It’s interesting to revisit the hippie/ counterculture movement in New York that I learned about in my history classes some time ago, this time through the eyes of Patti Smith. Our reading so far contains everything from homosexuality to LSD, both of which were glorified and normalized in the 1960s. Interestingly, the narrator is deeply religious – Christian – and it is ironic to see religion juxtaposed with drugs and deviancy (as homosexuality was then known).

I am interested by the references to streets in Manhattan, where I worked this summer and with which I thereby familiarized myself. Even though the novel refers to the 1960s, an era I did not have the privilege of living through, it does not feel distant or remote because of the constant references to Manhattan. I am also interested by the references to Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in that eventful and fateful decade, just like his brother Jack. (On a side note, I recently learned a theory about why the Kennedy family has suffered so much. Ask me when you’re free if you’re interested.) For many Americans, the  Kennedys were the personification of good ol’ American boys – young, handsome and all. I imagine what the country must have felt when its dreams were shattered, when two Kenendys were taken away from them in a single decade.

My history teacher once said that if she could go back to any decade in American history, she would go back to the ’60s – if only she knew that she would make it out alive. I agree – from the Six-Day War to the Vietnam War to the political assassinations, it was the decade that made us who we are today.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/newsweek-cover-1968-the-year-that-made-us-who-we-are-58630047.html