The Sixties: A Primer In the unfathomable cycles of pop-culture, everything comes back as nostalgia. Why? Nobody knows, but I'm sure there are at least half a dozen Master's theses being written on the subject at this very moment. We saw the Forties return with wide lapels and Bogart posters. Then the Fifties came back in pegged jeans and James Dean haircuts. (Remember Grease? You probably didn't until just now, and I'm sorry I brought it up) Well, it's time for the Sixties again. In fact, we can see the stirrings: Every other commercial uses a Sixties rock tune to push a product and the land-sharks are already wearing their power ties wider. With this in mind, I offer this brief primer of the Sixties for those of you too young or too burned out to remember. Music: Music which bears repeating: The Stones; the Doors; Credence Clearwater Revival; Three p_Qg Night; .Sly_ I Thl j E t unlty Stone; Reetha; Joplin; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; nearly all Motown; and Eric Clapton when he's not singing about beer. Music to avoid: Jeffersoß Airplane (Starship too); Tom Jones; Dusty Springfield; Sonny and Cher, Dylan ( I know I'll catch flack here, Minnesota Bob still has his supporters, but the man Can't sing and his lyrics are even less intelligible now than they were then); The Monkees, Herman's Hermits, Paul Revere and iht Raiders, and any other "novelty" band, especially the Cowsills, Ivlinishirts: Unless you are nineteen years old and have the legs for it, DO NOT wear a miniskirt. Oh, and it usually helps to be a woman. Go-go Boots: Go-go boots were usually made of cheap, white plastic and developed in direct proportion to miniskirts: The higher the skirts, the taller the boots. (There is one school of socioeconomic thought which holds that the shortening of skirts in the Sixties was related to the continued vital growth of the stock market. If you believe this, I've got an option on some bridge property in New York you might find attractive). Skirts continued to rise in the Sixties, finally culminating in hotpants, so that it was possible: to see hookers in the nation's tenderloin districts who looked like Valkyrie fly-fishermen. Minis and go-go boots were then promptly replaced by granny skirts which made women look like grannies. Paisley: Paisley is a particularly offensive pattern on material which looks like giant amoebas which have developed curly-cues, dots, and knobby things to ward off predators having good taste. In revenge for the . Revolutionary War, paisley was invented by the English so that any American girl who wears it looks like an idiot. Along with some rancid Yardley products, paisley was smuggled through U.S. Customs in Paul McCartney's luggage. Communes: Communes are where seventeen or more people live in the same house in PSH: Conspicuous Consumption? By Joe Kupec I have come from University Park and I have seen the light! Administrators, college presidents, deans and provosts have built lab buildings, student unions, book stores, and plazas, hoping to convince students, staff and • alumni that Penn State Harrisburg is as good as University Park. Thcn, they tried planting trees, putting up statues, importing squirrels and pushing culture on campus to show we had aesthetics and no one bought it. An Air Force Base is and Air Force Base no matter what is planted or painted on it. We can convince everyone in Central Pennsylvania that Penn State Harrisburg By C.W. Heiser is on par with Old Main by simply painting a little two-inch, white square by every light fixture and painting a number in it. The secret for greatness all along lies within the building maintenance staff. When I was at University Park and noticed these numbers first at the Hertzel Union Building then, later on, achieving success as a university. It all has to do with conspicuous consumption. Money is spent on on inane things only for the sake of showing off. The robber barrons of the industrial revolution pioneered in conspicuous consumption but Penn State's "Main Campus" must be doing research on it. Why else would they keep spraying those elm trees? the country and share a shower—if it's working. If your idea of a spiritual experience is watching a crop of bean sprouts. then communal living is for you. lk Weathermen: This is what can happen if you take Dylan seriously. The only positive contribution they made to the political dialogue of the Sixties was to blow themselves up. A demonstration is when 17 or more people get together to protest an injustice--usually Vietnam, so we'll have to think of something else this time. A riot is when the police show up Allegedly, half a million people turned up at an upstate New York farm for three-day festival of mud, peace & love, mud, rock 'n roll, and mud. Allegedly, because I have never met anyone who kn.w anyone who was at Woodstock. It's my theory that the whole thing was a put up by the establishment, using stock footage from Hurricane Diana, to fool the hippies into believing there could be an ideal rock festival where everybody was nice and didn't shoot fireworks in the parking lot. That way, when the other rock festivals didn't live up to expectations, the hippies would be really disappointed and turn into yuppies. augs: I'm not recommending drugs, but if you must experiment with Sixties drugs, at least do so with a clear-headed awareness of the possible effects. (Yeah, right. Just like we did then). Cheap Wine: The cheap wine in the Sixties was the same as the cheap wine now, only then we drank it right out of the bottle and with strangers. Marijuana: Marijuana will make you blissful and stupid, except under certain conditions when it will make you paranoid and stupid. Insights are possbile, but you'll never remember them afterward unless you write them down. That is, if you're capable of following these simple steps: A. Finding a pencil. B. Finding some paper. C. Finding a clean, flat surface on which to write. D. Remembering why you needed a pencil and paper in the first place. Acid; Major insights, but don't try to write them down--the pencil will probably turn into a snake. Cocaine: Don't do cocaine. You will go broke or die, or both. The only people who could afford cocaine in the Sixties were rock stars, and look how most of them ended up. If the return of the Sixties bothers you, just remember, it will , gj worse. In a few yers, the Seventies will be back and we'll wax nostalgic for polyester shirts and John Travolta. Cheers To Video Selection Committee By Andrea Abolins The committee responsible for selecting Penn State Harrisburg's new videocassette collection deserves praise for their insight and applause for their choices. A program like this has been needed in colleges for years. Most classrooms do not provide adequate video equipment, therefore making it difficult for a student packed in a room with 25 others to see or hear a film. Fifty minute class periods make it impossible to view most films in their entirety. Now, students truly interested in appreciating and learning from the viewing of films can do so in the privacy of their own homes. The 200 films that are available for checkout are diverse, and each is Capital Times, September 14, 1988, Pa: e excellent in its own right. Classics like "Citizen Kane" and "Gone With the Wind" don't begin to describe the extent of the collection. Stage productions such as the Greek tragedy "Medea" and the Italian opera "La Bohcme" are available. Documentaries like "Motown Time Capsule" and "Shoah" (Holocaust Survivors) look at eras in American and world history. Students can even check out blockbusters like "Star Wars" and recent critically-acclaimed films like "Sid and Nancy". Penn State Harrisburg's new video collection is a welcome and much needed addition to our school's resources. Every student and faculty member should take time to enhance their personal learning experience by checking out at least one of the 200 available films.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers