Heart of Darkness

This small classic novella is a significant book whether you want to read a classic, educate yourself on the inspiration for Apocalypse Now, or find an awesome title for your new metal album.  Its public domain now, right?  Heart of Darkness sounds like a medical condition involving a clotting disorder and maybe it is, I am not a medical doctor, but it is also a classic book about some crazy colonialists in Africa.

People were dumb in the olden times.  This was the age when they believed in phrenology.  Phrenology is a pseudoscience (they didn't think it was so pseudo at the time) which involves the measuring of a subject's head and the expert could determine a person's character and personality.  Marlow, our narrator, gets his head measured by the physician before he goes on his big voyage to Africa.  It seems to be the most important part of his physical, unlike getting vaccines or getting preventive medicine before going to malaria-town.  In the doctor's defense, Marlow could now order a fitted Padres' baseball cap for his river adventure.

Marlow, our riverboat captain narrator, sure talked fancy for being a riverboat captain.  He was full of philosophical and emotive language.  Maybe before the Internet, people had more time to get a diverse and comprehensive education, instead of my typical day which includes 2-3 hours of figuring out ideal hash tags and how to get my hands on a copy of next season's Game of Thrones.  One thing that is confusing is that all of the action described is by use of pronoun.  And there are too manys "he's."  And trust me, this adventure is one big sausage-fest.  Is this "he" crazy-man Kurtz?  Is he the crazy Russian or the pink pajama wearing-gun toting-ivory agent?  Even the few ladies don't have names.  C'mon Conrad, just make something up! Oh, wait, you can't because your dead.  Don't feel bad, Conrad lived to be 66 and in the olden times that was a long life.

Drinks: Malaria again--so I have no choice but to recommend a tonic drink.   This one is complicated but its called the Pith Helmet so we need this.  Also this is from David Lebovitz, so I'm sure its awesome.  It involves two types of gin.  I'm going to give a link because it involves quite a few steps and photos:  http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2013/07/pith-helmet-pimms-cup-cocktail-recipe/