In 1962, Bruce Conner left San Francisco and moved to Mexico, apparently intending to “wait out the impending nuclear holocaust”. He spent about a year in Mexico before running out of cash and patience, and returning to the United States. During his year in Mexico, Conner hosted psychedelic guru Timothy Leary, who he had met on an earlier visit to New York. Conner and Leary occupied themselves with mushroom hunts in the Mexican countryside. It’s not clear whether their hunts were successful. But Conner’s staccato home-movies of their walks – combined with movies of previous mushroom hunts in San Francisco – became his film Looking for Mushrooms. The film rushes through the rustic landscape of rural Mexico, flitting past houses and through a crumbling graveyard.
Conner cut Looking for Mushrooms down to 100 feet in 1965 in order to fit it into an endless-loop cartridge for continuous projection. In 1967 he added a soundtrack by The Beatles (“Tomorrow Never Knows”).
Bruce Conner: Looking for Mushrooms (1967)
6 SepIHOP Commercial 1969
19 FebOh yes, more pancakes please. Here’s a vintage commercial for the International Hpuse of Pancakes. I don’t really know what’s up with this one. Is that soundtrack original? Whatever the story, it’s definitely trippy.
The color of pommegranates
11 JanIf you liked Jodrowski’s Holy Mountain, you might also enjoy Parjanov’s The Color of Pommegrantes (1969) which might very well be called the soviet holy mountain.
My dear son Ephraim
6 NovBack in the 1960s, in the height of the psychedelic era, even the house band of the Israeli army’s infantry division “Nahal” started dabbling in psychedelics. Taking this well known traditional hymn “My dear son Ephraim” (Ha-Ben Yakir Li Ephraim), mixing it with some psychedelic sounds and images as well as some shtetel style, the band created this unique and quite extraordinary clip. Enjoy.
1960’s Intermission Time Animation
23 May
Many years ago, I found this great video tape of vintage drive-in movie intermission animations at Kim’s Mondo Video in NYC St.Mark’s Square-the same square in which I witnessed Joey Ramone crossing the street in requisite all black using a classy cane. When I saw this totally psychedelic Peter Max style animation, my lid was officially flipped. I especially love the cow that morphs into a hamburger. The video was released by Something Weird Video http://www.somethingweird.com/index.php
The Likely Girls – Village Green Machine
11 MayA well done 1960s style psychedelic video clip by the Village Green Machine.
“Celebration at Big Sur”- Baird Bryant and Johanna Demetrakas
28 Mar“Celebration at Big Sur” is a 1969 film documenting the Folk Festival at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. You can find the entire film in bits on youtube and it’s available as a DVD. In this 9 minute clip, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young perform “Down by the River”. The performance starts at about 49 seconds into the clip, but there is a lot of good vintage hippy stuff before and after the music.
After spending last week travelling the California coast, I’m in total Pacific Ocean bliss. I love seeing all the aerial shots of the coastline in this film almost as much as I love David Crosby’s fringe jacket and Stephen Stills’ geometric poncho. The Esalen Institute is still around. You can sign up for self actualization workshops and retreats through their website.
I took these photos last year at a campground in Big Sur. You can see the bridge in the first photo in the aerial shots. What I didn’t get a photo of, was the terribly cute sea otter that would swim around the cove with a seagull perched upon his little belly.
The Daily Psychedelic Video 