Just as it’s polite for host and guest to wear the same style of clothes, I feel that it’s right to be late to a wake; Quinn and I turned up nearly five hours late to Robert Anton Wilson’s memorial service. We missed RAW’s trip out to the beach and beyond. “Don’t they do that at the end?”, said another latecomer, confounded by Wilson’s disregard for chronology to the very end. (Or at least, three hours beforehand.)
But it was a fine event, with a string of wellwishers climbing up the steps of a stage showing clips and pictures of the man, reading their surreal, syncronicitous, or personal note, and then stepping back to join the waiting crowd.
Quinn and I agreed that our favourite moment was at the end. We were all mulling together to raise a tune to Bob’s last written words, “Keep the Lasagna Flying”, by singing a simple modification of Old Langs Syne, “For the Sake of Old Lasagna.” By this point, many of the members of the congregation had wandered from their seats to stare out at the crashing Pacific beside us, perhaps to mull a little about what they’d seen and heard. The singer asked if someone could get their attention and bring them back to the room. Instantly, an old guy went tearing off toward the wandering sheep, shouting “FIRE! FIRE! THERE’S A FIRE INSIDE!”
Everyone returned, quick time.
My photograph is of Wilson’s miraculously empty box. Schrodinger, Houdini and the Trickster Jesus would all have been proud. Dead or alive? Worse – he’s not even there anymore!
