60's Counterculture: Through a Bong, Darkly

[Crow]

I'm going to compose some sort of list proving that Now is better than Then. But only if I can think of anything to put on it besides "the Internet."

Suggestions welcome.

[compared2what?]

I, (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

(1)

(2)

(3)

(f)

For orz' sake do you have to be so dramatic?

That review sent me into such a blind rage that I actually continued to shout and curse at 170-words-a-second in my mind for about three more hours after the first post. And in the grand database of ostensibly intellectual writers who should, imo, be required to be in compliance with all the stipulated conditions of the National Discourse Offender Registry Program , Gary Kamiya isn't even that bad, from a career-stats point of view. But if there is one thing I hate more than being talked down to, it's watching people pissing on the legacy of the very few serious political activists of that period who were not invented by J. Edgar Hoover, almost all of whom paid for their patriotism, literally or figuratively, with their lives. It's basically the equivalent of disrespecting the troops.

I mean, obviously, not only did the Yippies not prevail, they were defeated in a bloody and humiliating rout. But not because their self-indulgence and pie-in-the-sky idealism left them vulnerable to seduction by the cheap thrills of consumerism, which they were too stoned to notice would lead, inevitably, to marginalized and commodified irrelevance. They were fucking Situationists, for fucks' sake. Pointing out that the body politic was being commodified and rendered irrelevant via the cheap thrills of consumerism was one of their basic goals.

The fact that Nixon narrowly beat Humphrey in 1968 is the strongest evidence that the antiwar movement did not achieve its goals.

Right. Because monkey business by forces of the far right had absolutely nothing to do with the way the countercultural presence in Chicago during the convention that nominated Humphrey was handled, either literally or in the press. No evidence of that at all

And the election itself? Come on, man. We're talking about Nixon. Everyone knows his electoral strategy was squeaky clean. Musta been those impractical dreamy hippes. Yeah. That's the ticket.

Um...sorry. I was getting a little carried away again. Those activists were not perfect. Some of them were gullible and some of them were corrupt. But they were not just wide-eyed innocents out for the lulz. It's insulting to the people who died in that fight to suggest it. Don't you think? Or is it really just me?

ON EDIT: And another thing -- small roman numeral xiv.

[JackRiddler]

c2w:

XV. Your posts in this discussion (and elsewhere) are brilliant

(h) and of mildly awe-inspiring clarity and precision.

(i) Not to mention very thorough.

Your anger is justified and shared. In a word, what a crock!

[barracuda]

This crap seems designed to denigrate further into the abysses the political climate of the current zeitgiest: one in which the world's largest protest ever held (the global protest against the war in Iraq on February 15, 2003 - attended by possibly as many as 30 million individuals) could be smugly dismissed by the president of the United States as a "focus group". That day alone, whether "successful or not (and I saw it as a great moment) gave me perhaps an inordinant amount of hope for possibilities yet to come. The enfranchisement of the common will of makind may yet be registered once again against the fucking tyranny; if it is, then the work of the anti-establishment 1960's radicals will certainly be among the working models for that moment. Theater and art serve, really, a single true purpose in the world, and that is as a catalytic, cathartic carrier for the changing viewpoint of that common will in our time of greatest confusions. Up against the wall, motherfuckers.

[compared2what?]

c2w:

XV. Your posts in this discussion (and elsewhere) are brilliant

(h) and of mildly awe-inspiring clarity and precision.

(i) Not to mention very thorough.

Your anger is justified and shared. In a word, what a crock!

Praise from Caesar*, Comrade. And right back atcha.

*Yes, whoever is about to point that problem out, it was intentional. Well, fine. I do think it's funny.

[Moya]

Math Rock > Prog Rock
Post Rock > Space Rock
Indie Rock > Indian Ragas
Oxycodone > Quaaludes
Psycho-Mystical Theories in UFOlogy > Farmers getting literal rectal probes
Naths > Hare Krishnas
Grant Morrison > Stan Lee
Toyota Prius > Volkswagon Beetle
Almost any given woman in a bar > Marilyn Monroe

[MacCruiskeen]

Guy Debord > Slavoj Žižek

I rest my case.

ON EDIT: No, I don't:

Harold Wilson > Anthony Blair, Q.C.

Old Labour > New Labour

And as Jack Riddler said:

Even the villains:

Khruschev > Osama

Dulles and McCloy > Cheney and Erik Prince (though equally sick)

Not to mention the "commercial crap". Nobody is gonna tell me that Robbie Williams is better than Frank Sinatra, or that the Spice Girls are better than Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, or that ’N Sync are better than The Monkees.

I rest my case, possibly.

ON EDIT:

Moya:

1. Prog Rock was Seventies.

2. If Marilyn Monroe was a Sixties phenomenon, then I am Brigitte Bardot.

3. Don't knock alien rectal probes until you've tried 'em.

[JackRiddler]

Guy Debord > Slavoj Žižek

There's one that says it all!

[JackRiddler]

Moya:

Don't you insult Marilyn like that. First of all, she was rather like any woman in a bar, and that was her appeal. I find her quite charming to boot, and whatever the ditzy roles she played she was by accounts of those who knew her both clever and a searcher for meaning.

Anyway, perhaps the last star pushed by all media as a universal sex symbol who was allowed to maintain the lovely, healthy proportions of an actual woman, as opposed to the sad bony things tortured and paraded ever since by the fashion fascists (with well-known devastating consequences for generations of girls with eating disorders).

Bring back curves!

[FourthBase]

That review sent me into such a blind rage that I actually continued to shout and curse at 170-words-a-second in my mind for about three more hours after the first post. And in the grand database of ostensibly intellectual writers who should, imo, be required to be in compliance with all the stipulated conditions of the National Discourse Offender Registry Program , Gary Kamiya isn't even that bad, from a career-stats point of view. But if there is one thing I hate more than being talked down to, it's watching people pissing on the legacy of the very few serious political activists of that period who were not invented by J. Edgar Hoover, almost all of whom paid for their patriotism, literally or figuratively, with their lives. It's basically the equivalent of disrespecting the troops.

On a case by case basis we should be able to distinguish the wankers and provocateurs from the real deal, the retarded and destructive ideas from the true and useful ones. Don't we owe it to the latter to loathe and expose the former?

[compared2what?]

That review sent me into such a blind rage that I actually continued to shout and curse at 170-words-a-second in my mind for about three more hours after the first post. And in the grand database of ostensibly intellectual writers who should, imo, be required to be in compliance with all the stipulated conditions of the National Discourse Offender Registry Program , Gary Kamiya isn't even that bad, from a career-stats point of view. But if there is one thing I hate more than being talked down to, it's watching people pissing on the legacy of the very few serious political activists of that period who were not invented by J. Edgar Hoover, almost all of whom paid for their patriotism, literally or figuratively, with their lives. It's basically the equivalent of disrespecting the troops.

On a case by case basis we should be able to distinguish the wankers and provocateurs from the real deal, the retarded and destructive ideas from the true and useful ones. Don't we owe it to the latter to loathe and expose the former?

And using nothing more than basic reading comprehension skills and whatever common-sense critiical faculties we have lying around, we can!

Until then, our all-purpose marching call-and-response, to be chanted at all group-protest events of a general nature can be:

"What do we want?"
"SOMETHING!"
"When do we want it?"
"SOON!....OR AT LEAST SOON-ISH!...OR ANYWAY....DEFINITELY NOT, LIKE, NEVAR!"

We should also probably have a "Hey, Hey! Ho, Ho! [thing we oppose] has got to go!" variation. But I can't think of a thing that I'm really sure large numbers of us all oppose that would fit....

Though on an interim basis, I guess we could fall back on:

"The people! Who readed! Shall never be defeated!"

Hm. This is not as easy as it looked like it was going to be, dammit. I now submit the issue to the floor for feedback and debate.

[compared2what?]

Moya:

Don't you insult Marilyn like that. First of all, she was rather like any woman in a bar, and that was her appeal. I find her quite charming to boot, and whatever the ditzy roles she played she was by accounts of those who knew her both clever and a searcher for meaning.

Anyway, perhaps the last star pushed by all media as a universal sex symbol who was allowed to maintain the lovely, healthy proportions of an actual woman, as opposed to the sad bony things tortured and paraded ever since by the fashion fascists (with well-known devastating consequences for generations of girls with eating disorders).

Bring back curves!

Sir Mix-a-Lot, some of that is truer in spirit than in letter. Miss Monroe was, by label-size on her clothing, a size 12 to 16. But that was prior to evanity-sizing, which I associate with the rise of Calvin Klein, perhaps wrongly. But either way, it's not until the mid-'70s that those numbers suggest bounteous volume. A '50s/'60s size 12 was, depending on pattern, and whether sizing was misses, junior, etc., somewhere in the contemporary size 2- 4 range, and size 16 somewhere in the contemporary 8 - 10 range, which would have been (and was) considered large-ish for screen-goddess purposes for a 5'4" woman, and does in fact photograph that way, as in Some Like It Hot, in which she is dressed in what any woman who has ever read a magazine will recognize as lines designed to flatter the fuller figure.

I'm not positive that "eating disorder" is applicable to her, but shse definitely was known to binge-diet prior to filming in a way that, at a minimum, isn't incredibly healthy. But since she was an alcoholic and prescription pill addict, it's impossible to say with certainty whence her poor dietary habits derived, really.

And the entire issue is further complicated by her having lived in an era of waist-cinchers, which were not uncommonly an in-built part of garments (such as dresses) tailored to the waist in custom couture (which existed at a much more general local dress-maker level then than it does now), and which were also then extant enough overall that ready-to-wear sizing of that time pretty much assumes them to be in the lingerie drawer already. (As many a gal who shops thrift shop and wonders why, say, '50s and '60s capri pants or pencil skirts that fit overall are five inches too tiny at the waist to zip up may find it useful to know.)

A flat-out large woman was not automatically outside the scope of consensus beauty standards in Hollywood by fiat then as completely as it is now. Jane Russell, for example, was a brick house, no two ways about it. But for fashion and general perfect template purposes, the socially ideal weight and build for women wasn't significantly different then from what it is now, from post-war to present. There's been an increasing emphasis on the high-fashion standard as the uniform social standard since the '70s, though. I do grant that.



Dior boutique, 1949, photogrpaphed by Louise Dahl-Wolfe

[IanEye]

A flat-out large woman was not automatically outside the scope of consensus beauty standards in Hollywood by fiat then as completely as it is now.

c2w, you Vixen you!

[JackRiddler]

.
c2w:

I fully acceed to your superior accounting, both in the confirmations and corrections to my comments, which were well-intended but superficial. You clearly have the superior knowledge of these matters, including wrt the life of Marilyn Monroe. Thanks!

On edit: Furthermore, I totally appreciate the attention.

The binge dieting (of which I was unaware, though we all know about the drinking and drugs) presumably would have been to come closer to the high-fashion standard. No doubt she was worried about how she showed on screen and its career impact. But I think that today, she wouldn't even have a chance at a starring role in a Hollywood big-budget movie, for reasons of body shape alone.

[Moya]

My issue with Marilyn Monroe has nothing to do with her size, personally I find the current aesthetic of anorexics with fake tits and surgically sculpted noses to be completely unappealing. My problem with her is that she looks unhealthy, as if she decided to have a thin layer of mashed potatoes injected between her skin and the underlying fat. Combining that with the harshly bleached hair and feigned idiocy, she comes across as someone who would have been better cast as a Wal Mart checker than a sex symbol.