The high life: Doing drugs with ancient Greeks and Romans

Long before tobacco arrived from the Americas, ancient civilizations in the Old World were getting high off hemp smoke and opium.  

Substances are central to many New World cultures, but their role in the Old World is poorly understood. Archaeological research suggests that ancient civilizations, like the Greeks and Romans, consumed hemp and opium. Though drug dependency is a modern concept, sources describe Marcus Aurelius as an opium addict.

- Big Think

 

Control for Surrender: Henry Miller’s Stunning Letter to Anaïs Nin About the Value of and the Antidote to Despair

The paradox is that much of what we think is work at life — all the ways in which we try to bend reality to our will, all the ways in which we clutch at control (which only ever means the illusion of control) as an organizing principle — is in fact an escape from the true work, which is the work of letting go: letting go of the illusion, of the systems of belief and magical thinking by which we fancy ourselves in control.

The subtlety — sometimes devastating, sometimes deeply rewarding — lies in learning the difference between the false work and the true work of life: that elusive art of active surrender.

This is what Henry Miller (December 26, 1891–June 7, 1980) explores with uncommon self-awareness and sensitivity in one of the many miniature masterpieces of insight into human nature collected in A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller.

- The Marginalian

 

«Un été comme ça», au-delà de la sexualité

En l’espace de 26 jours, trois femmes, Geisha, Léonie et Eugénie, sont invitées en maison de repos pour explorer leur relation problématique ou conflictuelle avec la sexualité. Sous la supervision d’une thérapeute et d’un travailleur social eux aussi pétris de contradictions, elles tenteront d’apprivoiser leurs démons, de jeter un regard nouveau sur elles-mêmes et de considérer l’avenir.

Le film donne donc à voir les pensées, les souvenirs, les élans, les fantasmes de trois femmes à la fois fragiles et pleinement assumées, brisées et vivantes ; trois femmes extirpées de leur quotidien pour s’en inventer un nouveau, teinté d’introspection et de lâcher-prise.

- Le Devoir

 

Jules and Jim: The relationship that's still taboo

On the 60th anniversary of the French classic Jules and Jim, Gregory Wakeman looks at how the ménage à trois has been portrayed on screen.

- BBC

 

Heh-Heh. Huh-Huh. Mike Judge Brings Back ‘Beavis and Butt-Head.’

Judge, the creator and voice of the malevolent metalheads, explains why he’s reviving his emblematic 1990s cartoon series in 2022.There are certain sounds that will forever evoke the 1990s in our collective sense memory. The opening guitar riff of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The chimes of a dial-up modem. The persistent, grating laughter of Beavis and Butt-Head.

- NY Times