Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Sixties

  • Saturday Night at the Obituaries: 2025 So Far

    Contributors to the great Boomer soundtrack are dying on all  sides. Here are just some from 2025 so far. Brian Wilson, June 11th.  Sloop John B. Sly Stone, June 9th. Everyday People Rick Derringer, May 26th.  Memphis Nino Tempo, April 12th. Deep Purple Lenny Welch, April 8th. Since I Fell for You Johnny Tillotson, April…

  • Scott Johnson on Richie Havens

    Powerline: Havens grew up in Brooklyn singing with a choir in church and with doo wop groups on street corners. He crossed the river to figure out how to make a go of it in Greenwich Village as a performer. He recorded two albums on Douglas Records before he signed a contract with Verve Forecast…

  • Contemplating Suicide?

    Look before you make the leap of faith in ultimate nonentity. There may be no exit. Top o' the Stack. Girlfriend dumped you? Give it six months, and you may wonder what you ever saw in her. The Stoic method of division may help you over the hump, the slump, the slough of despond.

  • ‘Nuclear’ Thoughts on Dylan’s Birthday

    We've gotten used to living under the Sword of Damocles: One of its more famous [invocations] came in 1961 during the Cold War, when President John F. Kennedy gave a speech before the United Nations in which he said that “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the…

  • Dylan’s Philosophy of Modern Song

    From Variety: Of the dozens or even hundreds of singers and songwriters that Bob Dylan extols in his new  book, “The Philosophy of Modern Song,” there is one that seems to stand out even more than the others, so effusive is Dylan’s praise. This performer, he writes, is “downright incredible” and “lived in every moment…

  • A Contemplative Nun on Thomas Merton

    This just over the transom from Karl White: Hope you're well. May be of interest. ‘I have never met a real contemplative who found Merton useful’: Letters reveal Sister Wendy’s ambivalence about Gethsemani’s famous monk | America Magazine July 30, 2018 Dearest Robert, I feel about [Henri Nouwen] as I do about Thomas Merton. There…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Obscure ’60s Psychedelia

    The Monterey Pop Festival was 55 years ago, yesterday. Your humble correspondent was in attendance. How many of these do you remember?   If you were too much of the '60s then you probably don't remember anything assuming you still animate the mortal coil; if you were too little of the '60s then you won't remember…

  • And Then Along Came the ‘Sixties

    I can easily seeHow Merton lost his wayBy exposing himselfTo events of the day.

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Rydell Remembered

    Bobby Rydell has died at age 79. In the late '50s, early '60s a number of Italian-American singers changed their names to avoid anti-Italian prejudice and to assimilate. Rydell was among them. Assimilation, however, is a thing of the past, and the current lack thereof is a good part of our nation's decline.  But I…

  • Contemplating Suicide?

    Are you quite sure that there is a way out? It may be that there is no exit.  You can of course destroy your body, and that might do the trick. But then again it might not. Or is it perfectly obvious that you are either identical to your body or necessarily dependent for your…

  • The Academic Job Market in the ‘Sixties

    Robert Paul Wolff tells it like it was: . . . I reflect on the ease and endless rewards of my career, moving from comfortable position to comfortable position, and compare it with the terrible struggles of young academics trying to gain some sort of security and time for their own scholarship in an increasingly…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fred Neil

    Remember Fred Neil?  One of the  luminaries of the '60s folk scene,  he didn't do much musically thereafter.  Neil is probably best remembered  for having penned 'Everybody's Talkin' which was made famous by Harry Nilsson as the theme of Midnight Cowboy.  Here is Neil's version. Nilsson's rendition. Another of my Fred Neil favorites is "Other Side of  This Life."  Here is Peter, Paul, and…

  • The Seductive Sophistry of Alan Watts

      Here. (An entertaining video clip, not too long, that sums up his main doctrine.) Alan Watts was a significant contributor to the Zeitgeist of the 1960s.  Just as many in those days were 'turned on' to philosophy by Ayn Rand, others such as myself were pushed toward philosophy by, among other things,  Alan Watts…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: Memorable ’60s Instrumentals

    Phil Upchurch Combo, You Can't Sit Down, 1961 Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, The Lonely Bull, 1962 Booker T. and the M. G. s, Green Onions The Tornados, Telstar, 1962. About the first telecommunications satellite. Mason Williams, Classical Gas, 1968 Michael Bloomfield, Carmelita's Skiffle, 1969 Dick Dale. Let's Go Trippin,' 1961. Not about drugs; pre-psychedelic. Dave…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Brown-Eyed Girls

    Summer subsides once again into the sweetness of September. Judy Collins, Cravings: How I Conquered Food, Doubleday 2017, pp. 112-113: . . . and writing Albert Grossmann that no, I did not want to join a trio of women he was bent on calling the Brown-Eyed Girls. He had put Peter, Paul and Mary together, telling me that…