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Authors: Marco Vassi
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Experimental College was one of a group of student organizations, along with the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front, which was in the process of radicalizing the almost thirty thousand students on campus. In addition, there were the usual splinter groups of political crazies, SDS, PL, and ad hoc freak brigades who wanted everything from instant assassination of Reagan to an end of Western civilization.
The EC was, unquestionably, the most successful and least overtly threatening of all the groups. It was looked upon benignly by the administration because its courses consisted largely of things like astrology, dance, poetry, and the other unmartial arts. When I arrived in September, they were about to hold an open registration, to run for an entire day. The approach was simplicity itself. Anyone who wanted to teach wrote up his course description in a catalogue. On registration day, each would-be teacher would stand under a sign listing his course, and students would have a chance to dig on the person teaching as well as the formal catalogue blurb. The class size was limited by the appeal of the teacher. The college allowed no credits for any courses taken at the EC, but this didn’t stop students from signing up for as many as six courses, while letting their official schoolwork drop.
The reason was clear. Most of the people at the EC were young, or knew what the young mind is about. The course descriptions covered a general area, but almost every course at the EC had a single subject matter: life. How to live well, fully. The aridity of the academic curriculum stood out in sharp contrast to the joyously pragmatic attitude of the counter-college. And the beauty of the entire scene was that the administration was so busy looking in the closets of the overtly political organizations that they missed the fact that the real revolution was taking place in that hotbed of freaks in the gaudily painted barracks at the center of campus. Because the EC was allowing the students to dance and laugh and exult, to let their minds roam freely, to take pride in their sex and demand honor in their relations with their fellow men. And this is what the right- and left-wing fascists cannot stand: the sheer exuberance of living. It is not a political question; it is a question of being.
That year, the registration was to take in over three thousand students, and this was only in its second year of functioning. Registration day was like a flea market of the mind, with every frustrated teacher, homegrown guru, and visionary in the Bay Area hawking his psychic wares to the young people coming through. It was held in the Gallery Lounge, a great flat building which someone had the sense to leave completely empty. Of course, everyone was stoned, on grass, on good vibrations, and the wild music of the young Hassidim from the House of Love and Prayer. It was a day of Renaissance, a birthday party for the new culture.
The EC itself was autocratically run, by the EC “staff.” At their head was Evan Standard, a twenty-six-year-old leonine and pockmarked saint. He was gaunt, with teeth missing, and a shock of hair and beard that totally covered his face and shoulders. As with most of the heavies there, he was thoroughly well-read in all matters of the metaphysical and occult, mostly through an Oriental bias. His major mode of expression was the guffaw.
Loren Jones was his right-hand man. During meetings Evan would sit, his six-inch aura dominating the room, with Loren next to him, cooling off the vibes. The rest of the staff were second-stringers, good people but not in the same class as the boss. Later, when I had precipitated a crisis by attempting to force my admission to the staff, Evan blocked my entry and disillusioned the others, who were under the impression that the staff was a democratic group. At the meeting, Loren announced to the group, “Evan is the EC. And I am here to protect him. That’s the way it is, and
The EC was, unquestionably, the most successful and least overtly threatening of all the groups. It was looked upon benignly by the administration because its courses consisted largely of things like astrology, dance, poetry, and the other unmartial arts. When I arrived in September, they were about to hold an open registration, to run for an entire day. The approach was simplicity itself. Anyone who wanted to teach wrote up his course description in a catalogue. On registration day, each would-be teacher would stand under a sign listing his course, and students would have a chance to dig on the person teaching as well as the formal catalogue blurb. The class size was limited by the appeal of the teacher. The college allowed no credits for any courses taken at the EC, but this didn’t stop students from signing up for as many as six courses, while letting their official schoolwork drop.
The reason was clear. Most of the people at the EC were young, or knew what the young mind is about. The course descriptions covered a general area, but almost every course at the EC had a single subject matter: life. How to live well, fully. The aridity of the academic curriculum stood out in sharp contrast to the joyously pragmatic attitude of the counter-college. And the beauty of the entire scene was that the administration was so busy looking in the closets of the overtly political organizations that they missed the fact that the real revolution was taking place in that hotbed of freaks in the gaudily painted barracks at the center of campus. Because the EC was allowing the students to dance and laugh and exult, to let their minds roam freely, to take pride in their sex and demand honor in their relations with their fellow men. And this is what the right- and left-wing fascists cannot stand: the sheer exuberance of living. It is not a political question; it is a question of being.
That year, the registration was to take in over three thousand students, and this was only in its second year of functioning. Registration day was like a flea market of the mind, with every frustrated teacher, homegrown guru, and visionary in the Bay Area hawking his psychic wares to the young people coming through. It was held in the Gallery Lounge, a great flat building which someone had the sense to leave completely empty. Of course, everyone was stoned, on grass, on good vibrations, and the wild music of the young Hassidim from the House of Love and Prayer. It was a day of Renaissance, a birthday party for the new culture.
The EC itself was autocratically run, by the EC “staff.” At their head was Evan Standard, a twenty-six-year-old leonine and pockmarked saint. He was gaunt, with teeth missing, and a shock of hair and beard that totally covered his face and shoulders. As with most of the heavies there, he was thoroughly well-read in all matters of the metaphysical and occult, mostly through an Oriental bias. His major mode of expression was the guffaw.
Loren Jones was his right-hand man. During meetings Evan would sit, his six-inch aura dominating the room, with Loren next to him, cooling off the vibes. The rest of the staff were second-stringers, good people but not in the same class as the boss. Later, when I had precipitated a crisis by attempting to force my admission to the staff, Evan blocked my entry and disillusioned the others, who were under the impression that the staff was a democratic group. At the meeting, Loren announced to the group, “Evan is the EC. And I am here to protect him. That’s the way it is, and
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