Steve Fly On The Tale Of The Tribe (Reading from TSOG)

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https://www.patreon.com/rgc777

Thank You

--Steve Fly

Sylvia Beach interview on James Joyce and Shakespeare & Company (1962)

I find Sylvia's voice unique and strangely soothing, while her conversation on the tale of the tribe proves illuminating.  That it was mostly women who were determined to help get Ulysses published reinforces, to me, the importance of Joyce studies within gender/identity politics in 2018.

Ulysses and Finnegans Wake seem like a performance by example of male-feminism in literature, and show a great capacity to explore the other in all it's forms and shadows: a modernist, or post-modern tendency toward comprehensive thinking.               

From wikipedia: "In 1956, Beach wrote Shakespeare and Company, a memoir of the inter-war years that details the cultural life of Paris at the time. The book contains first-hand observations of James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Valery Larbaud, Thornton Wilder, André Gide, Leon-Paul Fargue, George Antheil, Robert McAlmon, Gertrude Stein, Stephen Benet, Aleister Crowley, Harry Crosby, Caresse Crosby, John Quinn, Berenice Abbott, Man Ray, and many others.

After Monnier's suicide in 1955, Beach had a relationship with Camilla Steinbrugge. Although Beach's income was modest during the last years of her life, she was widely honored for her publication of Ulysses and her support of aspiring writers during the 1920s. She remained in Paris until her death in 1962, and was buried in Princeton Cemetery. Her papers are archived at Princeton University.

THE "MIND" INDESTRUCTIBLE

bc comic made for Robert Anton Wilson's Tale of the Tribe MLA course (2005)

The funny chap w/ the wicked stash strut is supposed to be Ezra Pound, who wrote:

"4 times was the city rebuilded, Hooo Fasa

            Gassir, Hooo Fasa   dell' Italia tradita

now in the mind indestructible, Gassir, Hooo Fasa

with four giants at the four corners

and four gates mid wall Hooo Fasa

and a terrace the colour of stars"

-Canto 74 

RAW explains:

"Hooo mean somthing like hooray or hallelujah

Fasa = the tribe or the king

From an African "tale of the tribe"

collected by Frobenius

Wagadu = a divine, or magick, city

which existed four times 

and each time got lost again

first thru vanity

second thru lying

third thru greed

fourth thru feuding

Wagadu still exists in some sense

"in the mind indestructible"

and will appear again

when all people transcend

vanity, lies, greed and vendettta

Hooo Fasa

Hooo Fasa

gets repeated 10 times at the end of the song

Hooo Fasa "

and a George Kearns quote by way of Eric Wagner:

"...the unnamed African seekers of a city of the mind, Wagadu (both divinity and city), whom we come to recognize by their cry, "Hooo Fasa." They can metamorphose into each other, as they do in Frazer, to become Isis-Kuanon, Isis-Luna, Circe-Titania, or Adonis-Tamuz."

I take the "mind" Indestructible as the non-local class of all minds, which after all is No Mind!

RAW comments:

"You captured the essence of Pound's use of the Sudanese legend -- 

even though rain and industrial waste are hardly equal conditions 

in the death camp where a rapist and murderer was hanged every day.

Hooo Fasa"

Fair Enough!

See also: Agnosis! Ep. 12 "A Sun Play of the Ages"

bc

@RGC777

weirdoverse.com

ALL SEEING EYES

“These people, Joyce, to some degree Pound, McLuhan, they were the prophets of the world in which we now stand, the world of integrated interactive media, extraordinary data retrieval that erases the 17th century notion of the unconscious. Nothing is now unconscious if your data search commands are powerful enough.”

- Terence McKenna in Riding Range w/ Marshall McLuhan

If we're going to live in a Brave New World / 1984 mashup can I at least humbly request that my Netflix recommendations be a bit more doubleplusgood?

I originally drew the Joyce & Pound / 0 & 1 bit for RAW's now mythic Tale of The Tribe class, in reaction to his observation that (pardon my poor paraphrasing) Pound's The Cantos modeled history as linear progression moving up & down (from inferno to paradiso), and that Joyce's Finnegans Wake modeled history as a cyclic process going round & round (from swerve of shore to bend of bay). With further nudging by his equation that Joyce + Pound + Mcluhan = Internet.  (I may not have that notation exactly right, Mcluhan may have been a multiplier, but you get the idea)

My first exchange with RAW concerned the shape of things to come.  I proposed to him the model of an escalating spiral, to which he said he agreed, though wasn't dogmatic about it. I do find it encouraging though what visual concept results from combining the historical trajectories of both Joyce & Pound...

Excelsior!

bc
bobbycampbell.net
@RGC777

Occupy Thyself!

EZ SEZ

Finnegans Wake, Cannabis Seeds and a Rottweiler

A Brief cut from my interview with uncle Bob!

[Leading on from some earlier e-mail interview question's you answered for me, can you expand upon why Finnegans Wake, Cannabis seeds and a Rottweiler are essential elements for a 21st century survival kit?]

RAW: You need Finnegans Wake to understand the merging world village that's appearing; Finnegans Wake is the only book that's written from a global perspective, well Pound's Cantos are almost global, they include China , parts of Africa, most of Europe and the United States and some ancient Sumer, Egypt. Joyce is much more universal, he includes a lot more of Africa than Pound does - a hell of a lot more - and a lot more of Asia too. That's part of your education to live in the 21st Century, you gotta master Finnegans Wake, and then you need what? - [Cannabis seeds] - Obvious, that doesn't need any explication does it? And the Rottweiler ....[GAP IN RECORDING WHILE TAPE IS CHANGED]
http://www.maybelogic.org/maybequarterly/08/0801FlyRAWInterview.htm

CANTOS FRAGMENT

Adapted from THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND








A selection from:

http://www.bobbycampbell.net/OMNIBUS_777

Ancient Wisdom, Rather Cosmic

Visit the Remains and Help Yourself to the Leftovers

[text remains unfinalised]

For new visitors, from whichever direction you arrived, just a little explanation about how I see this 'place'. RAW's wonderful (if hardly unique) creation of an interactive online forum for learning brought together an interesting group of people, with some core members emerging, and a glittering cast of guest stars, walk-ons, extras (who we might call lurkers), has-beens, wannabes, provocateurs, people hidden behind make-up and/or masks and people who strip everything off and run naked through the marketplace.


And the Academy has many more resources than a mere forum - it has a rather fine library of RAW material and work from people that he liked, I'll offer a relevant sample:

The values that Taoism sees in woman and water are their harmony with the Tao. I have not translated this key term, and I do not intend to; but Ezra Pound's translation - "the process" - seems to me more adequate than "the Way," "the Path" and most of the other attempts. Students of General Semantics might understand if I say that the "Tao" comes very close to meaning what they mean when they say "the process-world." The Tao is the flux, the constant change, amid which we live and in the nature of which we partake; or it is the "law" of this change. (But, of course, the "law" and the "change" itself are not different in reality, only in our grammar and philosophy.) A Zen master asked how to get in harmony with the Tao, replied, "Walk on!" Water and woman represent adjustment to the Law of Change, which "man, proud man, dressed in his little brief authority," and his abstract dogmas, tries to resist.

Anna Livia Plurabelle, the water woman, represents the values of the Tao in Finnegans Wake . The very first word of the book, "riverrun" - not the river and the running of the river, but "riverrun" - places us firmly in the "process-world" of modern physics, which is the world of the Tao.

Joyce and Tao By Robert Anton Wilson
From The James Joyce Review, vol. 3, 1959, pp. 8-16

Because of the ephemeral nature of a forum (a rather linear kind of transaction) we planned a quarterly magazine to capture 'the good bits'. Not only did that (through a McLuhan lens) appear based on an old-fashioned print cuture, but it seemed sluggish and unresponsive in a hi-speed modern environment - and, inevitably (or at least predictably) a few enthusiasts provided nearly all of the content, and when they lapsed the editor had to write most of it, and then the group complained it had become unrepresentative.

A few of us decided to start this blog as a more flexible alternative - hovering between chat and finished pieces. Here and Now we find ourselves on a 200th post, and a similar monoculture has appeared in terms of linear contributions by an ever-diminishing group of contributors. Perhaps just following a natural life-cycle?

I would feel disappointed if people only came to see 'the latest post' and not do a bit of detective work, rummage in the archives, ask about the odd items in the apothecary jars, or the strange preserves in the old-style delicatessen section, or visit the back rooms (access via Vico's Bar).

I have started indexing, labelling and linking precisely to encourage exploration - just as RAW encouraged us to do a little archaeology (or mining) of the Twentieth Century - combined with early-uptake and adventurous responses (brain machines, online forums, Futurist approaches to the Singularity, etc).

I think of this site more as a process that a publication. I feel free to return to, and edit, posts. After all, you don't want to find dead links, do you? Why would you want to lock down the words and images? OK, you might like to see the Director's Cut, or sample the raw source material (the first take, or even outtakes) but it seems obvious to me that we should allow ourselves the freedom to tweak, sample, cut-up, hide, reveal and edit the material. Not all contributors have Admin rights (but they could), and any contributor could start a peripheral blog and link back here (and many of us have, as you will find in the links on the right).

If I appear to state the obvious you have to understand that I recently visited another forum and got severely told off for going back and editing or deleting posts of my own. Apparently it made communication difficult for them, and more particularly could get used to make others appear stupid or incoherent, or myself look clever. Apparently, once something gets said (written) in their world, it goes into the electronic akashic records and you have to live with the karma of your own stupidity (or something). I find that impossibly conservative and restrictive! So, I can't correct typos, factual errors or uninformed (or badly phrased) opinions - nothing ever gets forgiven and forgotten! Ludicrous! The Wayback machine and cached Google pages suffice for me, and if people quote the parts of my posts to which they are responding, where can confusion arise? Unless I deny I ever said such a thing!

As a lover of Burroughs, Cage and other anarchists and process-based types, I couldn't believe how oppressive that felt (not to mention the flaming). After all, you can only mess with your own contributions to a dialogue, and further feedback from others remains possible. Of course, if you acquire admin rights (so you can interfere with other people's material) then you do incur some responsibilities, too - and need to act with good intent.

However, you can always sample the source and re-mix. I liked John Cage's distinction between communication (with intent to affect the other) and conversation (idling along together in parallel).

Whether this blog can remain a process, and can resist turning into an object, remains to be seen. I like the idea that we continue to develop what Bob initiated, and these recent posts simply form my attempt to devise some Brief MLA courses, in the tradition of self-directed learning.

Meanwhile, I will work on making the blog denser, but not longer - feel free to do what you want with it. You can always check out further opinions of mine on my own blog. Be Seeing You!

NB: the next Maybe Quarterly falls due on the Autumnal Equinox, 23 September 2007 - that leaves you a month to consider making a contribution.

New Courses for the Fall

CROWLEY TAROT
Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot
Lon Milo DuQuette / August 13 - September 30 / $135
https://www.deepleafproductions.com/deepleafcart/home.php

THE GODDESS PATH
Myths, Invocations and Rituals
Patricia Monaghan / September 3 - October 28 / $125
http://www.maybelogic.org/courses.htm

THE CRAZY WISDOM OF PHILIP K. DICK
Erik Davis / September 17 - November 11 / $120
http://www.maybelogic.org/erikcrs.htm


Well, it may have gone a little quiet during the summer semester in the main forum (or maybe that’s just because I have STFU) but MLA has plenty of goodies for The Fall, including a new experiment, self-directed courses. These will run without a tutor/facilitator, and the syllabus will cover similar ground to previous courses, offering a chance for students to continue work on the material, on their own.

Now His Serene Absence has moved on to higher pursuits this seems like a great chance to help amplify and complete his work. The Tale of the Tribe course will include and expand upon work RAW originally offered in two of his courses: The Ideogrammic Method, and The Tale of the Tribe.

The first two S-D offerings are Robert Anton Wilson's Tale of the Tribe and Philip H. Farber's Meta-Magick.
https://www.deepleafproductions.com/deepleafcart/home.php?cat=2

MLA Self-Directed Course - Tale of the Tribe

An Interactive Exploration
with Robert Anton Wilson
10 week access to S-D Course Site
For more info, http://www.blogger.com/www.maybelogic.org $60

Derived from Robert Anton Wilson's landmark MLA courses 'The Ideogrammic Method' and 'Tale of the Tribe,' this self-directed course bridges the political, the social and the psychological in a mix only Wilson conjure. Starring Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Alfred Korzybski, James Joyce and Buckminster Fuller -- the nucleus of the extraordinary minds that have helped shape the information age of 21st century and the mindscape of Robert Anton Wilson. Follow RAW through the labyrinths of Joyce and Pound as we learn to perceive/conceive in non-Aristotelian categories and join the Global Village.

You may find out more about Ideograms, and the Tale of the Tribe by referring to the Index in the right hand column.

MLA Self-Directed Course - Meta-Magick

Where Magick Meets the Brain
with Philip H Farber
10 week access to S-D Course Site
For more info, http://www.blogger.com/www.maybelogic.org $55

NB: for students who already participated in these courses, I believe you may get a reduced price, email Admin for advice on this.

Language of the Tribe

"Ideograms thus have a kind of double focus, pointing to both the world of human activity and to the unchanging patterns of natural energy and fruition. Because POUND was convinced that signs granted by nature itself are infinitely richer than any conventional notation - "and from nature the sign:" (CII:730) - the ideogram assumed a privileged, almost sacred, value in his eyes. By its joining of cosmic order and human observation, the ideogram, like a religious icon, can induce calmness and meditation. It forces the read "to stop and reflect," but it also compels the poet to go slowly, to draw each character with a care and patience that makes anger and bitterness impossible. The ideogram IS a tangible sign of order in the cosmos, and its tracing is possible only when the hand holding the brush moves, for a few moments, in unbroken sympathy with that larger harmony. - Michael Bernstein, Page 158, the Language of the Tribe, The Tale of the Tribe (Ezra Pound and the Modern Verse Epic)

The Tale of The Tribe

My apologies for over-writing in the previous post. For a moment I thought I had got onto another course! The ideogrammic aspect of Bob’s interests emerged in one course called The Ideogrammic Method, and then later when we discussed internet and McLoon on his course called

Tale of the Tribe

The first of Wilson's MLA courses bridging the political, the social and the psychological, Tale of the Tribe promises to be a landmark journey with our dear Dr. Bob. Starring Giordano Bruno, Giambatista Vico, Friederich Nietzsche, Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Alfred Korzybski, James Joyce, Buckminster Fuller, Claude Shannon and Marshall McLuhan -- the nucleus of the extraordinary minds that have helped shape the information age of 21st century and the mindscape of Robert Anton Wilson. Join Wilson as he explores the themes, minds and ideas of his forthcoming book, The Tale of the Tribe.

We got a bit excited on that course, as we felt that our contributions directly affected RAW’s work-in-progress (you can still find it listed as unpublished on Amazon!)

It appears that our interest (both in the course that happened, and the book that didn’t) has encouraged Admin to attempt something new. A self-directed course based around the material. I can see encouraging signs in the Academy that such a course may begin fairly soon.

NewRAW Tarot

Back in April 05 NonProphet suggested making a RAW Tarot along these lines:

A combination of ideograms / thinkers / art work from MLAers - based

Could be based around the eight circuit and Quantum Psychology

Orson, Joyce, Bucky, Leary, Pound, Reich, Buddha, Lao Tse, Emperor Norton, 23, 5, pyramids
Golden and noon blue apples, Sacred Chao, laws of cosmic schmukery, Hagbard... you get my drift

'IS' as the hanged man
Ol' Bob as the Fool
RAW as the Heirophant

Then Bob himself chipped in on 14th April 05

i wd like 93 cards [for thelema and agape]

5 suits [for law of fives]
wands
cups
swords
pentagons
apples

23 trumps
22 as before
+ Sacred chao

Much lively discussion has continued for the best part of a year, mostly suggesting types and characters for a Tarot, like RAW as the Hermit (say) or Emperor Norton as the Emperor – or themes and subjects we would like to see referred to, from Bucky to Korzybski.

Meanwhile Bobby has started releasing his creations. He offered an Ace of Apples in the forum, in response to Bob’s preference for that as the fifth suit.

Zach offered a Sacred Chao.




Since then, Bobby has released 4 cards through the OM blog: The Fool, A Magician, The High Priestess and An Empress(just today!)

Currently Antero Alli approaches the end of his first course here - planning to repeat it in the Autumn (Fall) and in Angel Tech you will find a specific section on Designing Your own Tarot. (check out this article on the NeuroTarot from his website).

He also offers Vertical Oracle, which you can preview here, for inspiration perhaps? He has encouraged us to make our own set of cards up for the 8 Circuits model. You can see my own work-in-progress here.



Throughout the year people contributed some interesting links, some for people who know little about the Tarot, and some for enthusiasts.






Zach recently offered a Moon card in the forum.

From NonProphet:

Conceptualist Tarot
Le Palais du Tarot
Tarot Reference
Mantegna's Prints in Tarot History
Housewife's Tarot (!)
Magical Omaha

The Collectors: The Love of Tarot
About Tarot

The sarcastic but useful JK site
21. Can I (and should I) design my own Tarot deck?

Can you? Sure. While you at it, go design (or doodle) a starship, or a nuclear reactor, or paint the 21st-century Mona Lisa, or write a great novel or just do something really useful with yourself and cure cancer. Because, if you're just starting out with Tarot, or if you've only been at it using the blind-alley affirmation method, you don't have a clue about what you're doing or what Tarot is about. Isn't that correct? So, why do you figure you'd be any good at designing an example of something you know little or nothing about? But, lots of people do figure just that, aiming to reach the heights by expressing the depths of arrogance and absurdity. And they inevitably end up with muck that only vaguely makes sense even to them. The greatest Tarot deck ever designed, the Thoth deck of Aleister Crowley, was the culmination of a long and interesting life spent absorbing and processing huge amounts of symbolic data. Now, that's what we all do of course, process symbolic data. It's just that some of us are artists at it, and those people not only can but SHOULD make Tarot decks (and that doesn't require a pack of cards), and some of us can't process our way out of a wet paper bag, and those people should spectate (not speculate).

This guy - Lee Heflin - rectified the colours for Crowley’s Thoth Deck, and also did some amazing fractal variations. [2009 update: sadly, the link we had here, to lots of the images, has broken. You can see fragments here. And, for contrast Atu XVII on Flickr

If anyone can find a better online set, then let us know.]

For an exoteric and detailed 'true' history of the Game of Tarot, check out "A Wicked Pack of Cards" and/or other books by Ronald Decker (what a great name for a playing card historian!).

A MAGICIAN

A FOOL

Tale of the Tribe

I look forward to this course in the Fall, as Bob’s eclectic mind seems to range over material I have a lot of empathy for. As the course material will probably get published later, under the same title, this feels like an opportunity to contribute (however indirectly) to shaping Bob’s thoughts – to actually getting involved in reader feedback on draft material – a really interactive option.

Bumph: "The first of Wilson's MLA courses bridging the political, the social and the psychological, Tale of the Tribe promises to be a landmark journey with our dear Dr. Bob. Starring Giordano Bruno, Giambatista Vico, Friederich Nietzsche, Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Alfred Korzybski, James Joyce, Buckminster Fuller, Claude Shannon and Marshall McLuhan -- the nucleus of the extraordinary minds that have helped shape the information age of 21st century and the mindscape of Robert Anton Wilson. Join Wilson as he explores the themes, minds and ideas of his forthcoming book, The Tale of the Tribe."

I would say that all the people Bob enjoys seem to have a ‘magical’ quality to them – and the theme of hidden streams of ancient knowledge, as well as the possibility of new models of the universe. Although Bob acknowledges an interest in Crowley, he doesn’t recommend setting out to become a magickal practitioner, as such. Uncle Al does seem to obsess people (the Cult of Personality worked for him) but Bob leans the other way, it seems to me, towards freeing oneself from obsessions and habits of thinking, and/or worship of any particular form or method or person. He also explains the magical side to the arts (thinking of Burroughs and Pound and Joyce and the Surrealists) as well as of the sciences (with particular reference to Quantum Physics and anthropology and futurist planning and design).

So don’t feel dismayed if you think any particular area of study doesn’t appeal. The sheer eclectic mix means some particular approach to the future, or to the mind, or to the future mind or to the future of mind…may intrigue you.

RAW’s whole approach can lead to misunderstandings. The infinitely satirical side of Illuminatus! often gets overlooked, and the implications of the story get taken seriously, which means he gets described as a conspiracy theorist.

This seems strange to me, as that book seems like an obvious send-up of the conspiracy scene. Well, OK, that represents one of the various possible readings. The two Bobs who wrote it treated all conspiracy beliefs the same, and said “what if they all had a part of the truth?” Somehow, treating them all as real blows it up into an outrageously improbable picture of the insanity we live by…