William Gibson

Gibson is cool and all, but why post this?

I was previously familiar with Gibson's work, but I never knew that his early personal life was pretty interesting as well:

- In 1967, he elected to move to Canada in order "to avoid the Vietnam war draft". At his draft hearing, he honestly informed interviewers that his intention in life was to sample every mind-altering substance in existence.

- After weeks of nominal homelessness, Gibson was hired as the manager of Toronto's first head shop, a retailer of drug paraphernalia.

- During the 1970s, Gibson made a substantial part of his living from scouring Salvation Army thrift stores for underpriced artifacts he would then up-market to specialist dealers.

It seems so obvious now that the birth of Cyberpunk would come directly out of the counterculture movement in the 60s and 70s.