I send out a newsletter called the Island Views Electrozine which has been published 41 times in the past ten years. You can get the newsletter via email by subscribing to it through this link. Here is the latest issue.
ISLAND VIEWS ELECTROZINE No.41
June 2006
Edited by Bruce Eisner
Top 25 Psychedelic Features from Vision Thing
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Aside from an Island Flash attempting to sell some Bicycle Day Posters (which didn't sell), there has not been an Island Electrozine since February. So I went and gathered the top 25 psychedelic posts from my blog Vision Thing. If you like what you read here and want to get these updates faster, subscribe to the Vision Thing Feed by clicking here.
My Pick of the Top 25 Psychedelic Posts from Vision Thing (March 2006 - Now)
1) Sundance Channel Premiers Documentary "The Drug Years" -- Also on VH1 Updated Twice
Taking a welcome detour from has-been celebrities, VH1 joins with Sundance Channel (which will repeat the project starting June 16) on this four-hour documentary, which brings a refreshingly un-jaundiced eye to illicit drug use and its impact -- then and presumably now --on the so-called "culture wars." The first two hours provide fascinating insight into the growth of the counterculture, music's influential role, how its imagery was adopted by movies and Madison Avenue, and the eventual hangover. All told, it certainly merits tuning in, whether or not you turn on and drop out. Visit this story through this link
2) "RU Sirius interviews author of new Timothy Leary biography" Boing Boing
Boing Boing Post about the Interview I've posted about the Mirimax Leary biopic starting back in April of last year. Everything I'd heard about it was that it was going to be portray Leary negatively. So when Robert Greenfield's new bio of Leary came out this month, it turns out that the movie is based on his book.I have not had a chance to read the book but everything I've heard about it is that Greenfield dug up all of the dirt from the dark side of Leary's life and pieced it together with a judgmental narrative. RU Sirius interviews Greenfield and a lot of this comes out in the interchange. Visit this story through this link
3) Arthur Magazine Features "You're On Acid Again" by Jeremy Narby --Free PDF
Swiss anthropologist-author Jeremy Narby talks with Jay Babcock about what hallucinogens like LSD and the Amazonian drink ayahuasca have to teach us in the 21st century. Introduction by author Erik Davis, with a full-color illustration by Arik Moonhawk Roper. Visit this story through this link
4) "Contemporary Psychedelia: From Transcendence to Immanence" Peter Bebergal on Zeek.Net
This piece is about "psych-folk" a genre of new psychedelic music that has been part of a renewed interest in psychedelic sounds. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the extensive piece:
What is loosely termed 'psychedelic music' has lately undergone a resurgence. Many mainstream musicians such as The Flaming Lips have drawn on its more accessible pop elements, drawing mainly from 60s British and American artists, while more alternative acts, such as the unequivocal Acid Mothers Temple and the splendid Swedish band Dungen, have moved deeper into At the leading edge of the psychedelic revival is a sub-genre often called psych-folk, as it usually involves some fusion of traditional American and British folk elements alongside experimental forms, usually containing, but certainly not limited Visit this story through this link
5) "10 years since Timothy Leary's death" on Joi Ito's Weblog
I've heard from some of Timothy Leary's friends the past couple of days, remembering that it has been an entire decade since Tim died. Joi Ito remembers him on his weblog. Here is an escerpt:
"Timothy Leary passed away 10 years ago today. I was with him the evening before he died and I still remember his humor even in his final hour. I met Timothy Leary in Tokyo in the summer of 1990. Tim was excited about virtual reality and had told his friend David Kubiak in Kyoto to help him track down "young Japanese kids who know about virtual reality" Visit this story through this link
6) A Cracked Guide to Futuristic Super Drugs
When I was a kid back in the last century, I read a lot of comic books (age 5-8). A year or so later, I was reading Mad Magazine and its sometimes funnier competitor Cracked. So while trolling for news on the blog, Theories, Predictions, Opinions & Other Nonsense I discovered Cracked.Com which leads with this funny little piece on Futuristic Super Drugs. Of course among them was a non-pharmacological "drug" from future called the Orb in the Woody Allen's 1973 sci-fi farce, Sleeper. Visit this story through this link
7) Popular Science: Will Drugs Make Us Smarter and Happier?
In a special Issue that Popular Science I found this speculative article about potential futures for cognitive-enhancement drugs. Visit this story through this link
8) Jack Shafer on Slate.Com: What's the Story, Morning Glory?
On a slow Memorial Day Weekend, I enjoyed this story by Jack Shafter taking a jab at a Washington Post staff writer's story about the "rediscovery" of the morning glory seed as the source of a natural "trip." Since my first psychedelic experience was catalyzed by those seeds with names like Heavenly Blue and Pearly Gates, I took notice that the world has come full circle. Or has it? Visit this story through this link
9) AlterNet: How the Right Stole the '60s (And Why We Should Get Them Back)
Here is an excerpt from this much commented on Alternet essay by Aston Taylor: Regardless of whether we were raised in the hippie tradition, those born too late to remember the '60s firsthand have heard an awful lot about the decade, most of it bad. The period has been trivialized, commemorated and castigated ad nauseam. It's been reduced to a risible relic, a series of clichés about hippies and protesters and lost idealism. Visit this story through this link
10) Acid Trip -- Self Portraits by an Artist --on AnaLogik Multimedia house Website
One of a series of nine drawings were done by an artist under the influence of LSD -- part of a test conducted by the US government during it's dalliance with psychotomimetic drugs in the late 1950's. The artist was given a dose of LSD 25 and free access to an activity box full of crayons and pencils. His subject is the medico that jabbed him. Visit this story through this link
11) "Deadhead" Summer Festivals -- Rex Foundation
The Grateful Dead performed more benefits than anyone. In the fall of 1983, the Rex Foundation was established as a non-profit charitable organization by members of the Grateful Dead and friends. The Rex Foundation enabled the Grateful Dead to go beyond responding to multiple requests for contributions, and preactively provide extensive community support to creative endeavors in the arts, sciences, and education. The first benefit concerts for the Rex Foundation were held in the spring of 1984 at the Marin Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium. Since 1984 the Rex Foundation has granted $7.7 million to some 1,000 recipients. Visit this story through this link
12) The Observer -- 2050 - and immortality is within our grasp
This may be a year old story but since its the first time I read it, I thought I'd share it with you. In this piece, David Smith, technology correspondent for the observer wrote (May 22, 2005) Aeroplanes will be too afraid to crash, yoghurts will wish you good morning before being eaten and human consciousness will be stored on supercomputers, promising immortality for all - though it will help to be rich. These fantastic claims are not made by a science fiction writer or a crystal ball-gazing lunatic. They are the deadly earnest predictions of Ian Pearson, head of the futurology unit at BT. Visit this story through this link
13) Thedrugsindex.org -- Psychedelic Portal and Blog
This site is a psychedelic portal site with variety of resources. Here is how the site describes its purpose: From every mountain and valley the world over, come ancient flowers and plants of simple beauty. Some hold a natural wonder. Chemicals that relieve pain and inspire divine euphoria. At times they have been hailed as a gift from heaven, but in the last century they have been condemned as a menace to mankind. Once marijuana, cocaine, opium, ecstasy, LSD and even heroin were perfectly legal. Today they are the enemy in a War On Drugs. Did these plants and drugs change, or did we? Visit this story through this link
14) Oz Magazine Historical UK Sixties Counterculture Online
Oz Magazine was one of the most significant members of the Underground Press, that print phenomenon of the Sixties Counterculture. Visit this story through this link
15 )Welcome to the CounterCulture Wiki
While browsing the Australian mega-blog Wilson's Blogmanac, I chanced upon a portion of the site which looks to be an interesting and ambitious project. Called the "CounterCulture Wiki" here is how the wiki introduces its purpose: But what does 'Counterculture' mean? It's a wide term, and we won't try to narrow it too much. Our wikia is about the Counterculture of today and through history. Our realm covers centuries, decades, years, days and fleeting moments. Great social movements, inspiring men and women, and partly baked ideas. We take a wide view, that's why the person in our logo is Gerrard Winstanley (1609 - 1676), with a hippie flower in his hair. Visit this story through this link
16) The Race For The Timothy Leary Biopic -- Inside Entertainment
Here is an inresting little bit of news about the making of one (or more) biographies about Timothy Leary. Here is an excerpt: (KP International) – The race has begun between Hollywood heavyweights to see who can produce a Timothy Leary biopic first. Visit this story through this link
I included the next item which continued the idea
More on Timothy Leary Movie Biography
Winona Ryder and Leonardo DiCaprio are battling it out with Darren Aronofsky to make the first biopic of counter-culture icon Timothy Leary. Ryder, Leary's god-daughter, and her father Michael Horowitz, Leary's best friend, have signed to be creative consultants for a forthcoming project by DiCaprio's production company Appian Way. DiCaprio's father, comic book writer George Winonaryderap_1 DiCaprio, was also a friend of the Harvard University professor and LSD pioneer. Aronofsky is also planning a biopic of Leary, who died in 1996 aged 75, writes the New York Daily News. (This news article provided by World Entertainment Visit this story through this link
17) Have You Heard?
Have you heard of Gerald Heard? Have you heard Gerald Heard. This is your chance. The picture at the right is Gerald Heard with his close friend Aldous Huxley Visit this story through this link
18) Four Free Online Mind Videos By Way of The Hyperaware Consciousness Blog
I watched these videos and enjoyed them. They came by way of a post on an excellent blog by Daniel Scott Poynter: The Hyperaware Consciousness 4 Free Online Mind Videos. There are more commentaries on these videos on the post. Visit this story through this link
19) My All-Time Favorite Movie "I Love You Alice B.Toklas" on Exquisitely Bored in Nacogdoches
My favorite movie of all I have seen is I Love You Alice B. Toklas, a 1968 comedy staring Peter Sellers. Aside from it being a good flick in its own right, another significant contribution to making the movie memorable is that the first time I saw it, I was on 500 micrograms of Owsley LSD. Visit this story through this link
20) AlterNet: Bring the Sixties Out of the Closet
Bring the Sixties Out of the Closet by GenXer Don Hazen says: "We need to resurrect the good '60s -- a time when acting, despite being messy and imperfect, made a lot of good things happen." Read the full story on Alterernet. Visit this story through this link
21) The Sky Has Eyes -- New Psychedelic Art Blog by Larry Carlson
I've posted about Larry Carlson's trippy flash art Medijate. He has now launched a blog to put up his most current work. According to the SKYHASEYES BLOG you get: Your daily dose of surreal energy. This blog is a growing collection of Larry Carlson's amazing art (flash movies, video, soundtracks, web art, collage and digital artworks). Visit this story through this link
22) Neurologic by Timothy and Johanna Leary
This site features a reproduction of the original printing of Neurologic authored by Timothy Leary and his then wife Johanna Leary. The book was one of the early publications (but not the earliest) of what became his "Eight-Circuit Model of Consciousness." As in Politics of Ecstasy where it was called "The Seven Tongues of God," the theory at the time still had only seven levels, this time called circuits. It is currently out of print. Visit this story through this link
23) Electric Acid Kool-Aide Test Turns 40 - The Tripster in Wolfe's Clothing on Columbia Journalism Review
Electric Acid Kool-Aide Test by Tom Wolfe -- an almost fictional piece of non-fiction from the late Sixties which created legends just turned 40. Jack Shafer writing in the latest issue of the Columbia Journalism Review remembers: Loolaidmore Tom Wolfe writes himself into the second sentence of his book about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, describing a boaty ride up and down the streets of San Francisco in the open bed of a Day-Glo-painted pickup truck. It’s better than a half-year before 1967’s Summer of Love, and the New York City clotheshorse and leading practitioner of New Journalism looks dowdy compared to the beaded, feathered, medallioned, and headbanded crew of Kesey. Visit this story through this link
24) Autopoiesis & Cognition
An old friend of mine, Mchael S. has apprently gotten into blogging. I found his site by way of a link-back. As usual, Michael has been digging up some good data. Check his blog out. Visit this story through this link
25) High History of Buddhism By Rick Field from Tricycle Magazine
This piece is the famous best-selling issue of Tricycle Magazine, an eclectic buddhist magazine The controversial issue was from 1996 (the good old days) titled Psychedelics and Buddhism: It included vews from John Perry Barlow and Rick Fields; interviews with Terrence McKenna and Jack Kornfield; a roundtable discussion with Robert Aitken, Richard Baker, Ram Dass & Joan Halifax. Visit this story through this link
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