R. U. S i r i u s

 

Digital Iconoclast, Cyberculture Icon & all-round Barker of "Truth"

 



Ken Goffman, a.k.a. R. U. Sirius, is a well-known cultural commentator and co-founder of Mondo 2000, the iconoclastic magazine that defined the digital culture of the early nineties. He is author or editor of seven books, including Mondo 2000: A User's Guide to the New Edge and The Revolution, and co-wrote Timothy Leary's last book, Design for Dying. His new book, Counterculture Through the Ages, is the subject of a course here at the Academy. In 2000 he ran for U.S. President for the Revolution© Party. He was a columnist for Artforum International and the San Francisco Examiner. He lectures internationally on subjects ranging from the implications of new technology to alternative politics. He lives in Mill Valley, California.


photo by Eve Berni



WORDS OF PRAISE FOR COUNTERCULTURE THROUGH THE AGES

“In an age of corporate cool-hunting and target-marketed faux rebellion, along comes an inspirational work of scholarship to remind us of just how beyond ‘cool’ true rebels really are, and have always been. I am forever grateful to Ken Goffman for serving as my first guide through the starlit mire of countercultural thought and activity. Read this book, by all means. He knows his way around.”
–DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, author of Cyberia, Media Virus, Ecstasy Club, and Nothing Sacred

“This is a brilliant book. R. U. Sirius lived and created the cyberpunk culture in the 1980s. Now he and coauthor Dan Joy have written a sweeping history of countercultures through the ages, starting with the myth that still helps define our relationship with technology, that of the fire-snatching hacker Prometheus. Defying authority with creative edge has been a powerful force throughout history, and R. U. Sirius captures the magic with the authentic insight of someone who's been a rider on that wave.”
--WALTER ISSACSON, former chairman an ceo of CNN, author of Benjamin Franklin: an American Life

“I read Ken Goffman’s least musings with utterly focused, indeed almost reverent attention.”
–BRUCE STERLING, The Zenith Angle & Tomorrow Now


“Being of the same energy field myself, I now throw a sack full of gold dust into the arena and dare anyone to be either funnier or smarter than this R. U. Sirius.”
–ANDREI CODRESCU


"Edge-thinker and media rabble-rouser Ken Goffman has done us all a great service with his entertaining and enlightening book Counterculture Through the Ages. With passion and wry humor, Goffman unfurls a secret history of rebels, ranters, mystics, and bohos united by their distrust of authority. By placing more recent social struggles in this juicy (and sometimes hilarious) context, Goffman and coauthor Dan Joy reveal the deeper dimensions of our current quest for freedom and fun in a shrinking world of surveillance and control."
-ERIK DAVIS, Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information

Washington Post Review of Counterculture Through the Ages

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