Here are the first four things I noticed about Senseless Acts of Beauty: 1) The title. "Ugh. Reminds me of a precious bumper sticker." 2) The cover photo of two modern primitives, in silhouette, blowing into some kind of prehistoric horns on the rim of a dry quarry or desert sink hole. "Wow. Didn't I see them at Burning Man?" 3) The subtitle, Cultures of Resistance Since the Sixties. "Better." 4) The epigram in the introduction, from the band Chumbawumba. "Any book that quotes Chumbawumba, I gotta read!"
Senseless Acts of Beauty, as the subtitle suggests, tracks the post-'60s flowering of a number of loosely affiliated dissident groups in the UK, where there was no Altamont/Hell's Angels violence to dampen enthusiasm for free concerts and outdoor fairs. Over six chapters, George McKay, a veteran punk and squatter, charts the exploits of the Albion Free State, the mini-Woodstocks held at Stonehenge, the New Age travelers who convoyed the blue highways in search of good camping and parties, and "eco-rads," the British answer to Earth First! Along the way, McKay stops to make a case for Crass, a punk band/anarchist collective he feels had a far more pervasive influence than has been acknowledged. When The Clash sang, "Hah you think it's funny/ Turning rebellion into money," Crass, ever the punk purists, responded: "CBS promote the clash/ but it ain't for revolution, it's just for cash."
No doubt Senseless would have made more sense to me if I'd lived in the UK during the '70s or '80s. McKay's narrative, which I suspect derives from speeches given at universities, sometimes irritates. A veteran of the scenes McKay chronicles, he wants to have his g�teau and eat it, too. He likes to confess his own participant-enthusiast point of view, but then pull back into analytical, anthropologist mode. He excels at both, but rarely in the transition between them.
Neither the British-centricity nor McKay's narrative unevenness diminish the book's chief contributions, however. He demonstrates convincingly that the '60s were not some fluke and that countercultural practices popularized then have fed pockets of resistance ever since. Most important, he identifies the DIY (do it yourself) culture/ethic of the '70s as the foundation of resistance in the '90s. And, while the idea that resistance in a consumer-driven society can be as simple as making your own festivals, music, videos, zines, games, et cetera, rather than buying them ready-made may not strike a majority of readers as a revelation, it remains profound in a world united culturally by Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse, and the united colors of Benetton.
Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance Since the Sixties, by George McKay: US$17.95 Verso: (800) 634 7064, +1 (212) 244 3336.
STREET CRED
Atmospheric AlchemyThe Revolution Will Be Netcast
Anarchists in the UK
