(“Weed Read: Green Buds and Hash” was originally published on twelvehighchicks.com, July 7, 2015.)
The cover is a familiar red, featuring a not-quite-right-but-familiar character, but also not-quite-right-but-familiar pot paraphernalia. Theodore Geisel never drew a bong for a Dr. Seuss book, but if he had, it would look like the one created by Chip Crumb for the front of Dana Larsen’s Seuss-satire Green Buds and Hash. Seuss-like drawings of all manner of marijuana continue inside, paired with Seuss-like rhymes about our favourite flower.
I urge you to, just this once, judge a book by its cover. Because for anyone raised with Green Eggs and Ham, and who smokes pot, the rest of the book is as enticingly familiar-yet-not as the outside. And it’s good.
The cover promises a pot-filled parody, but this book is more than that. Parody is mostly silliness and mockery—Weird Al, anyone?—but satire, useful satire, has purpose and meaning. And both the purpose and meaning in Green Buds and Hash are served well by the structure of Geisel’s tale, once used by parents of picky eaters to convince their children to “just try it, already!”
Do you remember Sam I Am, who wouldn’t take no for an answer? I couldn’t stand that little bastard, myself. Green eggs would taste the same whether eaten with a goat or on a boat. Green ham eaten in a box or with a fox would still be ham. Really, Dr. Seuss was wearing down our childish resistance to novelty without giving actual reason why we should expand our diets.
Well, Larsen has removed that pushy sameness. Mr. Stash doesn’t offer various bud-and-hash smoking locations and situations—no “Would you smoke it in a car? Would you smoke behind a bar?”—but instead offers various bud-and-hash consumption options. And we know those make a difference.
Still, Mr. Stash’s erstwhile smoking companion is not interested, just like in the original. And the offers continue, just like in the original. And they’re told in rhyme, just like the original. They’re good rhymes, too, true to the structure of the source material. And they’re creative—how would you rhyme “tincture”? Occasionally phrasing lags, but it’s minor and to be expected when trying to tell an adult tale in a child’s metre. Overall the lines flow together and the tale unfolds in the familiar-but-not, Seuss-like way one now expects.
But not the way opponents of marijuana legalization might hope: Mr. Stash is no street-drug pusher. And there’s more to the tale than “just try it already.” Our protagonist looks run down, a little more haggard than his fussy Seuss counterpart. Dana Larsen isn’t quiet about his political stance on medical marijuana and prohibition, so rest assured, you know where the story is going. But how it gets there is a real—infused—treat.
As a poet and fan of satire, I was impressed. As a person that learned to read through Dr. Seuss, I enjoyed it hugely. And as an activist, I think it’s a great book to have lying around for anti-use friends to flip through. You can get your own copy online ($15) at greenbudsandhash.com and danalarsen.com.