a city reader

In 1967 in October 100,000 people outraged over America’s involvement and behavior in the war in Vietnam marched on the Pentagon. Norman Mailer and Dr.Spock, poet Robert Lowell, Yippies Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, and Ed Sanders and the Fugs were some of the notables who went to Washington to march in the protest. Mailer got arrested. He wrote about the march in The Armies of the Night. I’m currently reading it on the subway on the way to and from holding my sign on weekday mornings. It’s a vicarious thing, reading such a book now. You want to protest the behavior going on in today’s DC. You wonder who would be Mailer or Jerry Rubin this time. Who would be on that front line? Bernie. Naomi Klein. Cornell West. Who would the others be? Students? Emma from Parkland? Young and old should read Mailer’s book.

Sometimes people walking by the sign or riding by on a bicycle or in a passing car with the window down will flash a peace sign or raise their arm with a fist. The spirt is still there. 

Books like Mailer’s are inspiration. Schools should have such books.