Image by Mary Lou
April World Holidays
Bicycle Day ~ Weird
(Click on link above for more information)
“Judging from the name alone, you might be tempted to think that Bicycle Day was a holiday that was used to celebrate and commemorate the two-wheeled method of transportation or the day in the 19th century when it was invented. However, if you did that, you would be dead wrong. This holiday is actually a day that commemorates Dr. Albert Hofmann intentionally taking LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) for the first time after he had discovered it. It’s called Bicycle Day because Dr. Hofmann decided to ride his bicycle home. This holiday is celebrated on April 19th.”
“the day can be celebrated by enjoying the psychedelic art of artists such as Pablo Amaringo, Lee Conklin, Doug Binder, Laurence Caruana, Grace Slick, Robert Williams, Robert Crumb and Victor Moscoso.
This holiday can also be celebrated by enjoying psychedelic songs such as “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, “Are You Experienced” by Jimi Hendrix, “Strawberry Fields Forever” by the Beatles, “The Four Horseman” by Aphrodite’s Child, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” by Iron Butterfly and “Break On Through” by the Doors.
Some of the psychedelic movies that can be enjoyed on this day include: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); Easy Rider (1969); The Devils (1971); Behind the Green Door (1972); Suspiria (1977); Altered States (1980); Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998); Requiem for a Dream (2000) and A Field in England (2013).”
Bicycle Day 2019 ~ 75 Years of LSD
This past November 2018 I took part in the Nibvember 2018 Challenge. Day 27 prompt was Lettering and I came up with the design below. It’s easy to see where my inspiration came from as I’d participated in the A to Z Challenge Lessons Learned in 2016. So, feeling the call to try once again for A To Z Challenge 2019, I decided to sign up for this years using this design as my inspiration.
(c) Image by Mary Lou
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My theme for 2019 A to Z Challenge is:
April World Holidays from A to Z
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Here’s what it’s all about:
Wait – what, we can’t just take psychedelic drugs to celebrate the day? LOL. What a great post – learn something new every day. I’ll listen in on a few of those songs…
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I never knew the history either. I remember the movie ‘Altered States’ and never made the connection to LSD. Some of the songs I remember too!
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What a fantastic theme! Loving these.
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Thank you Martha! 🙂
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Well you are teaching me something new each day with your AtoZ Challenge, MaryLou. 19th April is our 21st wedding anniversary but I’m not sure there will be any LSD in the celebrations. An interesting topic for you AtoZ and I look forward to learning more about holidays from around the world. Thanks for sharing at #MLSTL and have a great weekend. x
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Happy Anniversary coming up! I never touched the stuff myself. 🙂 I don’t think Dr. Hoffman knew what was to follow.
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Well that’s a holiday I’ve never heard of before and understandably now I know what it’s about! I can’t imagine why there’d be a need for a pyschadelic day in April, but each to their own (as a famous person once said).
Thanks for linking up with us at MLSTL and I’ve shared on my SM 🙂
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I’ve never heard of it either. I remember the psychedelic scene. I wonder if the doctor knew what he unleashed.
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Oh, how funny! No – that is not where my mind went when I saw the title of the post.
However…now In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is stuck in my head!
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😀 That’s great! I’m listening to it now. 😀
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Bicycle Day has to be one of the strangest holidays I never heard of!! 🙂
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It’s a new one for me … and yes, very strange. Just read up more on Dr. Hoffman on wikipedia.
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I can’t imagine riding a bicycle during an acid trip. (Not that I ever did acid; I had a friend who did a little too much…)
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At first I thought that Albert Hoffman and Abbie Hoffman were one and the same. That’s how much I was into that scene back then. I was raising my little boys back then. I’d never heard the ‘bicycle’ story and I gather Dr. Hoffman took small doses throughout his life and called it the ‘sacred drug’.
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LSD ? I had no idea where it came from or that it had such a history. Visiting from ⒾⓃⓉⓇⓄⓈⓅⒺⒸⓉⒾⓋⒺ ⓅⓇⒺⓈⓈ https://introspectivepress.blogspot.com/
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This is fascinating! I had no idea LSD had such an interesting history.
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I just looked up Dr. Hoffman on wikipedia. (Not to be confused with Abbie Hoffman) It is an interesting history.
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