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Showing posts with the label altered states

The Book Of Byers

Not your typical holy man My wife and I ripped through the third season of Stranger Things over the course of an evening and morning. It is an excellent addition to the series, one with many memorable scenes and moments. As it had been a while since we last watched the previous seasons, we decided to go on a binge. Stranger Things is the kind of series that rewards a second viewing for missed or forgotten details and I was rewarded with a realization of the young Byers' role in the story. Although he is a wizard named Will The Wise while playing Dungeons & Dragons with his friends, Will is no wizard. He has no powers (not even in the Upside Down, a place where a normal person becoming something opposite of itself would seem feasible), is prone to affliction and even possession, all the while just trying to make sense of it all. With all his time in the otherworld, encounters with demogorgons and the Mind Flayer, Will's greatest contribution is to see and describe to

Dick, Death, and Meth

Philip K. Dick was a prolific writer of science fiction, with several of his stories and books having been adapted to film after his death in 1982. One of his better-known works is the book "A Scanner Darkly," which portrays America in the not-too-distant future, an America that has lost the war on drugs and is under total surveillance by government and corporations alike. The drug of choice in this world is Substance D. Substance D is derived from a flower (like heroin), is instantly addictive and has a near 100% recidivism rate (like crystal methamphetamine), and has a street nickname of Death (rhymes with meth) and people have either never tried it or are addicted to it; there is no in between. Meanwhile, the government and corporations are working together to fight a never-ending war on drugs and paranoia is rampant. Luckily, there is hope: New Path Recovery is a rehab center that stands the best chance of overcoming the Substance D epidemic. However,

Absinthe Unleashed

I recently stopped in at the local bottle shop to pick up some low proof whiskey for a home cough remedy (honestly). While searching for rock and rye, I noticed something I'd never seen before: absinthe. On the shelf. For sale. Banned in the West for decades, absinthe is the legendary liquor beloved by French Impressionists, Aleister Crowley, and anyone who loved a strong, hallucination-inducing drink. The Green Goddess, as Crowley called it, gets its entheogenic power from wormwood, a bitter, mind altering plant. The store clerk explained that the legal absinthe he sells is lower in wormwood so as to not induce hallucinations, but remains quite powerful. I bought a small bottle, in the name of science. Upon opening, I noticed a distinct, liquorice sort of scent. Not bad, I thought, compared to the medicinal smell of some drinks. I lifted the bottle in a toast to poets, madmen and painters everywhere and everywhen, then took the tiniest of drinks. The burn began on t