==== [NYT, 24 Jly 94, Sec.4,p.14 Letters] ====
	[2 LETTERS]
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     <My Generation Wants a Woodstock
     We Can Call Our Own>
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1) To the Editor: 
    As a young person who paid $221 for a ticket to go to Woodstock '94, I
read Frank Rich's "Peace and Love, '94 Style" (column, July 10) with
interest. Mr. Rich makes the point that commercialism has swallowed the
real meaning of Woodstock simplicity, unity, peace and flowers. But he
misses the point of why my generation is so excited about this event.
  Mr. Rich and his generation are old enough to remember the power of
Woodstock in 1969. They remember how quickly the story unfolded, the
fascination of the Thruway backed up for miles, the thrill of seeing their
compatriots go skinny-dipping in a lake and Jimi Hendrix playing "Purple
Haze."
  My generation, those 25 and younger, learned about Woodstock through
history books, and even then there was just a paragraph or so about a
music festival that defined a generation. Mr. Rich and his generation
experienced the impact of the first Woodstock, which explains why they
see Woodstock '94 on the same level as a leftover dinner and why they see
it as overkill when we do not.
   For young people Woodstock '94 is a fresh and new event. We never
experienced the full impact of the first Woodstock, or the power of the
60's. To us it is history, but to my parents' generation it is a memory.
  My contemporaries and I are not going to Woodstock '94 comparing it
with our parents' Woodstock. We are going to it expecting no less than the
young people in the 60's expected-- to be happy, peaceful, listen to
great music and meet all kinds of people.  Mr. Rich can see the
differences between the first and second Woodstock, but we are too young.
Woodstock '94 is our only Woodstock.
  Whether it will be filled with peace, love and flowers remains to be
seen, but at least the experience and mem- ories will be ours.
  AMY WU	Thornwood, N.Y., July 14, 1994
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2)    Peace, Love, No Profit
To the Editor:           
  Frank Rich has it right about Woodstock (column, July 10). As one who
was there at the end of my tender teen-age years, I can testify that the .
"Three Days of Peace and Music" had a lasting impact on my life--not for
anything that can ever be marketed, but precisely the opposite.
  Woodstock was a free festival by accident: expelled from its original
site in White Lake, N.Y., the organ- izers barely had time to finish
building the stage and, come showtime, there was no fence. Thus, there was
no-way to limit entry, and it was announced from the stage that this was
a free concert.
   Except for the circulating dealers in psychedelics, virtually no
dollars changed hands for an entire weekend in a city of half a million
people. It was precisely the anticommercialism of the event that my
buddies and I were caught up in, that had us giving away all our food our
first day, sharing whatever else we had and relating to hundreds of
people a day in a heady fog of good vibes. 
   It is also what put the essence of Woodstock forever beyond the reach
of capitalist enterprise. Sure, it was just a weekend event in late-60's
America, but it was also a vision -- however brief and unsustainable a
vision -- of life lived communally, without a profit motive. We did not
want to leave.  
   ALAN MEYERS	Cambridge, Mass., July 13, 1994

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