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| Dream Time | 
| Author: Geoffrey O'brien
Publisher: Counterpoint
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $0.01
You Save: $13.99 (100%)
New (31) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1596349
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 1582431914
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.92
EAN: 9781582431918
ASIN: 1582431914
Publication Date: May 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW .may have a publisher's remainder mark.Fast shipping guaranteed.No sale is ever final.Thank you for looking at bookscorner1.175a,197a,293,629,633,635,775,832
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| Customer Reviews:
back in print! June 8, 2006
This is a terrific book, and I am delighted that it is back in print. He nails down the elusive spirit of the sixties with a precision I have never encountered before.
Gob was writing holy prose even though he thought he was November 12, 2004
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
From Lester Bangs's review of a Van Morrison record called BEAUTIFUL VISION: "When COMMON ONE was released in late 1980, I called up fellow rockcrit Greil Marcus and raved about it: 'This is it! The ultimate Van Morrison we've been waiting for all these years!' 'No', he said, 'it's a facsimile of the ultimate Van Morrison album. Van acting the part of the "mystic poet" he thinks he's supposed to be: "Didja ever hear about William Blake?" Well, yes, Van, I did ... so what?' ... In a way Greil was right: lines like 'James Joyce wrote stream-of-consciousness books' and 'Wordsworth and Coleridge were smokin' up in Kendal' are pretty silly, especially repeated over and over. But it makes absolutely no difference (in fact, I like it) because the context is so gorgeous: rapturous quarter-hours that pass like vast moments ... Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."
Well needless to say, the same thing can be said about Geoffrey O'Brien (alias Gob). He's just a little bit too much aware of the fact that he's the greatest writer since Lester Bangs. But Gob's self-knowledge in no way diminishes his status. He is "The It Boy". And he darn well knows it. And so be it. May his fine quality entertainment continue apace.
DREAMTIME wouldn't be complete without an obligatory description of the difficulty inherent in writing about the lysergic experience: "Obviously what they had experienced should be kept alive. However, they soon started slipping backward. It was extremely difficult even to remember what had taken place that night. To describe it was to lose it. The mechanisms of language and memory were not designed to cope with such phenomena--in fact, they were designed to obliterate them. Ordinary consciousness survived by erasing whatever perceptions did not fit its pigeonholes. Jack and Jane were thus conspiring to circumvent the brain's filing system. It turned out to be a little like trying to sneak up behind yourself. Finally they developed a theory that what they were trying to remember could by its nature not be remembered. Nostalgia was forbidden. If it wasn't happening, it was as if it had never happened. It could only be experienced. That was what made it special."
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