Tales From A Blackout : 1960s Counterculture, by Patrick Joseph O'Connor
351498
Good book...very interesting reading, will definitely recommend to others! The stories in this book brought back memories of a time in Wichita that defined who we are today--what a trip!
746711
I was pleasantly surprised to see this book listed by Amazon. It is a 221-page anthology of Portland State University artists, photographers, writers, and poets published in 1971. Many of the contributors are skilled, Bruce McGillivray's original illustrations are excellent, and editing and publication quality are very good. This contains the last fiction and some of the last poems I had written and published until this year -- almost 50  years! The opening selection  by Michael (D.?) Horowitz  is an excellent series of introspective vignettes, beginning with early memories of Bobby Thompson's "Home Run Heard 'Round the World" in 1951 and juxtapositioning to Bobby Kennedy's assassination three years earlier, in 1968. By sheer happenstance or editorial design, my doggerel regarding "The Significance of 1951" formed the end piece of the collection. My brief "humorous" short story, which appears earlier, provides good evidence as to why I stopped trying to write fiction for the past five decades. Some pretty good stuff, mostly nostalgic to the "psychedelic era" in art and content. The Horowitz writings are probably most important.
394008
This highly touted memoir is chock full of memories of the 1960s and startling revelations about the amazing lives of creative people during that tumultuous period of our country's history. Through Patti Smith's intellectual and creative lens, the story is told in an almost matter of fact way that belies its incredible significance.
2263877
This book is not in my typical wheelhouse, but the information looked interesting and it was a special deal so why not?

Terrific read.  The book is about the Timothy Leary gang at and then from Harvard, along with Andrew Weil, that really helped to fuel the counterculture in ways both obvious and more subtle.  It is a well-written account of the drug culture and culture change that enveloped the sixties and beyond in ways that many readers won't realize until they read this well-written book.

I enjoyed the material, though I am much too young to have experienced these events first-hand, and this was a good education.  Well worth the easy read.  Well done
1989213
Covering developments between 1890 and 1980, Green's book is the best place to begin to understand the appropriation of public space by gay male Brazilians.  Besides seeming to have read everything written by or about  male homosexuality in Brazil (his book's apparatus occupies more than a  hundred pages), including archived forensic and psychiatric case records,  Green draws on seventy life history interviews and a cache of illustrations  from across the twentieth century.

 Green shows that the gap  between representation of rigid (masculine-active) bofe and  (feminine-passive and frequently transvestite) bicha roles and how  Brazilian males lived their sexualities increased during 1960s, and  subsequently has been challenged in public discourse, but that behavior and  purportedly universal norms were already noncongruent during the 1930s.  Besides cataloging a history of growing bicha pride and steady bofe bashful  ambivalence, Green also shows that bicha prominence in carnival is a  tradition that is relatively recent, emerging during the 1950s, and  suppressed for a few years at the beginning of the 1970s.

  Green  sensibly stresses the emergence during the 1950s and 60s of first bicha and  then gay publications. The American homophile movement then also involved  only a few determined individuals and fugitive publications.  Rio's famed  beaches have been important as places where men of varying economic status  who are sexually interested in men meet - and socialize, and develop group  consciousness, as well as engineering sexual liaisons. Brazilian gay clubs,  bars, and restaurants cluster near beaches with gay enclaves.
1119343
This album will help you to remember* the sixties whether you were there or not.  The play list includes: Carry On, Teach Your Children, Almost Cut My Hair, Helpless, Woodstock, Deja Vu, Our House, 4 + 20, Country Girl, and Everybody I Love You.  Track 5, Woodstock, alone will get you back to that era.  This is great CSNY. Well worth the price of admission.

*The saying goes, "If you can remember the sixties, then you weren't there." This is a self-referential quote. No one remembers who said it first. According to Wikiquote, it is "Attributed to Grace Slick in Bangkok Babylon (2006) by Jerry Hopkins, p. 217, and elsewhere, this was also attributed to Paul Kantner in The New Yorker, Vol. 67 (1991), Dennis Hopper in Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion (1992), and in various books to numerous others, including Judy Collins, George Harrison, and comedian Robin Williams."
454773
Superbly written, it vividly transports the reader into the gritty dark underbelly of subway platforms and urban life. Stories of seven women before the New York City blackout of 1977. Then, in the gloom of a city without lights, a glimmer of hope shines on these women whose stories though disparate were deftly intertwined on this indelible date.

Carol Colitti Levine
thesidetrek.com
901318
At the opposite end of Lonely Street, kitty corner from the Heartbreak Hotel, a row of tenements, strip malls, bars and massage parlors went up in the late `70s. These structures are all populated and patronized by the characters in Larry Durstin's "The Morning After John Lennon Was Shot," as they navigate the killing fields around them in a raging war of the sexes.

Set primarily in the Toledo area during the early Reagan Era, the book follows Ray Powell, a mid-30s teacher and alumnae of the `60s culture shift, and his coterie of college chums, each pestered by the taunts of  fleeting youth and desperate to find the person who will complete their Platonic whole. Caught between the sexual freedom of their college years and the newborn specter of death by sex, they look to each other for guidance.

While equally facile in discoursing on the nuances of Nietzsche or the tenets of Taoism as filtered through the laconic Caine from the original "Kung Fu" television series, Powell and his pals each struggle separately to define the right balance of sex and companionship in their lives. One character sums up his take on female players in the relationship game thusly: "If they just didn't know they had crotches, it would be all right."

"The Morning After John Lennon Was Shot" is richly layered in details down to the threads and tunes of those superficial early `80s, as Durstin draws an intelligent study of loneliness without degenerating into self-pity. In fact, the narrative is buoyed by the author's eye for humor in the darkness.

Durstin cannily frames the chapters with scenes at a Men's Group, as Powell retells his early-`80s "primal story" to his present-day, recovery-movement companions.

Throughout, Powell balances on the precipice between his true love, Lana, who leaves him for a pizza delivery guy, and the unrequited love of Judy, who befriends him and hints of something lasting. His friends chide him for this seemingly lecherous mid-life infatuation, but Powell and his student actually share a common void: the need for a soul mate, not simply a sex partner. By the end, we discover who the survivors are, how they cope with their battered psyches and which friend of Ray's was so lonesome he could die.

Christopher Johnston
73853
This book paints an interesting picture of the the 60's.  Don't buy this expecting a definitive portrait of Dylan because that it isn't but rather an interesting read of the 60's and Victor Maymudes recollections of Dylan and those turbulent times. As a memoir it is quite good and I would recommend it. Easy to read; I read it in about a week on my morning train commute.

This book revived Great memories of the Village in the sixties, Dave Van Ronk, The Gaslight, Cafe Wha, Odetta, and of course the Newport folk festival.
941956
"Ghost Light" takes a sometimes indirect and distancing look at the romance between the famous Irish playwright and poet J.M. Synge and Maire O'Neill, an actress who originated the part of Pegeen in The Playboy of the Western World. The novel moves between O'Neill day of declining health and hope in London in 1952 and the days she spent in a surreptitious romance with the upper-class, Protestant, doomed Synge. We do get delightful looks at what a rehearsal at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin was like in 1907 as well as a BBC radio broadcast in 1957. O'Connor's lyrical passages often delight, especially when he's writing about sex and the Irish countryside. His portrayal of Synge, afflicted with cancer, is moving and insightful. (Plus, Yeats gets a bizarre monologue.) Still, we may get too much of London and not enough theater, and some of the characters (Synge's mother, O'Neill's grandmother) fall to stereotype. Still, the historical novel entertains and teaches about this pivotal time in the culture of Ireland.
1357182
Everybody Had an Ocean

Everybody Had an Ocean, William McKeen, is a fun, extremely well documented book about the progression of the music explosion in America in the 1960s. This was a time when music evolved as it never has before and this story shows the players, not only in the studios and on stage but behind the scenes.  The west coast became the Mecca for musicians wanting to make a name for themselves. The interconnections between these artists is very interesting.  Some were neighbors, friends or even adversaries but all were interested in making the 60s, a revolution in american music.

There is a very dark figure lingering in the background throughout the 60s.  Charles Manson, woven into this story, plays a disturbing role in this 60s revolution which makes this book reminiscent of Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

I would highly recommend this book.
2388598
Max Elbaum's "Revolution in the Air" traces the history of the New Communist Movement (NCM) that grew out of the 1960s antiwar and antiracism movements in the United States.  Embracing Marxism-Leninism but skeptical of the Soviet Union, NCM activists gravitated toward "Third World Marxism" as represented by the Cultural Revolution in China, the Cuban and Vietnamese Communist Parties, and several other national liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America.  Arguably the most dynamic and racially integrated sector of the left in the late '60s and early '70s, the NCM had all but disappeared by the 1990s.

The NCM is an aspect of '60s radicalism that is often overshadowed by SDS/Weatherman, and I found Elbaum's work interesting -- even engrossing -- from historical and "leftist trainspotting" perspectives.  I appreciated two chapters in particular.  The first full chapter of the book does an excellent job setting the scene, explaining what attracted NCM activists to Marxism-Leninism, in particular its "Third World" forms.  As someone who came of age well after these ideologies had lost much of whatever credibility or appeal they may once have had, this discussion helped me understand how such politics didn't seem as crazy back then as they do today.

I was also especially intrigued by Elbaum's chapter on the culture of the movement, titled "Bodies on the Line", and would have liked to see more about life in the NCM in other parts of the book.  With so much of the discussion about the actual "rank-and-file" participants in the NCM confined to a single chapter, the rest of "Revolution in the Air" can sometimes be overwhelmed with the expected alphabet soup of organizations, and chronicles of splits, squabbles, and ideological bickering.

One of Elbaum's goals in this work is to refute what he calls the "good sixties/bad sixties" paradigm, which contrasts the idealistic early-sixties activism of SNCC and the Civil Rights Movement with more violent radicalism later on, especially that of the Weather Underground.  While Elbaum effectively challenges this notion, I was amused to see a similar "good NCM/bad NCM" dynamic in his own presentation.  He separates the period 1968-1973 from later years, arguing that the NCM's "pre-party formations" of the late '60s and early '70s allowed creative, dynamic, and flexible activity and debate about tactics, strategies, and the future Marxist-Leninist vanguard party.

Starting in the mid-seventies, however, one group after another actually founded competing vanguard parties, which took it as a central tenet that there could be only one true vanguard, "the correctness or incorrectness of [whose] ideological and political line decides everything" (Mao). As China abandoned the Cultural Revolution (the true nature of which could no longer be denied), turned toward capitalism, and attacked protesters in Tienanmen Square, and the Soviet Union itself disintegrated, the New Communist groups were locked into dogmatism and sectarianism, unable to cope with the crumbling of their ideological base.  (Not surprisingly, the years 1968-1973 are the most thoroughly discussed, receiving as many pages as the following two decades.)

Elbaum wraps up with a chapter summarizing the lessons he wants young radicals to draw from the rise and fall of the NCM.  I wasn't especially impressed by this conclusion, which largely recycles analysis and discussion from earlier in the book.  Although Elbaum can't avoid identifying the NCM's "ideological frameworks" as central flaws, he still embraces Marxism-Leninism and "the vanguard-cadre model" of organization as the way forward for the left.  I don't buy that, and find "Revolution in the Air" valuable primarily as a history of organizations and ideologies now in the dustbin.
3678447
This avant-garde novel became infamous in the sixties for being unbound--the text is simply a box, a box containing twenty seven unordered sections (barring the first and last). It is a fabulous, synchronistic recollection of Johnson's final time with his friend Tony, who is dying from cancer. Weaving magnificently disparate registers (journalism, stream-of-consciousness, memoir) Johnson paints a portrait that exudes the true depths of memory. This is a tremendous book that many will fail to appreciate on account of its unconventional structure. An odd and fascinating text that rings with tragedy.
3789543
Fred Kaplan devotes this book to the concept that the year 1959 was a seminal year of social and ergo, political change.  He makes a compelling case.  In fact, the read is so fast paced and interesting that 1959 seems surprisingly modern.

Of course, the country was getting ready to transition from the stoic and staid leadership of Dwight Eisenhower to the impetuous, urbane, and youthful regime of John F Kennedy.  Was this a symptom or cause?  This book poses the question, but does not answer it.  It only alludes to the fact that the nation was swept up in a wave of change.

He looks at several flashpoints in this energetic and electrifying time.  The music of Miles Davis and the inimitable style of Ornette Coleman.  The emergence of Martin Luther King.  and the influence of Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsburg.

There was the first visit in the Cold War era of a Russian Diplomat when Mikhoyan came to the US.  Little did we know that this Cold Warrior was secretly impressed by our society, and of course, the stare-downs between Kruschev and Eisenhower.

Perhaps one of the most interesting vignettes was about the Swiss-born photagrapher named Robert Frank.  Frank captured the change in the culture, to a more lonely and sad fracturing of the average american.  Kaplan's description of these photos produces a longing to view them immediately.

The times described seem fast-paced and exciting.  Truly, with 1960's beckoning, our culture was at a bursting point.  Kaplan capitalizes on this energy, and takes us back to a time, not so long ago, when it must have been truly engaging to be alive.
3104504
Great book on 1960s shocker films. In the genre of horror film books this might be the best treatment of the 1960s I have had the pleasure of reading. "This comprehensive filmography provides critical analyses and behind-the-scenes stories for 600 horror, science fiction and fantasy films from the 1960s. During those tumultuous years horror cinema flourished, proving as innovative and unpredictable as the decade itself. Representative titles include Night of the Living Dead, The Haunting, Psycho, Carnival of Souls, Repulsion, The Masque of the Red Death, Targets and The Conqueror Worm. An historical overview chronicles the explosive growth of horror films during this era, as well as the emergence of such dynamic directorial talents as Roman Polanski, George Romero, Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Bogdanovich." Most of the reviews are a few paragraphs with longer treatment for select films (listed above). It isn't too in-depth but does provide some fascinating details and insights. It also provides coverage of The Birds, Friday the 13th and many others. My only complaint is that I'm not sure the author is a huge fan of all these films (but that is a problem in many horror film books).

Buy this book. This pricey work is worth the money and has managed to hold its value well.
515395
This anthology makes a statement which has been needed for 50 years: the Beat Movement was at its core a spiritual quest. Beat poets and novelists of the 1950s hungered for something more satisfying than the mainstream Judeo-Christianity of Eisenhower's America. For many writers of the Beat era, this search for enlightenment brought them to Buddhism. Editor Carole Tonkinson has gathered together a terrific complilation of Beat writings on Buddhism, including major figures in the Beat canon such as Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and Philip Whalen.  But more interestingly, she has also included texts by less well known Beats such as Lenore Kandel, Lew Welch, Albert Saijo, and Harold Norse.  The introductory essay, by Stephen Prothero, does an excellent job of providing literary and historical background for the Beat movement's embrace of Eastern thought.  Several excellent anthologies of Beat writing have been released in the last decade, but this one is the best for readers who want to understand the profoundly spiritual roots of this group of cultural rebels.
3848634
With a title like this you might expect Cottrell's book to be a fun read, and it certainly is that.  However, if you are looking for an anthology of song lyrics, photos of naked hippies, or a pharmacopoeia of popular sixties drugs, this is not the book for you.  But, if you are willing to be surprised by how all the intellectual pieces of the era fit together in a mosaic of the ideals, the hopes, and the philosophies that coalesced into what loosely became knows as the Counter Cultural movement, this is the book for you.  Cottrell manages at once to be both a careful scholar who uncovers an amazingly wide and diverse array of influences connected to the period and, at the same time, is a writer who creates an entertaining and page turning history of the times.  For those who know or lived the period, this is a nostalgic, but intellectually informative trip into the past, one which recalls all the many pieces of protest, hope, and anger that fueled the thought, the music, and the actions of the sixties.  And for those who have only heard about this iconic time in American history, the book is sure to be a landmark piece of informed and highly readable scholarship.