Let’s be clear: no LSD infuses the drug delivery devices so copiously and colorfully reproduced in my forthcoming book Blotter: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium, which is illustrated with over one hundred images drawn from Mark McCloud’s epic blotter archive. That said, people are already turning on to the book. Paris Review is going to run an excerpt, Harvard asked me to lecture, and some big podcasters are knocking on the door.
This pleases me, because while I dig all my books, I am particularly proud of this one. As an author, it’s pretty tough these days to stake out some unmarked territory in the landscape of psychedelic discourse, and the history and analysis of LSD blotter as both a carrier medium and an artistic medium is some fresh and funky ground. Blotter also gave me a rare opportunity to develop a conceptual apparatus to think about an entire print culture that only a few serious heads — notably Carlo McCormick — have heretofore bent their minds to. To top it off, it also may be my most entertaining book (though Led Zeppelin IV might be tough to beat). Besides all the great images, the history and analysis are animated by McCloud’s own remarkable tale, as the San Francisco art-punk’s obsessive collecting opened the doors to the secretive local underground of LSD blotter production, an initiation that in turn set McCloud up for a massive bust whose trial proceedings inadvertently kick-started today’s thriving market in undipped art blotter. A long strange trip indeed.
The official publication date for the book is April 2, at the beginning of what one psychedelic journalist I know calls “Bicycle Month.” That said, I do encourage you to pre-order the book if you can, since I assume there is a reason that this activity so pleases the bean counters. I also will be touring the book throughout the spring. While I will provide more detailed information soon, I wanted to share the basic outline of the cruise now. Moreover, in addition to the spring tour, I will be co-teaching two courses this summer, a two-week intensive on global psychedelic history at the University of Amsterdam this June, and a five-day workshop on writing and spiritual practice at Esalen the following month. So if you don’t live in the Bay and have been hankering for an Erik Davis close encounter of the third kind, this may be your lucky season.
Book Encounters
My previous post on Burning Shore discussed what I like to call “book encounters” — synchronicities where books or text provide the serendipity. Unsurprisingly, I received a number of texts and emails that cataloged further concatenations of the cosmic giggles I described in the piece. Another reader, who runs a YouTube channel devoted to “Magic Media,” was inspired to offer up a psychedelic Christian take on “How to Experience Synchronicity Using Books.”
I also received an email from a fellow Zennie who had not read the post, but had experienced some bookish high weirdness on the streets of London. The incident he refers to involved Terence and Dennis McKenna. During their epic psychedelic trip in the Colombian outback, Terence wanted the bemushroomed Dennis to demonstrate his magic powers and asked him to manifest a silver key from their childhood; incredibly, impossibly, Dennis seemingly pulled one out of thin air. I will let Basil tell the rest of the tale.
I’ve been listening to your book on Audible, and really enjoying it. I’m learning a ton, and I gotta say, your impression of Terence McKenna’s voice is spot on.
I wanted to share a little synchronicity with you. Around noon today, I was walking down the street while listening to your chapter “Experiments.” When I heard the part where Dennis puts an actual silver key in Terrence’s hand, I was naturally dazzled and wary at the same time: “Wow! But, really? Could that have actually happened?”
No more than a few seconds after hearing that story’s punchline, I looked down at the street and saw this:
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