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InvisibleveggieM

Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 17,504
A look at the turbulent history of absinthe
    #7776217 - 12/19/07 12:58 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

A look at the turbulent history of absinthe
December 17, 2007 - macleans.ca

Every era, it seems, has its muse of choice. In the 1960's LSD littered the cultural landscape. In the 1970s, the punk scene was ravaged by heroin, which also did a number on the figureheads of the 1990s grunge movement. Cocaine and the grandiose narcissism of the 1980s were flat out made for each other. And today, Xanax, Percocet and a host of pharmaceuticals have arguably taken over as the drugs of choice.

The late 19th century, however, belonged to absinthe.

One of its most famous adepts, Oscar Wilde, once described absinthe consumption as a three-stage buzz that was equal parts whimsical and horrifying.

"The first stage is like ordinary drinking," the legendary wit said, "the second, when you begin to see monstrous and cruel things, but if you can persevere, you will enter in upon the third stage where you see things that you want to see, wonderful and curious things."

Wilde was far from the only famous absinthe-guzzling artist at the time. La fée verte figured prominently in the works of painters Pablo Picasso, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Édouard Manet, Vincent Van Gogh and Edgar Degas, and the drink was a mainstay among several of Wilde's literary peers like Paul Verlaine, Alfred Jarry, Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire. Even Ernest Hemingway was known to have a weakness for absinthe, making him a rarity outside European artistic circles.

Among them, Van Gogh and Verlaine are perhaps those who suffered most from the green fairy's seductive powers.

Absinthe poisoning (or "absinthism") was first cited as a possible cause of Van Gogh's psychotic episodes by Michael Albert-Puleo in a 1981 letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to Albert-Puleo, regular absinthe drinkers like Van Gogh could expect to "experience exaltation, auditory and visual hallucinations and excitation." Albert-Puleo even suspected the combined effects of absinthe and other mental illness may have influenced Van Gogh's distinctive painting style and palette: "[They] certainly played a part in the strange and wonderful visions the artist captured on canvas."

The problem with Albert-Puleo's absinthism theory, however, is that Van Gogh had a number of other bad habits too. Academics and medical specialists have made a sport of poring over the legendary painter's letters and diaries, each seemingly settling on a different theory to explain Van Gogh's wild episodes like the one in which he sliced off his ear (or, at least, a part of his ear). And Van Gogh's self-destructive lifestyle figures prominently in nearly every discussion of the artist's fragile mental and physical health, making it difficult to pin-point absinthe as the sure-fire source of his profound malaise. (According to one researcher, "Van Gogh’s ailment was exacerbated by overwork, malnutrition and fasting, environmental exposure, excessive ingestion of alcoholic beverages, especially absinthe, smoking, use of camphor to combat insomnia and a proclivity for ingesting turpentine used in mixing his oil colors.")

Like Van Gogh, the French poet Verlaine developed a serious absinthe habit that would stay with him until his death. By then, Verlaine was hopelessly addicted, constantly ill, and flat broke. True to form, he would continue his dalliance with the green fairy even while laying on his deathbed in a Paris hospital. A memorial bust of Verlaine in the form of an absinthe bottle was unveiled in the French capital's famous Luxembourg Gardens fifteen years later. Still, though the drink was widely acknowledged as a font of inspiration for Verlaine's work, the poet himself denounced its otherwise pernicious influence on his life in Confession.

"Later on I shall have to relate many [...] absurdities which I owe to my abuse of this horrible drink," he wrote. "This drink, this abuse itself, the source of folly and crime, of idiocy and shame, which governments should tax heavily if they do not suppress it altogether: Absinthe!

Suppressing it altogether is exactly what governments would eventually do. Widespread moral panic about absinthe abuse - a situation reportedly encouraged by wine producers looking to increase their market share - caused the drink to lose much of its luster. At the height of anti-Semitism in late-19th century France, absinthe was even denounced as a "tool of the Jews", though at least one producer resisted the designation by inscribing his bottles with the claim - or was it a warning? - that his absinthe was "anti-Jewish." In 1907, several years before it was officially outlawed, an anti-absinthe petition circulating in France collected 400,000 signatures

"Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people," the petition proclaimed. "It makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant, it disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.

Swiss authorities were among the first to ban absinthe outright in 1908, blaming it for the grizzly mass murder of the Lanfray family. (In 1905, Jean Lanfray murdered his pregnant wife and two sons in a drunken rage; Lanfray had had two glasses of absinthe in the morning before drinking himself into oblivion over the course of the day.) By 1915, it was banned in most of the countries where it had once been available, including the Netherlands, Belgium, the U.S., Australia and France.

But thanks to an undeniable cultural mystique, absinthe has since made a remarkable comeback. Once unavailable in Canada, it is now both sold and produced here. Absinthe is also widely available in a number of European countries and was recently welcomed back onto the U.S. market, where even Marilyn Manson has taken shilling the dreadfully-named "Mansinthe." Still, despite the unlikely re-introduction of a mythical muse, a flood of contemporary Van Goghs and Verlaines and Wildes seems as distant a possibility as ever.


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Offlinecerpinjc7
LegalizationAdvocate
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Registered: 04/18/06
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Re: A look at the turbulent history of absinthe [Re: veggie]
    #7776710 - 12/19/07 08:18 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

I have a poster in my room with a trippy picture of Van Gogh  holding a bottle of Absinthe :laugh:

... I dont think I would touch the stuff anytime soon


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"I have only provided the keys, it is up to you to awaken your third eye and unlock the portal of your mind..." -

MARILIZE LEGALJUANA


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Invisibleflavoraid
now with twicethe ketamine andopiates!
Male

Registered: 12/05/07
Posts: 1,678
Re: A look at the turbulent history of absinthe [Re: cerpinjc7]
    #7777400 - 12/19/07 11:57 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Good read.

PIC OF POSTER?

What do people think of the absinthe availible today, like Hills? It's super weak and where I live it's only the social rejects that love it I don't find it the least bit trendy.


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coda said:
imachavel, Man you really need to do some reading, the amount of bullshit you put into almost every single one of your posts is absolutely astounding.


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InvisibleLe_Canard
The Duk Abides


Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 94,392
Loc: Earthfarm 1 Flag
Re: A look at the turbulent history of absinthe [Re: veggie]
    #7777504 - 12/19/07 12:32 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Interesting article. I'd like to try some - the authentic stuff, not the weak, watered down stuff they're selling here in the US.


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OfflineDevin
Fucked Up
Male


Registered: 11/27/07
Posts: 59
Last seen: 15 years, 10 months
Re: A look at the turbulent history of absinthe [Re: Le_Canard]
    #7782514 - 12/20/07 05:30 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

I would love to get the chance to try some.


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Offlinebrentford101
Stranger

Registered: 12/16/07
Posts: 23
Last seen: 10 years, 10 months
Re: A look at the turbulent history of absinthe [Re: Devin]
    #7782971 - 12/20/07 07:25 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

i was fortunate enough to try the stuff in Czech.
it was pretty good.
no hallucinations.
rather bitter though.
I tried to take some back to the US with me but it disappeared from my luggage.


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Offlineorigami.octopus
Mycoporn fanaticin training


Registered: 11/17/07
Posts: 256
Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
Re: A look at the turbulent history of absinthe [Re: Devin]
    #7783035 - 12/20/07 07:48 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

woah. van gogh was a crazy guy.

drinking turpentine?? wtffff


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this is an amazing game
http://www.kongregate.com/games/customlogic/sprout


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