The Sixties by Jeff Vorzimmer

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Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me by Richard Fariña
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me is one of those novels like Naked Lunch that seems to have been written in a drug-induced frenzy. Though the word frenzy might suggest speed, it took Richard Fariña over five years to write this book. Sometimes I think that all would be revealed if I got high before reading it, sort of like getting high before a Grateful Dead concert. God knows it drags when you're straight and sober.

The main character, Gnossos Pappadopoulis, has long been cited as the missing link between the beatniks and the hippies. He evolves from beatnik into the original, archetypal hippie. He set out on the road and found nothing but did find the keys to inner enlightenment in the form of hallucinogenic drugs. Whereas the beatniks used drugs to escape reality the hippies used them to transcend reality. But in the end it all amounts to the same thing.

Although it was set in early 1958 at Cornell, it wasn't published until the spring of 1966. Fariña was ahead of his time and probably couldn't have gotten the book published before that, but the times were changing and rapidly catching up with him. But by the time the world had caught up with him, he was gone, killed in a motorcycle accident two days after the book was published.

His death only contributed to the cult status that the book would achieve, heralded as it was as being the Catcher in the Rye or On the Road of that decade. It might have been different--no, it would have been different if Fariña had lived to write again. In retrospect it would have been a first novel that merely showed promise rather than the voice of a unrealized genius snuffed out in the prime of life. Like James Dean dying at 25 after having made only three movies rather than growing old and bloated like Brando. Fariña is the James Dean of literature, he will always be young and good looking.

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One favorite album I never thought would see the light of day on CD was Chris Connor's Bossa Nova album from 1965. But it's recently been released and available on Amazon, albeit from a label I'm not familiar with, but the sound is great. Click on the image for more info.

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purchasing a copy or to check out our gallery on

Click on the poster if you're interested in
purchasing a copy or to check out our gallery on

Click on the poster if you're interested in
purchasing a copy or to check out our gallery on

Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and His Black and White Ball by Deborah Davis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are an historian of the Sixties, you know that Capote's timing for his extravagant ball on November 28, 1966 was perfect. It was the probably the last possible moment of the twentieth century that he could have had a party with a guest list of jet-setters of this magnitude. Within months the world would change profoundly--the beginning of the world we know today. Even the black & white color schemes and geometric shapes so much associated with the mid-60s were about to explode into psychedelic bouquets of color and the organic forms of the last years of the decade.

If I can find any fault with this book it is in that the historical context of that decade was not explored and how the party fit into the decade. Ms. Davis gives us the back story on each facet of Capote's Black & White Ball, including the attendees, their attire and the journalists covering it, but we don't get much in the way of historical backdrop or the big picture, if you will, and she seems to be of the opinion that the party itself was an anomaly. It was such an interesting and pivotal time period and the party couldn't have happened, successfully, at least, during any other time in that decade or even in that century. Exploring that aspect of the party would have made it a five-star book instead of four.

Of course Capote himself would soon burn bridges that would make it impossible for him personally to ever throw a party such as that again and, although Davis doesn't address this point either, Capote was probably the only person in the world at the time with the means, the desire and, more importantly, the social connections to pull off a party with such an impressive guest list of socialites.

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Complete 60s, A new label from the UK has undertaken the huge task of releasing on CD every instrumental to ever hit the US pop charts during the decade of the 60s. They're promising a release every year for the next ten years of what would have to be multiple disk sets.

Volume 1, which covers 1960, will have a whopping 81 tracks, 16 of which have never appeared on CD before. There will also be a 28 page booklet of liner notes with detailed information about the 53 artists represented in the first set.

The only down side, if there really is one, is that, since the series will be releasing instrumentals that hit the US charts, a lot of great instrumentals from British groups such as The Shadows won't be in the series nor great British TV themes such as The Avengers or the beautiful Albatross by Fleetwood Mac. Release date: 6/21/11.