HARPER'S MAGAZINE: I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE

Originally titled I Walked With An Ambiguous Zombie, the written accompaniment to Nzambi has finally been published in Harper's Magazine, just in time for Halloween 2011. Harper's does not put the majority of their content online (for free at least) so if you're interested, you'll have to walk to a magazine retailer and exchange physical money for a hard copy. Further evidence of the article's existence can be viewed at this link.

Update: Harper's has been kind enough to release an excerpt on Halloween.

ON ACID

Apropos of Joe Rogan discussing Getting High On Krystle in his podcast last week (and doing a remarkably good job at recounting the story accurately) an interview with me is featured in the new book On Acid in which I discuss Joe Rogan's unlikely status as the foremost DMT authority on the internet. Here is an excerpt:

AA: One of the themes of sixties counterculture was the critique of traditional authority, and psychedelic drugs were part of a movement of self-exploration that promoted you being your own authority – but one of the side effects has been that after forty or fifty years of that attitude people can become quasi-authorities –they’re not really an expert on a particular subject, they’ve just amassed a certain cultic intensity.

HM: There are many true authorities on these subjects but they are often reluctant to talk publicly because self-experimentation and the use of illegal or even legally grey substances is seriously frowned upon in academia, especially in the hard sciences, less so in anthropology or ethnobotany. So while many of the true authorities quietly publish papers in scientific journals, those who want the attention become self-appointed authorities. From the public perspective who is the number one authority on DMT? It is not Alexander Shulgin or Jace Callaway or Richard Glennon––it’s Fear Factor host and stand up comedian Joe Rogan––Joe Rogan probably teaches more people about DMT than any other human being on earth. Psychedelics require serious repackaging before they are ready for public acceptance and the scientists are not going to be the ones to do that repackaging. Things could be much worse, historically drug experts have been people like Betty Ford or Kitty Dukakis, that is people who not only knew nothing about drugs but also had seriously problematic relationships with them.

The print edition of Acid Age assembles diverse texts, visual works and new interviews with contemporary artists and writers into a critical genealogy of psychedelic culture. Applying an allegorical curatorial practice to artistic, philosophical and literary engagements with psychedelics in order to re-trace the breakthroughs and heady experimentalism of the sixties and critically traverse its historical legacy. 

100 pages / full color / staple-bound. Printed in Italy on Munken Arctic paper. Edited by William Rauscher and John Moeller. Designed by John Moeller.

ORDER HERE

RIB AMBIGUITY

I'm trying to identify all the possible rib configurations that can be represented in an engraving of a cactus consisting of five parallel lines and, more importantly, which is the likely the "correct" interpretation. Many people (Davis, Sharon, Trout et al.) have suggested that the beast on the left holds a four-ribbed cactus yet I feel that may be an incorrect interpretation. The beast only has one eye, but I do not think many would characterize it as a one-eyed beast. The hair-snakes also have one eye, but I do not think many would characterize them as one eyed snakes, nor do I think anyone would suggest the beast has some kind of ankle disorder causing its feet to point sideways. Obviously some tricks of perspective are at play, some parts of the body (the torso) are displayed in a squashed omni-perspective, other seem to take on a more conventional perspective were opposing sides are implied, if the cactus has another side then it is (probably) not a four ribbed cactus. I modified the second two engravings to show the two "correct" way to draw a four ribbed cactus in three dimensional space.

The first Chavin beast holds a cactus with two, three, four, five, six, eight or ten ribs.
The second Chavin beast holds a cactus with three, four, or six ribs.
The third Chavin beast holds a cactus with two, three, or four ribs.