“The San Francisco Oracle, a psychedelic, multicolored tabloid, was the most beautiful newspaper ever seen on the streets of the planet… Though the least political of all the underground papers, The Oracle embodied the passion for beauty in a new and exciting way little understood by political people. Old copies of The Oracle should be dug up and studied. They were the Real McCoy.”
- Abbie Hoffman, quoted by Oracle’s founder Allen Cohen on page xv of the bound book, which may rank as one of the coolest pieces of primary material ever. I’m looking through it to help me set up the context of the sixties counterculture in my thesis.
The papers are huge, probably 11” x 17”, and absolutely stunning, artistically. And oh so Sixties. I practically feel like a Digger when I read it. Like, I’m going to go drop some acid and farm asparagus in the People’s Park after I write this - that is, if I don’t get distracted by all the free bodies and free Jefferson Airplane I’m probably imbibing on RIGHT NOW.
Oh, and I can’t resist this bit - San Francisco used to have that Oracle, and now it has this Oracle:
… named after the code name of a CIA project that the founder was working on before he started the company. Oracle creates database management systems and its headquarters are on the San Fran penninsula. And a Wikipedia fun fact: its buildings are featured as the HQ for the company “NorthAm Robotics” in the Robin Williams film Bicentennial Man (1999). Remember that movie?
