What did ’60s people mean by “it’s a gas”? Something like “it blows my mind, it’s trippy, it’s exciting,” I think. Wasn’t there. Were they thinking of inhalants, huffing gas fumes? Or laughing gas, at the dentist’s office? Probably the latter. Wait, no, maybe it was just about the fuel to make a hot rod go – mostly about the excitement.
Whatever the answer, life is a gas, and it blows my mind, and it’s trippy, and exciting. Too much of the last one, unfortunately, but one can abide. I think of the laughing gas. I laugh under stress sometimes, like when I was a six year old shepherd in a school play and lost it completely, or when I annoyed my husband by weirding out at the hospital.
I remember when my homeboy was trying to go on a road trip, with me and my brother, and his car gave up the ghost at freeway speed. We were slumping to a stop while a chu-chunk sound played to the tune of “when johnny comes marching home again.” I started laughing. I remember when we did manage to actually undertake that road trip, and a map put us on something one would barely consider a road, with giant chunks missing and boulders in the way, in the rain in the middle of the night. The gas tank had a “remaining miles” display which was ticking down from two to one to zero super slowly as we struggled up a gradual incline that never seemed to end. Inappropriate jokes, stifled laughs.
We finally crested that hill as dawn broke and the remaining miles jumped up to ten, gravity helping us out. I hope we all crest this hill together, and in the meantime, I hope my coping mechanisms don’t get too annoying.
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Cope away, friend.
I have presumed that “it’s a gas” derives from thoughts such as “now you’re cooking with gas”, expressing enthusiasm for having a piped source of natural gas, instead of having to cook with coal or oil in the kitchen and for the boiler to heat water. I can’t think of any earlier versions of gas.
thx for the thoughts.
man, i was trimming roses the other day and they trimmed me – inch long gouge on left middle finger. i was just picking at my t-shirt absent-mindedly and got some weird strings in my hand, one of which perfectly fit into that gouge. they were pieces of shredded parmesan cheese from lunch.
Or laughing gas, at the dentist’s office?
Probably. Humphrey Davy first discovered its anaesthetic effect in the late 1790s, and used to have big parties at his lab, where various people huffed nitrous and collapsed on the couch. Among the attendees were many notables of the time. Coleridge was apparently a fan of the happy gas, and I always thought the “In Xanadu…” poem sounds like a lost nitrous-trip. Shelly may also have imbibed.
By the way, a large number of creative geniuses have turned to the happy tank:
[quoted in]
my dentists have always stabbed me in the gums, maybe i should ask for the good stuff next time