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.We were much too serious forthat.For my part, I came to think of the four of us as a family.At times we seemed a singleconsciousness, divided randomly into four bodies, four biographies, but sharing a vision towhich we had implicitly sworn loyalty.We believed that the world could be cleansed of alldomination and submission, that perception itself could be purified of the division intosubject and object, that power playing between nations, sexes, races, ages, betweenanimals and humans, individuals and groups, could be brought to an end.Our revolutionwould create a universe in which all consciousness was cosmic, in which everyone wouldshare the bliss we knew from acid, but untainted by fear, possessiveness, sickness, hunger,or the need for a drug to bring happiness.The left had taught us that what we learned inschool, in newspapers, on television, and from political leaders was suspect.Acid had givenus the idea that by merging into the cosmos, we would transcend our own deaths.We foundit difficult to put our ideas into words for the benefit of those who did not start by sharingthem.With each other, we needed no words.Once, I formulated my idea of revolution likethis: I said I wanted to smash a hole in the wall of imperialism, through which the liberatedarmies of the world would march.107Thrillingly cut off from the world I had grown up in my parents, my college friends, andnow my job at Cambridge I had never felt less alone.Since my first yearnings toward thecivil rights movement, I had wanted to sacrifice myself to a cause that was larger than myown identity.Sam had stirred me into giving up some of my attachment to things, to theprivileges of my white skin and middle-class background, to the idea of sexual monogamy.Now that I was not one, not two, but four people, I took it for granted that we would makesome extraordinary difference to the movement.Through Nate's work at the Committee toAid the NLF and the Guardian, Pat's background in NACLA, and Sam's and my involvementin the Columbia strike and in CAC, we were connected to virtually every left activist in NewYork.Beyond the core group of the four of us, we had dozens of friends whose thoughtswere similar to ours: Greg Rosen, who was about to take over chairmanship of the AlternateU on Fourteenth Street; Robert Carpenter, whose fearlessness and mechanicalinventiveness appeared endless; Ben Warren and Dana Powell, who had given Sam the gunfor the hijacking, who had been active in the movement for almost a decade, and whobetween them knew everyone we didn't the women's liberationists, the Yippies, theNational MOBE organizers, the Cubans at the U.N., the SDS national officers.By helpingJean and Jacques escape to Cuba, we had proved what we were capable of.Now when wetalked of blowing up army induction centers or the Chase Manhattan Bank, I had no doubtthat we could do it and that thousands would support us, cheer us, imitate us.Pat bought Bob Dylan's new record, Nashville Skyline.I listened to it entranced, at firstbarely able to recognize the famous voice.Instead of surreal laments about heel-clickingsword swallowers and women on Rue Morgue Avenue, Dylan now crooned, "Love is all thereis/It makes the world go round," and "Throw my troubles out the door/I don't need themanymore." The sneer, the petulance, the obscurity the traits that had drawn me to Dylan'smusic in high school and had become his trademark were gone.Sam, the most musically knowledgeable of the four of us, pronounced the record adisappointment.He knew one or two songs from every previous album of Dylan's by heart,but after two hearings he'd had enough of Nashville Skyline.Nathan liked the record butreported that the women at the Guardian considered the lyrics sexist.Pat scoffed at this;she said (and I agreed) that "Lay, Lady, Lay" was the most seductive song Dylan had everrecorded.I spent hours in Pat's apartment, playing the record over and over.I heard amessage in Dylan's voice that I couldn't explain until Nathan told me about an interviewDylan had given a rock critic.The critic had asked Dylan to explain the drastic change in hisvoice and his music.Dylan answered something like "You don't understand.All I everwanted to do was sing." I thought I knew what he meant [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]