birthday present." He wouldn't

My Best Birthday Present - Timothy Leary My Best Birthday Present I haven't celebratedmy birthday in decades. Sure, when you're a kid it's exciting to add ayear to your age, have your parents gather your friends, blow out the candles,and get presents, but today I turn 49 and the last thing on earth I feellike doing is celebrating, much less blowing out a fire. Nothing very specialabout November 10th other than it is the day that Stanley found Livingston.Okay, I wouldn't mind a present or two, but that's more a matter of actuallyneeding stuff than thinking I deserve any sort of reward just for havingsurvived another year. I've always felt it was a wee bit egomaniacal tothrow yourself a big birthday party. Nothing wrong with celebrating others,but when it comes to celebrating yourself, it shouldn't be in public. Fifteen years ago todayit was also my birthday and, as normal, I was doing what I always do, whatI still do, what I'm doing right now, writing at my computer, with absolutelyno plans for the day. When you don't have a plan, there's nothing to deviatefrom. You can do whatever you want without fear of failure because howcan you fail when you don't have any goal in mind? Whatever happens, happens,and it's good or bad on its own terms. The higher you get your hopes up,the further you have to fall, so I never count on anything. If somethingbad happens, too bad. If something good happens, it's a gift. There was a knock atthe door. I opened it and there was Timothy Leary who said "Hi, I'm yourbirthday present." He wouldn't explain how or why this came to be, or whoin particular was bestowing him upon me. He was simply there, and he wouldhang out for at least an hour. All he would tell me was that he was toldI was someone he should meet. Whenever you meet someonefamous in a personal situation, it's hard to know how to behave, particularlyif they're enormous media stars. After all, you've spent hours gazing atthem, thinking about them, perhaps days or weeks staring at their image.Imagine the hundreds of hours you've spent with certain stars broadcastregularly into your living room. They feel like a friend, like you actuallyknow them. They're not and you don't, but it's a hard feeling to shakewhen they're standing right in front of you, coming into your house, sittingon your sofa, checking the place out while waiting for you to bring thema drink. No matter how many memories you have of them, they have none ofyou. To them, you are a total stranger. Treat them like a fan would andyou risk becoming part of their teeming crowd of lookie loos. Treat themlike you don't know who they are and they could get insulted. No way tomake a friend. Friendships deserve an even playing field, so it's hardto think of yourself as the friend of a celebrity until they know as muchabout you as you know about them. Which is why celebrities are SO interestedwhen you interrupt them somewhere in public and tell them about your uncleSid's gall bladder operation. I wanted to be friendswith Timothy Leary so he had a hell of a lot of catching up to do becausehe knew nothing about me and I knew a lot about him, or at least I thoughtI did. I shifted into show-and-tell mode, whipping out a book of Polaroidsfor him to peruse. He enjoyed my madness immensely and I proceeded to tellhim something I'm sure he heard a million times. My life was profoundlychanged by his research into psychedelia, combined with reading Tom Wolfe's"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," the Beatles, and meeting a guy namedMario in 1970 who claimed to be the husband of the actual Alice that ArloGuthrie sang about but who supported his acting habit by selling acid atLee Strasberg's studio where I happened to be studying at the time. But I digress. Thefirst and foremost influence that Timothy Leary had upon me was my art,which simply didn't exist. Before my first acid trip, I wasn't an artist.I had never played guitar, had certainly never created any impressionism,and hadn't written a single word other than school assignments. Maybe Iwould have discovered these talents on my own, but if my Polaroids remindyou of acid flashbacks, welcome to the club. On acid, what I do to my Polaroids,you can do to reality. Move it around a little. Make big things look small,small things look big, marvel at the infinite depths you're capable ofperceiving, as though reality were a 3D comic book and for the first timeyou were looking at it with the red-and-blue glasses. Pre-acid, I was onlyinterested in being an actor, moving to New York to study with Lee Strasberg,and getting in a Broadway play. On acid, I actually attempted to give aperformance from Spoon River Anthology in front of the man himself, a performancehe declared "interesting," a performance that convinced me that actingwas a very strange profession. While personally communicating with theinfinite miracles of the universe, I had a very hard time convincing myselfthat the most important thing I could be doing was pretending to be a fictionalcharacter while reciting dialogue written by a writer I'd never met. Post-acidI walked home from the Village to my boarding house at 39th and Park, pickedup my roommate's guitar and started playing. It wasn't long before I wasa better guitar player than actor, and I ended up composing music for severaloff-Broadway shows. Way off Broadway. The Company Theater at La Cienegaand Pico in Los Angeles to be precise. Other acid trips wereless eventful and I stopped taking it, but not before playing with my firstSX-70 Polaroid camera and discovering I didn't need acid to change realityto my own specifications. We talked and talked.He wasn't a drug addled guru and I wasn't an acid burnout. He was extremelyintelligent. My vision of Leary had been fogged by his media image, andI had forgotten that he was a Harvard professor. Luckily, some others forgottoo and that's how he escaped from prison. The most amazing story he toldme was this one... When he was bustedby the Feds for possession of one single joint of pot and sentenced to20 years in a Federal penitentiary, the prison officials did what theyalways did with new prisoners, they gave him a psychological test to determinewhether he would go to a minimum or maximum security prison. He passedthe test with flying colors and was sent to minimum security where he promptlyescaped. What the officials didn't know was that Leary himself wrote thepsychological test for the Federal prison system when still at Harvard,so he knew exactly what answers to give. After a couple hours,my birthday present had to leave, but in his new life as Hollywood gadflyI kept running into him over the years at video shows and art galleries.I'm glad he lived long enough to experience the Internet, and if you haven'tseen his site, it's still up at http://leary.com/ and well worth a peek. Excuse me, there'sthe door. Emulsional Problems

Gift Ideas, Unique Baby

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Birthday present I got

Relevant History: Birthday present -- Relevant History "I link, therefore I am." (William Mitchell, Me++) My Online Status AIM: askpang About Me I'm a research director at the Institute for the Future , a think tank in Silicon Valley, and a Senior Research Scholar in the Science Technology and Society Program at Stanford University . I started life as an historian of Victorian science; my first book, Empire and the Sun: Victorian Solar Eclipse Expeditions , was published by Stanford University Press in 2002. Being an historian and a futurist might seem contradictory, but they're not. Both use the same intellectual instruments , just pointed in different directions. In addition to this site, I'm the lead blogger on Future Now , the Institute for the Future's blog on emerging technologies and their social and cultural implications. search [Searches with Google] I'm Blogging This! Recent Comments Ken on Yeek! Ken on Easy as riding a bicycle? Ken on New favorite playlist Ken on Discussion board spam? Bob on Trying to add search Alex Soojung-Kim Pang on The mysteries of fashion Horace Jeffery Hodges on The mysteries of fashion Alex Soojung-Kim Pang on Unintended consequences of technology on Super Nanny on Super Nanny September 2005 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Recent Posts I thought typos in student papers were bad Discussion board spam? The day just got a little better The kind of thing that you know is significant, but... Fun with signs Quote of the day New favorite playlist Editorial genius The mysteries of fashion How time flies Archives September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 Categories Best of blog Books Culture / Society Current Affairs Domebook Emergence Fieldwork Film Future Gadgets History of science / STS Information revolutions Music My so-called life Noise Parenting Peninsula School Postacademic Science Travel Weblogs Web/Tech Work Zoom Colophon Powered by: Best blog editor: Flickr tool: Where is this? « In Colorado | Main | First Class » September 05, 2004 Birthday present I got a new digital camera for my birthday (which technically is Wednesday): a Sony 4 megapixel, which thanks to it being new makes it about 100 times better than the one I got for my birthday three years ago. I love it. I'd call it my new child, but I wouldn't know whether to name it Madison or Conor, which is the law now. September 05, 2004 at 05:08 PM in My so-called life | Permalink TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1092428 Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Birthday present : Comments Post a comment Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this weblog until the author has approved them. If you have a TypeKey or TypePad account, please Sign In You are currently signed in as (nobody) . Sign Out Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? Comments: The Outside World! Cafe Barrone, 2004 My Flickr www. flick r .com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from askpang . Make your own badge here . Recently on Future Now Recently on del.icio.us Blogdex Other blogs of mine Elizabeth and Daniel [access restricted] [Managed with Blogrolling ] Academics / Postacademics Interesting People Digital culture Design Pervasive computing Distraction Other links Technorati Shameless Self-Promotion /lists?__mode=quickpost&is_qp=1&type=1&qp_href= Like what you read? Here, I mean, not somewhere else. Yes? Yes, right? Then add me to your TypePad People list. I haven't actually read up on what this feature is, but it sounds kind of social software-ish, so it must be good, right? index.rdf"Of course, you can also syndicate this site (XML). Today's Terror Alert Level Powered by TypePad Member since 12/2003

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Housewarming Gifts Articles Special

Unique Housewarming Gifts - Gifts BW gifts | gifts Resources | Add URL Wine Gifts & Baskets From the casual wine drinker to the serious enthusiast, we have a gift that will make them smile. Our selection includes premium wine, gourmet baskets, distinctive champagne sets & the very finest California and Northwest wines. Unique Housewarming Gifts Articles Special Holiday Ideas for Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Mothers Day, July Fourth, and Valentines Celebrate holidays with the ideas and tips on these pages. You'll find fun holiday projects, centerpieces, tablesettings, decorating ideas and more for Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Mothers Day, July Fourth, and Valentines....( Continue Reading ) Arizona Note Cards - Northrop Enterprises A product review of Northrop Enterprises note cards and stationery....( Continue Reading ) Gift Shopping Sources Online Here are just a few of our favorite online sources for gifts for weddings, birthdays, and special days!...( Continue Reading ) Custom Birdhouses Built to Look Like Your Home What a fantastic idea! New England Birdhouse custom builds birdhouses to look like your home--or any home or other structure. What a wonderful housewarming gift for yourself, a friend or a client....( Continue Reading ) Housewarming Gift Ideas Moving into a new home is a time that's full of possibilies, and we often share in the excitement by taking a housewarming gift to the new homeowners. But what should you give? Here are our favorite, and not so favorite gift ideas for housewarmings....( Continue Reading ) Unique Housewarming Gifts Directory Links unusual valentines gifts graduation gifts male wedding gifts by year ideas for graduation gifts gifts for toddlers guy birthday gifts gifts to us gifts for girlfriends graduation gifts for parents stein garden and gifts what are the gifts of the holy spirit groomsman gifts educational gifts for children hindu wedding gifts personalized office gifts business corporate gifts baby christening gifts discovering spiritual gifts best gifts for him personalized childrens gifts gift baskets in california personalized dog gifts golf outing gifts wedding aniversity gifts gift baskets flowers india online gifts personalized mothers day gifts waste baskets gift baskets delivered over the hill gag gifts ideas for gift baskets disney gift baskets christmas gifts for teenagers gifts for baby gifts for kids golf gifts and gallery 7th anniversary gifts chinese baby gifts all american gifts buy gifts online sorority gifts quick christmas gifts personalized wedding gifts baskets online gift baskets michigan Popular Search Terms: Gifts BW © 2004 Gifts BW All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All Rights Reserved. This site is not related to Brajeshwar or Brajeshwar.com in anyway, shape or form