by William Skink
After another glorious break from blogging I have a report to file from the heartland. Visiting with family gave me ample opportunity to waste some downtime with cable news, and I can officially state there is nothing else going on in the world except for Trump and San Bernardino. I saw no breaking news of Turkey invading Iraq. Just Trump and terrorists and Muslims, but if I’m like most America, maybe I’m just repeating myself, right?
Traveling to Kansas City also provided me the opportunity to visit a few book stores I like to check out when I’m in town, and they didn’t disappoint. Two titles in particular stand out. The first I found, interestingly, at Barnes and Noble. I finished it in three days. The book: Drugs as Weapons Against Us, by John L. Potash.
I can’t recommend this book enough, and it couldn’t have come, for me, at a better time. Potash carries on, and greatly expands on Dave McGowan’s work with Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops, and the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream. From the Opium Wars to Tupac, Potash connects some compelling dots. The title seems justified, despite whatever insight some of us may claim regarding certain mind-expanding substances.
The other score–this one from Half-Priced Books–really had me going. The Occult Technology of Power was first published in 1974 (you can read it here). It’s structured as a sort of final lesson from a Financial Capitalist to his son, who is about to take on his father’s empire. Read it, it’s brilliant.