And so, thanks to word of mouth, everyone knew where the next concert was to take place or where to find the next great trail to be explored. The “Invisible Post” existed because people were always going to these concerts, swapping ideas about where they ought to meet next, how they could explore the world without jumping aboard one of those tourist buses where a guide described the sights while the younger people grew bored and the old people dozed.
They wore faded jeans with tears from overuse because jeans were expensive everywhere in the world-except for the US, where they’d emerged from the ghetto of factory workers and were worn at all the major open-air shows in and around San Francisco. The girls with their braided hair covered in flowers, their long dresses, bright-colored shirts and no bras, necklaces of all shapes and sizes the boys with their hair and beards that hadn’t been cut for months. It limited its news to the next great trail awaiting explorationby those insolent, dirty kids practicing “free love” and wearing clothes no one with any taste would ever put on. The “Invisible Post” couldn’t be bothered to discuss the latest Volkswagen or the new powdered soaps that had just been launched around the globe. Well, this ever-growing number of kids had a system for spreading news that no one, absolutely no one, ever managed to detect. They were a danger to an entire generation of diligent young boys and girls trying to succeed in life, with their horrible example of lewdness and “free love,” as their detractors liked to say with disdain. OK, that wasn’t entirely true for an enormous number of young people whom these outdated media outlets could see only for their outward appearance: they wore their hair long, dressed in bright-colored clothing never took a bath (which was a lie, but these young kids didn’t read the newspaper, and the older generation believed any news item that served to denigrate those they considered “a danger to society and common decency”).
In September 1970, airplane tickets were outrageously expensive, which meant only the rich could travel.
But not everyone knew this: if you asked most people, they’d have told you: “The White House, in the US, and the Kremlin in the USSR.” These people tended to get their information from newspapers, television, radio, media that were already entirely outdated and that would never regain the relevance they had when first invented. In September 1970, two sites squared off for the title of the center of the world: Piccadilly Circus, in London, and Dam Square, in Amsterdam.
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