eep.
Robert Anton Wilson died yesterday just a few days shy of his 75th birthday. Beloved by the e-liberty Internet hordes, magicians, dope fiends, gun nuts, conspiricists and other political artists, RAW’s death was immediately noted by Boing Boing, Reason, 10 Zen Monkeys and not a single newspaper or wire service beyond this web-only column at the Panama City News-Herald site.
That’s to be expected. (The weekend should see at least a few print obits, we hope.) Wilson was a cult writer’s cult writer with the kind of fans who re-read his Cosmic Trigger and Illuminatus! series as an anual ritual. He was also a Discordian pope, Crowley scholar, Playboy Magazine editor and California gubernatorial candidate. He was and is a principal proponent of a kind of techno-hippie-mystic-2nd Amendment libertarianism that is worlds away from the Cato stereotype yet incredibly influential in Silicon Valley and electronic media. And unlike the “political thinkers” who clog Washington’s green rooms on Sunday mornings, Wilson was hilarious … on purpose.
That’s to be expected. (The weekend should see at least a few print obits, we hope.) Wilson was a cult writer’s cult writer with the kind of fans who re-read his Cosmic Trigger and Illuminatus! series as an anual ritual. He was also a Discordian pope, Crowley scholar, Playboy Magazine editor and California gubernatorial candidate. He was and is a principal proponent of a kind of techno-hippie-mystic-2nd Amendment libertarianism that is worlds away from the Cato stereotype yet incredibly influential in Silicon Valley and electronic media. And unlike the “political thinkers” who clog Washington’s green rooms on Sunday mornings, Wilson was hilarious … on purpose.