Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Those Were the Days, My Friend

I Heart Chaos — Forty four years ago, Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg tried to exorcise the Pentagon: Forty four years ago this Friday, on October 21, 1967, 70,000 peaceful and very enthusiastic demonstrators gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the D.C. Mall to protest the war in Vietnam, among whom were Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg and The Fugs. In addition to protesting the war, the poets, pranksters and musicians had come to the Pentagon to levitate it. Fug member, wordslinger and alchemist Ed Sanders had prepared a magical incantation that would exorcise (exorgasm) the Pentagon and then lift it high into the air.

3 comments:

Seepy Benton said...

I met Allen Ginsberg back in the mid-seventies in Austin. We had a nice conversation, and then we chanted Hare Krishna together. He really knew how to howl!

Anonymous said...

Nice pun, Seepy. I briefly met Ferlinghetti at the City Lights, but never Ginsberg.

Anonymous said...

We met Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky back in the early '70's at Hunter College.

Jeff