Richard Farina was an influential and important figure in both the Counter culture scene of the early to mid sixties as well as the budding folk rock scene of the same time. He is best known for his novel "Been Down So Long it Seems Like Up to Me". The book published in 1966, two days before his death in a motercycle accident has become somewhat of a cult classic among those who follow sixties and counterculture literature. His lifestyle was one of a beatnik combined with that of a hippie. He was a proponent of using substances such as LSD and other mind altering drugs. He was born in Brooklyn in New York City and went to the prestigous Brooklyn Tech High School and then earned himself an acedemic scholorship to Cornell University where he first entered as an Engineering student. While he was there he published a few short stories for some of the local literary magazines as well as for magazines such as The Transatlantic Review and Mademoiselle. Since his death his his work has been kept alive by friend and literary confidant Thomas Pynchon who wrote an introduction to a recent paperback version of Been Down as well as well as dedicating Gravity's Rainbow to Richard's memory, a novel hailed by many scholars and critics to be among the most important American novels of all time. Richard married Mimi Baez, little sister of Joan Baez and the two were together at the time of Richard's death. Richard was also a close friend of Bob Dylan, their friendship is the topic of a book by David Hadju calle "Positivly Fourth Street" and together to two of them tried to bring folk rock to the masses, their dream died with Richard. During the 1960s the term underground acquired a new meaning in that it referred to members of the so-called counterculture, i. ... Bob Dylans folk-rock album, Blonde On Blonde Folk-rock is a musical genre, combining elements of folk music and rock music. ... Beatnik redirects here. ... Flower-Power Bus Hippie (or sometimes hippy) is a term originally used to describe some of the rebellious youth of the 1960s and 1970s. ... D-lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly called acid, LSD, or LSD-25, is a powerful semisynthetic psychedelic drug. ... A map highlighting Brooklyn and the rest of New York City. ... Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York) is the most populous city in the United States, the most densely populated major city in North America, and is at the center of international finance, politics, entertainment, and culture. ... For other uses of the name Cornell, see Cornell (disambiguation). ... Thomas Pynchon pictured in his high school yearbook. ... Gravitys Rainbow book cover. ... Portrait photograph of Bob Dylan taken by Daniel Kramer Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman May 24, 1941) is a highly influential American songwriter, musician, and poet. ...

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