Enthusiastic sh.it.head
Count from 1 to 10, then 10 to 1. With each number, relax your body a little more. When the mind strays, bring it back to counting. Repeat until unconscious.
If that isn’t working at all, get up, go to another room, play soft music at low volume on headphones, and depending on the circumstances read a book, jot stuff down, or just contemplate stuff. Chill until sleepy, then either go back to bed or just curl up where you are.
Me again.
It’s 2014. I’m writing an ill-conceived paper about LSD as a kind of ‘technological’ advancement in psychiatry and how that idea connects to themes in some American novels from the 1960s.
While researching, I come across a blurb about Hollywood Hospital, a facility in Vancouver BC that conducted LSD trials with their patients. This eventually leads me to a finding aid for a collection of lecture notes at Purdue University’s Archives and Special collections, where I learned the last person known to have the hospital’s files was supposedly one Frank Ogden.
Frank Ogden is an interesting character. A flight engineer during WWII, after the war he ran an airplane company at Toronto Island Airport. In 1961, after reading an article about LSD in a magazine he became interested in Hollywood Hospital’s activities. He sold his portion of the business, travelled to Vancouver and, in his words, “just knocked on the door”. With no medical background, but offering three months of free labour, medical director Dr. J. Ross MacLean hired him. Ogden took LSD under supervision twice, which was a relatively standard protocol for staff working with these patients. He then started working along side staff supporting these patients, which included ‘a large clientele from California’ - mostly said to be celebrities and the like looking for a kick.
Fast forward. Ogden eventually transitions to a career as a futurist under the moniker Dr. Tomorrow, living in a houseboat in Vancouver. He did speaking engagements, wrote books, hosted a radio show, etc. He died at 92 on December 29th, 2012.
Super interesting guy, and worth further digging into if you’re curious (I know I’m revisiting him now that I’ve written this, lol). But I noticed something interesting when I dug up his homepage. It was now redirecting to something called the Global Consciousness Project, a parapsychology initiative. This is a weird one - basically, the theory is that events causing widely experienced, shared emotions or attention could have an effect on the output of hardware random number generators, and fluctuations in output could be a measure of a ‘global consciousness’. It’s batshit, but fascinating at the same time. The questions I had at the time were “Why this, over anything else, as the redirect? What happened between May 3 2009 and February 17 2010 where this was the choice? Unrelated, but WHERE ARE THE FUCKING HOSPITAL FILES??”.
I walked away. Ultimately, I had a paper to finish, and while fascinating this was becoming a timesink. But this man lives rent free in my head to this day
It’s available via Wayback (albeit not fully functional), so you know what? Yes!
MUSHROOM MUSHROOM
(I was hoping for cool little weird corners of internet history, or just regular people who used to have websites for interesting reasons, but I’ll take proto-memes too)
Damn, that’s a good question. Like a 6 or 7 on this scale, all told? Parents were good, wasn’t spoiled but didn’t want for much, some tension with my dad at times/impact of necessary absences due to military lifestyle, but he was generally a good dude.
Idk - I look back on my childhood fondly more or less.
Probably going to come back with other Wayback links of interest between today and tomorrow, but in the spirit of some of the responses so far:
Best paired with the following on repeat: https://youtu.be/zh1GCx2CcKM?t=0m48s
There’s a very particular warm, relaxed feeling I get whenever I visit this website.
I call it Zombo Calm, and it’s something special.
I fuckin’ love me some Time Cube. Great pull!
Dang! Works for me, but admittedly takes a bit longer to load than other links I’ve used. Is it giving a specific error, out of curiosity?
If truly hopeless, bask in this glorious homepage image:
Every serious bullying incident I ran into growing up ended when a kid got popped in the mouth. Every unserious bullying incident made no impact when I knew if it got serious, I could pop them in the mouth and likely come out on top.
I’ve met way too many adults with personality issues that were a product of adults telling child them “physical violence is always wrong, just tell an adult, be the bigger person” etc. It always needs to be taught as a last resort, and it needs to be understood that even justified violence comes with consequences and other tools must be used first, but when you’ve done everything you’re supposed to and no one is helping to the resolve the problem, sometimes you have to do it yourself.
It ain’t pretty, and it ain’t ideal, but it’s the way it is.
I mean, this exists, so why not? https://www.screenslate.com/articles/shining-forwards-and-backwards
Go to bed early on April 19th. Wake up at 4:20 AM. Have a lil’ wake and bake. Get kitted up and go for a nice wander, listening to some sweet tunes, maybe hit a trail for a bit, etc. Meander your way to the brunch place, preferably an all-you-can-eat affair, around opening time. Have one more bowl/joint. If AYCE, make the owner regret their business model. Spend the rest of the day in a food coma watching stupid movies.
This is the way.
Primarily the audience. The artist can approach a project with a certain set of ideas, precepts, and motivations, and attempt to communicate something, but the interpretations of the audience supercede that IMO.
That said, there’s different levels of engagement that inform different interpretations. Not the best example, but there’s some folks who watched Starship Troopers, for instance, who didn’t get that it was intended as satire until they listened to the director’s commentary. This does have an impact on interpretive activity when engaging with that knowledge - all of a sudden, certain things lend themselves to closer consideration. I do think there’s such a thing as informed and uninformed interpretation, though ideally a work stands on its own without reference to paratext/the creator’s claims.
Edit: Good counter example - The Room. Intended as a serious attempt at Tennessee Williams-esque drama, widely interpreted as an experiment in a sort of cringe comedy, seeing the reaction the writer/director/lead decides to roll with that.
🎵One of these days they’re gonna put me away 'cause I’m Dr. Rockso Freud, do a lot of cocaine🎵
“I’m here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m not sure they even still make bubblegum these days.”
Ahh, ok. Didn’t have the UK context, and yeah, admittedly my usage comes from a North American context.
Appreciate the answer!
This is a pretty specific usage of the word trip. Most of the time when people say it, they mean they had an above-threshold psychoactive experience (usually in the context of psychedelics). Don’t get me wrong, depending on what and how much you take you can certainly trip and find yourself doing that stuff. But many people use ‘trip’ or ‘tripping’ to describe experiences that don’t reach that point.
You sound experienced, so I’m curious how you landed on this definition of trip/tripping and what you called your experiences instead (if you use a casual term at all).
Seafood belongs near alcohol. But like, adjacent to it. In a separate serving format. Preferably in some sort of batter.
…I hate this thread, now I want fried clams and a beer.
The differences are subtle, but important:
-Donair sauce is sickly sweet (imo, I hate donair sauce) and made with condensed milk.
-The spices used on the meat are different.
It’s a good question, though - I’ve always associated donair with Halifax, and shawarma with Ottawa (it’s more a ubiquity thing than anything else). Does any Canadian city lay claim to the gyro?
Anyone who asks this IRL gets to hear my entire life story, 'cause that’s the only answer I can come up with.