p. 712 // NP commentary on Little Boxes - another Tangent (Time Mag)

[Michael Bailey]

this wasn't a reply to anything anybody said
but might be of general interest...

Wikipedia links to a 1964 Time magazine article about
the song (this is amazing for somebody who was brought
up to use the _Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature_ to
find old articles, but grew up to rarely do so...)

anyway, re Time magazine...de rigeur in my folks's house
till the "Kill the Police" thing...something about the publisher
also owning Death Row Records or something...
it's been reinstated for a few years now tho...

1) a lot of my hippie purchases came recommended by
their culture section - for instance, The Incredible String Band;
or dissed attractively ("The MC5 is revolting")

2) Major point: Time had - and probably still has -
strong CIA connections.  That's not necessarily all bad:
while they're writing they're not out doing wet work....

anyway, they are capable of showing taste:
they didn't pan Gaddis's 1st book (_The Recognitions_)
like so many others at the time

3) from the Little Boxes article:
"The song was written in the front seat of an automobile,
while Songwriter Malvina Reynolds was ticktacktooling
along down San Francisco's Skyline Boulevard."
Cutesy, eh?


Time being a "voice of the Establishment" and so forth,
yet (I maintain) showing some class - like Theign,
or any of the very human and somewhat likeable spies
in Pynchon or his sources and inspirations --

"we're a real mean team, but we can love" - Mott the Hoople