You can think about it, but first you have to know what “it” is.
Stop us if you already know this. Back during the ’60s and ’70s stores that sold items related to tobacco and weed consumption were known as headshops. The hippest sectors of town—your Haight-Ashburys, Capitol Hills, and Greenwich Villages—were home to these establishments, and among the many products on offer counterculture posters were big sellers. These would be Che Guevara posters, naked-woman-smoking-a-bong posters, fluorescent black light posters, etc., genrally aimed at young male customers. Above is an example of that collectible art form. The shot was made by Dozier Mobley, who you see here. He was a photojournalist for the Atlanta Journal, the Associated Press, and United Press International, and later went on to work extensively with NASCAR.
The message of the poster may seem self-explanatory (most websites say it calls for revolution), but we aren't sure. While that's an understandable interpretation, we actually think, because the model is nude, this is more likely a sex-not-war, anti-Vietnam type thing aimed specifically at black buyers, who had been sent overseas in disproportionate numbers (particularly early in the war, and particularly when compared to earlier wars). The “Think About It!” tag suggests an anti-war message, we feel, as in, “Think about what you'll lose.” But we'll never know the exact meaning. It's a headshop poster. The message is up to each buyer to determine. Mobley would probably know, but he died in 2009. The model might know too, but she's unidentified, sadly. Unidentified—but unforgettable.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1937—The Hindenburg Explodes
In the U.S, at Lakehurst, New Jersey, the German zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg catches fire and is incinerated within a minute while attempting to dock in windy conditions after a trans-Atlantic crossing. The disaster, which kills thirty-six people, becomes the subject of spectacular newsreel coverage, photographs, and most famously, Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness report from the landing field. But for all the witnesses and speculation, the actual cause of the fire remains unknown. 1921—Chanel No. 5 Debuts
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel, the pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist philosophy, menswear-inspired styles, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion, introduces the perfume Chanel No. 5, which to this day remains one of the world's most legendary and best selling fragrances. 1961—First American Reaches Space
Three weeks after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly into space, U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard completes a sub-orbit of fifteen minutes, returns to Earth, and is rescued from his Mercury 3 capsule in the Atlantic Ocean. Shepard made several more trips into space, even commanding a mission at age 47, and was eventually awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. 1953—Hemingway Wins Pulitzer
American author Ernest Hemingway, who had already written such literary classics as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novella The Old Man and the Sea, the story of an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. 1970—Mass Shooting at Kent State
In the U.S., Ohio National Guard troops, who had been sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, open fire on a group of unarmed students, killing four and wounding nine. Some of the students had been protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia, but others had been walking nearby or observing from a distance. The incident triggered a mass protest of four million college students nationwide, and eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury, but charges against all of them were eventually dismissed.
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