Another Excerpt

From my latest read... "Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond"... by Denis Johnson:

Somehow these flower people sense I’m not quite there. They see me. And I think I see them back: In a four-square-mile swatch of the Ochoco Forest the misadventures of a whole generation continue. Here in this bunch of 10,000 to 50,000 people somehow unable to count themselves I see my generation epitomized: a Peter Pan generation nannied by matronly Wendys like Bill and Hillary Clinton, our politics a confusion of Red and Green beneath the black flag of Anarchy; cross-eyed and well-meaning, self-righteous, self-satisfied; close-minded, hypocritical, intolerant—Loving you!—Sieg Heil!

This is about as good a description I've read of us 60s-kinda people in quite a while.  The author, after slagging hippies in general, goes on to buy 100 bucks worth of psylocybin and gets stoned out of his gourd.  Which, I suppose, kinda-sorta proves the point... a tiger can't change his stripes.  Present company excepted, of course.

The excerpt is from a chapter called "Hippies" in my latest read... which is a series of tales -- short stories, actually... about life on the fringe.  The book is mesmerizing; the hippies less so, even though I can identify with the characters based upon experiences in past lives.  From an Amazon review:

As a fiction writer and poet, Johnson is known for his surreal portraits of the dispossessed lurking at the fringes of American life: the drifters, the jobless, the junkies and midnight DJ's. In this collection of 11 essays, which brings together pieces written over a 20-year period, he prefers to look at how those same individuals band together to form a new, often threatening, identity. His America is peopled with Christian Bikers in Texas, Alaskan frontiersmen, hippies both young and old, and right-wing militia members, all striving to create a life apart from the values associated with the mainstream middle-class. In addition to the essays on America, Johnson expands his canvas to take in the revolutions wrought by the dispossessed of the third world, in such places as Liberia, Afghanistan and Somalia. He finds true believers at every crossroad, whether it's in God, government, guns or all three, and manages to assess the quality of their conviction by traveling among them.

Though Johnson is always clearly present as a narrator, he often only refers to himself in the third person or as a separate character altogether. This unusual narrative style infuses many of the essays with an askew, out-of-body point of view, which, while taxing to his credibility as a reporter, adds sincerity to his plight as a human. As a journalist, Johnson searches for something beyond headlines and, at least in this collection, that makes for an intriguing and insightful investigation.

I bought this book on a recommendation found here (thanks, Andy!)... "100 Must Read Books: The Essential Man's Library."  Recommended.  So far.