American novelist Tom Robbins died this week at the tender age of 92.

I discovered the works of this brilliant man in the early phase of middle age, when we look around and question what we have and where we are going. I felt blessed to have Tom’s voice in my ear, sharing his joyful, absurd, and yet deeply solid philosophical view on the questions I was (and still am) wrestling with.

Below I share notes from two of my favorite Robbins novels. Page number in parentheses.

Skinny Legs and All was published in 1990. It talks about the “seven veils” of society – the big issues we all deceive ourselves about and the challenges and joy we can experience by lifting those veils, or at least acknowledging them and the hypocrisy they protect. Of course, Robbins reveals these insights through glorious characters: The newlywed artists Ellen Cherry Charles and Randolph "Boomer" and their journey across America and geopolitics. Along the way Robbins evokes tears, joy and nausea as he portrays the full spectrum of humanity: outmoded gender and cultural roles and rituals, insecurity, lust, guilt, indulgence, gluttony, occultism, war, violence, hypocrisy, greed, psychosis and love.

Tom Robbins: Skinny Legs and All

(The Dance of the Seven Veils, as performed by Salome before King Herod, in *the painting by*Armand Point, 1898, wikipedia)

The messiah will come when he is no longer needed. Franz Kafka

—The First Veil: conceals the repression of the Goddess; masks the sexual face of the planet, drapes the ancient foundation stone of erotic terror that props up modern man’s religion. (46) (JL: see ref: church celibacy, etc)

—“Imprecise speech is one of the major causes of mental illness in human beings.” Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All (63)

—Slang just makes people more stupid, that’s all, and stupidity eventually makes them crazy.

—Regarding the Middle East: Was it simply a desperate and at times violent clinging to narrow, rigid belief systems that had brought so much suffering to the region? (75)

—The Second Veil: Is it not time that inanimate objects—and plants and animals—resume their rightful place in the affairs of the world? How long can humankind continue to slight these integral pieces of the whole reality? (77) Humanity was a function of nature. It could not, therefore, live separately from nature. It could not live in opposition to nature-a schizophrenic crime. It could not blind itself to the wonders of nature (404)

—On her small canvas she recreated a section of the Crazy Mountains, the range near Livingston that they had admired earlier that day. That is to say she recreated the mountains not as she had originally seen them, but as she eventually chose to see them, for a person has not only perceptions but a will to perceive, not only a capacity to observe the world but a capacity to alter his or her observation of it…which, in the end, is the capacity to alter the world itself. Those people who recognize that imagination is reality’s master, we call “sages,” and those who act upon it, we call “artists.”(91)

—As long as you are not afraid, nobody can run your life for you. Hell is being scared of things. Heaven is refusing to scared. (JL: see ref. 1984)

—The Third Veil: permits political expediencies (usually transitory, often stupid, regularly corrupt) to masquerade as timeless universal expressions of freedom, virtue and good sense. (119) Humanity’s problems are primarily philosophical….until they are solved, the political problems would have to be solved over and over again. “Vicious circle” describes the ephemeral effectiveness of almost all political activity. For the ethical, political activism was seductive because it seemed to offer the possibility that one could improve society, make things better, without going through the personal ordeal of rearranging one’s perceptions and transforming one’s self. For the unconscionable, political activism was seductive because it seemed to protect one’s holdings and legitimize one’s greed. Of course, as long as there were willing followers, there would be exploitive leaders. And there would be willing followers until humanity reached that philosophical plateau where it recognized that its great mission in life had nothing to do with any struggle between classes, races, nations or ideologies, but was rather a personal quest to enlarge the soul, liberate the spirit and light up the brain. (405)

—Jerusalem: the most holy and spooky place in the world.

—The Fourth Veil: Religion. It is a paramount contributor to human misery. It is not merely the opium of the masses; it is the cyanide. (167) Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is that mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism we destroy its essence. …not only is (religion) divisive and oppressive, it is also a denial of all that is divine in people; it is a suffocation of the soul. Religion attempted to reduce the divine to a knowable quantity with which mortals might efficiently deal, to pigeonhole it once and for all so that we never had to reevaluate it. (407)

—“Soul” is hot and heavy. “Spirit” is cool, abstract, detached. Soul is connected to the earth and its waters. Spirit is connected to the sky and its gasses. (168)

—One tended to lose one’s bearings in the presence of willful and persistent acts of craziness, and the more gentle the act, the crazier it seemed…as if rage and violence, being closer to the norm, were easier to accommodate. (195) (JL: referring to a scene in which children tease an autistic peer, Turn Around Norman)

—People tend to take everything too seriously. Especially themselves. That’s probably what makes them scared and hurt so much of the time. Life is too serious to take that seriously. (204)

—Anthropologists call it territorial imperative (baboon bravado dance); politicians call it national interest. (220) (JL: why does it seem modern politicians have to wear flag pins on their lapels? Perhaps they need to be reminded who they are serving?!)

—The Fifth Veil: Money. Almost from its inception it had perplexed and befuddled those in whose lives it appeared, and although modern people were used to it…they were no closer to understanding it than they had been at the beginning. It clouds vision like a … veil. (230) The loony legacy of money was that the arithmetic by which things were measured had become more valuable than the things themselves. (408)

—“Can a woman who does not know the contents of her handbag know the contents of her heart?” (279)

—The Sixth Veil: belief in an afterlife. Nobody knows if there is one, except the dead. And they aren’t talking. As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled. People will put up with all sorts of tyranny, poverty and painful treatment if they’re convinced they’ll eventually escape to some resort in the sky. (305) A world leader who is convinced that life is merely a trial for the more valuable and authentic afterlife is less hesitant to risk starting a nuclear holocaust. To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on heaven is to create hell. The 6th veil conceals not a blank clock, but a relieved expression on our own faces as we meet ourselves coming from the opposite direction, free to enjoy the present at last because we are no longer fettered by the future that is history.

*(The men with the nuclear “football".” Reuters)*

—Regarding the passionate romance between the younger Ellen and the older Spike: Spike Cohen was good at comforting her. Spike Cohen was good, in general. No starry-eyed old fool, he hadn’t lost his head, begged her to marry him, been jealous of every younger man who crossed their path, or showered her with expensive gifts. Maybe he wasn’t Tarzan in bed, but he wasn’t Cheetah, either. Any lack of athletic torque or acrobatic flex was compensated for by his tenderness, sensitivity and attentiveness. (327)

—Regarding New York City artists: Every other person on the street was a failed consort of one muse or another. One met them everywhere. The would-be guitarist who just couldn’t find the time to practice; the would-be novelist who developed an allergy to solitude…the would-be poet who found it easier to get drunk on booze than on language. (360)

—Flushed with the ruddy concerns of their (male) gender: possession, profit and conquest. (401)

—PUDENDUM

—What about Judgement day? EVERY day is judgement day. Always has been, always will be. Anything else? Yes…the dead are laughing at us. (410)

—The Seventh Veil: that you can get someone else to do it for you….. the priest, rabbi, imam, swami, philosophical novelist…were traffic traffic cops, at best. They might direct you through a busy intersection, but they wouldn’t follow you home and park your car… Each and every single individual had to establish his or own special, personal particular, unique…hands on relationship with reality, with the universe, with the divine. It might be complicated, it might be a pain in the ass, it might be, most of all, lonely...but it was the bottom line. It was as different for everybody as it was the same, so everybody had to take control of their own life, define their own death, and construct their own salvation. And when you finished, you didn’t call the Messiah. He’d call you. (413)

…Bonus! A few choice words from…

Jitterbug Perfume, by Tom Robbins

The story’s heroes: Alobar & Kudra (millennial time travelling lovers); Dr. Danny Boy (aka Tim Leary)

—Pointing out that their breathing, bathing, dining and screwing brought Alobar and Kudra much physical pleasure, and that an organism steeped in pleasure is an organism disposed to continue, he has said that the will to live cannot be overestimated as a stimulant to longevity. Indeed, Dr Dannyboy goes so far as to claim that ninety percent of all deaths are suicides. Persons, say Wiggs, who lack curiosity about life, who find minimal joy in existence, are all too willing, subconsciously, to cooperate with—and attract- disease, accident, and violence. (197)

—Alobar: “Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others could find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future, he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he’d grown convinced that play—more than piety, more than charity or vigilance –was what allowed human beings to transcend evil. (322)

(Justin aka "Humanitarian Clown Zhorik" PLAYING with his fish-phone while greeting incoming international clowns at Sheremetyevo airport)

—The most intense spiritual experiences all seem to involve the suspension of time. It is the feeling of being outside of time, of being timeless, that is the source of ecstasy in meditation, chanting, hypnosis, and psychedelic drug experiences. Although it is briefer and less lucid, a timeless, egoless state (the ego exists in time, not space) is achieved in sexual orgasm, which is precisely why orgasm feels so good.

—Even drunks, in their crude, inadequate way, are searching for the timeless time. Alcoholism is an imperfect spiritual longing.

—When you're unhappy, you get to pay a lot of attention to yourself. And you get to take yourself oh so very seriously. Your truly happy people, which is to say, your people who truly like themselves, they don't think about themselves very much. Your unhappy person resents it when you try to cheer him up, because that means he has to stop dwellin' on himself and start payin' attention to the universe. Unhappiness is the ultimate form of self-indulgence.

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“Here’s to you, Mr. Robbins!” …an ode to the late author

February 11, 2025Justin Lifflander