groove on

============ [Internet Comment] ========== One time I had a boss yelling in my ear while I was working, I kept on working.  A friend walked over and asked me "John, what was Jim so mad about"?  I said "I don't know, I wasn't listening.  LOL

---------------
---------------
------------------ [excerpt, The Road to Woodstock] ------------ Other than an initial organizational chart I had drawn up showing various functions and positions to fill, we made it up as we went along.

We settled on calling our creation "An Aquarian Exposition:  The Woodstock Music and Art Fair."  That name "Woodstock" symbolized the rural, natural setting I envisioned.  I suggested "Aquarian Exposition" to encompass all the arts, not only music but crafts, painting, sculpture, dance, theater -- like a 1969 version of the old Maverick festivals.

And I wanted to reference the Aquarian age, an era of great harmony predicted by astrologers to coincide with the late twentieth century, a time when stars and planets would align to allow for more understanding, sympathy, and trust in the world.  Our festival would be that place for people to come together to celebrate the coming of a new age.

There had been so much conflict over the past year, with violent confrontations occurring on college campuses, in urban ghettos, and at demonstrations across the country.

At Woodstock we would focus our energy on peace, setting aside the onstage discussion of political issues to just groove on what might be possible.

It was a chance to see if we could create the kind of world for which we'd been striving throughout the sixties:  That would be our political statement -- proving that peace and understanding were possible and creating a testament to the value of the counterculture.

It would be three days of peace and music.

-------------------------

{The Road to Woodstock, by Michael Lang and Holly George-Warren.  Copyright 2009, HarperCollins.}

-30-