The Zoo 4: Stomachs/The Zoo 4 - Stomachs (Disk 2 of 2).adf/Edited_Articles/LearyFar2.ade

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2421Y00F07bookman24Y00C5NTimothy Leary:
2401NThe Far Gone Interview
2401N
1420Y00F06avantg14Y00C3NPart 2 of 2
1401N
2319Y00F05goghb23Y00C4Nby Todd Brendan Fahey
2301N
0919Y00F05prime09Y00C3NContinued from part 1
0906Y00C1N
0901N
0814Y00F05prime08NFahey: Do you run into [Augustus Stanley] Owsley [the Sixties' Robin Hood of
0801NLSD]?
0801N
0801NLeary: I see Owsley every time I go to a Grateful Dead concert.  He's there
0801Nbackstage. He's selling jewelry, which you have to look at through a
0801Nmagnifying glass; incredibly talented miniature, almost molecular jeweler
0801Nnow.
0801N
0801NFahey: His days of production are over, I assume. Long over.
0801N
0801NLeary: [shrugs] None of my business.
0801N
0801NFahey: Where are we in the process of expanding our horizons?  What do you
0801Nsee as the next wave, or the current wave?
0801N
0801NLeary: By "we," I assume you mean the human race; which always means
0801Nindividuals. The use of multimedia electronic software--CDROM discs,
0801Naudiovisual disks--will put into the hands of every Third World kid, every
0801Ninner-city kid in America the ability to boot up, activate, turn on their
0801Nright brain, to reprogram their left brain. The use of electrons for
0801Nbrain-change and for brain-fucking and brain-reprogramming has been perfected
0801Nin the form of the television commercial. And I totally admire a thousand
0801Nyears of the Catholic Church, using jewels, organs, rose windows and that
0801Nsort of stuff to, uhh [pause]. What we're understanding now is that the human
0801Nbrain is a photovore. That means that the human brain lives on light.
0801N
0801NFahey: How so? Explain that to someone having difficulty understanding the
0801Nconcept.
0801N
0801NLeary: Every metaphor approximating the visionary experience is optical:
0801Nillumination, revelation, insight, perspective, reflection.  Right down the
0801Nlist. I'm too senile to remember all of them, but punch "illumination" up
0801Ninto your computer thesaurus, and you'll get [laughs, nods, fades].  Light
0801Nhas always been the statement of the ultimate brain experience: Tibetans
0801Ntalk about the White Light of the Void. Dante's Heaven was total white...the
0801NEgyptian religions, sun.  These are primitive anticipations of what we now
0801Nhave available. The human brain is starved for electronic stimulation; the
0801Nhuman brain is addicted to light. We can't control the sun, but through
0801Ndiamonds and rose windows [interrupted by waitress; Leary orders cup of
0801Ncoffee]
0801N
0801NLeary: ...we're now using electrons to create what's called "virtual
0801Nreality," electronic realities, which mean brain realities of course, because
0801Nfor the brain to use the body to communicate in terms of words--nine muscles
0801Nof your vocal chords to create the words that I am now, or printing presses
0801Nto print out book--is extremely crude, when you consider the human brain can
0801Ndeal with a hundred and fifty million signals a second. We use oral and hand
0801Ntools, mechanical forms of communication, basically for material purposes;
0801Nbut we're now into the concept of direct brain exchange or brain
0801Ncommunication, on screens. I think perhaps as important as LSD is a new
0801Ndevice called the video projector; and what this means is that you have a
0801Nsmall hand-held device that you can plug in a videotape, anywhere you
0801Ngo--which means you can bring one, I can bring one, and on our wall we can
0801Nmix our electronic environments: you can have George Bush giving a speech on
0801Nyour projector, and I can be putting in Madonna taking off her clothes. I'm
0801Nkidding, of course [winks].
0801N
0801NThe video projector is an extraordinary empowerment of the individual.  We
0801Ncan no longer sit in front of the television screen like ameboids, just
0801Nsucking up what they're putting there.  We can now move around and put on the
0801Nwalls what we have stored in our CDROM computers.
0801N
0801NThe empowerment of the individual implied in video projectors, of course, was
0801Nnot understood by the engineers who designed it; but it is thrilling.  And in
0801Nretrospect, you see, it was entirely predictable. Forty years ago, you had to
0801Ngo to a theater to see electrons sprayed on a big screen. Then you had
0801Ntelevision, and you could sit in your livingroom and you could have your own
0801Nlittle screen. Now, with the multiplication of cable and the clicker, you can
0801Nlie in bed and change your screen; now, with wall-sized screens, operating on
0801Na hand-held projector is just the ultimate empowerment of the individual to
0801Ncommunicate brain-to-brain.
0801N
0801NFahey: Do you think psychedelics can be replaced by other experiences, or
0801Nwill there always be a need for an internal ingestion of something to...
0801N
0801NLeary: That's like saying, will fucking be replaced as a form of sperm/egg
0801Ninteraction by sperm banks and egg banks. It's all up to you. [pause] We are
0801Ntold by the ethnobotanists and by the neurologists that there are probably
0801Nseventy or eighty or more receptor sites in the brain for seventy or eighty
0801Ndifferent kinds of drugs, all, by the way, coming from plants.  And we
0801Ndiscovered maybe the twentieth now: the coca leaf, the marijuana leaf, the
0801Npoppy seed, the ergot on rye, which is LSD; but there are at least fifty
0801Nplant products that we are going to be using in the next twenty years, so
0801Ntough shit, Nancy--we've hardly begun this game. [laughter on both sides<].
0801N
0801NFahey: Have you read Ken Kesey's new novel yet?
0801N
0801NLeary: Huh-uh, did you?
0801N
0801NFahey: I've gotten through chapter eight or nine of it. I think it's a
0801Nbrilliant piece of work.
0801N
0801NLeary: Good. I love Ken Kesey. I don't think the novel, just as letters
0801Nmass-produced in printing presses is the real way to communicate now. Anyone
0801Nwho writes a book now, half of it should be a videoed, multimedia book. But I
0801Nadore Ken Kesey, and I'm sure that what he produced, there, is something that
0801Ncould be enjoyed as an archaic form of art, just as Picasso's [pause]; I just
0801Nhonor and adore Ken Kesey. I should also say that Ken Kesey is spending more
0801Nof his time making films than he is writing books.
0801N
0801NFahey: Right now he is? Currently?
0801N
0801NLeary: Oh, for the last five or six years he has. People criticize Ken
0801Nbecause he hasn't been writing books, but I endorse the fact that he's been
0801Ndoing both.
0801N
0801NFahey: So you don't consider his attempt to videotape or tape his whole Bus
0801Nexperience a waste of time, like so many other people did?
0801N
0801NLeary: Well, the literary mafia running out of New York City considers
0801Nanything that substitutes for printed letters on wood pulp, anything less
0801Nthan that is an inferior product. I credit Kesey for doing both. No reason
0801Nwhy you can't do both.
0801N
0801NAlso, I wanted to point out that Ken Kesey taught a course at the University
0801Nof Oregon, in which the computer was basically like a videotelephone, the
0801Nmind-link; and he had a group of student using computers to link their minds
0801Nto write a group book, which was one of the most brilliant uses of computers
0801Never performed. And I honor Ken Kesey for that.
0801N
0801NFahey: Caverns.
0801N
0801NLeary: McLuhan said, 'the medium is the message.' You can argue about how
0801Ngreat that computer book is, as compared to Proust or Hemingway; that's not
0801Nthe issue. The fact that a group did it together--and presumably other people
0801Ncan add to it--is introducing medium. And Kesey will be probably as famous
0801Nfor that as for anything else he did.
0801N
0801NFahey: Even if people don't see it now.
0801N
0801NLeary: Well, nobody ever understands what a pioneer is doing.  And the people
0801Nwho believe in the literal sanctity and holiness of the printed word hate the
0801Nidea that Kesey is having a group of people come together using computers to
0801Nproduce a group thing; the fact that they're literally threatened by being
0801Nput out of business. If they don't oppose you, you're in trouble. So it was
0801Ninevitable that Kesey would not be honored for that. It was a great act of
0801Ncourage on Kesey's part to do that, because he is not basically an
0801Nelectronic, cybernetic person; he's a people person. And he understood,
0801Nintuitively, that the computer could be used as a group party-line telephone:
0801Na mind-phone.
0801N
0801N[Phone call for Dr. Leary interrupts conversation]
0801N
0816Y00C5Y00J1Y01C5N *                 *                *
0811Y00J0Y00C1N
0801N[Leary reenters with KUED television reporter]
0801N
0801NLeary: We're about finished, aren't we?
0801N
0801NFahey: Yeah, we are.
0801N
0801NLeary: [Archly] More wisdom has poured out in the last ten minutes...
0801N[laughs]. It would take a hundred books to reel in what we've gone over,
0801Nhere.
0801N
0801NFahey: Let me ask you one last question.
0801N
0801NLeary: Sure.
0801N
0801NFahey: If you had to do it all over again, is there anything you would do
0801Ndifferently, substantially?
0801N
0801NLeary: Damn right!  I would have fucked more, taken more psychedelic drugs
0801Nand spent more time with my family [laughter all around].
0801N
0811Y00C5Y00J1N *               *               *
0811Y00C1Y00J0N
0801NLeary begins talking about Rolling Stone magazine; Fahey turns tape back on
0801N
0801NLeary: Jann Wenner has an editorial, full page, endorsing Clinton; and the
0801Nlast line of it [fades]. I've known Wenner since he was an eighteen-year old
0801Nkid stringer for Ramparts magazine.  `The day Clinton is elected President
0801Nwill be the greatest moment of our lives.' [hysterical laughter from Leary]
0801N
0801NUnidentified Camera Man: Wennerlogic
0801N
0801NLeary: Yeah, exactly. You know, I personally don't like Jann; nobody likes
0801Nhim. But I've got to admire his insipidity; he's so self-centered and so
0801Nnarcissistic. Jann Wenner is the essence baby-boomer. He was born in January
0801N1946: the first month [bangs fist on table] of the baby boom. He's always
0801Nbeen the leader of it.
*!EOF