Recently I had occasion to put on an "eye candy" DVD at a weekend party with some friends. I initially chose a DVD of video feedback called Time Trapping: Currents, an indie produced DVD that captures a range of video feedback experiences, edited together to create a nice hour-long presentation. Not everyone at the party understood how video feedback worked; as I explained, it's simply "the effect that can be acheived by plugging a video camera into a TV monitor, then pointing the camera directly into the monitor, creating a closed loop" (very similar to audio feedback, in which a live microphone is placed next to the speaker that is broadcasting the microphone's signal).

I don't have any clips of Time Trapping: Currents available, but you can get a good sense of what video feedback looks like by checking out this video clip:

Now apparently the video feedback was a little too "flashy flashy" seizure-inducing for the calm night we were experiencing, so I opted to put in an entirely different style of "eye candy." I chose a DVD called Worldspirit, a multimedia presentation by Alex Grey and musician Kenji Williams. The DVD comes with multiple options for viewing: you can watch the original live presentation, in which Grey delivers a lecture whilst Williams plays New Age-ish music and multiple projection screens display Grey's paintings. This version is not as "eye candy"-esque given that a) you cut away to Grey and Williams a lot, and b) you have to listen to a Grey lecture, which I don't find particularly engaging. Instead, we chose the option to simply watch the paintings go by, and naturally, we had our own soundtrack dialed in so that we didn't have to listen to New Age-ish music.

At one point, I was chatting with two young gentlemen who had no familiarity with Grey's work whatsoever, and it was enjoyable to discuss the context of Grey's paintings; the fact that the DVD presentation was clearly focusing on close-up sections of Grey's large paintings much more often (it seemed) than on the entirety of these individual paintings (for better or worse); the continuity of imagery across the paintings being displayed; and the fact that Grey clearly has a meaning and a message in mind, which is certainly - as always with any body of artwork - open to interpretation, but Grey's signature, practically his imprimatur, is the very specific spiritual undercurrent that infuses his work. I found myself at one point describing the Sacred Mirrors to these two young gentlemen as a macro- and micro- view of the spiritual nature of the human state, and marveling that such a description didn't itself put me off Grey's work, given my own blazing, inherent skepticism and borderline nihilism. But the conversation was delightful; Grey's work remains quite provocative to me, and it was enjoyable to view it with a couple smart fellows who'd never before experienced it.

Just in case you were sitting on the edge of your seat, avidly awaiting news about the so-called LSD overdose... well, relax.

Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jäger announced Thursday that Martin Frederick Cotton II died from a subdural hematoma, or collection of blood on the surface of his brain, the result of blunt force trauma to his head.

Cotton, 26, died Aug. 9 after less than two hours at the Humboldt County jail following a series of fights, including one with officers from the Eureka Police Department.

An autopsy Aug. 13 revealed evidence of blunt force trauma, but stopped short of determining his cause of death.

Of course, they're still going to list "potentially toxic levels" of LSD as a contributing factor in his death, but it seems clear that whole diagnosis was silly from the outset. Granted, when you stop to think about Cotton's behavior, it's not unreasonable to imagine that LSD might have contributed in some fashion. This, for instance, never particularly sounded like rational behavior:

A surveillance video from inside the jail reportedly shows movements by Cotton inside his cell that suggest he might have repeatedly banged his head against a wall.

The video has not been made public, but Jäger said the pathologists watched it and were unable to draw any firm conclusions from it.

Maybe that's due to the fact that, according to an earlier report:

Humboldt County Sheriff Gary Philp said the sobering cell that held Cotton was equipped with padded floors, walls and dividers, making the report that Cotton died from injuries sustained while banging his head against the cell floor seem improbable.

In the end, the actual manner of death could not be concluded - the investigators couldn't make up their minds if this was a case of "natural death, homicide, suicide, [or] accident." Seems weird to me that someone could wind up in police custody and yet nobody could pin down how he died... oh wait, that doesn't actually seem weird at all. The moral of the story: stay off the drugs, kids! High doses of LSD have been associated with subdural hematomas! It's not safe!

Authorities in Santa Cruz are paving the way for medical marijuana activists to light up at an upcoming festival:

City leaders in Santa Cruz, Calif., will suspend the city's no-smoking rule to allow medical marijuana users light up during an annual festival.

The smoking ban will be lifted to allow for the medicinal use of marijuana during the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana annual festival Sept. 29, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News reported Wednesday.

"I think there's a solid basis for supporting this group," said Councilman Mike Rotkin, who joined Mayor Emily Reilly in creating the resolution that exempted WAMM from the smoking ban. "They're pretty selfless folks. It's not like they're out there profiting off other people's medical needs."

Of course, this isn't blanket permission to smoke marijuana; obviously you have to have a prescription to use it medically. But it does provide for some nice fat photo ops, I have to say. There's nothing quite like an obvious, open sense of community to help spur local activism, and when your community is so stigmatized by so many, getting out at a festival like this and being able to smoke up is bound to be good for morale if nothing else.

If this sliver of a news story is to be believed, Spain is all up in the hashish business:

Spain accounted for 54 percent of the world's hashish haul last year, way ahead of Pakistan, France, Morocco and Iran, the state prosecutor's office said Monday cited by AFP.

A total of 450.8 tonnes of hashish was seized in 2006, of which more than 50 percent was found in the southern Andalucia province, a report said. Andalucia is near Morocco, one of the main spots on the drug smuggling route.

People of Spain, on behalf of all of us here at DoseNation, please accept this honorary blue ribbon for, uh, getting caught a lot. Or something. The story also notes that "46.6 tonnes of cocaine was uncovered in Spain last year, the third biggest haul worldwide." Overachievers!

I just learned about the ancient emperor Shennong, considered the father of Chinese agriculture and herbal medicine. Somewhere around 2737 BC, he experimentally ingested hundreds of different herbs, including 70 that turned out to be toxic, to figure out their effects. The results of these experiments were passed down orally before eventually being written down.

He is credited with the discovery of tea, and also recommended the use of ephedra. One page I read claimed he was the first to describe the use of "narcotics", but the Wikipedia entry on opium says that some kind of use of poppy pods has been identified as early as 4200 BC, so that doesn't hold up.

Clearly this guy was an earlier incarnation of Shulgin...

Another good link is here:
http://www.itmonline.org/arts/shennong.htm

Well this sure has been a long time in coming, hasn't it?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it will collaborate with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to examine clinical data of about 500,000 children and adults who have taken ADHD drugs, which include Novartis AG's Ritalin and Shire Plc's Adderall.

I suppose it's irresponsible to go around claiming that taking speed three times a day for your whole life might be harmful to your cardiovascular system, but what the hey, call me irresponsible. As someone who has had the opportunity to take prescription speed for ADD I can tell you that my heart did not like it, and I had to quit because I did not want to die of massive heart failure at a young age.

Really I must ask, if the US government is so worried about the health problems caused by meth, as evidenced by the huge propaganda campaign, why isn't there more of an outcry about giving amphetamines to our kids? Seems like we've found ourselves in a pharmacratic double-standard once again...

You'll be surprised how you ever lived without it... and you won't last long with it! From the drug comedy DVD Tales From The Tripside.

I don't try to keep up with the gossip columnist on Salon; I tend to find Cary Tennis's words of wisdom to be treacly, preachy, and not particularly relevant to how I do things. However, a recent question by a total freaking prude - er, excuse me, a concerned reader - gave me a tiny sliver of hope that Tennis might just possibly know what he's talking about.

The question is from a man who has a complete and total aversion to drugs. Now look, that's fine - I don't expect anyone I know to give a shit about drugs or be supportive of anyone's drug habits or anything like that. But this guy takes it a step beyond:

I have a crippling emotional distrust of people who do drugs or abuse alcohol. I'm sure many people judge others who do drugs, but I feel that when I hear someone has done drugs, even if it was in college, that I view them in a completely different light -- I now think of them as stupid, selfish or insecure. I feel like I have less judgment for people who smoked marijuana, but I still feel like I look down on them.

I'm a graduate student and I have never done drugs and I only drink socially. I have no desire to take drugs because a) I don't like losing control of my body and b) I don't think it adds anything to a person's character.

He goes on to indicate that his new girlfriend recently admitted to trying cocaine over a year ago, and now he's freaking out; he can't handle the dangerous slide this woman is on.

I'm not ignorant about the dangers of cocaine, but I'm also not sucking down propaganda one mouthful at a time either. The woman experimented and hasn't developed any kind of crippling, debilitating addiction; this guy just doesn't like that she ever tried it.

Tennis's response is surprisingly rational:

So you have a real conflict, don't you? You really, really hate drug use, and this woman you're seeing tried cocaine once.

Can't you just admit to her how crazy this makes you feel, without getting all uppity about it? Can't you admit it humbly? Believe me, your lack of drug use doesn't make you superior to anyone. It's just a choice you've made. It's a good thing. But it doesn't make you better than anyone else. It's just who you are.

Besides, she only used cocaine once.

It's just totally nice to see relatively mainstream outlets, even ones with liberal bias (which in no way inherently equals a clever outlook on personal drug use), put the smack down on those who can't grok that it's possible to try a drug without destroying your life. It's possible to enjoy a drug without destroying your life. People do it all the fucking time. As the Lectroid at the very end of Buckaroo Banzai says, "So what?... Big deal."

Here in Seattle, we've got Hemp Fest every year to celebrate marijuana culture and promote legalization efforts. In Boston, they've got the Boston Freedom Rally for such a purpose, only this year's event, held last weekend, was a little more eventful than usual:

R. Keith Stroup, 63, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and Rick Cusick, 53, an editor at High Times magazine, were charged with possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor. “We were smoking a joint behind the booth here,” Stroup said. “I’m sure the police would rather be chasing real criminals. We’re both productive, hard-working taxpayers.”

The Boston Herald article makes it sound as though there are actually folks who believe that some kind of "amnesty" for pot smokers exists at this event; Hemp Fest is not much different, apparently, given the gi-normous clouds of pot smoke that hovers over the entire event (and is captured by camera phones and sent around with a snicker). I'm not sure I believe the police would always rather be chasing real criminals, though; real criminals probably run fast, and like, don't know how to be chill.

Uh oh - here comes a celebrity news flash for you. Angelina Jolie took LSD... at Disneyland!

Which, you know, is really the only way to visit Disneyland.

"I remember taking LSD before I went to Disneyland. I started thinking about Mickey Mouse being a short, middle-aged man in a costume who hates life. Those drugs can be dangerous if you don't go into it positively - I gave them up long ago." Jolie - who has made no secret of her broad experimentation with drugs - also admits cannabis makes her "giggly". She says, "I've done coke, heroin, ecstasy, LSD, everything. But the one that had the worst effect for me was pot. I felt silly and giggly and I hate feeling like that".

What the hell is wrong with feeling silly and giggly, I ask you? Other than how, you know, silly and giggly it feels. Let's be clear, I don't like pot either; I'm not saying, I'm just saying.