Dylan and Hattie

I think that this song is an example of how what we perceive as positive strides in history can turn back and really not be accurate when given real examples.

In 1963, history tells us that the sixties were a time of strides in the movements towards equality and civil rights. A student of this history would be inclined to think that mentality was changing throughout the country so that senseless crimes like the murder of Hattie Carroll would be on the decline, and even if they weren't, fair and progressive juries would prevail in the trial.

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll is the reality of what was happening. Minds may have been changing in response to equality but this is the grim truth that hate and racism wasnt making as much progress as the history books might have liked to show.

The sat truth is something like this might still be able to happen in the US. Research has proven that if a drunk driver were to hit a white man, his sentence would be more time than if he were to hit a black man. The same principle applies here to what Dylan is writing about. The sad but real truth.

The Police Band

I had to read this short story a few times, and after all of that re-reading, I'm still not sure what I think of it is what the author was really going for.
My perspective on this "Police Band" is the writer realized how influential the music of the 1960s was over the population. He also acknowledged that police officers were seen as the bad guys against the counter cultural movement that had music at its core.
I think it's rather humorous that Barthelme would think of a police unit being a band to calm and inspire rowdy or frightened crowds of people. One gets the image of SWAT units, hostage negotiating teams, riot units... but nothing that would positively calm the situation in such a way that the people were receptive to.
I wonder why Barthelme had the members of this band undercover as mail carriers and then to say something about how the narrator couldn't understand the black members not wanting to do that forever.
All in all this was a rather interesting piece to read but interesting in the fact that it promotes how music had an effect over large groups of people. It can make them happy and compliant.

Gordon and Pynchon

Having only two selections to read and write about this week, and not finding anything to comment on with the first poetry selection, I am left to write on Andrew Gordon's text, "Smoking Dope with Thomas Pynchon: A Sixties Memoir."
While this was an entertaining piece to read, I was not influenced with much in the way of response or commentary, but I will give it a shot.
Gordon wrote that "they were no joke, they really happened to us, and they really happened to me" in response to America in the 1960s. I think that that idea might get lost on us as modern students in this class. We study the 1960s as something that has happened, can be analyzed and commented on. However, it might serve us to be constantly reminded that this actually happened to real people who are among us today. We read and watch footage of sit ins, 1960s drug culture, Woodstock and other concerts, but I think we fail to associate them with the humanity they touched and affected. The 1960s gets lost into the pop culture image of a "hippie" or the black and white text that is in our book for us to read as part of a mandated assignment.
Gordon went on to write that "if somebody told you the history of the decade as a story, you wouldn't believe it. You'd wonder: is this for real? Is it some kind of joke?" To elaborate on what i mentioned before, I think Gordon is wrong. I think that now as students we see it more as a story of the times. We don't know what the culture was like, at least not first hand, and things have changed so much we see it as history. History that is being presented to us in a story form. These are the people, so different and unique you can see them as characters. These are the things they did which is so far from your own reality, they can be seen as events in a long running plot. Here is Altamont and the end to the sixties, the resolution to that plot that was 10-15 years in the making. I ultimately disagree with Gordon, I think we see the 60s as some type of idolized and unfathomable story sometimes that, no matter how much research and information we gather, can only be understood and described by someone who was actually there and had the 60s happen TO them.

Altamont

I had always heard about Altamont but never really delve into what it really was and how it fit into the 60s culture. I knew it was supposed to be a recreation of Woodstock but the extent to which it failed was a mystery.
I had a few questions come to mind when I read Michael Lydon's account of his experiences as an Altamont concert goer. Who in their right mind would think that the Hells Angels were a good idea to allow to have that kind of power? Especially since they were being paid with $500 worth of beer... one can only assume as their consumption of their profits increases so will their violent and unpeaceful tendencies. I also think it was an interesting choice by Lydon to refer to them simply as the "Angels" throughout the text. I know it was the shorthand way to refer to the Hell's Angels, but its a bit ironic that the violent driving force for most of what went so horribly wrong at Altamont was referred to as Angels. A term that typically is referred for a biblical reference or someone who is good and well-intentioned.
I also liked that Lydon makes the distinction early in his article that Woodstock was an event because it was made into one. Altamont was an event because it was produced as an event. Reading this account of Altamont makes it clear that if the concert-goers had not tried to recreate a "Woodstock" of their own, it might not have turned out as bad as it did. They simply were trying to hard. I am sure I am not the only one to make the point that something like Woodstock will never happen again. It was unique to that one point in history where the right location, people, music and atmosphere combined to create something great and noteworthy. If you try to recreate that you will inevitably get a mixture of elements and people who are there to recreate something they never knew or could really understand in the first place.

Psychedelic Rock Posters

After reading Sally Tomlinson's essay about the Psychedelic rock posters, I began questioning why the posters were such a giant focal point for the era. Yes, at the time they served an important purpose. That purpose was to advertise and inform hippies about events such as the concert dances. Almost all of the posters shared some similar characteristics, which we talked about in class when discussing the advertisement for the festival in New York this summer. Intricate lettering and bright, vibrant colors were some of the elements that made these posters different from those that had come before and after. Tomlinson touched on a point that I had never thought of when she wrote that, "deciphering the posters required concentration, which dovetailed handily with 'the state of mind which occurs when high'" (302-3). So much of the hippie culture we are learning about had to do with knowing the 'in' things. They dressed a certain way, dressed a certain way, had certain phrases and language they used to identify them as part of the counterculture. I guess I had never considered that the ability to read and interpret these posters were also a way of identifying one's presence in the counterculture.
I had also questioned why posters would be something that warranted such high regard so many years later. Yes they may have been great representations of culturally relevant art, but so many things are that get neglected. After talking about this essay with some friends I had one person ask me if I ever heard news stories that referenced controversy coming from a Blog. My answer was yes. They then asked me if the news stories surrounding email misuse (like the Philadelphia news anchors) had gained a lot of local attention. Of course, the answer to that is yes. This followed by references to the cultural impacts of Myspace pages, Facebook profiles and other electronic forums/media content that influence our current culture.
All in all, my friend was pointing out to me that the posters of the 1960s would have been equivalent to an event invitation to certain people on Facebook or a band's profile on Myspace. The concept of attracting the type of people you want to attend certain events has not changed, the method however has evolved.

The Counter Culture Movement

Emmett Grogan's piece From Ringolevio has confused me a bit. This text presents the Human Be-In as something that benefited the Haight-Ashbury community in a monetary form. The HIP group had also called in the media. This conflicts with the previous notion I had about the Haight community as being money hating and being against the objectification of them by the media. The video we viewed on Monday gave me those ideas and this text seems to shatter that. I don't know which is correct, the personal interviews which stated they didn't have much money by choice, or Grogan's view that the Be-In was for gain.

I really enjoyed Country Joe McDonald song "I feel Like I'm fixin'-to-die Rag." I like how he appeals to the mainstream culture and their desire to be up on the times and supporting the war. He satirizes the "all American war effort" mentality of being the first to enlist and the honor of going to war for the US. McDonald brings the satire in when he embraces that tone but to the effect of , be the first to send your son off to war and you'll be the first to get him back in a body bag. This song is the last thing Joe Suburb would like to hear because this counterculture artist is telling him that what he is doing is going to end up as his worst fear. That mentality might add to the counterculture's existence because artists like McDonald were more than willing to expose the side of the war that nobody in the mainstream wanted to acknowledge or think about as they sent their boys off to war.

Free Speech Movement

As a whole, the readings assigned from Part Three of the Sixties Reader remind me a lot of the image I used for my semiotics paper. The image I chose to write about was of a young man placing a flower in the barrell of an officer's gun at an anti-war rally. The most famous relation to this image is of a woman doing the same thing... which I believe actually took place at Berkeley.
Just as these students were demonstrating and protesting, the young man in that picture was practicing his right to freedom of expression. It is his way of expressing his free speech.
"Hey Mr. Newsman" also reminds me of the video we watched dealing with the Haight Ashbury district and how people flocked there to take pictures of them like they were in an exhibit. Kampf writes, "Hey, Mister Newsman, how come you're taking pictures of me? Is it 'cause of my long hair or 'cause of my boots up to my knees?" (199). The tone here of disgust and annoyance echos the same as most of the people who were interviewed in the Summer of Love videos about how it felt to be gawked at and objectified as a tourist attraction. They truly felt they were serving a purpose and those outsiders were coming in for amusement.

The Unseeable Animal

I think the concept presented here about the 'unseeable animal' is something that could not exist any more today. In the 60s and 70s the ecology and environmental movement was beginning, and I think today it is coming to an end. There are all sorts of activist movements for going green and saving the planet, but I feel like it has become such a mute point and has been so over emphasized that today's society has become really good at tuning it out.
When it was written this poem may have been received well and caused a lot of thought, but today may be just seen as another poem stemming from a child's naive thought. With all the conquer and destruction of our natural resources (the rain forest for example), many informed Americans may think the existence of this animal to be a nice thought but impractical to actually discover.
I do enjoy the quote by Berry's daughter in the beginning. It represents the naivete of a child while echoing the need for hope when our planet is being demolished by mankind's own greed and blindness to the stress it is experiencing. Her use of "Hope" reinforces this so that the poem may be applicable for generations to come, no matter how much people try to ignore the environmental movements.

Femininity and the housewives

Out of all the readings we were assigned, Friedan's text from the Feminine Mystique and Sexton's poem, The Addict, impacted me the most.

As a modern woman reading Friedan, I was surprised at how these women felt their education (those who had it) was a burden because it caused them to question their lives has housewives and to want something more. I also started to question how much of their problems in the 1950-1960s were their complacency to the situation. I guess after reading about the civil rights movement and how they stood up and took control over their situation, I wanted these unhappy women to stand up and do the same. To contrast the housewives with the minorities involved in the civil rights movement, they seem to have been in a unique type of oppression. Minorities could see and know that what was happening to them was inherently wrong, however these women were living a life that they had been told was supposed to make them happy and it was where they belonged, however they could not understand or speak up about how miserable and empty it made most of them feel. They were also at conflict with themselves, it appears, because they had never been taught that it was OK to question their role as a housewife or that more was out there for them if they put away the apron and just did it.

Sexton's poem, The Addict, shows what I think was the boiling point of women in this situation needing change. Friedan mentions the tranquilizers being distributed to these unhappy women, but Sexton really puts it into the perspective of the time. She supports Friedan's notion that these women were conscious of their unhappiness but could not talk about it openly, and Sexton writes this poem from the perspective of a woman who knows these pills are killing her, "Yes I try to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupation" (521). Once again emphasizes the society imposed muteness of these women so that they can acknowledge they'd sooner medicate themselves to death in dealing with their situation than speak out or change it.

I have always said that one of my desires is to, despite my career and education, take a few years after I have children to be a housewife and take care of my young family. After reading these texts I have not changed my mind about this ambition, but I can see that these women who did not get to CHOOSE that road for themselves or choose when to go back into the professional world have made it possible for me to do this. I know there is other options for women and that I can choose to go back to work and not be seen as unfeminine or a bad wife/mother. These women really paved the way and suffered silently so women today might be able to make such choices.

America and Vietnam

I think that Susan Sontag's essay in response to the questionnaire was the best piece we were assigned to read this week. While reading this essay, I kept thinking about how that questionnaire might still be applicable to today's America. Obviously, some questions would need to be changed such as #4 dealing with African Americans. However, the questions dealing with inflation and poverty, where our foreign policy is leading us, and the general future of our country, are very much applicable in today's society.
Just as America in the late 1960s had to deal with lessened support for Vietnam and what to do about an unpopular war, we are in the same situation. America today is dealing with the unpopular war in Iraq and how the new administration is going to resolve our involvment in the middle east.
Sontag wrote that "the quality of American life is an insult to the possibilities of human growth" (120). I think those words can also be applied to our society today when many children are starving, however we are involved in a pointless and expensive war and sending aid to countries when our own citizens are starving.
She goes on to write, "Needless to say, America is not the only violent, ugly, and unhappy country on this earth. Again, it is a matter of scale"(121). Once again, this mentality can be applied to our current situation where we are looked down on by other nations because of our violent and unnecessary involvement in the middle east. Granted, we are not the only nation that engages in such wars and neglects those at home, but, when you compare the publicity and focus the world keeps on our country's actions, it really does come down to scale. We are not the only ones, but quite possibly the most focused on.
Lastly I'd like to comment on the last passage before Sontag beginnings directly answering the questions of the survey she is responding to. Sontag writes, "Since wars always happen Over There, and we always win, why not drop the bomb? If all it takes is pushing a button, even better. For America is that curious hybrid- an apocalyptic country and a valetudinarian country" (122). Most Americans now seem to have that same ideology when it comes to the war in Iraq. I would argue that a vast majority is so detached from the conflict our country is in over seas because it is easier to be in the "Over There... we always win" way of thinking. If it is not directly affecting our comfortable ways of life, this attitude has been allowed to survive over 40 years since Vietnam. I wonder, will this always be the case until a war breaks out on our own soil and forces the American majority to acknowledge it?

Adrift in the writing of Timothy Leary

While reading Leary's text, "Adrift in the Age of Aquarius," I was taken by his writing. While it seems to be a very loosly organized and personal account of his experience I really enjoyed it. I am not always a fan of stream of conciousness writing but there is an appeal here to how Leary writes.

I enjoyed how he inserted parts of Allen Ginsberg's experiences (dialouge or texts?). As the reader who is very unfamiliar with an experience such as their trip, it is insightful to read about what Leary sees, hears, and observes in addition to what Ginsberg is writing and thinking.

As much as I enjoyed this text, I was not to thrilled with Leary's choice to add some of the quotes he did from outside sources. I can understand the connetions Leary made with the Lord of the Rings quotes but I'm just set aside by the whole association between what I know of LOTR (the movie, etc) and a text about Beatnik revolutionaries tripping. I also didn't get a great feeling at the end when Leary told his department head that "god would approve" of their behavior at the trip session. It is just not my belief that god would approve of that sort of thing so that explains my personal reaction.

Civil Rights

I really enjoyed reading James Baldwin's text, The Dangerous Road Before Martin Luther King. I had the typical image in my mind of Martin Luther King Jr. that I'm sure most of us have had most of our lives. We were taught about him early in school as a non-violent advocate and leader of equality for all races and also about his religious.
I often wonder, not just with MLK but with other famous figures, how much of their personas are correct. In his case, the main attributes I mentioned above, lead me to question how much of our early knowledge of MLK were part of the hidden curriculum of our schools. Yes, MLK stood for all of those things, but was it just a golden opportunity for our schools to push non-violence, and racial equality on us so that we might adopt them ourselves and make their lives much easier.
However, reading James Baldwin's essay made me realize that MLK truly was the way that everyone depicts him. It was a reassuring text to read. There is something about MLK's character that makes me feel like I want to change something. I can see how those who followed him were called to action by this man.
I also enjoyed how Baldwin writes about hearing MLK speak. Not trying to overuse the statement, but I can see how Barack Obama's speaking style mirrors that of MLK. The way that Baldwin says he feels hearing MLK speak and preach, I feel when I hear Obama talk. The inaugural address was very moving for me, and i can't say it had much to do with WHAT he said but more HOW he said it. He just is a speaker that can captivate his listener and evoke emotion, much the same way as I'm sure MLK did.

Jack and the Hippies

While reading John Clellon Holmes’ text, Visitor: Jack Kerouac in Old Saybrook, I was taken to what the end of the sixties must have felt like for the hippie generation. I was lead to think that, despite the fact that Jack Kerouac was a considered a Beat, he somehow represents the whole 60s generation as it approaches the 1970s.

I read through Holmes’ journal entries and watched his depiction of a dear friend spiral into a self destructive and troubled place. Jack went on drinking binges to talk and create and think just as much as the hippie generation found peace and love through drug induced experiences.
On page 428, Holmes writes that his wife saw that “Jack & I share the same horror & hatred of “this world,” and of course, it’s more than a little true.” I can’t help think about the hippie movement and how they were trying to change the world for what they saw as the better. Bringing in peace and love and ending the things that they hated about how society was shaping up. Their answer was peace, love and rock n’ roll. Jack’s answer was drinking himself out of the idea that the world he seemed to hate could not be changed.

Also, the way that Jack died reinforced the hippie connection for me. The hippie generation practiced their lifestyle in excess. Lots of drugs and lots of love in hope that the outcome would be lots of piece. In the end, that lifestyle would not prevail towards their intended outcome of peace and unity much the same as Jack’s excessive drinking was eventually the end of him in October 1969, ironically, the end of the infamous 60s decade.

On a separate note, Holmes writes about a thought he had that stated “Nothing that you think today will be true; no pre-vision of the-way-things-are will be real” (427). After watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama, something about this sentence is ringing loud for me. Nothing I thought yesterday about our country’s future is quite true today. The speech impacted me and others with hopefulness much as I think Woodstock did for the Hippie cause and their generation. Something great was happening and what we think today as true might become even better in the future. We have no way to know how we will define “the way things are” come the third year of Obama’s presidency. That uncertainty is leaving me very hopeful and I was surprised to find something like that in such a grim piece of writing.