WOODSTOCK, N.Y. — Chicago was only the labor pains. With a joyous three-day shriek, the inheritors of the earth came to life in an alfalfa field outside the village of Bethel, New York. Slapping the spark of life into the newborn was American rock and roll music provided by the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.
And Dylan's Mr. Jones, who has, indeed, been aware of what is happening, but has preferred to denounce the immorality of fucking around with his values, is now forced to acknowledge both the birth and its legitimacy.
The New York Times, which had given the story front-page coverage for three days running, thundered on its editorial page the Monday-after that it was “an outrageous episode” and demanded to know “what kind of culture it is that can produce so colossal a mess?” But, in a reversal astounding for that Establishment journal, a second editorial Tuesday sheepishly allowed that the gathering was “essentially a phenomenon of innocence . . . they came, it seems, to enjoy their own society, to exult in a life style that is its own declaration of independence . . . with Henry the Fifth, they could say at Bethel, ‘He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a-tiptoe when this day is nam'd.'”
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