Timothy Leary’s archives: Bridge from ’60s to ’90s – By Daniel Terdiman for CNET.
There’s also a lovely photo gallery included in the piece. (Thanks, Daniel!)
Here’s a little excerpt:
“Leary, as you probably know, was famous for his decades of experimental research into and promotion of the effects of hallucinogens, and over the years became as well known as many of the celebrity artists, writers, thinkers, and performers he hung out with.
Artist: Michael Green
Less well known, however, is that Leary, who died in 1996 of prostate cancer, became a serious techie in his later years. He put up a very early Web site, co-produced a late-’80s video game for Electronic Arts, worked on a series of the latest and greatest computers, and, it is said, updated his era-defining catchphrase for the digital age to reflect a newfound belief that computers were the LSD of the ’90s: “Turn on, boot up, and jack in.”
Today, addiction to technology is probably even more prevalent than devotion to drugs was in the ’60s, and most people probably can’t even imagine what the physical archives of someone like Leary would look like. After all, isn’t everything digitized and online these days?
On Thursday, however, I had the chance to spend some time with a small piece of Leary’s 400-carton-large archives–which is housed in a storage facility here–and I was in danger of getting seriously sucked in. In box after box, I found a true treasure trove of letters, photographs, posters and yes, computer equipment and discs.”
Read the entire article on CNET.
Timothy Leary became a fan of the personal computer, and used them until his death in 1996. This is the famous psychedelic researcher's Macintosh LC III. (Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)
