Hoaxes & Happenings

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Richard Dawson, Phillip Grant, EJ Gold, Ron Matthies on Tempo TV show, circa 1969, presenting their views about the Great California Earthquake and other current issues.

Back in the 1960s, many artists were staging “Happenings”, art events of various kinds, which today might be classified under the category “performance art”, but it went way beyond that into socio-anthro issues, such as the fear that California was about to sink into the Pacific Ocean, as predicted by a local psychic. The Fellowship “unpredicted” the earthquake and said “The Big One is not scheduled for a while yet … we’ll let you know.” The story generated millions of words in print and hundreds of media hours.

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