[Ads-l] head shop (Apr. 1966)

[Ben Zimmer]

Both the Berkeley Barb and LA Free Press are part of the Independent Voices
archive, and neither appear to have earlier hits for "head shop." The
article below suggests that the original head shop was in San Francisco --
The Psychedelic Shop, on 1535 Haight Street, which opened on Jan. 3, 1966
-- but I haven't found any references to that being called a "head shop" in
1966.

http://nightflight.com/feed-your-head-night-flight-takes-a-trip-back-to-the-early-70s-head-shop/

You can search these publications yourself at <
https://voices.revealdigital.org/>. It's possible that not everything is
fully searchable, and the searchable items may of course be poorly OCR-ed.
But it's great that this is all open-access now -- Garson posted about this
archive back in 2016 when it was still subscription-based but let us know
the paywall was expected to come down in 2019.

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2016-June/142991.html

On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 9:30 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> I love that reference to “intentional LSD art”!
>
> As for early "head shops” under that rubric, I’m guessing it would be
> worth checking (if available) issues of the Berkeley Barb and L. A. Free
> Press from the same era.  Don’t know who had pride of place.
>
> LH
>
> > On Jan 17, 2020, at 6:09 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > The earliest cite in OED3 for "head shop" is from July 1966 as the name
> of
> > a shop in the East Village:
> >
> > ---
> > 1966   N.Y. Times Mag. 10 July 32   One may buy intentional LSD art at
> the
> > city's first psychedelic bazaar, The Head Shop, in the East Village,
> where
> > brightly colored mandala prints cover two walls.
> > ---
> >
> > This can be slightly antedated now that the East Village Other is
> available
> > as part of the Independent Voices open-access digital archive:
> > https://voices.revealdigital.org/
> > (Lots of other good stuff from alternative publications in that archive.)
> >
> > The shop discussed in the NYT Mag article is mentioned in this Apr. '66
> > item written as a letter from "Betsy" to her mother about the Lower East
> > Side:
> >
> > ---
> > https://voices.revealdigital.org/?a=d&d=BFGHCGB19660415.1.9
> > The East Village Other, Volume 1, Issue 10, Apr. 15-Mar. 1, 1966, p. 9
> > Soon I’ll open The Head Shop, where beautiful things, many by local
> > painters and makers, will be sold. Sometimes at night we turn on the
> > electric jewels and people.
> > ---
> >
> > "Betsy" is surely Betsy Glick, who opened The Head Shop with her husband
> > Jeff at 304 E. 9th Street. Here's an image of them back in the day:
> >
> >
> https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-betsy-and-jeff-glick-in-head-shop-their-store-news-photo/510423841
> >
> > This article says the Glicks opened The Head Shop in May '66, so that
> fits
> > the timeline.
> >
> > https://sunflowerpipes.com/new-york-smoke-shop-culture/
> >

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