12/29/10
12/26/10
Psychedelic kiss of death
"In painting, being considered 'psychedelic' has been something of a kiss of death because it implies those things summed up by Hollingshead: unsaleable, made when stoned for viewing by the stoned. Much of the art considered psychedelic has been influenced by Asian religious motifs, such as mandala, often executed in questionable taste or with a naive eye. Much has been biomorphic abstraction, globularized De Kooning."
–Glenn O'Brien, from Tate Modern Summer of Love catalog, 2005
–Glenn O'Brien, from Tate Modern Summer of Love catalog, 2005
12/25/10
12/24/10
punch test
"Gottlieb saw important strategic advantages for its use in covert operations. For instance, a surreptitious dose of LSD might disrupt a person's thought process and cause him to act strangely or foolishly in public. A CIA document notes that administering LSD "to high officials would be a relatively simple matter and could have a significant effect at key meetings, speeches, etc." But Gottlieb realized there was a considerable difference between testing LSD in a laboratory and using the drug in clandestine operations. In an effort to bridge the gap, he and his TSS colleagues initiated a series of in-house experiments designed to find out what would happen if LSD was given to someone in a "normal" life setting without advance warning.
The Office of Security felt that the TSS should exercise better judgment when dealing with such a powerful and dangerous chemical. The straw that broke the camel's back came when a Security informant got wind of a plan by a few TSS jokers to put LSD in the punch served at the annual CIA Christmas office party. A Security memo dated December 15, 1954, noted that acid could "produce serious insanity for periods of 8 to 18 hours and possibly for longer." The writer of this memo concluded indignantly and unequivocally that he did "not recommend testing in the Christmas punch bowls usually present at the Christmas office parties." (Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties and Beyond)
the psychedelic secrets of Santa Claus
"Although most people see Christmas as a Christian holiday, most of the symbols and icons we associate with Christmas celebrations are actually derived from the shamanistic traditions of the tribal peoples of pre-Christian Northern Europe. While the modern image of Santa Claus was created at least in part by the advertising department of Coca-Cola, in truth his appearance, clothing, mannerisms and companions all mark him as the reincarnation of these ancient mushroom-gathering shamans.
The sacred mushroom of these people was the red and white amanita muscaria mushroom, also known as "fly agaric." These mushrooms are now commonly seen in books of fairy tales, and are usually associated with magic and fairies. This is because they contain potent hallucinogenic compounds, and were used by ancient peoples for insight and transcendental experiences. It was common practice among ancient people to recycle the potent effects of the mushroom by drinking each other's urine. The amanita's ingredients can remain potent even after six passes through the human body. Some scholars argue that this is the origin of the phrase "to get pissed," as this urine-drinking activity preceded alcohol by thousands of years.
Reindeer were the sacred animals of these semi-nomadic people, as the reindeer provided food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. Reindeer are also fond of eating the amanita mushrooms; they will seek them out, then prance about while under their influence. Often the urine of tripped-out reindeer would be consumed for its psychedelic effects. This effect goes the other way too, as reindeer also enjoy the urine of a human, especially one who has consumed the mushrooms. In fact, reindeer will seek out human urine to drink, and some tribesmen carry sealskin containers of their own collected piss, which they use to attract stray reindeer back into the herd.
The effects of the amanita mushroom usually include sensations of size distortion and flying. The feeling of flying could account for the legends of flying reindeer, and legends of shamanic journeys included stories of winged reindeer, transporting their riders up to the highest branches of the World Tree." (Cannabis Culture)
flying reindeer
Reindeer "go to great lengths to search out the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria) — the one with the white-spotted red cap that garden gnomes like to sit on. Eating the toadstool makes reindeer behave in a drunken fashion, running about aimlessly and making strange noises. Head-twitching is also common. Fly agaric is found across the northern hemisphere and has long been used by mankind for its psychotropic properties. But its use can be dangerous because it also contains toxic substances. Reindeer seem to metabolise these toxic elements without harm, while the main psychoactive constituents remain unmetabolised and are excreted in the urine. Reindeer herders in Europe and Asia long ago learnt to collect the reindeer urine for use as a comparatively safe source of the hallucinogen."
12/17/10
Rehearsal for the Digital Age
"For months Kesey has been trying to work out..the fantasy…of the Dome. This was going to be a great geodesic dome on top of a cylindrical shaft. It would look like a great mushroom. Many levels. People would climb a stairway up the cylinder – buy a ticket? We-e-e-e-llll – and the dome would have a great foam-rubber floor they could lie down on. Sunk down in the foam-rubber, below floor level, would be movie projectors, video-tape projectors, light projectors. All over the place, up in the dome, everywhere, would be speakers, microphones, tape machines, live, replay, variable lag. People could take LSD or speed or smoke grass and lie back and experience what they would, enclosed and submerged in a planet of light and sounds such as the universe never knew. Lights, movies, video tapes, video tapes of themselves, flashing and swirling over the dome from the beams of searchlights rising from the floor between their bodies. The sounds roiling around in the globe like a typhoon. Movies and tapes of the past, tapes and video tapes, broadcasts and pictures of the present, tapes and humanoid sounds of the future – but all brought together now – here and now – Kairos – into the dilated cerebral cortex.."
12/14/10
fused in the fire
Some observations of the effects of nitrous-oxide-gas-intoxication which I was prompted to make by reading the pamphlet called The anaesthetic revelation and the gist of philosophy (Blood, 1874), have made me understand better than ever before both the strength and the weakness of Hegel's philosophy. I strongly urge others to repeat the experiment, which with pure gas is short and harmless enough.
It is impossible to convey an idea of the torrential character of the identification of opposites as it streams through the mind in this experience. I have sheet after sheet of phrases dictated or written during the intoxication, which to the sober reader seem meaningless drivel, but which at the moment of transcribing were fused in the fire of infinite rationality. God and devil, good and evil, life and death, I and thous, sober and drunk, matter and form, black and white, quantity and quality, shiver of ecstasy and shudder of horror, vomiting and swallowing, inspiration and expiration, fate and reason, great and small, extent and intent, joke and earnest, tragic and comic, and fifty other contrasts figure in these pages in the same monotonous way. The mind saw how each term belonged to its contrast through a knife-edge moment of transition which it effected, and which, perennial and eternal, was the nunc stans of life. The thought of mutual implication of the parts in the bare form of a judgement of opposition, as "nothing--but," "no more--than," "only--if," etc., produced a perfect delirium of the theoretic rapture. And at last, when definite ideas to work on came slowly, the mind went through the mere form of recognizing sameness in identity by contrasting the same word with itself, differently emphasized, or shorn of its initial letter. Let me transcribe a few sentences.
What's mistake but a kind of take?
What's nausea but a kind of -usea?
Sober, drunk, -unk, astonishment.
Everything can become the subject of criticism --
How criticise without something to criticise?
Agreement -- disagreement!!
Emotion -- motion!!!!
By God, how that hurts! By God, how it doesn't hurt!
Reconciliation of two extremes.
By George, nothing but othing!
That sounds like nonsense, but it is pure onsense!
Thought deeper than speech...!
Medical school; divinity school, school! SCHOOL!
Oh my God, oh God; oh God!
The most coherent and articulate sentence which came was this: There are no differences but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference.
- (William James, "Subjective Effects of Nitrous Oxide," 1882)
12/13/10
Contraband
Ketamine, India (illegal)
Sexual enhancement drugs, Artillery King, China (prohibited)
Blue and yellow pharmaceutical pills awaiting testing, Pakistan (prohibited)
Dry khat, Catha edulis, Kenya (illegal)
Hydrocodone, India (illegal)
Heroin, from India to NY (illegal)
GBL, Poland (used as date rape drug) (illegal)
Steroids, Testosterone & Sustanon, Pakistan (illegal)
The following 1,075 photographs were taken at both the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Federal Inspection Site and the U.S. Postal Service International Mail Facility at John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York. From November 16, 2009 through November 20, 2009, Taryn Simon remained on site at JFK and continuously photographed items detained or seized from passengers and express mail entering the United States from abroad.
www.tarynsimon.com
12/11/10
Smurfing: Individuals and criminal groups making numerous small-quantity pseudoephedrine and ephedrine product purchases from multiple retail outlets is a diversion method known as “smurfing.” In some instances, pseudoephedrine brokers have established pseudoephedrine smurfing networks by paying several individuals to make purchases on their behalf.
12/10/10
12/9/10
»Part I, Mushrooms, No. IV«, 1974, from »A large number of mushroom prints in a collection called Natural History« by Cy Twombly.
»Champions«, 2006 by Takashi Murakami.
»Mushroom«, 2006 by Sylvie Fleury.
»Polyspore Slab 2«, 2007 by Roxy Paine.
»Doppelpilzuhr«, 2010 by Carsten Höller.
Sequence via http://www.vvork.com
12/8/10
12/6/10
12/5/10
dream home is meth lab nightmare
"Jenn Friberg and Rob Quigley bought their four-bedroom house on Jefferson Avenue in March. The 108-year-old house had everything they were looking for in a starter home: old world charm, a backyard and plenty of space for a nursery in the future. Roughly five days after they moved in, Quigley learned from a neighbor that the house had been a meth lab. hocked, he retreated indoors and typed his new address into a Google search bar. There it was in black and white: Their home was listed on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's National Clandestine Laboratory Registry, a list of addresses where local authorities have reported finding drug manufacturing facilities or dumps. The couple complained of having headaches, sore throats and difficulty breathing after moving in -- all symptoms of possible methamphetamine exposure. "It was really odd," Quigley said. "I would go to work and it would go away. I would come home and it would just start again." Quigley and Friberg said they can't afford the cleanup or a lawyer. They are paying nearly $2,000 a month for the mortgage, utilities and storage fees. The thought the house being foreclosed makes them sick. They've started the blog Our Meth House to vent their frustrations and seek help. "We never would have imagined in a million years that this could have potentially been a meth house. It's totally unreal to us," Friberg said. "I want justice."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
