LSD: A "Trip" to Woodstock

"D-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is the most potent hallucinogic substance known to man. Compared to other hallucinogic substances, LSD is 100 times more potent than psilocybin and psilocin and 4,000 times more potent than mescaline. LSD was discovered accidentally in 1943 by Swish chemist Albert Hofmann, having sinthetized it in the Sandoz laboratories in Basel. He swallowed 250 micrograms of LSD: “I have forgotten the year — but I can still point to the exact spot where it occurred, on a forest path on Martinsberg above Baden”, he wrote in “LSD: My Problem Child”.

"As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light". “It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness and blissful security”. This day from 1943, 19th April is declared the "Bicycle Day" for the acid enthusiasts world wide in honour of Dr. Hoffman.

In America Timothy Leary and Richard Alper wrote together the book "The Psychedelic Experience" (1964), Leary founded the IFIF (International Federation for International Freedom), but LSD would be banned in America in 1966. The psychiatric medician Oscar Janiger was other important pioneer of the collective difusion of LSD, although Leary was the most famous acid guru. Janiger had administered over three thousand LSD doses between 1954-1962 to volunteers and Hollywood personalities as Cary Grant, Jack Nicholson, Rita Moreno, André Previn, etc. In 1962, Janiger was investigated by the FBI and forced to abandon his suministre, four years later LSD was declared illegal in USA. Aldous Huxley, Janiger's friend, was initiated with peyote in 1930 by Alesteir Crowley. Psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond had given Huxley mescalina. Huxley's psychedelic incursions were reflected upon his philosophical essays as "The Doors of Perception" and "Heaven and Hell", read by the first American hippie generation. In 1963, sick with throat cancer in his deathbed, Huxley begged to be inyected LSD for pain relief.

The CIA had created a hidden proyect called MKULTRA, financed through the Menlo Park militar hospital. Standford University's students and random bohemian beatniks offered themselves as guinea pigs for hundred dollars (the volunteers received LSD 25, psilocibine, mescaline, and DMT). Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey and William Burroughs had been some of the noted volunteers since 1959. Scientists studied their reactions and the military applied these knowledge for secret mentral control operations as described in the film "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962), starred by Frank Sinatra.

Burroughs' masterpiece "The naked lunch" makes use of his chaotic tripping visions. Ken Kesey, the novelist who wrote one of the best American dark stories: "One Flew over the cuckoo's nest" (which would be adapted by Hollywood in 1975, directed by Milos Forman). Ken Kesey had joined the Merry Pranksters, and befriend Neal Cassady (Jack Kerouac's best friend) and underground chemist Stanley Owsley.

The Acid Tests begin with special guests as Grateful Dead, Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson. Jefferson Airplane and Frank Zappa encouraged to give up amphetamines and try acid. The goverment even used Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplan and Zappa for a campaign in favour of acid and against the speed, a year before of illegalize it, and 300.000 doses were on free market, most of them delivered by Owsley (known as Henry Ford of LSD), who created two variations: White Lightning and Monterey Purple (due to its main consumption in the Monterey Festival, and Jimi Hendrix' favourite acid), Owsley half-joking told Hendrix off in cause of his song "Purple Haze". Popularity of acid translated in the surrealistic lyrics of the notorious "Lucy in the Sky with diamonds" by The Beatles and other popular tunes as "Strawberry fields foverer", "Acid Queen" by The Who, etc.

Approximately, over a million doses were factured between 1965-67, later Owsley became in one of Grateful Dead's sound technician. One of the last comunal memories of LSD collective consumption would be in the epic Woodstock Festival, 1968". ("LSD origins" article from "Ruta 66" magazine, freely translated from Spanish to English text by me).

"Fucking on acid is a visit to God but Speed is death dirth" -Factory's photographer Nat Finkelstein.

"Dylan’s crowd felt that some sort of a choice had to be made. It was ridiculous, he would send “raiders”.

That’s how he got his hands on Edie Sedgwick at Pana Grady’s place after the shooting of Wood Velez, and Bobbie Newirth comes walking in and says something to Edie in front of me, she was with me, so I saw this, was an actual witness to this and said,

“He would like to see you and listen here I brought this for you…these two sugar cubes of acid LSD”, and he fed her a little bit of acid and uh and at that point I walked away, I wasn’t going to score with her that night anyhow (laughs). And I wasn’t going to be competing with Dylan".
Source: planetgroupentertainment.squarespace.com

"Co-star Emile Hirsch also had specific instructions about what to watch to play a Vietnam veteran struggling with the past in his climactic scene: "Ang described [the tone of the scene] as ice beginning to thaw, like the scene with Walken in The Deer Hunter where he's just beginning to recognize De Niro. ..."

Screenwriter James Schamus knew that Taking Woodstock was facing a challenge in being taken seriously here: "Going to Cannes with a comedy is pretty much putting a target on your back." But Taking Woodstock was also a chance for Lee to look at the counterculture he experienced through movies in his native Taiwan before moving to the U.S. at age 23: "I saw Woodstock when I was 14 ... I learned about America from the media ... and I feel like I missed the show." And, Lee offered, Taking Woodstock tries to wrap around the contradictions of the time: "Woodstock took place at the same time as the Manson murders. ..."
Source: blogs.amctv.com

"Lee's film pulls you into it and immerses you in the fearlessness, humanity and full visceral thrill of getting involved in something so primal and communal. There's barely any rock in it for an hour, either, until The Doors rumble on the soundtrack and the approaching hippie horde can be heard on the horizon.

It may seem from the pre-publicity that this is an ensemble movie, but it really isn't. Such promising talents as Emile Hirsch and Paul Dano have unobtrusive but key supporting roles,

while Liev Schreiber as transvestite ex-Marine security guard Vilma is unbelievable. All these characters are simply part of Elliot's odyssey, and once the festival begins, Lee constructs Woodstock as a Heart Of Darkness-style journey through enlightenment and chaos, rather than simply misrule and madness. It's an apocalypse wow, and when Elliot takes a tab of very, very strong LSD and hallucinates to Love's mind-altering Forever Changes album, the (late) summer of love engulfs him in a surreal and beautiful CG-enhanced vision that anyone who's ever been to Glastonbury will appreciate or, depending on their drug intake, perhaps even remember". Source: www.empireonline.com

 
The stars were out in force for the Cannes premiere of legendary director Ang Lee's new film "Taking Woodstock".

Top Trippy Movies:

9) Donnie Darko (2001): Giant bunny hallucinations, time travel, iconic objects in unexpected settings (a jet engine in the bedroom?) and, of course, the end of the world. There's some, like, deep significance in the fact that it is Patrick Swayze as the motivational speaker. Doses will make it all make sense to you.

2) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): The first movie to market itself as "The Ultimate Trip". Is 2001 really a heavy movie? Let's put it this way: during one of its first screenings in Los Angeles, during the final "Beyond the Infinite" sequence, someone ran to the front of the screen screaming "It's God! It's God!" and dove into the screen. Source: movieblog.ugo.com