Blasts from the Past: 40 Overlooked Masters Who Still Stire our Souls

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Floyd Dell (1887?1969)
You could call him the bohemian version of F. Scott Fitzgerald: a bright young Midwesterner who chronicled the social and psychic forces that powered early-20th-century America?but from a working-class, radical perspective. Dell made his name as an editor of the legendary leftist magazine The Masses, as an eloquent advocate for feminism and psychotherapy, and as a leading light of both the Chicago literary renaissance and Greenwich Village. His unjustly forgotten fiction and essays chronicle the heyday of America?s first counterculture. (Book: Floyd Dell: The Life and Times of an American Radical, by Douglas Clayton; Ivan R. Dee, 1994)
?Jay Walljasper

Halldor Laxness (1902?1998)
Despite writing his books in Icelandic and espousing outspoken socialist views, Laxness managed to win the wider literary world?s attention, and eventually the Nobel Prize, in 1955. While the lives of sheep farmers near the Arctic Circle and domestic servants in Reykjavik may seem remote, his portraits of these people evoke the human resilience that redeems us all, in prose widely hailed for its simple, transcendent beauty. (Book: Independent People, by Halldor Laxness; Vintage, 1997)
?Jay Walljasper

Judson Dance Theater
(founded 1962)
In the early ?60s, the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village became the incubator of avant-garde dance in America. Here, disciples of choreographer Merce Cunningham and composer, poet, and all-
purpose innovator John Cage staged experimental performances in which dance lost its formal pretensions?at times becoming indistinguishable from walking, or morphing into acrobatic roller-skating. Among the corps who redefined contemporary dance forever at Judson was multi-art diva Meredith Monk, who, like Cunningham, is still active today. (Book: Democracy?s Body: Judson Dance Theater 1962?1964, by Sally Banes, Duke University Press, 1993)
?Joseph Hart

Paul Goodman (1911?1972)
For those perplexed by what anarchism is and isn?t, and what it can mean for all of us, the political and literary works of Paul Goodman are a path toward clarity. Author of the classic social critique Growing Up Absurd, as well as many works of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism, Goodman had broad intellectual reach and considerable political courage. And at a time of stultified social mores, he was an authentic bohemian who flaunted his bisexuality and challenged fellow ?radicals? to live their ideals. (Book: Creator Spirit Come!, by Paul Goodman; Free Life Editions, 1977)
?Craig Cox

The Rascals (1965?1972)
Perhaps the least celebrated of great ?60s rock groups, the Rascals made music that sounds remarkably fresh and full today. They were pioneers of blue-eyed soul and were so good at it that R&B star Otis Redding is said to have once stuck his head into their recording studio to say, ?I just wanted to see for myself if you guys were really white.? Their raucous, uplifting 1968 testament ?People Got to Be Free? proved that the band?s cross-racial solidarity was political as well as musical. Indeed, the Rascals combined the two best things about the ?60s?an idealistic social ethos and a good-time spirit. (CD: The Very Best of the Rascals; Rhino, 1993)
?Jay Walljasper

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