opens with a chilling scene of a lawyer/journalist who dared to challenge Synanon being bit by a rattlesnake that had been shoved through the mail slot of his home.in 1969, before the movement’s darker impulses has taken over. Still, Lyon recalls not personally caring for Dederich. “He was an unpleasant man doing work that I realized was beneficial,” Lyon says.
And encountering characters such as Dederich was all part of the big adventure of shooting for LIFE. One upside of his association with the magazine was coming into New York and having occasional meetings the legendary, who stands as a giant on the roster of staff LIFE photographers. “He was to my way of thinking the perfect photojournalist,” Lyon says. “Everyone he met, he would try to extract everything from their brain right here and now.
Some assignments resulted in valuable life lessons when Lyon least expected them. Once he was out on a more humdrum assignment, shooting the director of an opera company. Lyon said to him, “I hear you’re a hell of a fundraiser, whats your secret?” The director answered, “I tell people,Actress Sharon Acker posed for a fashion shoot in Alcatraz, 1968.Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/ShutterstockFred Lyon/LIFE photos/ShutterstockOpening night of the Denver Symphony at the Tabor Theater, 1955.
Charles E. Dederich, founder and leader of Synanon, wore a hat with a moving tetrahedron as he wrote on a blackboard, 1969.Poached pears, photographed for LIFE’s “Great Dinner” series, 1968.A Brazilian feijoda, featuring black beans, rice, sausages, baked bananas, onions and roast pork loin, photographed for LIFE’s “Great Dinner” series, 1968.Fred Lyon/LIFE PIctures/ShutterstockThe Lovejoy Fountain Park in Portland, Oregon.LoveJoy”Fountain Park in Portland, Oregon, by Lawrence Halprin.
Why doesn’t any of the weird shit happen to us gay folk? Seems homophobic 🤔