-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Brancazio <jbrancazio@mail.hamquist.com>
To: The List <acid-jazz@ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, September 26, 1997 2:01 AM
Subject: better living through chemi
>ok, everyone this is off topic, beware. I try to limit _my_ senseless
>ramblings to about once a month, and this topic has engaged me for the past
>twenty minutes:
>
>Does anyone know of the origin of the phrase "Better Living Through
>Chemistry"?
>
>(For those of you who don't see why I think at least it's relevant enough
>for a little fun on the list, it's the title of a recently-domesticated
>(U.S.) quite popular album by Norman Cook.)
>
>
>I think the phrase must have been invented in the early days of
>pharmaceutical research, whenever they were, probably as a marketing
>slogan. In any event, it couldn't have been invented before the
>discipline of chemistry!
>
>
>You also may (not) be interested to know that it was the title of Episode
>52 of Miami Vice which aired in the 1986-1987 season. David Byrne may
>have released something with the same title in 1995. It's a title of a web
>page used by some group of people on the net called BLTC Research who are
>prophesizing and deliberating about a bioengineered utopia
>(www.bltc.co.uk). Finally, it has been used as a subtitle in an Economist
>article written on April 6, 1996 which makes a very good case for ecstacy
>legalization in medical use; the first line is "Society's moral confusion
>over drugs is neatly illustrated by its differing reactions to Prozac and
>ecstasy".
>
>
>It is my theory that the subtitle may have provided the inspiration for
>Fatboy Slim's title and in fact that Fatboy Slim _reads_ the Economist but
>I have absolutely no way of verifying this whatsoever.
>
>
>Anyways, if anyone else knows about its origin I'd be curious to hear about
>it.
>
>
>Jay B
>
>
>