The Invisible Library

Reason Magazine has a nice obituary for Robert Anton Wilson:

Given his enormous influence on pop culture, from Lost to Laura Croft, you might have expected Wilson’s death to get more attention in the mainstream press. But while there were a few more notices in the newspapers — a detailed story in the London Telegraph, a short UPI dispatch that was basically cribbed from the Times — none I’ve seen has suggested that his work had an impact beyond the fans of the fringe, and only John Clute’s account in The Independent displayed any appreciation of Wilson’s oeuvre. Instead, the best tributes to the writer have appeared in the medium that most resembled the beautiful cacophony of his books: the Internet. On LiveJournals, e-mail lists, and blog comment threads, Wilson received the praise he was due.

He was honored on the bigger sites too. At The Huffington Post Paul Krassner, who started publishing Wilson’s articles in The Realist back in 1959, quoted one of my favorite things that Wilson wrote in the last year of his life: a haiku sent to his email list a day after he announced what looked like his pending death.

Well what do you know?
Another day has passed
and I’m still not not.

There were respectful memorials in places you’d expect, such as bOING bOING and 10 Zen Monkeys, and in places you wouldn’t expect, such as Wonkette. Even the conservative forum Free Republic got in on the act, with a thread that included the remarkable statement, “The modern right was greatly influenced by Wilson.” While you’re digesting that, I’ll note that elsewhere on the same site another reader greeted the news with the phrase “one less leftist nut.”

Link via Boing Boing.

My novel, The Machine of the World, is nearing completion! I have about fifty pages left to finish, then a little polishing up after that before it will be ready to send off to a publisher. I’m pondering the idea of putting a PDF of it up for people to download.

There’s some debate as to weather or not posting my unpublished novel will have positive or negative effects on getting it published. I’ve heard of cases where people were offered first time contracts to publish their serialized online novel and tales of woe from those who were told that gee, your novel is spiffy but too bad about putting it on your blog, ‘cus now it’s got Internet cooties.

Part of me wants to wait until it can be published and then offer a free download, like Corry Doctorow does with his books, but at the same time, I’m tempted to just post it online, maybe pay to have a few copies printed and bound and just move on to the next book. I would appreciate emails or comments for or against this. (This is me soliciting comments folks. This whole Blog thing is a two way street. Let me hear what you think! As long as you aren’t trying to sell me cheep Viagra or Thai Ladyboy Porn).

I’m about 30 pages into the new Thomas Pynchon book, Against the Day and enjoying it immensely. There’s so much story, character and information on each page, that it’s easy to get overwhelmed and bit overstimulated. It’s also a little difficult to keep everything straight in our linear-trained minds. I think this is what trips some people up when it comes to enjoying Pynchon’s writing. His books are not novels in the conventional sense. He isn’t telling the life story of one person or setting out to illustrate a single idea. It’s a survey of humanity and out civilization from a different perspective. In this case, from a great height, which can be dizzying. Luckily, we have the Pynchon wiki to help us sort it all out.

What’s really amazing is that ten years ago, when Mason & Dixon was published, the Internet wasn’t advanced enough to have such a resource in place. We were all left on our own to sort out the details for ourselves, without so much as a compass or a sextant. Finally though, the world has caught up to the scope of Thomas Pynchon, which is the real reason for inventing web 2.0 and social networking, Myspace be damned.

CNN:

DALLAS, Texas (AP) — Negotiations to build George W. Bush’s presidential library at Southern Methodist University have divided the campus, pitting the administration and some alumni against liberal-leaning faculty members who say the project would be an embarrassment to the school.

Some professors have complained that the combined library, museum and think tank would celebrate a presidency that unnecessarily took the country into a war.
The fear is that the library “will continue to espouse the philosophy and practice of the Bush administration, which has seriously divided our nation and has brought the ire of other countries,” said William McElvaney, a retired professor at SMU’s theology school and co-author a November opinion piece in the campus newspaper titled “The George W. Bush Library: Asset or Albatross?”

SMU emerged as the front-runner in the competition last month when the library site selection committee said it was entering further discussions with the 11,000-student, private university in one of Dallas’s wealthiest neighborhoods. The project will be financed with a private fund drive aimed at raising at least $200 million.
Bush connections to SMU run deep. First lady Laura Bush is a graduate and is on the board of trustees. Vice President Dick Cheney previously served on the board. Presidential adviser Karen Hughes and former White House counsel Harriet Miers are both graduates.

SMU officials said the project is unlikely to be derailed by the faculty opposition, and said the professors opposed to it are in the minority.

Not mentioned in the article is why the President would want his library to be at a college rather than in his own library, like most Presidents. Given Georgie Boys fondness for self aggrandizement and spending taxpayer’s money, you’d think he would build a gold plated Taj Mahal with champagne fountains for his papers. But, Presidential Libraries, by their nature are public institutions. As such, they cannot have any restrictions put on access to the information in their collection, except where that information is classified or sensitive. If you go to the Bill Clinton Library in Arkansas, you can see everything, read all declassified papers and do research on the president’s term, using primary documents. They even have a section on the Lewinski Affair. But, by donating his papers to SMU, W., like his father, who donated his papers to Texas A&M, can put any restrictions on them he wants.

George Bush Senior’s collection has its access restricted indefinitely. Any researcher wanting to so much as read his lunch receipts would have to get written permission form the president.

Just one more example of the Boy Who Would Be King telling all us serfs to stop asking so many damn questions and while were at it, why don’t we just fuck off and die.

Update: see Dr. Andrew in comments.