Cary Grant & LSD

[Robin Landseadel]

On Mar 24, 2010, at 7:30 AM, David Morris wrote:

> http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2010/03/his-girl-lsd-the-cary-grant-experience.html
>
> Cary Grant was the first mainstream celebrity to espouse the virtues
> of psychedelic drugs. Whereas novelist Aldous Huxley's famous 1954
> treatise The Doors of Perception recounted his remarkable experiences
> with mescaline, Huxley was hardly mainstream - a darling of
> intellectual circles to be sure, but a far cry from a matinee idol.
> Grant was one of the biggest stars Hollywood had to offer when he
> jumped headlong into Huxley's Heaven and Hell. His endorsement of
> subconscious exploration, arguably, created more interest in LSD than
> Dr. Timothy Leary who was largely preaching to the converted. Grant on
> the other hand was the fantasy of countless Midwestern women. He
> convinced wholesome movie starlets like Esther Williams and Dyan
> Cannon to blow their minds. When Ladies Home Journal and Good
> Housekeeping interviewed him, the topic of conversation wasn't Cary's
> favorite recipe or "the problem with youth today." Instead, Cary Grant
> was telling happy homemakers that LSD was the greatest thing in the
> world.


One of those historical forks in the road not taken, on display in  
"The Crying of Lot 49."

"Baby Igor" + "Rich Chocolaty Goodness" + "Dr. Hilarius"—this all  
points to that brief interregnum when the powers that be were  
promoting the stuff.

This subject comes up surprisingly often in Pynchon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dZnwQKj5Bg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5TJApnJ8X8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5TJApnJ8X8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3YMp2_EgPs&feature=PlayList&p=6A7E771F7676B7E2&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=22

http://tinyurl.com/create.php

Appears as a central theme in the California Trilogy, make of that  
what you will.