Black or tie-dye? That was the fashion question at yesterday's multimedia memorial to the Merriest Prankster, the Impromptu Impresario, the Great Northwest Novelist and master of Now-ism, Ken Kesey, who went to his grave in a casket painted in psychedelic swirls of neon color.
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After a tearful singing of "Amazing Grace," and an eloquent reading from "Sometimes a Great Notion," pallbearers carried the psychedelic casket down the aisles of the old theater to the street, where Furthur II, the latter-day knockoff of the original bus, waited in all its painted glory, with mandalas and doves, an oo-oga horn and a jester hood ornament.

As the body departed for a private service at the family farm, visitors clumped outside to cheer, some waving a memorial service program with Kesey's words at the bottom:

"The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking."
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