I was walking across 34th Street towards the Hudson River and my office one recent sunny morning when something fluttered across the corner of my vision. It was a suede shoulder bag adorned with a pink and silver appliqued butterfly perched casually on the shoulder of young woman of twenty something. When I was eight years old I wanted one like it more than I wanted to LIVE. That and bell bottoms, and a halter top, though at seven an ace bandage would have sufficed. The bag tickled my memory. I started seeing paisley flowered shirts- on men. Pucci halter dresses and long straight hair, microscopic mini skirts on willowy young women, cars covered in bumper stickers... It was getting more and more psychedelic in NY as the days passed and the temperatures rose. It was turning into a summer of love.
I THOUGHT the Summer of Love was what 1969 was called. My family had a bungalow not 10 miles from the Yazgur's farm the summer of Woodstock. While geographically we were close, my family was as far from cool as you could get and still breathe the marijuana scented air of that summer. My dad just found one of his famous bargains in the Catskills- so we went to Woodstock, kind of. Really all it meant was for a few weeks in July Mom couldn't find ANY basic groceries in town- not a loaf of bread or a pack of cigarettes to be found for 30 miles. For us the highlight of that summer was a group of long haired youths walking into the local laundromat one day while Mom was waiting for a dryer with us the hippies proceeded to strip and throw their clothing into a washer. Mom hustled us out - with only two hands and three pairs of wide eyes (mine and my brother and sister's- mom's were squeezed shut) we each managed to squirm away for a peek. We'd never seen anyone naked besides each other- it was worth getting yelled at to catch a glimpse.
Turns out that was MY summer of love- the actual event was a gathering in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district and also in Berkeley and other parts of the Bay Area in 1967. Over 100,000 people came to join the "hippie experience". From this garden came the flower children, whose glory my brother and sister and I viewed in full bloom 2 years later.
Phooey- I am digressing- big surprise. What I was most struck by when seeing these bits and pieces of the 60's walking alongside iPods and Blackberries, Vitamin water and Gucci sneakers was that the Whitney was having a 60's show. You can have a look at http://www.whitney.org/www/exhibition/index.jsp . It has a soundtrack- I feel like everything in life should... included is:
The 13th Floor Elevators – “YOU’RE GONNA MISS ME”
The Beatles – “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE”
The Beatles – “LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS”
The Beatles – “REVOLUTION No. 9”
Big Brother & The Holding Company: “PIECE OF MY HEART”
Eric Burdon – “SAN FRANCISCAN NIGHTS”
Butterfield Blues Band – “EAST - WEST”
The Byrds – “SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK ‘N’ ROLL STAR”
The Charlatans – “BABY WON´T YOU TELL ME”
Chicago – “SOMEDAY”
Country Joe & The Fish – “ACID COMMERCIAL”
Country Joe & The Fish – “BASS STRINGS”
Cream – “CROSSROADS”
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – “OHIO”
The Doors – “BREAK ON THROUGH”
Bob Dylan – “MR. TAMOURINE MAN”
Fleur des Lys – “CIRCLES”
The Fugs – “KILL FOR PEACE”
Allen Ginsberg – “TONIGHT LET’S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON”
Grateful Dead – “I KNOW YOU RIDER”
Great Society – “SOMEBODY TO LOVE”
Hapshash and the Coloured Coat – “H-O-P-P WHY”
Jimi Hendrix – “ARE YOU EXPERIENCED
Jimi Hendrix – “FOXY LADY”
Iron Butterfly – “IN A GADDA DA VIDA”
Jefferson Airplane – “WHITE RABBIT”
Jefferson Airplane – “WON’T YOU TRY SATURDAY AFTERNOON”
Janis Joplin – “MERCEDES BENZ”
Janis Joplin – “RAISE YOUR HAND”
Moby Grape – “DARK MAGIC”
David Peel – “I LIKE MARIJUANA”
Pink Floyd – “INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE”
Purple Gang – “GRANNY TAKES A TRIP”
Quicksilver Messenger Service –“MONA”
The Rolling Stones – “STREET FIGHTING MAN”
The Rolling Stones – “WILD HORSES” Santana – “SAMBA PA TI”
Santana – “SOUL SACRIFICE”
The Velvet Underground – “VENUS IN FURS” The Velvet Underground – “WHAT GOES ON”
Frank Zappa & Mothers of Invention – “WILLIE THE PIMP”
I can hum a lot of these...
The art- paintings, the great Fillmore posters, and concerts I only heard about... that August the Fillmore's schedule looked like this: Aug. 1-6: Muddy Waters, Buffalo Springfield, Richie Havens. Aug. 8-13: Electric Flag, with Moby Grape and Steve Miller Blues Band. Aug. 15-17: Chuck Berry and Charles Lloyd Quartet, with Steve Miller Blues Band opening. Aug. 18-19: Young Rascals and Charles Lloyd Quartet. Aug. 20-21: Count Basie Orchestra with Charles Lloyd Quartet. Aug. 22-27: Butterfield Blues Band and Cream. Aug. 29-31: Cream, Electric Flag, Gary Burton. I would have liked to been there.
It was also about the war. It was about rebelling against a world where you could be drafted and not yet be old enough to vote. It was about a war that no one could really explain. We were trying to stop...Communism? Wars never do make sense, but then, like now, the average person probably couldn't say why we were at war- or why it was important to remain at war, how it made anything better for anyone. And no one could see a way out. Young people were dying while old people made decisions to send more young people to die.
There were protests then. The other night while walking on the Frog Bridge I saw a poster fluttering on a lamp post advertising a weekly peace protest. Each week the folks in Windsor gather to protest the war. Last summer I'd met some folks in Mystic who were doing the same. I asked my friend Dove why they did it- what did it change? "They think it's important." he said.
I looked at the old photos, and the pictures of the hippies and the yippies and for a moment it all looked so- silly. But they did it for a reason. They made love to stop war, even if it was just singing, or face painting or dancing naked in the mud, it was better than participating in the senseless slaughter, in events they had no say in. They thought it was important.
Originally I was all excited to have spotted a trend- to bring it back to the buyers at the store and say HEY- this is coming. But what I am realizing is that this is a response. A reminder. The world has lost its perspective, again. Young people are sitting down and saying- I'm not going to participate. This is your affair. And their elders are saying- "this looks way too familiar- and sitting down and saying "No" as well. The US was in Vietnam for over 13 years- over 48,000 Americans died. So far in Iraq over 3,500 Americans have died and over 26,000 have been wounded. The statistics for Iraqis and other foreign nationals are far worse. The more I read- the less important the cultural trends felt-and the more I began to think about what I could do. For me I do not think flowers in my hair will be enough.
At the end of the summer of love, with the neighborhoods in the Bay Area depleted from the huge influx of visitors, the hippies staged a mock funeral to signify the end of the summer of love. Mary Ellen Kasper later recalled, the message was "Stay where you are! Bring the revolution to where you live."
I'm going to enjoy the summer and its offerings- I am especially looking forward to seeing the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of "Hair" in Central Park in September. But it all looks a little different now. I guess it's cause the revolution is here... and because I think it's important, too.
:) X
