keep the lasagna flying

EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD!

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January 11th, 2007

03:46 pm - keep the lasagna flying
Robert Anton Wilson has defied medical experts and left his body at approximately 4:50 AM "on binary date 01/11. All Hail Eris!"

Paralyzed after severe post-polio syndrome and a damaging fall, confined to his bed and under 24-hour hospice care since June, Wilson left a farewell message on January 6:

Various medical authorities swarm in and out of here predicting I have between two days and two months to live. I think they are guessing. I remain cheerful and unimpressed. I look forward without dogmatic optimism but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.

Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd.

In October, when various online appeals generated enough funds to pay his health care costs, he wrote this:

Dear Friends, my God, what can I say. I am dumbfounded, flabbergasted, and totally stunned by the charity and compassion that has poured in here the last three days.
To steal from Jack Benny, "I do not deserve this, but I also have severe leg problems and I don't deserve them either."

Because he was a kind man as well as a funny one, Benny was beloved. I find it hard to believe that I am equally beloved and especially that I deserve such love.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, know that my love is with you.

You have all reminded me that despite George W. Bush and all his cohorts, there is still a lot of beautiful kindness in the world.

That he was beloved is true. Additionally, the last sentence is true. Perhaps we would do well to not forget that.

fnord

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Comments:

From:	eclecticavatar
Date:	January 11th, 2007 09:27 pm (UTC)

"Is the thought of a unicorn a real thought?"

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...

Now I am a REALLY sad goth girl, today. RAW began a long and lustful quest for knowledge of the occult in me and has always been beloved for doing so.

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From:	derspatchel
Date:	January 11th, 2007 09:55 pm (UTC)

Never whistle while you're pissing

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The Illuminatus! Trilogy ranks right up there with Stranger In A Strange Land as literary litmus tests for impressionable youth.

When you read them at just the right age, you're going to be confused, you're going to be bewildered, and you're going to be thoroughly repulsed by at least one section...

...but you're going to pass when you say to yourself "I have no idea what the hell just happened, but I'm going to read it again and see what I can make of it."

And if it inspires further research, then you've passed with flying colors.

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From:	eclecticavatar
Date:	January 11th, 2007 10:06 pm (UTC)

Re: Never whistle while you're pissing

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This is similar to the English major litmus test: James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake.

Hardly anyone ever passes that one with flying colors!

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From:	derspatchel
Date:	January 11th, 2007 10:31 pm (UTC)

Re: Never whistle while you're pissing

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Doesn't the first test of Finnegan's Wake require reading it all the way through? ;)

(Speaking of heavy works, I believe that passing the first test of Naked Lunch involves reading it all the way through without flinging the book against the wall at any point. I have yet to actually pass this test, and my copy of the book ignobly bears the dents and scuffed scars of past attempts.)

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