Brenton Clutterbuck launches Patreon account

I can't quite bring myself to post his butt logo on this blog, so you'll just have to follow the link, but globetrotting Australian Discordian and Chasing Eris author Brenton Clutterbuck has announced he has launched a Patreon account. If you join and support him, you get a copy of his book and other productions. (He is using "Cluttered Butts" as the account name, rather than his name, so that's what you should search for at Patreon.com if you mislay the link. Australian marketing is interesting). Details here. 

Review: 'Chasing Eris'

Despite some minor flaws, Chasing Eris by Brenton Clutterbuck is a really good book, and everyone reading this blog should hunt up a copy and read it.

Brenton, an Australian, discovers Discordianism and embarks on a globe-spanning Discordian Odyssey to "find the others." He meets an impressive cast of characters. Many of them were new to me, but the people he interviews or listens to also include Adam Gorightly, Robert Newport, Louise Lacey and John Higgs.

Many of his anecdotes are funny, or amazing, or both. He attends PantheaCon and the person he has arranged to interview hasn't arrived yet, "so I wander along to to a talk on Erotic Breathwork and within minutes am grabbing my crotch and touching the chest of a woman I've never met before."

One of the more interesting people he talks to is St. Mae, aka Autumn Tyr-Salvia. One passage describes how she and her friends decided to hold a "generic protest."

"So we had signs that said YES and signs that said NO and signs that said JUST HERE TO MEET GIRLS. Johnny Brainwash being an old veteran protester had a few fantastic slogans, 'A slogan! Repeated! Will never be defeated!' ... " (St. Mae's www.discordian.com site mentioned in the book seems to be dead; has it moved?)

Much of the humor about the Discordian scene comes from Brenton's insider knowledge. A passage describes how a British newspaper column by David Holbrook, "Let Us Stop Being Polite About Pornography," condemned a performance of the stage version of Illuminatus! Holbrook did not refer to the play by name. Clutterbuck writes, "In case there is any doubt Holbrook was referring to the Illuminatus! play, the depiction he gives of the unnamed director coming onto stage and yelling, 'if more of you f-ing people would come to this f-king play we might be able to make enough money to put on more like it,' seems to be unambiguously Ken Campbell."

I was very impressed by Brenton's hard work. He starts his investigation of Discordianism by traveling in Australia. He then goes to the U.S., visiting folks in California, Portland, Austin, Houston, Nashville and Atlanta. He goes to Brazil and Argentina, then visits Europe for stops in the United Kingdom, Finland, Poland and Germany. He also obviously spent a great deal of time in other research, including reading online Discordian sites and reading documents provided to him from many sources.

The only criticism I can offer is that because the book is self published, it does have quite a few errors, and could stand some copyediting. None of these errors are fatal, but there are proper names that are wrong, other spelling errors, grammar errors and unclear geographical references, such as a chapter in Nashville that seems to largely take place in Atlanta, and a chapter where it's hard to decide at times if Louise Lacey is in Chicago or San Francisco. Perhaps Brenton could enlist his friends to help him find and stamp out these bugs, such as correcting the spelling of Hilaritas Press and Santa Ana, California.

There are a great many anecdotes about Robert Anton Wilson in the book, and anyone interested in the topics covered by this blog surely would enjoy it. The book includes a forward by John Higgs that makes a kind reference to this blog, and an "Afterfnord" by Professor Cramulus, aka Dan Comstock.

A couple of other reviews: Cat Vincent's review. Also, a review on Goodreads by Alden Loveshade.  

Buy the book here.  It works fine as an ebook, which I bought because it is cheaper; I read it on the Nook app on my phone.

Brenton Clutterbuck news update

Brenton Clutterbuck, author of Chasing Eris, has released a free new mini ebook, United We Fnord: More Discordian Stories from the UK and Ireland that's a supplement to Chasing Eris. It won't be around forever.  Brenton explains,

When Cat Vincent was kind enough to write a review for my book Chasing Eris, he said one thing that stood out to me; my UK chapters focussed on history and were notably lacking in the kind of in-depth description of the people and scenes that are the lifeblood of other chapters.

While it was very neat to wrap up some of the more historical elements of Discordianism in quick succession by following the KLF from England to Scotland, and dealing with Robert Anton Wilson just outside of the UK, in Ireland, I always felt a little bad for not including more of the more personal interviews I completed while in the United Kingdom. So, here’s a short collection of the UK stories published previously in blogs, magazines or not at all.

More news: Chasing Eris has become more widely available. Originally only offered through Lulu.com in a paper edition and also as an ebook (ePub format), it's also now available from Barnes and Noble, from Apple iTunes and from Amazon (but no Kindle, and not if you live in the U.S.). There's also a Barnes and Noble ebook. 

'Chasing Eris' now an ebook

Brenton Clutterbuck's Chasing Eris, about his encounters with Discordians around the world, is now available as an ebook. I just bought my copy. It's in the Epub format, which can be read by a variety of apps on your phone, tablet, computer, etc. Access to the paperback version on Lulu has been taken down for a few days so Brenton can fix a couple of mistakes, but it will return soon. Don't forget that the book includes an introduction by John Higgs.

Brenton has composed a poem to celebrate publication of the ebook:

Chasing Eris is now live in Zeroes and Ones

You can fnord in the morning
You can fnord in the night
You can fnord when you want to fnord

You can fnord in the morning
You can fnord in the night
You can fnord on the Internet

Yes you can fnord on the Internet
Don't forget you can get
Without sadness or regret
Without getting all upset
Or pissing off your favourite pet
Or shooting down a fighter jet
Or stealing precious amulets
There's ERIS ON THE INTERNET

A few questions for Brenton Clutterbuck

Brenton Clutterbuck

Brenton Clutterbuck's Chasing Eris describes  his journey around the world to meet other Discordians. The book features a foreword by John Higgs and an afterword by Professor Cramulus.

Buy it here.

A few questions for Brenton:

RAWIllumination.net: You wrote in "Chasing Eris" about your journey to connect with Discordians around the world. How far did you travel? Did you journey start in Australia?

Brenton Clutterbuck: I did start in Australia - I was living out in the middle of nowhere when I started the work, but I had friends and family in Brisbane, where Dr Jon Swabey resides. He was responsible for the Apocrypha Discordia which I kind of think is a really nice place to point to as the turning point from 'traditional' Discordianism to 'contemporary' Discordianism, in terms of texts. The journey went Brisbane - USA - Brazil - Argentina - Back to Aus - England - Scotland - Ireland - Finland - Poland - Germany - The Netherlands - Home.

RAWIllumination.net: How did you get the idea to "chase Eris"? Was it hard to explain what you were doing to your friends and family, or did they understand?

Brenton Clutterbuck: It was a bit of a challenge to explain to friends and family, but 'it's a writing project' tended to suffice. I do have a knack for helping someone understand what Discordianism is in 20 seconds of less after quite a bit of practice. The idea came from a real mix of things.
- I was lost in what I was doing at the time and needed to do something dramatically different so I didn't go mad.
- I had read some Seth Godin and was really into the idea that finding an exciting niche was an excellent approach to making something exciting the people want.
- I was also really into Art of Memetics, and it has the idea that you could make an Egregore out of a group of people who shared an experience - and thought that visiting people could be that experience.
- I wanted to travel.
There were probably other reasons that came and went over time, but these were the ones that led me to START the process, and from there the process kind of felt like it wanted to do its own thing.

Brenton Clutterbuck with his Chihuahua friend, Tiny Tim. 

RAWIllumination.net: Having seen the (Discordian) world, where do you live now? Are you back in Australia? 

Brenton Clutterbuck: I am back in Australia, in Far North Queensland, where I teach English and Japanese. It's a bit of a less frantic pace here. After the big trip I was wanting to put down roots to build something longer term - my partner and I here host regular events, including a poetry based open mic for a few years.

RAWIllumination.net: Meeting all of these Discordians, who was the person who seemed, at least at first, to be the most "normal"? 

Brenton Clutterbuck: I have no calibration for normal any more. Everyone I meet, especially the 'normal people' seem deeply weird. I met people into aliens and Illuminati theory, low key running cults, practicing Magick, but aren't most cultural practices as least AS weird as any of that?

Another reason to buy Brenton Clutterbuck's book

John Higgs clutches Brenton Clutterbuck's new book. 

If you buy it, you get to read John Higgs' foreward! John Tweets, "Postman brings a long, long awaited copy of Brenton Clutterbuck's Chasing Eris, a global Discordian social study which I wrote a foreword for."

Buy the book here. 

Speaking of John Higgs, he's about to put out another email newletter, so hurry up and sign up here. 

More here soon about Brenton's book. 

Chasing Eris, around the world

An Australian guy named Brenton Clutterbuck is traveling around the world to meet with Discordians and to document his trip in a book. Bobby Campbell created a picture to support  his effort.

Follow him on Facebook. He also is on Twitter.

I've posted his video from the place where the KLF burned a million pounds.

You can also visit his fundraising page and read this interview with him.