Dec 29, 2006

Daffy Yum -Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

There's a Jewish tradition (I'm no scholar so I might be getting it all wrong) called Daf Yomi, which sounds like a TR term, in which a person studies one page of the Talmud each day for 7.5 years.

We started a similar tradition here at the Aftrlife last year (or was it two years ago?) but using the novels of Tom Robbins as our soure book. Several of us made it through Another Roadside Attraction in a ragtag fashion reading one page a day or some variation on that purpose. Now it's on to Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.

On January 2, 2007 at 3 pm. (I have to work 23 in there somehow) I am going to resume reading one page of Tom Robbins' work chronologically each day for the 8 to 10 years that it will take to go through the one's he has written and the ones he will hopefully write during that time. I wouldn't say I'm going to study them, but rather read them mindfully with an open heart. I will call this ritual Daffy Yum.
I'll comment here at the blog or on the discussion list whenever something strikes me. Anyone want to join me?

If you would like to be a part of this effort please leave a comment here on the blog as you read along when you have something to say. This is not formal so feel free to comment at will. (You can also comment on the aftrlife discussion group if you'd rather. Joining is easy. Details on that to come soon.

Dale, who probably will drift from this ritual at some point.

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Dec 26, 2006

Found it in translation

You might notice I've added flags under each post. Clicking on a flag opens up the post in the language associated with that flag. I realize that Google translations are sometimes a joke, but in the spirit of international love this is one thing I can do.

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Dec 20, 2006

Blog Adminstruative Details

I've added a blog roll and a commentor's roll with links to blogs that might interest y'all. They're on the left over there and that's not a political statement although if were it would probably be true.

Up in the righthand corner you'll see random TR quotes. If you want your favorite quote added to that just leave a comment with the quote and I'll stick it in there.

I hope y'all are enjoying this blog. We'll have the rest of the team online soon.

Thanks.

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Dec 18, 2006

Seriously Humorous


I'm still mad at Gus Van Sant, the guy who directed the Even Cowgirls Get the Blues movie. He slavishly stuck to the book, which I can understand because it is such a great book, but the book was not a movie. After seeing Van Sant copy scene for scene the original in his remake of Psycho, now I understand. The guy really doesn't know how to adapt and add movie-isms to a book or film. He doesn't bring anything to the table.

They're always trying to classify Robbins as quirky and arty. His work is those things, but it is also "serious". I think if a mainstream talented director made a Tom Robbins novel into a film and added his "movie magic" to it, there would be great potential for a great film. Maybe Spielberg? What do you think?

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Dec 16, 2006

Blogs of the Sierra Madre

IntroductionBy awesomeart(awesomeart) I met him when he was teaching drama at a modeling school, he introduced me to vegetarian cooking, instant 10 minute naps, Richard Bach and Tom Robbins books...he watched my kids grow into teens, attended our wedding and became ...Passion for Art - http://awesomeart.livejournal.com/

Comment on a Genre TrendBy Quinn(Quinn) I’ma fan of Robert Heinlein, although I never finished “Stranger in a Strange Land” because, I even as I started it, I was discovering the likes of Tom Robbins, Ernest Hemingway, and Philip Roth. I was a big fan of the War World series ...The Project for a New Mythology - http://projectforanewmythology.blogspot.com/index.html


30 November 2006 - quotes on LOVE By Kim --Tom Robbins If you judge people, you have no time to love them. --Mother Teresa He who has never experienced hurt, cannot experience true love. --Tristan J. Loo Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable ...Kim - http://drkimchiew.blogspot.com

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Dec 12, 2006

Lords of Blogtown

Entry #1086By Mark H I’ve finally figured out why I like this guy’s essays so much; he writes like Tom Robbins. Today’s slide show is about the 2000 year-old Antikythera Mechanism, whose purpose has just been discovered (hint: it’s an ancient calculator). ...Biomes Blog - http://biomesblog.typepad.com/the_biomes_blog/



Immortal Folly I: Review of Jitterbug Perfume by Tom RobbinsBy Keifus(Keifus) Grade: B+ I didn't realize when I picked up Jitterbug Perfume that I was getting a contemporary fantasy (I grabbed it on the basis of author recognition, from a recommendation of sorts), although it certainly made it easier to generate ...Keifus Writes! - http://keifuswrites.blogspot.com/index.html

http://sagefemme11.livejournal.com/151413.htmlBy Windi(Windi) I feel a major book store visit coming over me, especially in light of the woeful absence of Tom Robbins quotes around here of late. Riding this fine chocolate and green tea stoner-head at work right now, I hear ice showers are ...Stormy Eyes - http://sagefemme11.livejournal.com/


Favorite BooksBy Katie(Katie) Indian Creek Chronicles by Pete Fromm; Coming Home to Eat by Gary Nabhan; The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver; Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins; The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran; Winter by Rick Bass; The Complete Stories of ...Simple Katie - http://simplekatie.blogspot.com/index.html


books lately.By The Hipster Book Club(The Hipster Book Club) tom robbins's wild ducks flying backwards: i had gotten into robbins after reading fierce invalids home from hot climates, and also thoroughly enjoyed skinny legs and all. my enjoyment of his work depleted after that, ending in complete ...The Hipster Book Club - http://community.livejournal.com/hipsterbookclub/

love/hateso i have reached a troubling place in liturature. I have been reading a book by Tom Robbins, i've read a few of his essays too. I absolutely love the way he writes. I like the style and the language ...the littlest birds sing the pretties... - http://blog.myspace.com/ava628

How To Make Love StayBy naturalhigh This is the Tom Robbins quote from my previous post, Love is the Ultimate Outlaw. These are responses to in2l’s questions. We all have these questions. How do you make love stay? Ahhhh…. how to aid and abet love! ...Living Life Fully - http://naturalhigh.wordpress.com

BearKatMeat: What the Eff is a BearKatBy Pat Neffistopheles Oh yeah, the Bears won 117-50 against the Bearkats and set a new school record for most points scored. Rumor is that "Mulkey" is the mythical spelling for Jezebel...
Sic 'em Lady Bears.BearMeat: Dispatches from the... - http://bearmeat.blogspot.com



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Dec 7, 2006

Blogmata

Desert Island Books revision 102By AnonymousThe Quran; The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy ("a trilogy in five parts") - Douglas Adams; Still Life with Woodpecker - Tom Robbins; The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown; All the King's Men; Lord of the Rings(the trilogy) ...Book Lust with Nancy Pearl -... - http://booklust.wetpaint.com/pageSearch/updated

wicked eastern reading clubBy julieskinny legs and all. not finished with this one yet. i liked jitterbug perfume so so much better in the magical realism tom robbins vein. but there is something dreamy about a dirty sock, can o’ beans, shell, and a stick traveling ...spatial analysis 06' - http://orderofr.net/land


PublicWhen I lived in Portland, I read books by authors such as Chuck Palaniuk. Since moving to Seattle, I have read a few books by Tom Robbins. Something can be said for reading lines written a...Sally - MySpace Blog - http://blog.myspace.com/84850568


A Couple of DaysBy Jae... government conspiracies, and the impact of language on society. If you like Tom Robbins, Christopher Moore, or Matt Ruff, you would probably like this book. My recommendation: Read this book while dancing at the edge of apocalypse.The Unofficial Book Club Blotter - http://booksandbarley.blogspot.com/

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Dec 5, 2006

Blogs of the Bougainville

Does Anyone Still Read Richard Brautigan?By RW Like Vonnegut, he affected a sort of laid-back, dry, deadpan charm, along with the easily digestible whimsy of a harmless pothead -- kind of a forerunner to Tom Robbins. His books had titles like Trout Fishing in America, ...Rodney Welch: The Blog - http://rodneywelch.blogspot.com


Does Anyone Still Read Richard Brautigan?By RW Like Vonnegut, he affected a sort of laid-back, dry, deadpan charm, along with the easily digestible whimsy of a harmless pothead -- kind of a forerunner to Tom Robbins. His books had titles like Trout Fishing in America, ...

Rodney Welch: The Blog - http://rodneywelch.blogspot.com

of the genius waitress, tom robbins now sings...Of the genius waitress, I now sing. Of hidden knowledge, buried ambition, and secretsonnets scribbled on cocktail napkins; of achingarches, ranting cooks, condescending patrons, and eyesdiverted from ...miss tara - MySpace Blog - http://blog.myspace.com/20101404

What I’ve Been Reading - November 2006
A few days later, Kerrie and I went to the First Lutheran Church Bazaar, leaving with a handful of books by authors I revered (Ian McEwan, Tom Robbins) and additions to The Essentials collection (Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. ...

Parsimonious NothingsBy Ben Myers(Ben Myers) I, like the good Tom Robbins, prefer awe over swagger. And that is why the memories of Slick Vixen pass quietly through conciousness while the body amuses itself with saying her name. HONEYEDMOUTH TM.THE HONEYED MOUTH - http://honeyedmouth.blogspot.com/index.html

IS THERE HOPE FOR THOSE SOULS HELD CAPTIVE BY THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT ...By keninny I have always liked Tom Robbins' book Another Roadside Attraction. He addresses the economic and state benefits from religion. If you have not read that book, it is about a guy who finds the body of Jesus Christ in the catacombs of Rome ...


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Dec 3, 2006

Ciao Baby


An Italian review of Another Roadside Attraction

Here is the Google translation into English. Italian AND English readers are free to guffaw or cringe as they see fit. I see a certain poetry in a bad translation though.

The first book of Tom Robbins, my preferred writer for its fluid, ironica writing, and for its irriverenti and sweet, anticonventional and only personages, whose reading has given me an other series of surprise and detections. Draft of the history of Amanda one passionate girl of butterflies, with one philosophy of particular life one via of means between beat and the buddismo. The girl alive from zingara, with Thor its figlioletto, than she it says not to know if he is son of the man with which it had been coupled or of the thunderstorm who took place themselves in that same moment, and nobody risks to take it for matta if it can observe the eyes of the child exceptionally similar to saette.

The extraordinary ability to have perception of the future, to interpret the tarocchi concurs them to join to a circus where it foretells the future for the modica figure of 4 dollars and 98. Travelling with the circus John Paul Ziller, a species of wizard meets, sciamano, become famous like percussionista drummer, that it goes in turn dressed like always accompanied Tarzan from a noble baboon of name Mon Cul. The lightning blow is unavoidable and after it are married are settled down in a species of “roadside cafe” on the freeway, in which they install one zoo, composed from a pair of snakes, one Moscow tse-tse and a circus of pulci. And the particular place of ristoro called “Capt. Kendrik Memorial Hot Dog Wildlife Preserve”, becomes the fulcrum of the vicissitude, where under an enormous standard to shape of salsicciotto (even if Amanda is vegetarian convinced) to our protagonists joins, the former champion of football Plucky Purcell who has infiltrated in a species of schism of nazistoidi Friars and Marx Marvelous, scenziato sedicente and writer whom it has made of all in order meeting the strange brace of the zoo along the road. Entirety will have the possibility and the responsibility to decide if to render the ritrovamento of the emains of Jesus famous Christ, a species of new Advent, than but it would demonstrate that Jesus is not never revived, opening goodness knows which perspectives to the Humanity. There were scarabei everywhere, and also siamesi coleopters from long the iridescenti armors five centimeters. And, naturally, butterflies: such butterflies and falene of and many kinds that a correspondent would want to us very more patient than me in order to try to list them all, we figure ourselves then in order to describe the sweet colors of which the their wings they were incipriate. You allow me to emphasize that Amanda had not never killed a butterfly, and did not encourage the others to make it. But it was not therefore pure to refuse the tropical collections that the father carried them from its travels in order to acquire orchidee, or the exemplary that sent them To from Suez and the numerous admirers of the National Institute Flying Creatures, Lepidotteri Department. Right in the middle that crowd of flora and fauna (I will not be not to name cofanetti and the boxes them inlaid overflows of sassolini, seeds, teeth and pollens), Amanda had been withheld daily: meditating, cantilenando, caress, observing rituals and on the whole tracing the primiti to you values that a time had allowed the man to consider the world and its experience in it like tutt' one sacred. Them, its eyes greens fixed in the same heart of the nature. And it saw its I to fix it in its turn. Yesterday evening was accoccolata on the carpet, completely knot, its opened wide femminilità. Evidently, as soon as thorn had been made one of its showers to the grape juice, the pubici hairs that, viscidi and humid, levavano in a foam peak bordered similar to a stilizzata wave of the ocean of an recorded Japanese press on wood. I thought next to Hokusai and Hiroshige. Its labbra, rose-colored and madreperlacee like the inside of a shell, called to me because you approached to me. I made without to hesitate, but I arrested myself of blow as soon as I was enough close in order to see what it was making. Two black small letters puntolini were muovendosi on its body, just to of under of the skillful breast. They were Rock and Natalie, its pulci preferred! To mine insaputa, it had held with himself that brace, in order to save them the rigors of the exile. The visitors of the zoo along the freeway will remember Rock like the pulce with the moustaches from pasha who refused to learn the dances of ruotine of the circus, being preferred to make of the satira or to improvise on the executions of its connects. Natalie, be', she had the bump of the pattinatrice and was little one vamp. Onlooker, but in all my months to the zoo, I had not never seen the pulci pranzare neither I had inquired on theirs practical gastronomiche. I had made the idea that they came fed with some particular formula and that perhaps, in the festivity days, was allowed they to banquet from the veins of Moncul. Yesterday evening, but, I have uncovered that the pulci that s' they fatten of human blood are only lively and vegete how much is necessary in order to work in a circus. To supper, the ZiIler had regularly had the pleasure of the company of the pulci. (Grattavano never. But, it is known, the relationships between employers and dependent being what they are, did not dare to make it.) “Marx”, said Amanda, “have fallen in seeds-trance, little ago, and have received one telepathic communication from Normal Jimmy Quasi. It projects the triumph of every Tarzan evening for the Chinese civil employees and is caress the plan to open one chain of cinematografi to Lhasa. It wants that one sends it copy of Yellow Submarine with the Beatles. It says that it will bring back the things to normality, in Tibet. You what of tasks? Which thing I could never think some? I waited for until that the pulci they were sazie. Then, my turn came.

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Nov 29, 2006

Da Blogs Da Blogs

Quote of the DayBy Chip Gibbons Source: I can’t get this quote out of my head, especially since I saw a display of remote controlled toy cars and helicopters at the shopping mall this weekend, but I can’t find the source, only this by Tom Robbins, which is close. ...The Binary Circumstance - http://www.thebinarycircumstance.com

Book Talk 44: Villa IncognitoBy admin Villa Incognito-Tom Robbins. So, apprently I make it a point to enjoy books that other consider “not their best work” types and not aprpeciate usually appreciated “masterpieces.” Nevertheless, I loved this book.
Little Radio Blogzine - http://littleradio.com

Still LifeIt's four minutes to midnight and I just finished "Still Life with Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins. Never have I been so moved and at the same time, mystified by a love story. The last 3 pages had every em...That which cannot be described in words - http://blog.myspace.com/mellaphoric

Debunking the Fertility GapBy Joe Powell All this reminds me of a question once posed by writer Tom Robbins: "If a chicken and a half lays an egg an a half in a day and a half, then how long will it take a monkey with a wooden leg to kick all the seeds out of a pickle?"Cup Of Joe Powell - http://cupofjoepowell.blogspot.com

I Have a Few QuestionsBy SteveO –Tom Robbins; If a jogger runs at the speed of sound, can he still hear his Walkman? If a mime commits suicide, does he use a silencer? –Steven Wright; If a mirror reverses right and left, why doesn't it reverse up and down? ...Acme Anvil Co. - http://www.acmeanvilco.com

The future of readingBy JP Jitterbug Perfume; - Tom Robbins Black Elk Speaks; - John G. Neihardt Watership Down; - Richard Adams Different Seasons; - Stephen King The book of Illusions;- Paul Auster The Essential Jennifer Johnson;- Jennifer Johnston ...
Books
Random QuotesBy Leetie(Leetie) Tom Robbins "It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so." - Arthur C. Clarke "The United States is a Christian nation founded upon Christian ...Leetie - http://leetieblogger.blogspot.com/index.html

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Nov 26, 2006

Some of Tom's fondest Tom writing as chosen by Tom.


*the passage in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues building up to the first description of Sissy Hankshaw's enormous thumbs
*the opening gambit in Jitterbug Perfume: "The beet is the most intense of vegetables. . . ."
*the bed mite passage from Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
From Fierce Invalids:
*the riff on Jahweh and Lucifer settling out of court
*the place on page 272 about making a morning social call without showering: "He'd awakened too late to bathe properly, and Cupid's briny chlorines clung to him like clamskin britches."
*page 314's metaphors in celebration of the hymen

What are your favorite litbits?

From Roger Downey's great article from May 2000: My Life and work.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0018/features-downey.php
Picture by Rick Bahm

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Nov 20, 2006

Some Tom Robbins quotes

Here are some of Tom's answers to an interview:

Reality is contradictory. And it's paradoxical. If there's any one word -- if you had to pick one word to describe that nature of the universe -- I think that word would be paradox. That's true at the subatomic level, right through sociological, psychological, philosophical levels on up to cosmic levels.

To say that you can't take life seriously and that life shouldn't be taken seriously is not to say that life is trivial or frivolous. Quite the contrary. There's nothing the least bit frivolous about the playful nature of the universe. Playfulness at a fully conscious level is extremely profound. In fact there is nothing more profound. Wit and playfulness are dreadfully serious transcendence of evil.


I wouldn't want to just raise people's mood -- to elevate their mood -- without first or simultaneously making them aware of the fact that there are a lot of terrible truths out there. So you have to wed that awareness of the terrible truths to a sense of wonder and appreciation for the beauty and the passion and the love and even the danger itself.

I'm not an animal, I'm a zoo.

What I try to do, among other things, is to mix fantasy and spirituality, sexuality, humor and poetry in combinations that have never quite been seen before in literature. And I guess when a reader finishes one of my books -- provided the reader does finish the book -- I would like for him or her to be in the state that they would be in after a Fellini film or a Grateful Dead concert. Which is to say that they've encountered the lifeforce in a large, irrepressible and unpredictable way and as a result their sense of wonder has been awakened and all of their possibilities have been expanded.

At the same time, I don't think that a novel is supposed to be a guide book to happiness any more than it's supposed to be a journal of one's personal pain and frustration, which most novels are today, unfortunately. I think the novels that are most important are those that are more on the order of those coyotes that howl on the hills outside of town. Something mysterious and wild and hypnotic.


Timothy Leary told me that when he was in Folsom Prison -- he had never heard of me, at the time -- Sonny Barger, who was the president of the California Hell's Angels came up to him and handed him Another Roadside Attraction and said: [he speaks in a gruff tone befitting an Angels president] Read this. It's the Angels' favorite book. My personal motto has always been: Joy in spite of everything. Not just [mindless] joy, but joy in spite of everything. Recognizing the inequities and the suffering and the corruption and all that but refusing to let it rain on my parade. And I advocate this to other people.

I set myself a goal of two pages a day. Some days I get it, some days I don't. If I'm writing dialog I can usually get more than that because I can write dialog fairly quickly. But the descriptive passages, the philosophical passages where I'm paying even more attention to imagery and to metaphors and similes and figures of speech, that comes very slow. I write very, very slowly and I try never to leave a sentence until I think that it's as perfect as I can make it. So I'll just go sentence to sentence, almost word to word. Plug along.

No. Almost none. [plotting in advance] When I begin a book I have only the vaguest sense of how the plot is going to shape itself and no sense at all how it's going to end. You wouldn't know that from reading this book, because the end ties in with the beginning, I think, absolutely seamlessly and smoothly.

But I have no idea. When I introduced those themes at the beginning of the book I had no idea where it was going to take me. And that's the adventure of it, for me. That's the fun of it. That's what keeps me doing it every day. But in order to do that and to make it appear as if I knew everything in the beginning it demands a tremendous amount of concentration and energy. At the end of every writing day I feel like I've been wrestling in radioactive quicksand with Xena the Warrior Princess and her five fat uncles.

My tastes are pretty eclectic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Everything he writes. Everything Jim Harrison writes. Everything Thomas Pynchon writes. Nancy Lemann. Andrei Codrescu. The non-living: Nabokov and Henry Miller and James Joyce. My all-time favorite novel was The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary. A nice Irish gentleman.

From January Magazine
http://www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/robbins.html

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Bloggers don't stop

I need new Music!By wflooter480 I had about $12 and some change so I bought another Tom Robbins book, Still Life with Woodpecker. He's my fav author!! Jeff and I have been on a quest to find some good quality new music. But I don't count new music from old bands, ...who needs plans when they never... - http://wflooter480.blogspot.com

EAT YOUR TECHNIQUEBy Les(Les) ... it's in your blood, but you're not concerned with it anymore. And then all you do is, you write a sentence and see where it takes you.
You take a trip on the page. You go where it takes you. It's a journey." ~ Tom Robbins.Negative Velocity - http://seen.blogspot.com/index.html

My Life Stood Still with "Woodpecker"By marvel is my pen name(marvel is my pen name) Tom Robbins. It started with me going to a poetry reading where the host, a TA, mentioned the book. I already had a copy of it, due to my experimental ... Tom Robbins is a gonzo-plato. His philosophy is very over the hedge and quirky. ...marvel is my pen name - http://marvelismypenname.vox.com/library/posts/page/1/

You gotta have soul by Tom Robbins
Print article --> --> You Gotta Have Soul - by Tom Robbins --> --> By Tom RobbinsOriginally published on January 11‚ 2005One of my favourite authors... --> --> ..s Images Audio/Vid...
...Melmerize - MySpace Blog - http://blog.myspace.com/melmerize

holiday_wishes @ 2006-11-18T23:41:00By Holiday Wishes(Holiday Wishes) Jitterbug perfume by tom robbins CRUSH- richard siken White Teeth by Zadie Smith Stop Pretending by Sandra Sones i capture the castle by dodie smith MAYBE A MIARCLE BY brian strause Hazards of Good Breeding by Jessica Shattuck
...Holiday Wishes - http://community.livejournal.com/holiday_wishes/

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Nov 18, 2006

More Blogospherics

oh quizzes...By camera9(camera9) Your Favorite Book: anything Tom Robbins 23. The Last Thing You Ate: a rice cracker 24. Your Life: is full of responsibilities and stress...poop 25. Your Mood: meh 26. Your best friends: Husband and Krystal ...camera9 - http://camera9.livejournal.com/
Love Quotes RevealedBy Dot(Dot) Love conquers all. Virgil The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. Mother Teresa We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. Tom Robbins.

Damn, I'm stoked.By healthymetal(healthymetal) ... endlessly, passing everything on yet giving up nothing, the first amoebae that ever lived is still alive. Whether four billion years old or three hundred, he/she is with us today. Where?" ~ Tom Robbins, "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues"Cowgirl from HELL - http://healthymetal.livejournal.com/
Are you a victim, a criminal or an outlaw?By seed(seed) They even raise it a little bit when they fail. The outlaw is someone who cannot be ‘’got’’. He can only be punished by other peoples attitudes. When freedom is outlawed only outlaws will be free. Tom Robbins.Knowledge Systems - http://seedsystems.blogspot.com/index.html

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Nov 13, 2006

What are the bloggers saying about Dharma Yum

Well I'm not sure, but I appreciate the link in the Czech Republic at Redroom.

aftrlife má blog a robbins je tím pádem v podstatě online
22 Oct 2006 by Ondřej Lipár ... stránka všech online fanoušků toma robbinse, stvořil blog. tom robbins si zakládal na tom, že se na internetu nebude vyskytovat. časy se mění, byť asi bez jeho vědomí. na blogu dharma yum se totiž objevilo už několik jeho textů. ...redroom - http://lipar.blogspot.com

Update: Corrected Czechoslovakia. I shouldn't have made that mistake because one of my ex-wives was of Czech heritage. I guess I should call her my cancelled Czech. ba-da-bing.

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What the bloggers are saying about Tom this week

Bulungula Lodge, continuedBy Rebecca Crootof They've a high-quality library (Myths and Tom Robbins, what more could I want?) and you sleep in rondevals, which are tiny circular cement buildings with thatched roofs and tiny windows. There are NO MOSQUITOS, a huge bonus, ...Crootof Thoughts - http://crootof.blogspot.com
The dream that pushed me into such vanity (or stup...By abby(abby) It lies slumbering somewhere in my psyche, a dream soaked in lethargy, driven there by self-doubt, preoccupations, lack of aesthetic juices and literary knowledge, and a sudden growth of what Tom Robbins calls "an allergy to solitude". ...from behind these curtains - http://wengwangishness.blogspot.com/index.html


Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins [added by morphidae]Bantam (1984), Hardcover tags: {Box 42}Recent books added to group "Romance... - http://www.librarything.com/groupzeitgeist.php?group=romancefromhistorica
old boker knives Links: Folding knives, boker knives, japanese knives,By Administrator In Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, Pan plays a prominent role throughout the whole plot. … Stainless Steel Covered Cake Pan @ Vermont Country Store Looking to buy Stainless Steel Covered Cake Pan? The Vermont Country Store has it for ...Cooking pans - http://cookingpan.be/news
i really dont know whats happening.By ___strokify_me(___strokify_me) ... my e-rewards money at borders in the mall. ill be buying fierce invalids and wild ducks, both by tom robbins. im hoping he will do good things to me this time, since his last book still life worked wonders on my mental health. ...asdfg@#&%! - http://users.livejournal.com/___strokify_me/
i was drunk and no one could tell me otherwise and i played catch ...By junius worth and that tom robbins novel sitting on the nightstand smoking procedures there are 73 of us that work in the bookstore 31 of us smoke 24 of us don't and 18 of us smoke on occasion generally after we've been drinking ...dive bar napkin chronicles - http://divebarnapkin.blogspot.com
ChoiceThanks Tom Robbins.... "The word that allows yes, the word that makes no possible.The word that puts the free in freedom and takes the obligation out of love.The word that throws a window open after t...I feel like I'm taking CRAZY... - http://blog.myspace.com/the_uber_wop
Oh yesBy sexy mama Finally, I was motivated by a recommendation by a mutual Tom Robbins fan to make a purchase of a new book, and well I can't buy just a book, so I finally picked up one of the cds on my wish list. here's what came in the mail today: ...All Things Good - http://allgoo.blogspot.com
If the world got any smaller,....By KiTT If the world got any smaller, we'd all have to go on a diet.-- Tom Robbins (source http://quote.kitt.net)- http://quote.kitt.net
news readers. Click your choice: Half Asleep... news readers ...By robbinshalf_173819 This is, after. all, a Tom Robbins novel and the author has never been in finer form. ...Source: www.randomhouse.comVilla Incognito byTom Robbins On one level, Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito is a book about identity, masquerade . ...robbins half - http://robbins-half.goodpost.org
Books Books Books (and the Senate) (and Ted Haggart)One Book I read more than once: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. One book I would want on a deserted island: The Complete Works of Tom Robbins. I don't think this book exists but if it did I would want this. ...Their Eyes are Watching God - http://ctanews.com/blogs/Their-Eyes-are-Watching-God/
Britney and Cletus Breakup. Oh My!By More Serotonin Please In fact, I think from now on any time I say hollywood I will have to spit afterward - thank you Tom Robbins. So pay attention boys and girls, Britney is planning to make a new album and record, what some consider, music again. ...More Serotonin Please - http://more-serotonin-please.blogspot.com
Books Books Books (and the Senate) (and Ted Haggart)By Arwen One book I would want on a deserted island: The Complete Works of Tom Robbins. I don't think this book exists but if it did I would want this. We asked my mom if she would want to named Maestra after reading the first page of Fierce ...Anthropologist for Corporate America - http://spicyelf.blogspot.com
"We waste time looking for the perfect lover, .............instead of creating the perfect love." - Tom Robbins.Upon the Catherine Wheel..... - http://the-wheel.spaces.live.com/

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Nov 11, 2006

Tom Pitching Story Ideas

Welcome to the time machine. These posts will skip around like Billy Pilgrim unstuck in time and with all the regularity of the Clockworks. But at least we'll mostly eliminate the future. We won't go there. You'll see pictures of Tom at all ages like some good-natured Dorian Grey.

Back in September of 2005 Tom Robbins was on book tour for Wild Ducks. In San Francisco, Edward Champion aka Bat Segundo of radio fame, was at Tom's reading. He wrote about that night.

One startling revelation was that Tom had some interesting ideas for TV shows and Movies. Here they are:

And Robbins said that he had experienced a sudden burst of artistic activity. He had started writing a script entitled Pyrex of the Caribbean, which involved maintaining an oven-ready backing condition on the high seas. His offering for reality television was Fungi for the Straight Guy, whereby the producers would take a conservative Republican and give him a syphillitic mushroom with a camera crew following him around. And he had devised a pitch for a dramatic television show, Helen Keller: Private Eye with the tagline: “She’s blind, she’s deaf, she’s mute, but she can smell a rat a mile away.”


Another item was one I think I knew but forgot. It's the fact that Switters from Fierce Invalids also appeared in Villa Incognito, not in person but in the conversations of others. He's the freelance spy that Thomas is trying to contact. In that bit you get the outcome of Fierce Invalids explained a little bit.

SPOILER!!!!
On page 204 the agent is described as having two wives, one European and one American. Sound like any two ladies you know?

The whole article is in The Return of the Reluctant

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Nov 9, 2006

Rich Dahm's Photo of Tom



Photographer Rick Dahms has an anecdote about this dramatic photo of Tom he made.

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What are bloggers saying about Tom today?

this is what it's about.By smft.(smft.) go to post office come back, put load in dryer do all dishes in bedroom play lots of sub debs get rid of beer bottles make skirt wear skirt pay cell bill read tom robbins write in my journal call somebody banana bread and apple sauce ...i like the innocent type, dear... - http://users.livejournal.com/____aa_xxx/

QUOTES that I feel passionate about++++++We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. Tom Robbins Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. Robert Frost To love abun...Tiffany - MySpace Blog - http://blog.myspace.com/50944645

quotesTom Robbins • "Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia." - Judith Viorst • "A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out the years." ...trishy69's IMVU Blog - http://www.imvu.com/blogs/index.php?blog=160358

Tom Robbins"Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach."ThinkExist.com Quotations - http://www.thinkexist.com

I'd Agree With This One.........By comment4U We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. ~Tom Robbins.Weighing In, Without The Cookies - http://weighing-in-without-the-cookies.blogspot.com

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Nov 7, 2006

New Review of Not-so-new Book

BOOK REVIEWS
By William S. Allen
Special to THE DAILY


WILD DUCKS FLYING BACKWARD. By Tom Robbins. Bantam, 272 pages, $12, paperback.

‘Wild Ducks’ is mixed bag

Book is compilation of works from 1960s to present day

Author Tom Robbins is very like the lit tle girl who had a little curl.
When he is good, he is very good indeed, and when he is bad, well, you'd have to define bad, something that I'm sure Robbins would be happy to do for you, in the process listing all the varied connotations of the word and commenting on each.

Robbins loves words. He twists them and turns them and combines them in ways that no one has ever thought of before. It's his forte.

"Wild Ducks Flying Backward" is a sampling of Robbins' shorter writings from the 1960s to the present. Included are travel pieces, poems, essays, critiques and a treatment for a movie. There are 68 selections crammed between the book's covers.

After reading some of these, the reader may feel that Robbins has actually said very little, but has said it beautifully.

They are like posters from the Haight-Ashbury in its heyday. We can regard the posters as art, but they are only announcing concerts after all.

Fortunately, not all of the pieces are this type of meringue. "The Day the Earth Spit Warthogs" is a travelogue about an expedition across Tanzania. The unrestrained imagery is here, of course, but there is also a lot of information about Africa. Rhinoceroses avoid conflict with humans whenever possible, but hippopotamuses seek it out. I would have missed that question on a test.

In another selection, "The Genius Waitress," Robbins writes with empathy about young women who are overeducated in unmarketable fields and are forced to take blue collar jobs to make ends meet. "Erudite emissary of eggs over easy...articulate angel of apple pie," he says.

Robbins can be insightful and compassionate. He can be self-deprecating, unlike, say, Norman Mailer or Tom Wolfe, two writers whose works cover the same eras and roughly the same topics. He can also include much that is gratuitously erotic in his portrayals of people and places. Parents take heed. As for his poems, Robbins should have avoided attempting them. Not everyone can be a Renaissance man.

Would I recommend "Wild Ducks Flying Backward"? It is a very mixed bag, some parts are good and some are not, as noted above. If the reader has previously been initiated to Robbins' work and likes it, then give this book a shot. Otherwise, try one of his novels, "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (good book, bad movie) or "Another Roadside Attraction," perhaps.

Two suggestions: First, don't try to read "Wild Ducks Flying Backward" straight through. You could possibly experience sensory overload — a condition that Robbins favors for himself, by the way — and second, keep in mind that what Robbins writes is just one man's opinion, as is this review. Copyright 2005 THE DECATUR DAILY

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Nov 5, 2006

Cunning Linguistic Deformations

I was writing the line “pleasant summer sounds like the screeching of harradans and the roaring of neanderthals”. Then I looked up the spelling for “harradan” and found it was actually “harridan”. But I saw an unfamiliar word listed in the synonym section. ‘Virago’. Clicking on that (Dictionary.com is convenient that way.) it brought up that word’s meaning. There were two. The au currant definition was “a loud-voiced, ill-tempered, scolding woman; shrew”. But the Archaic definition, the original one, was “a woman of strength or spirit.”

So before there was a movement to remove gender-disparaging words from our language there was a much longer-term devolution of our language from positive images of women to negative ones.

Not that anybody gets called a virago any more, but it sure is an example of what Tom writes about–the suppression of the Goddess by male-centered religion. A good reminder to us guys that the shrew or nag might be just a strong woman with a message. Not always but we should keep the possibility in mind.

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Oct 31, 2006

Ten Books Tom Wants You to Read

In a 2000 article Tom listed….

Ten books everybody should read because they’re not remotely enlightened until they do.

Understanding Media by Marshall MacLuhan
The Archaic Revival by Terence McKenna
The Tao of Physics by Frijdof Capra
The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts
The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell
On Glory Roads by Eleanor Munro
The Banquet Years by Roger Shattuck
The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets compiled by Barbara G. Walker
News of the Universe by Robert Bly
The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

How many have you read? What would be the 10 most enlightening books in your experience? I guess I’m 60% of the way to being remotely enlightened.

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Oct 29, 2006

A Robbins vs Rumi Smackdown!

Speaking of Rumi/Robbins comparisons... I always think of Robbins as a poet without the line breaks. So perhaps it would be fun to compare some Rumi poetry that I love with some Robbins 'poetry'. Of course there are no winners or losers. As the taoist says, it's all good. I should clarify when I say Rumi I mean Rumi-as-interpreted-by-Coleman Barks. I don't think I've ever seen a really good Rumi poem done by anyone else. Plus Rumi's Islamic religiosity is wisely understated in Barks work. Jonathin Curiel wrote, 'For example, Barks says he rewrote a Rumi line that originally read in English, "out beyond what is holy in Islam and what is not permitted in Islam" to "out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing." ' That's much more universal to me. We don't have to remove any unseemly religious dogma from Tom's work.

Some Rumi:

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.


Some Robbins:
Ziller tiptoed into the gloom.
He scooped Amanda's face up in his vision
weeding out the paleness, the thinness,
the plastic vines runing out of her veins and nose,
the arms that lay askew like broken wings.
He was afraid to burden her with a kiss.
The magic words he had to say for her he barely whispered.



Anybody else want to take some good poetry and let it snuggle up to some Robbins prose. Line breaks are optional. Either leave a comment or email me and I'll host a post under your name or nom de net.

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Oct 27, 2006

Another Writer being compared to Tom

At the Morgan Library in New York City on Wednesday night, three Bay Area writers -- Yiyun Li, Micheline Aharonian Marcom and Nina Marie Martinez -- were among 10 authors to receive this year's Whiting Writers' Award, which comes with a $40,000 cash prize.

Nina Marie Martinez, who grew up in San Jose, is a high school dropout, former punk rocker and Marx-quoting single mom whose writing has been compared to Tom Robbins'.

San Francisco Chronicle

Has anyone read her yet?

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Oct 25, 2006

Dharma and Weezer

Tricycle Magazine Editor's Pick

Tricycle is a great Buddhist magazine, and they provide some content for free on their Editor's Pick page.

I'm excerpting from ,

Rivers in the Stream (August 4, 2006)
By Amy Karafin
Weezer front man Rivers Cuomo cultivates lovingkindness, mindfulness, and a vow of celibacy amid the madness of superstardom.


The celibacy didn't impress me much, but his approach to mindfulness and creativity were pretty cool.

Following the initial letdown of low sales and poor reviews, Cuomo, dejected, left Harvard and in 1998–99 devoted himself to a rigorous study of creative methods. Secluded in his Los Angeles apartment, he set out to understand what defined great music and to devise techniques for making it. This drive to analyze and break down the creative process would eventually lead him to the dharma, but at the time it brought him to Nietzsche, Goethe, and Stravinsky, among others. He charted songs, studied artists’ methods, painted his room black, unplugged his phone, and reveled in discipline. Looking back on this period, in 2004 he wrote in his second Harvard application essay that “My goal was to purge myself of all weakness so that I could write ‘perfect’ songs as reliably as a machine.”


And then he discovered Rumi whom I call the Persian Tom Robbins-in-love and Hafiz the Persian Tom Robbins in-a-belly-laugh.

Cuomo set out once again to demystify the artistic process.

This time, his determination to harness and master his creativity brought him somewhere unexpected: love poetry. In 2003, the band’s producer Rick Rubin gave him a copy of The Gift, a collection of poems by Hafiz, and Cuomo was taken with the fourteenth-century Sufi poet’s odes to love. He started reading the Tao Te Ching and contemporary writers such as Dzogchen teacher Ken McLeod. He delved into the work of the mystic poets Rumi and Kabir, whose verses he used as a guide to spiritual communion—not with God, but with music. Cuomo’s previous songwriting aids had ranged from Tequila and Ritalin to physical pain and induced emotional states, all of which had complicated his life and eventually lost their potency. Now he began thinking about improving his concentration and eliminating ego as a means of making better songs. He gave away many of his possessions, made a vow of celibacy, sold his car, fasted, and started volunteering six days a week to prepare meals for people living with HIV. He had also just discovered Vipassana.


Rivers had a childhood right out of a Tom Robbins novel. His first word was Buddha. :-)

The ease with which Cuomo slid into meditation practice may have had a lot to do with his background. His parents had first met at the Rochester Zen center in New York, where Cuomo and his younger brother, Leaves, spent their first years. “From the time he was born, he was in the culture,” Shoenberger explains, remembering baby Rivers pointing to a picture in the communal home’s meditation room and saying one of his first words: “Buddha.” When Cuomo was six, Shoenberger, by then divorced, moved with the kids to the Yogaville ashram in northeastern Connecticut. They lived in the ashram itself for only a year but were part of the community for eight. Rivers and his brother attended the Yogaville school for three of those years, where they practiced mantra meditation as part of the curriculum. Shoenberger meditated with her kids at home, too. When Cuomo would miss his father, they would go into the meditation room, light a candle, and send his dad some love.


And it's all about creativity which I would say next to LSD is Tom's "Way". And I guess reading Robbins is part of my "Way." What's your "Way"?

As serious as Cuomo is about his spiritual path, though, he is quick to point out that he originally sought out meditation as a tool for songwriting. What he discovered was that his attachment to the creative process was part of the problem. “My compulsive creativity is very harmful and definitely doesn’t produce the best results. It’s a painful paradox, but the more you can let go of those compulsive urges to create, the better a creator you’ll become.” He credits his Vipassana practice with bringing a new sensitivity and better lyrics to his songs, qualities he felt he had lost after Pinkerton. But he has an ambivalent relationship with the creative urges that come up during retreats. “It’s getting more intense, actually. The last two courses I had so many creative impulses and was so tempted to indulge them and start developing my ideas. It’s just constant.” During his last course, song topics and hook lyrics kept popping up. “They’re just so juicy and enticing, and I want to dive into it and start working on it, but I have to wait.” At the end of courses, he busily scribbles down everything he can remember.

The song “Pardon Me,” one of the tracks on Make Believe, came to Cuomo during metta meditation. “Sometimes I hurt you so,” the lyrics go, “I know that I can be the meanest person in the world/ So I apologize to you/ And to anyone that I hurt too. . . . Pardon me.” Other lyrics, like those of “We Are All on Drugs,” seem to be about craving as a root of suffering: “We are all on drugs/Never getting enough. . . . I want to reach a higher plane.” In the end, though, the lyrical inspiration is just a fringe benefit. Cuomo’s in it for all the right reasons: “The material is better because you’re down in a deep place. But if you don’t cling to those ideas, then you’ll go to an even deeper place, and so on, and so on, and so on.”


As he put it in a recent blog post: “The purpose of the precepts is to make my mind calmer so that I can meditate better. The purpose of the meditation is to help my singing, songwriting, performing, and just about everything else in my life. See? It all makes sense. :)”


Yeah it does make sense...sensual, sensory, sense.

Rivers' blog

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Oct 22, 2006

We are all jelly donuts

A member posting as marxmarvelous has sent in Tom's famous Jelly Donut speech.

Among the confections favored by sweet-toothed Germans is a jelly-filled pastry called "the berliner." Now, in the German language, articles such as "a," "and," "the," etc. are never placed in front of nationalities or other nouns that designate persons according to their place of origin, although articles, quite naturally, are placed in front of pastries. So, strictly speaking, when President John F. Kennedy intoned on that historic day in 1963, "Ich bin ein Berliner," what he actually said was, "I am a jelly doughnut."

I'm for writing that is willing not merely to record but to transform, writing willing to wrap itself in the chiffon of dream and the goatskin of myth, writing that cannot be intimidated or usurped by any ideology, writing that has the wisdom to admit that much of life is indisputably goofy, and that has the guts to treat that goofiness as seriously as it treats suffering and despair.

I'm for writing that sings in the shower. I'm for writing that shoplifts lingerie at Frederick's of Hollywood, and searches the clear night sky for UFOs. I'm for writing that quivers in your lap like a saucer of jello and runs up your leg like a mouse.

I'm for writing that knocks holes in library walls.

I'm for writing that calls its own number, on a telephone line made from the nose hairs of Buddha.

I'm for writing that shall fear no evil, lo though it walk through the valley of the shadow of lit crit.

I'm for salty writing, itchy writing, steel-belted, nickel-plated writing, that attends the white lilacs after the heat is gone.

I'm for writing that rescues the princess and the dragon.

I'm for writing that runs with the women who run with the wolves.

I'm for writing that glugs out of the deep unconscious like ketchup from a bottle, writing that can get drunk on ketchup as well as on champagne, drunk writing, intoxicated by beauty and ugliness alike —but as scornful of mediocrity as if it were a hairball coughed up by a poisoned cat.

I'm for writing that resembles alchemy. I'm for writing that has an
appetite.

I'm for writing that works all year on its Mardi Gras costume, sewing on feathers and bottle caps with a silver thread; writing that hums the notes that Miles and Dizzy and Thelonius hummed, that combines the motorboat scat that babies sing with that ongoing chirping requiem that some attribute to the central nervous system and others to the angels.

And lastly, I'm for writing that slips into hand-tooled Italian shoes, knots a fine Harvard Cravat about its neck, buttons on a heavy black cashmere and wool topcoat, climbs from a bullet-proof limousine onto a privileged podium in a beleaguered city, and with dignity, and with pride, and with compassion, says to an entire planet that is hanging on to every word, "I am a jelly doughnut."

Tom Robbins

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Oct 19, 2006

Tom's Letter to the Editor

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003311355_thulets19.html?syndication=rss

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Weekly Koan

Weekly Koan:The Shot
[Dick Cheney] "carelessly handling a rifle accidentally shot himself in the head. Now, long as a rifle is, you might shoot yourself in the foot accidentally but in the head? Maybe a ricochet? No, the man was in the middle of an open field. How did he do it?"

Answer next Monday

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Oct 16, 2006

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad

Synchronistically with our discussions of how Robbins' work seems to spark romance between the readers of it and the people they introduce to it, I received an email from a very aptly-named girl. She told me about a band with the same name as the subject line of this post. (amazing coincidence!)

She said, "I met someone this summer who changed my life, leading me on to discovering Tom Robbins in an epiphonic way. I read Villa Incognito (and am on to Jitterbug Perfume, as soon as my needy little hands can reach it)....and have noticed insane relations to my life and my spiritual connection with this person through Robbins' work. " Ah the spark!

She said, the band "draws extreme thinking and mindset influences from Robbins." and "They have a song called "Just Because You're Naked...[doesn't mean you're sexy]" in reference to the song written by Dickie on his guitar....on the last page of Villa Incognito."

Sounds great.

An Article in the Denver Daily News tells more.

Highlight:

This time, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad turned to author Tom Robbins and his book, “Another Roadside Attraction,” for advice. In the book was a traveling circus, the Indo-Tibetan Circus, and traveling with the circus was a band, the Giant Panda Gypsy Blues Band.

“It was a description of the greatest band ever imagined,” said Searl about how Robbins portrayed the band. “I imagined being in that band.”

While Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad sure doesn’t have the luxury of traveling with the Indo-Tibetan Circus, they have found themselves a short school bus to tour the country in and a bunch of psychedelic fun along the way. Each stop in each city is a new experience and a new trip.

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The Purpose of the Moon


I received an email asking about a stage version (possibly amateur) of The Purpose of the Moon by Tom Robbins. Apparently the play was not written by Robbins. Has anyone else heard of this play? I haven't but I'm very curious about it.

Please email Dale at da5e@yahoo.com if you have info. It would be a great find.

The picture with this post is by Dennis Magdich and I found it on the website at The Purpose of the Moon Go there to read the piece.

"Since all things become what we pretend they are, fake happiness is as good as the real stuff." --Tom Robbins

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Oct 15, 2006

Making Love Stay: The Research


You'll be glad to know that science is marching on to help us explore the Aftrlife. The following reseach has actually been funded by the government:

ORNITHOLOGY Ivan R. Schwab and the late Philip R. May received a grant to explore and explain why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

This could explain how they make love stay. And so can you!

More on making love stay research:

MEDICINE: Francis M. Fesmire for his medical case report "Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage”.

Hiccup. What's that sound. No, I do not have the hiccups. Thanks anyway.

If the following one is about Tom then they totally have the wrong guy.

LITERATURE: Daniel Oppenheimer for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly."

They all received the Ig Nobel Prize for their research according to Ken Levine in message his blog

Three out of four scientists surveyed said that Tom Robbins is good for your sex life.

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Oct 14, 2006

Miles of Smiles

Does anyone else wish that html didn't so often switch the text smiley face to a graphical smiley face? The colon/parenthesis is a simple indication of a smile that fits typographicaly into the flow of the text. While the graphic form is a brightly colored shit-eating grin that dominates the whole message. :-)

Imagine how those smiley faces would screw up Tom Robbins' prose.

What do you think about the smiley face? Do you use it on the computer? Anywhere else? Got it tatooed?

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Oct 13, 2006

Granddad's House

...at Tim [Leary's] house ...on any given Sunday the guest list included Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Tom Robbins and Earl Mc Grath. "You never knew who would be there," Brice recalled. "No one had any ego or attitude because Tim was the man. It was like a bunch of cousins getting to know one another. This was granddad's house and we were all cousins and we could hang out. It was congenial and nonthreatening."

From Timothy Leary by Robert Greenfield

There was a copy of Villa Incognito in Johnny Depp's movie, Secret Window. I guess Depp and Robbins were buddies.

What strange places have you spotted Tom's words or books?

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Oct 12, 2006

Mashed Banana Sunlight

I've always loved that description in Another Roadside Attraction. Well here in Southern California we've got the real thing today. Our sunset is golden with light cloud formations that look lit. As a cartoon said of a glorious sunset, "Author Author" Well Tom is author enough for me and his words are always a handy way to enhance my experience of beauty.

Have there been occasions when you've remembered some of Tom's words that have enhanced your passing reality?

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From Robert Greenfield's Timothy Leary

After Tim Leary made an appearance in Seattle...Tom Robbins found himselfdriving down "a long street along the waterfront in Seattle and there wasa reader board outside of Ship's Seafood Restaurant which said, 'Turn on.Tune In and Drop Out with our seafood buffet.'"

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Oct 11, 2006

Socks Win! Socks Win!

Guest Post by Mary Witt

"In 1964, [TR] lived two blocks from Allen Ginsberg in the East Village and, that fall, marched side by side with him in a LEMAR (Legalize Marijuana) demonstration. Robbins then went to hear a lecture by Timothy Leary at Cooper Union. The hall was packed, but Robbins got a seat close enough to see that the color-blind Leary was wearing red socks with his tweed suit. From that point on, Robbins wore red socks for years. (Later he began to wear mismatched socks...as a constant reminder of the 'clarity of vision' that can only come from swimming against the stream." (from "Aquarius Revisited: Seven Who Created the Sixties Counterculture That Changed America" by Peter O. Whitmer with Bruce VanWyngarden) Tom Robbins and Hunter S. Thompson were two of the seven.

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Oct 10, 2006

Tom the Tall Celebrity?

ABC News has an article that lists Tom Robbins as one of our tallest celebrities.

Sitcom star Brad Garrett tops the TV world at 6'9" while
Howard Stern, Tom Robbins, Vince Vaughn and Michael Clarke Duncan stand at 6'5".

To see the actual heights of these famous people, click on the slideshow to
the right and above.
Yeah, this picture is of TIM Robbins. I'd say Tom is just shy of 6 feet.

http://www.nbc10.com/news/10042398/detail.html?rss=phi&psp=news

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Feb 28, 2006

Wolfmother Music

MTV News has an article about an Australian band who got their name from Skinny Legs And All.

The band's name is Wolfmother and appropriately described by MTV as "With their wild Afros, raging guitar riffs, psychedelic lyrics and epic tunes, the Australian threesome are a throwback to the raunch of '60s and '70s rock."

Article at: http://www.mtv.com/news/yhif/wolfmother/?rsspartner=rssYahooNewscrawler

Dale

"This is the room where your music was invented." Tom Robbins

What bands remind you of Tom Robbins' writing?

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Feb 27, 2006

Found Quote

They say that anything worth doing is worth doing badly, so I'm going to blog badly until I figure out how to do it well. Here's a quote I found on one of the quote sites. The Quote Cache: http://quotes.prolix.nu/Motivation/ Pretty good site.

"The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought. "
- Tom Robbins, "Jitterbug Perfume"

What is your favorite Robbins quote?

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