Mark's Pages

September 1, 2004:

For all its brilliance the show is conformist, you might even say peculiarly so, for instance in its need to ridicule modern art and in particular modern artists. Artists as freaks: odd, comical, marginalized. An anti-intellectual ridicule that carries a strong emotional charge: fear, of course. Fear of the criticism implied by nonconformism; fear that for all its brilliance, the show itself is second rate compared to the artists it ridicules. Can comedy be evil? Ridicule as repression.

At the exact moment of transformation in the society around it. Key dates: first episode broadcast, 10/3/61; first anti-nuke march on Washington, 2/16/62; Timothy Leary publishes The Psychedelic Review, 9/62; Cuban Missile Crisis, 10/62; Birmingham sit-in, 4/3/63; Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, march on Washington, 8/28/63; Kennedy killed, 11/22/63; Beatles on Ed Sullivan, 2/9/64; Ken Kesey's first Magic Bus trip, 7/64; Martin Luther King wins Nobel Peace Prize, 10/14/64; Marines land at Da Nang, 3/8/65; SDS organizes first Vietnam War teach-in, 3/24/65; Dylan goes electric, 7/25/65; Watts ghetto uprising, 8/65; antiwar rallies in 80 cities, 10/16/65; first light show, Grateful Dead, San Francisco, 1/21/66; international antiwar rallies, 3/25/66; FBI publicizes anti-LSD research, 4/66; final episode broadcast, 5/25/66; Timothy Leary says, "Turn out, tune in, and drop out," 9/66; first Human Be-In, San Francisco, 1/14/67.

A desperate-feeling, panicky repression, really.