QUIET VILLAGE
Between my junior and senior years in high school, my best friend decided to graduate early and go off to college a year ahead of schedule. I was an introvert, and though I liked a few of my classmates, I largely retreated into myself for a couple of years. Oh, I finished high school and did a freshman year at a local college, but my social life was minimal. The only things that kept me connected to the world outside my bedroom were my magazine subscriptions.
In those days – 1964-1966 – I subscribed to Billboard Music Week, I.F. Stone’s Weekly, The Realist, and The Village Voice. Billboard was the main trade publication of the record industry, and it helped me keep track of new music. As far as I know, it’s still around.
I.F. Stone’s Weekly was a leftist political newsletter that helped cut through the official bullshit about the civil rights struggle and the war in Vietnam. Its back issues are now online (link below).
The Realist came out monthly (most of the time) and was subtitled “free thought, criticism, and satire.” Editor Paul Krassner was my hero back the – smart, funny, and radical. Back issues of The Realist are also now online (link below). Isn’t the internet wonderful?
The Village Voice touched many of those same bases every week. I particularly looked forward to reading Richard Goldstein’s Pop Eye columns, and a couple of years later, Robert Christgau’s Consumer Guide album reviews. The Voice was the first (and until Rolling Stone came along in 1967, the only) national journal that covered rock music appreciatively. And they had a remarkable stable of other writers – Nat Hentoff, Andrew Sarris, Ellen Willis, John Wilcock, Jack Newfield, Garry Giddens, Wayne Barrett, and others I’ve probably forgotten.
When I moved to Lawrence, Kansas and enrolled in the University of Kansas in the fall of 1966, I let my subscriptions to I.F. Stone’s Weekly lapse. The Realist was moving from monthly to whenever Krassner got around to it, which might be next month, or next year. By the early 70s, waiting for a new issue of The Realist was like waiting for the next installment of Game Of Thrones.
But I continued to renew my Village Voice subscription until about 1980, when its editorial priorities had begun to narrow (from my perspective) and I had other resources to keep me abreast of pop culture. No hard feelings, but I was no longer in a New York state of mind.
Now comes word that The Village Voice is shutting down. End of an era, and all that. I’m grateful that it was around when I needed it. RIP, The Village Voice.