New release from Hilaritas Press - Prometheus Rising

You can now find an eBook version of Prometheus Rising (featuring a New Afterword by Richard Rasa), available on the Hilaritas Press website, here.   A print edition will follow.

Also on the website, you can find my memories of the Maybe Logic Academy.

MLA Meet-Up No. 6 - Oxford, England

Pungenday, Confusion 62 - Year Of Our lady Of Discord 3176

Some (but not all) of the European members of the Maybe Logic Academy have been meeting up around the 'dog days' in summertime, for the past six years. The date was set to the 23rd of July because that was the day in 1973 that Robert Anton Wilson had a strange experience and thought he was receiving communication from an intelligence in the Sirius ("The Dog Star") system. He remained agnostic, as always, and later chalked it up to his right brain communicating with his left brain.

Past meet-ups were held in Milton Keynes, Berlin, Bruges, Amsterdam & Dublin. Berlin was an early candidate for the 2010 meet-up. I had been invited to the past few, but couldn't attend, due to not enough 'coin of the realm' in my account. Someone (Fuzzbuddy?) mentioned another UK location, which I was jazzed about, because for one: my passport had expired and I hadn't got round to having it renewed..and two: less kish-kash to spend on travel. The decision to hold number 6 in Oxford totally clinched it for me...I would finally be able to hang out with critters that I had communicated with on-line.

Here's how it went down - from my reality-tunnel..

Day One (Thursday, 22nd July) - Chris M. and Bogus Magus are due in at the train station at 1:15 p.m. I grab a bus to the city centre. When the bus just about reaches town, the sky opens and a downpour drenches the streets. It doesn't last long and soon the sun clears the clouds. I meet Fuzzbuddy at the station and soon Chris and Bogus join us. First stop is the backpacker's hostel where most of the crew will be staying. Chris had booked a room in a hotel down the road and he left to stow his gear there. Once the four of us are ready to hit the streets, it's nearly time for Tons, Borsky and Non-Prophet to arrive in town. They have ridden in via The Oxford Tube and are let off on the High Street. After introductions and greetings--it was back to the hostel. Bogus brought a stash of books for anyone to take. I chose a cool collection of Terry Southern's writings, called Now Dig This! . Fuzz brought copies of the 23 film (the cool German one, in which RAW has a cameo appearance - not the shit Jim Carrey 'thriller'), a DVD of lectures on James Joyce's Ulysses and a CD chock full of RAW audio, for everyone. Borsky also handed out a DVD-R with literally one hundred books on metaphysical, occult and esoteric matters--plus, official meet-up T-shirts. What treats!! I was stunned at their generosity! After a time, it's decided that food and drink are in order. Fly Agaric 23 and Diclonius still haven't arrived, but we all reckon they'll contact us when they do. The rest of us troop down to Broad Street, then on to the famous Turf Tavern. One of the beers on tap is Stonehenge Ale's Eye Opener, whose logo looks very familiar. I had to have a pint, natch! I bought one for Bogus, too. Turns out that the barrel emptied right after ours were poured--cheers to the Pookah for that! Much great conversation followed---on into the early evening. We then had a little reconnoiter around the area--before heading back to the 'Turf. Fly and Diclonius had arrived at this point and met us down there. More pints were downed, then it was almost closing time. Those who had gone without dinner grabbed some...er....food, at a roadside kebab van. I did as well, though I did come to regret that late-night cheeseburger the next morning. I bid my fellow MLA-ers adieu, as they were heading back to the hostel and I was catching the late bus home.

Day Two (Friday, 23rd July) - The time for me to meet the rest was given as 10:30 a.m., so I did my best to be up and ready. Owing to the somewhat late night - I was nearly late...but I managed to get to the others by the appointed time. Our first destination is the Pitt-Rivers Museum, full of interesting anthropological artifacts and even some dinosaur skeletons. N.P. and I were fascinated by the collection of weaponry, remarking on Bucky Fuller's aphorism, "developing ways to cover vaster and vaster distance and kill larger and larger amounts of people"..I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea. Once we left the Pitt-Rivers, it was getting close to the luncheon hour. It was back to the 'Turf, but to our collective chagrin--the pub was full-up, this being optimum tourist season and all. We all squeezed into one of the side chambers of the King's Arms and enjoyed a half-decent lunch, for the money we paid. Oxford can be over-priced and is not immune from a bit of the ol' 'fleece-the-tourists' action. The plan was to head to the Bodleian Library and try and have a look at some of the old manuscripts and books. Not having been there before, I wasn't sure if one were allowed to just walk in. We found out that you need to take a tour, which costs about £3.50. After milling around the lobby for a bit, the B.L. idea was scrapped, in favour of punting. As there were nine of us, or eight at that point, we had to hire two punts. Diclonius, Tons, Fly and I were in one..and Fuzz, Borsky, Chris and Bogus the other. I found punting not as easy as it looks, but I suppose you can pick up the technique after a while. We all had turns in piloting the punt - Tons and Fly were especially good. Along the canal, a scene from the German version of Miss Marple was being filmed--so the camera crew kept stopping punts for a time, then letting them continue on. A joke started about a film-bloke, who had a walkie-talkie and an earpiece, saying "4 to 5 minutes..." to everyone, then remarking about how "some fruity chap has just fallen in the water." We all headed back to the hostel for a chill-out on the open terrace, with more discussion and Diclonius's amusing LSD-party anecdote. Once again, dinner plans were brought up and everyone wanted to stay close to the hostel. We decided to eat at Al Salam, a Lebanese restaurant just down the street. I quite enjoyed the meal and the waitcritter even obliged in taking a group photo of us. Once we finished eating - I thought it a good time to break for the night, so off I went to the bus stop. I heard that Fly, Borsky and Fuzz adjourned to a club, to sip a little absinthe. I am sorry I missed that.

Day Three (Saturday, 24th July) - I stuck to the 10:30 meet-up time and round about 11 a.m., everyone seemed ready to go. Well, mostly everybody - Fly and Diclonius elected to catch us up a bit later. Today, the Botanical Gardens was deemed to be the initial port of call. Again, a fee was required - which put most of us off the idea - so we had a stroll around the Christ Church college grounds and watched the punts go by. The Ashmolean Museum was the next stop. N.P. had some urgent business and headed back to the hostel. The museum had been re-furbished in the past year, so there was plenty to see. We had a good investigation of the ancient Egypt section, as well as the Cretan and Greek displays. Since we didn't have too much time to explore, we headed up to the Chinese and Japanese sections. Borsky, Fuzz, Bogus and I had a look round the gift shop--but walked away with no treasures. A stop at a cafe was in order, caffeine for most of the crew and fruit juice for me. We ambled back to the hostel (after another round at the 'Turf, natch!) for another chill-out sesh...and then it was time for Bill Spectre's Oxford Ghost Trail. Bill himself seems an amiable bloke and he gets points from me for being a King Crimson fan (he noticed my T-shirt when we were purchasing our places on the trail). Bill has a great theatrical style and also makes use of props (a book that bursts into flame, a key that emits electrical sparks, etc.). He led us around various spots in Broad Street and the High Street, detailing strange and often macabre events that happened there. Once Bill's tour ended, I was starving. We couldn't all agree on one place to get food, so Chris and I decamped to the Cafe Coco Restaurant. I had a scrumptious mushroom pizza and Chris ordered a massive canole. We discussed various things and then it was back to the hostel, for an experimental virtual meeting via Skype. N.P. managed to get B. Kane on the video link, all the way from Norway. There were really funny moments, like B.'s game of "Book Bingo" and the misapprehension of a cigarette-holder that once belonged to Errol Flynn. A bit later, Bobby Campbell was on-line and though we couldn't have a split-screen convo with both of them, everyone could still hear each other. Bobby let us know that he's developing new artwork for re-prints of two Tim Leary books that have been long out-of-print. Huzzah! I can't wait to buy those! It was a remarkable ending to a brilliant day. Once the lap-tops were put away, we all trooped down to the street for some air...and I said "good night" to the crew and once again ambled on toward the bus stop. I was given a plague mask by Fuzzbuddy, as he had extras--and I was tempted to wear it back to the bus stop, but I feared it would have been wrecked by one of the drunken revelers spilling out of the pubs.

Day Four (Sunday, 25th July) - Feeling a bit washed-out from the previous three day's adventures, I made the journey into town. I arrived at the hostel as the rest of the crew were preparing to leave--lots of packing and tidying the room. We made our way to George Street, which is dotted with coffee bars and little eateries. We stopped at one, so everyone could get their caffeine fix and some breakfast. Borsky needed to get back to London fairly early, so after a few photos - he and Tons and N.P. headed for the bus station, with the rest of us in tow. Good-byes and well-wishes all around and then the three boarded the coach bound for The Big Smoke. Fly, Fuzz, Bogus and I walked down to Great Clarendon Street and found the Jude The Obscure pub. I hadn't been there in ages and I had forgotten how much I liked it. We had a couple of rounds. Fly mentioned he was going to see Inception at the cinema later in the afternoon. A bit of time passed and it was decided we should move on. I parted from the rest at around 3 p.m., as I had to buy a few gifts for the goodwyf. I finally arrived home at 4:30 p.m. and was quite exhausted.

Such a lovely time - I hope to be able to participate in next year's gathering. All Hail Eris! All Hail Pope Bob!


Cross-posted at Blog Is Not A Four-Letter Word.

MLA meeting 2010 in Oxford

From the 22nd till the 25th of July 2010, 9 members of the Maybe Logic Academy met in Oxford.

Day one

I left Bruges at 5:58. After some waiting in Brussels, the Eurostar left packed with people (and gave me the impression these trains were build for pygmies or people without legs). Arrived in London St. Pancras at 9ish local time and walked further towards Holborn to meet up with Tons. From there we went to grab a bite near the British Museum, where Nonprophet joined us. The Atlantis bookshop was still closed, so NP took us to see the John Dee display in the British Museum. Apparently NP had a bit of an argument with mr. Dee in his previous incarnation as a professional deceiver. Counterfeiting letters, lawsuit and all that. No surprise then that mr. Dee tried to hide his treasures for us. To no avail: NP's detecting skills soon showed us one of the most ancient magickal artefacts: the mysterious obsidian scrying mirror used for divination by John Dee and his medium Edward Kelly. Actually obsidian looks a lot like bachelite. And that's what it was, an antecolumbian telephone with the Otherworld.

"John Dee’s mirror originated in Mexico and was brought to Europe between 1527 and 1530 during the time of the conquest of Mexico by Cortés. Mirrors of this type were used by Mexican priests for divination. Tezcatlipoca the Mexica god of rulers, warriors and sorcerers, was connected to this practice. The Aztec Tezcatlipoca figure can be found in former Mesoamerican cultures as divine beings worshipped by the Olmec and Maya. The name Tezcatlipoca translates to mean Smoking Mirror. Tezcatlipoca is depicted with a mirror either as his right foot or on his chest, the mirror is named Itlachiayauhque which translates as the place from which he watches."

From Scrying, catoptromancy & John Dee's mirror
As a sidenote, Edward Kelly was killed in 1595 while trying to escape from a prison in Prague. Which might be the place for the meeting next year…

After the museum we were warmly welcomed by Geraldine, the owner of the Atlantis bookshop, who had graced us with a memorable hermetic tour of London during the RAW Memeorial in 2007.


We left London and caught the Oxford coach at noon, and we arrived in Oxford High Street at about 1:45 PM, passing by Bogus, Chris, the Purple Gooroo and Fuzzbuddy on the sidewalk and just in time to catch the rain, probably a result of some dark ritual involving burning dolls by Chris.





We arrived at the hostel and were able to leave our bags and started to explore Oxford under the expert guidance of The Purple Gooroo. Who has been living in Oxford since six years.






Psychogeographical map of Oxford

View Oxford MLA meeting 2010 in a larger map


I started to grow a pinhead when we finally ended in the Turf tavern for a nice evening beer, a pub where we would end up daily sooner or later. And where we finally met up with Diclonius and Fly.



Together we went past Trinity College to visit the Pitt Rivers Museum, in front of which was a massive display of dead trees.



Inside the museum we were welcomed by some fabled creatures inside the Museum of National History.
From left to right: the bloodthirsty rabbit from the Aaaaaaargh cavern, the dodo which inspired Carrolls 'Through the looking glass' and one of our demonic ancestors, the Beelzebuth monkey.




One of my favourite displays in the Pitt concerned Netsuke, an ancient Japanese miniature artform. The result seemed often surreal, even of a Lovecraftian intensity.


After a walk through a scenery reminiscent of Venice, we ended up taking the secret passageway to the Turf Tavern. The talks went on and kept on in the hostel until one by one we finally got to sleep. To sleep, perchance to snore.

























Day Two

After being reminded by Chris that we'd never manage to take over the world, getting up at about Elevenish and after having lunch we went to visit the Bodleian library. Somehow in metaphysical limbo we seemed to have lost Nonprophet, while actually it was HP who had lost us, and had returned safely to the hostel.












And then they were eight. We had no idea the Agatha Christie reference would turn up to be predominant that day, and we decided to go punting at the Magdalen Bridge.
Two teams tried to move forward. I must admit my catastrophic punting got us left behind by Tons, Diclonius, Fly and The Purple Gooroo, so Chris had to save the day.
Turning a curb and seeing the others moving on, we were suddenly stopped by a guy with a microphone who claimed they were filming a German Miss Marple , and so we had to wait for about 5 minutes. 5 minutes later he repeated the same thing to boats that followed us, and so 5 minutes ended up becoming 30. He did change his story however, ending up telling the last of the row that a fruity person had jumped in the water. We never knew whether this last claim was true, but were able to get past the curb at last and returned to our starting point.
We might have known from our rather dodgy pedalo ride in Milton Keynes a few years ago and with the exception of Fly (whose algae regime helped develop gills) that we're not the floating kind.

After meeting up with Nonprophet we ended up in the Lebanese restaurant not far from the hostel.From left to right: Tons, Bogus, Fly, Nonprophet, Borsky, Fuzzbuddy, Diclonius, Chris Matthias and The Purple Gooroo.
That night and in order not to wake our sleeping friends, we hadn't turned on the light but used tea candles to be able to see what we were saying.
At about 2 in the morning the fire alarm went off, waking everybody. Of course we hid the evidence. But we weren't to blame: apparently some fruity person had hit the alarm just for fun.





Day Three
After a slow start (again) we visited the Ashmolean museum, bizarrely renamed 'Asmodeus' by Tons' dark side. Quite a big collection, so we skipped some floors. Below a laughing sarcofagus, some Horii with a hermetic gesture and a large statue of the ithyphallic god Min (whose wooden phallus fell off aeons ago).
















At 6:30 we went to the Oxford castle where for the Bill Spectre (whom we ended up renaming Phil Spectre and who according to Bogus looked like Kryten from Red Dwarf) ghost tour. Our host erroneously claimed a ciseled door inspired CS Lewis 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' while it actually is a gorgeous Green Man. En passant he did mention a 'Brazenose Hellfire Club' .












Below are my last pics of the trip (Fly made us realize a real ghost must be the life of the party at the Oxford church meetings). We gathered for the final online meetup that evening in the hostel.












NP had downloaded recording software beforehand so we could archive this meeting for the generations to come.
We managed to have first a video meeting with B.Kane, which was truly great. The reception at our end wasn't very good though, so I apologize for totally misunderstanding what Errol Flynn collectible it was he was so proud to show us. Result of long days in booze and smoke, and a twisted sense of humour. It felt rather surreal sitting there, while Chris and TPG were gone for a pizza, talking to B.Kane and expecting Chris to suddenly pop up behind him. Finally all 9 of us gathered in the microscopic room facing the webcam, B.Kane showing us some of the treasures from his library. After a while we had to put him on hold (sadly skype doesn't permit more than two video chats) when Bobby Campbell entered the virtual room. Strangely the image and audio were much better. Cool to meet for the first time, Bobby. We switched to audio so we could all chat together. Fuzz asked me whether the recorder was on, after which I switched it on… Then everybody started talking at the same time, all I recall is Diclonius' great idea to start a pope group on Facebook.
After the meeting Fly, Fuzz, Bogus and I went to the club for an absinthe (they should really tell the people behind the bar that they should add water!) and for a nightly walk in the park. Slowly turning into a zombie I tried to write down in the fading moonlight some of what then appeared like a bright discussion, but all I can read today looks like a lot of gibberish.
"Gilligan is Terry Gilliam" (Fly)
something about a gig with multiple stages and people wearing headphones (Fly)
"I heard one of your friend's connections cut the hair of Harry Potter" (Fuzz)
something about the movie 'Harvey' with James Steward (Bogus)
"Locker- BP" (Fly)
something about Lady gaga's cock (a running gag for the last couple of days)
and my favourite Fly quote:
"You might feel you're in the crowd, man, but really… you're it!"
Which imho resumes the way we felt during these three wonderful days, a crowd of very different people feeling united by Maybe Logic.


Day Four
All we did on Sunday were goodbyes. We were all fairly tired, I left Oxford with Tons and Nonprophet at noonish, and after a little visit to speaker's corner in London we begged each other farewell. Hopefully we'll find a way to organise video meetings every 23rd, until we meet again IRL maybe next year in Prague, or Stockholm, or Capitola…
Some of us have big projects going on. Tons, I hope somehow I'll be able to read your book once it's published (even if I have to learn German); Fuzz, Fly and Nonprophet, I won't divulge your respective projects but I hope we'll hear more of you soon!

Fragments of memory

Amongst other adventures, we visited the Absinthe Depot - some of us sampled, others shopped.

We also went to the Pergamon Museum, and among other things saw the extraordinary Ishtar Gate from Babylon (or at least the front half of it, the rest remains hidden in storage) which the people of Iraq want back, apparently.

Ishtar = Venus = Aphrodite = Isis = Astarte (where the 'equals sign' means 'isomorphic with').


She famously descended into the Underworld, but found herself forced to shed veils or layers of clothing as she went, which made her real mad! Read yer myths.


I loved the dragon chimera they call Sirrush (or mushhushshu)

Zer Cool!

We had a good time (far too short) in Berlin. It seemed very peaceful, lots of greenery and parkland, a virtually invisible police presence, a genuinely bohemian and creative vibe in many places. A few quick pix (no time for words right now).









We walked all over the place, with odd but OK weather (although too hot for Chris!) We never really got rained off, which we had expected.







We explored parks and squats, tourist attractions and back streets.


A certain amount of eating and drinking and smoking occured.

We went to a couple of clubs - heard some good music...










And we talked, talked, talked...



I have no idea how people see us, whether as a bohemian arts group, the James Joyce Appreciation Society, an anarchic symposium on alternative economies, or just a bunch of sinister clowns.

Es war zu kurz

Just got home from the fifth Euro MLA-meeting. As soon as our host Tons graciously sends my camera home which in my stupid distraction I forgot I hope to gather a little impresion from out too short stay. Meanwhile right now the gang (Tons, Bogus, Chris, Fuzzbuddy and Fly) is still taking Berlin!
borsky

entering chapel mla

my "trip" started when borsky asked me whether I wanted to join the MLA meeting in paris and I spontaneously decided to go. I didn't know anyone but the MLA context and borsky's mails somehow made it ok to grab the bull by its horns and book a flight. bumping into synchronicity once again, the fates sent me news of the traces du sacre exhibition. the mother spider nodded at me and I knew all was good and the way it should be. ahoi paris!

yet when I was finally sitting in a café close to st. germain and waiting for godot, a lingering demon of confusion raised its ugly head. nobody arrived but a cryptic message from a "flyphone". were flies observing me from some illuminati lookout in st. sulpice? was I being tested by titans in long white robes? an hour later two extra-ordinary entities stood in front of me and there was a flash of instant recognition. very extra, definitely not ordinary, borsky and fly took me and my luggage under their wings.

settling down at another café I got immediately drunk (the sun! the beer! the words!) and prop made his synchronized entry. finding out we knew some of the same people just added to the overall effect of right time right place right company. we continued on our way to the medical garden where we encountered french pizza, ghosts of sunbeams and fuzzbuddy who for some reason arrived alone because other entities I didn't know yet had trouble getting on the train. another strange non-local experience: the "others" weren't with us, yet they were. borsky had the mysterious smile of someone who knows that everything happens the way it should be. looking at his pictures now I see all of us being very relaxed about the general course of things.

arriving in malakoff yielded another pleasant surprise: we weren't greeted by burning paris suburbia rioting but by a nice street and nicer lodgings, which looked like a barn from the outside and provided open, illuminated maisonette spaces inside. being a girl despite myself I spent a lot of time going through my bag and spreading stuff all over the place until both aries and capricorn calmed down and I could join the group at the table where the boys were having continued conversations about stuff that didn't have to do with stuff. light but deep. I dropped another pound of feathers and lead and produced my bowmoring egg of entry.

then we were off to st. germain again, meeting chris, bogus and b-kane at the shakespeare & co. I was happy to finally get some visuals, audio and sensory perception to the names heard before. dining on something which might have been pizza again right by the seine I slowly crawled into conversations, asking low-brow questions ("how is stoke-on-trent?") and trying to get into the general vibe of five guys who hadn't met in a year and had a lot of things to share, inside and outside jokes, and a lot of personal memories of RAW. as a newbie I sat and listened, occasionally connecting the dots, occasionally throwing in my own two pence or cents, marvelling at how much at home and relaxed I felt in between people I hadn't known a day ago. the night went on with a lot of glowing insights for everyone (I think). thanks to fly attending to our spiritual well-being I couldn't communicate in words anymore but enjoyed a warm flood of visions and perceptions. then the spirit grabbed my hand and flew me into bed. the last thing I saw was a mushroom-shaped cloud hovering above the table.

the next day borsky brought a huge bag of perfect french croissants and bogus, fly and I went to find the traces of the sacred. I usually go to museums alone (nobody is into checking out the 10th statue of dionysos as much as I am), and I thoroughly enjoyed the company this time. talking with bogus about christian imagery and buddhism in front of steiner's angel and devil figures and hearing fly resonate with Nietzsche and ideogrammed mushrooms (inscribed with the heart sutra), made me reach out and transcend my standard observational patterns. when we danced around "the proposal for a new model of the universe" I grew wings for a second. I flew so high that I missed the original crowley tarot cards at first, but fuzzbuddy sent me back and I found them next to anger's lucifer rising, a film a friend had just given me on dvd (synchro, ick hör dir trapsen).

that night I managed to remain awake longer than my two room mates and I didn't see mushroom clouds but many other things which can't be put into words. when I left the next morning for orly I had a quick pang of loneliness, until I boarded at gate 23 and knew that the spirit hadn't left me. so I took a bite out of it and brought it back to berlin, where it helped me fight a train full of drunken stag nighters who tried to steal my soul. they had no chance.

I was - and remain - very happy to have made that trip and met all of you and I hope to see you again, soon. as for next year, I'm not sure whether I have the "right" to make a suggestion, but I think berlin would be more interesting than ingolstadt. maybe I can talk the hoff or crowley's spy spectre into doing a hermetic tour for us.

thank you, shiny knights and white rabbits of the high table, and keep rocking the interzone!