Sex,
Drugs, Einstein, & Elves: Sushi, Psychedelics,
Parallel Universes, and the Quest for
Transcendence
by Clifford
A. Pickover
Smart Publications, Petaluma, CA, USA,
2005
318 pp., illus. Paper, $16.95
ISBN: 1-890572-17-9.
Reviewed by Rob Harle
Australia
harle@dodo.com.au
Reading this book is like taking a
ride in a very fast car down a mountainous
highway with thousands of hairpin bends.
At each bend is a sign that flashes information.
Just as you get towards the bottom of
the mountain, whoops, spinout, back upwards
towards the summit. Fasten your seat belts
kiddies!
Sushi! God! Lord of The Rings! William
S. Burroughs! Marcel Proust! DMT! LSD!
Brain Surgery! Stellar Nucleosynthesis!
plus hundreds of dissimilar titles are
like signposts to snippets of information
that even the most well read, educated
reader will never have heard of. You will
not find an in-depth discussion on anything,
but that is not the purpose of the book.
Im not actually sure what the purpose
of the book is, but it comes with a warning,
"Book critics, beware! I ruminate and
wander freely through a vast carnival
of topics, seizing every opportunity to
digress and explore mental tributaries"
(p. xxix).
The title of the book is almost a cliché
and just too obviously a hook with which
to ensnare the bookshop browser as they
stroll through hundreds of titles and
cover/spine designs all vying for their
attention. The book has almost nothing
to do with sex at all, except for perhaps
Annie Sprinkles favourite 24 that
she insisted be displayed in the form
of "an approximation to a vulva or labia
shape" (p. 49). Pickover, who, by his
own admission, is totally obsessed with
words asked various famous people to list
their 20 favourite words; he then calculates
an obscurity index. There is a whole chapter
devoted to such words games and Terraqueous
Chrysoprases, thank you Bertrand Russell!
It is worth listing the various Chapter
titles as they will forewarn the less
adventurous reader what they are getting
into. Chapter 1On Fugu
Sushi and Transdimensional Reality Worms;
Chapter 2The Quantum Mechanics
of Hopi Indians; Chapter 3Bertrand
Russells Twenty Favorite Words;
Chapter 4DMT, Moses, and
the Quest for Transcendence; Chapter
5Brain Syndromes Open Portals
to Parallel Universes; Chapter 6From
Holiday Inn to the Head of Christ;
Chapter 7The Business of
Book Publishing: Unplugged, Up Close,
and Personal; Chapter 8Neoreality
and the Quest for Transcendence; Chapter
9Oh God, Einsteins
Brain and Eyes Are Missing and Chapter
10Burning Man and the Conquest
of Reality. There is also a Preface,
Introduction, Epilogue, Notes, Further
Reading, Index and an, About The
Author. Phew!
The section, About The Author is
hardly necessary; by the time we get to
this section, we know pretty much all
about Clifford A. Pickover. My one criticism
of this book is the attempt, perhaps unconsciously,
to build a monument to Pickover by Pickover.
It becomes rather tedious and somewhat
onerous digesting page after pageI
have done this, I have published "n"
number of books, I topped my class, I
got my PhD fast from the best university
(Yale), Ive created "n" number
of patents, and so on and on. As an example,
he also claims: "I even use a related
form of divination to create patents"
(p. 69). Using Pickovers example
of using numbers to analyse all sorts
of things, I counted the number of times
he used the first person pronoun (or its
associates) on one page. The result was
a staggering eight percent of the total
words.
Even though the chapter concerning book
publishing deals largely with Pickovers
personal experiences, it is most revealing
and contains important information for
all authors, published or unpublished.
As an example of the gems to be found
in this chapter, concerning original manuscripts
rejected by publishers, "Twenty publishers
felt that Richard Bachs Jonathon
Livingston Seagull was for the birds.
It went on to sell millions of copies
around the world". "Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected
by more than one hundred publishers" (p.
170).
Putting the abovementioned criticism aside,
and apart from some rather broad poorly
thought out generalisations regarding
the future of human beings (p. 244-245,
as an example), this book is full of inspirational
information, challenges to broaden our
understanding of obscure though important
areas of knowledge and fascinating little-known
facts. Throughout the book Pickover hints
at areas of science where concentrated
research would most likely yield valuable
knowledge. One such area concerns the
visions and transcendence experienced
by people from different cultures using
the drug DMT. The book is highly entertaining,
easy to read, and will be a good reference
book for more things than you, I, or Horatio
ever dreamed of.