Monthly Archives: July 2023

New Doc Contextualizes the Impact of ‘Midnight Cowboy’

Posted on July 31, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“When it opened in the theaters in 1969, John Schlesinger’s masterpiece Midnight Cowboy shook Hollywood to its core. The story of wannabe hustler, Joe Buck (Jon Voight), and his limping, brash compatriot, ‘Ratso’ Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), not only exposed audiences to … Continue reading →

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Paul Bowles: The Complete Outsider

Posted on July 31, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“An irresistible documentary that makes Paul Bowles, an inaccessible major literary figure of the 20th-century, accessible to a wider audience than his usual cult or bohemian following. If you ever wanted an introduction to this unique thinker and his influences, … Continue reading →

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Driving the Beat Road

Posted on July 29, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Accompanied by a jazz combo, poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti gives a reading in 1957 at the Cellar in San Francisco. June 30, 2017. “SAN FRANCISCO — If they’re starving, the best minds of this generation can order $19.50 lobster rolls at … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Books, Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Jazz, LSD, Marijuana, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rock Bottom – Robert Wyatt (1974)

Posted on July 29, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Rock Bottom, by Robert Wyatt: “Very few artists, musicians in particular, can recover from an accident that leaves them paralyzed from the waist down. If said artist is a drummer, a skill that requires one’s lower limbs in equal measure … Continue reading →

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Milton Glaser Helped Define the Look of the 20th Century

Posted on July 27, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

1966 “While we’re disappointed that Milton Glaser: Pop — a knockout coffee table book celebrating the often gorgeous, always compelling artwork of the graphic arts giant — contains not a single word about his mid-’70s turn as design director for the … Continue reading →

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13th Street Repertory Theatre – Greenwich Village

Posted on July 27, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“The wilting three-story building in Greenwich Village that houses the 13th Street Repertory Company creaked and groaned as its artistic director, Joe Battista, gave a tour of its theater one afternoon in July. The Repertory opened in 1972 and is … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentary, Movie | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Rock, Pop, and the Development of Avant Garde Music After World War II

Posted on July 26, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Henry Cow “Clive Bell, an early friend of Henry Cow in Cambridge who would develop into a gifted improviser in his own right, recalls the presentation of a new work for piano by Roger Smalley, the composer-in-residence at King’s College, … Continue reading →

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The Contemporary Arts of Attica – E. C. Feiss

Posted on July 24, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Cover of the Attica Book, illustration by Antonio Frasconi. “In 1972, the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC), in partnership with the organization Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam, published the culmination of their swift response to the September … Continue reading →

Posted in Angela Davis, Black Power, Chicano/Puerto Rican, Happenings, Jazz, Music, Street theater, Vietnam War | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Source: Music of the Avant Garde: Everything Changes

Posted on July 23, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“Source: Music of the Avant Garde, 1966-1973 was a radical form of new music entrepreneurship that defined experimental publishing attitudes of the the 1960s. I well recall discovering it in the stacks as a graduate student at the university library … Continue reading →

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Interzone – William S. Burroughs

Posted on July 22, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“Interzone is a collection of short stories and other early works by William S. Burroughs from 1953 to 1958. The collection was first published by Viking Penguin in 1989, although several of the stories had already been printed elsewhere, including … Continue reading →

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The Situationists and the New Forms of Action in Politics and Art

Posted on July 21, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

SI conference – Gothenberg, Sweden – Aug 61 GUY DEBORD 1963: “The situationist movement can be seen as an artistic avant-garde, as an experimental investigation of possible ways for freely constructing everyday life, and as a contribution to the theoretical … Continue reading →

Posted in Happenings, Paris | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Fifty Years Later, Looking for Last Exit

Posted on July 21, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

An aerial view of Bush Terminal in 1958. BKLYNR October 10, 2014: “Fifty years ago this fall, Grove Press published Last Exit to Brooklyn, a collection of revolting interweaving stories — which Hubert Selby Jr. had begun publishing in literary … Continue reading →

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The Outsider – Colin Wilson (1956)

Posted on July 20, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Strange life: “Like Aldous Huxley and C S Lewis with John F Kennedy, the English writer Colin Wilson had the misfortune of dying on the same day as a vastly (and justly) more famous man: Nelson Mandela. When Wilson’s first … Continue reading →

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Lowell Fulson

Posted on July 18, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“Lowell Fulson was one of the most important figures in post-war West Coast blues, a guitarist, singer, and songwriter who was active from the late 1940s to the mid-’90s. While Fulson seemed willing to do a little bit of everything … Continue reading →

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Biden’s ‘Final’ Order on Kennedy Files Leaves Some Still Wanting More

Posted on July 17, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy preparing to drive into Dallas from the airport on Nov. 22, 1963. He was assassinated later that day. “On June 22, 1962, an intelligence official drafted a memo summarizing a letter intercepted between … Continue reading →

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Ayn Rand in America’s Living Rooms: The Tonight Show, 1967

Posted on July 16, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“‘I’m chronically happy,’ said Ayn Rand to Johnny Carson. It was December 13, 1967, and Rand had just sat down for her third interview with the popular late-night host. Her comment was a response to Carson’s observation that other people … Continue reading →

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The Theatre of Images: The Early Years

Posted on July 15, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“byrdwoMAN” at Robert Wilson’s Loft in 1968. “‘The Theatre of Images’—a term coined in the early 1970s by Michel Guy, director of the Avignon Festival in France, and popularized by Bonnie Marranca in Performing Arts Journal—was, along with performance art, … Continue reading →

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Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song – Melvin Van Peebles (1971)

Posted on July 14, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song: “I’m Gonna Say a Black Ave Maria For You”. “My mother was not having it. Still not having it. Her memories of being dragged to see Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) by my father (of course) … Continue reading →

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Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex by Angela Davis

Posted on July 13, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of the social problems that burden people who are ensconced in poverty. These problems often are veiled by being conveniently grouped together under the category ‘crime’ and by … Continue reading →

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’50s progression

Posted on July 12, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Pretty Little Angel Eyes – Curtis Lee (1961) “The ‘50s progression (also known as the ‘Heart and Soul’ chords, the ‘Stand by Me’ changes, the doo-wop progression  and the ‘ice cream changes’) is a chord progression and turnaround used in … Continue reading →

Posted in Music | Tagged | 1 Comment

In a Free State – V. S. Naipaul (1971)

Posted on July 11, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“There appears to have been some contestation in the published form In a Free State was to assume. Subtitled A Novel with Two Supporting Narratives, V. S. Naipaul’s 1971 masterpiece features the eponymous novel, two stories which he calls ‘supporting narratives,’ … Continue reading →

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Environmentalism in The Lord of the Rings

Posted on July 10, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Pastoral vision of an unspoilt England: the Old Mill at Hobbiton, reconstructed for the filming of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings “The theme of environmentalism in The Lord of the Rings has been remarked upon by critics since … Continue reading →

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The Detroit Artist’s Workshop: Roots And Branches A Tenth Anniversary

Posted on July 9, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Archie Shepp: “On November 1st, the Detroit Artist’s Workshop, now defunct, celebrated its tenth anniversary . Not exactly an earth-shattering event, this anniversary, but one with great significance for those of us whose daily cultural practice sterns largely from that … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Black Power, Burroughs, Hippie, Jack Kerouac, Jazz, LSD, Marijuana, Music, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why Bob Dylan wanted a blurry photo for ‘Blonde on Blonde’

Posted on July 8, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“It’s an instantly recognisable image: Bob Dylan, in all his mid-1960s psychedelic glory, standing outside a New York brownstone. A checkerboard scarf dangles from his neck. An inscrutable look comes across his face. If you’ve ever spent hours pouring over the … Continue reading →

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Frank O’Hara’s Last Night

Posted on July 7, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“Sitting at a big wooden table at Ken Ruzicka’s home on a cold November morning in Fire Island Pines, the 79-year-old artist and landscape designer is telling me how he acquired the table. We’re surrounded by space heaters, which keep … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry | Tagged | 1 Comment

Leaf Storm and Other Stories – Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1972)

Posted on July 6, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“Leaf Storm is the common translation for Gabriel García Márquez‘s novella La Hojarasca. First published in 1955, it took seven years to find a publisher. Widely celebrated as the first appearance of Macondo, the fictitious village later made famous in … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, LA Boom | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Adventures of Tintin: Destination Moon (1953), Explorers on the Moon (1954)

Posted on July 5, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“Destination Moon is the sixteenth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was initially serialised weekly in Belgium’s Tintin magazine from March to September 1950 and April to October 1952 before being … Continue reading →

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Herbert Marcuse and the Student Revolts of 1968: An Unpublished Lecture

Posted on July 5, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Herbert Marcuse giving a lecture in Berlin, 1967. “In May 1968, the neo-Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse visited Paris and Berlin at the height of the student movements that were making news around the world. The text presented here is the … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Paris | Tagged , | 1 Comment

1970 Jazz: Free, Avant-Garde and Experimental

Posted on July 3, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Ed Blackwell, Dewey Redman, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden at 131 Prince Street, May 1971. “In previous articles about jazz music recorded in 1970, we featured albums on major jazz labels including Atlantic, Impulse! and Blue Note, with some of the … Continue reading →

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Neo-noir

Posted on July 3, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

Le Samourai (1967) “Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United States—roughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, film noir, translates literally to English as … Continue reading →

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Towards an African Revolution: Fanon and the New Popular Movement (Hirak) Engulfing Algeria

Posted on July 2, 2023 by 1960s: Days of Rage

“During the upheavals that the North African and West Asian region witnessed a decade ago – what has been dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’- Fanon’s thought proved to be as relevant as ever. Not only relevant, but insightful in helping to … Continue reading →

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