HERMENAUTICA (40)
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June 18, 2025
One in a series of posts featuring pages from Hermenaut, a DIY intellectual zine/journal published by HILOBROW’s Josh Glenn from 1992 through 2000-01.
I wrote this conspiracy theory — the cover title was “Woodstock Never Happened!” — with Scott Hamrah. It was an opportunity to have fun with the form, while at the same time sticking a finger into the collective eye of the Baby Boomers. For whom Woodstock was the most defining, even sacred event of their lifetimes.
We were contacted several months later by the editors of the conspiracy theory magazine Paranoia, which was fun. They asked for permission to reprint this conspiracy, as well as the one I’d written about the RFK assassination.
From the Spring 1996 issue of Paranoia, we’d discover that several of its Boomer-age readers — though delighted with every other insane theory published in that magazine’s pages — were outraged by “Woodstock Never Happened.” So much so that the magazine issued an apology. As far as Scott and I were concerned, this was of course the greatest possible outcome of our efforts.
Pub. Date: 1994
Theme: Conspiracies
Hermenaut: Walt Whitman
Pages: 46
Print Run: 1,000
MORE HERMENAUT on HILOBROW: HERMENAUTICA series | MEET THE HERMENAUTS | HERMENAUT’s last five issues | Snapshots | Letters to HERMENAUT | Dialectical Design | Josh Glenn on CAMP, KITSCH & CHEESE | Josh Glenn on DANIEL CLOWES: Q&A | Clarke Cooper on APOCALYPSE ALREADY | Lisa Carver on THE ART OF BEING UNCOMFORTABLE | Josh Glenn on FAKE AUTHENTICITY | Chris Fujiwara on ZOOMING THROUGH SPACE | John Marr on CAMPANILE FREE-FALL | Clarke Cooper on THE WILL TO SCORN | Dan Reines on PURE EVEL | Chris Fujiwara on ROADWORTHY JAZZ | Dan Reines on LETTER FROM LA | Mary E. Ladd & Julie Wiskirchen on ONWARD CHRISTIAN TOURISTS | Chris Fujiwara on SAVED BY BETRAYAL | Margaret Blonder on MEMORIES OF THE BIOSPHERE | Josh Glenn on HERMENAUT: PHILIP K. DICK | Ingrid Schorr on ROCKVILLE GIRL SPEAKS.