I
really was having trouble describing what I was doing, so I put it in
this video. The techniques really have nothing to do with hippies or
Scott Mackenzie or even 1968, but the brushes fit well into that very
strange era.
I was not a hippie. My life at that time was filled with weightier matters and I was far too political to be a hippie. Nonetheless, I really liked the hippies. I didn't much like their drugs and the refusal of some of them to bathe, and their sexual antics frankly embarrassed me, but they seemed to be the embodiment of a kind of freedom that has always attracted me, a sort of benevolent anarchy overflowing with chardi kala. (OK, I know the reality was not quite that pretty, but it was 44 years ago and time has blurred the edges, as time should.)
I was not a hippie. My life at that time was filled with weightier matters and I was far too political to be a hippie. Nonetheless, I really liked the hippies. I didn't much like their drugs and the refusal of some of them to bathe, and their sexual antics frankly embarrassed me, but they seemed to be the embodiment of a kind of freedom that has always attracted me, a sort of benevolent anarchy overflowing with chardi kala. (OK, I know the reality was not quite that pretty, but it was 44 years ago and time has blurred the edges, as time should.)
And the music! I may
have turned away from the sex and drugs (at least in the literal
sense), but the rock 'n' roll was irresistible. Even today, decades
later, the music remains.
The mud doesn't squish between my toes, not any more anyways. I'm a frog now, you see. I don't croak, I sing ♪..♫..♪.♪, and I glide over the mud.
ReplyDeleteHippie? bohemian?? Not-bohemian? Never mind. I live! And that's what matters.
One thing hippies did NOT like was labels. We are people, not pigeons to be stuck in pigeon holes.
ReplyDeleteEven the dear pigeons shouldn't be stuck in pigeon holes, now should they?
La Bohème was the first opera I ever saw. Poor Mimi just couldn't quite die...kept reviving and singing and reviving and singing. I tried very hard not to giggle.