Have been wondering since yesterday why they never made a movie out of the life story of Timothy Leary. Born into a catholic family 1920, he dropped out of catholic university (being too obstinate), joining a military academy only to be be punished with 9 months silent treatment (he was not even allowed to speak himself) for smuggling liquor, but in the end he majored in psychology. First I heard of him was Leary's 'rose' (http://www.2reflect.nl/roosvanleary.htm), a very useful methodology to understand interpersonal communication. His first wife (out of 5) committed suicide, Leary got into consciousness altering drugs (mostly LSD) which he used successfully on schizophrenics. For Leary LSD was “one of the best and healthiest tools available for the examination of the consciousness”.
But his subject was controversial, the man was stubborn and Harvard University fired him. After living in a commune for a few years he got arrested in a set-up by the Mexican border in 1965 for carrying two joints and was sentenced to 10 years and a fine in 1969.. He escaped in 1970, probably (without him knowing) with help from a terrorist group called the Weathermen. But before he went to prison he was the one calling out to the world 'turn on, tune in, drop out', propagating LSD as a tool to better yourself and the world and living in a tepee (indian tent), playing guru to all hippies. After his escape from prison he traveled through Europe and Algeria, before being caught and serving three years of his sentence. In the Eighties he even darted into stand-up comedy, cyberspace, with interactive personality tests and the colonizing of real space.
And in between joining the Hollywood stars in their jet-set parties. His daughter killed herself after being accused of shooting her boyfriend. Quite a life. He died from prostate cancer in 1996 and his ashes, to compliment the storyline, were sent into space.Today I tuned in to London and walked around Notting Hill, dropped out of work for a day. And got turned on by the athmosphere. Dived into the pool, joining Out To Swim for practice, about time..
2 comments:
It seems to me that the lack of a filming script for a Leary film is that no one has been able to wrap their imagination around the extreme complexity of Tim's life! You may be the one to do it by maybe writing a novel about Leary? No one has done that yet! Here are some sites that have been covering the Leary Enigma! This one has some posts on the films in production.
http://www.bruceeisner.com/new_culture/2006/04/more_on_timothy.html
Timothy Leary's Project/Theory as of 1973
http://www.noveltynet.org/content/books/neurologic/34.html
Three biographies on TL came out on 06/06/06 ! One of them is featured here
http://www.ihaveamericasurrounded.com/links.htm
Interesting! Thanks for the links, will look into them before deciding on that book.. :)
Post a Comment