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We're not talking about this kind of sampling. Rather, since even the mainstream media is hip to alternative choices now, we mean getting your fill of food without spending a penny. This sampling idea is catching on and reminded me of Abbie Hoffman's classic tome, Steal This Book, a book that's now a very un-hip 38 years old. Dear Abbie's words are perhaps best viewed today as a barometer of how abruptly the cultural climate can shift. Considered radically beyond the pale at the time of its release, some of Hoffman's advice appears somewhat quaint when viewed through the jaded prism of the twenty-first century.
Under "housing," Abbie informs fellow travelers to NYC: "There's a poet named Delworth at 125 Sullivan St. that houses kids if he's got the room." For those in need of nourishment, the late Yippie King advises you try the "host of swank bars with free hors-d’oeuvres" on the Upper East Side. If you wanted some entertainment while you dine, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness offered a "delicious cereal breakfast" every morning at 7:00 AM, "served free along with chanting and dancing." After all that chanting for your Cheerio's, you might have craved sedation. No problem, says Hoffman. By scouting the area near Central Park West, he promised you’d find doctor's offices that threw out daily "piles of drug samples."
Other Steal This Book entries illustrated how dramatically New York society has transformed (or should I say "mutated?") since 1971. For example, Hoffman wrote of free sampling services once available at all (now defunct) Wallach stores (sewing on buttons, punching extra holes on belts, free shoe horns, etc.) along with contact information for the Black Panther Free Clinic in Brooklyn, the St. Mark's People's Clinic, the Lawyer’s Commune, "dial-a-demonstration," or "dial-a-freakout." In the age of HMOs and cell phones, such ideas appear, uh…remote.
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