Hippie Housewares
Stock up on Chi in time for the millennium!
by Thomas S. Roche
Published November 5, 1999 in Scope

It's almost the Millennium, kids -- the time when all the cosmic forces will unify in a vortex of peace and love, bringing utter spiritual harmony to your tofu-and-hemp-growing commune in Santa Cruz. What? You don't live in a tofu-and-hemp-growing commune in Santa Cruz? No problem. All you need to get your ass harmonically converged is a tie-dye T-shirt (and maybe a tie-dye jock strap to go with it), some love beads, Birkenstocks, a mondo phatty, and GettingIt's guide to Hippy Housewares.

See also...
... by Thomas S. Roche
... in the Scope section
... from November 5, 1999

First off, if you want to convert your shitty studio apartment to a virtual hemp commune and focal point for all the positive energy in the universe, you're going to need some wind chimes. Chimes have been used for thousands of years by the mystics of many religions to evoke a feeling of peace and contentment suitable for meditation. Plus, they sound really cool when you're frying. Rainbowcrystal.com (just the name sets my chakras pulsing!) can supply you with your choice of chimes in either wind-driven or mallet-driven models, from the Energy Chime (a karmically-questionable $13) to the Celesta ($34), which rings a B minor 9th chord inspired by the bell instrument invented for Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. That Tchaikovsky, man, he was the first hippie.

Once you've got the chimes going and you're good and stoned, it's time to put up your bead curtain -- say, with a yin-yang symbol or, better yet, a big mushroom. Forbidden Fruit Products can provide those or other designs on a sumptuous wooden bead curtain for $26.95, ensuring that every time you go through a door you feel the waves of cosmic energy pulsing through your body. But that's not all, because Forbidden Fruit can also provide some trippy black light posters and the black lights to illuminate them -- and don't forget to pick up some of those glowing stars and planets you stick to your ceiling! Fire up the incense burner and a lava lamp from Lava World or Lilysteele, sit back, and wait for the dawning of the age of Aquarius!

Thomas Roche's Chi is currently on its way down the drain.