Owsley Stanley dies, one week before world ends in nuclear stewmelt

NYT obit.

Photo: Rosie McGee, via Reuters

DIY hallucinogenic goggles

Via Make:

This post will describe how to construct a pair of goggles which can be used to induce geometric visual hallucinations via strobe light patterns. This tutorial should be accessible to anyone familiar with Arduino hacking, and I do not go into details of the electronics design. The effects are quite remarkable, and enjoyed by many.

Peek-a-boo!
We Alone On Earth.

Pretty good hat, Oly. WA

Sent via thingy.

Cocaine test prompts Red Bull removal in Germany

Yow. AP blurb, and Slashdot thread. (The targeted ad that popped for me when I went to the /. thread was Lance Armstrong advertising FRS. Giggles.)

coming soon, to a theatre near you

ju ju spock in Starship Bloopers
aka
the revenge of the ex-girlfriend...

leader of the monkeez indeed...

I said what I said, and I meant what I meant...

Nice label!

Bitter sage

Cross posting a pic from our wee private winemaking blog. Have a sage & lemon thing happening on a grain alcohol base, that should finish just in time for the big summer party hereabouts. Naming it Juju Pongo's Love Balm.

The best anisette I ever had...

... I had last night before beddy bye, just a wee dram, and it was made by me from this simple recipe in Dona & Mel Meilach's Homemade Liquors, page 83:

• 2/3 tbsp anise seed
• 1/2 tsp fennel seed
• 1/2 tsp coriander seed
• 1.5 cup vodka

Mortar the seeds, and put into the vodka for 1 week, shaking daily. Then strain and add

• 1/2 cup simple syrup

I strained it a number of times before I was happy (cheesecloth). I also turned it a few times a day for a few days until I was really happy with the integration of the syrup and the infusion, but I probably could have instead just shook it real hard when I added the syrup.

Way less cloying than most. (My syrup was 2 parts sugar to 1 part water.) Spicy! Yummy! Finished product about 30% alcohol.

Tobacco, where have you been

It's been a bad past year, breathing wise, requiring drugs and instilling something between caution and fear. But the last month has been suddenly better, and this last weekend I was able to ride bikey w/out xopenex, and this evening after making wild rice w/ baby bok choy and broccolini (t) (sku 3277) (hurts me just to type that word, but it tastes good) and cutting the backbone out of a chicken (I use a cleaver, not a sissor, and I leave the keel bone in) and rubbing the s(k)in side with a voodoo of cumin, corriander, allspice, ginger, salt, cayenne, black pepper and a sassy sweet paprika-like powder and doing it up at 425 for about 40 minutes, and drinking most of a bottle of Almira Los Dos grenache syrah blend... Where was I? Oh, after that, and Lorishki and me chatting about the day's challenges and Lorishki going upstairs to bathe, I thought... C O H I B A. And yes, with my newly recovered lungs and the last of the Los Dos I grabbed one of the little Cohibas I still have stashed away from the last Paris trip, and in the dark of the back yard, hoodie up, I did smoke that little beauty. And it was good.

Amaro me, Dr. Memory (crosspost)

(The partners in our little 11th Street winemaking group have a private blog - and I'm cross posting this little ditty from there.)

Started on the Amaro recipe at about.com. The hard to get herbs all came from Aphrodisia, and the grain alcohol and vermouth from Slope Cellars. Since the recipe is silent on amounts for the roots, I used 5 grams of each, and where I had dried herbs rather than fresh, I used a teaspoon. And where I had leaves instead of root, I winged it. So:

• Lemon balm 1 tsp
• 5 leaves fresh sage
  
• 10 leaves fresh rosemary
• Centaury plant 1 tsp. dried
• 15 juniper berries
• 5 cloves, check
• 1/2 inch cinnamon stick
  
• Orris root 5g.
• Calmus root 5g.
• Gentian root 5 g.
• Blessed thistle I have is dried leaves, not root, and I am using 2 tsp
• Milk thistle 1 tsp dried
  

Step 1 is complete. Sugar is dissolving in vermouth, herbs are steeping in grain alcohol. More work a couple of times in the next week or two, then 8 months of waiting.

Jalopy, BKLYN, stage center

And on stage last night at Jalopy was your hero and mine, Pete Stampfel with his Ether Frolic Mob. I'm guessing that last link <= is subject to rot, so let me say the mob included John Cohen this time, and I'll quote from the blurb:

What is Ether Frolic?? Ether Frolic is when ether came into use in the 19th century, it was widely introduced by Ether Frolics--a stage would be rented, the audience would be charged, the ’show’ involved people inhaling ether on stage and carrying on in a manner not common to 19th century behavioral norms. Audience participation was encouraged. Sort of an old-timey Acid Test. I also chose Ether Frolic in an ironic sense, because I was given what I later found out was an overdose of ether for a tonsillectomy in Minnesota in 1945. This remains the single most painful and terrifying experience of my life. I knew beforehand that something truly awful was going to happen, but tried to be brave. My last words before they clamped the rubber ether mask on my 6 year old face was… This is the life.

Bound to lose.

And then we just went ahead and made it, Maraschino 3

So we went out and bought the oils we needed. Someone out there already knew, I bet, that you can't buy bitter almonds in the US of A. Because eating somewhere between 20 and 50 of them uncooked will kill you. (But you can buy them in other countries where people won't eat them raw because, Duh!, that would kill you.) But pure almond extract is the oil of bitter almonds diluted in alcohol. So we went for it and guessed at the quantity. Made just a quarter recipe, in case it's gawdawful. Still need to get some cochineal for coloring. And wait for next summer when the cherries are in season, pit a bunch of them, and add them. Then put it all in fancy jars and send one of them out to Jolly Pirate and the Lady M for next Christmas. Man! Only the 4th day of the year and everything is falling so nicely into place.

Help yourself

From the digital collections of the NY Public Library. There's a peculiar series of tobacco cards there...

please, me begging you, please Please PLEASE...

hie thyselves to NPR's Fresh Air site for today's broadcast,
Antonia Juhasz: 'Tyranny of Oil' Is A Grave Threat;
also an excerpt there of her book, The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry — and What We Must Do to Stop It.

extra added linky goodness:
A. Juhasz interviewed by Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!;
and maybe, coming soon to your neighborhood.

Shameless promotion: James Guido, Advocate Life Care

Neighbor and friend James Guido - the same JG that famously chefs our yearly wine & puttanesca party and cooked dinner for 85 of us this last June - is the designer of a number Advocate (tm) health care products, and has recently taken over the Advocate LifeCare website. Hey, we're getting older, laddies and lassies.

(PS: am still sitting out at the stoopsale - we've now set free the decopage mirror.)

L.E.M.U.R + psychedelics = clack. clack. clackclack

Zemi17/GamelaTron at Horizons Conference

A double-header for Zemi17 & the GamelaTron, also appearing at the opening reception of Horizons Conference this Friday at Judson Church.

Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics

Judson Memorial Church

55 Washington Square South, NYC

Friday, September 19th

8-12 pm (GamelaTron set at 9)

http://horizonsnyc.org

me am borink today...

actually,
me been borink for weeks, mebbe months...

now me depressed...

well,
maybe this cheer you up too...

Our problem father, RIP Albert Hofmann

Don't know how I missed it.  Thank you Willy Wac for pointing out:

• Blogrunner: reactions from around the world
  
• NYT Jan 2006: Nearly 100, LSD's father ponders his 'problem child'