![dada.jpg](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLjrLlXB6s_FSFJlaTVpsAzkQYKl8xikXPLhtaYVJcqH42kMx7zJrcDUDr-ByHadMl2SWTFies1XwFArb6epobAwVgXy0ttQ69I-7kN8B3M48XjHEqUjZVs2YjZkEm5DYxl2zZvaPbjvvc/s128/2008_03_dada.jpg)
![doane.jpg](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVWNGbYjZb6HdzeXf25zTRXJNmlUQciFa8llGb9zrkS3pPLhnuAH-SGphlO3kiIHdd4dL_wqZlkwYxMUVeH83oukCgSSEemc-Fh44JIGaWckjvYqRxWZNoCSo30k-4Y47Zq68_Yx3C2X5p/s128/2008_03_doane.jpg)
Two thoughts on substance abuse for St. Patrick’s Day, traditionally alcohol-soaked as it is:
•William F. Buckley favored drug legalization and once sailed his yacht into international waters to smoke a joint with legal impunity, explaining National Review’s occasionally-mentioned anti-drug-war position, which is not, alas, the default position among conservative politicians.
Buckley, then, might have sympathized with that couple who I mentioned two entries ago who are getting married in Bali: Despite having a fair number of hippie-like Burning Man-attender friends, they feel compelled to remind their wedding guests before travel that Indonesia has the death penalty for illicit drugs. You can see how that would be a damper on a celebration.
•On a similar note, there was a TV-movie in 1988 about Westerners facing the death penalty for drugs (which are called “dadah” in Malaysia) overseas, with the bizarre result that one day while I was home from college I saw the unusual block-letters-with-no-details one-page ad in the TV Guide that advertised the movie, simply giving its title (with time and plot details on a subsequent page), meaning that for at least a moment the reader just saw the following, writ very large:
DADAH IS DEATH
And perhaps I’m not the only one who thought, with much greater excitement than any TV-movie could produce, that avant-gardists had bought a one-page ad in TV Guide simply in order to reprint one of the Dada movement’s most famous meaningless art slogans (albeit with an H on the end — but the Dadaists were certainly not averse to weird variant spellings).
That was around the same time Brown deconstructionist film theory professor Mary Ann Doane had a letter published in TV Guide (about sexism or something), and I admit I enjoyed being able to say to a member of Brown’s most notoriously pretentious and Marxist department, Modern Culture and Media: “Hey, saw your letter in TV Guide, professor!”
1 comment:
I saw the movie on TV and would love to find a copy.
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