the buzz log

Welcome back to the Age of Aquarius.

The 1969 music fair of Woodstock, New York, lasted only three days, but its aura as a musical turning point, a generational uprising, and a countercultural shift has persisted for 40 years. With its ruby anniversary this week—though no official 2009 fair—the event is inducing extended flashbacks and commercial hysteria. Below, just some of the buzz Woodstock still delivers.

What's This Love City?
It's not just AARP card-holders in a Woodstock haze. Searches into the "woodstock" phenomena (up 354% to make the top 2,500 terms on Yahoo!) come from kids, as well as adults trying to recapture the love fest. Older folks have been twice as likely to reminisce about "woodstock 1969." What the kids are looking up: What's this faded breed called "hippies"?

Talkin' About My Generation Gap
Woodstock gave '60s America more than Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin at their peak. It defined what the Mercury News calls the "moment when youth culture crystallized in the 1960s." The festival is also inspiring surveys about today's social gaps. Good news, according to the Pew report: There's not much of a gap between the old and young, and rock leads musical tastes. Bad news: Race and class struggles continue.

Selling Woodstock Boogie
Counterculture quickly translated into consumer culture, and that hasn't changed. The 40-year psychedelic flashback has so far hashed out a documentary, rockumentary, an Ang Lee movie, the festival producer's memoir, a $600 limited-edition book set, and a six-CD box set for $79.98. (Yes, CDs, and your parents would've lucky to have them.)

Purple Haze of Memories
No shortage of mindtrips about the event. For a shot at collective consciousness, the 400,000-some attendees (and wannabes) can piece together that "singular moment" through Woodstock site's cozy social networking and WikiStock.

More unreliable memories can rely upon Woodstock producer Mike Lang's recollection via a book excerpt from Rolling Stone, or on two opposing "I Was There" perspectives: NYT's reflection on the festival's "muddy grace" and Newsweek's dour take on the "massive, teeming, squalid mess." An interesting read: a July 23, 1969 Boston Phoenix article, which asked, "Can a Pop festival, in its first year, find happiness and success as a 'three-day festival of peace and music'?"

Dance to the Music
Above and beyond all was the music. The Brisbane Times' "Where Are They Now" checks up on the acts' current careers, and the Los Angeles Times covers the brotherhood that continues among the surviving brethren. Below, the artists who still put out celestial vibes 40 years later.

1. Jimi Hendrix
2. The Who
3. Santana
4. Grateful Dead
5. Janis Joplin
6. Creedence Clearwater Revival
7. Sweetwater
8. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
9. Joe Cocker
10. Joan Baez
11. The Band
12. Jefferson Airplane
13. Arlo Guthrie
14. Richie Havens
15. Ravi Shankar