THE ORACLE – SAN FRANCISCO’S PSYCHEDELIC PAPER 1966

“In Haight-Ashbury (a part of San Francisco that I had never even heard of despite having grown up in the city) Victorian houses were taken over by longhairs now called “hippies.” In these rambling houses people created one-room homes, placing multicolored tie-dyed sheets over the windows. Peacock feathers sprouted from jars. Layers of inexpensive Oriental carpets covered the floors. Beds were set on the floor in the middle of the room, blanketed with Indian paisley bedspreads and mounds of tasseled pillows. Wicker baskets overflowed with copies of Rolling Stone and The Oracle, the Haight newspaper. The Oracle was printed with swirls and colors, trying to supplant the linear logic that newspapers were said to represent. Posters advertising local bands were thumb-tacked all over the walls, each poster an image overprinted with the swirling lines of psychedelia.” (From ETHAN RUSSELL:AN AMERICAN STORY )

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