Chet Helms, the family dog
1090 Page Street
home of Big Brother & the Holding Company
GO 60s Cultural  Revolution

Buena Vista Park begins the Haight Street stretch to the park at Stanyon.  Timeless ambiance, like this surreal garden, has a hauntingly beautiful deep grey diamond or smoky quartz crystal vibration.
 
rt, Edward Scissorhands [Johnny Depp] represents the prevailing quest for self-realization.

I seemed to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black and brass for a moment—a figure so transparent that the bench behind with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone.  

Thanks to Michele for the picture
(the Hep Kats Ball was a benefit for Allen Cohen
who gottaliver andahquiver).

Footnotes

*  There were minor earthquakes, however the major events were the Watts riots in Los Angeles and the Free Speech Movement in Northern California. By themselves these events were responsible for global changes - in the way people defined their co-created communities. Perhaps some of these changes were due to the country's loss of President Kennedy who had been a world symbol of hope [in the same way Princess Diana has been for so many in recent times.  Kennedy took office during the January-February 1961 conjunction of the two business planets, Jupiter and Saturn, considered unlucky by many stargazers and often called the "20 year curse."]

1840 - William Henry Harrison......pneumonia
1860 - Abraham Lincoln......assassination
1880 - James Garfield......assassination; when Chester A. Arthur succeeded to the Presidency, he was eager to prove himself above machine politics. Go to part one, Gavin Arthur astrologer to the Beat Generation.
1900 - William McKinley.......assassination
1920 - Warren Harding........heart failure
1940 - Franklin Roosevelt.......cerebral hemorrhage
1960 - John Kennedy.....assassinated
1980 - John Lennon was assassinated.  President Reagan did not die in office; he was shot and nearly killed by an assassin. The President was also diagnosed by some as having developed Alzheimer's disease while in office.

  Ceres   - 'Ceres' her name can be translated as, 'Growth.'  A gilt statue of Ceres
  stood alongside one of Mercury in the Forum. Ceres/Demeter, Goddess of
  the Mysteries, is always linked with Virgo, The Virgin, or Earth Mother.

CERES YOKED HER PAIR OF DRAGONS TO HER CHARIOT ...
         AND BROUGHT THE CHARIOT TO TRIPOLEMUS AND
  GAVE HIM SEED AND BADE HIM SCATTER IT
  PARTLY IN VIRGIN LAND AND PART IN FIELDS ...
-Ovid,  Metamorphoses [13] v 646
 

The festival atmosphere at the Haight-Stanyon entry to the park felt like the Baggins party in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien included many ancient mystery symbols in Bilbo's party scenario. Prior to Bilbo's farewell, Frodo played drums in the band as dancing hobbits formed a free moving circle - all this very close to mystery play rituals that opened the door to the 'other world.' Visit an Indian power shirt page. The party day, September 22, is one we link to the Autumn Equinox, though the Shire calendar reckons time a bit differently. The same dance though, popular at the Fillmore and Avalon Ballroom, is a mainstay for agricultural festivals because it is associated with changes in the annual planting-reaping rituals.

Peter Jackson's version of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, transfers an agricultural mindset to the screen via the hobbit love for all things that grow. Although hobbits of the Shire are not portrayed as vegetarian, we are under the impression their love of growing grain, fresh mushrooms, and hearty crops for the vegetable market is the same as those held by residents of the Haight [in the 60s.]

The same is true of those who celebrate the upturned Earth in Spring, Autumn harvest festivals, and the Eleusinian Mysteries. Cereal [from Ceres] such as granola, familia, and cooked grains - popular in Haight culture - are often a replacement for bacon and eggs.

The seven hills and sacred temples represent a doorway to the 'other world' either as a group or individually. The allusion to the seven great entrances, that lead into the Earth, is recognized as many mystical power zones are sought by mountain climbers, mystery hounds, and metaphysical adepts. Once Bilbo put the Ring of Power on his finger he unlocked the door to the 'Underworld' in it's most malefic configuration. This same door was continually suggested in the film, Gladiator - as it presented a positive experience for Maximus. Harry Potter evaded this door with his friend's 'time turner' [Hermione's gift from Professor McGonagall] and enabled 'innocents' to escape an unjust fate. The Matrix key to a multitude of 'back doors' and The Architect, a master key, could only be attained by first neutralizing complex computerized security systems, but it was done. Those living in Haight-Ashbury zones of mystic power also came to the conclusion the door itself carries with it no particular affiliation.
 

 Trivia for Apocalypse Now fans - a "big network" macrocosm... One book Brando's character, Col. Kurtz,  has on the night table in his cave is, The Golden Bough, by Sir James Frazer. The text, though heavily edited, achieved popular status in the Haight. Jerry Garcia had a clear idea about it's content and, in several categories, could not  support the author's picture of sympathetic magic defined in the edited version. Science is still debating some of these entry level metaphysical themes.

The uncensored [Kurtz] version would have left us all a different tome to review; revisit the book if you locate an edition complete with all the goodies. Garcia specifically disagreed with the second principle mentioned in the paragraph following the Captain Willard [Martin Sheen] quote. Sympathetic Magic research poses a question about the 'memory' capacity of atoms. When the atom 'drifts' out of specific configurations to refigure itself with new forms that have unique identity, motive and vibration fingerprints, very different from their prior alignments, does the atom complete the transition seamlessly? If the atom can bring along anything, such as trace memory of it's own 'journey' through this material world, is the atom able to feel familiarity when in contact with a prior form it once co-created? Or, is the atom without recognition of past affiliation and collective consciousness?
  

Willard: I was going o the worst place in the world and I didn't even know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the war like a main circuit cable - plugged straight into Kurtz. It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz's memory - any more than being back in Saigon was an accident. There is no way to tell his story without telling my own. And if his story really is a confession, then so is mine.

** According to THE ROLLING STONE  Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Quicksilver Messenger Service were one of the vintage acid-rock San Francisco bands of the late Sixties. Their early shows and albums (featuring the heavily tremoloed guitar work of John Cipollina plus that of second guitarist Gary Duncan) contributed some of the best remembered instrumental jam music of the period…

Quicksilver Messenger Service was formed in 1965 in San Francisco with starting line-up and other members to follow:  Gary Duncan (b. Sep. 4, 1946, San Diego, CA), gtr., voc.; John Cipollina (b. Aug. 24, 1943, Berkeley CA), gtr.; David Freiberg (b. Aug. 24, 1938, Boston), bass, voc.; Greg Elmore (b. Sept. 4, 1946, San Diego, CA), drums; Jim Murray, voc., harmonica….  Nicky Hopkins (b. Feb. 24, 1944, London) kybds.; Dino Valenti (b. Nov. 7, 1943, New York City)  voc., gtr. (his “Dino’s Song” appears on the debut LP); Mark Naftalin, piano;  Mark Ryan, bass; Chuck Steales, organ. In  1973 -Anthology was released (re-formed with Duncan, Cipollina, Elmore, Valenti, Freiberg) and in 1975 QMS contributed Solid Silver.

* **   For dowsers, the chi traffic flows up Haight to Stanyon Street.  Because Stanyon runs parallel to the park entry, City chi divides into three energy lanes at the end of Haight Street at the park. The inverted T traffic lane forces some chi that would normally flow through the drummer's  area [and into the park] right as some chi splits off to the left, parallel to and away from the park entrance.
This design increases the intense chi traffic flow on the Stanyon Street energy lane that leads to and from Jefferson Airplane's mansion on Fulton Street.  The link between Jefferson Airplane's home and the Sun Temple on Haight Street is still strong and may be monitored with rods or pendulum late at night, when street traffic thins out. More Jefferson Airplane links. The art of Grace Slick - check Nero Hare, "...an
                     inspector, a flat foot, a sleuth."  Jefferson Starship - The Definitive Concert

 

In the beginning, the "old fashioned" phase of the West Coast cultural revolution, the characteristic 'warm and fuzzy' San Francisco emotional wave emanated from small clubs like The Matrix more than The Avalon Ballroom or The Fillmore. The Matrix was the well known 'in scene' - architecturally encapsulated as a close, cozy rock & roll night - charged performances by Jefferson Airplane melded band members' individuality as a group as each artist contributed a separate reality in the creative climate. [Platinum & Gold Collection, Jefferson Airplane.]  

The Blue Violet night sky is conducive to the Old San Francisco lifestyle Herb Caen applauded in more than 16,000 columns for the Chronicle and Edward R. Murrow spoke for in the CBS newsroom. Tensions generated by a grey cloud over D.C. [Good Night and Good Luck] reached the Golden Gate, but East Coast 'witch hunts' are frequently viewed from the surf at a distance. See Cinema for Peace.

Locals on the look out for low key, but not low profile, theatrical entertainment could get in to see The Matrix headliners.  Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Sopwith Camel, and many 'guest' bands performed there when they were in town. Like The Both/and  club on Divisadero, constants at The Matrix were variety, pizzazz, and improvisation. They were quintessential hip scrapbook memories, and still they have no URLs. So I made one - it's a simulation style, pseudo-night club.  

Click BBHC's Jan 17-22, 1967 poster. San Franciscans often caught a cable car from Market or Hyde Street
to Cost Plus [prowling for the latest bit of curious gadgetry to add to the hostess bag of tricks] to entertain
and amuse out-of-towners. After Cost Plus and Fisherman's Wharf, we walked to The Matrix [Fillmore Street]
for a night of great music, a glass of wine, and the light show.  See Peter Albin Interview.  Artist Influences

   BEATLES

Also  check Brad Pitt for variations on the Galaxy as defined through human history

****  Star Trek, Batman, and The Time Tunnel were successful on the silver screen during the final stretch of the 20th Century and are still up and running in the new aeon. The little screen curtain ascended on the series form of home entertainment. One of the new era themes became  time/space manipulation, a  curiosity of universal  interest after two shock fest films, The Fly and H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, the book usually credited as having launched the time-travel genre. Suddenly Last Summer came later. 

By the time of the Summer of Love movie-going history continued to keep pace with astonishing  revelations in parapsychology, science, and with clairvoyant test subjects. It could be said that one little book began the second psychic revolution, The Search for Bridey Murphy, and launched mystical time and space travel research during the 50s throughout the last of the twentieth century. People were anxious to see the show in Reno and Las Vegas conducted by hypnotist Pat Collins. Later, in the 70s, Kathryn Kuhlman packed convention centers that simulcast her speech. The sixties alternate itinerary, spiritual retreat zones such as The Haight, Hawaiian waterfalls, or searching sunken worlds, were parallel with structural Ecumenical Movement change, shepherded by Pope John XXIII. Most obviously, this would foster "Jesus Freaks" as they were known [not considered derogatory at the time], early Christian  look alikes who made up a fair portion of Hashbury. Some took these reverent folk to be visitors from Mt. Shasta, rumored  the last descendants of Lumaria survivors, linked with a lifestyle and technology described in the James Chruchwood books. Prior to the Bridey Murphy phenomenon, hypnosis was considered black magic everywhere in the mainstream. The film and story about the extraordinary search for Bridey Murphy changed America's destiny path long  before the advent of LSD, the psi-cops, or social engineering experiments.  My Godparents were into past life research during the Bridey Murphy revolution and brought many hypno-therapy techniques into The Haight community.  Resurgence of Egyptian art forms and the blockbuster movie, Cleopatra, The Egyptian Book of The Dead, The Tibetan Book of The Dead, The Qabalah [or Kabbalah - teaches three incarnations may be necessary to find the soul mate] - all were instantly introduced into our modern [waking] collective consciousness...  and we have not even begun to scratch the surface. The word 'zen' was infused into mainstream conversation by Governor Jerry Brown.