The topic of this musing is the fecundity of literary talent that coalesced during 1960-62 in the Wallace Stegner Fellowship for creative writing at Sanford University. The writers who met there are a literary who's who. Just a partial list: Larry McMurtry, Ken Kesey,
Robert Stone, Gurney Norman, Ed McClanahan and Ken Babbs. Born before the war and coming of age in the Fifties, they stand like a cultural colossus striding two generations, yet not really a part of either. Kesey had said, "We were too young to be Beats, but too old to be Hippies."
The wave that the Beat Generation rode from the end of World War II had broken. Several swells stirred the next cultural wave. One of those started in a small, academic neighborhood on Perry Lane in Palo Alto, CA. What a strange alchemical mixture of talent, personality and cultural metamorphosis! A serendipitous catalyst sprang from Stanford's Psychology department's experiments with psychoactive chemicals. Allen Ginsburg told Kesey that the US Government was behind this. Later, the Freedom of Information Act proved Ginsburg correct. It was part of the CIA's MK-ULTRA project.
Vic Lovell, a Psychology graduate student, suggested to Ken Kesey, supporting a wife and children on his meager stipend, that he could make $75 a session testing these substances. Another erstwhile volunteer for these experiments was Grateful Dead lyricist, Robert Hunter. Like the evils of the world issuing forth from Pandora's box, the government's chemical secret begat the Acid Tests which begat psychedelic music, the Family Dog, the Fillmore, all of which came to define the Sixties.
I recommend reading anything from the above authors. These are a few of their works that began germination in the fellowship writing sessions:
Horseman, Pass By - McMurtry's first novel made into the Paul Newman movie,
HUD
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Kesey's first novel, became a play starring Kirk Douglas in 1963 and later a movie
Hall of Mirrors - Stone's first novel made into the movie,
WUSA
Divine Right's Trip - Norman's first novel originally released printed in the margins of Stewart Brand's
The Last Whole Earth Catalog
The Natural Man - McClanahan's first novel originally conceived in 1961, but not published until 1983
Who Shot the Water Buffalo - Babb's first novel which he worked on after coming home from Vietnam just in time to be part of the 1964 Furthur Bus Trip. During the Acid Test Days, he lost his only manuscript. Years later, an old friend found the manuscript in a box. It was finally published in 2011.
Like a psychic Rubik's cube, during certain periods in history with the right social and cultural setting, special people align to create an era that focuses its energies into a magical, creative melange. The Belle Epoque in Paris in the late 1800s, the Harlem Renaissance in New York City from the end of World War I to the mid-30s, the Beats in New York City and San Francisco from the late 40's through the 50s were such periods.
The Bay Area near and around San Francisco during the early to mid 60s was one of those. By the late 60s, our mass-market culture had squeezed much of the creative juice from that forbidden fruit. Hopefully, like ballistospores from fruiting fungi, creative flashes have forcibly shot into the universe nestling into the crania of unsuspecting young minds. Will the circle be unbroken? As ever - BB
"To Vik Lovell, who told me dragons did not exist, then led me to their lairs." Ken Kesey's dedication of
One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest
Throughout my life, words have been my milieu. I still enjoy perusing a dictionary, or a thesaurus just for fun. If forced to choose a favorite book, my choice would be the Oxford English Dictionary. It's not just definitions, but the etymology, synomyms, antonyms, homonyms...all at your fingertips.
