I liked your essay but I believe you have missed something about Baby Boomers. I was born in 1949 in the middle of the US, in the second largest city in OK with a very decent though expensive Liberal Arts University. My Primary school years and the working class neighborhoods I lived in were pretty much like the "See Dick Run," reader in 1st grade. My parents and their friends were the Artists, Poets, Writers, Singer-songwriters, Jazz and folk musicians, dancers etc., the "Counter Culture" of the 50's and early 60's. I graduated High School in 1967. We had Hootenannies in our front yard. Several touring musicians played there when driving through. My parents had a "Coffee House" with friends where Jazz and Folk Music was played. My mom helped some young poets publish a well respected poetry magazine which published the "Beat" poets from around the country and local. "The White Dove Review" included drawings by local artists. I was able to take classes in Ballet and Modern Dance from family friends.
As a baby I learned to sing and dance with an album of African music before I could talk. My first Albums were famous Folk singers like Judy Collins and Joan Baez, Pete and Mike Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bill Monroe. My mom bought me West Side Story. At home my parents played Black Blues, Folk and Jazz.
Remember, people my age eventually formed another version of counter culture. Basically the Hippy counter culture, with some of my friends coming and going between here and CA and others to NY. I had friends who were in San Francisco for the "summer of love" and\or New York for "Woodstock." Yes, Rock and Roll was a bit light weight. I did love Simon and Garfunkel though. I never got into Hard, Acid or Metal Rock. Many of us were still involved with Civil Rights and definitely the Antiwar movement. AND there was a movement in my state against building a Nuclear Power-plant. (Instead we got coal.)
Remember the Whole Earth Catalog? We have a good friend who moved to North Carolina to work with Mother Earth News. We also brought back do-it-yourself, and back-to-the-land, grow you own food, "Think Local," literally build your own home or remodel an old one. We revitalized the Craft Arts, quilting, sewing, knitting, ceramics, weaving, glass arts, jewelry and metal art, making and repairing our own clothes and everything else. Also, we promoted Organic gardening, invented Permaculture and voiced concern about the health of our food system, concerned with toxins used in factory farming. Most of all this sort of thing stemmed from a desire not to overwhelm the planetary Ecosystem by over consuming, over producing and pollution.
Don't forget, we and our mothers started Women's Liberation, promoted birth control, legalizing abortion, "Natural Child Birth," and home delivery as well as encouraging breast feeding.
Each counter culture does the best it can, accomplishes as much as is possible and produces whatever art it does as an expression of the change hoped for. But I'm not sure how logical it is to say the movement failed because it didn't have good art forms or artists. I think the Hippies were trying to promote among other things a return to simple living and an enjoyment of caring for ourselves and our communities instead of over consuming and deriving your sense of worth from competition and power. Not sure what went wrong with what the various counter cultures were trying to do. I guess we scared the oligarchs and they worked harder to promote what they thought was good for them.
I liked your essay but I believe you have missed something about Baby Boomers. I was born in 1949 in the middle of the US, in the second largest city in OK with a very decent though expensive Liberal Arts University. My Primary school years and the working class neighborhoods I lived in were pretty much like the "See Dick Run," reader in 1st grade. My parents and their friends were the Artists, Poets, Writers, Singer-songwriters, Jazz and folk musicians, dancers etc., the "Counter Culture" of the 50's and early 60's. I graduated High School in 1967. We had Hootenannies in our front yard. Several touring musicians played there when driving through. My parents had a "Coffee House" with friends where Jazz and Folk Music was played. My mom helped some young poets publish a well respected poetry magazine which published the "Beat" poets from around the country and local. "The White Dove Review" included drawings by local artists. I was able to take classes in Ballet and Modern Dance from family friends.
As a baby I learned to sing and dance with an album of African music before I could talk. My first Albums were famous Folk singers like Judy Collins and Joan Baez, Pete and Mike Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bill Monroe. My mom bought me West Side Story. At home my parents played Black Blues, Folk and Jazz.
Remember, people my age eventually formed another version of counter culture. Basically the Hippy counter culture, with some of my friends coming and going between here and CA and others to NY. I had friends who were in San Francisco for the "summer of love" and\or New York for "Woodstock." Yes, Rock and Roll was a bit light weight. I did love Simon and Garfunkel though. I never got into Hard, Acid or Metal Rock. Many of us were still involved with Civil Rights and definitely the Antiwar movement. AND there was a movement in my state against building a Nuclear Power-plant. (Instead we got coal.)
Remember the Whole Earth Catalog? We have a good friend who moved to North Carolina to work with Mother Earth News. We also brought back do-it-yourself, and back-to-the-land, grow you own food, "Think Local," literally build your own home or remodel an old one. We revitalized the Craft Arts, quilting, sewing, knitting, ceramics, weaving, glass arts, jewelry and metal art, making and repairing our own clothes and everything else. Also, we promoted Organic gardening, invented Permaculture and voiced concern about the health of our food system, concerned with toxins used in factory farming. Most of all this sort of thing stemmed from a desire not to overwhelm the planetary Ecosystem by over consuming, over producing and pollution.
Don't forget, we and our mothers started Women's Liberation, promoted birth control, legalizing abortion, "Natural Child Birth," and home delivery as well as encouraging breast feeding.
Each counter culture does the best it can, accomplishes as much as is possible and produces whatever art it does as an expression of the change hoped for. But I'm not sure how logical it is to say the movement failed because it didn't have good art forms or artists. I think the Hippies were trying to promote among other things a return to simple living and an enjoyment of caring for ourselves and our communities instead of over consuming and deriving your sense of worth from competition and power. Not sure what went wrong with what the various counter cultures were trying to do. I guess we scared the oligarchs and they worked harder to promote what they thought was good for them.