In honour of Dr Albert Hoffman turning 100, I thought a nice trippy column would be my small way of saying, “Thanks, Doc, for all the kick-ass wall-bending times your discovery gave me, in my tweaker days.” (And the one or two nightmarish trips, I have to admit. But mostly they really rocked.)
What am I talking about, and who’s this Albert guy? Let’s consult the ever-useful Wikipedia on Albert Hoffman. The substance he stumbled across is commonly known as LSD.
In honour of the good doctor’s first century, there was a large symposium and congress held, a few days back, with a variety of speakers and experts. (Beats local congresses with their generic subjects of “Who can we blame next for stuff that happened 40 years ago?”) Go browse at The LSD Symposium.
If you’re already getting filled with pompous middle-class indignation, then click here rather, or perhaps here, if you prefer your net sites to be about socially acceptable things like — er — incredibly rich grown men who love sleeping (literally) with children.
The other two or three of you, go look at the joyous, acid-like visuals in this BBC report about Taiwanese Glowing Green Pigs.
Indeed, if you have a problem with drug-related writing and art, you’re going to have to throw out a large quantity of the music you know, as well as many of the great classics of literature. From Aldous Huxley, back to Peter Pan and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, all come from a history woven through with happy drug use. (Do some searching — this literary link to narcotics is a column in itself — but here’s the lyrics to White Rabbit, the Jefferson Airplane tribute to Lewis Carroll and his drug-fuelled classic.
Just as a side note, to demonstrate the narco-links of Alice (and we won’t even bother to get into the obviousness of Peter Pan and that “white powder” that allows the user to “fly” and head off to a land where one “stays young forever”), if you have any copies of the Alice books, take a look at the illustrations, specifically of the caterpillar on top of the mushroom, talking to Alice. Never mind what exactly the caterpillar is smoking — note the mushroom he sits on, with a red top and white specks — that’s Amanita muscaria, a famous hallucinogenic mushroom used for centuries for its tripping abilities.
Here’s a pic. (Not to be confused with the more elegant — in terms of its effects — drug also found in mushrooms called psilocybin.)
As a warning, and info guide, read an official view and then enter a mushroom (or “shroom”) user forum at GanjaTalk.
Okay. Furthur. “Furthur” was the destination name on the bus ridden by Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. The journey of the bus was immortalised by Tom Wolfe in the classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Here’s where its author lives. For general fun, you might want to read Hippie Kids.
Here’s an interesting LSD Time-Line. Then, for more of how this miniscule molecule managed to mess with modern history, go read through the available online bits of Acid Dreams: The Social History of LSD.
Another clearly hallucinogenic news item: a hoax press release, detailing how representatives of Narnia stormed out of World Trade Organisation talks, was picked up and run with by brain-dead bozos in a variety of news organisations. Read The Lion, The Witch and the World Trade Talks.
LSD changed the world in a variety of ways. From the geeks who dropped acid and then tried to convey or reproduce their psychedelic experiences, using film or music, to secret government projects desperately desiring to find a chemical that would make the Osamas of the day throw down their weapons and come out singing Yankee Doodle Dandy. Dive into The CIA’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
If you couldn’t be bothered to come face to face with state evil in action, go watch a video clip (it’s a 600k download, and of the same artistic quality as most local TV) of Monkey Washing Cat.
You may not have known about CIA-run whorehouses where unknowing “customers” were dosed with LSD and watched from behind one-way mirrors — but it happened. Read LSD and the CIA.
Then, in case you don’t believe the data on these new-fangled webpage things, try this excerpt from the 1977 United States Senate hearings on MKULTRA — the CIA’s mind-control programme.
The trip continues. There’s an online world where you can build your own “everything” — from what you look like, to your house, castle or even UFO (to grab other users randomly and give them an alien abduction experience). It’s called Second Life. Read a review that shows the mind-expanding infinite possibilities open to users of this world.
Now on to the user who built a flying UFO to abduct people in the world and give them a complete “alien” experience. Much like in the real world, it began with rumours beginning to spread about this happening, which few believed. Read Second Life Residents Report UFO Abductions.
Then, and start with the entry at the bottom of the page, read these blog entries by an “embedded journalist” inside the virtual world, who interviews a talented world user (and then rides on the UFO built by the user). Read Roo Jones’ MuthaShip.
Some users built a complete version of Oz, right down to the flying witch and the skywriting saying “Surrender Dorothy!” — look at the screenshots. And for those users of this virtual world who misbehave too severely, instead of being booted out they get sent to a place to sit and think over their crimes. In a cornfield. Alone. With a slow tractor to play on, and a TV showing 1950s movies. Go look at the Stephen King-like weirdness of this virtual punishment zone, called The Cornfield.
An idea whose time has come. What’s better than looking at porn online? Correct! Sex toys that are linked to what’s going on online. Yummy. Read Horny Brits Plug into Internet Vibrators. Now take a look (and join up if you have the gadgets) at a dating site that has “internet-enabled sex toys” for the dating folks to play with: USB Sex Toy Enhanced Dating Site.
Free reading. Imagine the internet dies. What happens to the bloggers? Try this great little sci-fi story where, post-internet, the bloggers have become scruffy obsessed street people, handing out their scribblings to anyone they can. Read Brother Can You Spare a Hyperlink?.
For reading that will educate you and have you cackling evilly, try this article on gender and violence in subversive children’s songs, which puts the lie to the bogus adult idea of “innocence” in childhood. Read the fascinating Glory Glory Hallelujah, Teacher Hit Me with a Ruler.
For fun, and the ultimate cheerful misuse of a popular religious icon: here’s a lovely music video that should have you howling — although whether for blood or in laughter is your own business. It’s a four-meg download that has to be seen to be believed. Trust me. See Jesus Sing I Will Survive.
Until the next time, unless the Mail & Guardian mission-creep towards conservatism gets me.