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Lucky me got to sit next to dear Alyson Kaplan (holding forth in her
large white bonnet.)
Also on the rock are David (Vijay) Hassin, Jay (Jai) Weiner, Larry (Hare)
Zupan, and Bobby Applebaum.
This day was truly one of the infinitly sparkling seminal points of
my life. I can still hear Alyson chanting and incantating this mantra.
"It doesn't matter." It really doesn't matter."
And you know what? That seemed to sum it all up.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
March 26, 1967
"The Easter Be-In was organized by Jim Fouratt an actor, Paul Williams
editor of Crawdaddy! magazine, Susan Hartnett head of a the Experiments
in Art and Technology organization and Chilean poet and playwright Claudio
Badal.
With a budget of $250 they printed 3,000 posters and 40,000 small notices
designed by Peter Max and distributed them around the city. The Police
and Parks Departments quietly and unofficially cooperated with the organizers
An estimated 10,000 people participated in the event at the Sheep Meadow
in Central Park.
The majority of participants were hippies. They were joined by families
who had attended the Easter Parade and members of the Spanish community
who were notified of the event by Spanish language posters.
The New York Times described them as “poets from the Bronx, dropouts
from the East Village, interior decorators from the East Side, teachers
from the West Side and teeny boppers from Long Island” and said
that “they wore carnation petals and paper stars and tiny mirrors
on foreheads, paint around the mouth and cheeks, flowering bedsheets,
buttons and tights”.
The event was guarded by small number of police. At 6:45 a.m. the first
police car arrived. The car was covered flowers with while the crowd
chanted of “daffodil power” at which point the police quickly
retreated.
While police held their distance most of the day, 5 officers did approach
two nude participants, at which point the officers were surrounded while
the crowd chanted “We love cops/"Turn on cops”. The
situation was defused when the crowd at the urging of other participants
backed off.
At 7:30 at night the police beamed lights on the group and used bullhorns
to tell participants to disperse. Again the police were rushed by participants.
Following a brief period of tension the police decided to let the event
continue."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park_be-in
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