Uncredited cover art for the forthcoming Ghost Power, the debut album from the group of the same name, a collaboration between Jeremy Novak (Dymaxion) and Tim Gane (Stereolab, Cavern Of Anti-Matter).
• Objective correlatives: “In compiling the following list of influences and inspirations for my memoir, Modern Instances: The Craft of Photography, I had a certain, specific range of aesthetic experiences in mind,” says Stephen Shore.
• “Smoking toad has been likened, in one guide to psychedelics, to ‘being strapped to the nose of a rocket that flies into the sun and evaporates.'” Kimon de Greef on The Pied Piper of Psychedelic Toads.
• “I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that before there was language there was music,” says Meredith Monk.
• Coming soon from Strange Attractor: Obsolete Spells – Poems and Prose from Victor Neuburg and the Vine Press.
• “…scepticism is not simply about knowledge or language. It is a way of life,” says Nicholas Tampio.
• Life during wartime: Jonathan Wright on Radio Tisdas and the roots of Tinariwen.
• Mix of the week: A Hallow Ground mix for The Wire.
• Volunteers rally to archive Ukrainian web sites.
• The Strange World of…Ahmed Abdul-Malik.
• I Put A Spell On You (1965) by Nina Simone | Cast A Spell (1969) by The Open Mind | Spinning A Spell (1970) by Mystic Siva
Great, just what the modern psychedelic movement needs, more drug gurus. Octavio seems to combine the worst qualities of Timothy Leary and Carlos Castaneda. You can always tell the moment they go off the rails when they become evangelists. Everyone should not smoke “toad’ any more than everyone should use psilocybin or even smoke cannabis for that matter. I am not a puritan nor do I object to personal experimentation but we should note that the use of hallucinogens in ancient cultures was heavily ritualized and regulated. The ancient Greeks knew that one night in the Cave of Eleusis was enough to last a lifetime.
The research and clinical trials conducted using psilocybin up the road here in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins have produced stunning results in treating addiction and depression. It would be a damn shame if all that work was shut down again. Here in the states everyone seems to assume we’ve passed a certain threshold in toleration but this discounts the lingering influence of our home grown theocrats who remain culturally and politically powerful. We’re really only a senator’s daughter away from another moral panic. How about we give our researchers a few more decades of relative freedom to complete their work unmolested and for our contemporary Lotus Eaters to resist the temptation to preach the gospel to the unsaved?
The trouble with drugs is you can’t really stop people behaving foolishly with them, whatever the consequences to themselves or others. I thought that story was a useful warning to avoid anyone who’s controlling access to a powerful psychoactive, especially unhinged egomaniacs. The golden rule of early psychedelic exploration was “Set, setting and dosage”, where “set” is your frame of mind, and “setting” is the place you’re in, which should be safe, secure and free of potentially harmful individuals.