Summer of Love

This week marks the forty year anniversary of Woodstock in August, 1969. Taos has been celebrating all season with a marketing promotion dubbed the "Summer of Love". This trendy theme has been used in various venues - from the library's open readings, to restaurant menus, art gallery openings featuring Dennis Hoffman and Robert Dean Stockwell, and readings at Somos. Taos is well know for being a "hippie" enclave during the late 60's and 70's. There were quite a few communes here in Talpa and New Buffalo as well as Lama Foundation featuring guru Ram Dass. Even Natalie Goldberg was a quasi-member of a commune in Talpa and wrote a novel from that period, "Banana Rose."

This week at Somos there were two scheduled readers: Mark Rudd, former leader of SDS (the radical Students for a Democratic Society) who has recently published a memoir from that time, "Notes from the Underground". Unfortunately his wife had to have emergency surgery so he was unable to attend. In his place was Kyra Ryan who grew the child of hippie parents in the 70's and is writing a memoir, "Wild Child" that she read from. Coincidentally her godmother, Iris Keltz, was the second reader who wrote the locally well-known book, "Scrapbook from a Taos Hippie" but who on Friday night read from the prequel, "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down" about her marriage to a Palestinian during the six day war in 1967 and subsequent years. America tends to be so pro-Israel that it was quite interesting to hear about some of the same events from a Palestinian point of view - especially as told from the point of view of an American Jew growing up in Brooklyn living in Palestine during that time.

I've ventured off in new directions and signed up for a college course in beginning watercolors which begins in a week. My daughter bought me a set of watercolor paints for last Xmas which have until now sat unopened. I have never taken an art studio class in my life and feel somewhat intimidated by the prospect. Especially at two classes, 2 1/2 hrs/week each. The instructor, who I know from the gym, said that we'll be doing alot of painting outside and taking scenic trips around Taos.