you can check out any time you like...

but you can never leave

I'm interested in what it was, exactly, about California that made it such a hotbed of the so-called '60s counterculture, and particularly, why that countercultural stew was so flavored with attitudes and inclinations that came to be called New Age. I hope (and suspect) that my questions may be answered by books such as Fool's Paradise: A Carey McWilliams Reader and California: The Great Exception by Carey McWilliams, and perhaps especially Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin. In reviewing that last, Publishers Weekly mentions en passant that "...press lord William Randolph Hearst converted a mining fortune into a media conglomerate preaching the superiority of 'the American race'..." Oh yeah. And maybe I'll even glean something from this -- though it looks more like an example of the problem than a path to greater um enlightenment... In searching around, I also came across an amazing series of books -- "Americans and the California Dream" -- by Kevin Starr, the State Librarian of California. I'm not sure if these books will address my specific concerns, but I sure like the cover art, presented here for your viewing pleasure...

---