Popular Depictions
Synanon is referred to in Bob Dylan's song "Lenny Bruce", from his album Shot of Love (Bruce "never made it to Synanon."). It is also referred to in the song "Opening Doors" from Stephen Sondheim's musical Merrily We Roll Along, which mentions it as a hypothetical song title in a satirical revue of the 1960s.
The TV producer/ writer J. Michael Straczynski used a version of the Synanon Game in his science-fiction TV series Babylon 5, in the episodes "Signs and Portents" and "Comes the Inquisitor".
The New-Path drug treatment centers in the science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick's novel, A Scanner Darkly, bear numerous similarities to Synanon. Dick's novel VALIS also makes reference to the Synanon building in Oakland, California.
In his 1977 novel, "Not sleeping, Just Dead", Charles Alverson, who lived in Synanon for six months in 1967 as a straight, or non-addicted resident, sent his private eye, Joe Goodey, to solve a suspected murder at The Institute, an organization that bears more than a passing resemblance to Synanon.
Synanon is mentioned in Joan Didion's essay, The White Album.
Synanon appears in the movie "Unknown" as Liam Neeson is flipping through the yellow pages in Berlin.
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Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or depictions:
“But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Surely, of all creatures we eat, we are most brutal to snails. Helix optera is dug out of the earth where he has been peacefully enjoying his summer sleep, cracked like an egg, and eaten raw, presumably alive. Or boiled in oil. Or roasted in the hot ashes of a wood fire.... If God is a snail, Bosch’s depictions of Hell are going to look like a vicarage tea-party.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)