Aberration
All the little household gods
Have started crying, but say
Good-bye now, and put to sea.
-- W.H. Auden
It was the heyday of the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco with bands like Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Youngbloods, the Moody Blues, A Beautiful Day, Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, just to name a few making a great impression on me, actually much more than the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. I still recall a first visit to a head shop in an old Victorian house in Palo Alto and seeing the long haired and bearded proprietors the air filled with burning incense, phsycodellic posters on the walls along with tie dyed shirts, hookahs, and all the other accoutrements of a burgeoning counter culture on display. Times were getting even more interesting. Politics and the Vietnam War had not yet impinged on my world though later they would. It was an Alice in Wonderland world, it was a world without cynicism, and it seemed that humanity was moving toward something much better than the 50’s. Revolution was in the air. People were interested in the arts -- music, plays, books, all things creative rather than the same old acceptance of convention that marked the 50’s. Then there was the rising tide of anger against the Vietnam War. People were actually coming out against the war in many parts of the nation and it seemed humanity at last wanted to move beyond our violent bloody past. There was the excitement of unexplored worlds and territories, intellectual thought over the violent and the bestial, there was real hope for better days and a better humanity none of which has come to pass. The 60’s were just an aberration it would seem. Americans have gone back to sleep lulled into a dream of complacency. Even the Iraq War seems to have faded into a grey background as America indulges in another election farce where hopes wane and wax like an errant morning breeze. When this repugnant election between two reptilian candidates crawling out of a primordial swamp with forked tongues flicking in and out in search of power is over reality will return with a vengeance as the war on terror accelerates the long silent fall of what could have been but never really was.
America has become a boring entirely predictable fucked up piece of crap, something I never would have believed in the 60’s even with the Vietnam War. As far as I am concerned anyone who wants it can have it, probably deserves it, and can keep it for all I care. Today anyone who questions authority or the status quo are considered to be fringe lunatics, anyone with an original thought is crazy in this brave new world of zombie-like mediocre conformists.
Below a couple cuts from Quicksilver Messenger Service, Fresh Air and Who do you Love:
Have started crying, but say
Good-bye now, and put to sea.
-- W.H. Auden
It was the heyday of the Haight Ashbury in San Francisco with bands like Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Youngbloods, the Moody Blues, A Beautiful Day, Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, just to name a few making a great impression on me, actually much more than the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. I still recall a first visit to a head shop in an old Victorian house in Palo Alto and seeing the long haired and bearded proprietors the air filled with burning incense, phsycodellic posters on the walls along with tie dyed shirts, hookahs, and all the other accoutrements of a burgeoning counter culture on display. Times were getting even more interesting. Politics and the Vietnam War had not yet impinged on my world though later they would. It was an Alice in Wonderland world, it was a world without cynicism, and it seemed that humanity was moving toward something much better than the 50’s. Revolution was in the air. People were interested in the arts -- music, plays, books, all things creative rather than the same old acceptance of convention that marked the 50’s. Then there was the rising tide of anger against the Vietnam War. People were actually coming out against the war in many parts of the nation and it seemed humanity at last wanted to move beyond our violent bloody past. There was the excitement of unexplored worlds and territories, intellectual thought over the violent and the bestial, there was real hope for better days and a better humanity none of which has come to pass. The 60’s were just an aberration it would seem. Americans have gone back to sleep lulled into a dream of complacency. Even the Iraq War seems to have faded into a grey background as America indulges in another election farce where hopes wane and wax like an errant morning breeze. When this repugnant election between two reptilian candidates crawling out of a primordial swamp with forked tongues flicking in and out in search of power is over reality will return with a vengeance as the war on terror accelerates the long silent fall of what could have been but never really was.
America has become a boring entirely predictable fucked up piece of crap, something I never would have believed in the 60’s even with the Vietnam War. As far as I am concerned anyone who wants it can have it, probably deserves it, and can keep it for all I care. Today anyone who questions authority or the status quo are considered to be fringe lunatics, anyone with an original thought is crazy in this brave new world of zombie-like mediocre conformists.
Below a couple cuts from Quicksilver Messenger Service, Fresh Air and Who do you Love:
posted by rob payne at 11:23 AM
4 Comments:
The dawning of the culture war within our dominant society was as you say inspiring and exhilarating. But war is more than celebrating identity; it also involves a lot of social conflict. That conflict continues.
Had the Native Americans thrown up their hands, they would not exist today.
Your present sentiment aside, since you still value the noble aspects of the 1960s, then you probably have something worthwhile to offer to young people who weren't yet around to experience the beginning of our social revolution.
I don't know guys. From my vantage point it seems it's difficult to separate one's feelings and distill them, and figure out where nostalgia ends and any kind of aesthetic verity begins. I'm sure there are some twenty-somethings who are just as passionate about, say, Amy Winehouse or Lenny Kravitz as Rob is about Quicksilver Messenger and the rest.(Just as I know that some people of my generation took the Talking Heads and Bruce Springsteen just as seriously, growing up in the 80s.)
One thing that does seem to have changed, and very much for the worse, is the role of the news media, which seems far more systematic in taking its marching orders from the overclass in a way that they didn't in the 60s or even the 70s.
As a consequence much of the potential dissent in our society is atomized, with people finding their discontent lacking the verification of others-- and the images on television reinforce this, relentlessly persuading you that you're being unpatriotic or unreasonable, or even...good God!
Uncool-- if thou protest too much.
Or is that just me?
Spartacus,
Don’t mind me I’m just a cranky malcontent. I agree with you about the social conflict and Native Americans. I don’t know, I just write about what I see and feel at the moment and sometimes I feel more negative than others.
By the way I have a book for you this time.
Native American Tribalism: Indian Survival and Renewals by D’arcy McNickle.
Essentially it is as the title suggests. A lot of people think the American Indians have disappeared which of course is absolute nonsense in fact the book tells just how much of a comeback the Indians have made, it would surprise a lot of people.
Jonathan,
I agree with you about the news media as it certainly does affect how people see or don’t see things. But the point about my piece was not at all about the music it was about a social movement a sea change in people’s world view that struggled to the surface for a few years but then dissipated. However I may not have been entirely fair as there are activists and people did protest the Iraq War as soon as it began but overall I would have to say our society has moved very far away from the awakening of a new social awareness that was seen in those years I spoke of. Not that there were no lasting effects but on the whole I would say young people today have moved to a more unquestioning acceptance of the conventional view of the world. To be sure there are exceptions but they are few in numbers.
I have surprisingly encountered a hippie renaissance in both my age group (original hippies) and twenty somethings. Forty somethings are curious, but understandably came of age in the awful Reagan years. It would seem the task before us is to create social venues for this cultural revitalization.
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