“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is a spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” ~ Unknown
It’s always a treat to see Gurney, and today, he dropped by for an interview with Emma Kiser and Kathryn Engle. It gave me the chance to return his copy of the Whole Earth Catalogue that he’d left with me several years ago when he interviewed dad. If you’re not familiar with Gurney’s Whole Earth Catalogue (WEC) significance, keep reading. WEC was a successful product of the California counterculture of the late 1960’s. Not only was Gurney a contributing writer and editor to WEC, his first bestselling novel – Divine Right’s Trip – was born from its pages. I believe the story goes that over the course of 1971 – one quarter page at a time across multiple issues – the novel was unveiled to readers. It was such a successful experiment that the pieces were gathered into a novel and released independent of the catalogue. That, too, was highly successful. Two other novels in WEC, by authors other than Gurney, were produced the same way. Sometimes I think Kentucky doesn’t realize what a treasure Gurney is to us. He was, and is, the kind of cool that transcends description. I’m always honored to be in his company.
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