Requiem psychedelia

Award-winning author, environmentalist, Zen Roshi, and womanizer Peter Matthiessen - seen in photo above - featured in a recent post here. This drew on Lance Richardson's engrossing new biography of Matthiessen. So now here is a a short and deliciously inappropriate vignette from the biography.

When he wasn't hosting his girlfriend, Matthiessen smoked pot at Polgeto, swam in the castle pool, and caught up on writing. He also took LSD which was readily supplied by John Abbot. On a previous visit, Matthiessen had bought a small green notebook with 'Appunti' stencilled on the cover - this became his LSD journal. One day he added 300 micrograms of Sandoz LSD to a cup of coffee, put Fauré's Requiem on the stereo, and pushed through an onslaught of paranoid self-pity.

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