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. . . SINGLE-MINDEDNESS see: "CERTAINTY" Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful. --Aldous Huxley (18941963) English novelist (grandson of T.H. Huxley.) There is nothing in the world so enjoyable as a thorough-going monomania. --Agnes Repplier (18551950) American author. _Books and Men_ [1888]  . . see "HOME & FAMILY" for related links - Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears. --Rudyard Kipling (18651936) English writer and poet. _Plain Tales From The Hills_ [1888], "False Dawn" What did the Colonel's Lady think? Nobody never knew. Somebody asked the Sergeant's Wife, An' she told 'em true! When you get to a man in the case, They're like as a row of pins For the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady Are sisters under their skins! --Rudyard Kipling (18651936) English writer and poet. "The Ladies" - . . see "TIME" for related links - Generally, hippies used marijuana and its more potent form, hashish, which produced a quiet euphoria, or hallucinogens or psychedelics such as peyote or LSD, which expanded sensory perception. The idea was simple: dope that expanded psychological experience or felt good was fine; others that decreased perception, "downers," made one sick, or were physically addicting, "bummers." "I would like to suggest that you don't use speed, and here's why," cautioned musician Frank Zappa: "it is going to mess up your heart, mess up your liver, your kidneys, rot out your mind. In general, this drug will make you just like your mother and father." --Terry H. Anderson American professor of history and author. _The Sixties_ [2004], "From Counterculture to Sixties Culture" - Many teachers of the Sixties generation said "We will steal your children", and they did. A significant part of America has converted to the ideas of the 1960s hedonism, self-indulgence and consumerism. For half of all Americans today, the Woodstock culture of the Sixties is the culture they grew up with their traditional culture. For them, Judeo-Christian culture is outside the mainstream now. The counter-culture has become the dominant culture, and the former culture a dissident culture something that is far out, and 'extreme'. --Patrick Buchanan (1938 ) American journalist, author, and candidate for U.S. President. The freedom women were supposed to have found in the Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception and abortion: things to make life easier for men, in fact. --Julie Burchill (1959 ) English journalist. _Damaged Goods_ [1986] "Born Again Cows" The triumph of youth culture has conquered perhaps nowhere more completely than in the United States. The John F. Kennedy administration, with its emphasis on youthfulness, beginning with its young president-- the first president routinely not to wear a serious hat--gave it its first public prominence. Soon after the assassination of Kennedy, the Free Speech Movement, which spearheaded the student revolution, positively enshrined the young. Like Yeats's Byzantium, the sixties utopia posited by the student radicals was "no country for old men" or women. One of the many tenets in its credo--soon to become a clichι, but no less significant for that--was that no one over 30 was to be trusted. (If you were part of that movement and 21 years old in 1965, you are 60 today. Good morning, Sunshine.) --Joseph Epstein, "The Perpetual Adolescent" _The Weekly Standard_ [14 March 2004] - There was talk in those days that the scraped interiors of banana skins, dried and smoked, would get you high: "Mellow Yellow," in the vernacular and the Donovan song immortalizing it. Just before the Chicago Be-In, I joked about organizing a group to pass out leaflets saying that "The Bananas You Smoke Were Picked by Men Earning So-Many Cents a Day and Whose Land Was Taken Away by United Fruit." --Todd Gitlin (1943 ) American political writer and professor of journalism. _The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage_ [1987], "Everybody Get Together" Although Dylan sang "Mr. Tambourine Man" as sweetly as he was able, the lyric was still scarred by the rough edges of his voice; as with "primitive" painting and sculpture, the roughness, coupled with innocence, was part of the attraction. . . . "Mr. Tambourine Man" went down especially well with marijuana, just then making its way into dissident campus circles. The word got around that in order to "get" the song, and others like it, you had to smoke this apparently angelic drug. It wasn't just peer pressure; more and more, to get access to youth culture, you had to get high. Lyrics became more elaborate, compressed, and obscure, images more gnarled, the total effect nonlinear, translinear. Without grass, you were an outsider looking in. . . . In groups rarely anything so formal as a preannounced "party" we would sit around, listening, awed, all sensation, to Dylan's or somebody else's images bursting one out of the other like Roman candles, while we jabbered and giggled at anything at all ('Can you dig it?'), the afternoons and evenings seeming to stretch, the present liquidly filling all time past and time future, not just the words but the spaces between notes saturated by significance, the instruments sounding in the ear more distinctly than could have been imagined before. The songs drifted on, and on, leisurely, taking their sweet time; no longer were they being written for efficient two-minute jabs on AM radio. --Todd Gitlin (1943 ) American political writer and professor of journalism. _The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage_ [1987], "Everybody Get Together" - The first parent-financed revolt. (Of the sixties.) --Alasdair MacIntyre, _Herbert Marcuse_ [1970] - WHAT I BELIEVED IN THE SIXTIES by P.J. O'Rourke (1947 ) American political satirist. Everything. You name it and I believed it. I believed love was all you need. I believed you should be here now. I believed drugs could make everyone a better person. I believed I could hitchhike to California with thirty-five cents and people would be glad to feed me. I believed Mao was cute. I believed private property was wrong. I believed my girlfriend was a witch. I believed the university was putting saltpeter in the cafeteria food. I believed stones had souls. I believed my parents were Nazi space monsters. I believed the NLF were the good guys in Vietnam. I believed Lyndon Johnson was plotting to murder all the Negroes. I believed Yoko Ono was an artist. I believed Bob Dylan was a musician. I believed I would live forever or until twenty-one, whichever came first. I believed the world was about to end. I believed the Age of Aquarius was about to happen. I believed the _I Ching_ said to cut classes and take over the dean's office. I believed wearing my hair long would end poverty and injustice. I believed there was a great throbbing web of psychic mucus and we were all part of it somehow. I managed to believe Gandhi and H. Rap Brown at the same time. With the exception of anything my mon and dad said, I believed everything. WHAT I BELIEVE NOW Nothing. Well, nothing much, I mean. I believe things that can be proven by reason and by experiment, and, believe you me, I want to see the logic and the lab equipment. I believe that Western civilization, after some disgusting glitches, has become almost civilized. I believe it is our first duty to protect that civilization. I believe it is our second duty to improve it. I believe it is our third duty to extend it if we can. But let's be careful about that last point. Not everybody is ready to be civilized. I wasn't in 1969. --"Second Thoughts About The 1960s", in _Give War A Chance_ [1992] Marxism is a perfect example of the chimeras that fueled the sixties. And it was probably the most potent one. Albeit, much of this Marxism would have been unrecognizable to Marx. It was Marxism watered down, Marxism spiked with LSD and Marxism adulterated with mystical food coloring. But it was Marxism nonetheless because the wildest hippie and the sternest member of the Politburo shared the same daydream, the daydream that underlies all Marxism: _that a thing might be somehow worth other than what people will give for it. This is just not true. And any system that bases itself on such a will-o'-the-wisp is bound to fail. Communes don't work. Cuba doesn't either. --P.J. O'Rourke (1947 ) American political satirist. - - I was sitting in the airport in Nashville, Tennessee, thumbing through a magazine while waiting for an afternoon flight to Birmingham, when I noticed people clustering around a TV set in the lounge, staring in a strange silence. The date was November 22 [1963]. Three weeks before, I had been in Vietnam on the day that that country's president had been assassinated and the government overturned. This afternoon, the President of my country had been murdered. And while I had been off fighting for the freedom of foreigners, four little black girls had been killed by a bomb planted in Birmingham's 16th street Baptist Church. I had returned home, it seemed, to a world turned upside down. --Colin L. Powell (1937 ) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [19891993] and Secretary of State [20012005]. _My American Journey_ [1995], "It'll Take Half A Million Men To Succeed" - - During the summer of 1967 while "Light My Fire" was tightening its grip on radio stations across America, riots broke out in the ghettos of 127 U.S. cities. Across the country the poor and oppressed blacks were burning down their own communities in frustration. In July, the Newark, New Jersey, riots claimed the lives of twenty-six people and injured fifteen hundred with an estimated $10 million in property damage. That same month in Detroit it was even worse. Over forty people died, two thousand were injured, and nearly fifteen hundred buildings were burned. As the Detroit fires raged, one local radio station played "Light My Fire" over and over again. In the wake of the burnings the song took on a new meaning in an especially hot summer in America. --James Riordan and Jerry Prochnicky _Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison_ [1991], "The Doors" - A society like ours, which professes no one religion and has allowed all religions to decay, which indulges freedom to the point of license and individualism to the point of anarchy, needs all the support that responsible, cultivated homes can furnish. I hope your generation will provide a firmer shelter for civilized standards. --Alan K. Simpson (1931 ) American politician. U.S. Senator from Wyoming [19791997]. Commencement address at Vassar [1965]. If you remember the 60s you weren't there. --Grace Slick (1939 ) American rock singer - lead singer of "Jefferson Airplane" and "Jefferson Starship." - In 1962 [Vincent] Price was approached by George Struthers, Sears's vice president of merchandising, who believed his company could sell fine art to the American public the same way it sold lawn mowers and ladies' underwear. Price agreed to pick the pieces and serve as spokesman, and the Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art was off and running, first in Sears's Denver store, then in other stores across the country, with a mail-order line added the following year. Not surprisingly, much fun was poked at the idea of Sears going into the fine-art business. The New Yorker even ran a cartoon about it ("It's not generally known, but we picked up this little Rembrandt etching at Sears, Roebuck"). But the company had the last laugh: During Sears's nine years in the art trade, it sold some 50,000 works at prices ranging from $30 to $3,000, many of them bought on installment plans that made it possible to purchase certain works for as little as $5 down and $5 a month. The prices were affordable, too, with Picasso's lithograph "Frederic Joliet Curie" going for $300, the equivalent of $1,850 in today's dollars just about what the same print costs now. --Terry Teachout (1956 ) American drama critic and writer. "Before Costco There Was Vincent Price?" "The Wall Street Journal" [23 August 2005] - Of course teenagers have been throwing high- blown and moralistic fits of childishness since the dawn of time. So what was new about the 60s? What was new was that in the 60s the children were allowed to get away with it. Instead of rebutting their exaggerations and silliness, the adult culture told the kids they were idealists and visionaries. Then suddenly whole bunches of people started growing their hair, inventing their own rules, and railing against limits, responsibility, and adulthood. A couple million Peter Pans said "I really believe that..." and wham! many of the grown-ups running the country were dressing, thinking, and acting in confused sympathy. --Karl Zinsmeister - From _Turbulent Years, The 60s_, Time-Life books: Here come the Beatles After the Kennedy assasination in November 1963, Americans were longing for something to make them feel alive again. That something would be the Beatles. "We are the antidote, the medicine man," said Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, "dispensing the balm for a very sick society." Of course there were doubters. A top Capitol Records executive exclaimed, "We don't think the Beatles will do anything in this market." A disc jockey on WMCA in New York City proclaimed the following on February 7, 1964: "It is now 6:30 a.m., Beatle-time. They left London 30 minutes ago. They're out over the Atlantic Ocean, headed for New York. The temperature is 32 Beatle degrees." - REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES  SKEPTICISM . . see: "BELIEF" see "EMOTIONS & FEELINGS" for other related links I don't believe or disbelieve anything I don't understand. --Gertrude Franklin Atherton [nθe Horn] (18571948) American novelist. _Senator North_ [1900] It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative. --John Burroughs (18371921) American naturalist and writer. _The Light of Day_ [1900] "The Modern Skeptic" Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to their skepticism. --Albert Camus (19131960) French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. Suspicion is a thing very few people can entertain without letting the hypothesis turn, in their minds, into fact. --David Cort, _Social Astonishments_ [1963] If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. --Renι Descartes (15961650) French philosopher and mathematician. _Principles of Philosophy_ [1644] Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true. --Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (15331592) French moralist and essayist. _Essays_ [1588] To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection. --Jules Henri Poincarι (18541912) French mathematician and philosopher of science. We must be skeptical even of our skepticism. --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _Sceptical Essays_ [1928], ch. 11 There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far. --George Santayana (18631952) Spanish-born philosopher and critic. _The Life of Reason_ [1905], ch. 4 [My grandmother] believed in nothing. Her skepticism alone kept her from being an atheist. --Jean-Paul Sartre (19051980) French philosopher, novelist, and dramatist; winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize for literature. _The Words_ [1964], tr. Bernard Frechtman [1981] There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil. --Alfred North Whitehead (18611947) British philosopher and mathematician. _Dialogues_ [1954] ;void(0)) SKIING . . see "ENTERTAINMENT, HOBBIES, & LEISURE ACTIVITIES" for related links see "SPORTS" for related links - "Skier's Dictionary" Alp: One of a number of ski mountains in Europe. Also a shouted request for assistance made by a European. Avalanche: One of the few actual perils skiers face that needlessly frighten timid individuals away from the sport. See also: Blizzard, First Aid, Fracture, Frostbite, Hypothermia, Lift Collapse. Bindings: Automatic mechanisms that protect skiers from serious injury during a fall by releasing skis from boots, sending the skis skittering across the slope where they trip two other skiers. Bones: There are 206 in the human body. No need for dismay, however; the two bones of the middle ear have never been broken while skiing. Cross-Country Skiing: Traditional Scandinavian all-terrain technique. It's good exercise, doesn't require purchase of costly lift tickets. It has no crowds or lines. See also Cross-Country Something- Or-Other. Cross-Country Something-or-Other: Touring on skis along trails in scenic wilderness, gliding through snow-hushed woods far from the hubbub of the ski slopes, hearing nothing but the whispery hiss of the skis slipping through snow and the muffled screams of other skiers dropping into the puffy powder of a deep, wind-sculpted drift. Exercises: A few simple warm-ups to make sure you're prepared for the slopes: 1) Tie a cinder block to each foot and climb a flight of stairs. 2) Sit on the outside of a fourth-story window ledge with your skis on and your poles in your lap for at least 30 minutes. 3) Bind your legs together at the ankles, lie flat on the floor; then, holding a banana in each hand, get to your feet. Gloves: Designed to be tight around the wrist to restrict circulation, but not so closefitting as to allow any manual dexterity; they should also admit moisture from the outside without permitting any dampness within to escape. Gravity: One of four fundamental forces in nature that affect skiers. The other three are the strong force, which makes bindings jam; the weak force, which makes ankles give way on turns; and electromagnetism, which produces dead batteries in expensive ski-resort parking lots. See Inertia. Inertia: Tendency of a skier's body to resist changes in direction or speed due to the action of Newton's First Law of Motion. Goes along with these other physical laws: 1) Two objects of different mass falling side by side will have the same rate of descent, but the lighter one will have larger hospital and home care bills. 2) Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but if it drops out of a parka pocket, don't expect to encounter it again in our universe. 3) When an irresistible force meets an immovable object (see "Tree") Prejump: Maneuver in which an expert skier makes a controlled jump just ahead of a bump. Beginners can execute a controlled pre-fall just before losing their balance and, if they wish, may precede it with either a pre- scream and a few pre-groans or simple profanity. Shin: The bruised area on the front of the leg that runs from the point where the ache from the wrenched knee ends to where the soreness from the strained ankle begins. Ski!: A shout to alert people ahead that a loose ski is coming down the hill. Another warning skiers should be familiar with is "Avalanche!" (which tells everyone that a hill is coming down the hill). Skier: One who pays an arm and a leg for the opportunity to break them. Stance: Your knees should be flexed, but shaking slightly; your arms straight and covered with a good layer of goose flesh; your hands forward, palms clammy, knuckles white and fingers icy, your eyes a little crossed and darting in all directions. Your lips should be quivering, and you should be mumbling, "Am I nuts or what?" Thor: The Scandinavian god of acheth and painth. Traverse: To ski across a slope at an angle; one of two quick and simple methods of reducing speed. Tree: The other method. --anon. - ;void(0)) SKY . . Photograph courtesy of Kelly Petit (AFPF) see: "NATURE" see: "UNIVERSE" The moon is nothing But a circumambulating aphrodsiac Divinely subsidized to provoke the world Into a rising birth-rate. --Christopher Fry (19072005) English dramatist. "The Lady's not for Burning" [1949] The evening star, Love's harbinger. --John Milton (16081674) English poet. "Paradise Lost" [1667] ----- nephelococcygia (noun) [ne-fκ-lκ-kκ-'si-jee-yκ ] 1: (Literally, "Cloudcuckoosville") Interpreting the shapes of clouds. 2: La-la land, a dream land cut off from reality. Nephelococcygia was dreamed up by Aristophanes for his comedy, "The Birds" (414 BC). end page | SACRED - SANTA CLAUS | SARCASM - SCHOOL | SCIENCE - SCULPTURE | SEA (THE) - SEEING | SELF - SELF-ESTEEM | SELF-EXAMINATION - SEMANTICS | SENATE (THE U.S.) - SERIOUSNESS | SEX | SEX SYMBOLS - SHEEP | SHIPS - SILENCE | SILLINESS - SINGING | SINGLE-MINDEDNESS - SKY | SLANDER - SMILES | SMOKING - SOCIETY | SOLDIERS - SOPHISTICATION | SORROW - SOUTH SEA | SPACE - SPEAKING | SPEECH - SPENDTHRIFTS | SPIDERS - SPY | SPORTS & SPORTSMANSHIP | STAGE (THE) - STERILIZATION | STOCK MARKET - STRANGERS | STRENGTH - SUBURBS | SUCCESS | SUFFERING - SUPREME COURT | SURPRISE - SYSTEM (THE) | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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