L | | | Labyrinth | An intricate structure of interconnecting passages through which it is difficult to find one’s way. | | | | Landmark | Landmark Education is the successor organization to EST. See “EST.” | | | | Larry the Lobster | The star of an SNL skit whose right to live was determined by a call-in vote using an 800 number. The first such “vote” ever in America. | | | | Laugh-In | Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In was an American comedy television program which ran for 140 episodes from January 22, 1968 to May 14, 1973. It was hosted by comedians Dan Rowan and Dick Martin and was broadcast over NBC. The title, Laugh-In, came out of events of the 1960s hippie culture, such as “love-ins” or “be-ins.” These were terms that were, in turn, derived from “sit-ins,” common in protests associated with civil rights and anti-war demonstrations of the time. The show was characterized by a rapid-fire series of gags and sketches, many of which carried sexual innuendo. Others were politically charged and most were just silly. Rowan and Martin continued the exasperated straight man (Dan Rowan) and “dumb” guy (Dick Martin) act which had successfully established them as stand-up comics. | | | | Lawrence Kohlberg | A psychologist who developed a theory of moral stages of development, from pre-conventional to conventional to post-conventional; 1927-1987. | | | | LBJ | Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States (1963-1969). After serving a long career in the U.S. Congress, Johnson became the 37th Vice President, and in 1963, he succeeded to the presidency following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He was a major leader of the Democratic Party and as President was responsible for designing his Great Society, comprising liberal legislation including civil rights laws, Medicare (health care for the elderly), Medicaid (health care for the poor), aid to education, and a major “War on Poverty”. Simultaneously, he escalated the Vietnam War, from 16,000 American soldiers in 1963 to 550,000 in early 1968. | | | | Leary | Timothy Leary (1920-1996) was a professor at Harvard University who began researching altered consciousness with professor Richard Alpert (Baba Ram Das). LSD and other drugs were used by prison inmates and students and these experiments caused the men to be fired. Leary created the International Foundation for Internal Freedom (IFIF) who used drug use to reach enlightenment. He urged people to “tune in, turn on, and drop out.” | | | | Led Zeppelin | Were an English rock band formed in 1968 and composed of guitarist Jimmy Page, vocalist Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham, and bass guitarist and keyboardist John Paul Jones. They are one of the most successful groups in popular music history. While the band are best known as pioneers of hard rock and heavy metal, they also drew inspiration from many other musical genres, including blues, rockabilly, reggae, soul, funk, jazz, classical, Celtic, Indian, Arabic, folk, pop, Latin and country. Robert Anthony Plant (born August 20, 1948, West Bromwich, West Midlands, England) (vocals), James Patrick “Jimmy” Page, OBE (born January 9, 1944) (guitar), John Baldwin (born January 3, 1946 in Sidcup, London) (bass), John Henry “Bonzo” Bonham (May 31, 1948 – September 25, 1980) (drums). | | | | Leni Lenape | The Lenape or Leni-Lenape (later named Delaware Indians by Europeans) were, in the 1600s, loosely organized bands of Native American peoples. They practiced small-scale agriculture to augment a largely mobile hunter-gatherer society in the region around the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River, and western Long Island Sound. The Lenape were the people living in New Jersey, the vicinity of New York Bay, and in the Delaware Valley at the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their Algonquian language also is known as either, Lenape or Delaware. | | | | Lenny Bruce | Lenny Bruce (October 13, 1925 in Mineola, Long Island, NY – August 3, 1966), born Leonard Alfred Schneider, was a controversial American stand-up comedian, writer, social critic and satirist of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1961 Bruce was arrested for obscenity at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco; he had used the words cocksucker and riffed that “’to’ is a preposition, ‘come’ is a verb” and that the sexual climax of “come” is so common that it bears no weight, and that if someone hearing it becomes upset, they “probably can’t come.” Although the jury acquitted him, other law enforcement agencies began monitoring his appearances, resulting in frequent arrests under charges of obscenity. The increased scrutiny also led to an arrest in Philadelphia for drug possession in the same year, and again in Los Angeles, California, two years later. On August 3, 1966, Bruce was found dead at the age of 40 in the bathroom of his Hollywood Hills home at 8825 Hollywood Boulevard. A syringe and burned bottle cap were found nearby, along with various other narcotics paraphernalia. His official cause of death was acute morphine poisoning caused by an accidental overdose. | | | | Love-ins | A gathering to engender and promote love, as for the satisfaction of the participants or as a form of social activism. | | | | LSD | Stands for lysergic acid diethylamide, aka acid. First synthesized by Swiss Scientist Dr. Albert Hofmann. The US government also used LSD in experiments on metal patients and volunteers in veteran’s hospitals. LSD affects the limbic system of the brain, which controls vivid emotions (awe, love and exhilaration). When asked the ultimate benefit of his accidental discovery, if there is one “I see the true importance of LSD in the possibility of providing material aid to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality. Such a use accords entirely with the essence and working character of LSD as a sacred drug.” On the occasion of his 100th birthday on January 11, 2006, he was the focus of an international symposium, which drew further media attention for his discovery of LSD."I think that in human evolution it has never been as necessary to have this substance LSD," said Hofmann. "It is just a tool to turn us into what we are supposed to be." | | | | Lucid dreaming | Lucid dreaming is the act of dreaming while being aware that you are dreaming. This differs from a normal dream where the dreamer is so involved in their imaginary world that they think of it as the real world. When someone is dreaming their state of consciousness is altered in ways that make it difficult for them to realize that they are dreaming, despite experiences which contradict common sense or their own memory. While lucidity can be an interesting experience in its own right, a major attraction is the related ability to exert conscious control over the dream environment. A good artistic treatment of the Lucid dreaming experience can be experienced while watching the film “Waking Life.” | | | | Ludes | Methaqualone is a sedative drug (Quaalude). It is similar in effect to barbiturates, a general CNS depressant. It was used in the 1960s and 1970s as an anxiolytic, for the treatment of insomnia, and as a sedative. Usual effects include relaxation, euphoria, and drowsiness, also reducing heart rate and respiration. Larger doses can bring about depression, muscular miscoordination, and slurred speech. An overdose can cause delirium, convulsions, hypertonia, hyperreflexia, vomiting, renal insufficiency, coma, and death through cardiac or respiratory arrest. It resembles barbiturate poisoning but with increased motor difficulties and a lower incidence of cardiac or respiratory depression. |
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