Here at Flavorwire, we pride ourselves on not only writing some of the best content on the Internet, but keeping an eye on all of the great writing that other folks on the ‘Net are doing, too. Today we’ve got a play financed by Powerball, a doctor who wants to prescribe LSD, Mardi Gras’ royal wig shop, and Donald Trump’s “is this real life?” moment.
The Awl published a chat with Robert Falls and Seth Bockley, who adapted Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666 for the stage thanks to financial backing from Roy Cockrum, a monk who won a $249 million Powerball lottery in 2014.
“It’s a story worthy of Bolaño. The former actor and former monk supporting his parents, and one day, just buying a lottery ticket, winning hundreds of millions of dollars, and the first thing he does is support this adaptation.”
Inc. wrote a small business profile on the Vieux Carré Hair Shop, the wig shop that makes all the custom hair — beards and mustaches, too worn by Kings, Dukes, and other essential characters of the Mardi Gras parade.
Most kings choose a traditional monarchial style: something in the Louis XIV mode, for example. Others want something specific to their krewes. The King of Neptune requires streaming white hair and a white beard like the eponymous sea god. One year a guy wanted to be Howard Stern,” says Highstreet.
Motherboard reports the story of Swiss psychotherapist Friederike Meckel Fischer, who was arrested in 2009 for giving LSD and MDMA to her patients, and history of using hallucinogenic drugs as therapy.
During the therapy sessions, there were moments of anxiety as the drug’s effects started to take hold, when Kirk felt cold and became preoccupied with his breathing. But he was reassured by the therapists, and the discomfort passed. He saw bright colours, “like being at the funfair,” and felt vibrations permeate his body. At one point, he saw the Hindu elephant god Ganesh look in at him, as if checking on a child.
Finally, in honor of the Iowa Caucus, The Atlantic has a story about the political movement that may take the first real step towards electing Donald Trump as its champion.
Trumpism is an ideology, not just a catharsis. An American working class desperate to get back what it once had, and anguished at the culture slipping away, has found an unlikely messenger for its decades of pent-up frustration. When Trump rants about Mexico and China and Syria and television sets made in South Korea, he is speaking to a large group of people who’ve felt disenfranchised for a long time. What if it were possible to win again, like they once did? To be safe and secure, without fear of dislocation? One candidate is selling that dream, and in Iowa and elsewhere, people are listening.