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Merry Pranksters
The Merry Pranksters were comrades and followers of American author Ken Kesey in 1964. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters lived communally at Kesey's homes in California and Oregon, and are noted for the sociological significance of a lengthy road trip they took in the summer of 1964, traveling across the United States in a psychedelic painted school bus called '' Furthur'', organizing parties, and giving out LSD. During this time they met many of the guiding lights of the 1960s cultural movement and presaged what are commonly thought of as hippies with odd behavior, tie-dyed and red, white, and blue clothing, and renunciation of normal society, which they ironically dubbed The Establishment. Tom Wolfe chronicled their early escapades in his 1968 book ''The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test'', and documents a notorious 1966 trip on ''Furthur'' from Mexico through Houston, stopping to visit Kesey's friend, novelist Larry McMurtry. Kesey was in flight from a drug charge at the time. Not ...
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Ken Kesey
Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, and grew up in Springfield, Oregon, graduating from the University of Oregon in 1957. He began writing '' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' in 1960 after completing a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. During this period, Kesey participated in government studies involving hallucinogenic drugs (including mescaline and LSD) to supplement his income. After ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' was published, Kesey moved to nearby La Honda, California, and began hosting happenings with former colleagues from Stanford, miscellaneous bohemian and literary figures (most notably Neal Cassady) and other friend ...
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Neal Cassady
Neal Leon Cassady (February 8, 1926 – February 4, 1968) was a major figure of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the psychedelic and counterculture movements of the 1960s. He was prominently featured as himself in the "scroll" (first draft) version of Jack Kerouac's novel ''On the Road'', and served as the model for the character Dean Moriarty in the 1957 version of that book. In many of Kerouac's later books, Cassady is represented by the character Cody Pomeray. Cassady also appeared in Allen Ginsberg's poems, and in several other works of literature by other writers. Biography Early years Cassady was born to Maude Jean (Scheuer) and Neal Marshall Cassady in Salt Lake City, Utah. His mother died when he was 10, and he was raised by his alcoholic father in Denver, Colorado. Cassady spent much of his youth either living on the streets of skid row, with his father, or in reform school. As a youth, Cassady was repeatedly involved in petty crime. He was arrested for c ...
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La Honda, California
La Honda (Spanish language, Spanish for "The Sling") is a census-designated place (CDP) in southern San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County, California, United States. The population was 979 at the 2020 census. It is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains between the Santa Clara Valley and the Pacific coast of California. La Honda is near the La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve and California State Route 84, State Route 84 on the ocean side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Coastal Range. The ZIP Code for La Honda is 94020 and the area code is area code 650, 650. Land-line numbers in the La Honda telephone exchange follow the pattern 747-xxxx while wired telephones in and around the Middleton Tract, California, Middleton Tract (along Portola Redwoods State Park, Portola State Park Road) work out of the Los Altos, California, Los Altos exchange with 94x-xxxx numbers. Per the U.S. Geological Survey, ''Lahonda'' is a historic variant of the modern spelling. Geography According to the ...
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BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's office. It is the world's largest external broadcaster in terms of reception area, language selection and audience reach. It broadcasts radio news, speech and discussions in more than 40 languages to many parts of the world on Analogue signal, analogue and Shortwave listening, digital shortwave platforms, internet streaming, podcasting, Satellite radio, satellite, Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, FM broadcasting, FM and Medium wave, MW relays. In 2015, the World Service reached an average of 210 million people a week (via TV, radio and online). In November 2016, the BBC announced that it would start broadcasting in additional languages including Amharic and Igbo language, Igbo, in its biggest expansion since the 1940s. "BBC World Servic ...
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Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considered among the most prestigious universities in the world. Stanford was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of their only child, Leland Stanford Jr., who had died of typhoid fever at age 15 the previous year. Leland Stanford was a U.S. senator and former governor of California who made his fortune as a railroad tycoon. The school admitted its first students on October 1, 1891, as a coeducational and non-denominational institution. Stanford University struggled financially after the death of Leland Stanford in 1893 and again after much of the campus was damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Following World War II, provost of Stanford Frederick Terman inspired and supported faculty and graduates' entrepreneu ...
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Gurney Norman
Gurney Norman (born 1937) is an American writer, documentarian, and professor. Biography Gurney Norman was born in Grundy, Virginia, in 1937. He grew up in the southern Appalachian Mountains and was raised alternately by his maternal grandparents in Southwest Virginia and his paternal grandparents in Eastern Kentucky in several towns, but primarily in the small community of Allais, near Hazard, in Perry County. He attended Stuart Robinson School in Letcher County, Kentucky, from 1946 to 1955. Norman attended the University of Kentucky from 1955 to 1959, graduating with a degree in journalism and English. In 1960, he received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University where he studied with literary critic Malcolm Cowley and the Irish short story writer Frank O'Connor After Stanford, Norman spent two years in the U.S. Army. He returned to eastern Kentucky in 1963 to work as a reporter for his hometown newspaper, '' The Hazard Herald''. Leaving newspa ...
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Ed McClanahan
Edward Poage McClanahan (October 5, 1932 – November 27, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist, and professor. Biography McClanahan was born in Brooksville, Kentucky on October 5, 1932, to Edward Leroy and Jessie (Poage) McClanahan. He attended school there and later in nearby Maysville, Kentucky, where the family relocated in 1948. McClanahan attended Washington and Lee University for one year before leaving for Miami University, where he received a B.A. in English in 1955. He briefly attended Stanford University's graduate English program during the 1955–1956 academic year, where he studied under Richard Scowcroft and Malcolm Cowley; after failing to acclimate to the program, he received an M.A. in English from the University of Kentucky in 1958. From 1958 to 1962, McClanahan taught first-year composition and a creative writing course previously taught by Bernard Malamud as an instructor at Oregon State University. He received a Stegner Fellowship in Stanford University's ...
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Paul Krassner
Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s as a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and a founding member of the Yippies, a term he is credited with coining. He died on July 21, 2019, in Desert Hot Springs, California. Early life Krassner was a child violin prodigy and was the youngest person ever to play Carnegie Hall, in 1939 at age six. His parents practiced Judaism, but Krassner chose to be firmly secular, considering religion "organized superstition". He majored in journalism at Baruch College (then a branch of the City College of New York) and began performing as a comedian under the name Paul Maul. He recalled: While in college, I started working for an anti-censorship paper, ''The Independent''. After I left college I starte ...
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Wavy Gravy
Hugh Nanton Romney Jr. (born May 15, 1936), known as Wavy Gravy, is an American entertainer and peace activism, activist best known for his role at Woodstock, as well as for his hippie persona and counterculture of the 1960s, countercultural beliefs. He has reported that his moniker was given to him by B.B. King at the Texas International Pop Festival in 1969. Romney has founded or co-founded several organizations, including the activist Intentional community, commune, the Hog Farm, and later, as Wavy Gravy, Camp Winnarainbow and the Seva Foundation. He founded the Phurst Church of Phun in the 1960s, a secret society of comics and clowns that aimed to support ending of the Vietnam War through political theater, and has adopted a clown persona in support of his political activism, and more generally as a form of entertainment work, including as the official clown of the Grateful Dead. As Wavy Gravy, he has had two radio shows on Sirius Satellite Radio's ''Jam On'' station. A do ...
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Del Close
Del Close (March 9, 1934 – March 4, 1999) was an American actor, writer, and teacher who coached many of the best-known comedians and comic actors of the late twentieth century. In addition to an acting career in television and film, he was one of the influences on modern improvisational theater. Close is co-founder of the iO, or iO Chicago, (formerly known as "ImprovOlympic"). Life and career Early life Close was born on March 9, 1934, in Manhattan, Kansas. He ran away from home at the age of 17 to work in a traveling side show, but returned to attend Kansas State University. At age 19 he performed in summer stock with the Belfry Players at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. At age 23 he became a member of the Compass Players in St. Louis. When most of the cast—including Mike Nichols and Elaine May—moved to New York City, Close followed. He developed a stand-up comedy act, starred as the Yogi in the Broadway musical revue ''The Nervous Set'', and performed briefly with an impr ...
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Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, gospel music, gospel, reggae, world music, and psychedelic music, psychedelia; for Concert, live performances of lengthy jam session, instrumental jams that typically incorporated mode (music), modal and tonality, tonal musical improvisation, improvisation; and for its devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". "Their music", writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world". The band was ranked 57th by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in its "Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, The Greatest Artists of All Time" issue. The ...
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Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, gospel music, gospel, reggae, world music, and psychedelic music, psychedelia; for Concert, live performances of lengthy jam session, instrumental jams that typically incorporated mode (music), modal and tonality, tonal musical improvisation, improvisation; and for its devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". "Their music", writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world". The band was ranked 57th by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine in its "Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, The Greatest Artists of All Time" issue. The ...
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