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27 April 2006

OMG Hippies... →[More:]Reminded by danf's post , I wanna ask you little footsies something. I've read and reread (I'm a big rereader) T.C. Boyle's Drop City(about a hippie commune that is forced to make a go of it in super outback Alaska). The book perfectly combines two of my fascinations (homesteading and the dark side of the 60's counterculture, dontcha know), it's also (imho) a brilliantly written book. Here's the thing though, I've read it too many times. Now I need more (true is fine) books about communes (I know or think I know that drop city is inspired, stolen from or based on the story of The Farm, btw), hippies (not hacksacking hairfarming phish trustafarians please), roughing it in Alaska (I've read a bunch, but I must be missing some) and tales of drug smuggling, balling in vans and avoiding soap. So whatcha got you crazy diamonds? (ps please no Troutfishing in America, please).

post by: Divine_Wino at: 08:42 | 46 comments

Kurt Vonnegut's son Mark, wrote a book called The Eden Express about this very topic with the added bonus of being mentally unstable.

As far as the dark side of the 60's goes Stanley Booth's novelistically written but 100% true account of the Stones' 1969 tour pretty much trumps everything else. Positively chilling. and appropriately enough, I stole my copy when I was 15 from a declining mall.

posted by jonmc 27 April | 08:47

Jon
I love The Eden Express (it's fucking seriously harrowing, one of the best pictures of mental illness ever) but not only do I own several copies, we uh.. we.. well you know what I do for a living.

I'm all over the Booth, thanks.

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 08:51

Man, I love Drop City.

Two books I would really really recommend:

Coming into the Country by John McPhee. An excellent book about Alaska, and, I think (although this is just speculation on my part), it contains a bit of reportage about a woman who lives with different homesteaders specifically to learn skills from them which is Boyle's model for the marriage in Drop City. I thought of it all the time when I was reading DC.

The other book is Famous Long Ago: My Life and Times with the Liberation News Service, which is about crazy sixties living and political investment. I really liked this as well, and still mean to read Mungo's subsequent book, which is about a really farm commune, called Total Loss Farm. Mungo is a good writer and has an amazing story to tell, which combines what's best and worst about the 60s.

I admire both of these books a lot, but also specifically thought of them while reading Drop City.

posted by omiewise 27 April | 08:53

Well, there's always Wavy, the grandaddy of them all. I had the best time of my life when the Hog Farm came to visit.

posted by warbaby 27 April | 08:53

And here are true stories from the Pacific High School reunion.

posted by warbaby 27 April | 08:55

Nice, thanks warbaby. Omiewise, I have Coming into the Country right next to my bed, I got it at the dollar table at the bookstore, little did they know I would have paid cover price. That is a great book. Any others?

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 09:03

and (I know you've read this one, Wino, but maybe the studio audience is unfamiliar with it) John Sayles' novel Union Dues, an amazingly written tale of idealism, disllusionment and societal fragmentation.

posted by jonmc 27 April | 09:07

It would be seriously wrong of me, the idiot prince of derailing, to beef about you mentioning a book that was not on the topic I specified. Union Dues is the tits.

I would broaden the topic to any book about going on a mission... All books about going on missions please... especially as an alternative to living in the plastic fantastic establishment world maaaaaaaaaaaaan!

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 09:10

Sorry to derail, but the mention of Alaska made me think of John Sayles' film Limbo, which has a harrowing part about being marooned in rural Alaska.

posted by matildaben 27 April | 09:13

Anyone ever read "You Can't Win" by Jack Black (no relation)? The ultimate hobo story? Hugh Janus YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK!

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 09:14

(well, it is on the dark side of the 60's, more or less)

on preview: John Nichols' American Blood and Kem Nunn's Tapping The Source and Pomona Queen which definitely have the 'mission' element and deal with the underbelly of the 60's legacy.

posted by jonmc 27 April | 09:15

No I was just itching to use the line "idiot prince of derailing", I love derailing, in fact the one thing I hate about trains is that you can't steer them. Imagine a train with no rails, it would change the world! Please derail away.

Jon, you are hitting me with the good shit here.

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 09:22

Tete-Michel Kpomassie's An African in Greenland is strangely like what you're talking about. From his Togolese perspective, the Greenlanders are morally ambiguous; their communal lifestyle equally attracts and repulses our narrator.

I've probably recommended it to you before, maybe even given it to you, but my mind is clearer now and I'm starting to remember different things than I used to.

Shit yeah, I gotta read that hobo book, man.

Also I recommend Koushun Takami's Battle Royale and Hans Jakob Christoph von Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus.
So, when's a better Antarctic eve, guys, tonight or tomorrow?

posted by Hugh Janus 27 April | 09:37

I've read Jack Black. It's an amazing little book.

The classics in the 60's literature are Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels and Tom Wolfe's Electric Koolaide Acid Test.

They should be read together because Wolfe was not present for most of the events he describes, but Hunter was and loaned his materials to Wolfe.

I've been to the Merry Pranksters' place in La Honda, lo these many years ago. And hung out at Pacific High School on visits during the early 70's.

The sixties were fun and scary. The peak was in 1967 and beginning with the Tet offensive in January 68, it was a long downhill slide through the 70's to Reagan's election.

posted by warbaby 27 April | 09:38

I'm up for whenever, Hugh. Antarctica or Remote.

posted by jonmc 27 April | 10:18

The classics in the 60's literature are Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels and Tom Wolfe's Electric Koolaide Acid Test.

Read them when I was in short pants. My 12th birthday present from my dad was every HST book up to that point. Oh yeah, I was raised by hippies.

I am not able to hit the bars this week my friends, I am at home with the famalam. Hopefully, btgog, next week.

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 10:22

Well, if it's just us Queensians, I reckon the ride to and from the Remote is much shorter. Wanna go today, jonmc? (I'm burning the candle at both ends this week -- I'd like to show up to work tomorrow puffy-eyed and utterly incapable).

I admire you for your devotion to family, Divine_Wino, and anticipate our next conclave eagerly.

By the way, I read Battle Royale, all 620 pages of it, on Tuesday after work, stopping only briefly to pick up fried rice and spareribs from the Fortune Cookie, and finishing in the wee hours. Gripping doesn't even begin to describe it. Gory, however, does.

posted by Hugh Janus 27 April | 10:43

Sure. Meet at 5:30 at Q-Boro platform like last time?

posted by jonmc 27 April | 10:46

Sounce goot to meeeee!

posted by Hugh Janus 27 April | 10:53

I'll alert the Pipsta to meet us at the bar.

posted by jonmc 27 April | 10:54

sadly we still have no camera (unless some camera toting mecha wants to join us?)

posted by jonmc 27 April | 10:55

I can bring mine. But other camera-toting mechanisms should come.

And Joe Muthafuckin' Famous, man, come represent the big Flush!

posted by Hugh Janus 27 April | 11:00

"camera totin' mechas" shall be the new hippies. Damn camera totin' mechas, get offa my lawn, etc. Nice ring.

posted by rainbaby 27 April | 11:05

Tom Robbins always seems to be writing about hippies, even when he's not.

posted by jrossi4r 27 April | 11:19

One day I will make the pilgrimage to the Remote. But tonight I gotta go for a run.

/camera totin' mecha

posted by gaspode 27 April | 11:19

well, then run to Queens!

posted by jonmc 27 April | 11:27

Nick Johnston is a man with a mission. In Antarctica, no less. Big Dead Place

posted by warbaby 27 April | 11:35

Hey Hugh, this one's not necessarily about hippies and 60's, but Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild was an interesting recount of Chris McCandless' trek to Alaska.

posted by chewatadistance 27 April | 11:46

Speaking of missions, check out our man Paddy Fermor in Ill Met by Moonlight. Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands is a good one, too.

posted by Hugh Janus 27 April | 11:50

Ill Met by Moonlight is a phrase that I will probably have hovering around in my brains for years.

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 12:03

M31:A Family Romance by Stephen Wright (not that Sephen Wright) is about a UFO cult/dysfunctional family that lives communally and goes crazy. It's good, you will like.

posted by PinkStainlessTail 27 April | 12:27

Here's a weird bit of counter culture convergence: when I was about 13 or 14 I got ahold of one of those self published 60s hippie samizdat books. It was called Drop City and it was all about a commune, also called Drop City, in Arizona. It was written by one Peter Rabbit, and it covered the whole commune process: how they bought this dirt cheap land in AZ and built a bunch of domes out of junkyard car roofs and lived in them in hippie splendor. Which then leaked like sieves, because domes always do, but in Arizona this was not a big problem. Peter Rabbits girlfriend was named Poly Styrene, I think, or something like that. There were many grainy black and white pictures and the text was either handwritten or they had discovered comic sans ms waaaaaay too early. It was a fairly optimistic book about how they were living off the land, man, and it was all cool now. Alas, I no longer have this book, but I've been wondering if TC Boyle, by some chance, does. I gave my copy to a boy, a very cool boy I met on the beach.

posted by mygothlaundry 27 April | 13:16

There's also this shitty hippie book about living off in the woods called Walden or something. Check out the big brain on Henry David Thinker.

posted by Hugh Janus 27 April | 13:26

Also, I'm assuming that you've read The Mosquito Coast. Book is better than the movie, but the movie is actually pretty good. The Poisonwood Bible is along similar lines.

posted by mygothlaundry 27 April | 13:41

Ken Kesey's Demon Box has some great essays.

The recommendations in this thread are excellent, and are bringing back memories. I read a lot of counterculture as a teen, too (and proudly possess an autographed copy of "Steal This Book"). IT would be cool to put together a comprehensive list of must-reads of that genre.

posted by Miko 27 April | 13:44

Walden is a fraud hugh, dude was the origional trustafarian. (Sorry that is such a trollish statement, fuck, I'm mostly kidding anyway.)

mygoth,
I love the mosquito coast. I will read the poisonwood bible, thanks.

I have a copy of steal this book that is covered with melted hippie candle wax and STINKS of cheep hippie reefer. It is one of my most prized possesions.

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 13:48

Mygothlaundry,
I've heard about the other Drop city book, I think it was rereleased under a new name maybe? I'll try to find it.

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 13:55

Here is the Peter Rabbit mess, you can buy a copy of that drop city for 37.50 from biblio...

I'ma turn up a cheaper version, you watch.

The book I was talking about is Huerfano: A Memoir Of Life In The Counterculture, which is in the google search above.

YAY

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 14:04

A memory. . when we first moved to Eugene, some friends of friends gave me some windowpane to store in my freezer. . .in a crumpled paper bag. . about 25 hits.

My wife, later, decides to defrost, and seeing this derelict bag, looks inside. .sees nothing. .tosses it. Doesn't tell me

Several months later, aforementioned people come by for their windowpane. . .it's not there. . .we finally get to the bottom of it.

Good thing they were hippies or else my wife and I might have been feeding the fish for awhile.

posted by danf 27 April | 14:10

Oh man, oh jeez man, that's like.. look I'm sorry to like come into your headspace here and like totally... just bring down like a bad time... but like... Not cool man, just UNcool you know and like... yeah peace and forgiveness and look who cares man... because like we are all one.. so like it's really like I'm going to like force MYSELF at like totally harsh gunpoint into the trunk of this car and like totally drive myself out to the dump and like smash my own knees to little bits with this crazy hammer I got right here... Which, just bad day and let's just like put this behind us and like.. uh... Get in the fucking trunk, Maaaaaaaaan!

posted by Divine_Wino 27 April | 14:22

Wino, don't be harshing our mellow here. . .

posted by danf 27 April | 14:33

what's the hassssle, maaan?

posted by jonmc 27 April | 14:42

Back in the day, Canada had their own thorn in the side of The Man in the form of Rochdale, a commune in downtown Toronto. My stepmum used to tell me of the time she was working in the emergency ward of a local hospital and some big, burly biker guys brought in a terrified hippie, and asked that he be admitted. The staff couldn't see anything wrong with him, and refused. The large biker types explained that he had broken some very important rule of conduct for Rochdale, and so if he wasn't admitted then, they'd take him away, break his legs, and bring him back to be admitted. Clearly by the 70s the dream had indeed died.

There are books on the subject, but not having read them I can't make recommendations. Should make for interesting reading, though.

posted by elizard 27 April | 15:19

Yeah, I'm not much of a Thorough fan either. Pose(u)r.

posted by Hugh Janus 27 April | 15:21

Dick Proenneke - One Man's Wilderness and the companion DVDs. And there's another book.

I've checked out the first book and DVD (can't get hold of the second DVD or book) several times from the library. I really need to buy my own copies.

posted by deborah 27 April | 16:53

I can't recommend The Eden Express highly enough, myself. Brilliant book.

Justine Brown's All Possible Worlds covers in its last chapter the British Columbia communes of the 60s and 70s (she was raised in one; I knew her back in the punk rock days).

posted by jokeefe 27 April | 19:20

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