The Green Fairy Returns

On the first day that the legendary alcoholic drink absinthe went on sale in the United States legally in about a century, hundreds of people lined up outside an Alameda warehouse to get their hands on the stuff.
An Alameda distillery was given the green light by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to sell its version of absinthe. St. George Spirits is the first American distillery to sell absinthe since it was banned in 1912. Their first production run officially went on sale Friday at both the distillery's tasting room and other Bay Area locations.

link | Read more about absinthe.

Marilyn Manson's New Brand of Absinthe

Marylin Manson not only drinks absinthe, but he will also launch his own Absinthe brand. His brand, Mansinthe will be produced in Switzerland, and unlikely available in North America.

This is going to be a mighty fine drink. Distilled from fine herbs (grand wormwood, fennel, anise etc), naturally colored without any artificials and not sugared this will please Absintheures and Manson fans. Their protagonist loves it and took a major part developing this true Absinthe.

Available August 2007

(via .::. absinthvertrieb.de)

Webtrail | November 28

Thich Nhat Hanh's Walking Meditation - Can you walk your way to a calmer mind, more resilient heart, and kinder soul? Walking Meditaion, a book CD/DVD set featuring Zenmaster Thich Nhat Hanh, and dharma teacher and principle author Anh-Huong ushered readers into becoming "fully present and alive with every step, filling each moment with peace and joy." link

* Syd Barrett - A public look (You Tube) at the now-for-sale home of the late Syd Barrett, at 6 St. Margaret's Square in Cambridge. This link probably won't be up much longer, but you can check out the array of his possessions up for bid this Wednesday; includes a variety of his bright colored, hand-painted furniture, a fake Christmas tree, notebooks and more. [via]

* President Bush Promises To Kill More American Troops, Ejaculate Into Iraqi Vagina: link

* Protest News - Police are to demand new powers to arrest protesters for causing offence through the words they chant and the slogans on their placards and even headbands. link

* Absinthe Spoons might be a nice gift for someone this season. Or the whole set of glass, spoon, sugar cubes. I may snap some up for myself. I have several absinthe glasses and zero spoons. link

* Quote Of The Day: What's the last thing you saw on Broadway? (the Dylan musical) "The Times They are A-Changin'. Very Cirque du so Lame." --Michael Musto (gotta love that queen)

* George Bush Quote: "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepreneur'."

* Today in Radical History: Nov 28 - 1944: Birth of San Francisco Digger, author Emmett Grogan.

News from Patti Smith

Musings

August 9 full moon. This is the day Jerry Garcia died. He was born on the first of August and passed away on the ninth, so it's nice to think of that span as Jerry week. It certainly seems that he well deserves a 9 day week. So it's winding to a close. I lit him a candle, listened to him singing Palm Sunday, and looked at his paintings in a big Jerry book.

August 2, the birthday of my sister Kimberly, was the anniversary of William Burroughs' passing. While in my old house in Michigan I found my seventy year old bottle of Chartreuse squirreled away. I bought it in the eighties with him in mind. We promised each other we'd share a drink one day, but we never got around to it. I reread his Port of Saints and looked at a catalogue of his gun shot paintings. I traced my son and daughter's names written in his hand on an old Christmas card. Then I cracked open the Chartreuse and poured us each a shot. The green sugary liquid put me in mind of nineteenth century absinthe, so while I had my ritual drink with William, I kept in mind the likes of Paul Verlaine, Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud.

August 3, on the birthday of Beverly Lee, a member of the wondrous Shirelles, Arthur Lee passed away. I met him a long time ago. He was just a little older than me. He was soft spoken with a vague criminal air. Forever Changes left its mark. I was in Michigan when he died and I walked down to the end of my dead end street and sat on a bench beneath a weeping willow. It was at least one hundred degrees but I still had my trusty black coffee, steaming fresh from Seven Eleven. I played back Amoreagain and Orange Skies in my mind. These songs of Love are so deeply rooted I can hear them as clear as if they were wafting from a turntable.

My son's birthday rolled around. August 6 was the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Over one hundred thousand people were massacred in that drop. Too many candles for one to light. I was back at my post on the bench looking out at Lake St. Clair. A huge Monarch brushed my cheek. I figured the butterfly, symbol of immortality, served to evoke them.

A few weeks ago I was in London. I visited a small bar painted green and lit with a green light. William used to frequent this joint some years ago. You can only enter through private subscription. I wasn't drinking. I was just visiting. It was three in the afternoon. There were a few old-school characters nursing their whiskies. Suddenly, in the center of the friendly yet oppressive silence, one of them cried out "Syd Barrett is dead." This took me off guard. But the fellows spontaneously raised their glasses, issued a " here! here! Syd!" and then retreated into their private worlds. For that one moment they were of one mind. And I was with them, saluting someone I never knew. Someone who made music. Someone who loved Arthur Lee.

Today is my friend Betsy Lerner's birthday. It's the day the United States dropped an Atomic Bomb on Nagasaki. It's the day Hermann Hesse died. The day Jerry died. I have returned to the city. Children are racing up and down my street. We humans keep in mind. That's what we do. Tonight is a full moon. Guess when it sets, I will get me a cup of black coffee, sit on the stoop, and contemplate the bombing of Qana, the miracle of love and Dark Star.

Patti Smith

John Halpern: an informant for the DEA?

-- by Jon Hanna

"I've recently penned the article "Halperngate" for the current issue of The Entheogen Review."

"Since this article deals with a lesser-known snitch, John Halpern, who has also been a psychedelic researcher largely supported by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and who still frequents underground events (he will be part of a team at the 2006 BOOM Festival's crisis tent), I feel that it is important for the psychonautical community to have the opportunity to read about Halpern's past choice to repeatedly provide testimony to the DEA related to the arrest and trial of Leonard Pickard and Clyde Apperson, who were ultimately both convicted of LSD manufacture." A PDF of the article is posted at:

www.entheogenreview.com/halperngate.html

"Information about the availability of the hard-copy of this issue of The Entheogen Review will be posted at their main site after 4/12/06; this issue (Vernal Equionox 2006) also contains some reviews of the LSD conference in Basel, the H.R. Giger museum, and a Swiss absinthe bar. As well, there's an ayahuasca article from Peter Gorman, and network feedback notes on the psychoactivity of Pedicularis species, Kaempferia galanga, Atropa belladonna, and DOC. Plus there's an events calendar, my "Sources" column reviewing the latest in psychedelic art, entheobotanical vendors, and book dealers, and a remembrance for Carla Higdon, who passed away earlier this year. See www.entheogenreview.com for more information on the journal."

Interesting.... and probably not the only one in the psychonautical community.

Webtrail - Prince, Absinthe, Vagina, Turfing, Rollins

Earthrites: Turfing is a newtome website I spent far too much time reading yesterday. But I'll hurry back for more. Lotsa good reading and a radio that may also be good, if I could get it to work. May be a problem on my end.

Steven Stapleton has designed the labels for a bottle of Absinthe manufactured by Absinthevertrieb . There is a limited edition of 100 in a specially designed box. Included in this box is a limited edition CD entitled Natal Moonies with the tracks Rock 'n' Roll Station (Lost Bottle Mix) by Andrew Liles and Scapegoat (Something nasty in the woodshed) by the Broken Penis Orchestra.
view absinthe jpg - (via durtro)

I'm not usually a big fan of the musician Prince, but his SNL appearance last night was pretty damn good. His first song ("Fury"?) was a great rock track that accentuated his guitar skills, but the 2nd one (Beautiful, Loved & Blessed) blew like a category 5. He's forgiven for stealing a few moves from Hendrix. Prince "Fury" Video which I searched out and found on a Prince fansite.

There's a blog called All About My Vagina featuring what else-- all things vagina. I found it on Every Woman Is A Goddess posted by Olivia, one of the bright & sassy women from all over the world who post on the group Every Woman Is A Goddess website.

"There are so many hammocks to catch you if you fall, so many laws to keep you from experience. All these cities I have been in the last few weeks make me fully understand the cozy, stifling state in which most people pass through life. I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, and giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!"

And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup."

-Henry Rollins (via Dr Duke)