If Music Be

Archive for April, 2008

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, who in 1943 accidentally discovered the hallucinogenic effects of Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), has died at the age of 102, Reuters reports. Hoffman passed away at his home in Basel on 29 April as a result of a heart attack, according to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

The chemist had in the late 1930s been working on possible medical applications of alkaloid derivatives of the fungus ergot and subsequently synthesised a number of such derivatives, including LSD. It wasn’t until 1943, however, when a small amount accidentally leaked onto his hand that the compound’s mind-blowing capability was revealed.

Hoffman recounted a “remarkable restlessness, combined with slight dizziness”, elaborating: “At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxication-like condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination. “In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight too unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours. After some two hours this condition faded away.”

The rest is history. While the CIA infamously experimented with the mind-control possibilities of LSD during the 1950s and 60s in its Project MK-ULTRA, it was Timothy Leary and his “turn on, tune in, drop out” mantra who popularised the substance among the hippy movement and brought it to the attention of the wider world. Hoffman maintained the movement had “hijacked” the drug and insisted he’d produced it “as a medicine and not as a substance to be abused”. He continued to defend its possible use “in analysis of how the mind works, hoping it could be used to recognise and treat illnesses like schizophrenia”, long after it was banned in the 1960s.

(This Report is taken from The Register ~ click the Title to go to Reuters)

Hopefully next week I will be able to do a proper diet blog again as I’m planning to have my session with my trainer to see my progress. I’m not looking forward to it this time because I know I haven’t lost any weight and that’s really getting to me. I’m hoping that my muscle amounts will have increased and that my upper and lower body are more evenly balanced but I’m not sure. I don’t even know where the last 24lbs are going to come off from (I’m hoping my thighs but I’m betting my boobs) but it’s so frustrating going to the gym every day and not really knowing how well I’m doing.

As you know I had a minor overhaul of the page yesterday. Not many changes and nothing too noticeable, but the picture behind the title now matches my Myspace and VR profiles. I’m going to be adding a few more things to the sidebar over the next few days (mostly as I think of them) but I’m happy with the tweaks. If you read me on a feed have a quick look and tell me what you think.

Even better the page seems to render fine in both IE and Firefox…I haven’t checked Safari but I think it’s different on the PC version anyway. Any other browsers would just be overkill I think.

You’ll also notice I’ve added a few new people to my list of fave reads on my sidebar. I’ve had some time to surf around the last few weeks and these are the people who have caught my eye and kept my interest. I recommend all of them (if I didn’t why would they be in my favourites list?) so when you get a minute go and check them out.

It has made me wonder though, if people blog for a purpose? I do it because it’s helping me diet and not fall off the wagon, and I like to have an outlet for the random things I think about every day. When I say random I do honestly mean things that pop into my head during the course of the day. I’m a stream of consciousness kind of a girl, I think therefore I blog most of the time. My friend Alun however, thinks a subject through, drafts up a blog and then only posts it when he’s happy with how it reads. Is it a coincidence that he is an aspiring writer I wonder? I guess it means that he has a conclusion when he starts and he knows how he’s getting there, but I tend to think that when you don’t think about things too much it gets easier to write about how you feel.

Emotive topics are interesting for a number of reasons. Obviously my ‘stuff’ recently has been emotional for me but you wouldn’t believe how helpful I have found it, looking at other people’s words who are going through the same thing at the same time. Shared emotion makes you feel less alone. In that respect I think it’s sometimes better to just blurt-write how you feel rather than thinking things through because by the time you’ve done that the emotional reaction has gone.

Obviously not all the time or the blogosphere would be filled with angst-filled hate-rants every day…what do you mean it is??

Found over on Twentysomething and Clueless here’s my list of significant songs on significant events.

Number Ones:

The day I was born ~ Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush)
The day I started Secondary School ~ Ride on Time (Black Box)
The day I did that thing you only do once ~ Love is All Around (Wet, Wet, Wet)
The day I turned 18 ~ How Deep is your Love (Take That)

Try it for yourself here at this day in music.

What do you think of the changes to the blog? Good, bad, indifferent?

I realised today that I’ve not been very interesting of late. So I’m going to try and remedy that right now.

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Umm

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Fish, no that would never work

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I had a discussion about being a fan of genres of music the other day. I don’t see myself as a genre liker, I am a music lover and I like artists because of their output not because of the category they fall into. Am I unusual in this thought? Why should I pigeonhole myself into a type of person because of what I listen to? That leads me on to thinking that I have been pigeonholed in many other areas as well as just my musical preferences.

Apparently there is a running joke that I have a dungeon/torture chamber in my cellar…I don’t have a cellar and I certainly wouldn’t put any kind of torture chamber in it if I did. I abhor torture, I’m not good with restraints even in the name of sexual fun and I don’t like the idea of whips and chains.

So where has this idea come from?

Well, I like Vampyre culture, Magick, most things occult. I have tattoos and piercings, and I listen to rock and metal music (as well as pop and R&B I hasten to add). Is it because I wear a lot of black clothes? Is that it? Am I put into a deviant box because I am able to explore myself and my psyche in ways other people don’t and I dress a bit differently? It seems strange to me that people would judge me based on such superficial things. I have shelves full of chick lit, I have a garden full of flowers. I like summer holidays and sun-bathing…so why is it only one facet of my personality that gets pounced on and distorted?

Does this just happen to me?