As Hot and Wet as Cooked Liver: The Sex Magicians Chapters Five and Six

I miss Schlitz. Enjoy the Difference!

The Sex Magicians Chapter Five: What is Property? (p.40-41) 

The main thing that jumps out to me from this very short chapter is the list of individuals Markoff Chaney considers for his "Fraternal Order of Hate Groups," as this gives us one of those windows into Robert Anton Wilson's political opinions around this time. Robert Welch and Robert DePugh were both far-right, anti-Communist "activists," George Wallace was the famous segregationist governor of Alabama who provided us with the iconic photos of white supremacy in the Deep South, Jerry Rubin was the most useless member of the Chicago Seven and later proved himself a moronic hypocrite by embracing the "greed is good" philosophy of the eighties, Ti-Grace Atkinson is a radical feminist and proponent of political lesbianism and Eldridge Cleaver was a leader of the Black Panthers. While I'd argue that Cleaver, despite his criminal activities, had the most legitimate grievance out of this motley crew, Wilson would obviously been less than pleased with the Soul on Ice author, as he had recently held Timothy Leary under "revolutionary arrest" in Algiers after Leary had fled to that country. 

Chaney's meeting with the butler promises an interesting development in our small-statured anarchist's sexual career. Probably the funniest part of this chapter would be Chaney's mistaken belief that "Au revoir, ma cherie" translates as "good-bye to virginity." So at this point we know he is in for an encounter with a rich eccentric with some interesting sexual peccadillos: more on this later. 

The Sex Magicians Chapter Six: Where did the universe come from? (p. 42-55) 

The chapter titles are becoming more gnomic. 

Joe Smith is an unpleasant and unsympathetic character, in my opinion, especially because he reminds me very much of a contingent of people who, earlier this month, turned over our country to a wannabe-dictatorial regime. By the second paragraph of the chapter we know that Smith and his wife are your run of the mill American idiots whose prejudice is born of not being able to see past the tip of their noses and living an extraordinarily unexamined life. I don't particuarly feel anything for Matilda or Smith as the "sanctity" of their marriage is slowly, inevitably sacrificed by the end of the chapter. 

Chapter Six ramps up the pornographic qualities of The Sex Magicians as the Mama Vibe takes over our dumb fuck character's consiousness (and conscience). I will admit that while Joe is walking past the marquees (the funniest bit in this chapter) I did not understand how SHE SUCKS MEN DRY had a double-meaning. Maybe that shows my inherent perversion or the fact that I try to keep finances firmly away from the forefront of my mind. I guess I'd rather think about oral sex than money...go figure. I laughed aloud at FELLINI'S TOM SAWYER and THEY LIVE FOR SEX AND ALLAH. 

The Ore House sounds like a grand place with a curious pun choice for a name. Since gold is heavily associated with Tiphareth in Kabbalah we might be able to stretch the gold centered puns at the topless restaraunt as a sign that the soul of our novella is sex. Sex appears in many different forms as Smith's mind twists everything into references to un-American activities. There's a curious connection between food and sex throughout the chapter, from Smith eating his cheeseburger while being increasingly overcome with sexual delirium, to Briggitte's forsaken steak and accepted peach pie and her display with the bananas. Sex and food are about as far apart as anything can be in my mind- I remember even as a young man being particuarly repulsed by the Seinfeld episode where George discovers the aphrodisiac qualities of pastrami- and that probably made me more uncomfortable than anything else in a chapter where Wilson seems to be deliberately making his character as uncomfortable as possible. 

Honestly, I'm curious why someone as vivacious as Briggitte would see anything of worth in a Joe Smith type of fellow, but some guys have all the (thoroughly undeserved) luck. Joe Smith is certainly stiff and fucked-up and whatever happens to him because of his moment of, admittedly understandable, weakness, I hope it changes him irreparably. Fuck off Buster and to hell with Mayor Daly, indeed. 

In honor of the stomach-turning simile that I've chosen as this week's title, here is the late, great Bob Eisenstein telling a joke to Jerry Seinfeld on Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

-A.C.

(Spookah- I've restored your lost comment on the last post.) 

Swallow it, you wire tapper!: The Sex Magicians Chapters Three and Four

I apologize to the readers; things got busy, than existential, than depressing. I'm sitting down and writing this, although I don't have a ton to say, going on the principle of something is better than nothing. So, here goes: 

The real Sput Sputnik

The Sex Magicians Chapter Three: Who will guard the guardians? p. 23-33

This chapter's quote-title is famously from Juvenal and received more ubiquity after being the inspiration for Watchmen's title. I personally believe that the title must refer to Tarantella Serpentine's ministrations to the beleagured Dr. Prong that occur in this chapter. Having Tarantella make her debut in the most explicitly pornographic chapter of our slim volume so far is appropriate since the scene that introduces her in Illuminatus! is likewise explicitly pornographic. Her routine with Dr. Prong can be seen as a repurposing of her scene with George Dorn. These scenes seem to be something along the lines of Wilson's ideal of a sexual scenario designed for the purpose of male titillation and pleasure. 

Note that Wilson's sex scenes are almost always drawn out in ways that the atmosphere can be heightened before the moment of climax. This is not only decent advice for regular sexual activity, but is one of the most fundamental principles of sex magic. Energized enthusiasm and all that shit. Wilson also seemed to have predicted live sex cams as he often incorporates women masturbating in front of men as a way to increase pleasure, as in this scene, or as a way of torture- as happens to the captive Sigismundo in The Widow's Son. 

Other Wilsonian tricks we see in this chapter include his interplay of political beliefs between two characters that he doesn't seem to endorse entirely. The younger, liberal-minded Foxx seems naive and unserious while the more conservative, older Dr. Heyman is a square who banks on the accomplishments of his youth. (Or positioning of his youth since Prong notes he simply worked with Kinsey.) We have bits of self-reference where Wilson denigrates his own plotting and incorporates a quotation from one of his own essays. I had suggested to Rasa that the essay be included in this book, but he probably decided it wasn't relevant enough. It would probably fit better into a collection of essays by Wilson on general culture and entertainment. (Also, if anyone can enlighten me to the meaning of the aufgehoben of the Freudian Id, I'd greatly appreciate it. Everything I found had to do with Hegel, and I find Hegel quite impenetrable.) 

I guess this is as good as time as any to review Fernando Poo; I appreciate the fact that information is so much more readily available today, as I imagine many readers probably weren't sure if Fernando Poo existed when the first book came out. Fernando Poo was actually known as Fernando Po for much of its pre-modern and modern history, named after the Portuguese explorer who was the first European to "discover" the island. It is actually only rendered as "Fernando Poo" in Spanish. Fernao do Po named the island Formosa Flora and it has been known as Bioko since 1979. 

The Sex Magicians Chapter Four: Why is a duck? p. 34-39

As far as I can tell, the chapter's title is derived from the famous Marx Brothers routine, but that is more properly "Why a duck?" and I can't tell exactly what it would pertain to in this chapter. 

However, what I can observe is that in this chapter we have a character that closely resembles one of Wilson's "real life" personas in Josh Dill and we can probably glean some of his actual opinions of working at Playboy as well as his opinion of Hugh Hefner. Just like Sput Sputnik, Wilson has said that Hefner tried, and sometimes succeeded, in being something of a legendary figure in the Playboy offices- however, Sput's ridiculousness might hint at how well Wilson thought that worked for him. 

The list of interview subjects shows some of the mercurial contempt that Hefner had a habit of uttering and therefore nixing ideas that Wilson found compelling. Spiro Agnew is too controversial, Ezra Pound uninteresting because he's a poet and of course there are his hilarious invectives against the imagined Attorney General. I have a feeling that the Attorney General in mind while Wilson wrote this scene was Watergate crook John Mitchell, although by the time of publication the AG was the short-tenured Elliot Richardson. Two scenes in this chapter were extraordinarily striking to me when I first read the novel years ago: the hypothetical effects of hashish and a scene that brought tears of laughter to my eyes. I still love the orgasmic repetition of Dr. Spock's name and the punchline that I've made the title of this week's (and last week's, and the one for the week before...) post and think it is one of Wilson's best fictional vignettes. 

- A.C.