Random Notes

Ordered a book called "The Harvard Psychedelic Club" last week after hearing its author interviewed on public radio's "New Dimensions" last Sunday. The book is a popular history of the psychedelic drug experiments performed by Harvard professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in the early sixties, and what happened to them and their associates after that. It was a fascinating book; I read it in one sitting.

It also led to some other books I am now working my way through. I'll write more on those later.

I'm also listening to a new (to me) collection of Alan Watts lectures released as "You're It: On Hiding, Seeking and Being Found" on the Sounds True label. I don't understand the impact Watts' recorded lectures have on me. I don't have a word to describe it. I would recommend his lectures to anyone suffering stress or anxiety. It's not just the subject matter, which is, of course, what first interested me. Watts could be reading the phone directory aloud and I would still get a sense of ease and relaxation from listening.

Watts, incidentally, was peripherally involved at the outset of the Leary/Alpert experiments at Harvard, at least according to the book. That must have been an interesting time in which to have lived. I was 10 years old when Leary and Alpert left Harvard.

My sleep cycle is now back to normal. I'm going to bed between nine and ten pm, sleeping fitfully, as I have for years. I wake up between 6:30 and 7:30 am. Some days I'll have a midday nap.

I started drinking coffee again recently, but that will have to stop. I didn't drink coffee until I was in my twenties, and I've always taken it black. I first stopped about four years ago. Coffee still screws up my stomach, I've found, so I'm going to swear off again.