Taos, New Mexico 1960’s Hippies

Taos, New Mexico 1960’s Hippies

Paper instructions:

It is called Utopian Perspectives of the American Southwest. For our final paper we can write about anything we talked about in class. We studied a bunch of different rise and falls of Utopian societies in the southwest, and we also talked about the 1960’s hippies. We watched the film Easy Rider by Hopper and I want to expand for my paper on that movie. These are some sample questions to answer in the paper:
—On her way to New Buffalo from New York, Iris Keltz sang along with the Jefferson Airplane, “We are all outlaws in the eyes of America.” What did she mean and how did the careers of Captain America and Wyatt in Easy Rider exemplify this?
—8. What was the message that Dennis Hopper wanted to leave with the audience of Easy Rider? Why do many people see it as the defining film of the 1960s?8. What was the message that Dennis Hopper wanted to leave with the audience of Easy Rider? Why do many people see it as the defining film of the 1960s?
Final Study Guide—Hist 3342/CFB 3383

May 2014

1. In what way were the utopian communities we have studied examples of the effort to “regain Paradise,” and why is this such an essential part of the utopian frame of mind? Is this effort to “regain Paradise” a fool’s gold akin to the Seven Cities of Gold that Coronado sought or is there, in fact, something for us to learn from such a search?
• Not Christian or jew views-Plat
• All of these societies fail
• constna

2. What were the elements that made Los Alamos such a vibrant and vital form of human community? What were the qualities that allowed Robert Oppenheimer to succeed as its director? As the war moved toward its close, what issues tore at the fabric of Los Alamos, even threatening to divide the scientists into competing camps, and why?
• Boys school was there boys into men
• Fled their if sick cause the beauty and cleanliness
• Vibrant because avg age was 29 everyone eager to work towards the same thing
• He kept the morale up?they would take Sundays off, huge parties Saturday nights (200 proof)
• Kept a strong sense of purpose
• Opp thought groves would like this place because it was remote, hidden from the germans and Russians
• Opp had never led anything before but proved to be a good leader because he told people their intelligence could make them do something bigger than their individual achieiver
• Messanger between groves and other scientists, good communicator bc many people did not like groves
• Issues: arguments about still dropping bomb or not
• Security problems-scientists suspecting loyalty to do connections to communism
3. In the Taos hippie newspaper, Fountain of Light (1969) appeared the following: “While it may be said we are fleeing the deplorable conditions of contamination of the urban areas, both physical and spiritual, the real motivation seems to be a quest for a more natural way of life.” Write an essay in which you focus on the history of the times; the reasons why Taos attracted so many hippies; the goals of the communards; the leadership and status hierarchies; the relationship between the ideal and the reality; and, finally, the reasons for the successes and failures of New Buffalo.

4. To what extent (if at all) were the communities of the Taos Painters, the writers’ colonies, Los Alamos, and New Buffalo influenced by the pueblo culture of Northern New Mexico, and what was the larger significance of this influence? What was “utopian” about each?

• Move through modern society to get to a place that’s simpler
• Had to get through 17th century Spanish doors guarded to get to enchanted adobe land

5. On her way to New Buffalo from New York, Iris Keltz sang along with the Jefferson Airplane, “We are all outlaws in the eyes of America.” What did she mean and how did the careers of Captain America and Wyatt in Easy Rider exemplify this?
• Breaking laws–drugs
• Hispanics so outraged-everything that a conservative/catholic is not
• Believes hippies will keep trying
• Irresistible when things are so radically bad need that hope
• Journey of self discovery?”we blew it” drugged out disgusting human beings when they were going for nirvana
• Captain America and Wyatt: trying to sell their drugs in new Orleans and make a ton of money and go to florida to retire
• Wyatt erb represented someone who moved about the law
• Also see them as heroes: idealize people who question authority can be virtuous and powerful
• Hippies seen as freaks, so were captain America and wyatt when people were afraid of change. Freedom scared them
• Breaking the law on one hand, but if the law breaker feels the law is wrong, they become virtuous

6. Why did New Buffalo fail? What did Keltz believe were among the positive legacies of the commune? How would each respond to Arthur Kopecky’s dedication to Leaving New Buffalo Commune:

Somewhere there are people who want a freer, friendlier world. There must be some in every place who are not satisfied with things the way they are; some who believe in change and unity. This book is dedicated to them, to you, who would propel a quantum leap into a sustainable future. You have as great a challenge as any we have faced. This is not a battle of the sword or explosions. This effort to build on idealism takes a long commitment and a steady hand. If you would be a help, this would be the time.

• Keltz believed the hippies will keep trying, irresistible when things are so radically bad
• We are all outlaws in the eyes of America
• When she comes back she finds it is not the same, no one contributing like they used to
• Taos had become “a bad trip, don’t come”
• Individualists lives
• Psotive legacies: “fleeing contamination”
• People didn’t want to leave their families
• People had positive changed outlooks on life afterwards no therapy just acceptance
How would you?

7. Looking back: Mabel wrote: in the middle of WWI, “My life broke in two right then, and I entered into the second half, a new world that replaced all the ways I had known with others, more strange and terrible and sweet than any I had ever been able to imagine.” What did she mean? Why did she chose to live in Taos rather than Santa Fe? How did Tony change her life?

• Awake to new significances of sex and love than she found so preoccupied in new york
• “new kind of kindness” bright nature of security
• sleeping porch
• the taos indiands could always drive away the peculiar nervousness and anxiety?they were “free in their souls”
• lived in the present not the past or future
• Tony: “for the first time in my life I had discovered I could trust someone always
• Moved by the Taos Peublo—had this discovery of simple life
8. What was the message that Dennis Hopper wanted to leave with the audience of Easy Rider? Why do many people see it as the defining film of the 1960s?

• Idealized hippies in the film
• Fountain of Light-Taos hippie newspaper
• What was going to happen in Taos would speak to all of America
• What happened to America? Libertys become a whore and were taking an easy ride. Southern vernacular
• Ironic because best script
• Pushing the status quo
• Hopper: a lot like silko unveiling fear through art. Nonlinear incoherent story line
• Saw taos for spiritual energy and profound desire to search out universal values
• Set a set of values that relaxed the world?law and order was a reaction against the 60’s

• Identifications:

• Doc Martin
i. Mabel dodge’s first person to stay with-restaurant we ate at
ii. Only doc in the town
• Rick Klein
i. Put down the money for new buffalo
ii. Him and george started new buffalo
• General Leslie Groves
i. General in charge of manahattan project
ii. Very strict only accepted the best
iii. Appointed oppenheimer as lead scientist
• Mr. Manby
i. Wealthy in taos
ii. Part of secret society
iii. Murdered in his mansion?discontentness with his ways/ society
• Robert Serber
i. Physicist on manhattan project
ii. Lectured everyone because opp did not want it compartmentalized
• Dorothy McKibbon
i. Oppenheimers assistant
ii. Humanized the bomb
iii. Los Alamos gate keeper
iv. People had to come to her at east palace 109 to get clearance into los Alamos
v. Huge trust friendship with opp—humanized the manhattan project
• Alfred Hobbs
i. Oldest hippie around
ii. Lived in taos
• Edith Warner
i. Her spiritual life was so expressive
ii. The house at otowi bridge
• U-235
i. Isotope of uranium
ii. Chain reaction
iii. Fission process
iv. Strassman found this out
v. Began entire atomic bomb era
vi. Led to los Alamos?the story is human we see another ideal society occur
vii. “little boy” bomb not tested
• Haakon Chevalier
i. Friend of oppenheimers
ii. Communists-reason why oppenheimer lost his clearance
• Klaus Fuchs
i. Soviet spy
ii. Couldn’t take anything out of los Alamos typed
iii. Soviets were aware a bomb was coming and still nothing
• Oak Ridge
i. Oak ridge Tennessee
ii. Uranium
iii. First factor of manhattan project before Hanford, Washington and los Alamos
iv. 44 acre underground area
• John Nichols
i. Wrote in taos hippie newspaper “legacy is fracious, get a hippie a bath”
ii. Things were way different when Keltz went back to new buffalo?uptopia once again not reached
• Diana the Huntress
i. Communication with animals
• Blue Lake
i. Only accessible to the Pueblos through Nixon
ii. Place for spiritual growth and reflection
iii. foundation
• Robert Wilson
i. Disaffiliates after bombs drop
ii. regrets
• Captain America
i. A guy who was moving in and out of the law
ii. Drug dealer?tying himself to a name. we never find out his real name
iii. Symbolic name
iv. Should it be ironic in the sense the Captain America represents militarism but he is a hippie?
• Kent State
i. Students protesting
ii. Led to situation 4 million students on strike in the country
iii. Young people seeking violence to express their own
• Morningstar Rose
i. Another commune in NM
ii. Wanted to flee all responsibilites but failed because that is impossible to live in a community

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