A young Parisian photographs the barricades stlll in place the morning after the riots. In May of 1968, angry students and workers took to the streets to protest against widespread poverty, unemployment, and the conservative government of Charles de Gaulle.

“For fifty years, the events of May–June 1968 in France have had a collective hero: the striking students and workers who occupied their factories and universities and high schools. They’ve also had a collective villain, one within the same camp: the French Communist Party (PCF) and its allied labor union organization, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), which together did all they could to put a brake on a potential revolution, blocking the students and workers from uniting or even fraternizing. This reading of the events is often found in histories, most recently Ludivine Bantigny’s 1968. De Grands soirs en petitsmatins. I heard it fairly consistently from rank-and-file student…

“Given the late Fred Neil‘s near mythic reputation as a songwriter, singer, environmentalist, and recluse, the reissue of his 1965 album Bleecker & MacDougal is of historic importance. But rather than being an artifact of the man who wrote ‘Everybody’s Talkin’,’ ‘Other Side to This Life’ (which appears here), and ‘Dolphins,’ this album is made of the material that gave Neil his enigmatic presence. This is a highly evocative and emotionally charged set of material, nearly all of which Neil composed. The lineup on the album was similar to his previous outing with Vince Martin, and featured John Sebastian on harmonica, Felix Pappalardi on bass, and guitarist Pete Childs (who also played dobro and electric on the date — the latter was heresy for a folk record), with Neil playing 12-string. The pace of the set is devastating, from the greasy blues of the title track to the…

Scotchgard™ advertisement, c. 1961

Scotchgard™ is a 3M product that makes fabrics stain resistant and somewhat water repellent. 3M completely reformulated Scotchgard in May 2000. It turned out that the chemicals used in earlier versions of  Scotchgard were dangerous and persisted in the environment for a long time.

Those chemicals were perfluorinated compounds (“PFASs”), including perfluorooctane sulfate (“PFOS”) and perfluorooctanoic acid (“PFOA”). It’s increasingly clear that these PFOSs are nasty stuff. Even in Scott Pruitt’s world, the EPA says:

Studies indicate that PFOA and PFOS can cause reproductive and developmental, liver and kidney, and immunological effects in laboratory animals. Both chemicals have caused tumors in animal studies. The most consistent findings from human epidemiology studies are increased cholesterol levels among exposed populations, with more limited findings related to:

• infant birth weights,
• effects on the immune system,
• cancer (for PFOA), and
• thyroid hormone disruption (for PFOS).

Scotchgard…

“In the end, the military campaign was called Operation Ranch Hand, but it originally went by a more appropriately hellish appellation: Operation Hades. As part of this Vietnam War effort, from 1961 to 1971, the United States sprayed over 73 million liters of chemical agents on the country to strip away the vegetation that provided cover for Vietcong troops in ‘enemy territory.’ Using a variety of defoliants, the U.S. military also intentionally targeted cultivated land, destroying crops and disrupting rice production and distribution by the largely communist National Liberation Front, a party devoted to reunification of North and South Vietnam. Some 45 million liters of the poisoned spray was Agent Orange, which contains the toxic compound dioxin. It has unleashed in Vietnam a slow-onset disaster whose devastating economic, health and ecological impacts that are still being felt today. This is one of the greatest legacies of the…

“Accattone is a 1961 Italian drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Despite being filmed from an original screenplay, Accattone is often perceived as a cinematic rendition of Pasolini’s earlier novels, particularly The Ragazzi and A Violent Life. It was Pasolini’s first film as director, employing what would later be seen as trademark Pasolini characteristics; a cast of non-professional actors hailing from where the movie is set, and thematic emphasis on impoverished individuals. While many people were surprised by Pasolini’s shift from literature to film, he had considered attending the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome before World War II. Pasolini had collaborated with Federico Fellini on Le notti di Cabiria and considered cinema to be writing with reality. The word accattone[akkatˈtɔne] is a slang term meaning ‘vagabond‘ or ‘scrounger‘. Accattone is a story of pimps, prostitutes and thieves, types…

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

John F. Kennedy

“Legendary filmmaker Peter Whitehead was at the heart of Swinging London, chronicling the youth explosion, the burgeoning popular music scene and the counterculture of the 1960s. In March the NFT hosted a comprehensive retrospective of his work. Now the BFI releases two of his films for the first time; Wholly Communion (1965) and Benefit of the Doubt (1967), coupled with a new interview with Peter and additional rare footage. With over three hours of material, Peter Whitehead and the Sixties is a fascinating document of the radical, experimental, literary and theatrical scenes of 60s London. On 11 June 1965, the Royal Albert Hall played host to a slew of American and European beat poets for an extraordinary impromptu event – the International Poetry Incarnation – that arguably marked the birth of London’s gestating counterculture. Cast in the role of historian, as a man-on-the-scene, and massively elevating his limited resources, Whitehead…

Wikipedia – “‘All Along the Watchtower’ is a song written and recorded by American singer-songwriterBob Dylan. The song initially appeared on his 1967 album John Wesley Harding, and it has been included on most of Dylan’s subsequent greatest hits compilations. … Covered by numerous artists in various genres, ‘All Along the Watchtower’ is strongly identified with the interpretation Jimi Hendrix recorded for Electric Ladyland with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. … According to Clinton Heylin, all the songs for John Wesley Harding were written and recorded during a six-week period at the end of 1967. With one child born in early 1966 and another in mid-1967, Dylan had settled into family life. … Accompanying Dylan, who played acoustic guitar and harmonica, were two Nashville veterans from the Blonde on Blonde sessions, Charlie McCoy on bass guitar and Kenneth Buttrey on drums. … Several…