Timothy Leary: Mind Mirror
Topic: the Medium is the Massage

Timothy Leary was eulogized by Hunter S. Thompson as "forgotten, but not gone." Leary was one of those cagey guys who have been jailed, chased from academia and the subject of cruel and heavy-handed smear campaigns, but his legacy just won't go away. From his Leary Interpersonal Grid (1957) (schemata of the basic personality types and how different aspects of one's personality interact) and Transpersonal Diagnoses of Personality (1958) through such works as Neuropolitique and Info-Psychology and beyond Leary's theories offered the individual the powerful opportunity to "map" or "model" their personality ("What am I thinking? Why am I thinking it? What can I do to change the parts that do not serve me?"). .

Leary was as fascinated and excited about the impact that electronic media and technology can have on consciousness in the 70s, 80s and 90s as he was about the possibilities of psychedelics in the 1960s. Mind Mirror is a computer program that he designed to let people discover their personality ("What is really going on up there in my head?").

The manual itself is fascinating, going into a lot of the theory behind the program. The interview with the man himself is priceless.

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The "sounds flat" blues.
Topic: by Lenny
Some middle aged white woman is cackling the "sounds flat" blues over the PA of this once serene cafe. Between lines of "lord have mercy, lord have mercy on me" a middle aged accountant picks out an indecipherable line on his hollow body guitar, each note more improbable -- and more unsonorous -- than the next. These instrumental breaks are highlighted by the arrhythmic twitch of the tambourine, which sounds more like a rattlesnake than a percussive instrument.

They stopped! Announcing a nine minute break. Silence has never sounded so good...

It was then the angel sang his melody.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, "Annunciation To Mary."

The end of history may sound like a good idea, but...
Topic: by Lenny
If the truth can be told so that it is understood it will be believed. What is the truth that we have to believe? History has failed us, so history is coming to an end...
- Terrence Mckenna, RE:EVOLUTION

"yeah..."
- Billy Idol

About ten years ago, the big scary Year 2000 [common era] was looming just over the horizon. Nobody I knew had realized that cyberpunk mouthpiece Mondo 2000 was done publishing. Timothy Leary was as interviewing Billy Idol on network television, my own publishing concerns were being realized with the help of a Commodore Amiga 500 and there seemed to be a very real concern among myself and my friends with ways to make "free" long distance phone calls. I spent most of my time in Edinboro, Pennsylvania and only had friends during the fall, when the university was in session, but I probably would have found the really good drugs if I had befriended some of the local farmer's kids.

On this day ten years ago I almost certainly had the car out at the lake with Damen, playing crappy "rave" compilations on the new dashboard CD player, smoking pot, and killing time before we made our break to the "big city." Damen's mom was some sort of priest in the Church of Scientology and every once in a while Damen would be sent to a camp for a week or two and come back with some very strange ideas. But who was I to judge? I have always had strange ideas and, after all it is the end of history.

There was a tape going around at the time, a song by the Shamen, which featured a spoken word performance by Terrence Mckenna, coauthor of The Archaic Revival. In it he spoke of rave culture, shamanism and the end of history, which he apparently proved mathematicaly with his brother, before it was pointed out that some of the math was wrong.

Anyways, I became a "raver," as it were, mainly because they caused exponentially more trouble than the punk rockers. My friends and I were fascinated by all the new technology: email, internet, CD players, because we sensed that something was coming, something big...

I put the "H" in "ADD"...
Topic: by Lenny
One.The computer is not a machine that manufactures thought (as some naive Artificial Intelligence fans believe) but an electronic micro-mirror which reflects back processed clusters of electronic thought signals. The computer can be programmed to help the individual become a thought-maker, spinning out dozens of new ideas an hour. Computers encourage us to change our thoughts.

I just might have ADD. If, in fact, it exists at all. Some folks see ADD as a "disease" that can be cured with a magick pill (amphetamine sulfate), and some folks don't recognize ADD's existence at all. And if that is your view, you're probably right. It doesn't exist...

In my humble estimation ADD seems to be a constellation of behaviors, some biological, some behavioral, that one may or may not manifest at a particular time. I have read compelling arguments both for and against the very existence of ADD and both for and against specific treatments (the use of amphetamine, for example, is controversial). The more I read about this topic the more I am of the opinion that all these people are defining ADD different ways. But they all want to call it "ADD" (or "ADHD").

For a compelling argument that ADD is a biological disorder (or, rather, that several possible disorders that have been lumped together as ADD) check out Dr. Amen's excellent book Healing ADD. For an equally compelling view of ADD as a behavior that one can adjust to, check out Thom Hartman's Healing ADD.

See what I mean? These people can't agree on what they're comlaining about and they can't even think of an original name for their books!

Two. I simply cannot imagine living before computers.

When composing music I create sound parts (beats, synth patterns, guitar parts and the like) and assemble them, cut and paste style, on the computer screen. It's the only way that really makes sense to me.

If I am reading something, and I really want to digest it I need to outline it in Microsoft Word. It's almost as if I need things to keep one part of my mind occupied while another part handles the data. Or perhaps it is because my mouse hand is tied to my left brain, much as the laryngeal muscles are tied to thought (when humans think, their vocal chords move ever so slightly, so that you are in effect talking to yourself).

I write and compose music (just two examples) much differently than I would without these tools. The idea of cut and paste (whether with literature or with sampling) is completely natural to me.

Infoshop's PICTURE OF THE WEEK
Topic: Picture of the Week

A Belgian nurse, dressed up as a witch, points her finger during a protest in Brussels, October 21, 2004. About 1,500 nurses protested on Thursday for better pay and work conditions. REUTERS/Thierry Roge

Infoshop.org Picture Of The Week archive.

Cassette Tape Evangelism.
Topic: by Lenny
I fell asleep this morning listening to a subliminal hypnosis tape called "Stop Procrastinating... Or Do It Tomorrow." When I awoke at 7:40 AM it was with the violent urge to finish moving, so I loaded the car up got a pile of boxes out of the house.

On my way back I was listening to a tape that I found when I was packing. Apparently in August of 1994 I had a radio show where I played KMFDM. Who knew?

The radio show got unbearable very quickly (probably why I had suppressed the memories) and I put in my new favorite tape, the Dee Dee Ramone "rap" album: "Dee Dee King: In The Spotlight." Down the road I spotted some dude standing at the bus stop wearing a Ramones T-shirt. I stopped the car and gave him the tape... he seemed kind of excited, and not really awake. I bet he is listening to it right now.

This spring I spotted some kid with a Can't Face The Falling sticker on his bumper and gave him a copy of the 5 song CD I was recording for the band (the project is unfinished).

Dude, if you're out there, and you still have the CFTF tape, drop me an email... it was my only copy.

Typhoid Lenny
Topic: by Lenny
The clock above the door of something called "Cuts 2000" at the strip mall read 12:00 PM. I awoke this morning with a violent cough and a metallic taste in my mouth, which underscored the obvious: I still have pneumonia, and it's only getting worse. I don't really have the money for the Route 6 Emergency Walk-In clinic. By the time I take care of the co-pay, the co-pay I still owe for the last visit, $20 for an old bounced check and pay the co-pay for the antibiotics that are helping transform this infection into some sort of superviral contagion, I will be out over a hundred dollars.

I'm sitting in the car eating Taco Bell, being stared down by a beady-eyed pigeon, much larger than any I have ever seen. Someone's mother is in the station wagon parked next to me, eating something and reading a newspaper circular with no apparent self-consciousness.

Is this fiscal responsibility? I save over a hundred dollars by not going to the doctor so I spend five dollars on Taco Bell. I can afford this slight indulgence because I have been living off Tina's microwave burritos (five for a dollar at Stop'N'Shop). I ate shitty burritos so I could afford to go to Taco Bell and buy a burrito... I feel like the guy on death row that ordered "shit on a shingle" for his last meal.

F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-Funky
"My point is very simple. The whole human position is no longer tenable."
-- William S. Burroughs, Cities Of The Red Night.

"I don't have much of an education, living my life like it's my vacation..."
-- Dee Dee Ramone, "Funky Man."

Infoshop's PICTURE OF THE WEEK
Topic: Picture of the Week

A mother comforts her daughter, wearing a Shirt with the slogan 'what will happen to us kids?' during a rally against planned job cuts of General Motors German unit Adam Opel AG in downtown Bochum, October 19, 2004. Embittered General Motors workers and readied protests across Europe on Tuesday against plans by the world's biggest carmaker to chop its staff in the region by nearly a fifth in a bid to halt chronic losses. GM's German unit Adam Opel AG is poised to absorb the brunt of up to 12,000 job cuts over the next two years. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

Infoshop.org Picture Of The Week archive.

[I]f we look at an isolated printed word and repeat it long enough, it ends by assuming an entirely unnatural suspect. Let the reader try this with any word on this page. He will soon begin to wonder if it can possibly be the word he has been using all his life with that meaning. It stares at him from the paper like a glass eye, with no speculation in it. Its body is indeed there, but its soul is fled.

-- William James