warning me about. The Timothy Leary/William Burroughs exchange was akin to the Chomsky/Foucault meeting -- a concept more exciting to contemplate than to see in execution. Brian Eno was his usual pleasantly challenging self, the graphic layout was delicious, but the larger think-pieces were the bourgeois-gnostic variety of "counter-cultural" that I'd encountered in baby-sitters and friends with older siblings and a small handful of university mates who were taking a stab at free-thought.

I shrugged and stowed the magazine in my archives, not giving it any further consideration -- basically putting my friend's advice into practice. Or so I thought.

A quarter-century later, I can't open an internet browser without being completely immersed in the very environment he was telling me to steer clear of -- one that our former Receiver was already swimming (or drowning) in.

And neither can you.

Post-Leonardian insight

We've made it to season 6 of Justified, a show that's generally been easy to watch. Right out of the gate it stayed true to originator Elmore Leonard's take on the heroic narrative -- Marshall Raylan Givens, played by Timothy Olyphant, is a man on the cusp of midlife, old enough to have amassed experience and a touch of deep wisdom, while still virile enough to attract the ladies and mete out violence.

A television series is a group project, of course, and so a departure from Leonard's template was inevitable -- and, from my POV, entirely welcome. Leonard's women tend to be cyphers whose behavior is either inexplicably impetuous or inscrutably calculated. If the novel doesn't break the 350 page mark, I don't mind giving this take on the female psyche a "pass" -- any longer, though, and credulity is strained to the breaking point.

Although Givens' ex-wife/love interest is the typical Leonardian "inexplicably impetuous" type, the series nevertheless produced female characters possessed of emotional depth and motivational nuance -- particularly Ava Crowder (Joelle Carter).

Ava is another ex of Givens, one who actually sees through the bad boy charm and thus dissipates some of the virility aura he is so pleased to exploit. She is present in all six seasons -- the contrast she brings to the Givens character becomes so persuasive the viewer is forced to concede something about Leonard's creation that Leonard, in all his years of writing, could never quite come around to: his "hero" is, in fact, an incredible asshole -- one who somehow, despite this character deficit, manages the heroic feat.

I haven't yet finished the series, so this is as far as the grand theories and profound insights go. But it's one I'm grateful for. I recently commented (to my wife, of all people) that a man who doesn't have at least one friend who knows what an incredible asshole he can be, and who calls him out on it, is a man who leads a profoundly lonely life. Story telling that tips its hat to this reality is, it seems to me, doing beholders of this particular historical moment a great favour.

All roads lead to RAW, initial scribblings

Here's an artifact from '91:

It was sitting beneath my Sega Genesis!

I've even got the drop-out subscription card:

This will all lead to some thoughts on Robert Anton Wilson. Unfortunately I am way behind on a million things, including stuff that actually pulls in money. I hope to get back to this so's I can put something up this weekend.

Aging guitar heroes

Continued from...

One observation made, somewhat obliquely, in Edgers' piece continues to have me brooding: ask kids who their guitar heroes are and you get names from the '70s or even the '60s -- Jimi, Jimmy, Eric, Jeff, etc. Kids are trotting out the same names their parents -- well, their fathers, for the most part -- did when they were kids.

On the one hand, I find it curious that neither Jack White nor his nemesis Dan Auerbach get name-dropped by kids these days -- both these guys tear it up and put on a terrific show. On the other hand, this surprises me not at all -- had I been magically exposed to their music when I was 13, I'd have given it a wide pass.

The fact that I listen to White and Auerbach in my dotage is less an indication of my fondness for their contributions to rock 'n' roll than it is a grudging testament to the raw virtuosity of their skills. The strange admixture of garage DIY with technical formalism with "These are the lyrics, so suck it" attitude tends to put me in mind of the Christian Rock I listened to as a kid -- not quite the genuine article, but close enough to get me on my feet.

I -- along with countless other dads, I imagine -- really only queue these acts up when I can't be arsed to listen to Moving Pictures for the bazillionth time. That has to register with the kids. I suppose it's one reason why kids are keen to play "The Spirit of Radio" and less so, say, that little ditty about a doorbell.

I suspect White and Auerbach receive what passes for prestige studio treatment because A&R spotted potential to market to dudes like myself -- 'cos who else is buying music? So it goes. Seems a bit of a shame, though, that our kids don't really have rock acts and a rock sound to call their own -- or am I missing something?

Darwyn Cooke, just because.

Whither the "guitar god"?

My friend's two boys both play guitar -- the older one, a university student, plays when the mood strikes, but the younger one, still in high school, is a devotee and remarkably proficient.

For my friend and his still-at-home son there are sports, and sports-related road trips. During one of these trips Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" came on the (satellite) radio. My friend told his boy of the first time he'd heard the song. It was the late-'70s, my friend was roughly the boy's age, accompanying his mother to the grocery store and staying in the car to listen to the radio while the woman shopped. There were three, maybe four stations, all playing the same stuff. Then this song came on.

It wasn't anything like any of the other songs. A little like Eric Clapton, a little like Bob Dylan, neither of whom was getting much airplay in '78. It was such a pleasing, deeply-infectious song that for the rest of the summer my friend took every opportunity to turn on the radio in hopes of tracking it down.

Back home, some days after the sport-trip was over, my friend heard the boy playing "Sultans" in the bedroom.

Warms the old heart just a touch, doncha think?

"Where have all the guitar gods gone?"

My favourite Sunday morning DJ DarkoV directed me to Why my guitar gently weeps: The slow, secret death of the six-string electric. And why you should care. by Geoff Edgers, over at WaPo. I read it, thought about my friend and dismissed the piece out of hand. Then it kept popping up in all my info-aggregates. I had to go back.

The stats indicate sales for electric guitars are precipitously low and continue to decline, particularly for the two US giants, Fender and Gibson. Industry types seem to share the same POV on this matter: it's the kids these days -- the racket they call "music" doesn't have enough guitar in it. Perhaps if there was a new generation of "guitar god" the stats might change. Currently the best they've got is Taylor Swift.

The argument strikes me as just a bit precious (not the Taylor Swift part, mind you -- I'm totally on board with that). In both of my daughters' classes there were three or four "shredders" apiece who could be depended upon to provide colour at various school functions. My high school class of '83 had exactly one. And while he was permitted use of a practice booth in the school band room, it would be a very cold day in Hell before he was ever invited onto the public stage to demonstrate his chops to the assembled parents.

Edgers has a follow-up piece to this -- How much did this guitar story cost me? $2,376.99 -- which I think sheds a clearer light on a problem Gibson and Fender have pretty much created for themselves: they've flooded the market with garbage.

Consider this page from Edgers' cherished Supro catalogue:

These were the "entry-level" guitars of (I'm guessing) 1969. Adjusted for inflation, the Supro on the far right would cost today's kid $663.51 USD. Currently, a brand new, entry-level Fender Bullet Strat sells for $150. In '67 a brand new Strat cost $231 -- or $1,693 in today's currency.

If you head to the store and pick up a $1,700 Strat, you will have a very fine instrument. Similarly, if you spend $500 on a clone for your kid -- provided it doesn't have Fender or Gibson's name on it -- the instrument you take home (this one, say) will be solid, dependably wired and eminently playable (no high/ragged frets, fussy pots or toggles, dodgy Indonesian pickups, etc). Fewer trips to the back of the shop for adjustments, repairs and replacements translates to more time practicing and performing. Which translates to less time brooding over disappointing product. Which translates to a fighting chance of acquiring some truly impressive chops before trading in the cringe-worthy clone for an instrument that peers respect.

(An aside: I'm cogitating on those Supros (my uncle had one as well, actually). They definitely look Fender-ish, yet they are also aesthetically distinct from the company they ape. I suspect this very much adds to their current nostalgia value. Now consider today's entry-level Strats & LPs -- indistinct, at first glance, from the higher value pro models they're based on. What is there to feel nostalgia for, once you've traded in the cheap rubbish model for one that actually works, and sounds good?)

Anyway, I am all for on-line lessons and encouragement. But if you don't give the kids unique, dependable instruments they'll actually enjoy playing, good luck keeping them hooked.

Georgia O'Keeffe at the AGO

I was truly surprised to learn that Georgia O'Keeffe's relationship with Alfred Stieglitz was -- at least in its initial phase -- indeed a robustly carnal affair.

"Eyeh -- wassup, Alf?"

On university campuses in the late '80s it was de rigueur for the fellas (the more tasteful among us, at any rate) to festoon our dorm rooms with Escher prints. The gals got Georgia O'Keeffe. Each in their way signified a (dare I say?) gender-specific potentiality that may or may not have in fact existed -- playful abstractions belying an intellectual seriousness for the guys; a pointedly feminine and nearly explicit sensual in-touchedness for the ladies (So tread CAREFULLY, mister!).

"All these possibilities, before we stampede towards the..."

Consequently I've tended to view O'Keeffe's work as a little too coolly calculated, and perhaps not quite the idealized marriage of passion and intellect that others are keen to espouse on her behalf. Throw in her widely reported impatience with the common "Why, them's LADY-PARTS!" reaction to her floral paintings, and I think a (*sigh*) hetero late-in-mid-life dude could be forgiven for suggesting that just maybe "The lady doth protest."

Stieglitz was himself a hetero late-in-mid-life dude when he first encountered O'Keeffe (my present age exactly, in fact). His initial excitement over O'Keeffe was intellectual -- a mutual friend passed along some of O'Keeffe's early charcoal drawings, which Stieglitz promptly exhibited in his NYC gallery. It was some months before O'Keeffe found out about any of this; her response was to take the train up from South Carolina, where she was (assistant) teaching art, and personally bitch him out for showing her work without her consent (they want us to ask permission -- who knew?).

An epistolary relationship ensued and, erm, flowered. After two years of increasingly impassioned penmanship, she moved to New York City where Stieglitz arranged for a pair of modest suites -- for each to abide, separately, in presumed chastity, while Stieglitz figured out how best to divest himself of "Emmy," his long-suffering wife of 25 years. The ruse was abandoned within weeks and the ensuing genitive hijinx were duly Olympian.

Stieglitz was 52, O'Keeffe 29.

O'Keeffe was not the first woman in her late-20s to turn Stieglitz's head, nor was she to be the last, either. Still, what they had going for them seems to have worked out well for both (give or take a few nervous breakdowns), not just personally but professionally, and they remained married until he died 28 years later. Aside from her considerable chops as painter, O'Keeffe had the gift of Blarney, the absolutely indispensable trait of every successful artist, while Stieglitz took his camera and energetically competed for attention among the international avant garde and their very public avant garde proclivities (e.g., Nude Torso, etc). Attention was paid, with financial success in its wake.

Even an ideal marriage of passion and intellect was not enough to curb Stieglitz's impulse to philander, alas. Faced with her husband's infidelities, O'Keeffe appears to have eventually permitted herself a single fling -- with Stieglitz's one-time mistress Beck Strand. It was what it was (or may-have-been what it may-have-been -- accounts vary). At the end of it all, O'Keeffe opted for a hermetic life in New Mexico, entertaining the occasional arty-type guest, while largely devoting the rest of her life to just doing the work.

And this was the work that finally "reached" me, when I surveyed the O'Keeffe exhibit at the AGO this past weekend.

Black Door With Red, 1954

Alongside My Last Door, 1955

By all means, supply the Freudian sub-text to my text -- I'll be the first to affirm it (if you know what I mean by "affirm" -- psh-HAW!). It was a Sunday -- Father's Day -- and I was cognizant of the many willowy young gals in their late-20s drawn to the show. Hey, the late-20s are an exciting time for either/any gender -- all that psychic experimentation and trying-on of costumes and attitudes is finally gelling into an honest-to-God identity! What's next? Good question. I know a few people in your line of work -- want me to introduce you?

Of course, family and friends have assured me (unsolicited, I might add) of that which I am already well aware -- they can conjure no lower form of stoopid than to envision me stepping out on my lovely wife in hopes of reinvigorating myself with the affections of a younger woman.

Which leads me to my final thought on the show: Yo, gallerists and curators! These works weren't produced by gods who walked the earth, no matter what their stentorious claims at the time -- they're the byproduct of fallible primates, just like the rest of us, prone to some gobsmacking errors in personal judgement.

So how's about injecting a pinch of sass and irreverence into the "Great Artist" narrative already? Don't you think it's just a little way overdue?