i didn't get to Ca till 75, and it was still jumping with alternativity, though the bloom was definitely off the haight st rose, and 'wasted' stopped being a euphemism and became a description.

still the can-do thing was jamming, there was an immensely freer, more playful energy in the air than  ever seen in england. europe seemed mired in narcissistic cerebrality, endless smoky discussion about zombie ideologies and murky loyalties...

the whole earth catalogue crystallised everything admirable about america then.

the west coast has always had an intense counterculture, to match the equally intense military industrial complex entrenched there.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty