CULTURE SCREENS Tailgate Thursdays with Robert Jospé. Enjoy a laid-back evening in the vineyard with live music, wine, oysters from Salty Bottom Blue Oysters, and BYO lawn games, picnic blankets, and food to grill. Free, 6pm. Stinson Vineyards, 4744 Sugar Hollow Rd., Crozet. stinsonvineyards.com Thursday Evening Sunset Series. Live music, food trucks, Carter Mountain Wine, Bold Rock Hard Cider, and a beautiful view of the sunset. $10, 6pm. Carter Mountain Orchard, 1435 Carters Mountain Trl. chiles familyorchards.com
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Trip itinerary ‘How to Change Your Mind’ explores psychedelics as treatment
etc. Albemarle County Fair. Featuring livestock, agriculture products, craft exhibits, live music, historic demonstrations, food trucks, and much more. Free, all day. James Monroe’s High land, 2050 James Monroe Pkwy. albemarle countyfair.com Arts From Underground. Artmaking, drinks, and karaoke inside The Looking Glass. Free, 7pm. Ix Art Park, 522 Second St. SE. ixartpark.org
Friday 8/5 music Fridays After Five: Mama Tried. With Silas Frayser Band. Free, 5:30pm. Ting Pavilion, 700 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. ting pavilion.com The Legwarmers. Relive the ‘80s with this tribute band. $20, 9pm. The Jefferson Theater, 110 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. jeffersontheater.com Tre Charles. Acoustic soul. Free, 7pm. The Garage, 250 N. First St. thegaragecville.com
No Fear and Blues Long Gone: Nina Simone. See listing for Wednesday, August 3. $15-50, 7:30pm. Culbreth Theatre, 109 Culbreth Rd. virginiatheatrefestival.com
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outside Summer Sundowns. Watch the summer sun descend behind the Blue Ridge Mountains with acoustic music from local performers. Free, 5pm. Chiswell Farm & Winery, 430 Greenwood Rd., Greenwood. chiles familyorchards.com
etc.
Kizomba Fridays. An open community social to gather and learn about kizomba dance and music. Free, 8pm. Ashtanga Yoga of Charlottes ville, 906 Monticello Rd. @core4kizomba
Paramount at the Movies Presents: Pitch Perfect. In honor of its 10-year anniversary, the Paramount will screen the musical comedy that features UVA’s acapella group, Hullabahoos. $5-8, 7:30pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net C O NT I N UE D ON PAGE 2 4
arts@c-ville.com
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ichael Pollan’s 2018 bestseller How to Change Your Mind expounded on psychedelic drugs’ medical benefits and, in Pollan’s view, their unfair stigmatization. Now, Netflix has adapted his book into a four-part docuseries, hosted by Pollan, that is at times gripping and wholly convincing, and, at others, plays like a lame infomercial. Each episode focuses on a separate psychedelic, beginning with LSD. Aside from discussing the drug’s possible medicinal uses, the first episode delves into the lives of key figures in the popularization of psychedelics, including LSD’s inventor Albert Hoffman, Aldous Huxley, and Timothy Leary, among others. There’s a lot of common knowledge here, with some notable exceptions—for instance: Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, had his miraculous epiphany to start AA while experiencing a primitive deliriant treatment, the belladonna cure. The series gets progressively better with each episode, but the first is arguably the weakest. Pollan and his interviewees have a slightly creepy fanaticism about LSD and the perceived benefits of microdosing it. It’s a potent, unregulated, and illegal drug that
has different effects on those who take it, but Pollan elides over its potential drawbacks in the same way a sunny, upbeat TV commercial for psychoactive medication will end with a speed-read laundry list of intense, harmful side effects. There’s a certain naiveté at points throughout the series, like when proselytizing for psychedelics turns into envisioning them as the solution to all of the world’s problems. The second episode, about the hallucinogen psilocybin, is much more successful, not least of all because psilocybin is a relatively benign drug compared to LSD. Pollan speaks with experts on the subject, and people who have experienced relief from various disorders by ingesting psilocybin under clinical supervision. Pollan cogently explores points about its judicious use, and it seems to be enormously beneficial in the right circumstances with the right people. This episode lags when an interviewee describes his drug-induced trip at length, dragging on exhaustively. Further undercutting it is a sloppy, indifferent animated version of this trip. (For truly imaginative psychedelic animation, look to something like Yellow Submarine.) Of the first three episodes, the third, about the medical benefits of MDMA (ecstasy), is the strongest. Pollan and his interviewees make a case for using MDMA in controlled,
clinical settings to help defuse extreme cases of PTSD. Once the favored drug of ’90s ravers, MDMA appears to have life-changing potential. Wholly unlike the previous episode’s rambling digression, listening to trauma victims describe their experiences here is riveting, and testimonials about how the closely observed use of MDMA helped relieve their pain is touching and fascinating. “How to Change Your Mind” makes many thought-provoking and intriguing points; the
“How to Change Your Mind” TV-MA, four episodes Netflix series is only middling because Pollan and his cadre of zealous experts oversell their case. They avoid discussing how wildly different individuals’ body chemistries are and how negatively many people react to even mild substances, let alone something as strong as LSD. Psychedelics are not one-size-fits-all, chemically speaking, and if Pollan had taken a more even-handed approach, “How to Change Your Mind” might have changed far more minds on these issues.
The series gets progressively better with each episode, but the first is arguably the weakest.
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Magic: The Gathering. A casual format with multiple formats, including draft, modern, legacy, and pioneer, and prizes for participants. $5, 6pm. The End Games, 374 Hillsdale Dr. theendgames.co
By Justin Humphreys
@cville_culture
Ix Flix Summer Film Series: Men in Black. Artmaking, family-friendly activities, food trucks, cold drinks, and a sunset movie screening. Free, 6pm. Ix Art Park, 522 Second St. SE. ixartpark.org
Author Michael Pollan (right) researches psychedelics though assisted drug trips in the Netflix docuseries “How to Change Your Mind.”
August 3 – 9, 2022 c-ville.com
Friday Night Writes: A Reading Series for Emerging Writers. Performing short stories, poetry, and music. Free, 7pm. New Dominion Bookshop, 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. ndbookshop.com
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