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I watched JG Ballard being interviewed and when he started, he was caught in society stuck in the past, as we still are: " cultural constipation" as Cornwell calls it. As I walk around the UK it feels like a heritage museum run by the Daily Mail, caught in aspic trying to fight the memories of the past. In a sense, a lot of the 60s is about clearing a space so that renewal may take place. The 'huitards may take the blame but I think the current cultural state - as much as it fits into your fantasy - has little to do with the 60s. Computers started in the 40s. The west started crumbling way before that. The sixties ended with OPEC upping oil-prices to reasonable levels. All the rest is a desperate effort to shore-up crumbling empires, and that's most of the 80s, 90s and so on and so forth. Even today, as we square up into super-blocs, the old west is desperately trying to keep it's power. I read an analysis a long time ago that Callaghan, if he had remained in power, would have enacted roughly the same policies as Thatcher. We haven't been rich for a long time, and when the rich lose money, they fire the servants then sell the furniture. Roger On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 12:36 PM, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Me, Andrew, I'm having a series of interesting conversations with > ghosts about relative values. There's a considerable family of those. > And listening to what jokes people tell, learning recognise the > territorial marks gangs leave on lamposts, what a language of trees, > looking at graffiti, listening to how males identify selfhood in rap, > hearing the tap-tap signs from the bottom of edifices like churches > and so forth and so forth. I know there were a lot of positives paths > etc from the Sixties, but quick fix transcendence buys its supplies > off a dark dealer. The Sixties wanted to throw away the burden of the > past, well if you dump memory you piss on the future. > Of course there was an element of play on my part, but one has to > continually plot the present. The Sixties went for Liberation Now, an > instant abandonment of restrictions, and in doing so they liberated > the Beast itself. They liberated Mammon from restraint. The point of > culture is to cultivate this garden that feeds us all, not turn it > into a dope-factory. The hippies all used to go to Afghanistan didn't > they? I wonder what's going on there now. > > Best > > Dave > > 2008/6/10 andrew burke <[log in to unmask]>: >> Let's see what you are doing with the present, David. I'm of the Sixties >> myself and hope your tone is playful in part: otherwise, I can only say you >> have limited knowledge of the many positive paths started in the sixties. I >> believe 'money money' already had too much power before the Sixties and it >> swamped many of the good seeds sown. Not all the dreams came true, granted, >> but the Sixties hardly started capitalism or the imperial aggression of >> Western nations; it lost the battle against them but some stratas of society >> since know that there are alternatives to these platforms. I'm no scholar of >> the period, but I would think that the a/g in art and music certainly >> changed things, and the influence of the Beats/San Francisco >> Renaissance/Black Mt was powerful. >> >> Time for dinner now (and it's not macrobiotic), so I shall close. >> >> Andrew >> >> >> >> >> 2008/6/10 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>: >> >>> Yeah, the Sixties, its avant-garde are the Elders of today. And did >>> they fuck-it up for those coming after, man. effectively the >>> liberation of the Sixties opened the door for the Far Right. The drug >>> trade, the art market, the arms trade, I don't want to think about the >>> rest right now. They wanted the ultimate short-cut to transcendent >>> salvation, so we have Facebook, gang-culture, money money. Stephen >>> Hawking looking for the Ultimate in his machine blah blah. >>> The tossers, they had a real chance and they blew it for their own >>> gratification. We're in the future they threw away now. >>> >>> 2008/6/10 Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]>: >>> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nathan Hondros" <[log in to unmask]> >>> > To: <[log in to unmask]> >>> > Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 12:20 AM >>> > Subject: Re: Conference on Poetry of the Seventies >>> > >>> > >>> >> I wonder whether the sixties and seventies even existed. >>> >> >>> > >>> > >>> > They did, they did!!! I got laid more than linoleum. >>> > >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> David Bircumshaw >>> Website and A Chide's Alphabet >>> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/ >>> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html >>> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Andrew >> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/ >> http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburke/ >> > > > > -- > David Bircumshaw > Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/ > The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html > Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk > -- My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/ "She went out with her paint box, paints the chapel blue She went out with her matches, torched the car-wash too" The Go-Betweens