''The Digger Papers'' was a free collective publication of the

Diggers The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from ...

, one of the 1960s improvisational theatre groups in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

's Haight-Ashbury district. The magazine was first published in Fall 1965.

Peter Berg Peter Berg (born March 11, 1964) is an American director, producer, writer, and actor. His directorial film works include the black comedy ''Very Bad Things'' (1998), the action comedy ''The Rundown'' (2003), the sports drama '' Friday Night Lig ...

was one of the regular contributors to the publication. One of the first Digger activities was the publishing of various broadsides, which were printed by sneaking into the local Students for a Democratic Society office and using their Gestetner printer. The leaflets were eventually called ''The Digger Papers'', and soon morphed into small pamphlets with poetry, psychedelic art, and essays. They often included statements that mocked the prevailing attitude of the

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

promoted by less radical figures like the Haight-Independent Proprietors (HIP), Timothy Leary, and Richard Alpert. The first paper mocked the

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

community, saying, "Time to forget because flowers are beautiful and the sun's not yellow, it's chicken!" ''The Digger Papers'' originated such phrases as "Do your own thing" and "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Articles rarely included authors' names, though some had pseudonyms like "George Metevsky," a reference to the "Mad Bomber" George Metesky. The last issue of ''The Digger Papers'', published in August 1968, featured a reprint of

Richard Brautigan Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – c. September 16, 1984) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. A prolific writer, he wrote throughout his life and published ten novels, two collections of short stories, and four bo ...

's poem, "

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" is a poem by Richard Brautigan first published in his 1967 collection of the same name, his fifth book of poetry. It presents an enthusiastic description of a technological utopia in which machine ...

References

External links

''The Digger Papers'' archive
1965 establishments in California 1968 disestablishments in California Defunct magazines published in the United States Entertainment magazines published in the United States Free magazines Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco Magazines established in 1965 Magazines disestablished in 1968 Magazines published in San Francisco Theatre magazines Visual arts magazines published in the United States {{entertainment-mag-stub