Robert Anton Wilson’s Cosmic Meme-Orial (aka funeral) was on the 23rd of this month. He will be missed. Wilson has remained one of my favorite writers since I read The Illuminatus Trilogy almost 20 years ago… since then I read almost all of his books. He is simultaneously one of the funniest and most profound authors I’ve ever read… and he had more effect on how I view the world than any other author.
I was lucky enough to see his speak in Santa Cruz when I was briefly living there in 1990 or so… looking at the smattering of Wilson videos on YouTube, low and behold, there is the video from that very day. Watching through the 3 videos from the lecture I was amused to see myself in the audience at the end of the third video… it’s a weird thing to run into a video you’re in 17 years ago floating around on the internet.
I had actually recorded his lecture on audio tape when I was there, but the tape recorder had done a lousy job and it was unlistenable… I’m glad that someone else properly recorded it. It is some fun and fascinating listening. From what I’ve heard about the DaVinci code, fans of that will probably find this lecture of interest.
Here are some essays by him at the Maybe Logic Academy, an online school he started.
More Wilson essays here, along with articles by authors who influenced him.
Here are a bunch of interviews with him at the Maybe Logic Academy.
Here’s the site for the movie Maybe Logic, a good documentary on Wilson.
Hopefully they froze Bob’s head for future thawing… I want him back.