Look Up! Timothy Leary May Be Flying Over (Not Really)

Have I said here how much I love the internet? If not, I'll say it now, I LOVE THE INTERNET!

It's a marvelous way to follow your thoughts wherever they take you. Case in point--I came across a blog post a few days ago, quite by accident, which explored all the ways people have of remembering their loved ones through the creative transformation of their cremains (a.k.a. their ashes). Cremains can be added to paint and become part of a work of art. They can be put under great pressure and, get this, turned into diamonds! Bizarre? Yes! Interesting? Absolutely! Please check it out for yourself--click here.

So, that post got me to remembering a movie I had seen a gazillion years ago, The Loved One. I remembered that the idea of sending the "loved one" into space had been proposed as the way of the future. I looked it up on Internet Movie Database to make sure I had the name correct, and I did. That's pretty good considering the movie came out in 1965, and I think I saw it in the early 70s. I went to YouTube to see if there was a trailer or a clip, and of course, there were many, including this one:



I watched quite a few clips, and boy, was that one strange movie! Even stranger than I remembered! I completely forgot how many famous people appeared in the film--Liberace, Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, John Gielgud, Rod Steiger (OMG! You won't believe Rod Steiger's role!), and more!

So, yesterday, I was commenting on The Write Sisters Poetry Friday post and I mentioned I had seen both Allen Ginsburg and Timothy Leary at one time or another. My memory being what it is, I did a search on Timothy Leary to try and figure out exactly when it was that I saw him. Of course, I didn't find anything to help me pinpoint the year, and I'm starting to doubt my memory (and no, I wasn't a pothead, so that doesn't explain it), but, I did learn that Leary died in 1996 and that some of his cremains were launched into orbit by way of Celestis. (If you want to see something really bizarre, there's a photo of a baggy full of Leary's cremains at Timothy Leary Archives. Look for the entry dated March 21, 2009.)

Here's a little bit of trivia for you, Leary's space burial was shared with none other than Gene Roddenberry!

It's been a freaky week of internet searches and discoveries! By the way, have I mentioned how much I love the internet?