LA Times Notes Haight-Asbury, Not In-House Author

John Glionna, an LA Times writer who wrote the book on style, or rather an essay on same for Bob Baker’s Newsthinking, revisits Haight-Asbury, 40 years on.

Of course, the Times has an actual in-house expert, Charles Perry, whose Haight-Asbury: A History is back in print. Perry’s been approached by the Today Show to do a tour of the neighborhood.

Charles Perry majored in Middle Eastern studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he discovered psychedelics in 1962 and started following the subculture that blossomed in the Bay Area. He began working for Rolling Stone in 1968 and by 1973 was a staff writer for the magazine. Perry is now an internationally known authority on Middle Eastern food and the author of several books on the subject.