Paul Goodman, who died in 1972, isn't as well remembered today as he should be, but he helped shape America's post-World War II alternative (progressive) culture as much as the Beats, the Merry Pranksters, J.D. Salinger or Saul Alinsky. He was a prolific writer and public intellectual, a political activist committed to anarchism and pacifism, and a co-founder of Gestalt Therapy. He also wrote one of the classic protest books of his time —1960's Growing Up Absurd, about the rising dissatisfaction of youth with society-at-large. And when he came out as bisexual in 1969 with The Politics of Being Queer, it was an important milestone for the then-new gay liberation movement. The new documentary Paul Goodman Changed My Life from director Jonathan Lee aims to introduce him to a younger generation and reacquaint him with those he once so affected — Boomers and their children. The film features interviews with such luminaries of the arts and academia as Judith Malina, Grace Paley, Noam Chomsky, Ned Rorem, among others. It is getting a special free screening at Miami University in Oxford next Wednesday, March 28, at 7:30 p.m. at Leonard Theater in Peabody Hall. As there has been no Cincinnati screening yet and none planned so far, it's worth a trip up there for this film about a great American
