Will It Be Strictly Conventional?
In a suburb of Chicago in 1968, I was sixteen years-old watching the mayhem on television and listening to my father rant about the world falling into hellish pieces before our very eyes. I even
think I saw Abbie Hoffman that week in the bar at a restaurant where I bussed tables, but maybe that was just a dream. Many non-turbulent convention years have come in-between, but make no mistake, gentle people, the circus train's a-comin' agin! The temporary roustabouts are already hired to set the tents, and keep their eyeballs peeled for gate-crashers. (photo by Sequeira)
I found this at Common Dreams: Pop Quiz: What Do New York 2004 and Chicago 1968 Have in Common?, by Adam Cohen (originally in the NY Times)
Excerpt:"As the co-author of a lengthy Daley biography, "American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation," I can attest that the two mayors are not much alike. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made $5 billion at the intersection of finance and technology, is a world away from Mayor Daley — the father of Chicago's current mayor — who plodded his way up an old-line Democratic machine, and lived his whole life in the working-class neighborhood of Bridgeport. And given the probity and professionalism Mayor Bloomberg has shown in office, a Chicago-style debacle seems unlikely here. Still, these two men seem to have a remarkably similar distaste for demonstrators — and for somewhat similar reasons."There's also this: Grooving in Chi by the late Terry Southern.
Will it be deja vu all over again? I'm guessing not, because of all the water under all the bridges in the 35 years in-between. It's a different place. A different people. But I'm also betting that neither of the Big Two conventions will be like anything seen in the last 20 years. A sucker bet, me thinks. Any suckers out there dying to part with their filthy lucre? My, my. ;-)
The magician, he sparkles
in satin and velvet.
You gaze at his splendor
with eyes you've not used yet.
I tell you his name is:
Love love love
"My, my," they sigh.
"My, my," they sigh.
"My, my" - sigh
Donovan, Sunny Goodge Street 1965-ish
