When visiting this exhibit earlier this week, I noticed this late-twenties hipster dude, shorts and work boots, wife beater and de rigeur beard, with a red baseball cap, really poring over some of the printed materials. Like the manifesto which accompanied The Trips Festival, and the same for the Human Be-In manifesto. He was parked right in front, and really taking his time, to the point that I assumed that he was from outside the country and that English was not his first language. After a while I got a little annoyed because every time I wanted to read one of these manifestos, there he was, not budging or sharing, reading these wonderful poetic exhortations to love, compassion, altered consciousness, free everything. anti-capitalisn, anti-imperialism, tune-in, drop out, and so on. Then I looked at the guy again, and the cap, and it all made sense. He was wearing a "Make America Great Again" cap. He was obviously having a hard time understanding what all this drug and love stuff was all about - it was probably a foreign language for him....
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David Hammerbeck
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