A series of headshots of the members of R.E.M..

Was It Cooler Back Then?

A search for the memory of R.E.M. in Athens, Georgia.
Performers at the 1963 Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Ron Patterson, a co-founder of the event, appears in orange at the far right.

The Surprisingly Radical Roots of the Renaissance Fair

The first of these festivals debuted in the early 1960s, serving as a prime example of the United States' burgeoning counterculture.
Marijuana leaves superimposed over photo of two men.

The Dank Underground

In the late Sixties, countercultural media was distributed by the Underground Press Syndicate and bankrolled by marijuana.
The women of the Source Family pose on a Rolls-Royce for an ad for the release of a recording of the cult's band, Ya Ho Wha 13.

The Cult Roots of Health Food in America

How the Source Family, a radical 1970s utopian commune, still impacts what we eat today.
Collage of of Stewart Brand peeking out from behind the earth.

Stewart Brand’s Dubious Futurism

What did the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog stand for?
Yoko Ono looking pensive.

Yoko Ono’s Art of Defiance

Before she met John Lennon, she was a significant figure in avant-garde circles and had created masterpieces. Did celebrity deprive her of her due as an artist?
A photo from the 1976 edition of the People's Yellow Pages shows the publication's volunteers assembled before the Vocations for Social Change office in Cambridge

Why The People's Yellow Pages, A Relic Of '70s Counterculture, Still Resonates Today

Fifty years later, The Yellow Pages stand as a testament to grassroots ingenuity and the radical idealism of '70s counterculture.

Janis Joplin, the Mistaken Icon of the Counterculture

The counterculture dictum to “turn on, tune in, drop out” did not quite capture Janis’s philosophy to “get it while you can.”
Photo of a large crowd at the Altamont Festival, 1969.

What Happened to Rock and Roll After Altamont?

Buzz Poole on the Grateful Dead's “New Speedway Boogie,” and the true end of the Sixties.
People dancing at Woodstock

When Science Was Groovy

Counterculture-inspired research flourished in the Age of Aquarius.

Aquarius Rising

Considering the religious roots of the 1960s anti-militarist counterculture.

Boston’s Most Radical TV Show Blew the Minds of a Stoned Generation in 1967

When a Tufts instructor launched the trippy TV show on WGBH, it was unlike anything viewers had ever seen.

The Long Summer of Love

Historians get hip to the lasting influences of ’60s counterculture
Willie Nelson at the 1973 Fourth of July Picnic, in Dripping Springs.

That ’70s Show

Forty years ago, Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff, and a whole host of Texas misfits brought the hippies and rednecks together in outlaw country.

Locker-Room Liberty

Athletes who helped shape our times and the economic freedom that enabled them.
Two bikers ride through the desert in Easy Rider, a 1969 film.

See America First

Two movies, 'Easy Rider' and 'Alice's Restaurant,' reveal the ideals of counterculture and act as vehicles for social commentary.
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Alt Text

A brief history of the textfile, and the production of conspiracy theories on the internet.
A collage of suggestive images of women, a woman holding a camera, and a red letter X.

How Candida Royalle Set Out to Reinvent Porn

As a feminist in the adult-film industry, she believed the answer wasn’t banning porn; it was better porn.
Cover of "The Freaks Came Out to Write"

The City in Its Grip: On Tricia Romano’s “The Freaks Came Out to Write”

Romano’s book is a vital, comprehensive piece of media scholarship about one of the most influential outlets of the last century. It’s also fun as hell to read.
"Alien Embrace" repeated artwork

The Institute for Illegal Images

Meditating on blotter not just as art, or as a historical artifact, but as a kind of media, even a “meta medium.”