TRIP: PSYCHEDELICS, ALIENATION AND CHANGE - TAO LIN

Found this book a few days ago at the bookstore and picked it up real quick based off Lin’s articles about Terrance McKenna from a few years back. Terrance McKenna is a certainly a favorite of mine. Lin and I agree that one of the most basic aspects of McKenna’s appeal is his voice. You can find hundreds of clips on YouTube that are either recordings or simple videos of McKenna talking in front of various groups, extemporaneously, for hours. This seems like it would be tedious in real life, let alone on low quality tape, but one of the things that saves it is McKenna’s hypnotic voice. It’s equal parts comic-book-store-dungeons-and-dragons nerd and groovy-dude druggy. He’s able to speak for hours on a few connected but varied topics, drugs, human evolution, technology, time, etc. for hours and never seems to slow down or stammer or lose his train of thought. It’s incredible, especially that since he claimed to be he heaviest cannabis user he knew. I’ve been a fan of McKenna since before I ever took any drugs, for decades now. Back when I took drugs more regularly and thought about them more often, I’d play a McKenna speech maybe once a week, nowadays, maybe once a month. 

I also have a somewhat long history with Tao Lin (though I’ve known of McKenna longer). I was introduced to his work during my first semester of college in Asheville. I got invited to a party for the English department at some professors fancy house in the woods. I felt mature and flattered to be there. I drank a beer by a bonfire and asked a beautiful upperclass man, who I assumed was a lit major given the nature of the party, what her favorite book was in a pathetic attempt to flirt with her. She talked to me about Tao Lin, a writer I’d never heard of, for about 20 minutes before moving on to talk with more interesting people. I remember this episode clearly because it seems like the sort of interaction, one that features alienation and awkwardness, that would take place in a Tao Lin book. Tao Lin often writes autobiographically and portrays an alienated, reclusive, depressed New York writer so it was a bit of a surprise to see him embrace psychedelics in their positive this-could-save-the-world form. In some ways his transformation from jaded Literarti to psychonaut reminds me of Daniel Pinchbeck. Rest assured he is significantly less annoying that Pinchbeck, the worst McKenna since McKenna’s death. Tao talks about different psychedelics and gives a pretty good overview of their place in the world and their effects. I’m not sure if I really read anything that I haven’t heard before from other, similar, works or from McKenna himself. The personal stuff is more interesting. I remember reading his last novel Taipei, which is about a person who seems to be Tao Lin taking a lot of pharmaceuticals and seeming very sad. His narrative about how psychedelics brought wonder and hope into his life and brought him out of a dark, addicted place is compelling. The stuff about McKenna’s life is likewise compelling, that man is a manic. Perhaps I would have been better to just read McKenna’s TRUE HALLUCINATIONS, which I just ordered from the library. Either way, the book was interesting, it made me want to smoke salvia again, I’m still a bit weary of more DMT. 4 strong hits.