Mise en Snap: I Love You Alice B. Toklas!

08/10/2010

It’s about time I did another mise-en-snap!

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas is a deliciously tacky film from 1968 that parodies the 1960s counterculture. I watched it once and didn’t really pay attention.. the next time I saw everything and couldn’t stop laughing. (I always get a little mesmerized by 60s decor, trying to find ways to incorporate the hippie’s lounge pad into a family home.) The film is directed by Hy Averback and stars Peter Sellers and Leigh Taylor-Young (in her film debut). It features music by Harpers Bizarre, including the theme song that I still cannot stop singing — haha!

The title is a reference to writer Alice B. Toklas, who wrote a recipe for making cannabis Brownies released in 1954. I had the pleasure of learning about Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein during a college Hemmingway class and trip to Paris — they were both pretty cool cats.

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Design Your Life

The Trip of a Lifetime: A Drug User’s Fairytale

08/16/2009

I grew up in the 70’s/80’s watching everyone do cocaine. I thought it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. when I was 8, i lived with my aunt for awhile and her husband would snort big rails of what he called “sugar” and then he’d do nasty things to my cousins (ages 2 and 2 weeks) and break things– there was lots of screaming and crying and my aunt would always beg me to never do drugs EVER!!!!!!

In high school, I fell in love with a heroin addict who killed himself. My best friend was a crystal meth addict. The adverts were everywhere, too, “THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON DRUGS!” with the egg frying in the pan. My boyfriend fell asleep at the wheel of his mom’s Porsche and crashed into one of those signs with me in the passenger seat. I swore it was a sign from god. I designed myself to stick to my chain smoking and alcohol (I’d been drinking heavily since age 9 and this addiction was BAD ENOUGH).

Then I started going to raves… I got curiouser and curiouser, like Alice in Wonderland. I gave in and tried acid for the first time at 22 years old. It was the most fun I’d EVER HAD!!!

Something else happened at 22. I found out I had an ovarian cyst the size of a PEACH PIT. The cause? Another drug! Ortho novum 777 – the birth control pill that I’d been on for the past 7 years. My body was never the same after.

I’ve never done an ‘illegal’ drug that did the damage that that ‘legal’ one did.

The cancer made me angry and careless. My experimentation became a reckless fascination. I set out to try every single drug in existence and did drugs constantly for the next 10 years.

In 2002 I swore off illegal drugs. My life without all the drug craziness seemed like a dark void. I filled that void with marijuana. I watched a LOT of t.v. and did NOTHING with my life. I stayed with a boyfriend that beat the shit out of me and didn’t care. I was too lazy to leave. Lovely drug but zzzzzzzzz …. watch the motivation kill.

When I finally got off my lazy ass and left the asshole boyfriend, I found myself sober again and severely depressed. The doctor put me on ‘celexa’. this made me go CRAZY. Crazier than I ever went years ago when I experimented with ecstasy, mushrooms, acid and crystal meth.

Needless to say, I have friends that have done meth and acid for years and have LOST THEIR MINDS. One of them saw me driving by once and thought a giant twinkie was driving my car. I didn’t go THIS crazy, thank god.

Several prescription drug combinations later (and MANY side effects along with them, including 20 pounds of weight gain), the depression was gone but the cancer came back, this time in my right fallopian tube.

Sober now for a year, marijuana entered my life again as the miracle drug that helped me get THROUGH that cancer. It was the only way I could SLEEP, EAT .. hell, get THROUGH the day. I WAS IN SO MUCH PAIN. Legalize this drug NOW!!!!! 🙂

Confused?

Yeah, me too. If this made no sense, It’s because I’m trying to stop smoking pot again and I’m fiending a xanax like you wouldn’t believe. I had too much caffeine today and it’s making my words all jumble together. I could really go for a cigarette, even though I only smoke when I drink, but I can’t have a drink because it counteracts with my xanax. DRUGS ARE EVERYWHERE. ahhhh!!!!!

Am I pro drugs?

Hell yeah!!! Wouldn’t change a thing. My life was f*cked up before them and f*cked up after them, but I LOVE the rainbow trail that they created behind the rollercoaster of my crazy ass life while I was on them!!

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Mise en Snap Visual Splendor

Mise en Snap: Psych-Out! a 70s Visual Trip

01/20/2009

Take a trip down psychedelic, vintage lane in “Psych Out” a trippy dippy film from the 70s.

A dark, thick liner paired with a bright, rainbow hue and nude, shimmery lips has always been my makeup regimen. Add glitter and you’re ready for a party.

Cheer up a friend and give them a thoughtful gift. Strapped for ideas or cash? Try a single flower, sketch or candy bracelet and channel the love-passing, pay-it-forward smiles of flower children and candy ravers everywhere.

This was so rad, everyone was lounging around while some girls started pulling glittering beads all up and over the staircase. It created glimmering prisms in the hands of everyone as they grabbed more strands to pull and hang. The completion created a spiderweb of starlight.

“God is alive and well in a sugar cube” (a reference to LSD as it is injected into sugar cubes)

Don’t ever take drugs in an uncomfortable setting. Especially LSD.

Jack Nicholson, aka Stoney, plays a too-cool hippy and blows off his lovely, tripping Alice.

This movie is absolutely fun and visually stimulating for those who adore the drug and hippy culture of the 60s. It proves a point however as a propaganda film that drugs can be very dangerous when taken in unsafe circumstances and you’ll also watch lovely people deteriorate as they do not follow this guideline.

Amazon.com Widgets

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Design Your Life

The Flower Child and Rainbow Candy Rave Culture

12/29/2008

The mod youth culture of the early 1960s used the word rave to describe any wild party in general. People who were quite commonly seen in attendance to the parties were sometimes called ravers. However specifically speaking of the rave culture and how it started, the terms rave and rave party have been used since the late 1980s worldwide to describe dance parties. This subculture was inspired by the acid house movement. DJs and other performers play electronic music of a wide range including happy hardcore, trance and jungle at these parties.

The rave attendees go to dance, socialize, use drugs and have fun in an uninhibited way with like minded people. Attendees also commonly partake in the use, distribution or sale of club drugs such as MDMA, LSD, cocaine, amphetamines and, most recently, ketamine.

Candy ravers can primarily trace their style of fashion to the late 1980s culture and the “Summer of Love” in the United Kingdom. Fashion in clubs at the time were primarily day-glo colored attire, smiley face clothing, beads and whistles.

In the US this loud, colorful and inviting style was used to locate the drug dealer at rave parties. This cute attire however caught on and the candy ravers formed a community of Peace Love Unity and Respect. The lifestyle and mantra lives on throughout old skool and new ravers alike. The candy rave scene has died out a bit since it’s abundance in the mid 90s and early 00s but raves can still be found if you look around and the fashion has evolved and lives on. It has been said that the style is similar to the decora style of Harajuku in Tokyo, Japan. Each style has a completely different community and mantra; it’s kind of like saying hippies and beatniks are the same. Candy ravers continue to adore the color, fun and happiness and unity of an adoration for the cuter, more colorful things in life.

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