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Notes From the New Underground: An Anthology
Kornbluth's anthology of some of the best articles from underground newspapers of the 1960s. Sociological discourses, a few rants, thoughtful essays and a bit of prose poetry.
"The Contemporary American Juggernaut, and Beyond": Writings on the status quo and what to do about it.
"The Redefinition of Culture: Life as Art": Revolutions occurred in art, theater, literature and especially music.
"The Nature of the Revolt": Observations on what was actually being done to change society. Includes a transcription from a "summit" meeting between acknowledged leaders of the movement, Alan Ginsburg, Timothy Leary, Gary Snyder and Alan Watts.
"The Hippies: Flowering of a Nonmovement": What the media dubbed "hippies" was actually a complex scene with little desire to define itself outside of a need for freedom of expression outside societal norms.
"The Ascendency of Agape and Its Abuses": Promoting love, beauty, sexual freedom, innocence and nonviolence is an invitation to the wolves—especially when young women are involved. What was the counterculture movement prepared to do?
"The Radicalization of Hip and the Reportage of Empathy": Some hippies became more politicized and outspoken, while others withdrew to pursue their ideals and personal goals.
"The Contemporary American Juggernaut, and Beyond": Writings on the status quo and what to do about it.
"The Redefinition of Culture: Life as Art": Revolutions occurred in art, theater, literature and especially music.
"The Nature of the Revolt": Observations on what was actually being done to change society. Includes a transcription from a "summit" meeting between acknowledged leaders of the movement, Alan Ginsburg, Timothy Leary, Gary Snyder and Alan Watts.
"The Hippies: Flowering of a Nonmovement": What the media dubbed "hippies" was actually a complex scene with little desire to define itself outside of a need for freedom of expression outside societal norms.
"The Ascendency of Agape and Its Abuses": Promoting love, beauty, sexual freedom, innocence and nonviolence is an invitation to the wolves—especially when young women are involved. What was the counterculture movement prepared to do?
"The Radicalization of Hip and the Reportage of Empathy": Some hippies became more politicized and outspoken, while others withdrew to pursue their ideals and personal goals.
302 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
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About the author
Jesse Kornbluth
30 books32 followersJesse Kornbluth was an American magazine writer and author. His book Notes from the New Underground is an anthology of articles he compiled from counterculture newspapers. He also wrote Airborne, a biography of Michael Jordan, and Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milkin. His articles appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and many other magazines. He was a graduate of Harvard University.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 15, 2025
This book is a precious time machine of rants published in 1967 underground newspapers from all of the Hippie Mecas of the time. It's fascinating to read how much change these activists and/or hippies thought could be achieved, that humanity was consciously evolving. But they were all WRONG! The Trumpublican dumb shits and planet killers, and the retreat of almost all of these ex-hippies into the same cookie-fed smartphone Borg America reality and dissociation from true reality as their children shows that we weren't evolving our consciousnesses at all.
That couldn't be more clear than from reading this book.
A lot of focus on the Haight-Ashbury scene as it was crumbling and some blow-by-blow coverage of The Death of Hippie ritual and a couple of major anti-war protests in Oakland and DC.
But the gang is all here (mostly excluding women, of course): Leary, Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, Paul Goodman, the Diggers (Peter Berg & Peter Coyote), Michael McClure, William Burroughs, Tom Robbins, Rolling Thunder, the Fugs, two of The Beatles, and early rock journalists like Ralph Gleason, Richard Goldstein, and Paul Williams.
That couldn't be more clear than from reading this book.
A lot of focus on the Haight-Ashbury scene as it was crumbling and some blow-by-blow coverage of The Death of Hippie ritual and a couple of major anti-war protests in Oakland and DC.
But the gang is all here (mostly excluding women, of course): Leary, Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Alan Watts, Paul Goodman, the Diggers (Peter Berg & Peter Coyote), Michael McClure, William Burroughs, Tom Robbins, Rolling Thunder, the Fugs, two of The Beatles, and early rock journalists like Ralph Gleason, Richard Goldstein, and Paul Williams.
March 21, 2019
If you really want to know what was going on in the 1960s as far as the music, art and political movements in California and elsewhere, read this book. It is an anthology of writings by, for and about the so-called hippies (it was much more than that). There are articles from the San Francisco Oracle, the Los Angeles Free Press, flyers and broadsides by the Diggers and Communication Company and interviews with so-called leaders like Leary, Ginsburg, Allan Cohen and Gary Snyder. The idea that these men were "leaders" is really a joke. Reading what they have to say here, particularly the so-called "summit meeting" where they all got together on a boat, dropped acid and discussed what was going on, it is obvious that they were just keeping track of the scene as it happened, and reporting, interpreting and trying to make sense of it.
The book chronicles the early idealistic days of the Haight-Ashbury through to the end when the influx of teenybopper wannabees and the accompanying meth predators wiped out whatever good there was there and made it the way it is today. By the end of 1967, most of the real hippies had moved (most of them to the Pacific Northwest) to rural areas where they could mellow out and raise potatoes.
Several articles complain not only about the "hippiebums", but about the way women were treated even in the most idealistic period, which in those pre-women's-liberation days was less focused on by the press in or out of the scene.
The highlight of the book is a reprint of the wonderful Digger manifesto "Mutants Commune", which you can now find on line at diggers.org but which in its original typographical form has much more of an impact on the viewer. It is a powerful statement condemning death forms -- the system of military, educational and religious norms of industrial society -- and postulating (with practical examples) a future world in which these systems are replaced with "novas", loosely organized groups engaging in mutually beneficial occupations.
The book chronicles the early idealistic days of the Haight-Ashbury through to the end when the influx of teenybopper wannabees and the accompanying meth predators wiped out whatever good there was there and made it the way it is today. By the end of 1967, most of the real hippies had moved (most of them to the Pacific Northwest) to rural areas where they could mellow out and raise potatoes.
Several articles complain not only about the "hippiebums", but about the way women were treated even in the most idealistic period, which in those pre-women's-liberation days was less focused on by the press in or out of the scene.
The highlight of the book is a reprint of the wonderful Digger manifesto "Mutants Commune", which you can now find on line at diggers.org but which in its original typographical form has much more of an impact on the viewer. It is a powerful statement condemning death forms -- the system of military, educational and religious norms of industrial society -- and postulating (with practical examples) a future world in which these systems are replaced with "novas", loosely organized groups engaging in mutually beneficial occupations.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews