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09/13/2004 Archived Entry: "Kerry Thorley bio published"

DAMN. HE'S BEEN DEAD FOR SIX YEARS AND I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT. But a new bio has been published about Kerry Thornley, one of the twentieth century's fabulous unknowns. I knew him as the co-creator of Discordianism and the man who wrote a novel about Lee Harvey Oswald before the Kennedy assassination. But I never knew he helped create The Innovator.

After my initial discovery of Ayn Rand, way back when, my very first questions of the "Well, what do we DO about it?" kind were answered by the early-Outlawish Innovator. The answers included things like how to disappear and how to booby trap your home with sliding steel walls and rattlesnakes. Yeah, yeah. Some of the solutions were ever-so-slightly tongue in cheek and not wildly practical. But The Innovator pointed people in the direction I've followed ever since: Freedom is an individual responsibility and an individual joy; quit bitching and seize the day.

The Innovator also emphasized -- as you can see -- creative and unpredictable solutions. We still need those, in spades.

I still look on The Innovator, personally, as the most important libertarian 'zine ever published.

The bio is The Prankster and the Conspiracy by Adam Gorightly.

Posted by Claire @ 11:57 AM CST
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