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Tuesday, October 22, 2024

The Sort of Man Who Will Add Stature: The Sex Magicians Chapter Two

 

The AI wouldn't add "HAT."

The Sex Magicians Chapter 2: "Are you drinking the water or the wave?" p. 14-22

The week's chapter's title comes from John Fowles' The Magus, a book that seemed to tap into some of the zeitgeist of the Sixties and which is referenced by Wilson a few times over the course of his corpus. So, even if the line is older than that, I'm betting Fowles' novel is the source. I've never read John Fowles' The Magus because I ended up with a copy of it instead of a copy of Francis Barrett's The Magus, which was a little harder to find in those days, and that really pissed me off. (I did, rest assured, secure a lovely copy of Barrett's The Magus.) Perhaps because the phrase doesn't come up as the old chestnut that gives Chapter 1 its vaguely masturbatory title, I read into this one a little bit more. I think it is a reference to Markoff Chaney's existential fit of pique, of course, but I also think it might be a bit of a message whose transmission seems uncannily timely. But it's been a long day, so I might just be loopy and overly reactive to my fancies. 

Before getting into all that, there are some points about details in the chapter I'd like to cover. Naturally, this chapter has a few instances of language that is no longer acceptable; I'm going to stop making this note after this post as it will get repetitive and I don't have any brilliant commentary that I think would add anything aside from acknowledgement. So bringing this up time and again would be like circulating through a party, saying "hi" to someone and nothing else each time you orbit-pass. If I think of some two cents about something further in the book, you know I'll add it. It is also interesting but ultimately somewhat pointless to ponder over the cross-pollination between this novel and The Illuminatus! Trilogy; are all the similar elements just altered bits borrowed from Illuminatus!'s manuscript or did any of the ideas spring forth here and were then worked into the fabled Trilogy? Wilson always claimed that the book was more-or-less completed by the end of '69 and that he and Shea were forced to cut hundreds of pages before publication, so...who knows? 

It wouldn't be surprising for there to have been pornographic tarot decks floating around during the 70s, but after some light research I couldn't find anything published before 1981. While it is very probable I just didn't look deep enough into the Internet, I can also see where such a tarot deck would have been a very small publishing affair. Michelle Olley talks about how this book itself would have been a small publication and only sold "below the shelf" in what few shops that stocked it, so it is quite possible that there were tarot decks that were gloriously nude, but they might be lost to history, attics or to assiduous collectors. It should also be kept in mind that tarot was nowhere near the industry it is today, where there is a veritable cornucopia of pornographic tarot decks to choose from (although most of them use the Caspar Milquetoast euphemism of "erotic tarot"); even Crowley and Harris' masterwork Thoth Tarot wasn't published until 1969. At first I thought that Wilson was having Markoff Chaney lay out a Tree of Life spread because of his contemporaneous reading habits, but I'm now convinced it was the author giving his character a more expansive tableau. 

Now I'm going to read too much into a character in a porn novel. 

Wilson repeatedly describes Chaney's campaign against the world as "surrealist" and accordingly his second signage assault upon regularity is reminiscent of Andre Breton's placard at the first Surrealist gallery: "DADA IS NOT DEAD. WATCH YOUR OVERCOAT." Markoff Chaney's life sounds miserable- consumed with hatred, in some ways his short stature is a pun on being a "small man." Now Wilson, in a way that can seem both empathetic and stereotypical, has Chaney's considerable chip forming because of the height of his shoulders, and you can see that he has put parts of himself into his antihero. The idea of a world of graphs, regularity, petty authority and bureacracy is incredibly frustrating and the push forward towards a joyless world where people are numbers hasn't been fun, by any stretch. In some ways Chaney's crusade is sympathetic and understandable; it's just how it consumes him makes him a somewhat tragic figure. However, because of his unpleasant aspects, down to his vomitous diet, Chaney spends most of the book as a pathetic if effective character, rather than one who evokes true pathos. 

I don't think I caught it the first time I read the book, because it stood out to me when I was rereading the manuscript before writing my essay, but Wilson humorously lays the chaos of the end of the Sixties and the Seventies at Chaney's feet. His surrealist assault is responsible for riots and bombings...which is eerily reminescent of the joke that has been floating around since 2016 or so that Project Mindfuck has worked a little too well. Amidst the general horrors of war and climate change, our society is churning towards November 5th; the aftermath of which, no matter what happens, will see heated rhetoric and a very good probability of greater social unrest/violence. Our society has had chances to change course and unify, to take it down a notch, but it seems...nothing doin'. At least for the foreseeable future. Is it possible that there the MGT is out there, setting off chain reactions that led to this? (Is it Tom Jackson?) Did Markoff Chaney invent the Internet? Considering Chaney's surrealist bonafides and the rise of theocratic-fascism in my home country, I was reminded of a quote from Alan Moore's recent novel, The Great When: 

"After two hours and another cuppa each, they came to the conclusion that all the surrealism of the 1930s had a lot to answer for, and so had Hitler." 

But, with my own worries turning into bitterness all-too-often, I think I might need to ask myself occasionally whether I'm drinking the water or the wave. I'm still not going to read the fucking misleadingly titled John Fowles novel though. 

8 comments:

  1. I suspect Tom Jackson has helped us navigate the chaos of the last decade plus. Happy Learymas, by the way. This chapter made me think about Bob Wilson taking William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsburg to the Chicago Playboy Club during the Democratic Convention in 1968 before they got tear gassed. They discussed Pound's Cantos in the club. (Coincidentally, I typed that before encountering Pound's name on pg. 21 of the novel.) The three of them decided that it seemed appropriate for the great epic poem of the 20th century to end in fragments. I remember reading a cut-up of Canto 1 in Burroughs' papers in the Arizona State University Library.

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  2. On chapter 1: I loved Philip Jose Farmer's story "After King Kong Fell" which includes Doc Savage and the Shadow. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" also explores the erotic impact of "King Kong." "The Bear Comes Home" by Rafi Zabor explores an interspecies romance.

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  3. “Watch your hat and coat” also reminded me of “mind your hats goan in” from the first chapter of FW. Bobby Campbell included the quote in his Tales of Illuminatus when Saul Goodman goes to the Finnegans Wake bar.

    On page 14 we learn that Markoff’s father “had been a stockholder in Blue Sky Inc.”
    B.S. Incorporated?

    Markoff’s first sign changing operation happens at Norton’s Emporium, seemingly a wink to Emperor Norton.

    The way the vacation-schedule memo prank at the Pussycat offices is printed using the office Xerox reminded me of the way the original Principia Discordia got printed after hours at Jim Garrison’s office by his secretary, thus unknowingly feeding into the strange loop Kerry Thornley would find himself into.

    I appreciate that Markoff is clearly a Discordian, saying “Hail Eris!”. I agree with you that in some ways, his character has my sympathy, I want to side with him for all his surrealistic pranks. But he also definitely comes off as a very unsavory person and reminds me of the cartoonish depiction of little people as sleazy and demented midgets in such staples of bad taste eurotrash exploitation cinema as The Sinful Dwarf ( https://letterboxd.com/film/the-sinful-dwarf/ ).

    I feel unsure of what you meant when writing “but I'm now convinced it was the author giving his character a more expansive tableau.” Did you mean that RAW is simply having Markoff laying out more cards for more visual stimulation? Or that he is giving more depth of character by having him interested in the occult? That Chaney would uses tarot cards doesn’t prove an interest in anything else other than pornography, but he seems familiar with the Tree of Life. This overlaying of sex and magick echoes the title of the book, and might perhaps be a nod to the idea that behind the masturbatory material the reader holds in their hands lies some actual occult knowledge.

    Here in Europe, the political situation does not appear much better, with neoliberal governments increasingly showing their true face through authoritarianism, and their not-too-surprising coupling with the far-right in order to maintain business-as-usual.
    I never bought too much into the idea that Operation Mindfuck degenerated into Q Anon, farm trolls etc. I see it more as co-opting similar tactics, minus the humor, and with added unethical aims.
    As 21st century Discordians, it should be our goal to promote, actively participate in, and embody Operation Mindfix. To behave like Wonderists, as Cat Vincent termed it in opposition to terrorists.
    Unfortunately, I am not quite sure what that could entail, really. I’m afraid it’ll take a bit more than simply changing signs at your workplace. When the world economy collapse and I find myself jobless and homeless, I might go enroll as a waiter at one of those big Davos conventions and spike their punch big time.

    I was not familiar with Andy Bown at all, thank you for sharing this great track! I see that this was the theme song of a TV series, a few episodes of which appears to be on YT. Have you watched any?

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  4. I have actually been meaning to read "The Magus" because RAW recommended it so highly, plus Robert Shea was a John Fowles fan. (Shea said, "John Fowles, Romain Gary, Norman Mailer, Yukio Mishima, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, Thomas Pynchon, J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Penn Warren seem to have taken up permanent residence in my literary pantheon." I learned about RAW's regard for Norman Mailer from the new biography).

    This was my favorite chapter when I read "The Sex Magicians" for the first time a few weeks ago, as I enjoyed being reunited with The Midget and hearing a few more jokes.

    The rise of Nazism and fascism actually helped bring about a reduction of the surrealist movement in Europe, as many of the surrealist writers felt it was important to take a stand in a way that could be clearly understood by most people.

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  5. Hopefully I can procure a copy of "The Sex Magicians" and join in soon. I'm underwater with work. "The Magus" by Fowles blew my mind. I read it twice in my early 20s and recommend it highly. I finished reading "The Cantos" not long ago so appreciate Eric's comments about it.

    Regarding "Cuban Superman" and the SC letter combination which I obsess over slightly much like RAW does with 23s. I trace it back to Rabelais who wrote of Cabala explicitly in "Gargantua and Pantagruel" I'll find a link to my blog where I go into it in detail, but for now: I see it as Samekh + Cheth = 68 and analyze it in the most basic way as 6 = Tiphareth + Hod = 8. This connects with Crowley's realization from "The Paris Working" that Christ and Mercury appear different forms of the same force and that it describes a particular relationship when looked at together. 6 = Christ = the Heart chakra. 8 = Mercury = communication - communicate the heart. A few instances of this motif appear in the "Book of the Law" one example being the 6th verse of the first chapter: "Be thou Hadit, my secret center, my heart and my tongue!" In RAW this appears as Sigismundo Celine and Schrödinger's Cat among many other examples. "Illuminatus!" starts out in New York's Central Park near 68th Street. Tiphareth seems the Central Park on the Tree of Life. I don't think every SC combo has this sense just as I don't find every 23 significant. "Cuban Superman" does seem part of it as a cube has 6 sides.

    Pynchon appears to use this code a lot especially in "Gravity's Rainbow" and "Vineland." Eric Wagner brought by attention to Pynchon's introduction to the book of his early short stories, "Slow Learner" in which Pynchon explicitly states SC as a code. I regard SC as a multiplicity in the Deleuze sense of the word indicating it has many different aspects which may get determined by the context it appears in. Deleuze uses the SC code a little bit in "The Logic of Sense." There's much more, but this should suffice to explain it for now. This seems my own hypothesis, I don't claim this interpretation to be right or complete as I'm constantly revising and adding to it myself. Thank-you, Spookah, for paying attention.

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  6. Thank you very much Oz Fritz for your elucidations!
    Now i feel like you ve been through this before, but it had not all impressed itself unto my mind durably. A much appreciated reminder of your theory!
    The cube as a geometric form and symbol also appears significant in cabala, and 'superman' suggest an enhanced version of the common level of operating for humans.

    I am now reading the John Szwed biography of Sun Ra Space is the Place, and after a lenghthy first part on the very early formative years, chapter 2 has a sub-chapter called 'the Arkestra arrives', that comes in on page 93. Probably just a coincidence... There was a mention of Crowley a few pages before, as well as an anecdote about Sun Ra publicly noting that his birth name Herman Poole Blount had the same initials than Helena Petrovska Blavatsky.
    I saw the Arkestra on sunday in Amsterdam and they were brilliant, cheesy sci fi and egyptian costumes and all! The band, with ages averaging in the seventies (at least), appeared very good humored, happy to be there, and musically out of this world. Space still definitely is the place!

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    1. You're welcome, Spookah. Sun Ra is up there with one of the best concerts I've ever seen – summer of 1983, in Alphabet City aka the East Village, New York. It was obvious he used music as a spiritual vehicle and that he played the role of a master and teacher. I don't know of direct connections between him and Crowley, but am open to hear about anything along those lines. Thank-you.

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  7. I am going through the Space is the Place book keeping an eye open for a Crowley connection, but not really expecting to find one.
    The more I think about it, the more I feel like it could be more pertinent to draw parallels between Sun Ra and Gurdjieff rather than AC, if we insist on trying to find an equivalent in 20th century Western occultism/mysticism.

    Although humor played a part in the work of the three of them, Sun Ra's personal brand thereof might be the friendliest type. It could leave people baffled, but seems unlikely to make them feel uneasy or somehow insulted. His ways seem more inviting, reminding me of RAW or Lon Milo DuQuette.

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The Sex Magicians Chapter Three

  Sorry, friends- I pulled my back Sunday and was out of commision until yesterday. Been playing catch up at work. I'm hunting up a new ...