Tag: pharmako/poeia

ON JAZZING IT UP

On By Jah BillahIn Dub Culture DepartmentLeave a comment

According to James A. Munch, who worked closely with Harry Anslinger for many years, Anslinger worked so diligently to try to arrest leading jazz musicians in the 1940s because he felt that they were “role models” for young people. But beyond that, he didn’t like jazz and considered it degenerate. He once wrote in a memorandum that swing had been invented by a pot-using musician, and he didn’t like swing. In Munch’s words, the effect that the musicians were after from marijuana was a lengthening of their sense of time, so that they would be able to put more grace notes into their music than if they simply followed the written score. Munch complained that a regular musician would just play a piece of music the way it was written, but that a musician ‘who used marijuana would work in about twice as many notes, would “jazz” it up.

Found in Marijuana and Civilization,  from: Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft by Dale Pendell, Gary Snyder. 1995.

SCYTHIAN PHILOSOPHY ON WINE AND HEMP

On By Jah BillahIn Dub Culture DepartmentLeave a comment

We may have first learned the secret of drinking alcohol from animals. The ancient Greeks believed thus, and a legend told that people first learned to drink from the apes. Studies show that chimpanzees and other apes do indeed like alcohol, and get drunk. Many animals seek out intoxicants, and most will partake of them to excess, given the chance. Perhaps the most common example in temperate zones is birds drunk on fermented berries, wheeling about, crashing into the ground, and generally making fools of themselves. And while recent experiments by Ronald Siegel suggest that some or all of the intoxication may be due to secondary substances in the berries rather than alcohol, anyone witnessing the event might thereafter try the berries for themselves.

David Livingstone reported how African elephants sought out fermented palm fruits, sometimes traveling unusual distances to find and ingest them. And they did get intoxicated, staring off, trumpeting loudly, and separating out from the group.

The Romans reported that the Gauls were so fond of wine that they would trade their children for it. That they went crazy when they drank it, running about in frenzy and fighting each other. The early Romans themselves were on the temperate side, and women were completely forbidden to drink on grounds that it led to lust and adultery.

In later Roman history, both sexes seem to have embraced excess in wine — twenty-five million gallons a year — for exactly the same reasons.

The Greeks, by classical times, appear to have been heavy drinkers, despite their reputation for moderation. When the Scythian philosopher Anacharsis visited Athens in 600 BC he was somewhat repelled by the behavior he witnessed. He said that there were three kinds of grapes, one for pleasure, one for drunkenness, and one for disgust.

When asked how to avoid excess in wine, Anacharsis advised observing those who did not. The Scythians themselves had no wine. They smoked hemp.

From: Pharmako/Poeia – Plant Vowers, Poisons, and Werb craft by Dave Pendell, 1995.