-
The Sixties Redux
Although John Updike called the Sixties a “slum of a decade,” each of us draws from the tree of life, savoring its juices idiosyncratically and differently. For me 1968 and 1969 were memorable years in terms of pain, angst, high anxiety, acting out, being immature, growing, evolving, fucking up. It is very hard to consciously choose to grow up. One must will it someplace in the nether regions of the mind. It was my second childhood, having been infantilized by immature and undeveloped parents — so be it. I felt at the time that the period itself, those two magical and critical…
-
Chutzpah!
Did you see that comment by Jane about the Sixties? I will think on these things. However, now you know why I am marrying her. How sweet is the scent of a free mind soaring through the heavens…”Her eyes would through the airy regions stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night…” Romeo and Juliet.
-
“I Am Life, Mother. . . ” — Hair
I just caught “Hair” on TCM last night. I had seen it in 1979 twelve years after it was produced on Broadway and, in my mind and experience, ten years after the close of the Sixties; for me the 70s were post-apocalyptic and a very drab decade, although I was married in 1970 and struggling to make my way while raising two children. I had summered at a friend’s home in Woodstock in 1968 and 1969 and observed the revolution in that upstate rural town. There were artists, and mock artists, poets, head shops (do you recall?), and the glorious…
-
That Old Black Magic
That impulse to lay down a few words is here once more. I try to leave a two day space between blogs just to let the unconscious percolate. in fact, it is my contention that books are written unconsciously and what we do is channel them. I say that because the first book of “i” was written in white heat in about seven days; what is remarkable to me is that it didn’t need much editing at all. So when I come to write I let it flow out and then I revise; I try not to censor myself, often…