D O P E

D O P E

DOPE, is a 1968 documentary of the London drug scene. Featuring Donovan and Australian artist/dancer Vali Myers, the spectre of underground folk legend Geno Foreman, Marianne Faithfull talking about poppers, Syd's (Pink) Floyd in full UFO freakout mode, The Fool and mainlining in Richmond Hill, Dope is the definitive document of counter-cultural life in the capital during 1967.

Mere words cannot adequately describe this visual montage documenting the bohemian London drug culture of the late sixties...as they shoot up, eat, talk. In the spirit of the era’s avant garde film movement and evoking the subversive work of Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Stan Brackage, and even Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, Dope never spares its audience a break . . . Dope is more underground than the underground. It’s sub-underground.

"Light and atmospheric, this is a heady drama perfumed with scenes of heroin and hashish."--Ira Cohen

Film by Flame Schon, aka Diane Rochlin (in collaboration with the late Sheldon Rochlin). link

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Jack Smith was a '60s underground legend. Before he was 30, this gay, Jewish, cross-dressing filmmaker had made one of the most influential films of all time, the 1963 avant-garde classic, "Flaming Creatures".

Though eventually banned in the state of New York for its array of bare breasts and flaccid penises, many bright lights of the New York underground hailed it as a masterpiece.

Purportedly made for just $300, Flaming Creatures features exotically dressed transvestites, a rape and enough bare-bones spectacle to make it the fringe cinema's answer to the exotic adventures like Arabian Nights (1942) that so enchanted Smith in his youth.

Avant-garde film enthusiast Andy Ditzler, who almost single-handedly has been keeping film culture alive in Atlanta, will man his blessedly creaky film projector to feature a 16mm print of Flaming Creatures in a one-night homage to some of the pioneers of American underground cinema, Carnivals of Ecstasy, at Eyedrum Gallery in Atlanta. The evening also features a new Ira Cohen work, "Brain Damage", as well as his new expanded "Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda".

The screening is part of Table of the Elements Festival No. 4: Bohrium, which presents five days of music (John Cale, Rhys Chatham, Captain Beefheart, ) and film that shuns the ivory tower for something that more closely resembles punk rock's outsider ethos and anti-establishment buck.

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WebTrail - Thunderbolt Pagoda, NCAA, Droopy C**k, Used Condoms, Magick, Tantric Popart

"...so High '60s that you emerge from its 20-minute vision perched full-lotus on a cloud of incense, chatting with a white rabbit and smoking a banana." The ultimate comic-book attraction, however, is Ira Cohen's 1968 Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda—part "Dr. Strange," part Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. Directed by Ira Cohen Link

Did you burst your bracket yet? Watch the NCAA Tournament live at work.

Tantric Pop-Art by Julian Murphy

From the page: "Do you mean Droopy C**k?" "It was as if I'd been smacked with a right hook. I started repeating 'Drew Peacock' over and over again. Then I thought - what have we done?" Link

AOL had this link on their homepage today about "The Cheapest Person I Know". One person washes and re-uses paper plates. One person orders water at a restaurant, adds lemon and sugar that's already on the table to make lemonade -- all for the price of a glass of water. Someone glued a quarter to the floor to razz their co-worker who finally bought a $2.00 device to pry it up. But the worst frugal item so far has got to be the one that re-uses condoms. Washes them out and re-uses them. That ain't frugal. That's just plain stupid.

Today's Quote
"It's far too late for anything but magick, as the future is clearly up for grabs." - Antero Alli

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