i had a dear friend, a radio correspondent who had her leg amputated a few weeks ago having been in afghanistan where i was just a few months ago. so the risks were real. i'm clear about that. i had an experience a couple of years ago. when i go to these places, i train, i prepare myself to go. because i'm slow and how i have to process things and routine and rote is how i learn. it's how i train to go to war. physical training. i study weapon systems. all those kinds of things so i can be prepared as best i can. so a few years ago i was sent to iraq on very short notice, like a few days. like i had to go to iraq right away. i didn't have time to prepare physically the way i normally do. the training i have. i wear a 40 pound backpack or vest that i run in so i can carry the weight. no time to train. i was a little nervous going. and so there was a sunday i got to go to church before i went away. and lynn knew that i was a bit

nervous so i tried to, you know, man the family and try to be calm. so lynn let some of the folk at church know that i was anxious about this particular trip and things were going bad in iraq. so after church, a group of ministers and deacons from the church formed a prayer circle around me. i've seen prayer circles but i've never been in the center of one before. the deacon sent men and women -- they put hands on me and reverend andrews put his hands on my head. i was so incredibly uncomfortable. why is this man putting his hands on my head? [laughter] >> but those folks prayed for me. and encouraged me. and on the plane right from new york to amman, jordan, to baghdad i thought about that. and i tell the story in the book. when i first got to baghdad there was a security protocol you go into -- they require you to wear one vest. but to tell you how i am, i

carry three. i wear one. i sit on one and i have one by the window in case someone shoots up the car. so when we get to our hotel, we -- as soon as we pull up to the hotel, someone mortars our hotel. it's hit by two mortars and we scramble around and run into the building. as i got out of the car i could feel reverend andrew's hands on my head. and i remember hearing, lord, cover him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. one of my -- when i first got inside the hotel finally, i wish i could say i had a great prayer to say. but i said, lord, already? i just got here. so i run inside. and my colleague who met me, a great producer at cbs news, he said, hey, brother, man were you boys lucky. i said, no, brother, i wasn't lucky. i was prayed on.

thank you all so much for your time. enjoy the rest of your day. i look forward to signing your books. thank you. [applause] >> byron pit it, s a emmy award-winning journalist and a contributor to 60 minutes. for more information, visit us.mack millan.com/stepoutonnothing. >> next from the seattle asian art museum, a biography of madam wife of the former taiwanese president.

she was a prominent voice in nationalist china. this event is 45 minutes. >> thank you for coming. one of the first questions i'm usually asked is -- i was talking about why i decided to write a biography of the madam. my first two books were about royals, a granddaughter and a daughter of queen victoria who lived in romania and germany. why would any writer in her right mind jump from europe to asia from transparent western ladies to mysterious chinese? the explanation goes back to my life with my late husband, alan pakula. sorry about the pronunciation, it is pakula who was working on a screen play "no ordinary

time." a brilliant book about the roosevelt white house. we've been having one of our usual dinner conversations about our work. i.e., no one listening particularly carefully to what the other one was saying. when alan told me about the time when madam chang was staying at the white house. although there were phones and call bells in her room, when she wanted something, she would always go to her door, open it, clap her hands loudly like this and expect the servants to appear. this was the way they called them in shanghai but you can just imagine how this went over in the ultra democratic roosevelt white house. why i wondered would such a highly intelligent woman looking for american money to arm her

country do anything so counterproductive? i was going to find out. first thing i discovered writing about madam chang is that it required a whole new approach to research. and european royals know that they have to pay for their perks, their limos, their planes, their ceremonial carriages, jewels, palaces and privileges. because of this, they're very careful to leave diaries and letters, paper trails to their lives. and their accomplishments. all of which are then carefully coordinated and kept in archives after their gone. chinese luminaries on the other hand seem to feel no obligation to talk or write about themselves.

as a matter of fact, they seem to say as little as possible. i suspect that it may be considered bad taste, although no one has really ever confirmed this for me. madam chang herself refused to see me and had obviously instructed her family to follow her good example. but i was told that thee chiango see me and had obviously instructed her family to follow her good example. but i was told that the a relative would see me. the niece and nephew came to see me. utterly discreet and appropriately noninformative. there was another complication in writing about madame chiang, the question of language. i've never tried to learn the language of the subjects of my books.

i figure you can spend seven or eight years learning a language or writing a book but not both. particularly not at my age. happily, both marie of romania and the empress victoria of germany were born in england and god bless them they wrote their diaries and their letters in their mother tongue. as to madame chiang a great deal of what i needed was unless english and when it came to material in chinese archives, i was fortunate enough to find a graduate student through a friend of a friend, a young woman who lived in shanghai and did not automatically spout party dogma. without her i could not have written this book. you'll probably notice if you look into the back pages of the last empress that i ended up consulting quite a number of archives in order to write it.

by far of the best source for information, however, was the hoover institute at stanford university. my personal theory is that most right wing governments leave their archives to hoover. my experience with hoover goes back to my first book, "the last romantic" a biography of queen marie of romania. this was a long time ago. alan and i were living in southern california. he was directing all the president's men. and i went up to the north to see the son of the romanian prime minister who was working at hoover at the time. at that point in my life, i'd written nothing more than book reviews and pieces on blue jeans and shopping bags. so i was amazed at the welcome

welcome we got. we apologize for not giving you the first class tour but governor reagan is here today. now you know how long ago it was. here, let us show you goebles diaries. why were they treating me so well. i worked there for a week or two and got ready to leave. as i was walking out the powers that be stopped me. mrs. pakula, it's been such great pleasure having you here. do you think you could get woodward and bernstein's papers for us? [laughter] >> the list of archives credited in the back of my book on madame as she was called is ridiculously long. trips and letters to the library of congress, the national archives, the fbi, the cia need no explanation. but what i discovered early on

was how many universities around the united states have material on madame chiang. it took a while before i realized that there were dozens of what are called china hands. diplomats and journalists who for various reasons specialized in china and who all left their papers to their home universities. my favorite was the diplomat from cornell. a fascinating guy who worked at least part-time for the intelligence service. and who left a couple of pictures along with his extensive notes. in one of them madame was standing next to a doorway carefully legs -- carefully posed in the old hollywood style. you remember the knee bent.

the diplomat had put a note on the photo for his editor. don't, he said, crop the ankles. madame chiang was, in fact, famous for her legs which were lovely. in the last empress i could not resist telling the story of the cairo conference at which she was the only woman present with roosevelt, churchill and her husband. and knowing how limited and inarticulate her husband was, madame who had worn a long chinese dress slashed up on the sides, sat there crossing, uncrossing, and recrossing her legs. while he was speaking. in order to get the gentleman's attention off of him and on to something far more amusing.

it is also said that there were some young british diplomats in the back who were naying. i guess i should adhere that my late husband once commented that i always write my books about women who are smatter than her husband. madame was, in fact, extremely bright. educated in america, she knew just what would appeal to the senators and the representatives she spoke to. and how to get what she wanted for china without seeming to try. warned about her charm before she came to washington, president roosevelt had determined not to be vamped by her. vamp was one of his very favorite words. and he had arranged to have her sit at some distance from him during conferences.

he took great pleasure in teasing his wife, eleanor, who when she first met madame in the hospital in new york, had told him how vulnerable and sweet she seemed. later, eleanor changed her mind. she talks very well about democracy, eleanor would say, but she doesn't know how to live it. this may be a good place to fill you in on the other members of the families. the two olders were two girls. there was one for a head for business and a passion for money. the family beauty, an idealist who married the george washington of china. and when he died a few years later, became a communist. after that, the eldest brother known as tv a brilliant

economist and then mailing. there were two other brothers but they did not figure heavily in the chinese power structure. certainly the most famous was mai ling who was china's face of the world during the middle of the 20th century. she was as well-known as she was representing not only her husband but her country drove her older brother tv absolutely crazy. he thought that he should be running china. and if china had not been at war at the time and needed a military man at the helm, he may well have been right. tv did not get along with chang. tv had reformed chinese banking and resented the vast sums of money the changs they spent on

their money nor did he gets along with the husband of his other sister. now, the very first thing i was told about him was that he was the 75th linial descendent of confucius and i burst out in laughing until i learned that they do keep track of these things in china. a sweet man, his breeding was rather more impressive than his brain. but his highly ambitious wife the eldest of the sun siblings pushed and prodded until you got him up to the position of minister of finance, thus, displacing her brother, tv, the economist. anxious to be loved, he happily supplied chang kai-sheik for all

his money. there have been two major brooks written by madame chiang when i started mine. one was emily haan an extraordinary writer and journalist who published something like, excuse me, 50 books. and wrote enumable articles for the new yorker. the story goes that haan had gone to china where like a lot of other people she became addicted to opium. john gunther, a friend of hers, an author of the inside books -- i don't know if anybody here remembers inside asia, inside europe, inside wherever. anyway, suggested that haan write a book about madame and her two sisters, a book which he thought would earn her enough money to pay for a cure. she did. and the result called the sun sisters published in 1942 was an

admiring portrayal which emphasized their virtues and glossed over any faults. the second big book on the family was published some 40 years later. in the mountains 1980s. -- in the 1980s. it was called the sung dynasty who was written by an author who hated madame and her family and went to great lengths to blame them for most of the evils in china. unfortunately for me as a researcher, his claims of dirty dealing were not always backed up by notes or proof. the sung dynasty was a huge success when it appeared. and i was a bit worried about my own reaction to it, which was dubious. i felt that the truth about

madame chiang lay somewhere in between haan's rosy scenario and c. graves' angry suppositions. shortly after i finished reading the book, i went to a meeting in washington, d.c., of the last graduating class of the american high school in shanghai. since the men and women whom i met there had graduated from high school before world war ii, i felt for the first time in manyw=p years like a new person. the graduates couldn't have been nicer to me. and asked me to read the book and not believe anything he said. having come to this conclusion on myself, i was disgusting proud of myself. what i hoped to do in this book

was find out who she was known as an angel by some and as the dragon lady by others really was. the motivations behind her accomplishments and her mistakes was not. the only guide i found to madame's personal life is in the archives of wellesley college, which she attended for four years. and i attended for only two. these are letters between the young woman known before her marriage known as sung mai ling sing the chinese traditionally put the last names first as i'm sure you know. and her best friend, a girl named emma mills, whom she met at wellesley and continued to have an on and off relationship with for the rest of their lives.

i'd heard about one of emma's relatives. a writer named thomas delong. early on in my research i invited them to lunch. during which i told them about my project. which he seemed to approve. informing me that as mills' heir, he had a treasure trove of letters between mai ling and emma. at the end of the meal i asked him when i might see the letters. oh, no, he said, you can't see them. i'm planning to write my own book. [laughter] >> his book entitled madame kai-shek and miss emma mills was published 2007. but fortunately for me, a few years after our lunch, wellesley organized an exhibit of the correspondents just given them

by mr. delong and the archivist made them available to me. there was another book called madame kai-shek china's eternal first lady. it was written by a journalist named laura tyson lee who reported from asia. and was a wonderful source for the material on madame available in libraries and archives around the world. but i strongly disagreed with lee's conclusion that madame chiang showed serious signs of manic depression and/or substance abuse. that left me with a problem of explaining her constant preoccupation with illness. well, for starters it seems to have been a family trait which affected both of her sisters. at first i thought that since

the chinese usually say they are sick to avoid refusing this a invitation, they regard a direct no as bad manners, illness was just an excuse to get out of things she didn't want to do. that wasn't it. some of you may have heard the story of how madame chiang slept only on silk sheets which had to be changed every time she got into bed. it's the most often repeated story about her. and one in which she really gets a bum rap. at least three of the sung siblings apparently suffered from a congenital rash which was diagnosed as neurodermatologist. it was a nasty form of hives. mailing was constantly seeking

medical help for it. her sister complains about breaking out in a terrible rash following a long session under strong lights. and the brother was sometimes called, behind his back, i assume, the frog. whether it was an early onset of the family skin disease, it first appeared when mailing was only 5. by the time she married chang at the age of 30 she was a confirmed hypochondriac. if there was a virus going around, others might sneeze, complain, or even take to their beds for a day or two. but mai ling managed to suffer for weeks and might even end up in the hospital. some of her illnesses were real. like the itchy rash and the inevitable flu bugs. but many were imaginary. like the fever, which she never had.

but wrote about to clare boothe luce. or an marriageary miscarriage following an imaginary miscarriage she reported to her husband. and something she called the inner measles. the last -- i liked it, too. "the last empress" it took me some eight years to write. only a year longer than my previous books. and turned into a fascinating adventure. i'd grown used to living in the past but this was a leap not only in time but in culture. i had to learn to write about people with an entirely different ethic from the west. for example, most of us face our honor on telling the truth about our actions. but what is important in chinese

tradition is face. the way things appear to others, not necessarily the way they actually are. chang kai-shek aced his entire perception off face. if someone in his government did something wrong, the seriousness of the sin lay not in how many people died, the chinese always said the one thing they had plenty of was people. or how much territory or money was lost. but in how the error appeared to the people of the rest of the world. and if god forbid a mistake reflected badly on chang or damaged his image, the man responsible was as good as dead. chang was, in fact, a typical warlord. certainly not a man i or any

woman i know would want to live on. -- lived with. he relied on what he studied in school and he felt no need to extend or increase his knowledge. he prided himself on rising and retiring early. never touching liquor, wine or cigarettes. and eating cheaply and quickly. his only indulgence was sex. and as a young man he had patronized the brothels of shanghai and earned a well required reputation for dissipation. i have to assume that in this, as in the other parts of his life, chang followed the confucius belief that less intelligent women made better partners than bright and educated ones. i must also adhere that not only confucius' own marriage but

those of his son and grandson ended in divorce. madame certainly did not fit into the confucius description of a good wife. she was not only highly intelligent and educated in one of the best schools in the united states where she received academic honors. very early on in her marriage she wrote her friend, emma, that she, quote, did not think that marriage should erase or absorb one's individuality. i believe i stand for something. and i intend to keep my identity. naturally, my husband does not grow with me. -- agree with me. not surprisingly, this discussion ended up in an argument and wound up with mai ling walked out. madame chiang did manage to maintain her individuality a fact which harned her furious

criticism from the ultra conservative members of her husband's parties. this sense of self served her brilliantly in the united states where she became an iconic figure while charming the members of congress into giving china huge sums of money. and armaments. even the most jaundice biographer has to admire her guts and determination as she set out time and time again to affirm china's status in the world. i for one came through this experience full of admiration for her intense loyalty to her country. if not for all the decisions that she made in her personal life. it has occurred to me, on and off during the past eight years. that a writer who doesn't revel

in libraries, dusty, archives, periods of solitude, endless rewriting is not likely to enjoy writing biography. but then as one of my friends says hannah has stopped lying about her age. she just lies how long it takes her to write one of these books. thank you. [applause] >> questions? anyone? yeah. >> i'd be interested to hear you talk about a little bit about how the madame figured in the relationship between chiang kai-shek and mao. >> no. she was supporting chiang at all times.

well, i don't want to ruin a book but there's a wonderful scene in which after chiang dies, mao goes into his room and will not see anybody for a day and play his music. it's quite a tribute from one leader to another. but she had nothing to do with mao. >> one other question. >> sure. >> was she passionate about art? i know they took the collection from the -- they took quite a bit that's now in the national palace museum that's there. >> well, fortunately, they did because it would have been there during the cultural revolution and it would have been destroyed. that's one of the best ideas they ever had. they buried it during world war ii. and then they took it to taipei. and fortunately it's still there.

she decided to start painting when she was -- when they were exiled in taiwan. and because she lived in a bubble, everybody told her she was one of the greatest painters in the world. [laughter] >> and she was a nice painter. but obviously not one of the great painters of the world. but she really loved it. and somebody commented when she was painting she just didn't think about all of the problems of china and. she's a nice painter. i've seen a number of the things. and people who know a lot more than i do have seen them and think they're quite nice. but -- their imitated.

yes, the gentleman there in the third row. >> second. >> did i miss that in your -- in your talk where madame chiang studied in the united states? >> she studied at wellesley. yeah. i think i said it but i may have swallowed the word. i do that sometimes. the gentleman there. >> so one of the big issues, of course, for chiang kai-shek was how much he was going to focus on fighting japan and how much he was going to focus on fighting the communists. do you know if she had any influence in those kinds of decisions? >> i think madame chiang was probably -- and i say it in the book very good at compartmentalizing her mind. chiang said he wanted the money

and the armaments to fight world war ii. but, of course, he was really stacking them up to fight the communists. and he did not use much of what was given him. and a lot of it -- they're just terrible stories about chinese soldiers out fighting without sufficient equipment and huge warehouses.oí hundreds of feet long filled with brand-new armaments. i think she just chose not to pay any attention to that. i don't know what else she could have done. i don't think she could have changed the way he felt about it. yes. the lady. >> you mentioned how she spent much of her life, her young life, in america studying and also she was a methodist, i guess. >> oh, yes. >> and in your book you talk about how she went back to china she started studying chinese.

so i'm wondering if you could psychoanalyze her a little bit more. how much was she bicultural -- >> oh, i think she was. i think she was very bicultural. i think that's a wonderful way of putting it. she was american when she was here. and when she went back to china, she insisted upon studying all the things that she had not gotten during her school years. and i think she was very chinese when she was there. and i think he was very fortunate to have a wife who could go back and forth between two cultures and represent him because she was basically his representative. in china. does that help at all? probably not. yes. >> did you sense any similarity

between your experience at wellesley and hers? it's very different in time and all of that kind of thing but such different people. did you sense any similarity at all? in your experiences? >> no. she chose wellesley. i was sent to wellesley. [laughter] >> yes. >> what is the relationship with her sisters after '49? >> run that by again. >> oh? yeah. the family really divided in two halves. the one-half -- each one had a younger brother in their half. but the two sisters were on one side.

and tv and ching ling was on the other. he worried about her when the japanese bombed pearl harbor and bombed hong kong, et cetera, et cetera. he must have written mai ling two or three times that i found saying is she all right? how is she going to get out? we got to get her out of there. he was very fond of her. in spite of the fact that -- well, she didn't actually -- she became a communist -- she asked to go into the party early on. and i don't know whether it was mao who said, no, you will do more good for us if you stay outside the party. and it wasn't until she was on her death bed that they took her

into the party so that they could say after she was gone that she was a communist, a member of the party but she was sympathetic with them all those years. >> was there any relationship between the two sisters? mai ling and ching ling. they all got together during the war. but aside from that, no. i mean, during the war, they put aside their differences. and they gave speeches, all three sisters, and they did everything they could. but neither before nor after. no, they didn't even go to each other's funerals. which is rather odd. yes. >> i just want to know in what way madame chiang has influenced

her husband's political view. >> his point of view? >> his political view or political position or whether she's just merely supporting whatever political positions he -- >> she once said that she practically killed him and maybe she had moved him 1%. he was a very -- he had made up his mind. and he knew what he knew. and even she, who was the greatest influence on him, could barely move him. yes, the lady whom i really can't see. hi. >> hi. i'm just wondering if through your research about her culture and all the years you spent on it, how that's impacted your world view or your values

personally because it's a big chunk of life? >> enormously. enormously. i went to china with my late husband not too long after the cultural revolution. and i was with -- we were with a chinese friend and we met all of her relatives who were artists and, you know, actors, writers. and i was amazed at the cheer of these people who had been shoveling manure during the cultural revolution. and it was my first inkling of chinese philosophy that says what is down here is going to go up and what is up here is going to come down. and obviously that is the kind of thing i suspect anyway. i don't know.

that you can only have if you've had a really long lived society. i learned so much doing this. it was -- it was a great treat for me. anyone else? yes. >> do you talk about what her life is like during her old age when she stay over here in the u.s.? and also the political changes, the transition of political system in taiwan. how she feels about the whole thing 'cause it's totally different world. >> yeah. she moved into an apartment at 10 gracy square in new york, which is a very grand building. and she managed to be sick a good deal of the time. she had 24 servants. i assume they were in relays of

8 each. she went back to taiwan once or twice. once to say goodbye to her favorite niece who was dying of cancer. but she went back -- when she first went back, she went back thing she could change the fact that her husband's son studied in russia and his outlook was very different from hers. and she went thinking perhaps she could revive a nationalist movement which, of course, was impossible. but she continued to believe what she believed. and she would occasionally issue a bulletin from the united states saying x, y and z. but it made no difference.

she had long lost any power. which you have to feel sad for somebody who does that. yes. >> will your book be published in china? >> they already bought it which made me almost pass out when they told me this. they are even paying me money. [laughter] >> now, my assumption is that they will change certain things. i don't think -- it will be very interesting to see what they do with it. anything else? yes. i'm sorry. i nodded in the same direction. >> i was just curious who bought it in taiwan or mainland china? >> the book? >> oh, mainland china.

>> oh, mainland china. that's why i assume certain things are going to be changed. yes. >> was she ever reconciled to the events in china, you know, the development into modern capitalism in china. >> absolutely not. never. not so far as one -- [inaudible] >> no, no. she considered it a slap in the face when the communist government was recognized by the u.n. and when nixon went over. did you have a question in back there? the gentleman, no, i guess not. yeah. >> what about the chiang kai-shek family in the u.s.? what are they up to? >> i don't really know. i met one young woman who runs some wonderful chinese

restaurants in new york. i don't really know. of course, she never had children. i've only met one or two of his relatives. >> i'm not sure if you said during your talk, did you go to china while you were writing the book? >> oh, yes. >> okay. and so did you have the opportunity to speak with just common people to get their views -- >> i don't speak chinese. >> i mean, through an interpreter? >> no, no. i we want over as a normal tourist. >> oh, i see. >> and in order to get into certain places that i wanted to see, i pretended that i was really crazy about the communistic sister. >> i'm just curious because i lived in china for two years. and even close friends that i

developed there, i could never get them to talk to me about the people you're talking about about madame mao or anyone on any level other than -- even though i had real relationships from living there. so i'm curious in a quiet conversation with someone they were -- they opened up or said anything at all. >> no. you make me feel better. because i had the same problem;. -- problem, of course. yes. >> in the letters that you read later between madame and her friend, was she candid then about her marriage? and was she more intimate in those letters than perhaps -- >> she was candid about her boyfriends. this was before she married chiang. and there were a series of young men. and she was very candid about --

she was candid about the men. i mean, as much as a girl of those days would have been. she was candid about how frustrated she was because they simply expected her to make a good marriage. she was not allowed to marry a foreigner. of course, her mother was from the mandarin class and would never have allowed it. and she -- she was frustrated 'cause she really wanted to do something. and, of course, marriage to chiang enabled her to do a great deal. but up until then, she was pretty frustrated. >> she was educated in -- >> i'm sorry. i'm not hearing you. i'm sorry. >> did christianity have a great influence on her because she was brought up in shanghai before she came to the united states.

>> she was brought up in a strict methodist home. they were not allowed to dance. it was a very strict -- her mother was a really strict methodist. so it had a huge effect on her. >> and chiang kai-shek had to convert? >> chiang kai-shek did convert. there were many theories about why. political. my personal belief is he converted, but his real -- he really still believed in the confucius values. [inaudible] >> oh, yes. big, big methodist, oh, sure, of course. i guess that's it. thank you. [applause]

>> this event was hosted by the seattle asian art museum for more information visit seattleartmuseum.org. >> we know historically that markets often don't work but they forgot all that. >> this weekend nobel prize winning economist joseph stiglitz on the 2008 economic collapse and its effect on the global economy on "after words" on c-span2's book tv. >> journalism professor don lattin recalls the harvard psychedelic club by a group of four students interested in studying the effects of psych deadic drugs. the students would later americans to minddrs, alternati medicine and world religions. from the harvard bookstore in cambridge, massachusetts, this is one hour. [applause]

>> thank you very much -- thank you very much. what a great turnout. wow! this is far out as we used to say back in the '60s. you know, i was in cambridge about a year and a half ago doing some interviews for the book. and it's great to be back. i kind of feel like i'm returning to the scene of the crime here. right after this i'm going to up to millbrook new york where some of you may know timothy leery where he landed after he got kicked out of harvard. it's really right here in cambridge where this whole long strange trip began in 1960. the fall of 1960. and that's a half century ago. i just realized that a few days ago. we're closer to 2060 than 1960 that's the dividing point but we're still talking about the '60s.

my first reading was in marin county last week just across the golden gate bridge where i live. but the first four chapters of the book take place in and around cambridge. and after that the action shifts out to san francisco around '65 when everyone came to san francisco with or without flowers in their hair. and the center of the psychedelic cyclone kind of shifted to baghdad of the bay. but before i get to the book i wanted to start out by talking -- just addressing a rumor that's already going around the book. i don't know who started this rumor but someone says that there's on page 108 there's 250 micrograms of lsd sprayed on the upper left-hand corner. now, i want to say unequivocally that that is not true.

as a matter of fact, i tore off the corner of that page about an hour ago. and let me just say -- there's absolutely no -- [laughter] >> the white light -- look. look at the white light. i'm sorry. it's been a crazy couple of weeks for me. this is my fourth book. i've never had, you know, this much media interest and early sales like we had the first week. it's kind of mind blowing, pardon the expression again. the "new york times" had a real nice review last friday which -- i mean, i'm still kind of floating from that. and there's a wide range of interest. just a few days ago i was on this show coast-to-coast. it's an am radio syndicated -- like 200 am stations across the country. it used to be the art bell show.

and, yeah. i was on from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am west coast time so that's 2:00 am to 5:00 am you'd be amazed how many people are up and listening to this show which is devoted to the paranormal paranormalparanormala -- paranormal. it was an interesting three hours and i'm just kind of recovering from all that. i've been a newspaper reporter for a long time but in recent years i've been writing books and it's a weird business because the last year or so i've been in my basement in my pajamas finishing this book and it's bright lights big city, and if i'm a little bit spaced out that's why. it's not from the acid from page 108. i got a dozen reviews which is been good except one. but an alternative weekly.

the guy i think was set up to hate the book because you can tell from the first sentence it was -- what was it, oh, yeah, yes, another '60s history. so when it starts out like that you know it's going to be all downhill no matter what you say about the '60s. and i can understand that sentiment because, you know, if i was in my 20s or early 30s i would be sick listening about the old timers about the good old days of the 1960s. so i understand that sentiment. but well, enough preliminary banter. let me talk a little bit about the book. actually that sort of leads to a question that maybe some young people might have or old people for that matter about this. i mean, what do four relics from the '60s, the characters in my book, have to do with the way we're living our lives today? in other words, why the hell should i read this book? so let me briefly count the ways

that i think the four -- and really the whole counter-culture of the 1960s in particular the psychedelic part of the counter-culture matter to us living here today. and how we can see that in things happening right now. so this is just a partial list. but yoga studios on practically every corner in the bay area and probably around here too. and maybe even in topeka, árujtáhr' silicon valley -- i don't go in a lot of detail but the guys in the computer revolution was part of the psychedelic court. there was the idea for the mouse because of -- some new way of thinking because of psychedelics. that's one way. organic produce in your local

supermarket deepak chopra, the environmental movement, people who say they're spiritual but not religious. doctors who prescribe meditation for cardiac patients. the unibomber. long story. the sexual revolution. wayne dyer, medical marijuana. ecstasy fueled raves. the omega institute. and really the whole way we think about life, death and the nature of reality itself. so before, you know -- i can't really explain all those in this short talk. that's why you have to buy my book. but here's the bottom line. i mean, millions of people in my generation and by that i mean, the baby boomers took lsd and other seidelic drugs in the 1960s we including myself had some profoundly enlightening and/or sometimes simultaneously terrifying soul-shattering experiences on these drugs.

that i don't think we all really quite understood in the sense that, sure, we had these amazing experiences and these terrifying experiences but what happened after the ecstasy? you know, how does -- how do psychedelic drugs change our lives? do d-they make us better people and aware people? and to me that's the important question. i wanted to -- the book is not about me. i do have an after-word where i talk about some of my own experiences and i struggled whether to put that in there or to come out of the closet and i'm coming out of the closet on this. but, you know, my long strange trip kind of began really in high school. which in my case was the late '60s when i read the last novel which was called which is a cynical author kind of like

"avatar." and of course the cynical reporter, you know, goes native. now island -- i re-read that when i was starting to work on the book and it didn't actually fare too well with the passage of time. it wasn't his best novel by any means but that book got me in the doors of perception which is a book huxley wrote in 1954 about his experiences on drugs in the spring of 1953. and he was given the drug by a doctor, dr. humphrey osmond. and he was guided on that trip by osmond. they actually coined the words psychedelic together. and they had several different words that they -- that they thought about using. and they would make up little couplets and rhymes to see how the word sounded in, you know, in a sentence or in a poem. and the word for psychedelic and

their poem was to fathom hell or soar angelic, take a pinch of psychedelic. and that sort of sealed the deal with that word. utero in new jersey when huxley had his trip in 19 if i have 3. 1953. and he wrote about staring down at his gray flannel trousers and he looked at the curtains in his library and they reflected the miraculous fact of sure existence. and it's just all so beautiful. another expression we used to say back in those days. well, the doors of perception gave birth to the psychedelic drug culture and it also, i think, sparked something in me personally which was a desire to alter my