PORTLAND, Maine — It’s election season, and city medians are again filling up with cheap, flimsy political signs which will inevitably appear in next spring’s dirty snowbanks. But amid this year’s crop of drab, future-garbage placards, brighter and more inexplicable signposts are blooming.
At least four bright, wooden, hand-painted signs reading “hermits on acid” have been spotted in Portland. However, their maker is remaining mum on creative motivation or what the signs actually signify. Without definite information, online spectators are speculating with wild abandon — and enjoying every minute of it.
“I saw this last night and it made me so happy,” said Amy Barker of Portland, under a social media post about the mysterious slogan.
The signs, all well-made and slightly different, currently stand on Washington Avenue, Franklin Street and at the corner of Capisic Street and Stevens Avenue. Another was reported on Park Avenue but was missing as of Monday.
More than one online commenter said they tried to find further information online but came up with nothing. A Google search for “hermits on acid” returns a rare digital shrug from the oracle-like search engine. All seven results currently available lead nowhere.
But a search for the hashtag on Instagram yields clues.
Out of the 2.35 billion-or-so users on the Meta platform, only one account has ever posted a picture with #hermitsonacid beneath it.
The account belongs to an accomplished, abstract-leaning, Portland-based painter who lives just around the corner from one of the best-known signs. Instead of bearing the artist’s name, the Instagram account goes by Hovercraft Books and claims to be a mobile bookshop specializing in science fiction and occult books.
Phone and Instagram messages to the artist were not returned, leaving sign-watchers and newspapermen with speculation, only.
Nearly all local reactions found online this week were bemused and positive in tone.
“Excellent band name,” said Pete Webber, longtime drummer with local music groups including The Cover Tones, The Substitutes and The Pontiffs.
“Love this,” wrote Chris Blaisdell. “I love where I live.”
“That’s how I want to spend my life,” wrote someone under the Reddit handle gjazzy68.
Other commenters looked for meaning in the fact that the “hermits on acid” signs were nestled among political messaging.
“Well there’s my write-in candidate,” said local voter Daniel Worcester. “Thank You, weird Portlander.”
“If they get elected, who steps forward?” said Mary Bickerstaff, on Facebook.
“I interpreted it as making fun of politicians,” wrote Corey Leavitt, “like, a bunch of old out of touch people making insane decisions.”
Other than the signs’ locations and the political season, there’s nothing on them to indicate they carry a particular political message, however. Unlike the candidate placards around them, the “hermits on acid” signs have no verbiage revealing their maker or source of funding. Neither do they urge a vote for anything.
The 62 Instagram posts by Hovercraft Books which include the “hermits on acid” hashtag don’t reveal much about the artist’s intention, either. Most include a bit of swirling, abstract art and a science fiction or occult book cover.
One post features “Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots,” a 2018 book by Kate Devlin about artificial intelligence’s threat to the future of human procreation. Another shows a painting and the cover of “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater,” an 1821 autobiographical account of laudanum addiction by Thomas De Quincey.
One Instagram post simply pictures the same “hermits on acid” logo seen on the outdoor signs, with a cryptic Hovercraft Books comment, “Hermits enjoy reading too.”
In lieu of an official online statement from Hovercraft Books, or the artist behind the account, about the real life signs, Portlanders are left to continue their bemused wonderings.
“Hermits don’t leave the house to put up signs,” said local astrologer and songwriter Lil McGill. “I call BS.”