Here we go … (Two Five Zero 000)
Starting today I’m going to frequently publish 250 words. I’ve written a lot of words and I’m writing more every day. Publish six days out of seven, three times a week, or “An Occasional Series.” I published many (very long) country profiles for my “195 Countries Plus Everyone Else in 514 Days” Project (find them here: https://www.facebook.com/search/posts?q=%E2%80%9C195%20Countries%22&filters=eyJycF9hdXRob3I6MCI6IntcIm5hbWVcIjpcImF1dGhvcl9tZVwiLFwiYXJnc1wiOlwiXCJ9In0%3D) on a pretty regular schedule.
Maybe, I thought, I’ll call it Two Five Zero (so much cooler than 250.) Then I kept hearing the phrase Three Five Zero, but couldn’t place it. It’s from a song in the musical Hair and it’s amazing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAdq3Z-9bsg). Why is it called that? I did some research (how long would this have taken in 1993?) and found out it’s from an Allen Ginsburg poem called “Wichita Vortex Sutra” (http://www.writinglab.org/wichitavortexsutra/ )
“Put it this way
Declared McNamara speaking language
Asserted Maxwell Taylor
General, Consultant to White House
Vietcong losses leveling up three five zero zero per month
Front page testimony February ’66”
And it made me think about the cultural ferment in 1966, 1968 when I was more or less entirely too young to make much sense out of it, beyond knowing something very important was happening, and it was happening nearly entirely without me. I do remember the dogs and the firehoses on the news though.
A profound skepticism about what was really going on with America met an all-too brief confidence in the possibility of deep change. It did not collapse on its own from essential frivolity and lack of proper hygiene — it was murdered literally and figuratively, and the narrative of the time has been manufactured ever since.
Check out levitating the Pentagon (https://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/10/the-day-they-levitated-the-pentagon/). Check out Paul Krassner who was hilarious and deeply moral (https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781683961840). I’m hopeful (even confident?) that the lessons of 2020 will lead to our own version of such ferment starting now …
