yeeeurgh

I brought some sort of flu thing home from Slovenia, so I was under the cosh from the moment I got back. Yuck. Did a few days work, and then packed to go to Signatopia in Rotherham. They had done so much work setting it up, that it was sad when nobody came. (sigh).

Still, I got to see some old friends again, so I didn't waste my weekend entirely. Came home to find that ntl had gone down. Blamed myself, blamed my router, etc. When I rang their server status line it didn't admit any faults, and when I rang technical support they said they were shut for the Bank Holiday, but why didn't I visit their website (!) [expletive deleted] would if I could!

Generally feeling sorry for myself, and my friend Jules, too. (Hi Jules!)

Back to work today...

Home again, naturally

I just got back from Slovenia after an extraordinary week. 3,500 jugglers in a field full of big tops and little tents. Blazing hot on day one, then three days of rain that tried to turn the site into Glastonbury Fields Forever, but failed, so the sun came out for three good days - then one final hit of rain sent us on our way.

More later.

Online Interview

Just a quick post to say that I have done another online interview about my fim puppet work, which you can find at the LightSabre site.

Maybe you don't know about this...

I realise that most of my energy drained away from the website, and this blog, into online course work and general forum posts at the Maybe logic Academy.

I don't choose to take time to explain right now, but found this Press Release, which gives a pretty good idea. I hope Lance won't mind if I quote in full, for those who don't click on links.

AUTHOR ROBERT ANTON WILSON INSPIRES ONLINE ACADEMY

Innovative online school and cyber community hosts courses by celebrated authors.

Capitola, CA, June 9th, 2005. Located on the shores of the Monterey Bay, the Maybe Logic Academy is running servers at full capacity day and night. Initially inspired by the writings of best-selling local author Robert Anton Wilson, this provocative online school has bridged the celebrity void by ushering cult status authors into the lives of devoted fans. Course subjects include quantum psychology, conspiracy theory, occult magick, history of counterculture, Buddhist philosophy and meditation. With a dedicated audience of over 200 active global members the Academy recently produced a member driven online publication and rapidly expanded its faculty since going online one year ago.

Current MLA faculty includes legendary author and former Playboy editor Robert Anton Wilson, Mondo 2000 magazine founder RU Sirius, world-renowned Dice Life author Luke Rhinehart, Goddess movement pioneer and author Patricia Monaghan, author and cybergnostic Erik Davis, former Buddhist monk and performer Alan Clements, media theorist author/producer Douglas Rushkoff and occult magick icon/author Peter Carroll.

With a surge of popularity in fringe topics via The DaVinci Code and films like National Treasure, the Maybe Logic Academy is educating people directly through contact with experts in the field. Courses feature group teleconference lectures, online discussion forums, audio/video downloads and group chats. The community prides itself on a steadfast adherence to courtesy and intelligent, cutting-edge discourse. The Maybe Logic Academy is blazing a trail in the online education community by providing direct access to some of the world's most innovative minds.

For additional information please see: www.maybelogic.org
All MLA faculty members available for either telephone or email interviews.

New classes throughout the Summer and Fall and enrollment is open to the public.

Deepleaf Productions Inc is a rapidly expanding independent production house dedicated to intelligent content and is responsible for the award-winning feature documentary Maybe Logic - The Lives and Ideas of Robert Anton Wilson.

If you want to know more about the courses (say, Ray, if you wanted to take the Goddess course) you can find links at Only Maybe, our online zine (link also on the right hand side of this blog...) to the Maybe Logic Academy and more...

And I like this recent interview with Bob, covers most of the territory.

Temporary Post

Hi to Franki and Franz

As you can see I started using the new picture update option in blogger - but only to amuse myself. Perhaps the Only Maybe blog set up for the Academy gives you a better idea, as I have published 'articles' there (in the guise of 'bogusmagus') which I lay out rather more carefully.

That blog works as a group publishing effort, where we all retain editorial control of our own contributions, and can pass around Admin control/responsibility, so we don't need an editor.

What the...?

I do quite a lot of image browsing now (you can get sick of words) and recently
I found this at Jetsam Cove. Yet another amusing website full of amusing and unrelated images.

This particular one found in their Index under "What the HELL people" - or you can just run through them all in sequence...

And why not?

Listed as an Interesting Autobiography

I have been listed at as an interesting site that collects attempts at a multimedia biography or autobiography, but today I don't want to brag, just point to another item at that same site, a short Dadaist book called "What a Life" from 1911.

Enjoy!

Experimenting with my images

As Blogger has just improved their image posting, I thought I'd give it a try...
This poster comes from the autobiography of Ormond McGill that I have really enjoyed reading over the last few weeks.


It seems to drop any new image in at the top of the post, rather than in place, here you see one of my real heroes (terribly out of fashion right now, and never much liked by women, I gather (as a comedian). The Great Man Himself.



Please don't try to read anything into this - these experiments in blog images relate to my contributions to the Maybe Logic Academy blog - where I like to add images to break up areas of text for screen reading

So it Finally Happened...

...not the rain at Glastonbury - which doesn't seem so very unusual - but the silent concert. Many years ago, when Walkmen first came out, complete with radio, I said we could do a concert in the park without disturbing the neighbours, by transmitting from the stage, although the thought of 50,000 tinny "tss tss tssd tddtat asst" noises leaking out could perhaps drive someone without headphones quite mad!

This year at Glasters?

Some of the biggest names in the dance scene will be performing and there will be a "silent disco" in an effort to sidestep a noise curfew.

Instead of DJs blasting their sounds through speakers, thousands of revellers partying past midnight will be given wire-free headphones with volume controls that directly tune in to a stereo system.

Enjoy the Solstice

Longest day of the year up here in the Northern Hemisphere...and I find myself in work, rather than in a field. Hey ho.

I never really tuned into the Stonehenge thing...the only time I went to Stonehenge the man said they had closed at 6pm. "Closed!" I think we all have our own places, and countries, and seasons, etc. Everyone assumes that I'll link to Stonehenge, and I always say nah - maybe Glastonbury (or rather Pilton Festival, not the twee little occult-for-the-rich town) or Avebury will do fine. This picture comes from Avebury...

Only Maybe

Although you have to pay good money to join the Maybe Logic Academy forum (and how would you know if this bunch of crazies could turn out as like-minded friends?) - and the Maybe Quarterly magazine may not give you a real idea of what we get up to in real time - a few of us decided a blog might fit the bill. (We found ourselves chatting in the virtual bar at Vico's)

Just today I decided to kickstart one called Only Maybe and invite a few people over, to see what we can come up with.

Watch this space. (or that space).

NoFit State doing Immortal2

I just came back from seeing the new show - it really has gone several gears up from last year's show - which seemed pretty good. This year it excels. Catch it if it comes near you..

24th June - 3rd July Bradford Fest
8th -17th July Cambridge Fest
21st - 31st July Manchester
5th Aug - 29Th Aug Edinburgh
9th, 10th, 11th Sept Tarrega Festival, Spain
17th Sept - 2nd Oct London Thames Fest

I have had a little to do with this magical 'circus' group over the years, and it grew and grew.

Now we have the new generation of about 40 pierced and tatooed, partying but disciplined people doing a three-dimensional show (the audience move around inside it). And this year they have surpassed themselves. I feel so pleased they will go to Tarrega to showcase it (near Barcelona) after the Edinburgh Festival. In Tarrega all the bookers from Europe will arrive to see the unique and magical UFO tent, and a totally trippy 3-D interactive live show. These kids honed their skills doing stilt-walking aliens in clubland, and fire-juggling and black-light juggling, with wild costumes using modern materials, and hair-styles to die for.

I just wish I could fly you all in for a night in the tent. Damn, I found myself overselling it again.
(maybe I just fell in love with my new NoFit State sweatshirt).

These sort of shows have happened since Meyerhold and Mayakovsky in the 20s, the Dadaists and Surrealists, all the way up to happenings and 60s lightshows, and theatre getting rid of the boundaries between performer and audience (or patient and therapist). I don't know if this falls into the classification of art or magic, circus or theatre or performance art. (Nor does the Arts Council who spend all their money on opera, and Shakespeare)

I loved it. More soon. G'night.

Memo

This gets a lot less coverage in The States - the Downing Street Memo

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action.

Jabba Palace Reunion

I keep finding new bits from C3 - you can see the Jabba Palace crew acting out where we were, and what we were doing on the set - for one of the forums. I was told it was very amusing and informative.
As I am sitting (behind Warwick Davis) Dave B had to kneel - in real life he stood next to me. Sean behind us, Femi to our right, Tim smiling in the front (doing Salacious) Simon and Gerald behind him. Full story here. The only glaring error in that story - I didn't do the sock puppet with Dave Barclay - Tim Rose did - when Warwick approached unexpectedly, with the white socks, in front of a thousand people ( with my hangover) I swayed back and let the real puppeteers take over.

Sorry Tim! I don't know who to contact to get that corrected...

Click pic to see larger

New Welsh Review on NoFit State

The latest edition of New Welsh Review has an excellent article on NofitState and New Circus.

As this edition has just come out, I don't want to mess with online copyright issues, so will just plug it. If anyone lives too far away, or just wants to know the story (and this article covers the whole context of New Circus, from Cirque du Soleil - the "Macdonalds of circus", according to Pierre Bidon of Archaos - to NoFit State) then let me know - I can always send you a photocopy). It gives a great assessment of NoFit State and their place in the field, and even gives me a name check (relating to this review of their first warehouse show).

UFO Contactee

I very rarely mention updates to the website, as it has become such a labyrinth of connections.

Still, having been teasing the Prophet Yahweh for doing his Las Vegas UFO schtick recently (in the Maybe Logic forum, not here) I remembered the time I played a UFO contactee, and decided to add a page about The X Factor (Close Encounters of a Different Kind).
Click pic to see larger

Rebel Scum

I just heard that my promo for RebelScum.com turned up online here

Thanks people - spending a few days as a 'star' does wonders for your self-esteem, when you spend your ordinary everyday life in a small, steady job in a library on half the national average wage (not unhappy, I hasten to add, but hardly Hollywood!)

As a pirate, Jabba doesn't have to take sides, so I can remain 'friends' with anyone...HO HO HO....

See you at Milliways!

I felt delighted today to discover that I might finally get to meet up with my friend Mick again. He always claimed to have met two time travellers (and I believed him) but when he died (or at least left this plane) back in 1994 I missed him terribly...Especially as we had made no arrangements to meet up. Still, he and I seemed pretty good at synchronicity and serendipity, so finally I came across these space/time co-ordinates.

The Time Traveler Convention
May 7, 2005, 10:00pm EDT (08 May 2005 02:00:00 UTC)(events start at 8:00pm)
East Campus Courtyard, MIT3 Ames St. Cambridge, MA 02142
42:21:36.025°N, 71:05:16.332°W(42.360007,-071.087870 in decimal degrees)

Time Traveller Convention

Technically you would only need one time traveller convention

I know this says May 7th, but, strictly speaking, you haven't missed it. They would also ask that you publicise this for people who may yet become time travellers (the tenses get difficult here) - by getting the co-ordinates published, and the event into oral history...

Sue's Diary of C3

If you want to know what it was really like for people visiting Celebration 3, I can only recommend reading Sue Hooven's Diary - that'll give you an idea.

Hi Sue and Scott! Sorry we never got to have a cup of coffee or a little time together...

I just found the detailed pictures of the Origami Jabba process...that was real fun, and I am glad Dave and I squeezed in a moment to go do one fold! The main site is here, and the Jabba sequence is here.

Origami Jabba lorded it over the Saturday night party, but after Dave and I took our picture with him we retreated (I had lost my voice after the Thursday opening night show - shouting over the band while waiting backstage) - and then gone out with the 501s on Friday (and later with Jens and his buddy) and the combination of jetlag, no food, and too much wine meant I looked a bit rough on Saturday morning! By Saturday night I had turned professional again, and had a quiet night, ready for Sunday.

Return of Pink Five

I found this blog today, about Amy and Trey's visit to C3, it made me laugh...

"We're here to say hello to a couple of autograph signers that we happen to know. First stop is Dave Barclay, a fellow puppeteer I'd recently worked with on Team America. Back in the day he was a lead puppeteer on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi. I'm impressed by the number of folks who are willing to pay for the autograph of the guy who played the role of Jabba's left arm."

My role reminds me of Churchill's retort, when told some fellow politician was at least humble...

"He's got a lot to be humble about!"