The
Merry Pranksters: Acid Test Volume 1 (Audio CD)
by Ken Kesey
The 'Sound City Acid Test', originally made in 1965 as The Pranksters'
venture into 'the world of The Beatles' is released for the first
time on CD. Seventy-four minutes of readings, poetry, music and
mayhem from the archives of Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs. Acid Test,
Volume 1 documents their attempt to enact an acid test within the
recording studio environment. After its release as a 1000-copy limited-edition
LP, it was repeatedly bootlegged. This CD also features 'Vietnam
Day 1966', a previously unreleased musical reconstruction (recorded
in 1967) of the Pranksters' famous meeting with the Hell's Angels
which subsequently launched the career of visiting Prankster, Hunter
S Thompson.
On
the Bus: The Complete Guide to the Legendary Trip of Ken Kesey and
the Merry Pranksters and the Birth of the Counterculture
by Paul Perry, Ken Babbs
In the effort to offer a "complete guide" to the legendary
psychedelic bus trip taken by Kesey and 13 other "pranksters"
in 1964, this book lacks only a bound-in tab of LSD-25 to make it
the real thing. Candid and hilarious photos taken during the trip
convey a generation's abandonment to drug-induced ecstasy in a way
that words cannot--although words there are aplenty here. Interviews
with participants and witnesses, a hybrid essay/fantasy by prankster
Babbs, excerpts from Tom Wolfe 's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
attempt to capture the unruly energies of a motley but winning crew.
Of most interest to serious fans of those days are the interviews
by Perry (former editor of Running magazine), in which, for example,
the literary origins of Kesey's band in Palo Alto--Larry McMurtry,
Robert Stone, Gordon Lish, Wallace Stegner at nearby Stanford--are
restored to the myth. (Stone's refusal to aggrandize the "birth
of counterculture"--"Still, we were rather pleased with
ourselves. . . . We kept our world small"--is a nice counterbalance
to the broader claims made elsewhere.) Perry's careful reconstruction
of the nine-city trip has its wonders, too, such as the meeting
with a surly, intoxicated Jack Kerouac who, upon seeing a "throne"
prepared for him by the Pranksters with an American flag draped
over it, "mute and quiet . . . took the flag and folded it
up neatly and put it over the side."
The
Further Inquiry
by Ken Kesey
Are you on the bus or off the bus?" That was the crucial question
posed by proto-hippies Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady and their band of
Merry Pranksters who toured the country in the original Magic Bus
on the first Magical Mystery Tour, most famously recounted by Tom
Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. In The Further Inquiry,
Kesey examines the trip 25 years after the fact through a surreal
courtroom drama. While the text itself is not as engrossing as One
Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Kesey's first book which catapulted
him to early fame at 23), devotees of Beat will find the bus tramscript
snippets of interest and the layout and full-color pages throughout
make this big bad hardback a treasure worth hunting.
The exceptionally good design anticipates hypertext in a way which
few printed books have done (the collaborations of McCluhan and
Fiore being other notable examples). With color photographs, film
stills, and other enhanced imagery, the book is a visual feast with
many whimsical touches, including a black-and-white flipbook movie
of a dancing Cassady in the right margin. It is less an inquiry
than a celebration. As one character proclaims of Cassady: "He
was joyous. He could take social and emotional and cosmic changes
just like he could take ninety-degree corners...on four wheels or
two. My god, didn't you ever read On the Road? He was a living legend!"
One
Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
by Ken Kesey, Robert Faggen (Introduction)
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST is narrated by a patient in the
ward, a Columbia Indian whom everyone thinks deaf, mute, and unintelligible,
but who throughout the years of his commitment has overheard all
the trickery of staff meetings. He epitomizes the mishap of the
erroneous boundary with which the sane separates them from the insane.
McMurphy's arrival and his friendship with the Indian Chief spur
him on to recover his own identity and rebuild his self-esteem.
The novel examines the notion of madness in the sense of its own
and in the sense of the term being patronized by mental institution.
The narrator's seamless observation and eagle-eyed description of
the ward illustrate salient flaws of such a mindless system that
targets only at reducing patients' mental capability. Kesey considers
whether madness really means the common practice that confines to
a mindless system or the attempt to escape from such a system altogether.
Like its audacious protagonist, the novel itself is a literary outlaw.
Kesey's
Jail Journal
by Ken Kesey, Ken Kesey
Author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the leader of the
Merry Pranksters, Kesey was a seminal '60s anti-authority figure-with
some consequences via The Man. His lushly illustrated account of
time in prison was begun in 1968, when Kesey was serving time for
pot possession in an experimental low-security "camp."
Kesey drew, collaged and wrote a running narrative of his experiences
in several notebooks, which 30 years later, toward the end of his
life, he assembled into this single work. The original intent was
to contrast the swirling, colorful collages and watercolors of his
jail surroundings-many of which suggest the influence of Blake-on
the verso pages with printed text on facing rectos, but his later
revision and considerable expansion of the text decidedly tilts
toward the text. The latter reads like a time capsule of slang and
drug references that will instantly transport those that partook:
"Hot Double Damn! There's four STP tabs, couple of psilocybin
pills and five good old Owsley purples!" A running confrontation
with a camp supervisor named John Wayne illustrates Kesey's ongoing
interest in authority figures out to crush the spirit, but does
not resolve as it would in a work of fiction. While often silly
and funny, Kesey also poignantly and often tragically depicts issues
such as racial tension, mental instability and the eternal clash
between order and freedom.
Sometimes
a Great Notion
by Ken Kesey
This is the Kesey novel that nobody read after One Flew Over the
Cuckoos nest stole all its thunder. Although it was filmed with
an great cast (Henry Fonda, Paul Newman) it never gained the reputation
that its inferior sibling achieved.
This is, quite simply, one of the great classics of the 20th century.
Its pace and moody evocation of the American North West are stunning.
The collision between the traditional and the modern, the past and
the present make riveting, enthralling reading.
The Stamper family are loggers, rough, hard men and women who care
for no ones opinion but their own. They are fighting the union,
the neighbours, the town, their whole world. Their motto of "never
give an inch" was the title of the film of the book. Into the
strike-breaking start of the book comes the dope-smoking, college
educated half brother, the prodigal son. His arrival triggers a
tidal wave of events that spiral gradually out of control until
everything that has been permanent before is now threatened.
If I seem vague in this review it is simply that I don't want to
deprive you of the pleasure of discovering this story for yourself.
This is one of the forgotten masterpieces.
Spit
in the Ocean
by Ed McClanahan (Editor), Gus Van Sant
Between 1974 and 1981 Ken Kesey self-published six issues of a literary
magazine called Spit in the Ocean. After the revolutionary novelist's
death in the fall of 2001, one of his closest friends, acclaimed
writer Ed McClanahan, decided to carry out Kesey's vision and put
together a final issue of Spit as a tribute to Kesey's genius and
imperturbable spirit. Featuring contributions from cultural luminaries-including
Robert Stone, Paul Krassner, Wendell Berry, Bill Walton, and Grateful
Dead lyricists Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow-as well as "regular
folk," and several pieces by Kesey himself, Spit in the Ocean
#7 is a loving and fitting homage to the gigantic and unique spirit
of the merriest of the Merry Pranksters.
Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of
the American Dream
by Hunter S. Thompson
Heralded as the "best book on the dope decade" by
the New York Times Book Review, Hunter S. Thompson's documented
drug orgy through Las Vegas would no doubt leave Nancy Reagan
blushing and D.A.R.E. founders rethinking their motto. Under
the pseudonym of Raoul Duke, Thompson travels with his Samoan
attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in a souped-up convertible dubbed the "Great
Red Shark." In its trunk, they stow "two bags of grass,
seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered
blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole
galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers....
A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint
of raw ether and two dozen amyls," which they manage to
consume during their short tour.
On assignment from a sports magazine to cover "the fabulous
Mint 400"--a free-for-all biker's race in the heart of
the Nevada desert--the drug-a-delic duo stumbles through Vegas
in hallucinatory hopes of finding the American dream (two truck-stop
waitresses tell them it's nearby, but can't remember if it's
on the right or the left). They of course never get the story,
but they do commit the only sins in Vegas: "burning the
locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help." For
Thompson to remember and pen his experiences with such clarity
and wit is nothing short of a miracle; an impressive feat no
matter how one feels about the subject matter. A first-rate
sensibility twinger, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a pop-culture
classic, an icon of an era past, and a nugget of pure comedic
genius.
Hell's
Angels
by Hunter S. Thompson
n "Hell's Angels" his writing style was supplanted
by the lifestyle he adopted for a year in order to journalize
the "trips" of the notorious California Motorcycle
gang. Unless you were previously exposed to some (true) stories
of the Hell's Angels, much of this book will be eye-opening
for the gang did and didn't do. I hadn't been and only knew
the myth perpatrated by the media. Hunter does his best to expose
the NY Times, Time Magazine and others for their taget-picking,
fear-baiting, if-we-printed-it-it-must-be-real style of reporting
and de-myths many of the groups exploits. Hunter focuses his
story of two or three "runs" the Angel's take. He
captures the anti-social attitudes and behaviors of the gang
without judging and relates the booze, pills, sex and thuggery
stories without embellishment (or so it seemed to me). Read
this book if you've ever wondered what the gang life was like
for this group of misfits '60's drop-outs.
Songs
of the Doomed : More Notes on the Death of the American Dream
by Hunter S. Thompson
This is an excellent introduction to the range of Thompson's
writings though the early 1990's. It includes samples of his
two early novels (Prince Jellyfish, The Rum Diary) and articles
and excerpts from his later journalism and fiction ("Let
The Trials Begin" is worth the price of the book).No duplication
of material fromThe Great Shark Hunt, his earlier collection.
An excellent audio version was realeased when the book was first
published.
This book gives you some idea of what he was up to during the
time covered by the two volumes of letters he's published and
shows that his humor and sense of outrage have matured better
than, say, Mark Twain's during a comparable stretch of his writing
career.
The
Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
by Hunter S. Thompson, Douglas Brinkley
Raise this book high and salute the will of a man to lay his
life out in unsanitized words for all to see. This is a book
that proves that the pen is not only mightier than the sword
but leaves scars that cut deeper and last much longer. Not since
Jack London's "Martin Eden" have I read such a terrifying
account of a writer struggling against the forces in society
that sneer and wag their self-righteous fingers at honesty,
and even more so the will of the messenger to reveal it. Part
anarchist and full iconoclast, Thompson takes on all comers
from Hell's Angels to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and especially
the low-life agents and editors that would steal thier mother's
walking stick to fend off a writer coming after his (or her)
due. If you enjoy Thompson's work this is a must read.
The
Rum Diary : A Novel
by Hunter S. Thompson
This is the "lost novel" by Hunter S. Thompson, a
book that he started writing in 1959 to make a quick buck. He
struggled all through the sixties to get this thing rewritten
and published, but because of its quality and Thompson's legendary
shakedowns with agents, publishers, and contracts, it died on
the vine - until a few years ago. This quasi-fictional account
of a New York reporter drifting into a job at the San Juan Daily
News is somewhat based on Thompson's experience on the Carribean
island in the late 1950. Trying to put Puerto Rico on the literary
map like Hemingway did for Paris, he spells out a story of corruption,
boredom, and alcohol in a more simple San Juan, before the big
booms of the travel booms and technology of the sixties. Paul
Kemp, the fictional narrator, describes the coworkers, women,
natives, and insane government, riddled with syndicates and
kickbacks. The writing here isn't like Fear and Loathing in
Las Vegas - it's more of the Orwell/Mailer/Miller genre, and
does a good job of painting memorable scenes of the insanity,
camaraderie, poverty, and drunkenness on top of the tropical
backdrop. It's not bad stuff, and I wonder if it recently went
through heavy rewrites, or if there just wasn't a market for
it back in the sixties.
The
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
by Tom Wolfe
They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But,
fortunately, Tom Wolfe was there, notebook in hand, politely
declining LSD while Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters fomented
revolution, turning America on to a dangerously playful way
of thinking as their Day-Glo conveyance, Further, made the
most influential bus ride since Rosa Parks's. By taking On
the Road's hero Neal Cassady as his driver on the cross-country
revival tour and drawing on his own training as a magician,
Kesey made Further into a bully pulpit, and linked the beat
epoch with hippiedom. Paul McCartney's Many Years from Now
cites Kesey as a key influence on his trippy Magical Mystery
Tour film. Kesey temporarily renounced his literary magic
for the cause of "tootling the multitudes"--making
a spectacle of himself--and Prankster Robert Stone had to
flee Kesey's wild party to get his life's work done. But in
those years, Kesey's life was his work, and Wolfe infinitely
multiplied the multitudes who got tootled by writing this
major literary-journalistic monument to a resonant pop-culture
moment.
The
Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby
by Tom Wolfe
In this book, his first, Tom Wolfe took a fresh look at the
American scene of the early 1960s and zeroed in on the more
exotic forms of status-seeking then in vogue from New York
to Los Angeles.
In the Twist, bouffant hairdos, stock-car racing and rock
concerts Wolfe found a unique American energy. In the title
piece he eulogizes the flamboyant kustomized kars California
teens constructed with artistic dedication.
"New forces excited the old guard, and Wolfe takes special
pleasure in stories of these encounters. Whether in fashion,
nightlife, child rearing or art worship, the old guard fought
to preserve its status."
The
Pump House Gang
by Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe is brilliant in capturing a generation's feel. This
collection of short stories describes the socialites, the
freaks and the trend-setters. Wolfe's language manages to
show the physical as well as the atmosphere within a few short
sentences.
Even
Cowgirls Get the Blues
by Tom Robbins
The main character is Sissy Hankshaw, a young beauty with
one minor, or maybe major flaw, her huge thumbs. Instead of
letting the size of her thumbs hinder her, she uses them to
her advantage, and becomes the best hitchhiker in the country,
perhaps the world. Hitchhiking takes Sissy to a number of
diverse and interesting places, where she meets many distinct
and different people. Among the people Sissy meets is the
"Countess", a gay, cross dressing owner of a douche
company which Sissy becomes a part time model for. Through
the Countess Sissy meets Julian Gitche, who becomes her husband.
She also meets Bonanza Jelly Bean, "the cutest cowgirl
in the world" who dreams that someday every little girl
that dreams of becoming a cowgirl will be able to and not
be told that it is a silly dream like she was told by her
parents. Among the people that Sissy meets the Chink would
have to be one of considerable significance, although he would
not say that he "taught" Sissy anything, she learned
a lot from him, and he gave the reader a lot to think about
too. "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues" was both entertaining
and witty, coming as much from the crazy antics of the characters
as from the frequent interjections from the author. "Cowgirls"
is one of Robbins' best work both in imaginative characters
and wild themes. It has the "stuff" to keep the
reader interested to the end. Also highly recommend for its
humor, insight, and disturbing qualities.
Another
Roadside Attraction
by Tom Robbins
Hilarious and entertaining on a surface level, and an insightful
and unique perspective into philosophy and sociology (yes,
I know it's just fiction).
Tom Robbins has a wonderful writing style and a creative mind.
If you like unique books (how about ninja assassin Catholic
monks or missplaced messiahs?), this is for you.
Richard
Brautigan : A Confederate General from Big Sur, Dreaming of
Babylon, and the Hawkline Monster
by Richard Brautigan
You will discover that Brautigan is a master of the short
novel. The greatest master ever. This man can say in 100 pages
what Tolstoy said in 1,000. This is probably the greatest
American novelist ever, because in many ways he invented a
complete new path in literature many writers will discover
in years to come and be influenced by it.
Trout
Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster,
and In Watermelon Sugar
by Richard Brautigan
A Brautigan omnibus, reissued in paperback in celebration
of its twentieth anniversary, this one-volume edition includes
three contemporary classics that embody the spirit of the
1960s.
Richard Brautigan's comic genius and countercultural vision
of American life made him a literary idol of the 1960s and
early 1970s. He wrote ten novels, nine volumes of poetry,
and a collection of short stories entitled REVENGE OF THE
LAWN. His books became required reading for the beat generation,
and TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA sold more than two million copies
throughout the world. Brautigan committed suicide in 1984
at the age of fourty-nine.
Revenge
of the Lawn, The Abortion, So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away
by Richard Brautigan
Three unforgettable Brautigan masterpieces reissued in a one-volume
omnibus edition.
REVENGE OF THE LAWN: Originally published in 1971, these bizarre
flashes of insight and humor cover everything from "A
High Building in Singapore" to the "Perfect California
Day." This is Brautigan's only collection of stories
and includes "The Lost Chapters of TROUT FISHING IN AMERICA."
THE ABORTION: AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE 1966: A public library
in California where none of the books have ever been published
is full of romantic possibilities. But when the librarian
and his girlfriend must travel to Tijuana, they have a series
of strange encounters in Brautigan's 1971 novel.
SO THE WIND WON'T BLOW IT ALL AWAY: It is 1979, and a man
is recalling the events of his twelfth summer, when he bought
bullets for his gun instead of a hamburger. Written just before
his death, and published in 1982, this novel foreshadowed
Brautigan's suicide
An
Unfortunate Woman : A Journey
by Richard Brautigan
Eerily foreshadowing the 1984 suicide of its author, counterculture
legend Brautigan, this previously unpublished book is a semiautobiographical
description of one man's experience of the classic symptoms
of depression. The narrator, clearly the talented, alcoholic,
sexually questing Brautigan, explains his rambling account
as "a calendar of one man's journey during a few months
of his life." The episodic entries, dating from January
to June of 1982, at first seem whimsically random, as the
narrator recounts a peripatetic six months wandering among
Montana, Berkeley, Hawaii, San Francisco, Buffalo, the Midwest,
Alaska, Canada and points in between, but soon it's obvious
that a preoccupation with death is the dominant theme. The
narrator stays at various times in the house of "an unfortunate
woman" who hanged herself, and the event darkens his
consciousness even when he is not physically there. Meanwhile,
another friend is dying of cancer, and this, too, contributes
to his morbid state of mind. Financial troubles, estrangement
from his daughter, insomnia, a deepening dependence on drink
and the confession that he feels "very terribly alone"
add up to a picture of a man whose melancholy will reach the
breaking point. Even so, Brautigan maintains his ironic humor
and his ability to write clear, often crystalline prose, though
at time his mannerismsArepetition of a pedestrian thought,
a habit of attaching cosmic significance to a mundane event,
such as an Alaskan crow eating a hot dog bunAbecome irritating.
Yet the reader cannot help being moved by this candid cri
de coeur of a soul in anguish, and to his fans, these last
words will be a book to treasure.
You
Can't Catch Death : A Daughter's Memoir
by Ianthe Brautigan
"I did not recognize the dignified, brilliant, hysterically
funny, and sometimes difficult man who was my father in anything
they wrote," says Ianthe Brautigan, who makes it her
business to capture those qualities in this poignant memoir.
Her recollections of an unsettled childhood bouncing between
two free-spirited parents' bohemian homes (in San Francisco,
Montana, Hawaii, and Japan) are remarkably free from bitterness,
even when she chronicles drunken phone calls from her suicidal
father. Alcohol was Richard Brautigan's fatal weakness, prompted
by severe depressions rooted in an impoverished, unhappy childhood.
But Ianthe also depicts his tenderness and warmth, the magical
sessions of impromptu storytelling with writer buddies like
Tom McGuane and Jim Harrison, the glamour of meeting movie
stars Peter Fonda and Margot Kidder. She comes to terms with
the past that always haunted her father when she makes a trip
to Oregon to see her grandmother, estranged from Richard for
25 years. Without presuming to solve the mystery of his death,
the author reclaims the values of Brautigan's life and work
in her touching, sensitively written book
The
Beatnik and Folk Transition into the 60s
Positively
4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan,
Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina
by David Hajdu
Sometimes, gifted people intersect at the perfect moment
and spark a cultural movement. According to acclaimed
biographer David Hajdu (Lush Life), Joan and Mimi Baez,
Dylan, and Farina were of that brand of fated genius,
and via romantic and creative trysts, they invented 1960s
folk and its initially maligned offshoot, folk rock. But
their convergence hardly emblematizes the free-loving
media version of the 1960s. Egos--especially Joan Baez's
and Dylan's--clashed, jealousies flared, romance was strategic.
Hajdu does not dwell on Dylan's thoughtless, well-documented
breakup with Joan Baez after riding to fame on her flowing
skirts. Instead, he spotlights Joan's younger sister,
Mimi, a skilled guitarist in her own right, and her husband,
novelist-musician Farina. After divorcing leading folkster
Carolyn Hester, the disarmingly groovy Farina captivated
teenage Mimi via love letters, and, but for his untimely
death, might have pursued Joan. Though Farina comes off
as more opportunistic than Dylan, Hajdu compellingly asserts
that Farina, not Dylan, invented folk rock and provided
fodder for Dylan's trademark sensibilities. Hajdu provides
a skillfully wrought, honest portrait that neither sentimentalizes
nor slams the countercultural heyday.
Tales
of Beatnik Glory
by Ed Sanders
Ed Sanders's mock-heroic (and heroic) odyssey follows
poet, filmmaker, and activist Sam Thomas, editor of Dope,
Fucking, and Social Change, and a variegated cast of castoffs,
dropouts, peaceniks, freakniks, and mendicant filthniks,
from Kansas through the beatnik and hippie countercultures
of New York City's Lower East Side and Greenwich Village.
From the Freedom Rides and confrontations with the Alabama
Klan to the "hate-dappled" Summer of Love, Tales
of Beatnik Glory is the epic of America in the sixties,
in a language of droll invention and stoned mythopoesis,
from a man who once dared to exorcise the Pentagon. This
revised edition adds two new volumes and includes twenty-five
never-before-published stories.
Been
Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me
by Richard Farina, Thomas Pynchon (Introduction)
This is the ultimate novel of college life during the first
hallucinatory flowering of what has famously come to be known
as The Sixties. Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me follows
haunted ur-hippy Gnossos Pappadopoulis upon return to his
old university town that's just tilting into a new era, and
Gnossos' involvement in a swirl of sixties-style drug taking
and the search for love and the meaning of it all. It is a
hilarious and haunting book. (Amazon Review)
Long
Time Coming and a Long Time Gone.
by Richard Farina
I review this as a fan of Richard Farina and as an aficionado
of the "Great Folk Scare" of the mid-1960's, when
the folksingers of Cambridge and Greenwich Village gave voice
to a lonely high school kid in suburban LA. Not as good as
"Been Down So Long, etc.", but it gives insight
into Richard. Along with the aforementioned book, this is
best read in conjunction with his music, and possibly even
David Hajdu's recent "Positively Fourth Street: The Lives
and Times of...etc," (What is it with this Dylan, Farina,
thing and the Long titles, anyway?)
The book is a collection of short fiction, poetry, and magazine
articles which act as a great frame for discovering this all-too-early-lost
talent.
My personal favorite is the narrative "The Monterey Fair".
Framed around a dialogue between an incognito Joan Baez and
the attendants of a John Birch Society Booth at the fair about
their views on peace, Is an amazing portrait of the U.S. in
the sixties.
His late wife Mimi has written introductory notes to each
piece, helping the book give a portrait of the artist in the
context of his work.
The
Complete Vanguard Recordings [BOX SET]
Richard & Mimi Fariña
Richard Farina was better known as a novelist (he wrote Been
Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me), while his wife Mimi
was best known as the younger sister of Joan Baez. On the
two albums they cut together (plus the outtakes released after
Richard's death in a 1966 motorcycle accident), their musical
progression captured the tenor of the times--a progression
from folk traditionalism to topical social comment to playful
surrealism. This three-disc set presents the entirety of the
duo's studio output, plus a nine-song performance from the
1965 Newport Folk Festival (issued here in its entirety for
the first time). Richard's mountain dulcimer spurred a revival
of interest in the instrument, and his "Pack Up Your
Sorrows" established itself as a folk standard of the
era, but guitarist Mimi (who died of cancer in 2001) was plainly
a better singer and more proficient musician than the husband
to whom she deferred.
Memories
Mimi & Richard Farina
A great sad epitaph to the literate folksinger Richard Farina.
The songs are sometimes dated but many still retain a stark
beauty that is timeless. The darkly orchestrated "quiet
joys of brotherhood" and jaunty "pack up your sorrows"
are classics. Mimi Farina' s voice matched the etheral beauty
of the wonderful cover photo. The dulcimer and guitar interplay
is warm and intimate especially the tracks recorded at the
duo's Newport Folk Festival appearance. The album stands as
a final monument to Richard Farina's talent and a sad reminder
of what was lost when Farina died in a motorcycle crash in
1966. Christopher Charpentier.
Joan
Baez : A Bio-Bibliography
by Charles J. Fuss
Still a highly visible figure, Joan Baez has long been known
for social activism and her support of people victimized by
poverty and political misfortune. To trace her career is comparable
to tracing the social history of her time, and it is often
difficult to separate the political activist from the musician.
This volume is a comprehensive reference guide to her life
and career. A biography concisely summarizes her achievements,
while annotated entries detail her work in music and film.
Entries provide critical commentary, and a bibliography cites
and annotates additional works.
The
Complete A&M Recordings [BOX SET] [ORIGINAL
RECORDING REMASTERED]
Joan Baez
Joan Baez is one of the most memorable singers of the 60s
and 70s, and she hasn't disappeared, as her 2003 album with
modern protest songs demonstrates. This A&M compilation
puts together her A&M LPs on 4 CDs, remastered and unabridged.
This is great to have if you like classic folk music - solid
songs performed by an excellent female folk singer. Note that
this collection includes both studio and live material, which
is why some songs appear more than once in the set.
The
Joan Baez Songbook
by Elie Siegmeis
Sixty-six songs from the repertoire of America’s best
loved folksinger, with historical and musical commentary,
arranged for voice and piano with guitar chords. Includes:
House Of Rising Sun, We Shall Overcome, Amazing Grace,Where
Have All The Flowers Gone, and Last Night I Had The Strangest
Dream.
And
a Voice to Sing with: My Story
by Joan Baez
Sorry No Reviews! (????)
No
Direction Home: The Soundtrack (The Bootleg
Series Vol. 7)
Bob Dylan
You don't have to be a hardcore Dylan fan to appreciate this
album. It is exceptional. Every track is special. And the
CDs come with a 58-page liner booklet that includes rarely
and formerly unpublished photos, essays and track-by-track
analysis. A must have CD(s)!
Bob
Dylan: In His Own Words
by Bob Dylan, Miles, Christian Williams
This unique, best-selling series features quotes gathered
over the years from family, friends, and the artists themselves
giving the reader a personal insight into their music and
world. Fully illustrated throughout with black and white photographs.
Chronicles
: Volume One
by Bob Dylan
He believed in justice and the American Way, but he was not
on the fore front fighting for it. He wanted the reverse;
to be left alone, to live his life and to write and sing.
All the publicity drew strange and unattractive people to
him- they broke into his home, found him wherever he was and
bothered him and his family. He felt unsafe as Bob Dylan.
He hated that life.
He learned to rent a house under an assumed name and to become
undistinguished. He was able to travel and to be himself,
somewhat. He married, had 5 children that he dearly loved.
He helped to raise them, changed their diapers, loved them,
gave them toys, brought them to the beach, picnics; ordinary.
everyday stuff. Bob Dylan would have us believe that he is
an ordinary man; well, ok, he is in some way. But he is also
a troubadour, singing the words and tunes that we all love.
He has been everywhere. He tells of us his time in New Orleans;
the city he loves the most. Trying to get a record together
and what he learned about himself and the songs he wrote.
He tells of us his dinner with Bono, of U2, and how they drank
a case of Irish ale, and what they learned from each other.
He tells us how he admires Ice-T and Frank Sinatra, Jr. But
most of all we learn a little about how Bob Dylan is as a
man. Much to be admired and respected, but then, only a man.
Highly recommended.
Keys
To The Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia
by Oliver Trager
The most encyclopedic sourcebook on one of the 20th century's
most important artists, Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob
Dylan Encyclopedia completely chronicles this music icon's
recorded work. Discussions of all of his officially released
albums and collaborative efforts, including year of release,
record company, serial number information for all formats
(LP, CD, and cassette), track list, musicians, and descriptive
analysis of its place in Dylan's career are provided. In addition,
it offers critical and historically detailed entries on each
of the songs that Dylan has recorded or performed in more
than four decades of touring, including composer information,
and the album on which the song appeared. Completing this
reference are detailed biographical sketches of more than
100 musicians, songwriters, and other individuals associated
with Dylan, and a selected list of films in which he has been
involved.
No
Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan
by Robert Shelton
Robert Shelton, a critic for the New York Times in 1961, caught
an early Bob Dylan gig at Folk City in Greenwich Village and
wrote an effusive review for the newspaper. The coverage in
the Times was a huge boost to the career of the then-struggling
folksinger, and Shelton and Dylan became friends, seeing each
other frequently around the Village folk scene. When Shelton,
in the 1980s, finally got around to finishing his full-length
biography of Dylan, he could draw upon a wealth of insider
stories from the early days. The book is naturally strongest
when describing Dylan's early career, from his coffeehouse
gigs as a Woody Guthrie disciple to the insanely high artistic
peaks of the mid-'60s. A particularly engaging passage concerns
a freeform interview Shelton conducted with Dylan as they
flew high above the Midwest in early 1966; Shelton's memories
of Dylan are essential reading for fans. Shelton saw much
less of the notoriously private Dylan as the years passed,
and the book loses momentum as he becomes less of an eyewitness
and more of a distant observer, though Dylan's story is credibly
told up through the mid-1980s. --Robert McNamara
-Hippie
Classic-
One of our personal bibles. All we can say is: Jai Hanuman!
A true bridge and doorway! The morphing of Dr. Richard Alpert,PhD
into Baba Ram Dass.
For
his newly recorded tapes-"Experiments In Truth"
"The
message is Be Here Now. When I first meditated on the meaning
of this exhortation, ten thousand bells began to ring in my
mind. Of course! The past is gone, an illusion which exerts
all kinds of negative influences on the human psyche. The
future is even more illusory, in that it is so transient.
It could be years long, or it could be seconds - who knows?
Life can only be truly experienced in the present - in the
here and now - and if we are to find peace and spiritual freedom,
we must first do away with our attachment to the past and
the future. This is the central premise of the books teaching
and it is a profoundly important teaching. We live so much
of our lives in the past or the future, we forget to experience
the joy of the moment and in the third part of the book entitled
'Cook-book for a Sacred Life', Ram Dass offers the reader
some practical techniques. Meditation, yoga, posture, mantra,
recipes - there is everything here for the novice spiritual
aspirant wishing to bring a sense of sacred-ness into all
aspects of his or her daily life. As a young man seeking spiritual
knowledge and a pathway towards salvation, the rituals, techniques
and teachings expounded in this book brought a magic to each
day and a kind of unseen connection with Ram Dass and his
other readers. Be Here Now was a vital component of my spiritual
awakening and I would like to address my words to any open-minded
person looking to tread the rock-strewn road towards self-knowledge,
compassion and spiritual illumination. Read this book NOW!
"
-Hippie
Classic-
"Readers of a certain age might remember Alan Watts,
a former Episcopal priest who fled both his native land of
England and his religion for California and Zen Buddhism respectively.
For many young Americans growing up in the late 1950s and
early 1960s, Watts was their first taste of the counterculture
to come; Through him, a generation discovered Eastern spirituality
and learned to let down their hair and experience a little
joy. Now, six of Watts's unpublished lectures have been collected
and adapted in Zen and the Beat Way, a compendium of radio
and seminar talks Watts gave between 1959 and 1965. There's
something rather dated yet endearing about Watts's pronouncements--everything
from his misconceptions about Eastern religions to his bumper-sticker
clichés. Still, Zen and the Beat Way is charmingly
written and provides older readers with a nostalgic trip down
memory lane while giving those born after the '60s a taste
of the era's ethos." (Amazon Review)
Joyous
Cosmology
by Alan Watts.
-Hippie
Classic-
"The Joyous Cosomology is one of the most powerful and
at the same time fun books of its time. It is unfortunate
that it is out of print because it has much to show readers
concerning the imaginative construction and deconstruction
of this universe. This is perhaps Watts' most direct and creative
work and it has the potential to open up many doors in the
readers mind. The photography in the book is a wonderful addition
and works well to spark the imagination into re-creating our
perceptions of reality." (Amazon Review)
This
Is It : and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience
by Alan W. Watts
-Hippie
Classic-
The six essays in this volume all deal with the relationship
of mystical experience to ordinary life. The title essay on
"cosmic consciousness" includes the author's account
of his own ventures into this inward realm. "Instinct,
Intelligence, and Anxiety" is a study of the paradoxes
of self-consciousness; "Spiritually and Sensuality,"
a lively discussion of the false opposition of spirit and
matter; and "The New Alchemy," a balanced account
of states of consciousness akin to spiritual experience induced
by the aid of lysergic acid. The collection also includes
the text of Watts' celebrated pamphlet, "Beat Zen, Square
Zen, and Zen.
"Become
What You Are : Expanded Edition
by Alan W. Watts
“Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment
it is infinite and eternal. For the present moment is infinitely
small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists
forever…. You may believe yourself out of harmony with
life and its eternal Now; but you cannot be, for you are life
and exist Now.”–from Become What You Are
In this collection of writings, including nine new chapters
never before available in book form, Watts displays the intelligence,
playfulness of thought, and simplicity of language that has
made him so perennially popular as an interpreter of Eastern
thought for Westerners. He draws on a variety of religious
traditions, and covers topics such as the challenge of seeing
one’s life “just as it is,” the Taoist approach
to harmonious living, the limits of language in the face of
ineffable spiritual truth, and the psychological symbolism
of Christian thought.
Turtle
Island
by Gary Snyder
"Turtle Island won Gary Snyder the Pulitzer back
in 1975, and remains, to this observer, his most completely
realized work. The title comes from a Native American
term for the continent of North America, and Snyder wants
to reclaim the organic and holistic environmental harmony
that once held sway here. Still, this is poetry, not diatribe.
Snyder's key virtue isn't his political or philosophical
vision, but his poetic articulation of that vision. Excellent."
(Amazon Review)
No
Nature : New and Selected Poems
by Gary Snyder
"This first selected edition of Snyder's poetry offers
an overview of a career spanning more than 30 years, from
his emergence as a poet of the Beat Generation to his
eventual focus on nature and environmentalism."
The
Practice of the Wild: Essays
by Gary Snyder
Essayist and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Snyder ( Turtle
Island ) offers nine sensitive and thoughtful essays blending
his personal Buddhist beliefs, respect for wildlife and
the land, and fascination with language and mythic tradition
into a "meditation on what it means to be human."
In "The Place, the Region, and the Commons,"
he relates the old English concept of the common to publicly
held U.S. forests, expressing concern that Americans,
who lack an intimate familiarity with the land, "are
not actually living here intellectually, imaginatively,
or morally." "Tawny Grammar," referring
to a Spanish phrase for knowledge of nature, examines
this knowledge through a school curriculum in northwest
Alaska that combines traditional native values and marketable
skills. "Ancient Forests of the Far West" contrasts
Snyder's experience as a logger in the 1950s, when the
industry still exercised restraint, with the current depletion
of American woodlands. And "The Woman Who Married
a Bear" comments on relations between bears and humans
through a Native American myth about a girl who is carried
off by a grizzly that assumes the form of a man.
A Place in Space: Ethics,
Aesthetics, and Watersheds
by Gary Snyder
Snyder is perhaps best known as a west coast 'nature'
poet, a fellow traveller of the 'beat generation', but
he is also a prominent Buddhist, bioregional visionary
and literary scholar. To judge from this book he is, moreover,
an accomplished and eloquent essayist. The essays presented
here, articles, reviews, talks and what might loosely
be called manifestos, come mainly from the 70s to the
90s and span the breadth of Snyder's interests. Arranged
in three sections, Ethics, Aesthetics and Watersheds,
Snyder's writing manages to be poetic, religious, political
and compelling at all times. Having read this book I feel
inspired to read more, I'll try The Practice of the Wild
next (more prose), followed by Turtle Island (poetry for
which Snyder won the Pulitzer Prize). For anyone concerned
to cultivate a humane relationship with the more-than-human
world.
Danger
on Peaks
by Gary Snyder
Snyder's keen, ever perfectly clear vison is based in
the glint of rivers and the muted sheen of glistening
rocks under jasmine colored waves, bountiful white clouds
and spirit incandescent and meteoric.... He writes of
concrete on highway 5, Toyota Tercels, and the animistic
world of noble pines and bobcat scat..His Haikus are the
best ever written...his narrative before certain poems
is articulate, revealing and deep without any pretension...For
instance: "If you want to view the world you live
in climb a rocky mountain with a neat small peak. But
the big snow peaks pierce the world of clouds and cranes,
rest in the zone of five colored banners and writhing
crackling dragons in veils of ragged mist and frost crystals,
into a pure transparancy of blue." He knows the "Three
Sisters". He has climbed into their deeper essence.
He writes of today and of humanity, daily life, of comittment
and courage and eating at fast food places.
The
Politics of Ecstasy
by Timothy Leary
Open your eyes.
Open your mind.
Open your soul.
Open your heart.
Open this book and let the tingling in each of your
40 trillion cells remind you are here to do more than
exist, you are here to LIVE and to LIVE WELL.
This is an exploration of human consciousness. Written
in the period spanning from his Harvard days to the
Summer of Love, it includes Leary's early pronouncements
on the psychedelic movement, and his views on the social
and political ramifications of the psychedelic and mystical
experience.
Peace & Blessings
to this place we call the world.
