{ feuilleton }

Robert Anton Wilson, 1932–2007

There are few people who really change your life but Robert Anton Wilson—who died earlier today—certainly changed mine. Wilson’s Illuminatus! trilogy (written with Robert Shea) was my cult book when I was at school in the 1970s, a rambling, science fiction-inflected conspiracy thriller that opened the doors in my teenaged brain to (among other things) psychedelic drugs, HP Lovecraft, James Joyce, William Burroughs and Aleister Crowley as well as being a crash-course in enlightened anarchism. I’ve had people criticise the books to me since for their ransacking of popular culture but this was partly the point, they were collage works, and they worked as a perfect introduction for a young audience to worlds outside the usual circumscribed genres.

The philosophical side of Wilson’s work was probably the most important at the time (and remains so now), his “transcendental agnosticism” made me start to question the adults around me who were trying to force my life to go in a direction I wasn’t interested in at all. I’m sure I would have resisted that kind of pressure anyway but the value of RAW’s writings in Illuminatus! and the later Cosmic Trigger came with being given an intelligent rationale for those decisions; I couldn’t necessarily articulate why I was “throwing my life away” by wanting to drop out of the whole education system but Wilson’s work had convinced me it was the right thing to do. I still mark the true beginning of my life as May 1979, the month I left school for good.

He wouldn’t want us to be maudlin, I’m sure. It’s typical for a writer who spent so much of his life writing about drugs and coincidences that he managed to die on Albert Hofmann’s birthday. So I’ll just say thank you Robert, for changing my life. And Hail Eris!

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Absolute Elsewhere

Albert Hofmann

Dr Hofmann by Dean Chamberlain.

Happy birthday to the discoverer of LSD, 101 today.

The art of Yves Doaré

Ange (1981).

Le réservoir (1979).

Yves Doaré is well known for his paintings and drawings but better known for his haunting etchings, drypoints and wood engravings. Doaré began exhibiting his art in France in 1966 and since that time his art has been the subject of one man exhibitions at the Gallery Sumers, New York (1975), the Gallery Michele Broutta, Paris (1982), the House of Culture, Orleans (1985), the Gallery Dom Quichotte, Rome (1987), Workshop of Arts, Douarnenez (1993) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chamalieres, Belgium (1994). His art is now included in such public collections as the Museum of Annecy, the Museum of Morlaix, the Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco, and the National Library of Paris.

Many of Doaré’s original etchings and engravings explore the theme he has termed, “a kind of geological memory.” Using as his starting point the actual etching plate or engraving block, Doaré explores the surface’s capacity to reveal its own forms and figures. Much like a sculptor, Doaré thus orchestrates the emergence of the random forms which the surface suggests.

More pictures at the Fitch-Febvrel Gallery, Galleria del Leone and the artist’s own site.

Update: more reproductions at Velly.org.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The etching and engraving archive

Another blow for the god squad

A mob on the march from Frankenstein (1931).

That’s blow as in bludgeon, not, er, smoking drugs or oral sex… From the BBC:

New rules outlawing businesses from discriminating against homosexuals have been upheld in the House of Lords.

A challenge led by Lord Morrow of the Democratic Unionist Party failed by a majority of three to one.

He had argued that the rules forced people to choose between obedience to God and obedience to the state.

But Northern Ireland Minister Lord Rooker said it would be “quite wrong” to elevate the rights of one group above those of another.

In the time-honoured tradition of angry mobs everywhere, “Christian and Muslim groups … stage(d) a torchlit protest outside the House of Lords tonight against a proposed new gay rights law that they say would force them to “actively condone and promote” homosexuality.” The law would do nothing of the sort but these aren’t the kind of people to worry themselves with inconvenient facts. No reports as to whether they were carrying nooses and pitchforks along with their flaming brands but their chilly vigil was in vain, the challenge was defeated by 199 votes to 68. As Warren Ellis so aptly put it: “House Of Lords To Homophobes & Intolerant Christians: Shut The Fuck Up”. Amen to that. Polly Toynbee had a great piece of polemic in The Guardian eviscerating the litany of nonsense being used to support the challenge. All this and the iPhone too; that’s what I call a good day.

iPhone at last

So it arrived. Not much of a surprise after a year of “will they? won’t they?” but the combination phone + iPod + web device is certainly more than most people expected. New Apple products always feel like a little taste of the future and this is no exception. The touch-screen interface is very impressive indeed. The iPhone pages on Apple’s site have some nice demos of the interface at work, all of which look very familiar to users of the current Mac OS. In effect, it’s like OS X blended with the old iPod interface. I’m knocked out by the way they’ve given the iPod what amounts to iTunes in miniature, with the same Cover Flow feature for selecting albums. The web part of the device uses OS X apps Mail and Safari for email and web surfing (proper web pages as well, not WAP foolishness). And the way the screen display automatically switches from portrait to landscape when the phone is rotated is one of those gorgeous design elements at which Apple excels. I’ve been complaining about the interface on my Motorola since I got it; this machine is simply light years ahead. As for the wretched Zune, now looking even more like something designed by an overworked Soviet committee, I almost feel sorry for Microsoft after today (almost…).

Would I buy one of these? It’s very tempting even though it’ll have a heavy price (UK cost not announced yet) and probably be tied to a single carrier. They won’t be available in Europe until the end of the year anyway so there’s plenty of time to decide.