finding cain

Nothing ominous or threatening here, just some grainy black-and-white visuals and two fine-looking women tripping out. Perfect listening to help you relax after a long day, to keep you company through the wee small hours, and for drifting through the infinite realm.

Édouard Chimot garnered considerable praise and caused some controversy when he exhibited his work in the 1920s. His erotically charged pieces revolved explicitly around hookers and junkies, who usually worked and lived near his studio in Paris. Throughout history, artists have used prostitutes as key subjects for their artwork, and Chimot was no different. He often paid these ladies of the night to sit for him—as hookers were often cheaper to hire than models. Many of his drawings, etchings and paintings have a dark, slightly sinister feel to them. I can imagine the scandal they caused back in the early 1900s.   Thanks, Bridgette.

Have A Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics is an upcoming documentary from Netflix featuring a bunch of celebrities, including Ben Stiller, Sting, the Grateful Dead's Bill Kreutzmann, Anthony Bourdain, and more talking about drugs like LSD, shrooms and mescaline. I think you will enjoy this doc if – You're into mind expansion and tripping. – You like seeing Nick Offerman playing another arrogant genius. – You prefer your documentaries to be fun and satirical, because life these days is getting rough. – Sarah Silverman is your life guru. – The concept of alternate universes and time loops appeals to you. – Hearing A$AP Rocky talking about his penis makes you ecstatic. – You are not yet exhausted by the endless parade of documentary series on Netflix. Written and directed by Donick Cary, Have A Good Trip is out on May 11. Check out the trailer below:

A recent study has suggested that magic mushrooms may be a promising treatment option for depression in patients who have not otherwise responded to conventional medicine. Researchers from Imperial College London gave psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in mushrooms, to 12 clinically depressed people. After one week, all of them showed "a marked improvement in their symptoms." From Scientific American : "That is pretty remarkable in the context of currently available treatments," says Robin Carhart-Harris, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London and first author of the latest study, which is published in The Lancet Psychiatry. The equivalent remission rate for SSRIs is around 20%.  The study's authors are not suggesting that psilocybin should be a treatment of last resort for depressed patients. "Our conclusion is more sober than that—we are simply saying that this is doable," says Carhart-Harris. "We can give psilocy...

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Emily Witt recently wrote an article for the The New Yorker called The Trip Planners about the unusual couple behind Erowid , the Internet's best resource for information about psychoactive substances. Founded in 1995, the site is used as a reference by the general public as well as by physicians, journalists, educators, law enforcement, and other professionals.  "The founders of Erowid are a couple in their mid-forties—a man and a woman who call themselves Earth and Fire, respectively. Their names date from 1994, when, as recent college graduates living in the San Francisco Bay Area, they went to a Menlo Park storefront to sign up for a dial-up account and for their first e-mail addresses: earth@best.com and fire@best.com. They live and work in a one-bedroom post-and-beam cabin, built in 1985 and surrounded by ten acres of forested land, on a high slope facing a ravine. The property’s original owner was a collector of obsolete industrial machinery, and the house i...

The folks over at the  Time-Lapse Blog had some expired pills from the cabinet, so instead of throwing them away, they decided to dissolve them in water and film them in time-lapse. According to the site, the pills "took significantly different amounts of time to dissolve." The red one dissolved the fastest, while the green Excedrin "took forever to fully open." Thanks for the tip, Mike.

Back in the 70s, print ads offering all kinds of cocaine paraphernalia could be found in popular magazines like High Times and Hustler . The World's Best Ever , one of my favorite art and culture sites, unearthed a bunch of vintage advertisements promoting spoons, straws and vials for the sophisticated coke users. Here are a few of my favorites:

I can't believe Kids is 20 years old. The first time I saw it my brain was divided between "What the f*ck is going on?" and "I prefer having sex with older women." I was in high school and after borrowing a VHS copy of the movie from a friend, I went straight to my room and started watching the flick. I didn't like it, but it left quite an impression on me. Kids portrayed the gritty lifestyles of NYC teenagers during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1990s and was the source of widespread controversy due to its explicit portrayal of underage substance abuse and sex. Embedded below is an illegal copy of the movie. See if you can get through the whole thing before it gets taken down.

Some people find writing under the influence a breeze. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde  during a six day, six night cocaine binge. Ken Kesey penned One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest while he was on LSD. British novelist Lee Child, author of Killing Floor and 61 Hours , admits he writes while high on cannabis.    While it's true that using psychoactive substances can help bring your creative endeavors to life, it can also make you think something's a great idea, when in reality, it's just a random, nonsensical shit. In 2004, while on vacation in Boracay, I tried to write inside my hotel room after partaking in some dope festivity: five bong hits, two bottles of light beer and lots of pizza. This was the result: I'm here at the beach, a mere mortal in boardshorts and sandals, breathing some fresh air while walking on a hot summer evening. You're inside your expensive hotel room, typing away on your laptop while listen...