Shel Silverstein Among the Hippies

Haight-Ashbury, the infamous borough in San Francisco, was the epicenter of the “hippie revolution”, a massive conglomeration of the youth movements ranging from Vietnam protestors, sexual revolutionaries, race-equality warriors, and drug proponents who resettled a downtrodden section of the city and attempted to turn it into a paradise. In July of 1968, Shel Silverstein, Playboy’s chief illustrator and best known for his childrens books, went to Haight-Ashbury to observe what many in the media derided as the “hippie capital of the world.” What follows is a somewhat dark, sometimes whimsical, study of what Silverstein saw as both beautiful and grotesque in San Francisco, often relying on a dry sense of humor to translate his findings to the readers.

Disenchantment
Shel Silverstein Among the Hippies