Free association Tuesday
The following images are connected in a very real and thematic way. Can you name it?
(Wild guesses are encouraged.)
(Wild guesses are encouraged.)
posted by Smitty Werbenmanjensen at 5:27 PM
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Contributors
Previous Posts
- It's the coat I was born to wear
- The Brits all scream for ice cream
- Things I thought I'd never have to do ...
- Television ...
- Monday scooterblogging
- Light blogging again ...
- British national cross country championship
- English as a second language, yet again
- Working for Free
- Friday Viewblogging
Current terror alert level:
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: The Nail Gun of Mild Reason.
6 Comments:
I think they all have to do with drugs -- more specifically, opiates. At least I know Thomas DeQuincey took opium (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater), Coleridge smoked a lot of opium even while writing Kubla Khan, and Trainspotting is all about heroin. I don't have anything for the other 2, though.
MK is correct--the theme is British opiate abuse.
According to "Highgate Walks: A Local History Guide," the chemist in the first photo is where Samuel Taylor Coleridge obtained his laudanum.
Coleridge was under the influence of laudanum when he wrote Kublai Khan (referencing the second image). It would have been the best poem ever in the English language if Wordsworth hadn't popped by and killed S.T. Coleridge's buzz. Read the final stanza and weep.
The third photo is of a jewelry store that is, according to Time Out London, on the site of the chemists' where Thomas De Qunicey, author of "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" (image four).
The fifth image is the promo photo from "Trainspotting," a movie about Scottish smack junkies. Not an easy to watch film.
WOOHOO! I think Schmutz (whoever he is) had it, too. That's probably what he meant by "might pleasure domes." Right, Schmutz?
Of course. You're both right! (If you accept the notion that opium=pleasure.)
if Wordsworth hadn't popped by and killed S.T. Coleridge's buzz
obPedant: it was a 'person on business from Porlock', not Wordsworth. And if you go to Grasmere, you can visit Dove Cottage and see STC's old (empty) laudanum bottles.
Speaking of buzzkills. All right, all right. My story's better, though.
Post a Comment
<< Home