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Freeper Reading Club Assignment #2: Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Self | PJ-Comix

Posted on 08/06/2002 4:25:03 AM PDT by PJ-Comix

Okay, here is Assignment #2 of the Freeper Reading Club. It is a really terrific and IMPORTANT book by Tom Wolfe---The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It is due by September 9 so you have plenty of time to finish it. If you want to sample the first 20 pages of the book to find out if this is something you will want to read in its entirety, you can do so online HERE.

This book chronicles the early days of the 60s Counterculture. Ironically, almost all the counterculture types embraced this book because of the subject matter but I don't think a lot of them understood that it satirized their foibles. If you haven't read this book before, don't think this is some book in awe of the Hippies. Although it gives a good description of those times, it also has a very skeptical (but hilarious) attitude towards them. This book is a MUST READ for anybody wanting to understand the counterculture of the 60s.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (published originally in 1968) is 416 pages that flow quickly because of Wolfe's funny style. You will LOVE this book but check out the sample pages first to see how good it is.


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And don't forget that Freeper Reading Club #1, Shane, is due for reports this coming Monday, August 12.
1 posted on 08/06/2002 4:25:03 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
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To: Bahbah; contessa machiaveli; BADJOE; Mr.Clark; Betty Jane; Orblivion; Non-Sequitur; dixie sass; ...
Freeper Reading Club PING!
2 posted on 08/06/2002 4:26:41 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
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To: PJ-Comix
Please add me to your ping list
Regards
Lurking'
3 posted on 08/06/2002 5:46:52 AM PDT by LurkingSince'98
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To: PJ-Comix
"Don't worry kid, we're not like THE OTHERS."
I didn't tell him about the Manta bats, I figured he'd see them soon enough.
4 posted on 08/06/2002 5:50:06 AM PDT by tet68
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To: PJ-Comix
I think I may have read this book back in the '70's, but I don't remember. I'll read the excerpt later...
5 posted on 08/06/2002 5:50:25 AM PDT by jellybean
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To: PJ-Comix
I read this book years ago. What was the first assignment?
6 posted on 08/06/2002 5:56:43 AM PDT by TBall
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To: PJ-Comix
Okay, here is Assignment #2 of the Freeper Reading Club. It is a really terrific and IMPORTANT book by Tom Wolfe---The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It is due by September 9 so you have plenty of time to finish it. If you want to sample the first 20 pages of the book to find out if this is something you will want to read in its entirety, you can do so online HERE.

from
www.amazon.com

7 posted on 08/06/2002 6:03:15 AM PDT by RonDog
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To: TBall
"I read this book years ago. What was the first assignment?" - TBall

"And don't forget that Freeper Reading Club #1, Shane, is due for reports this coming Monday, August 12." - PJ-Comix


8 posted on 08/06/2002 6:10:48 AM PDT by RonDog
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To: TBall
I read this book years ago. What was the first assignment?

Shane. Due this Monday, August 12.

9 posted on 08/06/2002 6:11:25 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
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To: PJ-Comix
See also:

Freeper Reading Club?
Self | July 19, 2002 | PJ-Comix

Posted on 07/19/2002 4:54 PM Pacific by PJ-Comix

Have you ever heard about reading clubs? This is where readers read a particular book at the same time. I think it would be fun to do something like that here. A book could be assigned and Freepers who wish to join in could read the book at the same time. Following the deadline date for completion, we could post our commentaries on the book... more


10 posted on 08/06/2002 6:13:37 AM PDT by RonDog
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To: jellybean
There was another big book about the 60s counterculture but it is largely forgotten nowadays. It is The Greening Of America by Charles Reich. Unlike Tom Wolfe, Reich held the hippie counterculture in awe and his pompous book stated that there were important things to learn from the hippies. Wolfe basically just laughed at their silly antics. Anyway, check out this Amazon review of The Greening Of America. It hasn't held up well over the years as Wolfe's book has:

Idealistic but Flawed, March 21, 2001

Reviewer: Jeff Leach (see more about me) from Omaha, NE USA

This is the kind of book that had I read it ten years ago, it would have changed my life. However, having a little education and some wisdom that comes with age, this book quickly reveals it's true colors. Charles Reich was (and may still be) a professor at Yale University. I originally got the idea to read this book when one of my history professors related a story about Reich gadding about campus in his bare feet during the early 1970's. My professor, with a wry grin, related how shocked he and some of his fellow students were that someone of Reich's stature would do such a crazy thing. After reading this book, this behavior fits right in with Reich's codification of what he calls a "new consciousness".

This new consciousness, which is essentially the hippie lifestyle, is a new extension of man that has grown from a technological and corporate society run amuck, and two prior forms of consciousness that failed to properly allow man to run a high-tech world. This first consciousness was what our founding fathers had: a sense of individuality and hard work. With the advent of industrialism, this consciousness gave way to the second form. This is the one most of us are familiar with today. It a way of strict conformity to hierarchy, a rigid adherence to rules and regulations, as well as heavily materialistic and goal-oriented. Reich argues that this way of being was too stilted and crushed individuality and free expression. The result was the third phase of consciousness: the hippie. Doing your own thing, freedom, and a desire to make technology work for humanity were the ultimate goals of this group. Reich examines their clothing (of which shoeless activity is perfectly acceptable for a college professor) and music. He sees in all of this an articulation of rebellion and rage against the Corporate State, a mindless automaton that runs roughshod over all of humanity. The glorious hippies will rise up and put a stern hand on this rudderless beast and all will be well. Reich makes sure he points out that the current system is beyond reform (which I agree with) and that the only way to bring about a "Greening of America" is to restore humanity to society.

This book certainly has some high points. Reich is absolutely right about the banality of the system and that democracy and law have been bent and subverted to agree with and reinforce the system, just as humans have. His solution of the hippie, especially seen through the lens of time, is laughable. We all know what happened to the hippies. Those that didn't die from drug overdoses in the early 1970's sold out and actually expanded the system that Reich rails against. Who do you think the Yuppies were? Aging hippies that absolutely wallowed in materialism and excess. Think of how advertising has expanded in the last twenty years. How many television channels do we have now? How many of them are full of unhealthy images and advertising? The freedom that the hippies so strived for through the music of Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead has given way to Marilyn Manson and the hateful, pornographic throbbings of rap music. As we can see, what Reich crows about has actually morphed into a nightmare. At least Reich did foresee it, as he states that if the hippies couldn't move their ideas past youth, they would fail. They did, in spades.

This book should be read, and it is interesting and exciting at times. I love how he demolishes the New Deal, although he basically does it by saying they didn't do enough because they tried to work within the system. The flaws in the book are destructive to his overall ideas, and the outcome of history has showed us that Reich completely failed in his objectives. At best it can be said that he was amazingly astute in his observations of the time.

11 posted on 08/06/2002 6:17:06 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
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To: PJ-Comix
I have a question and maybe someone here can help.

Several years ago I read a short story where some hippies put a drug in the glue used on postage stamps. There was a sequence where the President went on TV stoned.

Has anyone ever heard of that story, and if so, what was the name?
12 posted on 08/06/2002 2:22:10 PM PDT by sharktrager
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To: sharktrager
I should remember that story but my brain got fried while licking some postage stamps.
13 posted on 08/06/2002 2:47:15 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
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To: PJ-Comix
Monday. OK. Bump. I started reading Shane and I have a question. Does this take place like in one of these right-wing extremists areas or are these people Mennonites? I notice they all have guns and ride horses. Several appear not to have electricity. parsy the reader.
14 posted on 08/06/2002 4:40:51 PM PDT by parsifal
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To: PJ-Comix
Thanks....I am reading Shane now.....BUMP
15 posted on 08/06/2002 7:24:24 PM PDT by JulieRNR21
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