Happy Birthday Tim!

This blog has become a slight monoculture for a while - perhaps people have courses to attend.

Anyway, I received the 'positive' version of Tim Leary's adventures a couple of days ago, and then found that the author has joined our forum so seems available for chat about it! Excellent!

I had time to read some more today, only to realise that I had started reading it on Tim's birthday! Haha! Synch!

So the links on the right to I Have America Surrounded will take you to the relevant website and blog.

If you wonder why I specified this as a 'fair' or 'postive' biog, I gather the other one out has less sympathy for this complex man. I haven't read it, so I can't say if it appears judgemental, or simply puritanically shocked, or whatever - or even a calculated character assassination. You can go find it, if curious. Robert Greenfield's Leary biog on Amazon. According to one reviewer the last words may hint at what I said: "Those who love Timothy Leary will hate your book. And those who hated him will never read it".

I have to say that I find John Higgs' book entirely fascinating. I knew quite a lot, in fragments, but he puts the jigsaw together into a coherent whole - filling in quite a few gaps in my knowledge - and successfully evoking that critical period in modern history.

From Paul Krassner's blog:

"There is one thing people should know about Tim Leary," says British writer John Higgs. "He was fucking funny!" Shortly before his death, Leary was asked about Richard Nixon calling him "the most dangerous man in America." "It's true," Leary replied. "I have America surrounded." Which is why Higgs titled...


Oh, and I managed to get a signed copy of Brian Barritt's out-of-print book "The Road of Excess" from his private stash - Be Quick!