Lawyer Avarice and Parson Sly of thenRestoration comedy—he withheld hisnsignature, needed for a financial settlementnwith the bank, until his partners,nMr. Roberts and Mr. Rosenmann,nwhose financial straits made the settlementnimperative, had paid each of themnf31,250 to dissolve the partnership.nAnd when the company they had leftnclambered eventually, and unexpectedly,ninto the black. Avarice and Sly wentnahead and sued their former partnersnanyway! Yet Mr. Lang prattles incessantlynagainst the Establishment, thenSystem, the pigs, etc., etc., etc. And,nfurthermore, his pieties are heard withnrespectful nods and solemn assentnthroughout.nA here is also a typical Restorationnsubplot. It is designed to show the awfulnessnof those who tried to preventnthe festival because they feared that itnwould disrupt their small, peaceful, happilynbackward communities. Here thenauthor’s prejudices do emerge. The festival’snopponents are presented as thenmost wretched specimens—policemennwith short hair, small-town housewivesnwith an aversion to heroin, freaks ofnevery kind. Mr. Spitz clearly wondersnhow they dare show their faces in politensociety.nIt is, alas, true that some of thesenconcerned citizens (note the rare correctnuse of that phrase) were driven by despairninto acts which no one can lightlyngloss over-menacing telephone calls,nthreats to the lives of children of thenorganizers, etc. These things Mr. Spitznwrites of with justified coldness. Butnwhat is nowhere explicitly acknowledgednis that these Neanderthal monstersnturned out to be entirely accurate inntheir predictions about the festival. Hardndrugs were freely available; a serious epidemicnwas averted only by good luck;ncrops were trampled; mobs surgedneverywhere uncontrolled; violent riotsntook place; and much more besides.nNot that Mr. Spitz ignores the sinsnof the other side. He quotes a memorablendescription of the performers and or­nIHMHH^HMMHnChronicles of Culturenganizers relaxing away from the grimnsqualor of love and peace in action:n’It was like a paradise,’ she [Lee Mackler,na woman organizer] noted withnamusement, ‘the revolutionaries diningnon T-bone steaks and Frenchnchampagne… come Saturday or Sundaynnight, these people would changeninto their oldest torn jeans and sing ton”the people” about poverty and starvationn…. We had heard about thenpitiful conditions out at the site, hownthe food was low, and the medicalntents were bursting with patients,nlike a modern-day Gettysburg. Butnnobody gave a s-t. We were on an expensenaccount, and that was really allnthat mattered to most of the peoplenin that dining room.’ [my bowdlerization]nYet, in Mr. Spitz’s otherwise franknnarrative, those who opposed the prospectnof riot and chaos, most of whomnemployed legal methods to do so, arensubtly presented as somehow inferiornto the peddlers of love and peace. Likenpoor Truehart and Decent, Mr. Spitznis half-captive to the modern notion thatnthe bawdy vices are less culpable andndeadly than the chill comforts of respectability.nOimilar themes emerge from Mr.nSanchez’s very different book—in effect,na valet’s-eye-view of the RollingnStones pop group. Mr. Sanchez, who,nas an employee of guitarist Keith Richard,nlaid out heroin and cocaine eachnmorning rather than the more tra­nin the forthcoming issue of Chronicles of Culture:nThe Third Partyn”The world in Falling in Place is populated by thosenwho are concerned with style, with artifice. Below thenglittering, trendy facade, inside the pleasure palacesnwith walls built by the smoke of marijuana… therenis a bankrupt world. Yet they keep spending to maintainnthe illusion. But as Ann Beattie shows, thev arenspending what would bethepalrimon of I he children.nAt the end of a comedy, there is usually annepithalamium. In this world, the weilding s