A Is for Acid, G is for Grok

A Is for Acid, G is for Grok

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/artsculture/a_is_for_acid__g_is_for_grok/Content?oid=1172730

John Bassett McCleary's hippie dictionary captures peace and love for
posterity.

By Anneli Rufus
August 12, 2009

In John Bassett McCleary's book, "freak" is "a self-denigrating term
used by hippies to describe themselves." And "flower power" is
"pacifism, the turning of one's cheek." That's because McCleary's
book is The Hippie Dictionary, a 720-page archive of a now-vanishing lexicon.

"I started with the title," says McCleary, who mingled with the era's
stars as a music-industry photographer and who will be at Books Inc.
(1344 Park St., Alameda) on Thursday, August 13. At first, "The
Hippie Dictionary sounded almost like an oxymoron." Yet the more he
thought about it, the more McCleary realized that "many new and
exciting words and emotions were developed during this profound
period of time. We took physical words and gave them emotional or
spiritual meanings." Such linguistic leaps and bounds "deserved a
serious dictionary.

"I started out carrying a pad of paper and pen, and writing down
every word that came to me in a conversation, book, or movie. That
took over five years," the author says. "I then started writing out
definitions that I remembered. Later, I went to the library and dug
into other slang and ethnic dictionaries to verify my definitions."
That's when McCleary was startled to discover how many words on his
list had never before been officially defined: "I also realized that
much of the language of the time consisted of phrases ­ words
combined to form new ideas or feelings, such as 'right on,' 'far
out,' 'get it on.'"

A San Francisco-born third-generation journalist now living in
Monterey, McCleary participated as a youth in antiwar demonstrations
across the country, including the 1970 rally during which students
burned to the ground a Bank of America mere blocks away from the
University of California at Santa Barbara.

As the creators and original speakers of the words and terms compiled
in his newly revised and expanded book grow ever older, "my primary
hope is that society will not throw out the wonderful hippie ideals
of peace, love, and tolerance because they can't look past the sex,
drugs, and rock 'n' roll. But of course ... hippies indulged in sex,
drugs, and rock 'n' roll with a purity and a social and spiritual message."

While working on the book, McCleary found that what he missed most of
all from his own hippie-era experiences was hitchhiking. "It
exemplified the spirit of freedom and the value of sharing ­ to walk
out your door, stick out your thumb, meet new people, and go new
places. The sad thing is that twisted, insecure, and sexually
inadequate people eventually ruined it for everyone. Girls started
getting raped, drivers and hitchers started robbing and taking
advantage of other people, and the dreams of brother- and sisterhood
on the road died." Luckily, other dreams didn't.

7:30 p.m., free. BooksInc.net

.