Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Thanks Don, great discussion.  Most Inkwell discussions are doing when
well when they reach 75-100 posts or more.  This one doubled that.
  

    
I enjoyed the conversation and the book!
  

    
Gotta get the book! Thanks, Steve and Don!
  

    
You are all most welcome. I've got one more HPC interview scheduled
for this week with CBC (Canada) radio, and then I'm done! The response
to the book has been amazing, but I AM getting tired of talking about
the damn thing. Time to move on! 

But if you need more, feel free to join our Fan Page on the evil
Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/HarvardPsych?ref=mf

You can also keep in touch via my website at www.donlattin.com or
emailing me at don@donlattin.com

And remember, as they say in the London Underground, "mind your head."
  

    
This conversation is officially not finished till Wednesday, so don't
everyone leave yet. After that the topic will remain open for any other
discussion that people want to have. But let's try to keep this great
conversation going for another couple of days. It really has been one
of the better inkwell.vue discussions and I would hate to have it stop
today.
  

    
Oh man, if only you'd said that *before* I dropped the acid!
  

    
That's even better!  

dUde, looK A%^T all tTHE CoLoRs!&*@
  

    
Have you ever really looked, I mean *looked* at your hands?
  

    
we're all bozos on this bus
  

    
Just in case i'm busy with .. another long hike, and forget, i'll say
it now: Thanks a lot, Don, and Steve!
  

    
Thank you, guys. I've really enjoyed following this conversation.
  

    

Thanks to Don and Steve. The mention of the family dimension of the
Peyote rites reminded me of something ...

Back in the mid-70s I was in a bar in the mountains of Spain drinking
cognac and trading stories with a young bartender. 

During that time plenty of traditional life still went on in rural
parts of Iberia. The bartender recalled about how a few weeks before it
had been his turn to spend a day or 2 helping his widowed grandmother.
This was a task all his cousins were obliged to do, involving going
out to her rustic farm house, helping her chop and gather sufficient
wood, help with repairs or whatever she ordered them to do. 

After an afternoon of fixing things around the house the bartender's
grandmother said it was the time to go get some mushrooms to put in the
soup for dinner. They went out foraging a few hours and came back. She
cooked up a pot of soup, with the mushrooms, potatoes and onions on
the fire her grandson built. Meanwhile he tuned up the lonely battered
guitar that often hung from a nail on the plaster walls of old Spanish
fincas. 

With dinner finished he continued playing the guitar. After awhile 
it dawned on him he had been playing the same song for what seemed
like an eternity -- or for what had at least maybe been a 30 or 45
minute stretch. Feeling a bit conspicuous/self-conscious he looked at
his grandmother who had also been watching the fire during during the
entire guitar opus. Noticing he had stopped playing guitar and was
looking at her she said "those were the good mushrooms."
  

    


   (:-)
  

    
Heh.
  

    
In northern New South Wales in the late nineteenth century, dairy
farming families grew fond of the Gold Top (Psilocybe cubensis)
mushroom. The virtues of this fine fungus were also 'discovered' by a
Brisbane City Council work crew best part of a century later, when they
found Goldies covering a median strip after it was top-dressed with
cow manure. We lost that crew for the rest of the day.
  

    
There are numerous folk songs and stories from rural Germany and
Scandinavia about "mushrooms" as well. 
  

    
One of the symbols of good luck in Germany (along with the four-leaf
clover and the pig) is the "Glückspilz," a mushroom with a red cap with
white spots. Looked familiar. 
  

    
When I was in Iceland I saw plenty of pictures of the red mushroom
with white spots, and was told it was what the Vikings used to go
berserk before they went into battle.

Incidentally, the Kodak page on Facebook recently posted a picture of
those mushrooms.

There's plenty of them in kids' books, too.
  

    
There's a huge one on the cover of "The Shooting Star," one of the
Tintin adventures. 
  

    
Amanita muscaria are not, however, allegedly a fun trip.  Just sayin'.

Thank you Don and everyone who participated in this discussion (including 
you, silent readers from the future).  It's been wonderful.  If you 
haven't read Don's book yet, please do, and I'm also looking forward to 
Peter Conners' upcoming book on Leary and Ginsberg.

Thanks also to the WELL, <gail>, and Julie for hosting such a great forum.
If you like what you've seen here, you might consider joining the WELL.  
It's a great place.
  

    
Yes, thank you all for participating, but especially Don, for writing
a wonderful book, and Steve, for skillfully helping to shape and guide
the conversation. This was an extraordinarily interesting and enjoyable
discussion. This week Inkwell's attention moves on to a new
discussion, but this topic will remain open indefinitely for anyone who
wants to continue the conversation.
  

    
Many thanks to all!
  

    
Belated thanks to you, Don!
  

    
Yes, many thanks indeed.

One last link I just got sent.......John Lennon's buried stash of Owsley 
found (supposedly).


http://www.crawdaddy.com/index.php/2010/04/20/john-lennon-s-long-lost-stash-of
-lsd-found-buried-at-his-kenwood-home/?utm_source=NL&utm_medium=email&utm_camp
aign=100427

or the tinyurl

http://tinyurl.com/3xz9ykd
  

    
Great interview w/John… "Oh, yeah, my ego was destroyed, I was reading
all that Timothy Leary-shit and…" Heh!