Trina Robbins in the coat that Joni Mitchell sang about in “Ladies of the Canyon” (1968 or ’69)

It was autumn, 1966. I had come to New York from Los Angeles only months before. My then-boyfriend and I took acid and went walking through the streets of the Lower East Side – a bad idea. As the acid took hold, everything started to look weird, and not in a good way. It was a case of “people are strange when you’re a stranger,” even though the song had not come out yet. Faces came out of the rain and they looked ugly. In short, it was a bad scene, man, and we were freaked out.

And suddenly I saw that we had come to the EVO offices, in their storefront on Avenue A, across from Tompkins Square Park. Sanctuary! We rushed in and caught our breath. The office was empty except for Allen Katzman, the EVO publisher. A potbellied stove was providing warmth. I gratefully explained to Allen that the streets of the Lower East Side had become a bad trip.

As we sank into a worn sofa, Allen stood in front of the potbellied stove and talked us down. To make us feel better, he told us about the time he had been a guest speaker at a women’s college, stoned out of his mind on acid: “See, I too get unsettling experiences on acid.” Read more…