Calvin's Weblog

Last weekend part two

Hello! It's Sunday night and I've got 40 more minutes until the meat pies come out of the oven, so I figured I'd catch up on the bloggin' - but I suppose I'd better finidh the story of last week before I get in to this week ...

It was, after all, a long weekend - and we had made plenty of plans to fill up the time off. Last Sunday for instance, knowing that I wouldn't be working Monday morning, I invited BobDog over for an Absinthe party. We split a twenty-sixer of Absinthe, of course, imbibing la fie vert the PROPER way - (well, actually - not perfectly proper, but I'll get to that) while watching The Wizard of Oz and Listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon.
What? You've never heard of the Dark Side of Oz aka The Wizard of Floyd ??? Well, for the best explanation, just follow one of the last two links... but here's my 25 cent tour : Pop the video into the player, and after the 20th Centuty Fox lion roars for the third time, start the Dark Side of the Moon CD. The movie syncs up perfectly with every song, every mood, and almost every lyric. Totally amazing. Both Bob and I had head of this phenomenon before, but neither of us had ever tried it - likewise neither of us had ever had an actual evening of 'proper' absinthe consumption.... you know, the wat the old artists and poets and writers used to do it ... slow and easy... which is actually a lot harder to do than it sounds... but I'll like I said, I'll get to that later. As for The Dark Side of Oz, it's an absolute MUST SEE! It will blow anyone away.

Before we start debating whether or not this cosmic coincidence was intentional or not, let me say that I'm of the opinion that there's no possible way it could have been done on purpose. When DSotM was written in 1972, there were no VCRs, no DVD players, and infact, no CDs... Floyd could not have done it - which to me, make the whole thing even more amazing! Read through the Dark Side of Oz page to get a glimps of what's going on, but trust me - without seeing it for yourself (it's really easy to find pre-synched versions available on gnutella, mldonkey, limewire, kazaa, etc, just search for 'dark side wizard of oz') you're not even scratching the surface of the experience.... The Great Gig in The Sky is worth it alone... the song starts at the PRECISE moment that the tornado starts, and stops the instant Dorothy gets hit on the head and passes out - as the next song (Money) starts, BAM! She wakes up in colour, in Oz (Remember it was Black and White until Oz) - not only do the songs synch up, but all the action follows the beat and mood of the song - all of the lyrics describe what's happening ... it's an absolute trip! Convinced you yet? Good.

Here's one more thing I'd like to try to convince you of ... DON'T under any circumstances, EVER try to finish an entire bottle of Absinthe between two people!!! We each had about a third of the bottle over the course of maybe five or six hours - sure, that sounds like moderate consumption, that's less than eight ounces each in 6 hours - I can easily drink a case of beer in 6 hours, but that's beer... this was Absinthe. As the How to Drink Absinthe page says in it's closing paragraph, "...for all the languorous physical effects, the mind stays keen. As the clutter of life drops away, the drinker's eyes twinkle as they entertain more lofty concepts, and appreciate beauty without the twisted eyes of the office cynic. We have reached our target. If the intake of absinthe is controlled, the drinker will be up for anything, and won't need sleep until a reasonable hour, with little chance of a hangover...
On the other hand, if he or she starts lashing the absinthe back, chaos may, and probably will, ensue."

I guess 'control' takes a little practice, as chaos most certainly ensued. The most frightening thing about that stuff is that, as the author stated, "the mind stays keen" - you have absolutely NO idea that you're under it's spell until you try to get up... then you say "wow, I feel so clear - why is my body acting so drunk?" But by that time, it's already too late.

Honestly, I want to try the whole experiment again, but this time, the absolute limit is four ounces - that sounnd pretty wimpy if you're talking tequilla or whiskey, but trust me ... after four glasses of that stuff, you ain't in Kansas any more.

Posted by Calvin at September 12, 2004 08:05 PM