We can laugh about the Sixties now, a little bit, because, you know, The Sixties – it’s a brand name, essentially, now – but you think about things like John Cage and Fluxus and whatnot suddenly springing forth into a world naive enough to think that prefab houses, polyester slacks and green bean casseroles were the way to go, and it’s not too much of a surprise how things turned out in the ensuing decade. (Perspective: Buddy Holly’s first single came out in 1957. The Summer of Love, Monterey Pop, Haight-Ashbury and Hendrix burning his Strat? That was ten years later.) Anyone surprised that the world folded in on itself for awhile there? “Hey, Fifties guys, you know everything that you hold sacred? Yeah, we don’t want any of that. Also, your wife secretly hates you and your job is meaningless. Look at my long, unwashed hair. Groovy.”

What’s great, too, is that some of the original Fluxites are still getting up to their own particular brand of mischief. Witness Alison Knowles, who’s been at this for nigh-on fifty years and has lost precisely none of her spirit, recreating her 1962 interactive public performance piece Make a Salad last weekend at Chelsea Market for Earth Day. (FULL ARTICLE: Betsy Morais, The New Yorker)