So, I'm at Powell's tonight and I notice Douglas Coupland has a new one out entitled "Eleanor Rigby."
I was a little hesitant to jump up and down, because while his last book (Hey Nostrodamus) was really, really good, it was also about the most depressing thing I've read in like, well, ever.
Anywho, looked at the notes on the cover and sleaves, and the book really looks good. Cannot wait to read it, though it might be a while.
So has anyone read it yet?
Full Version: Eleanor Rigby- Douglas Coupland
I haven't picked it up yet. I think that Hey Nostradamus was pretty depressing most of the time, but it ended hopeful. I guess it depends on how you read the ending. I suspect that Eleanor Rigby will be similar.
plus its named after one of my favorite beatles songs.
plus its named after one of my favorite beatles songs.
Lonely Planet: Generation X author Douglas Coupland on the new culture of solitude
Fat, fortyish, and friendless, Liz Dunn is an unlikely heroine, even for an oddball-savant like Douglas Coupland (Hey Nostradamus!, Microserfs). But Liz's wry, crotchety commentary is the heart of Coupland's eighth and arguably best novel, Eleanor Rigby.
When a hunk of meteorite lands at Liz's sensibly shod feet and the son she'd given up for adoption twenty years earlier turns up in a nearby hospital, her drab, solitary life is suddenly upended. Her son Jeremy's apocalyptic visions transform Liz's once-beige existence into a kaleidoscopic circus act.
From his home in Vancouver, the man who popularized the phrase "Generation X" talks to Nerve about his latest creation, the self-help book he'll never write, and why he'll never be a blogger. — Emily Mead
How did you conceive of a person so resigned to solitude that, at age forty-two, she still sleeps in a twin bed?
I find that the seed of the next novel always comes from the last. When Heather in Hey, Nostradamus! said, "Oh, look at me, I'm Eleanor Rigby," something went ding! "Liz Dunn" is actually a good friend of mine, but she's really tiny, like the size of a lima bean.
If Liz came from Nostradamus, what will come from Eleanor?
My next novel is actually ninety-five percent done right now, but it's a sequel to [1995's] Microserfs. Now they work for Electronic Arts, the computer-game company.
What's changed for the Microserfs in the past ten years?
The managerialization of digital creativity, Google, China, massively available porn and gore, the triumph of email…
Why don't you blog?
Back in '91 or '92, I kept a diary, but I realized I was doing my life in this modular, paragraph-y way, thinking "Is this a diary entry or not?" I'd end up deleting all these big chunks of life when their only crime was that they weren't bloggable. Also, I type with two fingers — I took metalwork instead of typing.
So what's bloggable, then?
When you bump into someone from high school and they weigh two hundred pounds. The whole thing about Liz is that she lives a very quiet, interior life. A lot of the changes in life are not car crashes or insane situations — you can be at a stoplight one day and realize something that happened fifteen years ago went to your taproot and you're a different person. Nothing happened, but everything happened. So in this strange way, you're always going forward. I really wanted this book to have a stillness — not that it's an anti-blog or anything, blogs are great — but I don't think it's conducive to fiction.
Liz sometimes feels that "people look at me … and wonder if I merit a fully stocked condo and late- model Honda Accord." What makes a person "worthy"?
Barbara Ehrenreich did a wonderful essay [arguing] that loneliness was good for the economy — that if you atomized a culture, then each new unit had to buy new stoves, new fridges, new towels, new everything, and that it was fiscally advantageous for society to be fragmented. It's not so much a question of what makes a person worthy, but rather, who decides what set of emotional conditions is best for General Electric.
Loneliness comes up frequently in your books. You're about the same age as Liz; are you a particularly lonely or alienated person?
Well, everyone is lonely. I don't really feel alienated, but I used to be terrifyingly lonely in my twenties and it just completely, totally, utterly ****ed me up. I think thirty to thirty-five are the best years because as you get older, you still feel loneliness, but you know what it is, and you know it'll go away. It's like bruising your leg — it doesn't have the power to terrify you anymore.
Why are those years so bad?
We live in an incredibly transient culture. You go from the intense socialization experience of school, then move to the other side of town — or to Los Angeles — where you're dumped into this culture where it takes an incredible amount of money just to live. You're stuck finding your own way and not quite sure who's good or evil, who's using you, "Is it me or is it the alcohol?" And in the midst of all this, you're feeling totally disconnected from a lot of people. Are you clinically depressed? No! You're just lonely, and no one told you what it was or how to identify it, the shapes or colors or forms of it, so you think you're going mental. And because people tend to hang out with people their own age, everyone around you looks great, like they all just stepped out of a shampoo commercial or something, so you think, "They couldn't possibly be experiencing all this crappy shit that's inside of me." Before you even discuss it with people, you've already shut yourself down. And that's your twenties!
Has online dating changed the way that people find and relate to each other?
From all the couples I've met, I'd say that online dating has eradicated loneliness more than any invention in history. So maybe your twenties aren't as bad as they once were. But I doubt it. They're still grim.
Is Liz any lonelier than most people, or just more accepting of it?
When you go to the (by now, huge) self-help section, the books all say, "Don't be lonely, have solitude." Liz has been through all that, and walking through the forest communing with birds didn't work. At her late age, I think she's saying, "I'm not going to feel sorry for myself. I'm going to make it palatable or survivable, but I'm not going to give you any of that wandering-around-the-pond-and-breathing-the-fresh-air."
If you had to write a self-help book, what would it be?
It would probably be about new ways of looking at old situations. One thing that's intrinsically a part of my personality is to take something that you thought you already knew and say "Maybe it's different than you think." Is the solar system just a bunch of rocks circling this blob of molten helium called the sun?…I sound like I'm stoned, but I'm not.
What gives away a lonely person?
Joan Didion once said that it's someone buying exactly one lamb chop. As a broad social trend, I really think it's hanging out in coffee shops. Before Starbucks, there was no place that lonely people could go by themselves without feeling like freaks. Now they glamorize it, like getting a latte while being lonely will make people wonder, "Ooh — who's that mysterious person?" I look at people with laptops in coffee shops and think, "Oh, they're writing their first screenplay — and they're lonely." n°
Fat, fortyish, and friendless, Liz Dunn is an unlikely heroine, even for an oddball-savant like Douglas Coupland (Hey Nostradamus!, Microserfs). But Liz's wry, crotchety commentary is the heart of Coupland's eighth and arguably best novel, Eleanor Rigby.
When a hunk of meteorite lands at Liz's sensibly shod feet and the son she'd given up for adoption twenty years earlier turns up in a nearby hospital, her drab, solitary life is suddenly upended. Her son Jeremy's apocalyptic visions transform Liz's once-beige existence into a kaleidoscopic circus act.
From his home in Vancouver, the man who popularized the phrase "Generation X" talks to Nerve about his latest creation, the self-help book he'll never write, and why he'll never be a blogger. — Emily Mead
How did you conceive of a person so resigned to solitude that, at age forty-two, she still sleeps in a twin bed?
I find that the seed of the next novel always comes from the last. When Heather in Hey, Nostradamus! said, "Oh, look at me, I'm Eleanor Rigby," something went ding! "Liz Dunn" is actually a good friend of mine, but she's really tiny, like the size of a lima bean.
If Liz came from Nostradamus, what will come from Eleanor?
My next novel is actually ninety-five percent done right now, but it's a sequel to [1995's] Microserfs. Now they work for Electronic Arts, the computer-game company.
What's changed for the Microserfs in the past ten years?
The managerialization of digital creativity, Google, China, massively available porn and gore, the triumph of email…
Why don't you blog?
Back in '91 or '92, I kept a diary, but I realized I was doing my life in this modular, paragraph-y way, thinking "Is this a diary entry or not?" I'd end up deleting all these big chunks of life when their only crime was that they weren't bloggable. Also, I type with two fingers — I took metalwork instead of typing.
So what's bloggable, then?
When you bump into someone from high school and they weigh two hundred pounds. The whole thing about Liz is that she lives a very quiet, interior life. A lot of the changes in life are not car crashes or insane situations — you can be at a stoplight one day and realize something that happened fifteen years ago went to your taproot and you're a different person. Nothing happened, but everything happened. So in this strange way, you're always going forward. I really wanted this book to have a stillness — not that it's an anti-blog or anything, blogs are great — but I don't think it's conducive to fiction.
Liz sometimes feels that "people look at me … and wonder if I merit a fully stocked condo and late- model Honda Accord." What makes a person "worthy"?
Barbara Ehrenreich did a wonderful essay [arguing] that loneliness was good for the economy — that if you atomized a culture, then each new unit had to buy new stoves, new fridges, new towels, new everything, and that it was fiscally advantageous for society to be fragmented. It's not so much a question of what makes a person worthy, but rather, who decides what set of emotional conditions is best for General Electric.
Loneliness comes up frequently in your books. You're about the same age as Liz; are you a particularly lonely or alienated person?
Well, everyone is lonely. I don't really feel alienated, but I used to be terrifyingly lonely in my twenties and it just completely, totally, utterly ****ed me up. I think thirty to thirty-five are the best years because as you get older, you still feel loneliness, but you know what it is, and you know it'll go away. It's like bruising your leg — it doesn't have the power to terrify you anymore.
Why are those years so bad?
We live in an incredibly transient culture. You go from the intense socialization experience of school, then move to the other side of town — or to Los Angeles — where you're dumped into this culture where it takes an incredible amount of money just to live. You're stuck finding your own way and not quite sure who's good or evil, who's using you, "Is it me or is it the alcohol?" And in the midst of all this, you're feeling totally disconnected from a lot of people. Are you clinically depressed? No! You're just lonely, and no one told you what it was or how to identify it, the shapes or colors or forms of it, so you think you're going mental. And because people tend to hang out with people their own age, everyone around you looks great, like they all just stepped out of a shampoo commercial or something, so you think, "They couldn't possibly be experiencing all this crappy shit that's inside of me." Before you even discuss it with people, you've already shut yourself down. And that's your twenties!
Has online dating changed the way that people find and relate to each other?
From all the couples I've met, I'd say that online dating has eradicated loneliness more than any invention in history. So maybe your twenties aren't as bad as they once were. But I doubt it. They're still grim.
Is Liz any lonelier than most people, or just more accepting of it?
When you go to the (by now, huge) self-help section, the books all say, "Don't be lonely, have solitude." Liz has been through all that, and walking through the forest communing with birds didn't work. At her late age, I think she's saying, "I'm not going to feel sorry for myself. I'm going to make it palatable or survivable, but I'm not going to give you any of that wandering-around-the-pond-and-breathing-the-fresh-air."
If you had to write a self-help book, what would it be?
It would probably be about new ways of looking at old situations. One thing that's intrinsically a part of my personality is to take something that you thought you already knew and say "Maybe it's different than you think." Is the solar system just a bunch of rocks circling this blob of molten helium called the sun?…I sound like I'm stoned, but I'm not.
What gives away a lonely person?
Joan Didion once said that it's someone buying exactly one lamb chop. As a broad social trend, I really think it's hanging out in coffee shops. Before Starbucks, there was no place that lonely people could go by themselves without feeling like freaks. Now they glamorize it, like getting a latte while being lonely will make people wonder, "Ooh — who's that mysterious person?" I look at people with laptops in coffee shops and think, "Oh, they're writing their first screenplay — and they're lonely." n°
interesting interview, thank's for posting.
Patrik
Patrik
Can't wait to read this. I'm a big fan of Coupland's.
Here's another (from a few years back): From Fear to Eternity
Fav quotes:
"Your 20s are muck and shit and pain and loneliness and horror."
"I've come to believe that the only decisions that matter are those decisions made in the face of eternity."
Fav quotes:
"Your 20s are muck and shit and pain and loneliness and horror."
"I've come to believe that the only decisions that matter are those decisions made in the face of eternity."
be still my heart.
i'm still in love with you, douglas.
-jaem
i'm still in love with you, douglas.
-jaem
Picked up my copy of ELEANOR RIGBY on my lunch hour today... I was thinking about reading it, but will likely read HEY NOSTRADAMUS first (which has been languishing on my to-read stack for a while now).
Thanks for posting the article. He sounds wonderful. I saw Eleanor Rigby yesterday at Borders and thought it looked very good. I have never read anything by Douglas Coupland, but he is definitely on my must read list. I might start with Eleanor Rigby and move backwards. I love the quotes!
I get to hear him read a week from Monday. Will Post a review of it after that.
Great! We expect a full report. 
From the interview: "Before Starbucks, there was no place that lonely people could go by themselves without feeling like freaks."
Bingo! Unless it was your neighborhood used book store/coffeeshop.
I'm not familiar with Coupland, but after reading this interview I'll be looking to adding him to my reading list.
Thanks,
Cher
Bingo! Unless it was your neighborhood used book store/coffeeshop.
I'm not familiar with Coupland, but after reading this interview I'll be looking to adding him to my reading list.
Thanks,
Cher
ya know, he forshadows the topic of this book in miss wyoming too. when joe is a bum for a year, he meets all these eleanor rigbys etc.
Oh, YES! Muahahahaha! Rejoice!!! One of the libraries where I hold a membership has SEVEN of his books IN ENGLISH! This INCLUDES Eleanor Rigby! I can read it! Oh, YES!!! (Whenever I have time, that is.... 
)
)
So, after work today, I stop by my local HFS to pick up a bag of whole wheat pastry flour (it was supposed to be in yesterday), well, guess what, every OTHER flour but that one came in, so now it'll be NEXT Tuesday, and I'm totally out. Bummer!
Sigh ......... so, I stop off at the public library to see if Eleanor Rigby happens to be sitting on the new release shelf, and it was. I sidle up to the old fiction section and to my delight find several other Couplands there. I pull out Generation X, Girlfriend In A Coma, and Miss Wyoming and move on to the non-fiction section where I find a copy of Polaroids from the Dead. I join a bearded, burly guy in a red hoodie and matching sweats cut off a the knees at a reading table and settle in for a quick glance at each book.
Keep in mind that I'd never heard of Coupland until reading this thread. Imagine my delight as I open up Gen X. Three chapters and however many minutes later, I drag myself away from Andy, Dag and Claire. I then move on to Girlfriend In A Coma. Five chapters later .... the same thing, I'm brought back to the now by a loud-mouthed library patron talking about her new puppy (this was an adult, mind you, who you'd think would know better than to bray). I look up at Mr. Red Hoodie, and find him looking at me with much the same look as disgust as I'm sure is showing on my face. We exchange conspiritorial whispers about being shushed by many librarians back when. Then, he returns to his magazine and I to Polaroids.
Where am I going with this? I ended up bringing 3 home and will spend the next few days reading furiously. I love discovering new authors.
Thanks, guys!
Cher
Sigh ......... so, I stop off at the public library to see if Eleanor Rigby happens to be sitting on the new release shelf, and it was. I sidle up to the old fiction section and to my delight find several other Couplands there. I pull out Generation X, Girlfriend In A Coma, and Miss Wyoming and move on to the non-fiction section where I find a copy of Polaroids from the Dead. I join a bearded, burly guy in a red hoodie and matching sweats cut off a the knees at a reading table and settle in for a quick glance at each book.
Keep in mind that I'd never heard of Coupland until reading this thread. Imagine my delight as I open up Gen X. Three chapters and however many minutes later, I drag myself away from Andy, Dag and Claire. I then move on to Girlfriend In A Coma. Five chapters later .... the same thing, I'm brought back to the now by a loud-mouthed library patron talking about her new puppy (this was an adult, mind you, who you'd think would know better than to bray). I look up at Mr. Red Hoodie, and find him looking at me with much the same look as disgust as I'm sure is showing on my face. We exchange conspiritorial whispers about being shushed by many librarians back when. Then, he returns to his magazine and I to Polaroids.
Where am I going with this? I ended up bringing 3 home and will spend the next few days reading furiously. I love discovering new authors.
Thanks, guys!
Cher
I had Eleonor Rigby and Hey Nostradomus in my hands today at Barnes and Noble. I wanted them both but went to the cafe and read a few pages of each book and decided to purchase Hey Nostradomus. (it intrigued me just a fraction of an ounce more than the other one and I had a gift certificate to cover most of the paperback cost). I can tell I'm going to devour this selection quickly!
I never thought to check my library's new release section for Eleonor Rigby. What a splendid idea! I have the feeling that they won't carry it yet, but you never know! While I am there I can pick up some of the other ones you mentioned...
I never thought to check my library's new release section for Eleonor Rigby. What a splendid idea! I have the feeling that they won't carry it yet, but you never know! While I am there I can pick up some of the other ones you mentioned...
Hey Nostradomus was seriously the saddest book I have ever read.
QUOTE(edwardsaaron2000 @ Jan 26 2005, 08:16 PM)
Hey Nostradomus was seriously the saddest book I have ever read.
I started it tonight and I am having a hard time putting it down. I am about 70 pages into it and you are right; it is a sad book. Thought provoking though and full of ideas to ponder. The one that I am focused on at the moment is the quote "To acknowledge God is to fully accept the sorrow of the human condition." That is pretty sobering. Actually, this goes well with the bookclub selection Pilgrim at Tinker Creek...yet another opportunity to think about death and the meaning of it all.
I can't help also but to think of Columbine the whole time I am reading. It is a chilling way to end my evening.
QUOTE(Carrie @ Jan 21 2005, 07:35 PM)
I have never read anything by Douglas Coupland, but he is definitely on my must read list. I might start with Eleanor Rigby and move backwards.
I'd suggest starting at the beginning and working forward, actually. His work matures in a very tangible way, and you'll have a greater appreciation for that reading him as they were written.
QUOTE(drew @ Jan 27 2005, 08:56 AM)
QUOTE(Carrie @ Jan 21 2005, 07:35 PM)
I have never read anything by Douglas Coupland, but he is definitely on my must read list. I might start with Eleanor Rigby and move backwards.
I'd suggest starting at the beginning and working forward, actually. His work matures in a very tangible way, and you'll have a greater appreciation for that reading him as they were written.
Thanks for the tip, Drew. I'm currently reading Generation X which is his first I believe.
Cher
QUOTE(drew @ Jan 27 2005, 08:56 AM)
QUOTE(Carrie @ Jan 21 2005, 07:35 PM)
I have never read anything by Douglas Coupland, but he is definitely on my must read list. I might start with Eleanor Rigby and move backwards.
I'd suggest starting at the beginning and working forward, actually. His work matures in a very tangible way, and you'll have a greater appreciation for that reading him as they were written.
Too late...I just finished Hey Nostradamus! I am feeling very quiet in my soul right now. I am not sure which one to read next by him but I will be reading more of him in the future. He is an amazing author.
As promised, a review of tonight's reading. It is just a cut and paste from what I wrote in my lj though, so if some of the info seems like it doesn't belong, that is why
10:15 pm
Douglas Coupland was really great. He read a little from "Elenoar Rigby," he read a little from the forthcoming (and as of yet, unnamed) sequel to "Microserfs." He drank a lot of wine!!!
I tried to record it, but my mic is just not worth I guess. It came out very, very muffled. Still, if anyone is interested, I would be happy to email the wav files, but like I said, it is very inaudible.
I was trying to think of something to ask him before hand, and thought of the perfect question, but he was only able to take a few questions. I was going to ask him how he felt about inadvertanly naming a generation (he's the one that originally came up with the term "Generation X"). Oh well, next time.
IT was weird, in the Microserfs sequel, basicly he read a part of the book where these people were having a contest to write the best love letter to Ronald McDonald. In one of the letters, the speaker says something like "I'm beginning to sound like Douglas Coupland," or something to that extent.It was almost narrsasistic.
Perhaps his funniest lines were about how none of us were shoplifting, when we had the perfect opportunity. I think I saw a couple security guards move into the crowd after that.
But I really, really enjoyed his reading from Eleanor Rigby. It was truly amazing - he's a slim 40something short haired tall man, and yet while reading that, I could swear he was the pudgy middle aged loner woman from the book.
10:15 pm
Douglas Coupland was really great. He read a little from "Elenoar Rigby," he read a little from the forthcoming (and as of yet, unnamed) sequel to "Microserfs." He drank a lot of wine!!!
I tried to record it, but my mic is just not worth I guess. It came out very, very muffled. Still, if anyone is interested, I would be happy to email the wav files, but like I said, it is very inaudible.
I was trying to think of something to ask him before hand, and thought of the perfect question, but he was only able to take a few questions. I was going to ask him how he felt about inadvertanly naming a generation (he's the one that originally came up with the term "Generation X"). Oh well, next time.
IT was weird, in the Microserfs sequel, basicly he read a part of the book where these people were having a contest to write the best love letter to Ronald McDonald. In one of the letters, the speaker says something like "I'm beginning to sound like Douglas Coupland," or something to that extent.It was almost narrsasistic.
Perhaps his funniest lines were about how none of us were shoplifting, when we had the perfect opportunity. I think I saw a couple security guards move into the crowd after that.
But I really, really enjoyed his reading from Eleanor Rigby. It was truly amazing - he's a slim 40something short haired tall man, and yet while reading that, I could swear he was the pudgy middle aged loner woman from the book.
Douglas Coupland interviews Morrissey...
QUOTE
Thrilled by word of a new album, Morrissey fan and celebrated author Douglas Coupland flies halfway around the world to meet the singer in Rome. But does the real Morrissey reveal himself? And can Coupland ever hope to understand a man who 'defines eccentricity'? An OMM exclusive
Interesting read from the Guardian: "Works like a charm: Jonathan Franzen's is a squeaky chair, Jane Smiley's a hot bath, Douglas Coupland's chocolate chips ... writers reveal what gets their creative juices flowing"
QUOTE
Douglas Coupland: chocolate
Last summer I had some stomach problems and had to remove several items from my diet - chocolate, hard liquor and tomatoey foods. Around that same time began a period of writer's block that, after seven months or so, began to frighten me. I think all writers are superstitious that way - that somehow, some day, whatever it is that makes their voice their own will simply leave. When you're inside writer's block it's horrible because you're simply not you any more. You're this person who used to be you. Now you're this person who's going to have to get a day job.
This winter I also began going to the gym with a trainer five days a week, and after a few weeks I noticed that, in general, when exercising, my endorphins take about 45 minutes to kick in. I've never been a jock and I always thought endorphins were a media hoax, but they do exist, and once your system releases them, exercise becomes fun.
I asked my trainer, Neil, how long it takes his endorphins to kick in, and he said maybe five minutes - so I began to wonder if maybe there's one simple chemical reason for jocks being jocks and nerds nerds: endorphin release rate. I asked Neil if he could find out if there was a food or a pill I could eat before the gym to speed up endorphin release. His answer? Chocolate.
So I began eating dark chocolate two hours before working out and was shocked at the almost instant change in my body's response to activity - I loved it - my happy chemicals were releasing within five minutes. I was wary of a placebo effect, but it's been a month now, and my endorphins kick in, bingo, right on the five-minute mark.
But the big shocker was that my writers' block ended. This was a block so bad that in its midst writing even these simple few hundred words could never have happened. And I owe it to chocolate: specifically, Baker's milk chocolate chips, which come in 300g bags - the chips used in chocolate chip cookies. Without these chips, there is no work. It's that binary. I keep them to the left of my keyboard and I eat maybe 50 or so medicinally once a day.
The one sad thing that happened as a result of this is that I no longer enjoy the taste of chocolate - my brain has reclassified it as a medicine and, frankly, I wish I could take chocolate pills and not have to taste it any more. Nature is, if nothing else, perverse.
Last summer I had some stomach problems and had to remove several items from my diet - chocolate, hard liquor and tomatoey foods. Around that same time began a period of writer's block that, after seven months or so, began to frighten me. I think all writers are superstitious that way - that somehow, some day, whatever it is that makes their voice their own will simply leave. When you're inside writer's block it's horrible because you're simply not you any more. You're this person who used to be you. Now you're this person who's going to have to get a day job.
This winter I also began going to the gym with a trainer five days a week, and after a few weeks I noticed that, in general, when exercising, my endorphins take about 45 minutes to kick in. I've never been a jock and I always thought endorphins were a media hoax, but they do exist, and once your system releases them, exercise becomes fun.
I asked my trainer, Neil, how long it takes his endorphins to kick in, and he said maybe five minutes - so I began to wonder if maybe there's one simple chemical reason for jocks being jocks and nerds nerds: endorphin release rate. I asked Neil if he could find out if there was a food or a pill I could eat before the gym to speed up endorphin release. His answer? Chocolate.
So I began eating dark chocolate two hours before working out and was shocked at the almost instant change in my body's response to activity - I loved it - my happy chemicals were releasing within five minutes. I was wary of a placebo effect, but it's been a month now, and my endorphins kick in, bingo, right on the five-minute mark.
But the big shocker was that my writers' block ended. This was a block so bad that in its midst writing even these simple few hundred words could never have happened. And I owe it to chocolate: specifically, Baker's milk chocolate chips, which come in 300g bags - the chips used in chocolate chip cookies. Without these chips, there is no work. It's that binary. I keep them to the left of my keyboard and I eat maybe 50 or so medicinally once a day.
The one sad thing that happened as a result of this is that I no longer enjoy the taste of chocolate - my brain has reclassified it as a medicine and, frankly, I wish I could take chocolate pills and not have to taste it any more. Nature is, if nothing else, perverse.
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