Abbie Hoffman: '60s radical ... friend of knife knuts!?

[mnblade]

I just spotted this quote from 60s radical Abbie Hoffman in the book Woodstock: The Oral History by Joel Makower (Doubleday, 1989).

"I remember watching Joan Baez and talking to her backstage. ... She's sort of not a hedonistic person, not a Dionysian person. She's kind of stiff. I said, 'Joan, I want you to hold my knife.' She said, 'You know I'm non-violent.' You know, like an instinctual response. And I was saying 'Who said I wasn't? What do you think -- this is for cutting food, this is for helping people at the hospital. I just want to give it to you for a present. Don't freak out.' It was just a gift. I had the hots for her."

To answer the obvious question, no, it doesn't say what kind of knife it was.

 

[Phil Elmore]

There is a section in Steal This Book on knife fighting. It advocates -- essentially -- getting a nice sharp pointy switchblade or whatever and thrusting straight forward with it like a fencing zombie, if I remember correctly.

 

[glockman99]

There are also a couple refrences to carrying a knife in the book Revolution For The Hell Of It by "Free" (Abbie Hoffman).

On page 209 he talks about being arrested (for jumping bail) at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, where he was asked to empty his pockets, and "I produced a pen knife I had purchased the day before in New York". (1968...The good old days when you COULD carry a pen knife on an airplane...).

On page 211 he is called to testify in-front of the "House Un-American Activities Committee", where he went dressed as "an Indian with feathers, hunting knife, and a bullwhip". (...Was Abbie a friend of knife nuts, or just a nut?..).

 

[Phil Elmore]

He wasn't a friend to anyone, except fellow communist hippies.

 

[HJK]

Originally posted by Sharp Phil
He wasn't a friend to anyone, except fellow communist hippies.

You mean "Yippies". He wasn't a Communist or a Hippie.

 

[Phil Elmore]

You take all the fun out of being flippant.

 

[black mariah]

Hippies aren't communist, they're socialist. When you live on a commune and grow your own.... vegetables and basically live in the wilderness you learn how useful a knife is.

 

[glockman99]

Originally posted by HJK
You mean "Yippies". He wasn't a Communist or a Hippie.

I was both a Hippie, AND a Yippie, back in the late '60's, early '70's...(I wore "love beads" AND carried a knife [a Puma White Hunter].)..