Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
If Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" lyrics aren't literature, then I don't
know what is.  Thanks for sharing that with us, Scott.
  

    
And some tight Corman/Dylan/Lennon/Robbins observations, Robyn.
  

    
Agree with the take on Robbins that tnf offered.

I'll take one mroe run at the Thompson point. It's a mistake to suppose that
he's literally writing of hallucinations. They aren't (or aren't just)
hallucinations; they're descriptions in many cases. He sees the law
enforcement officers as primitive, but not caveman, more alien than that:
reptilian or amphibian, with jowly, wrinkled skin and beady eyes and so on.

And after Chicago and Kent State, supposing them to be standing in pools of
blood . . . again, not literal, but definitely meant to be descriptive,
rather than hallucinatory. He *could* hae written that he hallucinated they
were wood nymphs, surrounded by glistening dew. But that would be wrong.

(I'm thinking in part here of the sort of account of the "languages of art"
that Nelson Goodman offered, in which we can think not only of literal truth
but also of metaphorical truth. Accounts can be literally true, or may be
literally false but metaphorically true. Or, they may be both literally and
metaphorically false. Thompson, in the Kentucky Derby essay and in *Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas*, meant to give us a socially relevant and deeply true
description of the people.)
  

    
IT'S ONLY A CHAIR!

>lose the smog

And here I've always thought it was 'loose the spark.'
  

    
>>> from Bruce:  we can think not only of literal truth but also of
metaphorical truth. Accounts can be literally true, or may be literally
false but metaphorically true. Or, they may be both literally and
metaphorically false. Thompson, in the Kentucky Derby essay and in
*Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas*, meant to give us a socially relevant
and deeply true description of the people.

Your elaboration on the how HST's hallucinations were also evocative
and apt metaphors makes sense to me.  In terms of this creating an
"electricity" of social realism, the author sustains a metaphorical
derisiveness toward society and toward himself throughout the
narrative. As a dramatic whole, I think he successfully juxtaposes the
drug-addled surrealism and paranoia of the self, with the "real"
neon-addled sins/uptightness of Vegas.  This Sin City as a metaphor for
the Sinning Self is the overriding continuous dream that HST sustains.
  


>>> supposing them [the law enforcers] to be standing in pools of
blood . . . again, not literal, but definitely meant to be
descriptive, rather than hallucinatory.

I would suggest that HST meant, throughout Fear & Loathing, to create
surreal (hallucinated) passages that also held metaphorical truths for
the things he was describing.  On page one, as they're driving to Sin
City, bats are swooping toward his head; then there is an exaggerated
detailing of the copious amount and variety of drugs in the trunk. 
When creating this drugged-out P.O.V. character, a likeness of himself,
HST chose a playful/deviant rendering  of embellished imagery to do
exactly what you suggest––to create an insightful metaphorical
commentary on American society that torqued the reader's preconceived
notions of "the truth."  You are right that there were well-designed
descriptions toward this end, not random non-sensical ramblings.
  

    

Scott, the Grateful Dead Movie was shot at Winterland in October 1974, and
released in 1977.
  

    
Thanks, David. I remember enjoying the movie quite a bit, but that it
didn't receive a whole lot in the way of movie-goer attention.  And,
1977, jibes much better with my personal timeline.
  

    
Regarding Tom Robbins.  I think there is a comic tone to his writing
that does turn-off a lot of readers.  Then there are others who love
his irreverent style.  I think Robyn hit it on the head that, often,
the tone and surface shtick gets in the way of more substantive
underpinnings.  Still, he is a strong novelist of substance.

Interestingly, where I've read Robbins describing his approach to
writing, he says he proceeds very, very slowly, without an outline,
with a general idea of where he wants to go, but without benchmarks to
guide him.

By comparison, when Ken Kesey wrote Great Notion, he had a sticker on
his desk that said "Try to make Hank give up."  On the walls of his
office where he wrote there were elaborate diagrams and notes fleshing
out the very complex structure of the novel.

For my own writing, I am more like Kesey prefering the benchmarks. 
Makes me wonder how Vonnegut constructed S-5.  

In any event, with Robbins, the downplaying of plot, the frequent
excursions into metafictional didactics, and the uproarious or
sophomoric aphorisms and similes all seem related to writing without a
preconceived structure.  

Constructivism fascinates me in how it encourages the literary critic
to also take note of how the author went about the crafting of text as
well as, in the text itself, how well the various aspects of craft
adhere to the dramatic whole.  There is not a preferable way to write,
but this decision to plunge in without a map has its implications, I
think.  Sponteneity VS structure.  

When writing with benchmarks––different from following an elaborate
outline––I find that there is still a healthy element of sponteneity in
writing one's way from point G to point H.  For me, this is not as
dependent on a faith in a subconscious outpouring to lead me toward a
narrative structure.

Interesting stuff.    
  

    

Scott, you mentioned Slaughterhouse-Five as being one of your favorite 
books. Do you think this had more to do with its innovative structure, 
the ironic humor of Vonnegut's work, or the way he handled the difficult
subject matter?
  

    
On page 91 is a very important sentence describing the counterculture:

"There has been no other collective mass, or at least none with a
similar critical mass, to seriously question materialism and corporate
fueled consumerism"
  

    

Nice quote.

Possibly the 70s anti-nuclear movement, but that was in many ways a 
reuniting of the political and hippie movements in later years. 
  

    
When I first read S-5 in high school, I think the irony––Vonnegut's
black humor as it's been called––appealed to me.  Probably without
realizing it overtly, here was a novel that––more clearly than
Catch-22, which I also read as a teen––created this world which
challenged my image of our "sacrosanct" Second World War with its
clearly defined villains/enemies.  For me, the book was so different,
so accessibly written, and so darn creative.

When I was at Antioch, Jim Krusoe, who is a most insightful CW
teacher/reader/writer, pointed out that the potency of S-5 is due to
how high the thematic stakes were for the author.  With this, I could
totally relate to how difficult it had been for Vonnegut to find a way
into this personal memoir of his.  Twenty-three years passed before he
could write it.  The idea of calling this "A Children's Crusade" helped
him find his P.O.V. character, and the choice to write S-5 as fiction
through a loose frame of memoir––with the Point Of View being rendered
by an unarmed, eccentric Chaplain's Assistant/Army private––greatly
amplified the spiritual/moral undertone of the book.

Then, when I read S-5 very closely for my chapter in The Hippie
Narrative, my appreciation for the construction of the novel elevated
my respect for this as literature to yet another level.  The article
called "Geodesic Vonnegut," which I quote, helped me approximate a
visual metaphor for how innovative the structure of this novel is.  

In its totality, S-5 is deceptively simple, but like great art, it's
layered with subtextual meaning; it takes on the most important
question of the human race––our survival as a species; it is profoundly
humanistic––he lays the hope for mankind at the feet of men to decide
how we humans choose to engage one another; and, once again, lest we
forget to read evangelically, the book is very funny.

So it goes.....
  

    
>>> "There has been no other collective mass, or at least none with a
similar critical mass, to seriously question materialism and corporate
fueled consumerism"

When I think of the significance of the hippie ethos, I have to remind
myself that this all happened during the thick of the Cold War.  I'm
convinced that the United State never would have invaded Iraq had the
Soviet Union been in existence to dissuade this neo-conservative foray
into this Middle Eastern oil nation.

Without a countervailing force, I then wonder if the best hope to
restrain American military adventurism is for the peacemakers within
the United States (a constituency far larger than just neo-hippie
pacifists) to assert a renewed consciousness for diplomacy,
Statesmanship and reason over brute force and a pre-emptive strike
rationale that turns a defensive military into an offensive one.

And, of course, the systemic challenge of asserting a sustainable
human engagement with our planet when the global and American economic
system is fueled by R.O.I. and the inherent need for corporate growth,
leads us back to questions of human consumptions and limits to growth.

There were times when writing The Hippie Narrative that I wanted to
spell out the contemporary relevance of my examination, but, similar to
the restraint I needed to narrow in the scope of this book to a
manageable focus, I thought it best to limit my writing to literary
criticism and the cultural history of that period that these literary
findings evoked.

So, Diane, geo-politics and economics aside, thanks for noticing this
at the end of my spiritual deliberations on Siddhartha.
  

    
One of the interesting facets of Siddhartha was how profoundly it
resonated with those hippies earnestly seeking out a higher spiritual
truth.  Most had grown up as heirs of the American establishment, not
so much with silver spoons, but with significant material
opportunities.  

What was it about Eastern religious philosophy that proved so
attractive to many earnest hippies?  Yes, it was an Eastern quest that
Siddhartha embarked on, but in this deceptively simple narrative, Hesse
also captures the ascetic Christian tradition as well.  

When Siddhartha gives up everything from his high caste upbringing to
seek out his truth, this was not unlike when Jesus challenged the
wealthy young man, who kept all the commandments, that "if thou wilt be
perfect, go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow me" Matthew 19:21.  

Likewise, when the hippies rejected their parents' materialism, was it
in the vein of taking Jesus' command? Is this what is implied,
spiritually, by the idea that the magic happens the closer you get to
the edge?  Or was it a recognition that the material bounty of middle
class American society was not going to give inner contentment, that
maybe there was a better way to go about engaging life in this land
professing freedom, especially religious liberty?

Certainly, the spectrum of spiritual/religious belief among hippies
was vast, but within a shared peace & love ethos, as ethereal as that
could be, this idea of an alternative engagement was, I hope, more
spiritual than based on finding hip, escapist ways to camp out on an
eternal summer vacation. [And when that summer vacation was over, as
the national storyline goes, 'everyone' decided to join the money-money
"me" generation instead].   

The hippie had a new vision of abundance, I think.  Spiritual answers
to this quest for authenticity resonated from many traditions, even as
sublimely direct and uncodified as trying to connect, more directly and
sensually, with the earth.  

In The Conquest of Cool, Thomas Frank talks about how the
commodification of the counterculture did not occur AFTER the scene
erupted, but was well in place in 1967-68 with the fashion and
recording industries, especially, to make a buck off this newest
manifestation of youth culture.

However, what I think needs more examination is both this mechanism of
cooptation that so often serves as a simplistic way to dismiss the
hippie phenomenon as a fad, as well as a more serious look at how
rooted this anti-consumerist, anti-materialist spirituality is in both
Judeo-Christian and Eastern religious traditions.

Tom in post # 64 said: "The first chapter I read was "Siddhartha, The
Spiritual Quest".  That spiritual quest was probably the most important
thing that came out of that time period for me.  

I agree with something you said earlier though:  It was not important
to all of us.  I don't know if it was 10% or 50% of us who were drawn
to the spiritual quest and eastern spirituality, but it was not all of
us."


Yet, this 10-50% of young people estimated by Tom were seriously
exploring spiritual paths; they had considerable impact on Western
culture.  Their venturing opened the doors in America to more true
tolerance for spiritual diversity, as well as for the idea that freedom
in America was not synonymous with making money and consuming yet more
stuff. 

 
  

    
Hippie Heroes/Hippie Anti-Heroes

One of the key distinctions that Scott has drawn between hippies &
beats was the quixotic idealism of the hippies.  

I have been interested in tracing permutations in characteristics of
the hero throughout the course of Western epic/novelistic literature.  
The original heroes were almost utterly unrestrained wild
men—Gilgamesh, Achilles.  The Classical tragedians added a moral
dimension by making them pay for their daring (hubris) with some divine
retribution.
In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the heroes became restrained by
certain religious and chivalric codes (Christian vassals such as Roland
and Galahad).  If the heroes were as daring as their ancient
predecessors, like Don Juan or Doktor Faust, they were treated as
villainous rather than as merely “tragically flawed” with hamartia.  
Eventually in the more serious literature of the Enlightenment (as
opposed to the crowd-pleasing potboilers) the heroic ideal was treated
as ridiculous, with deflationary figures such as Don Quixote and Baron
Munchausen.
This precipitated, I would assert, the advent of the literary
anti-hero—characters like Dostoievski’s Raskolnikov, Jarrys’
cold-blooded “lover” Marcueil and Camus’ impassive killer Morseult.  
Even in the exuberance of the Twenties, the era’s quintessential
protagonist Gatsby is a shady anti-hero.  (The only Hemmingway hero
that ever moved me was the eponymous Old Man from Old Man & the Sea, &
he was a loser).
Holden Caufield, Dean Moriarty, Yossarian—their disaffected stances
&/or outlaw behavior mark them as classic anti-heroes.

So that takes us to the Sixties.  Despite the renewed idealism, most
of the protagonists in Scott’s canon still fall into the category of
disaffected & outlaw anti-hero: McMurphy, Kesey himself, Gnossos
Pappadopoulis, Billy Pilgrim, Raoul Duke/HST, Horse Badorties, Marx
Marvelous.
ONLY D. R. from Divine Right’s Trip enacts a real hero’s journey…
(Robbins’ J. P. Ziller, though heroic, does not undergo any dynamic
transformation via the narrative arc).
Of the female protagonists, Pynchon’s Oedipa is definitely
anti-heroine (though not a hippie), and Robbins’ Amanda is a
full-fledged hippie heroine.  (I wouldn’t identify Sissy Hankshaw &
Bonanza Jellybean as hippies).  

Is the hippie then primarily an anti-heroic figure with bare feet of
clay, despite his idealism?  And does this relate to the ultimate
dissolution of the hippie movement?
  

    
Scott--love your last post on Siddhartha.  His narrative trajectory
certainly is an heroic one and parallels somewhat D. R.'s--both might
be said to qualify as the archetypal hippie hero. 

Interestingly, Hesse's Siddhartha is portrayed as not being a good
dad, in spite of his enlightenment, and a lot of the children of
hippies seemed to be resentful of the kind of loose parenting style
with which they grew up.  
  

    
>>> from Robyn:  Is the hippie then primarily an anti-heroic figure
with bare feet of clay, despite his idealism?  

I enjoyed your longterm literary trajectory.  I think if we are going
to look at real-life hippies, then the answer to your question depends
on whether the perspective is from on the bus or off the bus, and
whether the hippie is in her deconstructivist or constructivist mode.  

>>> And does this relate to the ultimate dissolution of the hippie
movement?

If by clay feet one means the often anarchistic foundation of the
hippies in their bacchanalia, then, yes, that aspect of hippie culture
was destined to dissolve.  If we look at the many constructivist
aspects of the hippies and how these are still greening the American
sensibility, then, in many ways, the story of this transformation––the
hippie narrative––is not complete. 
  

    
>>> from Robyn:  Interestingly, Hesse's Siddhartha is portrayed as not
being a good dad, in spite of his enlightenment, and a lot of the
children of hippies seemed to be resentful of the kind of loose
parenting style with which they grew up. 



I never gave any thought to judging Siddhartha as a poor
father-figure.  This is a fascinating question.  Siddhartha did not
know he had sired a son, and the son did not come live with him until
he was a teen and his mother had died. His mother, of course, was a
prosperous courtesan and she was with Siddhartha at his most worldly
phase when she opened him to all manner of sensual and material
delight.

Was it that Siddhartha was a poor father, or was Hesse trying to show
that, ultimately, each of us decides our own path in life?  This son
made the same choice as Siddhartha did for several years.  If
Siddhartha failed, it was in not being able to convince the boy of his
"higher" path.  The boy rejected the ascetic, spiritual-seeking life in
favor of the comforts of the world.

Though you pose a profound question, I don't, however, see a logical
link between child-rearing overpermissiveness and a child choosing a
different path than a parent might prefer for his or her child.

Again, to suggest that there was only one kind of hippie style of
parenting and that this resulted in one kind of adult child reaction is
oversimplifying the reality.

Personally, I think that parenting without boundaries or, conversely,
with boundaries that stifle individuality result in behavioral
problems.  I do think that overpermissive parenting is an issue related
to drug abuse, single-parent families, rampant consumerism, and a
general erosion of politeness and mutual respect that was part of the
fallout of the '60s upheaval.  This has had significant impact on
American culture, notably in the schools.  But to say this is a
"children of hippies" phenomenon creates an easy whipping boy that I
don't think is accurate.

I mentioned meeting Roger and Celeste and their grown son, Noah Star,
last month.  This young musician had a wonderful energy about him; he
seemed centered, focused, well-adjusted, and happy.  After I hugged
Roger at the end of his set, he looked at his grown son, beamed, and
told me how proud he is.  When I would visit Marblemount years ago,
that family had boundaries and expectations and unconditional love for
Noah and his two brothers.

My wife and I also had limits and expectations for our son.  We were
married for 20 years and both of us know we did one thing very right. 
We raised a wonderful boy without a host of taboos, but with 
boundaries and unconditional love.  He has his own family now. He is
his own man with his own path.

The hippies of the '60s and early '70s did grow up. As more
responsibilities set in, especially with families to raise, those that
were sustaining drug-addled, out-of-control bacchanalian lifestyles,
were not at the enlightened end of the spectrum. Openness––living out a
peace and love ethos––was not without responsibilities.  D.R. and
Estelle found this out in Divine Right's Trip. (Constructivism again). 


Again, I think the most screwed up kids tend to come from the
extremes: homes with no boundaries and homes where there is an almost
totalitarian element of control.  Not right to lay all of this on the
hippies.

        

 
  

    
>The hippie had a new vision of abundance, I think.  Spiritual answers
to this quest for authenticity resonated from many traditions, even as
sublimely direct and uncodified as trying to connect, more directly
and sensually, with the earth.<

I selected the above quote from an earlier post as an example of
attempting to elevate an era or group pursuit in our minds. I have seen
similar attempts to elevate in such mundane pursuits as sales work. 

In use, the term spiritual only effectively refers to that which is
not material. The material realm, complex beyond all imagining, extends
into our lives in "concrete" ways. The non-material realm, OTOH, is
whatever you want it to be. Pretty hard to build authenticity (whatever
that is) on such a evanescent base. OTOH, imagination soars
wonderfully when free of material constraints. Wanting both imagination
and authenticity seems a little like having ones cake and eating it
too. 

It is hard to fly without leaving the ground.
  

    

It's interesting to me that so much of this discussion is focused on the
spirtuality of the hippie era. It's true there was a faction of hippies
seeking some kind of True Path through eastern religious teachings and
mysticism.

I definitely considered myself a hippie, but I and my cohort never had any
big craving for a path to enlightenment. We did believe we could change the
world for the better, but we thought we could do it a la John Lennon's
Imagine -- no heaven, no hell, no gods, it's just us, here and now, so let's
all get along, OK?

For me and my cohort, "Cat's Cradle" captured our attention in a way that
"Slaughterhouse Five" didn't. The total ludicrousness of Bokononism (sp?)
was wildly amusing for us, it was like a glorious spoof of all the
spiritual woo woo that echoes in religions through the ages. And the 
the Ice Nine thread resonated with us because of the insanity of nuclear 
brinksmanship we had suffered through during the Cuban Missle Crisis.

I wonder, what would it have been like if the spiritual seekers hadn't 
taken the front seat during the Sixties? What if us ol' atheist hippies
who wanted to see peace and love and the brotherhood of all mankind
reign because ... because ... well, because that's all there is so we
might as well embrace it -- how would things have turned out? 
  

    
>>> from Robert: "attempting to elevate an era or group pursuit in our
minds."

>>> "Pretty hard to build authenticity (whatever
that is) on such a evanescent base." 

>>> from Cynthia:  "I wonder, what would it have been like if the
spiritual seekers hadn't taken the front seat during the Sixties? What
if us ol' atheist hippies who wanted to see peace and love and the
brotherhood of all mankind reign because ... because ... well, because
that's all there is so we might as well embrace it -- how would things
have turned out?"



Every writer has a bias, a slant, a point of view. As a cultural
observer, I am definitely trying to portray the hippie phenomenon in a
more holistic light, one that better captures the breadth, the
social/spiritual/political/economic/psychological impact it had on
mainstream America and other western societies.  

I'm not afraid to look at the warts, shortcomings, and reasons why the
phenomenon largely withered, but I do want to elevate our
understanding of the hippie beyond the lampooning or scholarly/media
dismissiveness that has largely characterized the phenomenon. Most
historical mention of the hippie is that it was superficial and
"inauthentic."  

I would argue that there were millions of young people in a spectrum
of approaches––agnostic, Jesus freak, pagan, Zen Buddhist, Krishna,
neo-Marxist, psychotropically-inspired, etc., who, as Cynthia suggests,
"wanted to see peace and love and the brotherhood of all mankind
reign."  Culturally speaking, in terms of shared values and beliefs,
living ones life according to a peace and love ethos was the driving
ethos within the hippie counterculture of the late '60s and early '70s.
 

This was very much a "quest" for authenticity.  Whether any of these
quests led toward toward enlightenment, an expanded consciousness, or
collectively helped engender world peace is a more subjective question.
 

So while this compilation of literature genuinely reflects an array of
perspectives on the hippie, my mostly sympathetic take is not intended
to offer a rose-colored gloss or romantic hyperbole that "elevates"
the period to some idyllic plane of collective spiritual bliss and
enlightenment.  I am however, trying to elevate the period to a point
where it can be revisited with an openness to both its positive and
negative aspects.  

As for the spiritual seekers taking the front seat, it seemed to me
that the politicized hippies (New Leftist/SDS/Yippie) were very much
sharing the same pew at the front, and self-appointed iconoclasts such
as Hoffman and Rubins seized every imaginative opportunity they could
to portray themselves as the spokesmen of this far more multifaceted
phenomenon than what they could embrace with their politicized, but not
spiritual, activism.

Finally, it is indeed hard to build authenticity on an evanescent
base, particularly when that base is pulled from divergent spiritual
and political disciplines and when the "peace and love" grounding is,
in its essence, ethereal.  Robert, I think this helps explain why the
hippie phenomenon largely desiccated over time.

As Siddhartha demonstrated, a peace and love credo is difficult to
sincerely embrace and follow.   
 
  

    
Scott, the wandervogel in France and Germany after WW1 just came to
mind. I recall reading an account by a touring American written back in
the 1920s that reminded me of '60s hippies. Any information?
  

    
I hadn't heard about this, but Wikipedia had a description about
Wandervogel as a formal organization for German youth, and a parallel
one in France.  This is fascinating as another example of how young
people, as almost a rite of passage, go through a separation phase from
their parents and adult constraints to assert a different peer group
identity.

Of course, the counterculture, even its largest subset of the
voluntaristic hippies, was made up of a loose conglomeration of
movements, most of which, especially the hippies, were leaderless.

As for my thoughts on the 1967-1972 youth movement being the largest
Bacchanalia the world has ever witnessed, what erupted most strongly in
San Francisco and the West Coast, which was coping with its own
cultural adaptations as the frontier of Western expansion folded back
onto itself and the rugged individualist was forced to cope with the
pressures of modernization, also erupted throughout the advanced
Western nations.  

This more global upsurge occured mainly because of the mass media,
networks of commerce, and an underground drug trade.  This youthful
upsurge swept through North America, Europe, and Australia.  There was
the so-called British Invasion of amplified rock music that influenced
many other nations as well, especially the United Kingdom.  In the US,
this Beatle/Brit sound was paired with homespun garage-band
counterrparts sometimes making it and finding the same receptive baby
boomer market.  The boomers were entering their teens; 

there were shocking TV images of a corrupt war, 

highly potent psychedelic drugs (LSD)being widely used perioodically,
and less potent psychotropic drugs (marijuana/hash) used daily; 

the impact of The Pill for sex without fear of pregnancy was huge;

and racial/ethnic injustice,not only in the American Civil Rights
Movement, but with a global movement of Nationalism to end centuries of
European Colonialism that was stirring rebellion and unrest.  

The social cauldron boiled over, with the hippie phenomenon as one,
not insignificant, part of this.  The social change that ensued from
this period is a fascinating area of study, still largely unfocused and
oversimplified.   
  

    
Were the hippies pro-American?

Keith Abbott sent me a disk with a scan of his excellent out-of-print
book, Downstream from Trout Fishing in America.  In it he talks about
living in The Haight in 1966 before the media invasion of the
neighborhood.  He talks about how most of those in the bohemian Haight
thought of themselves as "pro American."

We have Norman Mailer's ruminations in The Armies of the Night that
repeatedly address the dangers of "Corporation Land and Technology 
Land."  He called himself leftconservative and lamented the direction
of America in "Uncle Sam's Whorehouse War in Southeast Asia."

Ken Kesey envisioned that this LSD he had stumbled upon when it was
legal would be something that would one day be in college classrooms as
guided experiences.  A Northwestern rugged individualist and
antiauthoritarian, Kesey was very much a traditionalist in many ways.

Hunter S. Thompson is very adept at pointing out mainstream
hypocrisies and championing civil liberties that he saw being eroded.

Vonnegut's S-5 mimics the schizophrenic, modern warrior propensities
of Western Culure in his evocative plee for sanity.  He was, in this
way, a consumate peacemaker.

Yet, the iconic images of the hippie era given by the media today,
invariably focus on the bashing of "yippie" heads at the 1968
Democratic Convention. Such impressions at the time were accompanied by
the idea that these "hippies" were anti-American. Were the Weathermen
(later the Weather Underground) anti-American? What about the
back-to-the-land communards?

Was Gurney Norman correct in asserting that iconic figures such as
Abbie Hoffman, were simply not representative of the era?

Was this anti-American portrait simply one promulgated by a
"corporateland" media that was pushing a different vision of what
America should and would be?

Was the freedom of expression exhibited by the hippies and the dissent
over what came to be seen as a corrupt war and an out-of-control
consumerism, actually the more pro-American stance? 
  

    

Scott, we've rambled fairly far afield from your book at this point. And
though it sort of feels like I'm interrupting, I'm going to try to turn
toward your work again, which deserves some more exploration.


Trout Fishing in America was such a different approach to literature.
There was no main character, no conflict to resolve, no plot, so why
do you think it worked so well as a narrative?