Pat Riot

The other two blotter designs were created specifically for this project. They are both variations of pieces that I have been creating over the last year for a body of work revolving around the thematic similarities between Ted Geisel’s (Dr. Seuss) storybook, THE LORAX, and Ted Kaczynski’s (Unabomber) manifesto, 'Industrial Society And It’s Future.'

For decades, the remarkable story of Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter while high on LSD circulated mostly in the realm of baseball journalism. Dock’s drug-induced performance is now well-known thanks in large part to an animated short that was passed around the Internet, followed by a feature-length documentary exploring the subject. 

By the same token, obscure rumors of the CIA’s clandestine operations using LSD in experiments involving mind-control on unwitting US citizens and US military personnel in their top secret MK-ULTRA program was something that circulated mostly in darkness, woven throughout nefarious conspiracy theories. Now, those rumors have been confirmed with the release of previously classified information through the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and the many books that have since been published on the findings of that information, which revealed detailed accounts of the dark and torturous applications of LSD by the CIA. 

While a student at Harvard University in the late 1950’s, Ted Kaczynski participated in a three year experiment that was supervised by men who would later be exposed as having been key players in the CIA’s MK-ULTRA LSD program. 

Aside from the warning about avoiding mirrors, the most helpful bit of wisdom that I was given before I took LSD was to “set the table you want to sit at”. That basically means that you prepare by getting into a positive headspace and situating yourself in a familiar, friendly, and comfortable environment where you can safely spend 10 hours crawling out of your face.