She was 26 and he was 52 and a fugitive from justice when their lives intersected. She was with him when he was recaptured.
“Neither the counterculture nor the prosecutors and prison system knew what to make of her,” Michael Horowitz, Mr. Leary’s archivist, said in a 2017 interview. “Her outspoken, upper-class European manner put people off,” he said. “She had an edge and knew how to get her way. Tim empowered her, and she in turn was tremendously loyal to him, dedicated to getting him out — whatever it took. Alienating many in the counterculture was the fallout from that.”
He got out of prison in 1976, as the 2 of them became "federal informants" That led Allen Ginsberg to call her "a C.I.A. sex provocateur." The feds put them in the witness protection program — "outside Santa Fe under the aliases James and Nora Joyce."
They were both alcoholics and fought all the time before splitting up. Ms. Harcourt-Smith moved to the Caribbean and lived on a sailboat for a few years. She stopped drinking and taking drugs in 1983 and settled in Santa Fe, where she began life anew. “I felt like a child who grew up in the forest,” she said... “I had to relearn everything.... I had so much shame and guilt that I could barely write.”
The great filmmaker Errol Morris has made a documentary about her that will be on Showtime soon. She wrote a memoir "Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary: My Psychedelic Love Story."
It doesn't have any one star reviews at Amazon, so I read the 2 star reviews. Here's one:... The author had a seven-week affair with Timothy Leary before he was imprisoned. Then she spent years awaiting his release, dreaming of a settled married life in the distant future. The author fills the pages with countless acid trips, cocaine lines, infinite bottles of champagne, and continual smoking of her Gauloise cigarettes as she awaits Leary's release. While she claims an aristocratic upbringing, her class privilege and snobbery get tiresome. A parade of sexual partners, many of which she uses to enable her drug use begin to seem amoral and sleazy. That she cooperated to entrap Leary's lawyer in a drug bust to help get Leary released from jail adds to her tawdry tale. This is the first time I threw a new book into the dumpster.
Here's the other:
The author's forward thanks the many friends and "editors" who helped her finish this nonsense, and then proceeds to write a rambling tale of hedonism which would bore Errol Flynn. Where for all the God's Sakes were the editors blue DELETE THIS pencils? As I was born in 1945, saw the 60s from Southern California, and served two years in the Army Airborne (drafted, no heroics), and had met Other People's Money Leary on occasion, I bought and struggled through this book out of pure curiosity. I finished this book in an evening, hoping that the author would arrive at some sense of the Bardo she expounded. All I learned was 20 some years of AA sobriety often leaves the cucumber less a pickle and fit only for relish on a Costco Polish Dog, since unfortunately discontinued.
३८ टिप्पण्या:
Gee, they left out the part about Leary and his various paramours and academic peers drugging and raping children.
Again.
I feel like I should have something to say about this, but I don't. I clicked on the link to get some further inspiration or to see if I could dredge up a grain of reaction or care, but as always, I am blocked from NYT because I won't pay them. I guess the only thing I'd say is that I had forgotten about Harcourt-Smith and probably figured I'd never hear that name again.
I was wrong.
Her body was lucky to make it to 74.
The Tim Leary hullabaloo was passed it's sell buy date in 1968. Are older boomers nostalgic?
everything I know about Timothy Leary I learned from the Moody Blues.
+10 style points for the second reviewe's take-down analogy in the last line
Huh, this is interesting. I didn't know any of this, including her name and that she existed. I'm like John above. I must be too young. What a long strange trip it was for those two.
I thoroughly enjoy reading obits, especially about seeming obscure people who did something extraordinary in their life. My wife thinks I'm nuts. Although Harcourt-Smith was not particularly obscure, it was a good read. Boy, the wealthy sure have their share of emotional issues.
George Clinton’s Timothy Leary stories are the best.
he was 26 and he was 52
hmmm... let's do the math!
52/2 = 26
26 + 7 is MUCH MORE THAN 26
CREEPY!
I thought - "Where does Charles Manson fit into this story?"
Wiki to the rescue:
"While in Folsom, [Leary] was placed in a cell right next to Charles Manson,"
"Timothy Leary was an early influence on game theory applied to psychology, having introduced the concept to the International Association of Applied Psychology in 1961 at their annual conference in Copenhagen."
"Leary recruited Lennon to write a theme song for his California gubernatorial campaign against Ronald Reagan (which was interrupted by Leary's prison sentence for cannabis possession), inspiring Lennon to come up with "Come Together" (1969), based on Leary's campaign theme and catchphrase."
...fills the pages with countless acid trips, cocaine lines, infinite bottles of champagne...A parade of sexual partners, many of which she uses to enable her drug use begin to seem amoral and sleazy
Protip:
A parade of sexual partners, many to enable drug use does NOT begin to seem amoral and sleazy
it IS amoral and sleazy
Seriously, being a coke whore isn't a class act... ONLY a coke whore wouldn't know this
The Errol Morris documentary sounds worthwhile, but I'd like Werner Herzog to take a whack at her. Was she the grizzly or the grizzly man? Did her choice of partners lead her to doom or did she lead her partners to doom. Well, anyway she broke seventy and didn't die in prison.
There was a time when you could get drafted into the airborne?
Reviewer #2 final comment was clever.
"All I learned was 20 some years of AA sobriety often leaves the cucumber less a pickle and fit only for relish on a Costco Polish Dog, since unfortunately discontinued."
AA sobriety...gotta figure out a way to incorporate that on Althouse Blog.
Lucien said...
There was a time when you could get drafted into the airborne?
you could get Drafted.... Then you could OPT for Airborne
My Brother in-law's Dad did this ~1943
i THOUGHT that Jimi Hendrix did this in the '60's but (apparently) he enlisted to avoid going to jail for car theft*
Man! Rich people sure do have tough lives!
/sarc
Jet setters. Dont see that term much anymore. Leary and the Flower Children? How'd that
connection come about? That was part of Wolf's book on the Merry Pranksters - Leary didn't
have much use for the flower children set. You didn't get into witness protection because the flower children were mad at you. I wonder what kind of sail boat she lived on.
She should have taken up quilting.
Born in 1946 at the Palace Hotel in St Moritz, Switzerland, Joanna's childhood was abusive, privileged and dysfunctional - her grandfather was also her stepfather - and shaped her into what she described as a 'spoiled and damaged socialite'.
Biden family values.
Temujin said... I feel like I should have something to say about this, but I don't.
Ditto. I lived through those times...but,I can't---WON'T---click on a NYT or WaPoo link. So I can't really comment on something that is not read.
Question. Does Althouse read ANYTHING other than the NYT, WaPoo or other ultra left wing sources?
Question. Does Althouse read ANYTHING other than the NYT, WaPoo or other ultra left wing sources?
They are the only "true" news sources on her planet. Althouse gets a girl boner when the Left steals a Presidential election. Especially when they control the other levers of power that could send them to the gallows. Picture Althouse wearing that Patty Hearst outfit, brandishing an AK-47. Teenage dreams coming true.
What fun times she had. Now do the Manson family, Althouse! And then maybe the Menendez boys, or Leona Helmsley. Leading a vile life while rich is still just leading a vile life.
It's foreword. Fore-word. Not "forward." Not "forward" YOU SUBHUMAN SACK OF LYING SHIT!
Good morning y'all.
I only follow the Prof's links for the pix. Was she hot?
Not that I could see at the link.
Leary was just some dude as far as my friends and I were concerned, a professor who actually did Drop Out and Tune In. That was a lifestyle choice and he was welcome to it.
Narr
She was an aristocrat's Aristocrat IYKWIM
Fuck a bunck of druggies! Make this movie - https://heavy.com/news/2020/09/ashli-blain/
Yeah Ashli Blain is a Role Model.
"She was 26 and he was 52...
There goes the one-half plus seven rule...and she wasn't even a hottie.
Ginsberg was a pedophile asshole. A prime candidate for abortion.
James and Nora Joyce... even their witness-protection names were a prank.
Joanna Harcourt-Smith is a great fucking name. Rolls off the tongue, and prepares you perfectly for the upper class British babe it describes.
Wait, the Costco Polish Dog was discontinued?
"Rolls off the tongue, and prepares you perfectly for the upper class British babe it describes."
'Babe' is being charitable...she's no Pussy Galore.
"Wait, the Costco Polish Dog was discontinued?"
Costco really pissed me off then they switched to Pepsi from Coke.
Costco? Elitists!
Around here, at Sam's (where I go) the customers speak English (as it is spoke hereabouts), Spanish, and a little Arabic. At Costco there's better English, Spanish, more Arabic, and Chinese.
Narr
Pepsi, pispe
"At Costco there's better English, Spanish, more Arabic, and Chinese."
And where I live, lots of Hindi...
This is what the Times does best...being a gossip column for neurotic white women. I wonder how much longer their diversity obsessed younger writers will let them continue down this path. There must be something racist going on here.
Yes, more Hindi recently but my last visit to Costco was maybe three years ago.
Narr
Good ear!
"Question. Does Althouse read ANYTHING other than the NYT, WaPoo or other ultra left wing sources?"
Yeah. She reads lots of stuff, and listens to lots more. She's a Perfesser, of course she reads.
She also reads the writing on the Wall. That's why she took a bang-bang course. I think Althouse is studying the NYT and WaPo. She hopes to understand what is going on there, perhaps as a window into what is going on elsewhere.
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा