Author Swany

How cannabis makes thoughts tumble

Mind Hacks: “Cannabis smokers often report that when stoned, their thoughts have a free-wheeling quality and concepts seem connected in unusual and playful ways. A study just published online in Psychiatry Research suggests that this effect may be due to the drug causing ‘fast and loose’ patterns of spreading activity in memory, something known as [...]

Claims that Shakespeare “turned to marijuana seeds” for inspiration

Skin Up With Shakespeare: “However, using marijuana seeds to uncover under-lying inspiration is certainly nothing new in the world of literature. Francois Rabelais, who died about ten years before the birth of William Shakespeare, made many cryptic references to cannabis. His book, Pantagruel, describes the drug as the herb Pantagruelion, a term used to escape [...]

Illustration for Tiers Livre Chapter 41

Gallica — Title : [Illustrations du Tiers livre des faictz et dictz héroïques du noble Pantagruel.] / François Rabelais, aut. du texte
Publisher : Claude La Ville (Valence – Lyon)
Date of publication : 1547-1548

Mithridates

Concordance: Mithridates

Mithridatum and the death of Mithridates

Encyclopaedia Romana: Compendium of quotes on Mithridates and his antidote to poison (thereiac): from Justin, Epitome (XXXVII.2); Celsus, De Medicina (V.23.3); Cassius Dio (XXXVII.13); Pliny (XXIX.24-25); and A. E. Houseman, “Terence, This is Stupid Stuff.”

Homegrown pot threatens Mexican cartels

CBS News: “Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico.”

Chinese knotweed

Shanghai Daily: “ZHENG Dexun shows off a humanshaped heshouwu, or Chinese knotweed, yesterday in Langzhong in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. The herb, weighing 5.8 kilograms and standing 62 centimeters high, resembles a naked child. Zheng, 63, a farmer in Datianba Village, discovered the oddity five days ago while digging for the herb, which is used [...]

Le disciple de Pantagruel

Navigation: Le disciple de Pantagruel, s.l., 1538 [Lyons, Denis de Harsy]

NRB 131: Listed under spurious works. Similar image in other editions of the Navigation.

Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel

Listed as spurious in New Rabelais Bibliography [NRB 113 (p. 560): the bulk of the book is made up of woodcuts of grotesque figures. Manifestly pseudo-Rabelaisian.]

aequinoctial

51.08.10: De mode que les Intelligences celestes, les Dieux tant marins que terrestres en ont esté tous effrayez, voyans par l’usaige de cestuy benedict Pantagruelion, les peuples Arcticques en plein aspect des Antarticques, franchir la mer Athlanticque, passer les deux Tropicques, volter soubs la Zone torride, mesurer tout le Zodiacque, s’esbatre soubs l’aequinoctial, avoir l’un [...]