May 09 2007
Web of Coincidence
A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle listed some of their columnists’ favorite YouTube videos.
Chosen by Neva Chonin, who writes Live! Rude! Girl!, was the following:
“Spiders on Drugs,” 1:49: Some of you might remember that, back in the ’60s, when authorities blamed drugs for everything ailing modern youths (this was before video games), a certain Dr. Peter Witt conducted an enlightening experiment. After dosing hapless spiders with a variety of hallucinogens, he documented the impact of arachnid freak-outs on web building. The original results were entertaining enough in their own right, but now an entity calling itself the First Church of Christ, Filmmaker has updated Witt’s efforts. A seamless replication, this video looks and sounds like vintage reel-to-reel propaganda … and then … things begin getting strange. Is that a handgun by your eighth leg, Mr. Crack Spider, or are you just happy to see us? www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc
Both Dr. Witt and the spider experiments are well known to me, because my father conducted them with Dr. Witt, who was a colleague and dear friend. The experiments were later gathered into a book co-written with a third scientist, Dr. Reed, called A Spider’s Web. The book is on my shelf, along with the rest of the Dad Collection, but I hadn’t thought about it in years. It was nice to be reminded, and nice to know that his work lives on. I know he would have loved that article!
Comments Off on Web of Coincidence