A Sick Generation of Artists and Writers

     My pricking of the balloon carrying Picasso, García Lorca, and co to the heights of international fame let out the hot, foul air. The politically and artistically correct were dismayed, but now that the balloonists come back to earth, the world will see them as I knew them before their ride, as a group of sick individuals.
     Many of them realized they were unbalanced and consulted Freud. Clinical confirmation now comes from Professor John Casida of the University of California and his team in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Following the example (?) of well-known French writers and artists, Picasso and others were addicted to the "green fairy," absinthe. Their psychiatric, self-destructive symptoms were due to absinthe's effect on the GABA receptor controlling the excitation of brain signals. Because of this it was banned in the US in 1912, but Ernest Hemingway continued to drink it long after that in Europe. He refers to it is his books on Spain: Death in the Afternoon and For Whom the Bell Tolls. Professor John Casida and his group explained their findings at the 2000 annual national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco. Contemporary writers and artists in this tradition get their kick from crack and other drugs. Caveat emptor.

Ronald Hilton - 3/26/00