High-achieving drug-fuelled creatives
In honour of the Welcome Institute’s brilliant-looking new exhibition on the history of drug use throughout civilisation (Bloomsbury, until Feb 27th 2011), Snipe was inspired to share five creative folks from history who used chemicals to explore the deepest caverns of their consciousness. Don’t try this at home. It’s far too expensive.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Anyone who’s been watching the Steve Coogan/Rob Brydon impressionathon The Trip on BBC2 will be familiar with Coleridge’s famed intake of opium and laudanum. “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”? The clues are all there.
Aldous Huxley
Clicking on Aldous’ name above will transport you to a fascinating, very moving letter in which Huxley’s wife Laura describes his final moments before death. She had just given him a hefty shot of LSD, and bade him farewell with these words: “You are going towards the light…It is easy, and you are doing this beautifully and willingly and consciously, in full awareness, in full awareness, darling, you are going towards the light.” Now that’s a way to die.
Edvard Munch
If you’ve seen The Scream but know nothing of Munch’s life, it’s well worth a Google. Some edited highlights: damaged two fingers in a accidental shooting incident with his mistress; spent much of his time brawling while tanked up on booze and painkillers; narrowly avoided bathing in blood at a slightly wacko old fashioned version of The Priory, but did succumb to electrification therapy which he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed. All good clean fun.
Robert Louis Stevenson
By all accounts, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was written on a massive cocaine binge. This came as news to Snipe, which is never going to watch Muppet Treasure Island in quite the same way again. As an aside, doesn’t he look like a prototype Shoreditch twat in this picture? Disturbing.
Miles Davis
Wrote one of the most influential albums of the 20th century in heroin haze. But seriously guys, don’t do heroin. Stick to harmless stuff like alcohol and hydrogenated fats.
17 Nov 2010
Next! Kiki Kendrick Can't Get Arrested
Death can be merciful. I once attended the Mid-America Theatre Conference in Chicago, the largest theatre convention in the US. The company I was with, E.L.A.N., the only troupe actually performing that week, only had one show, so I found plenty of time to wander the sprawling complex hosting the event. A whole wing of the hotel was given over to mass auditions. Thousands of young, desperate actors, singers, and dancers converged to strut their stuff and maybe get a job doing what they loved. Queues of mumbling, yodeling, shuffling, sweating hopefuls filled the corridors to suffer what the industry refers to as “cattle calls”. People were summoned in groups of twenty. Each performer had a minute and a half to sing a thirty second song, hoof a dozen steps and mouth some lines. I asked one of the producers what was the role they were vying for. “Grimus,” said the producer, chewing a pencil into pulp. “The big purple thing from McDonald’s adverts? All this just to be in a hamburger commercial?” “Nope,” said the lead-lipped HB fiend, as she started eviscerating a fresh pencil. “This is skin work. The successful applicants will be performing at restaurants across the country in Grimus costumes.” When you stumble, fluff your line, don’t act hard enough, and the last thing you hear as you wander dejectedly out of an audition studio is the casting director shouting, “Next!” you have ‘died’. But just think. You might have got the job and been Grimus. Kiki Kendrick knows a thing or two about dying. Though she has appeared in numerous shows on British tele (but not The Bill), usually as the tarty sexpot character, she has failed to appear on every other show. In Next! Kiki has compiled the lowest, most embarrassing, career-destroying, soul-crushing, agent-killing moments. Much of the production is pure luvviness, with a glass of wine for everyone, and the audience, whom I suspect were mostly actors, winced at Kiki’s mortifications, reveled in her courageous revelations. Auditioning for parts is grueling and hard on the ego. Reliving those moments on stage requires a bit of bravery, admitting your failures to strangers, but Kiki Kendrick seems to have so much fun telling stories that these tragedies of the ego become nothing but toys to play with. Kiki Kendrick is a beautiful goofball. An acting geek, who so delights in performance she has passed up on her own wedding and a family death to pursue her dream, the pain is part of the pleasure of winning the crowd. After a shaky start Kiki becomes increasingly brilliant, funny and touching in a play that could have become seriously narcissistic and cloying. There is a projection screen that could have been used for more than a few punchlines and the set doesn’t serve the show. Several stacks of actual scripts she’s read for- one stack was accidentally chucked by an intern stagehand- does nothing because she doesn’t inform us what they are, so they remain nothing but several stacks of boring paper. However, these are fairly negligible criticisms, and the screen is finally used after the show to present a showreel demonstrating Kiki has actually been a bit disingenuous. She’s been in a lot of cool stuff, and turned in a pile of fscreen-stealing performances. Hopefully some producer will see Next! and put her in something as big as she deserves. Maybe they could bring back The Bill, a one-off special, just so Kiki Kendrick can get arrested. And there’s always McDonald’s. Kendrick would make for one hot, tarty Hamburglar.
Next! runs until Nov 28 at Etcetera Theatre, 265 Camden High St, etceteratheatre.com
17 Nov 2010
Mick Rock's iconic generation
Truman Capote and Andy Warhol – New York, 1979 (detail) by Mick Rock
Mick Rock – Rock Music. Idea Generation, 11 Chapter St E2. 11-18TH November
Mick Rock’s latest exhibition is a thrilling compendium of iconic proportions. With images that will make you squeal with recognition and awe, the collection houses his infamous shots of Lou Reed, Iggy, Bowie/Stardust, Debbie Harry and Tim Curry. His later work captures Lady Gaga, Snoop and Madonna, where his insight really captures the off-guard, intimate personalities of these notorious iconclasts. Enjoy the backstage, make-up-less vulnerabilities of your 1970s heroes, feel the electricity as each onstage shot dares you to be seduced by their rampant personas, and look out for The Terrible Trio (1972) – the only time Bowie, Iggy and Reed have ever been caught on camera together.
17 Nov 2010
Outlandish: Strange Foreign Bodies
South London Gallery
The UK premiere of Phillip Warnell’s latest film followed by a panel discussion.
Made in collaboration with French Jean-Luc Nancy, the 20 minute film focuses on the
eminent philosopher and heart transplant recipient’s meditations on the history and
integrity of bodies: their secrets, their touching, their annihilation and strangeness.
7pm, 17 November.
£5/£3 Conc.
17 Nov 2010
London agenda for Wednesday 17 November
1. Reinvent fashion imagery with Photography 1948 – 2010: WOMAN [Run Riot]
2. Make post-rock interesting again with Vessels [Rich Thane]
3. Annihilate a body at Outlandish [Lauren Down]
4. Something something something Sarah Blasko [London Gigs]
5. Visit St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney [Tired of London]
17 Nov 2010
Youthless / OLUGBENGA
Sometime Metronomer OLUGBENGA has remixed Youthless into a spacious, mathy electronic construction. Rumour has it the London-based DJ and producer will be playing out his bright-eyed remix works and catholic song selections with a series of DJ gigs this coming December.
Youthless – Golden Age [OLUGBENGA EDIT] by onebirdrecords
16 Nov 2010
Videos to avoid doing whatever you are supposed to be doing right now
Consider this a public service: here are five videos to help you avoid whatever hellish thing that you can’t even contemplate doing right now.
Steve Martin: Atheists Don’t Have No Songs
Ian McKellan: You shall not…
Holy Fuck: Red Light
The Independent’s Johann Hari takes down the Mail’s Richard Littlejohn over asylum seekers
Ten centuries of European History in Five Minutes
16 Nov 2010
Run, run Rudolph - away from Lidl!
Looking for a treat for the kids this Christmas? Why not serve up Donner, Blitzen, and Dasher for dinner?
Lidl, the cheap and cheerful German supermarket, is selling frozen reindeer steaks at £5.99 for a 350g pack. Mmm mmm. Snipe suggests serving it with a roasted tomato and calling it ‘Rudolf’s nose.’
Animal rights spoilsports Viva wants the store to drop the dish, as the reindeer are chased on snowmobiles and motorcycles, as well as helicopters, which sounds pretty scary for them but is probably less scary than the killing, butchering, and eating.
16 Nov 2010
London agenda for Tuesday 16 November
1. Watch 1968 Japanese horror flick Kuroneko at the Working Man’s [Run Riot]
2. Road trip to Beach Fossils, Superhominoid, and Colours at The Lexington [London Gigs]
3. See the rock version of Twelfth Night [Spoonfed]
4. Drink at the Stafford’s American Bar [Tired of London]
16 Nov 2010
Win Spokes Tickets
Widescreen, orchestral pop merchants Spokes celebrate their first single with a gig at Electroworkz in Angel this Thursday. Also on the bill are Huw Stephens-approved Capac, and Our Lost Infantry. You can win a pair of tickets and a signed 7” by following the instructions on our Twitter, but if you don’t want to risk missing out, tickets are available here.
Spokes – Torn Up In Praise by snipelondon
15 Nov 2010
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
- Nice map of London's fruit trees shows you where to pick free food
- An interview with Desiree Akhavan
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- The five best places in London to have an epiphany
- London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
© 2009-2025 Snipe London.