Stewart Brand, Rolling Stone, December 7, 1972
Byline: "Stewart Brand, 33, is a graduate of Stanford (biology). From 1968 to 1971 he edited the Whole Earth Catalog."
In the section "The Research Park," Brand describes the Xerox Research Center as "an idyll, a new building high on an oak-savannahed golden foothill in Stanford's industrial park in Palo Alto, California, a blue-skied shimmery threatless landscape." He then quotes Baer:
"Every time I think of that place I start to scratch my balls. It makes me nervous," argues dome and solar designer Steve Baer from dusty Albuquerque, recalling that most of the evil he knows has emitted from similar ivory towers.
This is one of the earliest documented direct quotes from Baer in a major publication. Brand describes him as "dome and solar designer" — not thermal engineer or passive solar inventor, consistent with the 1972 date (pre-Cool Cell, pre-DrumWall mass deployment).
In the Dynabook section, Bill English (the same Bill English who traveled with Engelbart to meet Baer at Libre commune per Turner 2006) is quoted describing the Dynabook concept at Xerox.
Brand notes in the Resource One section that the group "borrowed $8000 from the Whole Earth Catalog, of which we paid back six." He explains: "[News to me. This was part of the $20,000 I had turned over to the mob at the Catalog Demise Party.]" — confirms the WEC money was distributed to countercultural technology projects.
"Ready or not, computers are coming to the people. That's good news, maybe the best since psychedelics."