06/02/2024
Georges Rémi - alias Hergé - faisait s'aventurer Tintin dans les fumeries d'o***m.
Georges Barbier, lui, y imaginait d'autres aventures...
Last call for tonight’s lecture! Join us online at 7 pm for O***m: Darkling’s Muse with Berlin Cabaret Performer Madame Le Pustra. Learn more and register at bit.ly/o***mmuse.
O***m—potent and evocative, it holds a near mythical place in the drug pantheon with its connotations of mystery, languor, and sinister beauty.
— “O***m: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon,” Barbara Hodge
The intoxicating allure of the Chinese o***m den conjures up a smoky, dreamlike vision of the fashionable demi-monde lounging languorously in lavishly decorated dens, whilst consuming the highly addictive le Dieu noir. Translucent vapeurs serpentines appear from long, strange pipes as the smoke lazily coils upwards, dancing hypnotically, before finally vanishing like an apparition in the night.
The reality was quite different, to say the least. In fact, most often o***m dens were nothing special: dirty and cramped, sometimes with vermin, and almost always with no ventilation. A more luxurious experience (complete with female attendants providing a prepared pipe and refreshments) was available to those with status and money. During the height of the 19th century o***m craze, more sophisticated consumers could partake in the ritual of o***m smoking with beautifully designed paraphernalia. O***m pipes, o***m lamps and other accouterments were crafted from the finest materials — ivory, jade, silver, cloisonne and porcelain.
O***m was also the drug (or muse, if you want to be romantic) of choice for many celebrated 19th and 20th century novelists and poets including Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, Charles Baudelaire, the occultist Aleister Crowley and illustrator Aubrey Beardsley.
Join Berlin cabaret performer Le Pustra as we focus on the compelling history and mystique surrounding the o***m den, including the ritual of o***m smoking and the devastating power of o***m addiction, especially for artists and how it inspired their work, until the eventual ban on narcotics in the early 20th century.
Image: George Barbier, Chez la Marchande de Pavots, 1921