R. U. Sirius

For the fictional space station, see Brewster Rockit: Space Guy!

R. U. Sirius (born Ken Goffman in 1952[1]) is an American writer, editor, talk show host, musician and cyberculture celebrity. He is best known as co-founder of Mondo 2000 magazine and its original editor-in-chief from 1989 to 1993.

Sirius has written for Wired and Wired News, San Francisco Examiner, Artforum, Rolling Stone, Time, Esquire and many other publications.[2]

Activities

1980s

From 1984 onward, Sirius edited a counterculture magazine that started as High Frontiers with a focus on recreational drug use. In 1988 it was renamed Reality Hackers to reflect increased content about digital culture issues. The following year it became Mondo 2000.

1990s

Sirius left Mondo 2000 in 1993, and the magazine folded in 1998 after 17 issues.

In 1993, Sirius was quoted in The Nation magazine about the internet and its future.[3] This July 1993 piece, The Whole World is Talking, was The Nation's first article about the internet.[4]

Sirius recruited Timothy Leary to be a contributing editor for Mondo 2000 and taught an online course in Leary's philosophy for the Maybe Logic Academy. He co-authored Leary's last book, Design for Dying (1998), and wrote the introduction for a 1998 edition of Leary's 1968 book The Politics of Ecstasy.

Sirius appeared in the films Synthetic Pleasures (1995) and Conceiving Ada (1997). His mid-1990s techno-rock band Mondo Vanilli recorded an unreleased CD titled IOU Babe for Trent Reznor's Nothing Records.[citation needed] The music is available on Bandcamp IOU Babe, by Mondo Vanilli.

Sirius spoke at many events, such as the Starwood Festival [3]. He delivered the second Keynote address for the Virtual Reality conference, Oslo VR, in 1994.[5]

2000s

Sirius was chairman and candidate in the 2000 U.S. presidential election for the Revolution Party.[6] The party's 20-point platform was a hybrid of libertarianism and liberalism.[7]

During the 2000s Sirius published four books. In 2005 he began hosting two weekly podcasts, the RU Sirius Show and NeoFiles.[8] Both went on unannounced hiatus in August 2007 because their financial backer withdrew his support.[9] In September 2006 Sirius helped launch the webzine 10 Zen Monkeys with fellow GettingIt.com alumni Jeff Diehl and Lou Cabron.

From October 2008 to May 2010, Sirius was head editor of the transhumanist magazine H+ Magazine.[10] He then turned his attention to a project documenting the history of Mondo 2000.

2010s

From June 2011 to November 2012, R. U. Sirius ran Acceler8or, a counterculture, Singularitarian/Transhumanist website.[11][12] Mondo 2000 was briefly relaunched online in 2017.[13]

Media editorships

  • High Frontiers. 1984-1988.
  • Reality Hackers. 1988-1989.
  • Mondo 2000. 1989–1993.
  • Axcess. 1998.
  • GettingIt.com. 1999–2000.
  • RU Sirius Show. 2005–2007.
  • NeoFiles. 2005–2007.
  • H+ Magazine. 2008–2010.
  • Acceler8or. 2011–2012.

Bibliography

Books

  • Transcendence: The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity. (2015) (with Jay Cornell). Disinformation Books. ISBN 978-1938875090.
  • Everybody Must Get Stoned. Rock Stars On Drugs. (2009). Citadel. ISBN 978-0-8065-3073-4.
  • True Mutations. (2007) Pollinator Press. ISBN 978-0-9774410-1-3.
  • Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. (2004) Villard Books. ISBN 0-375-50758-2.
  • The Revolution: Quotations From Revolution Party Chairman R. U. Sirius. (2000) Feral House. ISBN 0-922915-62-8.
  • 21st Century Revolutionary: R. U. Sirius 1984–1998. (1999) Fringecore ISBN 90-76207-51-8.
  • Design for Dying. (1998) (with Timothy Leary) HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-092866-2.
  • How to Mutate & Take Over the World: an Exploded Post-Novel. (1997) (with St. Jude) Random House. ISBN 0-517-19832-0.
  • Cyberpunk Handbook: The Real Cyberpunk Fakebook. (1995) (with St. Jude and Bart Nagel) Random House. ISBN 0-679-76230-2.
  • Mondo 2000: A User's Guide to the New Edge. (1992) (editor with Rudy Rucker & Queen Mu) Harperperennial Library. ISBN 0-06-096928-8.

Articles

References

  1. ^ "Introducing the Mondo 2000 History Project – 10 Zen Monkeys". Retrieved 30 August 2017.
  2. ^ See Works by R. U. Sirius at Project Gutenberg.
  3. ^ The Whole World is Talking Archived 2013-05-07 at the Wayback Machine by Cooke and Lehrer
  4. ^ This Is the First Article We Ever Published About the Internet in The Nation by Richard Kreitner, November 19, 2014
  5. ^ "Program VR Oslo 94". Archived from the original on 2011-05-07. Retrieved 2016-01-23.
  6. ^ [1] Archived April 16, 2004, at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ Sirius, R. U. "20 Point Party Platform for National Politics". Archived from the original on 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2010-02-24.
  8. ^ Available at The RU Sirius Show and NeoFiles respectively.
  9. ^ [2] Archived December 4, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "H+ Magazine homepage".
  11. ^ "Acceler8or". www.acceler8or.com. Retrieved 30 August 2017.
  12. ^ "Accelerate with Acceler8or! – KurzweilAI". www.kurzweilai.net. Retrieved 30 August 2017.
  13. ^ "Mondo 2000, influential 90s cyberculture magazine, returns online". 24 August 2017. Retrieved 25 August 2017.