Thursday, March 3, 2011

Bartender, I'll have a "Korzybski" please.

Alfred Korzybski became friends with R.B. Haseldon, curator of manuscripts at the Huntington Library in Southern California. The two men had met in person and had a lively correspondence for a number of years before and after the publication of Science and Sanity in 1933. Haseldon, who had developed a considerable interest in Korzybski’s work, seemed full of fun, inventing a cocktail which he called “The Korzybski” with the following formula, as reported third-hand later on in a newspaper snippet: 
“...You take a large cocktail shaker and place therein: 3 parts gin, 2 parts applejack, 3 parts dry vermouth, 1 part sweet vermouth. Stand this in the refrigerator for one hour, then drink and note results. Better still, have someone note the results for you. You soon reach the nonverbal level, where one can point, but cannot utter.” *

Note
* “Punk and Incense,” Trenton N.J. Advertiser, March 27, 1938. Alfred Korzybski Digital Archives 2.833.


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