Hip Book Reviews
 New Buffalo-A Taos Commune
by Arthur Kopecky
University of New Mexico Press, 2005
For students and admirers of the communal movement, there are a number of first person accounts on the market written by people who lived in the counter-cultural communes that sprang up across the United States during the late 1960's.
Arthur Kopecky's New Buffalo-Journal of a Taos Commune, is a bit different. Where most contemporary accounts are created from recollections of long-ago events, in this case a daily journal's entries, kept from 1971 until this volume ends in 1976, are shared with the reader. Therefore, there is no "back when"; instead, you learn what happened at the commune on that particular day which merited recording in a journal. Mr. Kopecky, who has a degree in History, decided to create this journal feeling the communal movement would someday have historical significance. He was prophetic.
It seems inadequate to merely say New Buffalo was a good read-which it was-so here are some of my impressions... First, I found this account interesting because it picks up several years into the New Buffalo's history. Most first-person pioneering accounts go to great lengths to convey to the reader that they were there when the first stone was laid or, even more frequently, they were the ones laying that first stone. In this case, the basic community framework had been hammered into place before Mr. Kopecky's arrival. However, the community was far from complete or its future secure. In many ways, it was on a fragile cusp of existence, a few minor mistakes here or there might have ended the community immediately.
Mr. Kopecky's account vividly recognizes this precarious state New Buffalo was in. The chronic lack of money kept New Buffalo's economy at a bedrock subsistence level for years. Surely seeing the lights dim and then flicker out at nearby communes Morningstar East and Reality (Construction Company) on the plateau above must have been quite sobering for New Buffalo communards. I'm sure many were silently thinking, "are we going to be next?"
Movies and written media accounts have all blurred many of the harsh realities of communal living in the late 1960's and early 1970's. If one pays close attention to the new Buffalo journal entries, they often center around food. Unless we are food critics or chefs, few of us focus on food in a major way in our writings-for most of us, adequate food is taken for granted and is close to us as our kitchen pantry or fast-food joint down the block. The recurring theme of obtaining enough food and feeding the community reveals on how basic a level the community subsisted. Especially poignant was one account describing an evening meal where the cook, upon realizing fewer people were coming to dinner than expected, then carefully spoons out some of the water in the soup kettle.
The author's account should also dispell the popular myth that all communards were lazy Hippies who laid around blissfully stoned out of their minds all day while surviving on charitable handouts. The blood, sweat, and tears expended on community building come through on almost every page in New Buffalo. Community building was hard work that required everyone's participation.
Another myth put to rest in the book is that romance in a commune was one big open Love-fest. The ignorant are prone to cite frequent nudity as proof of that theory. Mr. Kopecky's account as well as many other published accounts confirm that relationships in communes were just as complex as those on the outside with group sex and group marriages being the exception, rather than the rule. Families, consisting of a mother, father, and children were more commonplace in communes than many realize and here too that living arrangement was the norm.
Refreshing that the author mentions the use of drugs, like Peyote, LSD, and Marijuana in a calm, matter of fact, non-sensational way. Nor does he try to be apologetic or judgmental. The use of psychedelic drugs was part of the accepted youth social scene in the 1960's and '70's and their use in a communal setting merely reflected what was going on outside at the same time.
Last, I'm pleased that the author frequently mentions the ideals underpinning the commune. It's evident that not everyone formally embraced those ideals in coming to New Buffalo, but many did. The humanitarian outreach to travellers, drifters, and hard-luck cases as they arrived and soon left the commune demonstates the compassionate communal spirit. This constant flow of visitors who received but did not return in kind put a tremendous strain on the meager resources of the community; yet this sharing was mostly accepted as the right thing to do.
The book ends in 1976 and in the epilogue promises to share the remaining journal entries in a second volume. While having all journal entries in one volume would be nice, keeping two books to a managable length is sensible as well.
For those who want to know what living in a commune was like on a day-to-day basis, New Buffalo vividly provides that experience and does so better than most available accounts.
John Shiflet
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