December 3, 2020:
Better living through chemistry.
I drive past the house. Unmistakable. South side of the road, set back under tall trees, defended by a moat-like stream crossed by a single wooden bridge decorated with Christmas lights. Once upon a time there were loudspeakers in the trees, Hell's Angels, the Grateful Dead. Nowadays just Christmas lights, sedately electrical.
In the film you have the opposite perspective. The Magic Bus is stalled on the bridge, cars pass right-to-left on the road just visible, the same road in the same direction I use from time to time.
It's one of multiple possible end-of-day routes from work to home. I choose it sometimes when freeways are full. All things considered any of the possible paths at these times imply similar duration. This though is fun, for the drive through countryside, through a quaint backroad hippie town past this old place.
Hello old place. You are — this is not exaggeration — the exact location on the surface of our spinning globe where the much-missed nineteen-sixties literally began, culturally speaking. Just here, and nowhere else.