^
`/ '
-/<*>-
------------ /_____ ---------> B a R L o W F R i e N D Z --->
IN THIS EDITION:
1. Merry @#$!! Christmas!
2. About This List...
3. Barlow World Tour T-Shirt.
4. The Year in Review...
* Travels with My Mother.
* Flaming for Freedom.
* Proud to be Shameless.
* Wiring Africa.
* 50 Years of Sillitude.
5. The Year Ahead...
* A New York Story. (Help Urgently Requested.)
* Everything We Know Is *Still* Wrong.
* A Harvard Kind of Fellow.
6. The Fabulous Barlowettes.
7. Who We Are and What We Might Do About It...
-------------------------------------------------->
MERRY @#$!! CHRISTMAS!
This is not my favorite time of the year, I confess.
I suspect that most of you, behind your seasonal masks of insincere gaiety,
may agree with me, so I don't have to tell why I regard the first warning
signs of Christmas (now appearing sometime in September) with such dread.
I think part of what irritates me about Christmastime is that, to the
extent that it purports to be about love, forgiveness, tolerance, and good
will toward humanity, then it ought to be something we celebrate every day,
instead trying extract it from a condition of stress, exhaustion, material
frenzy, sudden poverty, and the enforced close company of those most likely
to push our buttons.
Still, I usually emerge from my humbuggery sometime around dawn on
Christmas Day and generally succeed in investing the day with at least as
much generosity of spirit as comes quite easily to me in almost any other
season. Indeed, it is now almost sunrise and I can already feel my cynicism
turning into joy.
However, not everyone is so lucky. If you are among the many who find
Christmas itself to be an ordeal, may I recommend shelter in the following
recipe:
HOLIDAY FRUIT CAKE
You'll need the following:
One cup of water
One cup of sugar,
Four large eggs
Two cups of dried fruit
One teaspoon of salt, a cup of brown sugar
lemon juice, nuts
One bottle of whiskey.
Sample the whiskey to check for quality. Take a large bowl. Check the
whiskey again. To be sure its the highest quality, pour one level cup and
drink. Repeat. Turn on the electric mixer, beat one cup of butter in a
large fluffly bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar and beat again. Make sure
the whiskey is still okay. Cry another tup. Turn off the mixer. Beat two
legggs and add to the bowl, chuck in a cup of dried fruit. Mix on the
tuner. If the fired druit gets stuck in the beaterers, pry it loose with a
drewscriver. Sample the whiskey to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two
cups of salt. Or something. Whoc cares? Check the whiskey. Now sift the
lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Spoon. Of sugar or
something. Whatever you can find. Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin to
350 degrees. Dont forget to beat off the turner. Throw the bowl out the
window, check the whiskey again and go to bed.
Works for me.
At least until Christmas itself starts working. And right now, that is
working for me too.
Merry Christmas!
--------------------------------------------------------->
ABOUT THIS LIST...
It has been an unusually long time since my last e-blast at you. I believe
I haven't spammed since I invited you all to my 50th birthday party in
early October.
Most of the time since, I have been operating at velocities that were
dizzying even by my standards, collecting somewhere around 100,000 frequent
flier miles and suffering occasional bouts of malaria mixed with about six
weeks of the latest in currently fashionable influenzas. It was enough to
shut me up. Sorta.
Nevertheless, during this time I was still acquiring new friends and
acquaintances (as well as e-ddresses for old friends either fresh to
Cyberspace or whose virtual location was previously unknown to me). Thus,
there are about a hundred of you BarlowFriendz who didn't know you were
until right now.
If you would rather not be periodically hosed down with many Kilobytes
About Me, let me know and I will understand, as stated above.
But, however narcissistic, there are several practical values to these
mailings.
One of which, also noted in the header, is that I do throw a lot of parties
to which I invite any of you who happens to be in whatever town they occur
in. These are generally a hoot. They are intensely diverse social
ecosystems in which huge voltages form and flow.
In addition to knowing me, you do share some common elements. You're all
smart. Few of you are shy. Just about all of you can dance, one way or
another. Thus, in addition to the voltage of difference, you have the
conductivity of commonality. So cool things can happen when I can get a
bunch of you together.
Another feature is the trouble this can spare us both. This list originated
back in my pre-electronic days when each Christmas I would send out a paper
newsletter to my friends, updating them on the previous year on my life.
I did this so that when we did meet face to face (often after a long
hiatus), I didn't have to spend a ton of time telling them what was new
with me - since I had already told them - and could spend it instead
finding out what was new with them. More fun for everyone. I was spared the
tedium of finding yet another way to tell old stories while my friends were
given the chance to talk about what is most everyone's favorite topic:
themselves.
There is also the fact that you have become my primary publishing medium -
a flaw or a feature depending on how you feel about my writing. Whenever I
write something that I like, I usually send it out to this list - even when
it's being physically printed someplace - with an encouragement to spread
it if you see fit.
And what I give you is *my* version of a piece and not the one that has
been whacked down to fit whatever magazine is publishing it. (Hey, I don't
begrudge them their edits. Every column inch they devote to my prose is a
column inch that can't be sold to advertisers, which is, after all, what
magazines *do*.)
Thus, for example, I will be sending you shortly the entire 30,000 word
piece I wrote while bouncing around Africa and not the 12,000 words which
Wired Magazine squeezed into their current "Change Is Good" issue. (More
about this below...)
Finally, you are a wonderful lot (see list below) from whom I would gladly
reboot the Human Race (if necessary) and among whom I hope to build a
community over the course of time. (More of *this* later too.)
But enough about you. Let's talk about me.
------------------------------------------------------------->
BARLOW WORLD TOUR T-SHIRT
Some of you who are familiar with my schedule have suggested that I should
make tour t-shirts, like other itinerant rockers. The problem is that my
whole life has become a tour, and fitting my itinerary into the area of a
human back would require a smaller typeface than most silk screeners keep
on hand.
However, in trying to impart my own 1997 to you, an chronology of where I
spent it is not a bad place to start. So. Here:
1/1-4/97 The Yucatan - Mexico
1/5/97 Akumal to Pinedale.
1/13/97 Pinedale to Los Angeles
1/14-16/97 Marina del Rey, CA - Vanguard Advisors.
1/15/97 LA - NPR Marketplace Taping
1/16/97 Los Angeles to - San Francisco
1/16/97 San Francisco - Electronic Frontier Foundation "Vision" Retreat.
1/16/97 Speak at Stanford University.
1/17/97 San Francisco to Kauai, Hawaii.
1/20/97 Kauai, Hawaii - Keynote, OPASTCO.
1/21/97 Kauai, Hawaii to Salt Lake City
1/23/97 Address Sundance Film Festival w/ Bill Gibson and Douglas Adams.
1/25/97 Salt Lake City to Denver.
1/26/97 Denver - Meet with Privacy, Inc.
1/27/97 Denver to Salt Lake City.
1/30/97 Ogden, Utah - Address Weber State University School of Business.
1/31/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
2/5/97 Big Piney, Wyoming - Speak to Big Piney Museum Society.
2/12/97 Pinedale to Salt Lake City.
2/13/97 Salt Lake City to Atlanta.
2/13/97 Atlanta - Keynote, Nat'l Assn. of Federal Credit Unions.
2/13/97 Atlanta to Washington, DC.
2/14/97 Washington, DC - Keynote, Association of American Publishers.
2/15/97 Washington to New York City.
2/19/97 New York City to San Francisco
2/20/97 San Francisco to Monterey, CA - TED 7
2/20/97 Monterey - Digerati Dinner
2/21/97 Monterey - Speak at TED 7
2/23/97 Monterey to Big Sur
2/24/97 Big Sur, CA.
2/25/97 Big Sur to Pebble Beach.
2/25-27/97 Pebble Beach, CA - Diamond Exchange Fellows.
2/28/97 Pebble Beach to San Francisco.
3/1/97 San Francisco - Songwriting with Bobby Weir.
3/2/97 San Francisco to St. Louis
3/3/97 St. Louis - Keynote - Data Research Associates.
3/3/97 St. Louis to Salt Lake City.
3/4/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
3/4-12/97 Pinedale.
3/12/97 Pinedale to Cheyenne, Wyoming.
3/13/97 Cheyenne - Driver's License Hearing.
3/14/97 Cheyenne to Pinedale.
3/14-17/97 Pinedale.
3/17/97 Pinedale to Salt Lake City.
3/17/97 Salt Lake City to Boston.
3/18/97 Cambridge - Address Technology and Culture Forum at MIT.
3/19/97 Cambridge - Institute of Politics.
3/20/97 Boston to New York City.
3/20/97 Lunch at Leigh Bureau.
3/23/97 Barlowettes Arrive in New York City.
3/23-30/97 New York City.
3/28/97 New York City - BarlowFriendz Crucifixion Day Party
3/29/97 New York City to Salt Lake City.
3/30/97 Easter in Salt Lake.
4/1/97 Salt Lake City to Chicago.
4/2/97 Drive from Chicago to Bloomington, IL.
4/2/97 Bloomington, IL - Address Illinois Wesleyan University.
4/3/97 Bloomington to Chicago to Salt Lake City.
4/4/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
4/4-7/97 Pinedale.
4/7/97 Pinedale to Salt Lake City.
4/8/97 Salt Lake City to San Francisco.
4/8/97 San Francisco - Speak to Wired Magazine Sales Staff.
4/8/97 San Francisco - Speak to McKinsey Consultants.
4/9/97 San Francisco to Boston.
4/10/97 Cambridge - Sen. Al Simpson's Class - Institute of Politics.
4/11/97 Drive to Middletown, CT.
4/12/97 Middletown, CT - Read at Paul Horgan Benefit, Wesleyan Univ.
4/13/97 Drive to New York City.
4/14/97 New York City.
4/15/97 Fly to Geneva with 92 year old Mim Bailey & Lotte Lundell.
4/16/97 Montreaux, Switzerland.
4/17/97 Montreaux - Speak to European Direct Marketing Assn.
4/19/97 Drive to Zermatt.
4/20/97 Ski Matterhorn, drive from Zermatt to Bellagio, Italy.
4/21-24/97 Bellagio, Lake Como - Rockefeller Foundation Media Workshop.
4/25/97 Lake Como to Milan to Florence, Italy.
4/26/97 Florence.
4/27/97 Siena.
4/28/97 San Gimignano, Italy.
4/29/97 Drive to Rome.
4/30/97 Rome.
5/4/97 Rome to New York City.
5/5/97 New York City - Launch of NancyFriday.Com.
5/5/97 New York City to Los Angeles.
5/6/97 Los Angeles - Keynote, Institute of Environmental Science.
5/8/97 Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.
5/9/97 Salt Lake City - Surgery on left foot.
5/12/97 Drive to Pinedale.
5/12-20/97 Pinedale.
5/20/97 Pinedale to Los Angeles.
5/21/97 Speak on Copyright at UCLA Law School.
5/21/97 Los Angeles - Receive ACLU Torch of Liberty Award.
5/22/97 BarlowFriendz Party in Beverly Hills
5/24/97 Burbank to San Francisco
5/26/97 San Francisco to Salt Lake City
5/26/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale
5/30/97 Pinedale to Los Angeles
6/1-3/97 San Diego - DiamondTech Fellows - Coronado Bay Resort.
6/4/97 Venice Beach - Speak at New Civilization Cooperative.
6/6/97 Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.
6/6/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
6/12/97 Pinedale to Seattle with Leah Barlow.
6/13/97 Seattle - BarlowFriendz Party.
6/13/97 Seattle - Keynote, Int'l Conf. of Audio Engineering Society.
6/14/97 Seattle to San Francisco.
6/15/97 San Francisco - Address Father's Day Rally to End Drug War.
6/15/97 San Francisco - Babylon BarlowFriendz Gather.
6/19/97 San Francisco - EFF Benefit at Fillmore Auditorium.
6/20/97 San Francisco to Los Angeles.
6/20/97 Los Angeles - Leah Barlow's 15th Birthday Party.
6/21/97 Los Angeles - Read at Allen Ginsberg Memorial Celebration.
6/22/97 Los Angeles - Ginsberg Memorial Party.
6/22/97 Los Angeles to Salt Lake City.
6/23/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
6/27/97 Pinedale - Speak to Pinedale High School All Class Reunion.
6/30/97 Pinedale to Mount Pleasant, Utah with Barlowettes
7/1/97 Mount Pleasant to Dark Canyon, Utah (off Lake Powell).
7/1-7/97 Dark Canyon.
7/7/97 Emerge from Dark Canyon with Amelia Barlow.
7/8/97 Drive to Pinedale.
7/8-13/97 Pinedale.
7/13/97 Pinedale to New York City with Anna and Amelia Barlow.
7/14/97 New York City to Philadelphia.
7/15-16/97 Philadelphia - Vanguard Advisors. +
7/15/97 Philadelphia - Amelia's 11th Birthday at Franklin Museum.
7/17/97 New York City - Keynote, Plug-In Music Industry Conference.
7/17/97 Amelia's Birthday Party at Galaxy Club.
7/18/97 New York to Cambridge with Daughters.
7/19/97 Cambridge - Address 2B1 Conference at MIT Media Lab.
7/20/97 Boston to New York City, meet Leah Barlow there.
7/22/97 New York City - Nerve Magazine Party.
7/26/97 New York City to Martha's Vineyard with Barlowettes.
7/28/97 Martha's Vineyard to New York City.
7/31/97 New York City - Daughters return to Pinedale.
8/1-5/97 New York City.
8/5/97 New York City to Accra, Ghana.
8/6/97 Accra, Ghana.
8/7-8/97 Accra to Kinshasa to Nairobi to Mombasa to Kilifi, Kenya.
8/8/97 Kilifi, Kenya.
8/12/97 Kilifi to Mombasa to Wundanyi, Kenya.
8/11/97 Wundanyi to Kilifi, Kenya.
8/17/97 Mombasa to Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
8/18/97 Abidjan to Bamako, Mali.
8/19/97 Bamako.
8/20/97 Bamako to Timbuktu, Mali.
8/21/97 Timbuktu to Bamako.
8/22/97 Bamako to Abidjan to Accra.
8/23/97 Accra to London.
8/24/97 London to New York City.
8/25/97 New York City to Salt Lake City.
8/26/97 Salt Lake City - Keynote, Utah Information Technology Ass'n.
8/26/97 Salt Lake City - NPR Interview. Fall sick with malaria.
8/27/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
9/7/97 Pinedale to New York City.
9/8/97 New York City to Geneva.
9/10/97 Geneva - Keynote, International Telecommunications Union.
9/11/97 Geneva - Brussels.
9/12/97 Brussels to Entebbe, Uganda.
9/13/97 Kampala, Uganda.
9/14/97 Kampala to Entebbe.
9/15/97 Entebbe to Kabale, Uganda.
9/16/97 Kabale to Kisori, Uganda.
9/17-18/97 The Virungas, Uganda-Congo-Rwanda - Gorillas.
9/18/97 Kisori to Kampala, Uganda.
9/19/97 Kampala, Uganda.
9/20/97 Entebbe to Nairobi to Brussels.
9/21/97 Brussels to New York City.
9/22/97 New York City - NHK TV Interview.
9/22/97 Washington, DC - Keynote, Banking Administration Institute.
9/22/97 New York City - EFF Board Dinner.
9/23/97 NYC - Electronic Frontier Foundation Board Meeting.
9/23/97 New York to London.
9/24-26/97 London - Vanguard Advisors.
9/27/97 London - British Telecom Labs.
9/27/97 London - BarlowFriendz EuroBirthday Party at October Gallery.
9/28/97 London to Orlando, Florida.
9/29/97 Orlando - Keynote, MCI Customer Council.
9/29/97 Orlando to New York City.
10/2/97 New York City - Barlow's 50th Birthday Celebration at Gemini.
10/3/97 New York City to Dallas to Colorado Springs.
10/3/97 Colorado Springs, CO - Fountain Valley School Board Meeting.
10/4/97 Tucson - Diamond Exchange Fellows.
10/6/97 Albuquerque - Keynote, Southwestern Medical Library Association.
10/7/97 Albuquerque to Chicago.
10/8/97 Chicago - Keynote, Direct Marketing Association Annual Meeting.
10/8/97 Chicago to Salt Lake City.
10/9/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
10/10-14/97 Pinedale.
10/14/97 Pinedale - Anna Barlow's 13th Birthday.
10/15/97 New York- Debate FBI Asst. Dir. Kallstrom at WS Journal Summit.
10/17/97 New York City to Cincinnati to Denver to Colorado Springs.
10/18/97 Colorado Springs - Fountain Valley School Parent's Weekend.
10/19/97 Drive from Colorado Springs to Pinedale.
10/23/97 Jackson to Salt Lake City to New York City to Paris.
10/24/97 Paris to Aix-en-Provence, France.
10/24-27/97 Inst. of Ecotechnics- Complexity, Biospheres, & Culture.
10/26/97 Aix-en-Provence - Address Institute of Ecotechnics Conference.
10/27/97 Marseilles to Zurich to Los Angeles.
10/27/97 Los Angeles - Address Hughes Satellite & Teledesic Contractors.
10/28/97 Los Angeles - Tour Hughes Satellite Factory.
10/28/97 Los Angeles to San Francisco.
10/30/97 San Francisco to Minneapolis.
10/31/97 Minneapolis - Keynote, Educom '97.
11/1/97 Minneapolis to New York City.
11/3/97 New York City - Meet with Merrill, Lynch.
11/4/97 New York City to Paris with Lotte Lundell.
11/6/97 Paris - Luncheon Address to International Chamber of Commerce.
11/6/97 Paris - Fall sick with 6 week flu.
11/7/97 Paris - Speak to ICC World Conference on Electronic Commerce.
11/8/97 Paris to Nice to St. Paul de Vence, France.
11/9/97 St. Paul de Vence.
11/10/97 Nice to Paris to New York City to Washington, DC.
11/10/97 Washington - Nat'l Computational Science Alliance Advisors.
11/11/97 DC - NCSA Advisors - Advanced Computational Infrastructure.
11/12-13/97 McLean, Va - Vanguard Advisors.
11/14/97 Washington - Speak at Nader "Stop Microsoft" Conference.
11/14/97 Washington, DC to New York City.
11/17/97 New York - Launch Party for DigitalCities - New York.
11/18/97 New York City to Brussels.
11/19/97 Brussels to Copenhagen.
11/20/97 Copenhagen - Keynote, Danish Gov't Conf. on Digital Freedom.
11/21/97 Copenhagen to Barcelona to Castellon to Morella, Catalonia.
11/22/97 Morella, Spain - Address University Presidents of Catalonia
11/23/97 Morella to Barcelona.
11/24/97 Barcelona.
11/24/97 Barcelona to New York City.
11/25/97 New York City to Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
11/27/97 Pinedale - Thanksgiving
12/1/97 Salt Lake City to San Francisco.
12/1-3/97 San Francisco - Address Seek Insight Conference
12/4/97 San Francisco - Meet with Wired editors.
12/4/97 San Francisco to Colorado Springs.
12/5-6/97 Colorado Springs - Fountain Valley School Board Meeting
12/6/97 Colorado Springs to Denver to San Francisco.
12/8/97 Palo Alto - Esther Dyson Reception at Kleiner, Perkins.
12/9/97 San Francisco - Electronic Frontier Foundation Board Meeting.
12/10/97 San Francisco to Chicago.
12/11/97 St. Charles, IL - Speak to Arthur Andersen Business Consulting.
12/11/97 Chicago to San Francisco.
12/13/97 San Francisco to New York City.
12/15/97 New York - PBS Debate with Christopher Lehmann-Haupt on books.
12/16/97 New York - Meet with Merrill, Lynch.
12/17/97 New York City to Salt Lake City.
12/18-21/97 Salt Lake City - Xmas Shopping with Leah Barlow., etc.
12/21/97 Salt Lake City to Pinedale.
12/25/97 Pinedale - Christmas.
You see how it is...
It's a chaotic system, kind of like a Lorenz Butterfly Diagram with three
basins of attraction: Pinedale, Wyoming, New York City, and San Francisco.
It is certain that I spent far more of 1997 in an airborne aluminum tube
than I did inside the building I still call "home" here in Pinedale,
Wyoming.
As usual, I don't know whether I'm bragging or complaining. Despite the
many miles of concourse schleppage, platoons of idiots with metal
detectors, the rapid decline of Delta Airlines, and other road vicissitudes
too numerous to bitch about, my life is good.
When not aloft, I am almost always in some earthly paradise, in the
presence of intelligence and beauty, being well paid to scare hell out of
people in suits. What could be better?
I've even learned to love flying since I've discovered that sitting zazen
can be accomplished as easily sitting up as uncomfortably cross-legged on
the floor - hell, the originators of Zen sit that way *all* the time - and
so have turned Business Class into my own zendo.
------------> -------------------------------------> ---------->
A FEW HIGHLIGHTS...
As you might imagine, every single one of the stops in the planetary plunge
listed above contains a longer story that I could tell you here, but I will
graze a few of the landmarks.
* Travels with My Mother
Miriam Jenkins Barlow Bailey, my 92 year old mother, burns brightly on. In
addition to living alone quite sufficiently, she is certainly the only
nonagenarian I know who can drive faster (in mph) than her own age - and
can do so without causing her passengers to faint.
Indeed, she was my designated driver for a spell last year during which my
own chronic zest for speed had cost me my driver's license. After one
episode when, in a little over an hour, she hauled me across 80 miles of
ice to do a video appearance from Jackson Hole, the European promoters of
that event were so impressed that, when they invited me to speak to the
European Direct Marketing Association in Montreaux, Switzerland, they
offered to bring her there as well.
So, with the dauntless assistance of my San Francisco lady friend Lotte
Lundell, I took the Old Thing on the two week tour of France, Switzerland,
and Italy, a route that included crossing half the mountain passes in
Switzerland, a five day stretch at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio
villa on Lake Como, and some large percentage of the wonders of Tuscany and
Rome.
It was wonderful to behold all these antiquities through the eyes of
someone, who despite being of historical interest herself, had rarely been
out of the Northern Rockies and never to Europe.
This mystery tour was truly magical. One of many vivid moments: Mim
beholding the Pantheon in Rome, built by Agrippa before the first
Christmas. "It's so *old*," she exclaimed, "and so well-preserved!"
"It's only twenty times older than you are," I replied, "and though it's
built of stone, I'd say you're in better shape overall." She is too.
* Flaming for Freedom
I was honored in June, along with Director Milos Foreman, by the Southern
California Chapter of the ACLU with something called the Torch of Liberty
Award. This was an industrially glitzy Hollywood Event, featuring more
cleavage than the Grand Canyon, a ballroom the size of a polo field, and
such other notoriously free people as Courtney Love (who presented Foreman
with his award) and Larry Flynt (who probably should have received one
himself).
My own attractive knick-knack was handed to me by my long-time best friend
Bobby Weir (formerly of the Grateful Dead), after a speech in which he
credited my mother with have taught him that "you don't have to be right to
be right and you don't have to be wrong to be wrong."
For me, the highlight of the evening came when the five or six hundred
assembled champions of free expression (who were also, in large part,
entertainment lawyers) nearly booed me off the stage for claiming in my
acceptance speech that the greatest threat to free speech in Cyberspace
would be the imposition of existing copyright law on the virtual world.
It was a swell evening, I tell you.
* Proud to be Shameless
In general, it was a year during which I behaved as if telling the truth -
or at least my personal version of it - was worth whatever heat I might
draw on myself by doing so.
Thus, I celebrated Father's Day by telling a crowd gathered in San
Francisco's Civic Center (which included my eldest daughter Leah) that,
while I saw no inconsistency between being a good father and an enduringly
active acidhead, I thought it was an odd set of "family values" which now
requires millions of American parents to lie to their children about who
they were and what they do, even while encouraging millions of American
children to turn their parents into the police.
I was also persuaded by a new Webzine called Nerve to come out of the
closet regarding my long-practiced polyamory with an essay called A Lady's
Man and Shameless. http://www.nervemag.com/Barlow/shameless/.
In the course of writing this piece, I learned a lot about my unexamined
self and may have embarked on a new course of literary inquiry. As I went
deeper into trying to think and write honestly about my own sexuality, it
dawned on me how few other men I could name had done so. Henry Miller and
D.H. Lawrence come to mind, but after that I run out of obvious examples.
There is more to be said and I hope to say some of it.
And of course, there remains a lot of arduous research to conduct.
* Putting the Africa in Computers
During a year that left many monuments in my memory, the most enduring will
be those made in Africa. Sent there by Wired Magazine to test my
theoretical optimism about Africa's promise as an information economy, I
spent nearly two months whacking around its equatorial zone, visiting such
countries as Kenya, Uganda, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Ghana. I began
the process of wiring Timbuktu. I became the first person to show a
computer to mountain gorillas in their native habitat. I was called a
"muzungu umagala" (a white man who is a black man) by a little boy in the
mountains of Uganda. Mostly, I found that everything we know about Africa
is wrong.
Africa is far from being the hopeless basket case Northern media have
portrayed it to be. Indeed, I encountered cultures there that seem to me
far more sophisticated than our own and that might even beat us at our own
games before the next century is over.
Since, as noted above, you can read all about it in the current issue of
Wired, I won't go into great detail here. Besides, unless you specifically
request that I spare you the spam, I intend to send you the entire unedited
account of my adventures there - the Whole Muzungu - sometime in the next
few days. (I will dispatch this in chunks so as not to overwhelm the
message capacity of your e-mailer...)
I can tell you that I returned a man changed in ways that I have yet to
understand. In general, I think I like this new version of myself better
than I did the previous edition, especially now that a megadose of quinine
and some industrial grade antibiotic seems to have finally killed the
malaria that appeared for a while to be a permanent feature of the new me.
I can't wait to return, and fortunately the folks at Wired have promised to
make me their official Africa Hand for the foreseeable, so it appears I
will be spending some large chunk of the next several years there.
* 50 Years of Sillitude.
It should be noted that 1997 was also the year in which I passed the half
century mark. This is an age I never expected to attain and probably have
not attained in any but the chronological sense. I still believe you're
only as old as you act and that if can continue my current practice of
going dancing at least twice a week, wherever I am and however I feel, I
can go on being immature for another twenty five years anyway.
Actually, I like being fifty. Alan Alda (who, in addition to being a wise
guy, turns out to be a wise man) wrote me at the time of my birthday in
October: "What I liked most about the fifties was that I still had the sap
of youth but also the beginning of a quiet understanding." My experience so
far indicates that he was right.
Turning fifty was also the occasion for a couple of great BarlowFriendz
parties. The first, in London, was put on by the sweet folks at the October
Gallery and featured a wonderful mix of their community and mine. There
were moments that evening when I would have stopped time right then and
there.
A few days later, I threw together another gathering in New York at which
several hundred people of all descriptions turned up to dance to the first
public performance of live jamming on the Web. Thanks to Willy Henshall of
ResRocket, a band of 10 different musicians, each of them in different
locations around the planet generated hot licks in real time.
At one point, I was hustled outside to give them time to light a *whole
bunch* of candles on a cake. While waiting, I wandered down to the corner
of 2nd Avenue and 13th Street. There I found a homeless guy who had been
watching people come into the club where the party was being held.
"What's going on in there?" he wanted to know. "I've been watching the
people go in there all evening and I can't figure out what they are. I
thought they might be artists, but they're not wearing enough black. Then I
thought they might be movie people but they seem to be having too good a
time..."
"It's my 50th birthday party," I told him. At which point he sang for me a
truly beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday. It was so lovely that I put a
twenty in the little home-made wishing well he was using to collect
donations. As I started to walk away, he emptied the well and offered it to
me. "Here," he said, "this is my present to you."
Since this object appeared to be one of his only possessions, I resisted
taking it.
"You really should take it," he insisted. "It's special."
"What's special about it."
"Well, as you see, it doesn't have a bucket." Which was true. There was a
little scaffold and crank, even a dangling chain, but no bucket.
"So?"
"Well, that means that you can't get your wishes back out of it, so you
don't have to worry about them coming true."
"Where do they go then?"
"They go to someone who really needs them but never thought to ask." he said.
I took the well from him. Aside from your friendship, it was the best gift
I received.
----------------------------------------->
THE YEAR AHEAD
Of course, one never knows. Though I am occasionally accused in the press
of being a "futurist," about all I know about the future is that it
consistently surprises me whenever it becomes the present. Who knows
whether I'll even live to see 1998?
Still I'm assuming I will and making plans accordingly and these include
the following projected highlights...
* A New York Story. (Help Urgently Requested.)
As many of you know, my Biospherian pal Kathelin Gray and I have been
maintaining a pied de terre in New York's Greenwich Village for the last
three years. Though something of indulgence, given that I don't generally
spend more than four or five days a month in New York, this has also felt
like a kind of necessity to me.
I find that if I don't attach my electrode to the enchanted isle of
Manhattan on regular basis, there is an important spiritual battery in me
that goes flat. Without a little real Gotham coursing through my wiring,
I'm just another hick kid.
Also, this place has been an incredibly sweet deal: a large one bedroom
apartment with great views and plenty of light from north and south, no
wildlife (aside from what we generated ourselves), located on a
cobblestoned stretch of West 12th Street, and all for 700 bucks a month.
Sound too good to be true? Well, of course it was.
It is a rent controlled apartment and were subletting it, well...
improperly. The actual leaseholder hasn't lived in it for a decade. The
landlord is finally wise to him and us and is giving us the bum's rush at
the end of February. So a crisis is looming. Neither of us want to give up
a foothold in New York City, but trying to find an occasional residence
that meets our standards and isn't beyond our rational means appears almost
impossible.
If there is one of you who has read this far and knows of New York
apartment for rent (or even another sublet, proper or not), please contact
me at once. I am not ready to leave Manhattan. I've got to be a part of it,
New York, New York...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------->
* Everything We Know Is *Still* Wrong.
Eight years ago, shortly after I was chased out of the cattle business, I
signed a contract with Viking to write a book about the computer business.
Though this book had a title - it's still called Everything We Know Is
Wrong, a line borrowed from the Firesign Theater - it was not so clear what
it was to be about. But my visionary editor, David Stanford, managed to
convince his colleagues that if they sent me off to have a look at silicon
culture, I would return with some interesting tales.
Maybe too interesting. The reporter became the story. The picaresque tale
of the weird shit that happened to me after I left the ranch has been such
an involving quest to live that writing about it too has seemed impossible.
Besides, everything was moving too fast. By the time one recorded it, it
was already old news. Trying to do it and write it at the same time was
like trying to rotate the tires on one's car at seventy miles an hour.
Nevertheless, a lot of things did get written along the way, some of which
not only created whatever it is that I am now, but actually helped define
the political shape of the "place" I named Cyberspace (borrowing another
term from my friend Bill Gibson).
It is now time to collect all these pieces, embed them in a narrative
context, and make a book of them. There are several good reasons for doing
this. For one thing, books (while generally unread these days) have
acquired a kind of totemic quality in which they represent the ideas of
their authors to the broad audience that has seen the talk show or read the
review. And I'm missionary enough to want "my" ideas to spread as widely as
possible.
More to the point, Viking has merged with the more regular army folks from
Putnam and they want me to call or get out of the booth. If I don't hand
them a manuscript by Mayday, they're going to require me to return the
handsome advance they extended me these many years ago.
So, I'm going to get off the road for a while and start writing. I'll hate
this of course. As I've often said, I'd rather pump septic tanks than
write, but I do like having written, especially when the things I write
make a difference in the world. So a rough beast is slouching toward New
York to be born.
Fortunately, I have an editor who is well suited to assisting me in this:
R.U. Sirius, the former editor of Mondo 2000. He's taken on harder cases
than me, including Timothy Leary *after* he was dead, so I have great
confidence. I will be working with him in San Francisco most of next month.
Then I will go back east for the next projected event of 1998, a fellowship
at Harvard.
* A Harvard Kind of Fellow.
Given that I have never formally taught so much as a kindergarten class,
there is some audacity in taking on my first teaching assignment at Harvard
University, but that is what I am about to do.
Thanks in part to the good offices of my friends John Kennedy and the
former Wyoming Senator Al Simpson, I have been offered a fellowship at
Harvard's Institute of Politics starting at the end of January and running
until the beginning of April.
For that period, I will be much more stationary than I have been at any
time since the great love of my life, Cynthia Horner, dropped dead on me 3
years ago and I started to flee the pain.
I'm both eager and apprehensive. Eager because I know that two months of
steady contact with the intelligent zeal of Harvard students will probably
leave me twenty years younger and twenty IQ points smarter. Apprehensive
because I feel I've become a kind of life shark, who much maintain constant
motion in order for his experience gills to remain saturated. We shall see.
I'll let you know how it works out. And if any of you are in Cambridge, you
should come see me, since I won't be coming to see you for a while.
--------------------------------------------------------->
THE FABULOUS BARLOWETTES
Actually, the thing that worries me most about the upcoming quarter in San
Francisco and Cambridge is the extent it will keep me away from the
vitalizing company of my wonderful daughters. (See attached photograph.)
Leah Justine is now 15. Anna Winter is now 13. And Amelia Rose is 11. They
are the light of my life. The desire to be a good ancestor for them and
their progeny is what really gets me out of bed in the morning. They are
also my best teachers, since they are honest and game, and little inclined
to suffer any fraud I might perpetrate in their presence.
Despite my habitual velocity, I've managed to spend a lot of the last three
years with them, either by making sure that I spent at least a week a month
in Pinedale or by taking them on the road with me, which I've done at every
opportunity.
But they are starting to make their own way in the world, so perhaps a
slight increase in distance will be good.
Leah is already half out of the nest, attending Fountain Valley School in
Colorado Springs, a place that was my salvation after flunking out of
Pinedale High after my freshman year (and where I first met my Grateful
Dead song-writing partner, Bobby Weir.) It's proving a good a change for
Leah as it was for me. She has already become a wonderful young woman
there, doing well academically for being more challenged, and polishing an
almost supernatural gracefulness. Suddenly she's almost as tall as I am and
flows through the world like alert water.
Anna is escaping the traps of beautiful adolescent girldom by becoming a
jock, the first in memory on either side of her family. She is also tall
but sturdier than her sisters and is only a few seconds away from breaking
the school record in the butterfly. She is sassy and smart, and though she
likes to hang out with the local juvenile delinquents, she has so far
resisted the impulse to become one herself.
Amelia remains one of the deepest and most insightful creatures I know,
strong evidence that there is such a thing as what the New Agers call an
"old soul." She seems to both feel and remember vividly everything she
experiences to a degree that is sometimes painful both to watch and to
suffer. But she is also the kind of person who goes out of her way to
befriend the kids that her more cliquish colleagues shun and generally
agonizes over the helpless. Her love for both animals and other humans is
so strong that it almost debilitates her. But not quite. She has also
become a powerful swimmer and I recently watched the two younger Barlow
Ladies finish first and second in a county swim meet.
These girls are destined to become beautiful, smart women, and since I hope
to help them avoid the disempowering affliction I call "Beautiful Smart
Woman's Disease," and since I know only vicariously what it's like to be
one, I have apprenticed them to several women who, despite being high risk
candidates, have either not come down with it or have managed to get
through it.
Pray for them, please.
----------------------------------------->
WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE MIGHT DO ABOUT IT...
There is something asymmetrical about this list. I know all of you, but
most of you have never met one another. I can broadcast at you in this
fashion, but you are not able to broadcast - or even narrowcast - as well.
But, as I say, I would like to grow from you a little culture, and to this
end I've been throwing parties to which you've all been invited. Of course,
given your distribution all over the Blue Planet, it's impossible for all
of you to get together. Even at my 50th birthday bash in New York, to which
many of you traveled considerable distances, I would say fewer than a
quarter were able to make it.
Last year, I started trying to make this list more virtually interactive by
sending out a questionnaire to which so many of you responded in detail
that I didn't know how to send you the results without crashing everyone's
e-mail software.
What we need to do, I think, is set up a Web site or a list-serve where you
can have a many to many conversation rather than being the mute audience
for my one to many rants.
If any of you would like to assist me in creating and maintaining such
cybersalons, I would be very grateful. (As I am too lazy, too busy and,
dare I admit it, too technically primitive to do such things well.)
In the interest of encouraging such assistance, and as a kind of Christmas
present, I'm going to close this by giving you a list of yourselves. It is
a wonderful list of wonderful people and I am genuinely grateful for the
friendship and tolerance nearly every one of you has extended me. I hope we
can find a way for you to extend it to one another as well.
Merry Christmas. And Love,
John Perry
Now. Here *you* are:
Alan Alda, Hank and Barbie Alderfer, Aleja, Steve and Ameeta Alter, Mark
Abene, Dave Abernathy, Gretchen Abernathy, Ralph Abraham, Douglas Adams,
Rebecca Adams, Phil Agre, John Allen and Tango Snyder, Laurie Anderson, Bob
Anderson, Tapio Anttilla, Paul Andrews, Richard Amerling, Thomas Amter,
Gonzalo Arcila, Cherry Arnold, Marlene Arnold, Richard Asomani, Deirdre
Rhatigan Araujo, Bill Atkinson, Ken Auletta, Bradford Auerbach, Cynthia
Cabeal, Nancy California Aultman, Michael Backes, David Balch, Stephan
Balzer, John Badanes, Joe Barello, Rocky Barker, Amelia Barlow, Anna Winter
Barlow, Elaine Parker Barlow, Leah Justine Barlow, Allison Barr, Chris
Barth, Colleen Barton, John Bates, Allen Baum, Adam Bauer, Petra Baudis,
John Baylor, Steve Beck, Lefty Beckerman, Gordon Bell, Gaby Benkwitz, Joe
and Lee Bennion, Zina Bennion, John Berg, Eliot Bergson, Solveig Bernstein,
Arielle Besson, Bernie Bildman, Terry Bisson, Tina Blaine, Molly Blackwell,
Shannon Boase, Monika Borras, John Borthwick, Lesley Boughton, John Bowes,
James Boyle, Tony Bove, Shannon Box, Stewart Brand, Russell Brand, Bob
Bralove, Philippe Brawerman, Cecile Brawerman, Dennis Breen, Lindsay Brice,
Meredith Bricken, Bob Britton, Maja Brisvall, John Brockman, Andrew Brown,
Dan Brown, Melissa Brown, Halle Brunswick, Jeff and Cathy Brown, Kathryn
Buck, David Bunnell, Jonathan Bulkeley, Richard Bullington, James Burke,
Leia Burnett, Bill Burrington, Tana Anderson Butler, Katy Butler, Alexander
Caillet, J. Gabriel Campbell, Donna Campbell, Kim & Suzy Cannon, Loren
Carpenter, Caroline Cartellieri, Marc Canter, Rachel Carpenter, Elizabeth
Carmody, Roberta Carney, John Carney, Nancy Carney, Teddy and Otis Carney,
Jim Carrier , Jon Carroll, Julia Carter, Steve Case, Frank Casanova, Jon
Casimir, Denise Caruso, Joey Cavella, Christopher Cerf , Dean Chamberlin,
Jeremiah Chechik, Juennemann Christian, Rebekah Seamans Clark, Jonathan
Clark, Harold Clark, Patti Clemens, Meegan Ochs, Cleo Odzer, Ted Owen,
Patricia Cich, Vin Cipolla, John Coate, Jennifer Cobb, Madeleine de Cock
Bruning, Peter Cochrane, Dan and Camilla Cochran, Andrei Codrescu, Betsy
Cohen, Cindy Cohn, David Cole, Maggie Cole, David Colker, Talmage Cooley,
Sharon Cooke, Amy Cortese, Leila Conners, Nadia Conners, Coco Conn, Peter
Coyote, Duke Crawford, Jack Creeden, Brando Crespi, Rosie Cross, Jonathan
Crystal, Greg Cummings, Lisa Cunningham, Peter Cunningham, Marco Curiatti,
Sakyiwa Dadzi, Bruce Danielson, Dub Darneille, Ingrid Datica, Jeff Davis,
Erik Davis, Fred Davis, Anne Dautun, James Deane, Manuel DeLanda, Phil
DeGuere, Bart De Püy, Nancy de Puij, Howard Swann & Anita Dyer, Esther
Dyson, Claire De Sousa, Julian Dibbell, Bill Dietz, Whitfield Diffie, Mark
Dippé, Barbara Dobos, John Doerr, Johnny Dodd, Barbara Dodge, Larry Downes,
Stara Drew, Andrew Browning Dumke, Christine Eichinger, eff-board,
eff-staff, Mary Eisenhart, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Eléonore, Lonnie Elliott,
Brian Eno, Randy Farmer, Bran Ferren, Genevieve Field, Rachel Feinstein,
Lee Felsenstein, Scott Fisher, Teresa Fiske, Anne Fields & Bob Fields,
Sofie Formica, Lynn Forester, Lucas Foster, Heide Foley, Mark Frauenfelder,
Nancy Friday, Alaura and Andy Frith, Janey Fritsche, Shainee Gabel and
Kristen Hahn, Maggie Hallahan, Garry Hare, Casey Havre, Nely Galan,
Mountain Girl, Bruce and Melinda Gardiner, John Gage, Simson Garfinkel, Guy
Garcia, Jean-Louis Gassee, Stephen Gaskin, geekgirl, Lawrence Gerald,
George Gerbner, Gisela & Jutta & Bernhard, Sushmita Ghosh, John Gilmore,
Jock Gill, Janice Gjertsen, Rop Gonggrijp, Nat Goldhaber, Lisa Goldman,
Jack Goldstein, Art Goodtimes, Jim Gould, Michael Govan, Corinne Graff,
Camella Grace, James Gralian, Denise Gray-Felder, Chris Graves, Kathelin
Hoffman Gray, Cosmo Grimwood, Adrian and Ula Grimwood, David Grisman, Helen
Griffiths, Wendy Grossman, Tony Guccione, Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron, Bruce
Hornsby, Mike Greene, Josephine Grieve, Dai Griffiths, Amanda Griscom,
Rufus Griscom, Terry Gross, Eric Gullichson, John Hagel, Daryl Hannah,
Katie Hafner, Donald R. Harkleroad, Joel Harrison, Scott Harris, Shifra
Harris, Trent Harris, Mickey Hart, Rio Hahn, Chili Hawes, Hellekin, Joe
Henderson MD, Frank Heigel, Anne Hemenway, Willy Henshall, Katrina Heron,
Andy Hertzfeld, Justine Herbert, Lynn Hershman, Heather Higgins, James
Higgins, Dick High, Danny and Patty Hillis, Anita Hill , Jane Hirshfield,
Jack Hitt, David Hoffman, Taara Hoffman, Xaviera Hollander, Ben Holmes,
Sally Holmes , Birgitta Holmström, Janel Hopper, Stacy Horn, Byron Horner,
Cora Horsley, Jakob Høyer, Bob Horvitz, Mario Howell, Joanne Hugi, Michael
Humphrey , Robert Hunter, Allen Hunt-Badiner, Lotta Hybbinette, Alberto
Ibarguen, Craig and Alia Inglis, Joichi Ito, Robert Jacobson, Joseph Jahn,
Jeanette James, Roger James, Oz and Kathy Janiger, Mike Janes, Kimberly
Jenkins, John Jenkins, Tom Jennings, Eva Jettmar, Steve Jobs, Saj-nicole
Joni, David Johnson, Kelly Johnson, Martina Johnson, Robin Joss, Bill Joy,
Brewster Kahle, Tom Kalil, Mitch Kapor, John Kao, Kyle Kato, Mike Kenney,
John Kennedy, Derrick De Kerckove, Jeff Kellem, Linda Kelly, Mark Kerback,
Ken Kesey, George Keyworth, Vinod Khosla, Myoung Joon Kim, Creighton King,
Annie King, Wayne King, Scott Knaster, Konrad and Marie, Daniel Kottke,
Koffi Kouakou, Kai Krause, Jeanne Kramer, Michael Kranzler, Will Kreth,
Billy Kreutzmann, Nadine Kristen, Mo Krochmal, Karen Kromer Lynch, Lorraine
Kromer, Steve Kromer, Barbara Kuhr, Shumpei Kumon, Elias Ladopoulos, Todd
Lappin, Linda Lafourçade, Cassidy Law, Mary Lambert, Brenda Laurel, Barbara
Leary, Zach Leary, Julia Leach, Jim Lehrman, Hal Leavell, Julianne Lee,
Otmar Lendl, Phil Lesh, David Levitt, Charles Levendosky, Rachel Leventhal,
Steven Levy, John Lewis, David Liddle, David Liroff, Tom Long, Alexander
Lloyd, James Lowenthal, Sonya Lowenthal, Yuri Lowenthal, Bob Lucky, Shane
Lundgren, Dan Lynch, Lotte Lundell , Pattie Maes, Josh Mailman, Mary
Veronica Maloney, Steve Mack, Melville and Laura MacKay, Klaus Madzia,
Steve Marcus, John Markoff, Marla Marquit, Stewart McBride, Pamela
McCorduck, Rev. Myron McClellan, Bonita R. McGee, Patty McDonald, Jon
McIntire, Terence McKenna, Giles McNamee, Roger McNamee, Katie McQuerrey,
Nina Meilof, Bill Melton, Heidi Messer, Stephen Messer, Jane Metcalfe,
Jerry Michalski, Seiko Mikami, Jude Milhon, Avram Miller, Jillian Miller,
Kenny Miller, Matthew Moonieya, Malcolm Moore, Chip Morningstar, Marney
Morris, Joy Mountford, Andy Müller-Maguhn, Chunka Mui, Julia Murphy, Paula
Murphy, Nathan Myhrvold, Bart Egon Nagel, David Nagel, Michael Naimark, Dan
Neal, Nicholas Negroponte, Mike Nelson, Ted Nelson, Todd Nelson, Tom
Neilssen, Charles Nesson, Hon. Dr. Johnson Nkuuhe, S. Baker Ntambi & John
Bosco Ntangaare, Nicola Cranmer, Helen Nissenbaum, Tom Neilssen, John
Norris, Lorie Novak, Jay Ogilvy, Martha Outlaw, Shannon O'Leary, Annamaria
Pardini, Tom Paddock, Norman Pearlstine, Lenore Percy, Holly Perkins, Tom
Perring, Matt Peyton, Mark Pesce, Christien Perrot, Marie-France Perez,
Patricia Phelan, John Plunkett, Amy Pilkington, Stephen Pink, Laura Pirri,
Alex Predite, Jerry Prentice, Courtney Pulitzer, Laura Putney, Rebecca
Quick, Random, Caroline Rago, Paul and Tina Rock, Felipe Rodriquez, Marion
Rogers, Riki Roy, Lisa Ramirez, Sally Ranney, Andrew Rasiej, Mitch
Ratcliffe, Scotty Ratliff, John Raushenbush, Tom Ray, David Reed, Kit Reed,
Byron Reese, Vicky Reich, Spencer Reiss, Howard Rheingold, Danica Remy,
Jenny Richards, Marie Ringler, Cathilea Robinett, Joe Robinson, Cat
Romance, Monica Rood, Tom Ross, Louis Rossetto, Philip Rosedale, William
Roth, Nick Routledge, Harriet Rubin, Aric Rubin, Dan Ruby, Kevin Ruf,
Morgan Russell, Steve Russell, Kathy Russo, Lynn Russo, Tessa Rumsey , Todd
Rundgren, Goldie Rush, Doug Rushkoff, Peter Rutten, Jeffrey Sachs, Leila
Sadeghee, Paul Saffo, Billy Salezius, Felicity Seidel, Mike Segal, Pam
Samuelson, Jared Sandberg, Tracy Scarlatto, Mark Scarlett, Arleen Schloss,
Gabi Schindler, Tony and Sue Scirica, John Sculley, Bob Schuster, Eric
Schmidt, Peter Schwartz, Rusty Schweikart, Nikki Scully, Nadia Seryakova,
Rosane Serro, Sonya Shannon, Kanwal Sharma, David Shefrin, David Shenk,
Jerry Shepps, Lisa Shields, Sasha Shulgin, Marcia Sharp, Andrew Sieg ,
Katharine Silberger, Greg Simon, Karl Sims, Greg Simon, Al and Ann Simpson,
R.U. Sirius, Peter Skillen, Ivo Skoric, Peter Slothower, Susan Smiley, Rick
Smolan, Lee Smolin, Shannon Smith, Jason Sosnicki, Mary Spada, Tery
Spataro, Steve Speer, Larry Smarr, Megan Smith, Mark Stafford, Malin
Stråhle, David Stanford, Owsley Stanley, Ross Stapleton, Zornitza
Stefanova, Warren Steibel, Barry Steinhardt, Frank Stenberg, Bruce
Sterling, Danny Stern, Rebecca Stenn, Boris Stevens, Neal Stephenson, Greg
Stikeleather, Andrew Stone, Linda Stone, Nadine Strossen, Julie Su, John
Sviokla, Karthik Swaminathan, Howard Swan, Sue Swanson, Tim Sweet, David
Swift, Pam and Phelps Swift, Maia Szalavitz, Beau Takahara, Mark Taylor,
RoseMarie Terenzio, Dan Terkla, Larry Tesler, Dominique Thibault, Brian
Thomson, Tara Thompson, Dr. Fiorella Tirenze, Stephen Topping, Magnus
Torén, Paul Tough, Rob Tow, Mark Tribe, Alan Trist, Adelaida Trujillo, Les
Tuerk, Nick and Hilary Turner, The Tricycle Crew, Helen Tworkov, LLorenç
Valverde, carrie van heyst, Ossi Urchs, Sachiko Uozumi, Hilary Van Welter,
Stacy Valis, Zane Vella, Lauren Wailes, Ann Wagoner, Joss Warnock, Margit
Watts, Father Stephen Watson, Peter Weinberg, Danny Weitzner, Mark Weiser,
Bobby Weir, Judy Weiss, Sarah Weiss, Jerry Wensinger, Linda Widmark, Bob
Widener, Gary Wilson, Eckart Wintzen, Amanda Wise, Jenni Whitney, Colleen
White, Dave Winer, Melanie Winter, Michael E. Wilens, Rusty and Barbara
Williams , Warren Wilson, Alec Wilkinson, Charles Wiseman, Ted Wood,
Marysia Woroniecka, Marijana Wotton, Steve Wozniak, Sue Wyshynski, Jerry
Yang, Muhammad Yunus, Tina van der Worp, Galina Venediktova, Bettina von
Hase, George Vradenburg III, Yasmina Zaidman, Zen Tricksters, Jonathan
Zittrain, Giovanni Ziccardi, Moses Znaimer, Ed Zyszkowski.
*
John Perry Barlow, Cognitive Dissident
Co-Founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Home(stead) Page: http://www.eff.org/~barlow
MegaPhone: 800/654-4322
Barlow in Meatspace Today: Pinedale, Wyoming
Coming soon to: Salt Lake City, 12/27-1/3, Pinedale, Wyoming 1/4-5, San
Francisco 1/5-20, Pinedale, Wyoming 1/21-25, Cambridge, MA (Institute of
Politics) & New York City 1/26-4/1...
**
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
-- John Lennon