"In his writings one could sense the distant drums of the past blending into the urban noises of the present. He could move unchanging through time; a block of wisdom for the ages." His Holiness the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet.
No matter how much time I spent with Walt, it was never enough. Although he refused to be photographed and in his later years rarely left his home, he lives on in our memories as a man about town, a raconteur, a true wit who said as much with silence as others did with impassioned speeches.
Because his works have been banned in almost every country, it can be difficult for the average person to enjoy the sparks and gunpowder of his incendiary writing style. His words carried power, as several dictators learned before their downfall at the hands of the people. He armed the people not only with words, but with actual diagrams of machine guns, rifles, bombs and mortars, all of which could be made with easily found parts.
When I first met him in our early years when we both worked for organizations that must still remain unnamed, we were not on the best of terms, but at least we walked away with our lives and fairly minor injuries. After the world changed and we became colleagues, we spent some good times in bars around the world trading stories. It was during those times he revealed his desire to get down on paper some of his most important thoughts. Did he seek fame and fortune? No! His foremost desire was to make sure his legacy of ultraviolence to help everyday people would live on.
In his profession he burrowed into the secrets of almost every aspect of life, and that dedication shines through in his works. Among my favorites are Anything Can Be A Bomb: 31 Steps to Oblivion; the four-volume set The Illustrated History of Accounting; and the obscure monograph Hidden Secrets of Dodecahedrons.But for some of the more scandalous materials in those works and others, they all might still be in print today.
Long ago I decided that a dedication like this should either fill a single page or span volumes. For various reasons my time on this globe is short, so this single page must suffice. Although his grave is unmarked and the true location of his remains is known to only a few, his words and wisdom still fill the hidden spaces in this world that few will ever find. If on a dark night when you’re near the water and a crescent moon shimmers overhead, listen carefully with your soul at ease, and you just might hear Walt whispering words of guidance traveling through the moonlit breeze.