Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Things To Come

The Eye in the Pyramid
A Fairy Tale for Paranoids

The decision to start a Wiki for discussion of Illuminatus! seems popular with the gang, so we will probably start on that in the new year (Christian Calendar).
Golden Apple
I have various bits and pieces that I found useful when doing the Illuminatus! course with RAW that I would simply like to put in one easily accessible place.

First of all, a list of characters, which had been compiled by Toff Philippo and shows just how many people swirl around in the books – and helps piece together who they all are (like a Russian novel, it seems easy to lose track). I tidied up the formatting, and Quackenbush posted it on the excellent RAWilsonFans website.
Leviathan

I hope we can supplement this list a bit with things like the origins of character’s names (someone called Mocenigo, for instance, betrayed Giordano Bruno to the Inquisition).
Ken Campbell's stage production
I also had a secret weapon during the course (for quick research of non-linear time plots) in that I found a (probably illegal) PDF download on a Russian site, in praise of the KLF. I actually found a couple of other places you could download or read online copies, but kept quite quiet about it for a while (not feeling secure about how an author might feel about PDF versions of a book).

Anyway – they exist, and you can find them if you have any skill at Googling at all…and who reads whole books on screen? Not many people, yet. As a research tool to supplement reading the paperback, it seems essential, however. Rather than point to my various secret sites, perhaps I should direct you to RAWilson Fans, again, as it would seem best if we all refer to the same copy (consistency of page numbering, etc). Here’s the ebooks page…whatever you do, don’t go to the html copy on that Buddhist hustler page… (heh)

NB: I do wish they would publish the thing in 3 volumes again, like my original set which I gave away. So much easier to carry around than the fat Omnibus edition. I’d also like to see the plot summaries (story so far) that appeared at the beginning of volumes two and three.
First of three comic book versions
Somewhere in my boxes I have the programme for the stage show, which I should dig out…sadly, a few of the actors have left the planetary stage…and at least one is in jail (George Dorn).

While considering this project, I discovered that 3 issues of a comicbook version had come out. I have traced copies of the first two, but not the third (as yet).


Still, the artist, Mark P.Steele (ICARUS!) has a MySpace place where you can look at some of the art work.

12 comments:

valis said...

I have only issue two of the comic version. Never been able to find a cbr of the trilogy on the torrent sites either. Hopefully this project will let these dispersed Illuminatus ephemera come together.

Bogus Magus said...

Yeah, I just can't believe no-one has pulled all this stuff together.

We haven't had any response from The Mgt yet, about any issues for the estate, the publishers, etc.

We may start quietly...but the book(s) deserve respect, and I'd love to have something up and running in time for Bob's Wake on 11th January. With any luck, we can also celebrate Uncle Albert's 102nd birthday, too!

The Purple Gooroo said...

Great stuff, Bogus! That character compendium seems pretty impressive.

I'm definitely "in" for when you want to start the Wiki!

The Purple Gooroo said...

That is too bad, about Chris Langham. I'm hoping those allegations aren't completely 'true'--as he seems like a nice enough bloke.

Bogus Magus said...

Um, yeah, well you could get paranoid and wonder if he got conspired against...he recently took part in "The Thick Of It" which was a truly savage, satirical attack on New Labour...

Although he admitted to a certain amount of involvement with downloading illegal material, I don't feel certain he is much more culpable than many others caught in such honey-traps and trawls...did Pete Townsend get let off, eventually?

Was Tracie Lords technically a 'child' when she starred in all those movies? I am not condoning child molestation, you understand, but perhaps he suffered from a witch-hunt, if he had downloaded pictures of 15-year-old girls...the words "child porn" are certainly wonderfully emotive, and vague.

Like you say, he seemed a nice enough guy...

Steve Fly Agaric said...

Looking fwd to contributing,
Yeah the "Miskatonic" university seems to have touched many of these characters.
Professor Joshua N. Marsh from H.P Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." for example.
Anybody read that one?
I'm reading "Mountains of Maddness" at the moment, great stuff.

"Finnegans Wake" and "Cantos" ref. within "Illuminatus" will also make some good research. Maybe RAW's recorsi' characters, from TOTT can be sourced, and filtered throughout the book?

Happy Saturnalia!
And Blueberry muffin's too.

Anonymous said...

Hey, this is Mark Steele, creator of the comic! There were actually 2 different versions of the first issue, with about half the art redone -- the version displayed here is the original "Number Zero" or "Garage Band" edition, done flawed to keep my contract intact. Rip Off Press' edition is a close-up of George with the shadow of -- YOU know -- across his face!
If the Wiki comes about, I would be happy to contribute, but I warn -- much would be considered original research, taken from conversations I had with the Bobs -- Wikipedia frowns on this...
Thanks for the link! DrJon tipped me off...

Bogus Magus said...

Cheers Mark! All feedback very welcome, as I know this could potentially turn into a legal minefield. We MLA crew have only played with using a low-profile Wiki as a whiteboard for our own creativity so far.

I realise that using Wiki to deliver information could draw us into a whole other game - of 'wikification' and standard layouts, etc, as well as the mixture of fact and opinion which can get a bit complicated if we are responsible for content management, and the issues of 'fair use' and copyright, etc.

I guess we could always ask to hide it in the MLA library (members only area) but that seems to defeat the purpose rather...

We can take a few hesitant steps...

Toff said...

He of the character list http://www.geocities.com/toffbn/illuminati_characters.html here....

A Wiki would def. be cool.

Bogus Magus said...

We did put it online already (you can always find the link top right of this blog), and it got initiated, although it doesn't seem to have much energy yet (hasn't reached critical mass)...

I neglected it for a week or two, and when I returned all the recent changes seemed irrelevant spam, so I had to delete porn ads, and several pages of 'get yer WOW gold here' (which I assume has something to do with gaming) - even so, I like the idea, and will continue to add bits and pieces here and there myself, and have commitment from a few others to re-read and contribute.

Wikis seem to have a life of their own, and I certainly don't want it just to form my own 'reading' of the book(s).

Great that you showed up,Toff - as your character breakdown of the book(s) proved really helpful when we did the 12 week course with Bob about writing the trilogy.

Toff said...

Yeah, I'm sorry I missed that course with him.

I have some other Illuminatus! things I made I don't think I ever posted to alt.fan.rawilson, maybe it's time to dig them out of my hard drive.

Some of the minor odd stuff some errors and possible errors:

I137.5, E137.5 “hele” [obs. for heal; typo or intentional?]
I149.8, E149.8 waterman [weatherman]
I174.24, E174.24 “A card, light [like] an old silent-movie caption”
I240.27, E240.27 Carlos [Carlo]
I256.20, E256.20 “play with [the] world.”
I267-268, E267-268 “a messenger type who [was] pointing”
I330.8, G40.8. “Mrs. Gamhill” [Gamwell]
I331.11, G Von Juntzt [Von Junzt]
I533.39, G Jebediah [Jedediah]
I 657, L THE TENTH TRIP, OR MALKUTH/(FAREWELL TO PLANET EARTH)
I569.23, L14.23 “God’s [L]ightning”
I783, L231 “page 218” in omnibus should be changed to “page 770”
I786.17, L234.17 “QUIXQTE” [QUIXOTE; typo or intentional?]

What I would like more than reissues of the individual novels would be a nice fake-leatherbound version, like there is for the Hithhiker's Trilogy.

Bogus Magus said...

The wiki failed really, but all the information has been put onto a website attached to this blog, so hopefully we can share / edit this using the various Google tools.
Furthur Studies on Illuminatus!

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