Discovery Book Club

[Malaclypse 666]

Let's see.. our moms gush on for hours at those book club socials.. but I don't think your moms would approve of my favorite books and authors. This author should be relatively safe, for the relatively mature reader who enjoys a bit of.. well, a whole lot, of quirky humor in hir reading, as Drake apparently does.

A little background.. the conversation in the TAZ Skype chat today turned to cabbages.. common enough, but then turned to turnips, and finally beets, which brought a favorite book and author to mind.

I wracked my brain trying to remember the title of an amazing book which prominently featured beets as a plot element, and as a minor hero as well, it turned out.

It was agonizing.. I knew the author, but had one of those blank spots the elderly and entheogenically challenged often have..

"Aaargh.. lets see.. beets, longevity.. i'll get it.. perfume.. bathing, breathing.. beets! Dammit! Kudra and Alobar.. you know! Beets? The Bandaloop??"

Finally in desperation, I turned to Google and pulled a list of the author's titles, and there it was!: "Jitterbug Perfume", by Tom Robbins. Not Tom's first, and certainly not his last, but one of my favorites.

From my "stream of consciousness" attempt to remember the title, you may deduce that Tom Robbins uses rather unusual themes in his work. Always. Guaranteed. You can bet the farm on it.

A bit later, I found a delightful review of Tom and his work. Rather dated, but it certainly covered all the reasons I love him, and a few more I've never even considered. the treatise is rather long, and requires concentration and an appreciation for metaphor and mirth, but I'd like to share it with you here, rather than in a link you might never click.

I warn you, if you begin to find your beliefs, sense of decency, or safe little reality tunnel stretched, tune out quickly, or suffer the consequences. Here we go:

"laughing at the black iron prison: tom robbins
by Sara Aronson (hermes23w@disinfo.net) - December 22, 2001

Never before has a Bard had a ray gun, that futuristic contraption capable of bursting readers' skulls like an universal embryo, laying contents prey to scrutiny, manipulation, and conversion into a cosmic daiquiri of ah-ha juice. Like archetypical spy flicks, once the cryptic knowledge is demystified, its destined for self-destruction in five seconds, taking the cranium with it and shouting "WHOOPJAMBOREE!" Initiated by Robbins' Certified-Ontological-Ray-Gun for the Repressed, Depressed & Chronically Jovial, the reader dips a timid brain toe into the waters of transcendence, taking gray matter astral skinny dipping.

Naturally, explosive effects might occur for connoisseurs of fine novels that happen across Tom Robbins like enlightened early birds across acres of hashish (when did the Assassins ever need worms?). Cocktail parties of his characters would include outlaws of Woodpecker and cowgirl variety conversing with a former CIA agent and full-time pedophile about duality, perhaps around carafes of Ripple supplied by a middle-aged male countess. Timbuktu University staff (alumni include no less than Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, and John Lilly) listen as a shaman chuckles sublimely. An octogenarian monarch toots cocaine while hobnobbing with a geriatric hacker about authority of choice. Robbins appears, complete with psychology doctorate and a mustache so abused by ponderous munchings it must be thinking of packing up its follicles and moving.

As captivating as showgirls performing mesmerism while hovering two inches above the apex of a lawn sculpture a la Giza, Robbins has stolen hearts of people worldwide like a reluctant magnetic pickpocket in a land of metal wallets. Does his Zen Master Ray Gun convey something emanating newness like sephiroth? Or does he titillate palettes like wine with vintage center Tree of Life ring with insight that's common of art, literature, drugs, and the famed Tantric double lotus?

Pynchon, Joyce, and Dada (who isn't dead) weave chaotic tapestries of the phantom elixir termed alternately God-Allah-YHVH, Tao, Buddha, Slack, and That-Which-Cannot-Be-Named. They make it as easy as cold fusion to understand and labyrinthine to navigate. Although the craftsmanship inherent in compositions such as Finnegans Wake are revered by the clandestine C.R.A.F.T. club haunting Robbins' latest book, Robbins is beloved for the yippeewahoo of life he provides without inscrutability.

What further sets Robbins apart from the deluge of pineal can openers is that he camps not at the top of the mountain with the gurus of impenetrability, nor in the valley in the shadow of self-help. Avoiding the wholly holy and the soulless, he camps at the middle slope and proceeds to whip out a Hibachi to cook up cream of intuition soup. He brings the checkered moments of human existence full vividness and inherent futility.

As described in his new book, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (2000), people may be at the second story window of a burning building, but if they enjoy the view, then the inferno is forgotten in rapture.

Invalids is a Mobius strip juxtaposing Switters with the CIA, his hacker grandmother, her Matisse blue nude, and desert nuns carrying the Lady of Fatima's secret prophecy. The book heralded future's horns because although it was written before the papacy divulged the Third Fatima secret, Invalids tells different secrets that are a favorite Robbins' theme: pyramid energy.

Yes, the plot beckons, the visuals entrance, the books beg to make a cerebral cocktail. They do vivacious neural belly dances, glimmer like a Sutra jewel, and generally hint of candy, laughter, and ability to ray-gun consciousness to a place of sacred musk and sacrilegious ecstasy. Pulling heartstrings and beating humor's drums, they create symphonies of such purity it can ultimately be felt, whether purposely or not, as waves of music dancing around a grandiose conductor's baton."

(From the Disinformation website, http://discoverygc.com/forums/index.php?sh...p;#entry615205)

I never thought of myself as a "pineal can opener" before, but I suppose in a way, I am. You may think I'm just a crazy old fart.. but perhaps I do have a purpose here in the Discovery Community.. to pass along the favor Tom and his Timbuktu U fellow Alumni did for me; And to open a few cans myself... one pineal at a time.

23's
Mal

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