I may be the only person on the planet who doesn’t want to think Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” is about hallucinogenic drugs. I also don’t want Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” to have been inspired by a hallucinogenic drug experience when he wrote those wonderful, playful, and deep characters. I love that book because of the playful use of words. Reading it is a joyful romp through a rainbow of words. Cavorting off walls, tumbling on the floor, flying up towards the sky. I cherish them. But there’s a dark side, too. I know it is possible that he was experimenting with mind-expanding substances, but Why, Why do readers go straight to “he must have been stoned to write this book”?
I love E.B. White’s “The Once and Future King” for the same reasons. How fun to take a long-revered fable and turn it into a romp! While keeping its meaning. I may be the only person on the planet who doesn’t think that Disney’s movie “Fantasia” is a drug induced frolic. I love that movie for the music and for the images and characters who move through it. Has anyone accused the composers or the animators of being on drugs? Probably. Imagination does not have to be drug induced. That’s the opinion of those who sadly lack an imaginative brain. Not a problem for me. I don’t need hallucinogenic drugs to see magic, wonder, beauty, fun. My challenge is turning what I see into a coherent story. I tried hallucinogenic mushrooms once (daughters, you didn’t read this). They did nothing for me. I felt like I was floating and couldn’t quite connect with my brain. Ideas and thoughts drifted through like clouds. Not a mind-expanding experience. I didn’t like it. I didn’t need it. I envy people who think in a linear fashion. I worked with many of them for years. I have dear friends who are linear thinkers. I love them, but I don’t understand them. They don’t understand me. My husband is a whiz at jumbles and anagrams. Not me. I look at the scrambled letters and see a word I can define and use. Not a real word. I try SO HARD to unscramble letters into their actual words but get frustrated and give up. Sudoku is more my style. I see patterns in the numbers. And, there are only 9 possible numbers, not 26 letters to unscramble. I’m not good at scrabble, or Words with Friends. I am good at Sudoku. I just wanna write fun (with depth sneakily inserted). With apologies to Cyndi Lauper. Comments are closed.
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