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FINDING
YOUR OWN TRUE MYTH: What I Learned
from Joseph Campbell: The
Myth
of the
Great Secret
III
GAY
SPIRITUALITY:
The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness
GAY PERSPECTIVE:
Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the
Universe
SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with
wonderful "aliens" with an
Afterword by Mark Jordan
GETTING
LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE:
A
Fantastical Gay Romance set in two different time periods
THE FOURTH QUILL, a
novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with
the
Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L. Williams
CHARMED
LIVES: Spinning Straw into
Gold: GaySpirit in Storytelling, a collaboration with
Steve Berman and some 30 other writers
THE MYTH OF THE GREAT
SECRET:
An
Appreciation of Joseph Campbell
IN SEARCH OF GOD IN THE
SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: A Mystical Journey
FINDING
GOD IN THE SEXUAL UNDERWORLD: The Journey Expanded
Unpublished manuscripts
About ordering
Books on
Gay Spirituality:
White
Crane Gay Spirituality Series
Articles
and Excerpts:
Review of Samuel
Avery's The
Dimensional Structure of Consciousness
Funny
Coincidence: "Aliens Settle in San Francisco"
About Liberty Books, the
Lesbian/Gay Bookstore for Austin, 1986-1996
The Simple Answer to the Gay Marriage Debate
A
Bifurcation of Gay Spirituality
Why gay people should NOT Marry
The Scriptural Basis for
Same Sex Marriage
Toby and Kip Get Married
Wedding Cake Liberation
Gay Marriage in Texas
What's ironic
Shame on the American People
The "highest form of love"
Gay Consciousness
Why homosexuality is a sin
The cause of homosexuality
The
origins of homophobia
Q&A
about Jungian ideas in gay consciousness
What
is homosexuality?
What
is Gay Spirituality?
My three
messages
What
Jesus said about Gay
Rights
Queering
religion
Common
Experiences Unique to Gay
Men
Is there a "uniquely gay
perspective"?
The
purpose of homosexuality
Interview on the Nature of
Homosexuality
What the Bible Says about
Homosexuality
Mesosexual
Ideal for Straight Men
Varieties
of Gay Spirituality
Waves
of Gay Liberation Activity
The Gay Succession
Wouldn’t You Like to Be Uranian?
The Reincarnation of
Edward Carpenter
Why Gay Spirituality: Spirituality
as Artistic Medium
Easton Mountain Retreat Center
Andrew Harvey &
Spiritual Activism
The Mysticism of
Andrew Harvey
The
upsidedown book on MSNBC
Enlightenment
"It's
Always About You"
The myth of the Bodhisattva
Avalokitesvara
Joseph
Campbell's description of
Avalokiteshvara
You're
Not A Wave
Joseph Campbell Talks
about Aging
What is Enlightenment?
What is reincarnation?
How many lifetimes in an
ego?
Emptiness & Religious Ideas
Experiencing experiencing experiencing
Going into the Light
Meditations for a Funeral
Meditation Practice
The way to get to heaven
Buddha's father was right
What Anatman means
Advice to Travelers to India
& Nepal
The Danda Nata
& goddess Kalika
Nate Berkus is a bodhisattva
John Boswell was Immanuel Kant
Cutting
edge realization
The Myth of the
Wanderer
Change: Source of
Suffering & of Bliss
World Navel
What the Vows Really
Mean
Manifesting
from the Subtle Realms
The Three-layer
Cake
& the Multiverse
The
est Training and Personal Intention
Effective
Dreaming in Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven
Gay
Spirituality
Curious
Bodies
What
Toby Johnson Believes
The
Joseph Campbell Connection
The
Mann Ranch (& Rich Gabrielson)
Campbell
& The Pre/Trans Fallacy
The
Two Loves
The
Nature of Religion
What's true about
Religion
Being
Gay is a Blessing
Drawing Long Straws
Freedom
of Religion
The
Gay Agenda
Gay
Saintliness
Gay
Spiritual Functions
The subtle workings of the spirit
in gay men's lives.
The Sinfulness of
Homosexuality
Proposal
for a study of gay nondualism
Priestly Sexuality
Having a Church to
Leave
Harold Cole on Beauty
Marian Doctrines:
Immaculate Conception & Assumption
Not lashed to the
prayer-post
Monastic or Chaste
Homosexuality
Is It Time to Grow
Up? Confronting
the Aging Process
Notes on Licking
(July, 1984)
Redeem Orlando
Gay Consciousness changing
the
world by Shokti LoveStar
Alexander Renault
interviews Toby
Johnson
Mystical Vision
"The
Evolution of Gay Identity"
"St. John of the
Cross & the Dark Night of
the Soul."
Avalokiteshvara
at the Baths
Eckhart's Eye
Let Me
Tell You a Secret
Religious
Articulations of the
Secret
The
Collective Unconscious
Driving as
Spiritual Practice
Meditation
Historicity
as Myth
Pilgrimage
No
Stealing
Next
Step in Evolution
The
New Myth
The Moulting of the Holy Ghost
Gaia
is a Bodhisattva
The Hero's
Journey
The
Hero's Journey as archetype -- GSV 2016
The Gay Hero Journey
(shortened)
You're
On Your Own
Superheroes
Seeing
Differently
Teenage
Prostitution and the Nature of Evil
Allah
Hu: "God is present here"
Adam
and Steve
The Life is
in the Blood
Gay retirement and the "freelance
monastery"
Seeing with
Different Eyes
Facing
the Edge: AIDS as an occasion for spiritual wisdom
What
are you looking for in a gay science fiction novel?
The Vision
The
mystical experience at the Servites' Castle in Riverside
A Most Remarkable
Synchronicity in
Riverside
The
Great Dance according to C.S.Lewis
The Techniques Of The
World Saviors
Part 1: Brer Rabbit and the
Tar-Baby
Part 2: The
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
Part 3: Jesus
and the Resurrection
Part 4: A
Course in Miracles
The
Secret of the Clear Light
Understanding
the Clear Light
Mobius
Strip
Finding
Your
Tiger Face
How Gay Souls Get Reincarnated
Joseph
Campbell, the Hero's Journey, and the modern Gay Hero-- a five part
presentation on YouTube
About Alien Abduction
In
honor of Sir Arthur C Clarke
Karellen was a homosexual
The
D.A.F.O.D.I.L. Alliance
Intersections
with the movie When We Rise
More
about Gay Mental Health
Psych
Tech Training
Toby
at the California Institute
The
Rainbow Flag
Ideas for gay
mythic stories
People
Kip and Toby,
Activists
Toby's
friend and nicknamesake Toby Marotta.
Harry
Hay, Founder of the gay movement
About Hay and The New Myth
About
Karl
Heinrich Ulrichs, the first
man to really "come out"
About Michael Talbot, gay mystic
About Fr. Bernard Lynch
About Richard Baltzell
About Guy Mannheimer
About David Weyrauch
About
Dennis Paddie
About Ask the Fire
About
Arthur Evans
About
Christopher Larkin
About Mark Thompson
About Sterling Houston
About Michael Stevens
The Alamo Business
Council
Our friend Tom Nash
Second March on
Washington
The
Gay
Spirituality Summit in May 2004 and the "Statement
of Spirituality"
Book
Reviews
Be Done on Earth by Howard
E. Cook
Pay Me What I'm Worth by
Souldancer
The Way Out by Christopher
L Nutter
The Gay Disciple by John Henson
Art That Dares by Kittredge Cherry
Coming Out, Coming Home by Kennth
A. Burr
Extinguishing
the Light by B. Alan Bourgeois
Over Coffee: A conversation
For Gay
Partnership & Conservative Faith by D.a. Thompson
Dark Knowledge
by
Kenneth Low
Janet Planet by
Eleanor
Lerman
The
Kairos by Paul E. Hartman
Wrestling
with Jesus by D.K.Maylor
Kali Rising by Rudolph
Ballentine
The
Missing Myth by Gilles Herrada
The
Secret of the Second Coming by Howard E. Cook
The Scar Letters: A
Novel
by Richard Alther
The
Future is Queer by Labonte & Schimel
Missing Mary
by Charlene Spretnak
Gay
Spirituality 101 by Joe Perez
Cut Hand: A
Nineteeth Century Love Story on the American Frontier by Mark Wildyr
Radiomen
by Eleanor Lerman
Nights
at
Rizzoli by Felice Picano
The Key
to Unlocking the Closet Door by Chelsea Griffo
The Door
of the Heart by Diana Finfrock Farrar
Occam’s
Razor by David Duncan
Grace
and
Demion by Mel White
Gay Men and The New Way Forward by Raymond L.
Rigoglioso
The
Dimensional Stucture of Consciousness by Samuel Avery
The
Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love by Perry Brass
Love
Together: Longtime Male Couples on Healthy Intimacy and Communication
by Tim Clausen
War
Between Materialism and Spiritual by Jean-Michel Bitar
The
Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion by
Jeffrey J. Kripal
Esalen:
America and the Religion of No Religion by Jeffrey J. Kripal
The
Invitation to Love by
Darren Pierre
Brain,
Consciousness, and God: A Lonerganian Integration by Daniel A
Helminiak
A
Walk with Four Spiritual Guides by Andrew Harvey
Can Christians Be Saved? by Stephenson & Rhodes
The
Lost Secrets of the Ancient Mystery Schools by Stephenson &
Rhodes
Keys to
Spiritual
Being: Energy Meditation and Synchronization Exercises by Adrian
Ravarour
In
Walt We
Trust by John Marsh
Solomon's
Tantric Song by Rollan McCleary
A Special Illumination by Rollan McCleary
Aelred's
Sin
by Lawrence Scott
Fruit
Basket
by Payam Ghassemlou
Internal
Landscapes by John Ollom
Princes
& Pumpkins by David Hatfield Sparks
Yes by Brad
Boney
Blood of the Goddess by William Schindler
Roads of Excess,
Palaces of
Wisdom by Jeffrey Kripal
Evolving
Dharma by Jay Michaelson
Jesus
in Salome's Lot by Brett W. Gillette
The Man Who Loved Birds by Fenton Johnson
The
Vatican Murders by Lucien Gregoire
"Sex Camp"
by
Brian McNaught
Out
& About with Brewer & Berg
Episode One: Searching for a New Mythology
The
Soul Beneath the Skin by David Nimmons
Out
on
Holy Ground by Donald Boisvert
The
Revotutionary Psychology of Gay-Centeredness by Mitch Walker
Out There
by Perry Brass
The Crucifixion of Hyacinth by Geoff Puterbaugh
The
Silence of Sodom by Mark D Jordan
It's
Never About What It's About by Krandall Kraus and Paul Borja
ReCreations,
edited by Catherine Lake
Gospel: A
Novel
by WIlton Barnhard
Keeping
Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey by Fenton Johnson
Dating the Greek Gods by Brad Gooch
Telling
Truths in Church by Mark D. Jordan
The
Substance of God by Perry Brass
The
Tomcat Chronicles by Jack Nichols
10
Smart
Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives by Joe Kort
Jesus and the Shamanic Tradition of Same Sex Love
by Will Roscoe
The
Third Appearance by Walter Starcke
The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann
Surviving
and Thriving After a Life-Threatening Diagnosis by Bev Hall
Men,
Homosexuality, and the Gods by Ronald Long
An Interview
with Ron Long
Queering Creole Spiritual Traditons by Randy
Conner & David Sparks
An Interview with
Randy Conner
Pain,
Sex
and Time by Gerald Heard
Sex
and the Sacred by Daniel Helminiak
Blessing Same-Sex Unions by Mark Jordan
Rising Up
by
Joe Perez
Soulfully
Gay
by Joe Perez
That
Undeniable Longing by Mark Tedesco
Vintage: A
Ghost
Story by
Steve Berman
Wisdom
for the Soul by Larry Chang
MM4M a DVD
by Bruce Grether
Double
Cross
by David Ranan
The
Transcended Christian by Daniel Helminiak
Jesus
in Love by Kittredge Cherry
In
the Eye of the Storm by Gene Robinson
The
Starry Dynamo by Sven Davisson
Life
in
Paradox by Fr Paul Murray
Spirituality for Our Global Community by Daniel
Helminiak
Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society by Robert A.
Minor
Coming Out: Irish Gay Experiences by Glen O'Brien
Queering
Christ
by Robert Goss
Skipping
Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage
The
Flesh of the Word by Richard A Rosato
Catland by
David Garrett Izzo
Tantra
for Gay Men by Bruce Anderson
Yoga
&
the Path of the Urban Mystic by Darren Main
Simple
Grace
by Malcolm Boyd
Seventy
Times Seven by Salvatore Sapienza
What
Does "Queer" Mean Anyway? by Chris Bartlett
Critique of Patriarchal Reasoning by Arthur Evans
Gift
of
the Soul by Dale Colclasure & David Jensen
Legend of the Raibow Warriors by Steven McFadden
The
Liar's
Prayer by Gregory Flood
Lovely
are the Messengers by Daniel Plasman
The Human Core of Spirituality by Daniel Helminiak
3001:
The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Religion and the Human Sciences by Daniel Helminiak
Only
the
Good Parts by Daniel Curzon
Four
Short
Reviews of Books with a Message
Life
Interrupted by Michael Parise
Confessions of a Murdered Pope by Lucien Gregoire
The
Stargazer's Embassy by Eleanor Lerman
Conscious
Living, Conscious Aging by Ron Pevny
Footprints Through the Desert by Joshua Kauffman
True
Religion by J.L. Weinberg
The Mediterranean Universe by John Newmeyer
Everything
is God by Jay Michaelson
Reflection
by Dennis Merritt
Everywhere
Home by Fenton Johnson
Hard Lesson by James
Gaston
God
vs Gay?
by Jay Michaelson
The
Gate
of Tears: Sadness and the Spiritual Path by Jay Michaelson
Roxie
&
Fred by Richard Alther
Not
the Son He Expected by Tim Clausen
The
9 Realities of Stardust by Bruce P. Grether
The
Afterlife Revolution by Anne & Whitley Strieber
AIDS
Shaman:
Queer Spirit Awakening by Shokti Lovestar
Facing the Truth of Your Life by Merle Yost
The
Super Natural by Whitley Strieber & Jeffrey J Kripal
Secret
Body by
Jeffrey J Kripal
In
Hitler's
House by Jonathan Lane
Walking on Glory by Edward Swift
The
Paradox
of Porn by Don Shewey
Is Heaven for Real? by Lucien Gregoire
Enigma by Lloyd Meeker
Scissors,
Paper, Rock by Fenton Johnson
Toby Johnson's
titles are
available in other ebook formats from Smashwords.
|
Arthur C. Clarke: Visionary
March
18, 2008, at the age of 90, renowned writer and futurologist Arthur C.
Clarke passed away. His death made national news in America—of course.
His name, arguably, has been one of the most recognizable in the world,
if only as creator (with Stanley Kubrick) of the movie 2001: A Space
Odyssey. He was a leader in consciousness evolution, an expert on space
science, and author of over a hundred books.
What won’t be
mentioned in
most of the news stories, though, is that he was gay. Of course, that’s
using the term inaccurately. He wasn’t a gay man like the
post-Stonewall generation in the U.S., but he was certainly one of us.
Speaking personally,
let
me report that Clarke had a tremendous influence on me as a young man.
I read all his books, emulated his writing style, and even to some
extent adopted his post-religious “spiritual” vision of human
consciousness. So in the late 1990s, when I learned my friend Kerry
O’Quinn, a gay Austinite and also a science fiction writer, told me
he’d met Clarke and carried on a correspondence with him, I jumped at
the opportunity to be introduced by mail. (Kerry also wrote a
lovely remembrance of A.C.C.; I have included it below.)
I corresponded with Clarke
for several years. I wrote about his post-religious spirituality in a
couple of my books and cleared my acknowledgement of his sexual
identity with him. So I have no qualms about my including him in the
pantheon of homosexual seers.
An ex-patriate
Englishman,
Clarke lived most of his adult life as what English society might call
a “confirmed bachelor” in an intentional, extended family in the
Theravada Buddhist land of Sri Lanka (in fable, the mystical island of
Serendip where good fortune and lucky coincidence reign). Though
married for a time as a young man, Clarke offered a marvelous example
of the contributing, participating life, lived free of the conventions
of marriage and childrearing.
He demurred about
coming
out publicly as gay, he wrote, because he felt this fact would be used
to discredit his ideas. He was 61 at the time of Stonewall, already
past the sexual prime in which it’s meaningful to identify oneself as
gay. And, indeed, in 1997, a British tabloid, The Sunday Mirror, ran a
story accusing him of having moved to Sri Lanka in order to buy sex
from underaged boys, something he found offensive and the accusation
distressing. He thought the accusation was really aimed at Prince
Charles who was scheduled to knight him—as Sir Arthur—that same year.
(At the same time as Sir Elton John, by the way.)
He had a cute quip
about not being gay: "At my age now,” he said, “I'm just a little bit
cheerful."
He
wrote that he was quite
fascinated with the role homosexuals have played down through time as
revolutionary thinkers. (In our correspondence, he expressed great
interest in C.A. Tripp’s book about Abraham Lincoln as gay.) He kept a
private collection of writing which is not to be published until 50
years after his death. I’d wager the world is going to receive the open
acknowledgement of his homosexuality and of his theory about gay
consciousness as revolutionary come 2058.
Science
fiction is one of the ways in which the mythmaking function of human
consciousness appears today. 2001, with its final psychedelic imagery
and apotheosis of astronaut David Bowman into the Star Child, described
human consciousness transcending individuality and merging into some
sort of greater consciousness, all explained in scientific sounding
terms.
In his renowned novel,
Childhood’s End, as scientific prophet, Clarke described a planetary
progression to a collective mind (in the novel called “the Overmind”)
that is foreshadowed by “psychic powers”: telepathy, telekinesis,
clairvoyance, and memory of collective, cosmic events. In that sense,
one might say he hypothesized such paranormal powers, long elements of
religion and mysticism, to be forerunners and hints at humankind’s
future evolution. (Read Toby Johnson's essay Karellen was a homosexual)
Even in the 1950s,
when
Childhood’s End appeared, he called himself an “agnostic Buddhist,” so
he probably didn’t believe in a personal afterlife. Still we might
imagine that in his dying, Sir Arthur experienced rising into the
Overmind.
In his
modern/futuristic
way, he has surely been a visionary and “Enlightened Being,” a
scientifically-minded prophet who had foreseen, and helped bring about,
the modern transformation of consciousness. He was surely an
incarnation of the archetype of the homosexual seer.
Clarke was one of the great influences on Toby
Johnson.
His
soft sci-fi
novel Secret Matter
is a sort of
honorific to Clarke, and written in something of the same expository,
easy to read, style of Clarke.
Science Fiction is one of the ways in which the mythmaking function of
human consciousness appears today.
For an encyclopedic
article about Sir Arthur
For an article in The Guardian about Sir
Arthur's discretion about his personal life (and political reasons
for such discretion) along with an explanation of his cute quip about
not being gay, "At my age, now I'm just a little bit cheerful."
~ ~ ~
The accumulation of all
human
experience
is one of the insights about spiritual / human experience Toby learned
from Arthur C. Clarke. He's written about this by recounting one of
Clarke's most famous short stories.
The role of humankind, Alan Watts
said, is
to be
God’s “sense organs,” to experience all that it is possible to
experience. I’ve already cited science fiction novelist Arthur C.
Clarke as a spokesman of mythological wisdom. This idea too can be
found in the metaphor of one of his best known stories, “The Nine
Billion Names of God.”
Clarke’s story opens in the Manhattan offices of a
major data processing company. Several representatives of a Himalayan
monastery have come to lease a computer. They explain that it was the
intuition of the founder of their community that the purpose of human
life is to uncover and record the names of God. Over years of
theological consideration, the monks have developed an alphabet; all
possible combinations and permutations of the characters, according to
certain simple principles of grammar, will spell out all of God’s
names. There are, it seems, about nine billion.
The Order has been laboring scrupulously over three
centuries to figure out and copy the combinations of letters and file
them reverently in tomes in their great library. Recently they’ve
realized that modern technology could assist their spiritual work. They
have, therefore, come to arrange for the use of a computer and printer
that will quickly figure and print out the required arrangement of
characters. Well, the job seemed somewhat unusual, but the computer
firm prided itself on the adaptability of its equipment.
The story shifts to a steep path down the side of a
Himalayan mountain. The two technicians who accompanied the computer
have decided that, since the machine was nearing completion of its
task, they ought to leave. After all, they reasoned, the monks were
expecting something to come of all this. When the machine had finished
and nothing happened, the monks were likely to get angry, destroy the
machine, and perhaps attack them. As they were halfway down the path,
the electrical lighting in the monastery went out, signifying that the
printer had completed its run and been shut down. The job was done. The
last printouts were being taken to their place in the library.
One of the technicians remarked on the narrowness of
their escape, but there was no answer from the other. When he looked
over, he saw that his friend was silently staring into space. He, too,
looked up: “(there is always a last time for everything.) Overhead,
without any fuss, the stars were going out.”
The discovery of the nine billion names can represent
the accumulation of experience. Each of us, and with each life each
experience, is one of the “names of God.” To contribute to the
discovery and cataloguing of the nine billion names, we must open
ourselves to experience, resisting nothing, refusing no experience to
the One Mind, flowing easily and gently with life.
from The Myth of the Great
Secret
Sir Arthur C. Clarke
16 Dec 1917 – 18 Mar 2008
by Kerry O'Quinn
19 March 2008
I arrived at my Hollywood apartment late yesterday,
after a
magical
weekend in San Francisco with my friend Howard Roffman, who now runs
practically everything at LucasFilm.
Howard arranged a tour for me (and my pals Zach, Brian, Noah and
Hunter) of the new Presidio offices -- replete with spaceship and
dinosaur models, light sabers, trophies and awards, magnificent matte
paintings, and vintage movie posters – inside, beyond the Yoda fountain.
Within minutes after returning from this wondrous adventure my phone
rang, and my lifelong friend David Houston (first editor of STARLOG)
brought tears to my happy face with news that Arthur C. Clarke died
yesterday morning.
I want to share a few personal memories.
* * *
Arthur C. Clarke entered my life in June 1973 (three years before the
first issue of STARLOG) aboard a Cunard Atlantic cruise to rendezvous
with a solar eclipse. I had been hired as Program Director and was
responsible for scientific classes and lectures in rooms normally
devoted to drinking and gambling on the good ship Adventurer.
I was warned that of all the celebrities on board (including scientists
and astronauts) Clarke would be my biggest problem. He had become world
famous as Stanley Kubrick’s collaborator on the movie 2001: A Space
Odyssey, the trailblazing MGM movie. Passengers on the ship were aware
that Clarke had conceived the communications satellite system in a
technical paper published in 1945 (before the space program made such
concepts plausible) and was author of dozens of books, both science
fiction and science fact.
I was told that Clarke was a genius with a colossal ego – and my
personal responsibility for 14 days at sea.
I slipped quietly into his first shipboard lecture, "Life in the Year
2001." We had not met, so I stood at the back of the room (packed with
eager souls listening to his crisp British accent) accessing my
"biggest problem."
His manner was casual, but his words were carefully selected. He was
not trying to overwhelm us with dramatic ideas or emotional
descriptions – he was just talking about changes that science would
bring to our planet, how people in the future would be healthier,
happier, and less afraid of each other. It was simple, and it was
inspiring.
By the time he finished, I was wiping tears of joyous optimism from my
eyes. The man who was going to be my biggest problem had become my
greatest excitement. I introduced myself, told him how profoundly he
had moved me, and from that moment on he was Arthur – my friend.
During the remainder of our voyage to darkness I enjoyed watching him
hold court in the ship’s theater as he introduced screenings of 2001. I
chuckled at each meal, listening to Arthur’s table (which included
astronauts Wally Schirra) – loud groans followed by raucous laughter as
a parade of bad intellectual puns were exchanged.
On the day of totality Arthur and I watched the spectacular celestial
event from the Captain’s bridge. An eclipse is a bonding experience,
uniting total strangers with an event that used to terrify people in
ancient times. Arthur always called me his "shipmate" – a title I
accepted proudly.
Over the years, we’ve seen each other in New York City – at the STARLOG
offices, at my Manhattan apartment, at the premiere of Star Trek III:
The Search for Spock, and at the Chelsea Hotel (where, years earlier,
he wrote the screenplay for 2001). We spent time together in Los
Angeles when he was working with Peter Hyams on 2010: Odyssey Two, and
he gave me a tour of the incredible sets. We’ve kept in touch by postal
letters, by FAX, by telephone and by email.
In 2001, at a time when we had not been in touch for a few months, I
emailed "I miss the nasty little bits of humor you used to send my way.
Surely there must be something absurd and off-color in the news you
get." Arthur replied with several wonderfully naughty jokes.
In 2004 my friend Jon and I visited Arthur on his chosen turf – Sri
Lanka. When I arrived at his home, his secretary ushered me into the
office, and there – sitting behind his desk, surrounded by framed
photos of him with presidents and celebrities -- he greeted me wearing
an ape mask.
"Good grief!" I exclaimed, "I came half-way round the world to see a
great visionary mind...will you every grow up?" Eyes twinkled behind
rubber: "I’m not planning on it."
As a welcome gesture, he had written a naughty limerick that started
"There once was a chap named O’Quinn, Ceaselessly searching for new
kinds of sin..." He knew me way too well.
Yes, Arthur was gay – although in his era that wasn’t the term. As
Isaac Asimov once told me, "I think he simply found he preferred men."
Arthur didn’t publicize his sexuality – that wasn’t the focus of his
life – but if asked, he was open and honest.
I remember on board the ship, a total stranger approached him one day,
apparently having heard a homosexual rumor, and offered Arthur a silver
Lambda pin. "Are you willing to wear this?" the fellow asked.
"Delighted," was Arthur’s response. He put it on and wore it the
remainder of the voyage.
Recently I sent Arthur a proposal for "Space Station," a television
series I created – with him as Space Sciences Advisor. He replied,
"Yes, of course I am interested. Your outline’s certainly promising and
has already given me several ideas." He urged me to visit and discuss
in person. Sadly, we will not work together on that project.
I launched STARLOG in 1976 and wrote my "From The Bridge" column for
more than 275 issues. Over the years I featured pieces on Arthur more
than any other human, but, as Mr. Spock would say, "that’s only
logical." Arthur was so rich with activities and accomplishments that
he was perpetually newsworthy, and his wit and brilliance constantly
challenged me, surprised me, and delighted me. For more than 40 years
he added excitement to my life.
In a recent "Egogram" (his term for the email newsletter of his
activities) Arthur wrote "...completing 90 orbits around the sun was a
suitable occasion to reflect on how I would like to be remembered. I’ve
had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter
and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as
a writer – one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their
imagination as well."
He definitely stretched my imagination. Sir Arthur C. Clarke was one of
a kind, a dear friend, a planetary treasure and a prime example of
carbon-based bipeds.
I am so fortunate to have accepted that strange job as Program Director
on an eclipse cruise. My rendezvous with Arthur was more dazzling than
seeing stars and planets overhead in the middle of the day.
Kerry O'Quinn
Hollywood, CA, Earth |
