Today is the birthday of the venerable Lewis Carroll, creator of what is arguably the best-loved children’s tale of all time, Alice in Wonderland. He’s also the author of one of the trippiest, most psychedelic books of all time, which is, um, also Alice in Wonderland. To celebrate the occasion of his birth (he would be 180 years old today), we’ve collected the texts that we consider to be the trippiest books of all time, “trippy,” in this case, being defined as “resembling or inducing the hallucinatory effect produced by taking a psychedelic drug.” See, kids: why take drugs when you can just read these crazy books? They are much less likely to do you any permanent damage — though we can’t make any promises. Click through to read our list, and let us know if we’ve left off your favorite trippy tale in the comments!
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We’re always pleased to get two of our favorite things — in this case, Hunter S. Thompson’s prose and Young Johnny Depp — in one go. It’s the concept behind peanut butter & jelly, after all. These videos, which we spotted over at Open Culture, feature Johnny Depp reading from letters written to him by Hunter S. Thompson before and during his work on the film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the project that made the two such fast friends that Depp ended up footing the bill for Thompson’s grandiose funeral. The videos aren’t new, of course, but even if you’ve seen them before, they’re well worth a revisit. Click through to watch, but be warned: these are letters written by Hunter S. Thompson, and thus are obviously rather NSFW.
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In 1965, the legendary Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson scored his first big break. As an assignment for The Nation, Hunter lived with the most notorious motorcycle gang in the United States. Random House published Hells Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966. Hunter’s year with the club ended in a “stomping” — the Angels beat him up, allegedly when his editor wouldn’t share the profits from the story.
Check out some casual shots of the outlaws setting off for a ride, dusted in brutal bravado and motorcycle exhaust, taken by Hunter himself. Observe Hunter’s self-portrait with his Hell’s Angels black-eye. Then, take a short trip to Big Sur in picturesque California, where the literary rebel worked as a security guard and penned The Rum Diary after returning from Puerto Rico and his long jaunt as a traveling journalist working for US publications abroad. These are just a few pages from the icon’s storied existence, but they’re pretty exciting.
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Playboy recently shared its colorful history of correspondence with gonzo legend Hunter S. Thompson. Amongst the letters and other notes in the collection was a wild cure for a hangover that suits the over the top writer’s uninhibited style. The note reads:
P.S. — inre: Oui’s request for “my hangover cure” — it’s 12 amyl nitrites (one box), in conjunction with as many beers as necessary.
OK H
While the idea of poppers and beer soothing your sorry head might not be the right cure for you, fear not — we’ve uncovered 12 other hangover remedies from famous booze hounds. With the holidays right around the corner, we figured you could use a little help. Click through to find out what Hemingway, Faulkner, and other big drinkers suggested after an evening of overindulgence. Read More »
When you spend your days writing about culture, broadly defined, the strangest juxtapositions start to present themselves. Here at Flavorpill, where we might hop from Katherine Mansfield to Katy Perry in the space of a single post, we’re always noticing the ways in which high culture and pop culture complement each other. That, perhaps, is why it recently occurred to us that Ron Swanson and Ernest Hemingway must have wildly similar personalities — which led us to the thought experiment below: TV Characters and Their Literary Counterparts. Follow along with us after the jump, where we compare modernist authors to fictional teenagers and great humorists to fake-news hosts, and add your own pairings in the comments. Read More »
Last weekend, we took a look at famous literary characters that were inspired by real-life people, but we admit, we held back. Not wanting to flood the field, we discounted any character based on his or her author, and chose only those based on outside sources. To assuage our interest and close the circle, we decided to follow up with a list of a few of our favorite semi-autobiographical novels — that is, novels wherein at least one character is based on the author, and usually containing a plot that revolves around the author’s true-life experiences. Click through to check out ten of our favorite semi-autobiographical novels, from the barely-veiled straight autobiographies to the masterful collages of life and fiction. We know there are hundreds and hundreds of these, so please chime in and let us know your own favorite semi-autobiographies in the comments! Read More »
It’s hard to imagine that the definitive icons of literature could have been subject to the same iciness of the high-gated publishing-house “no” machines that we know all too well. Of course, even down-to-earth publishers can miss a great work sitting on their desks; with thousands of titles of varying merit clogging editors’ mailboxes, it’s impossible to skim every page of every slush-pile manuscript, let alone give it its proper consideration. Furthermore, some of our most adored geniuses churned out well-spotted crap before maturing into the artists we remember.
Prescience is no hard science, but hindsight can be a kick in the shins nonetheless, especially for the editors who sent these rejection letters to writers who would later become the bestselling, influential giants of their day — and ours. Read More »
There are the famous portrayals of Hunter S. Thompson, the random Internet impressions, and everything in between (hi there, John Cusack). Our friends at BuzzFeed have collected all three in a new, Rum Diary-apropos supercut that features quite a few men in Hawaiian shirts with sunglasses and cigarette holders talking in decidedly staccato rhythms. While it’s interesting — okay, no, it’s mostly alarming — to see how many dudes are hanging out in their basement pretending to be Thompson (perhaps under the influence of drugs), the real question the video raises is: Who’s your Gozno journalist of choice, Bill Murray or Johnny Depp? Watch the supercut after the jump and tell us who you think makes a better Hunter in the comments.
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Today marks Sylvia Plath’s birthday, and though it may seem strange to celebrate the birth of a famous author by considering her death, we think it appropriate. Plath’s lifelong depression and suicidal tendencies inarguably informed her work, and as such were part of what makes her writing so compelling, and morbid as it may be, part of what has made her an essential part of the American canon. With that in mind, we have collected some of the most famous author suicides in history, from the mundane to the strange, for your contemplation. Unfortunately, there are all too many authors who have taken this route, a trend that many have remarked upon over the years. Though we by no means mean to romanticize suicide, which is often the product of a long term struggle with depression, it can’t be denied that the deaths of these figures are part of their legacy and have worked their way into our understanding of their work and their lives. Click through to see our list of the most famous author suicides, and raise a glass tonight to Sylvia Plath.
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This week Bruce Robinson’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel The Rum Diary opens across the country. Based on an early novel by the good doctor of gonzo journalism, the role of Thompson’s stand-in, journalist “Paul Kemp,” is being played by Johnny Depp — who has, with this film, pretty much planted is flag for good on the island of “cinematic portrayals of Hunter S. Thompson.” After the jump, we’ll take a closer look at Depp’s ongoing onscreen personification of the late Thompson, and nine more actors who became the cinematic avatars for distinctive writers and filmmakers.
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