| Sun, May 29, 11:16 PM (5 hours ago) |  | ||
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Hi Bev!
What a delightful note you sent after we talked! I certainly appreciated it too, both from a mental perspective and how it knits our friendship together. I thought about ‘Relax’ afterward. At the time [and still now] I meant it not just like a Rat Race vs Stop and Smell the Roses but also as a bid to value ‘satisfaction.’ In a culture where success is defined by how much money you make or have – getting satisfaction from nonmaterial things or things that can’t be owned, like nature, had become devalued. Deciding for myself what is valuable and not accepting what is treasured by our society as necessarily being The Goal to be reaching for – has been a guiding factor in my life.
You asked how I knew back then. When I was 14 a became friends with a girl who had just moved to New Haven from a politically Liberal and artsy Manhattan life. She introduced me to the music of Bob Dylan, who had a couple of acoustic guitar LPs out, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, etc. and together we joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which was promoting Civil Rights. It made me realize that even the way we valued people—or not – needed a lot of changing. When I was 15 I was standing on the New Haven Green with some longhaired friends and a couple of Jehovah’s Witness ladies came over and handed us copies of The Watchtower saying “We usually charge a dollar for these but we think you need to read it.” Reading it on my bed that evening, an article warned against of dangers & evils of the writings of Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, etc. I had been to Beatnik-themed birthday parties as a kid but only knew about the stereotypes associated with them. This stuff sounded intriguing! Do you remember on Broadway [somewhere between Cutler’s Records and the Rexall Drugstore on the corner] there was a Whitlock’s book store? They had a wooden cart on wheels they’d put outside with marked-down books. I found an original run copy of On the Road. This is what the cover looks like [speaking of stereotypes!]:
That led to whole new ways of thinking. Then there was the Beatles introducing us to Eastern thought; an older guy [college student] suggesting I read Alan Watts on Zen Buddhism plus some major insights while on psychedelics. At 18 I set out for California to see what utopia I could find. I was too late but the Peace & Love and Back to the Earth aspects of the Hippie movement helped to re/form my values. At 20 I began a journey to India which taught me a ton about my tiny place in this universe. As an artist who typically didn’t ever generate much income but felt success when I created something that astounded me – recalibrating values again.
Yesterday we went to a gathering at Armando’s. His friend Nora was there. I met her at our opening at the New Haven Museum. She said her husband was the guy in the photograph. The banner of our show is still draping the front of the museum.
have a Happy Memorial Day,
