on drugs and genius. not me, them.

coincidentally, last night I watched a flick called "pandaemonium". a bbc effort of some years back - on the rise and fall of samuel taylor coleridge, and his enduring relationship with bill wordsworth. descent into opium fueled madness, run-ins with byron (and what a gorjus actor they used in this role ... anyone who's ever had a byron 'thing' should watch this), socialism, politics, sex, but most of all the death-destroying power of literary genius. while there's plenty wrong with this piece, for the most part it's a heady, swoony, hallucinogenic and shambolic flight through life as a deeply cool poet at the turn of the 19th century. tripping out on 'thorn apple' in the countryside attired in full regency clobber, being anti-consumerism 'let's start a commune' 'down with war' political, etc, the evolution of 'the ancient mariner' and the jealousies evoked by same. gorjus stuff, when you can ignore the flaws, with plenty of work recited throughout.