Walter Benjamin on drugs. "Hashish, Benjamin believed, gave its user...a sort of X-ray vision providing access to the inner workings of time and space, culture and history. In a 1933 entry, he writes, 'There is no more valid legitimation of crock'--Benjamin's code word for hashish--'than the consciousness of having suddenly penetrated, with its help, that most hidden, generally most inaccessible world of surfaces.'" Benjamin's On Hashish is online here.

From 29 September 1928: "First I ordered a dozen oysters. The man also wanted to know right then what was to be ordered for the following course. I indicated a standard something or other. Then he returned with the news that they were out of that. So I looked over the menu at the other courses under the same section, seemed about to order one when the name of another above it caught my eye, until I had reached the top of the list. It was not out of gluttony, though, but rather a quite pronounced politeness towards the entrés, which I didn't want to insult by disregarding them. In short, I got stuck on a pâté de Lyon. Lion pâté I thought, laughing facetiously as it sat before me nicely on a plate, and then disdainfully: this delicate rabbit --or chicken meat-- whatever it may be. To be sated on a lion would not have seemed at all out of proportion to my lion appetite. Besides, it was secretly all settled that I would go to another restaurant after I'd finished at Basso's (that was around 10:30) and have dinner a second time."