This is not my title but Lisa Law’s for her film by the same name and her historic collection of photos chronicling her time with various members of the hippy generation here in New Mexico.
I greatly admire Lisa for keeping on keeping on; she has exhibited her collection over the years at various venues around town, and now with her latest show having closed last week, she is faced with putting the whole collection back in her shed. These photos and her documentation are historic and deserve to go ultimately to an historic archive.
Having said that, I must add that I am not an unequivocal admirer of that period, those people, and all that they caused—or helped to cause—to happen, in the early 1960’s and continuing to this day: a “sexual liberation” that did nothing to forward the interests of women, who in the communes were largely, as always, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, doing all or most of the cooking, cleaning, and child care.
The effects were powerful for my younger brother, Jonathan, as I’ve written in my memoir, Little Brother, to be published with photos next year by Sarabande Books. Jonathan was overwhelmed by the social changes of the early 1960’s at Harvard; an overprotected son of white privilege, he was unable to adapt to the startling effects of sexual liberation and drug use. This is not the familiar story of the sixties, but probably more young people than we know were also overwhelmed, although perhaps not leading to tragic consequences. And, twenty years later, my youngest son, William Iovenko, was caught in the expanding toils of the drug culture in Louisville, Ky, also with tragic consequences.
And so Lisa’s dark portrait of Bob Dylan has, for me, a strange connection with the portrait of Jonathan that will be on the cover of Little Brother. But the child in one of Lisa’s other photographs, which so often document the virtual abandonment of some children in the communes, also connects. Privilege, strangely enough, sometimes entails the abandonment of white children born to “everything” except their parents’ attention. The world offers distractions to the powerful that make childcare seem perhaps not odious, but certainly limited.
Bob Dylan at the Castle, Los Angeles, CA 1966. Photo by Lisa Law.
Miles Hinton, New Buffalo Commune, 1967. Photo by Lisa Law.
Sallie, I am so looking forward to reading and possibly reviewing your “Little Brother” book. I can imagine it will present on a deeply personal take to the fabulous perspective you presented in your wonderful work on Doris Duke. As for your words here, I very much appreciate the brief reminder that even in counter culture communities the inequality in gender roles persists. It’s a testimony to the integrity of your life and work. Keep the faith applied to the struggle!
The photo of “Little Brother” looks so cool. Being a middle class person born in 1958, I have never seen such a small child look so dapper! I would have killed for a pair of sunglasses like Jonathan was sporting. I would have made him my boyfriend if he was my neighbor or attended my public school! I was an overprotected daughter of middle class privilege that did no drugs, but found myself lost and confused by being “roofied” at a disco in the small town of Clinton, Iowa. Still to this day I don’t know what happened to me, but pretty girls who don’t have a “friend” or body guard protection are always being “stalked and hunted” by others who want to taste them without the young ladies permission. It is a sad fact still. I am a 65 year old woman who still has “the shine” that got me in “trouble” in 1978. Only difference is now I know the score and will fight to the death of me or the other person who tries to mess with me physically. Your brother and son had choices because they were male. You cannot blame anyone but them for doing drugs. I understand that you are a really old lady who just does not “get it”. Your kin were not victims of anyone but their own selves. A hard pill to swallow for you. I see no connection between the pic of Dylan and little Jonathan. Dylan is a musical genius. No one knows little Jonathan Bingham.