Daisies

Celebrating another first draft; delaying another revision.

-Daisies (1966), directed by Věra Chytilová

A Taste of Sadness

- "A Taste of Sadness" by Walter Wanderley, from Rain Forest (1966)

Having a Coke with You

"Having a Coke with You"

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles 

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them 

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse 

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

by Frank O'Hara, originally published in 1960

- Frank O'Hara reading the poem in his apartment in 1966, taken from the film USA: Poetry, Frank O'Hara

With A Girl Like You

I have about thirty unfinished little blog-post ruminations about anything from gender roles to highway medians, but they're only yet little seeds.

I'll keep chipping away, but for now, here is a little head-bopping boost to keep this here blog afloat.

- "With A Girl Like You" by The Troggs, from Wild Thing (1966)

Leaves That Are Green

Sounds of Silence has been on non-stop repeat in the car. Now that I'm legally, arbitrarily older, hearing this song makes me feel even more under-accomplished...my knee-jerk reaction is to think that if Paul Simon was really writing tunes like this at my age, I need to step up my game. But then I breathe a sigh of relief and remember that I'm not Paul Simon, and that I'm exactly where I need to be.

I've got a good feeling about this year.

- "Leaves That Are Green" by Simon & Garfunkel, from Sounds of Silence (1966)

Five O'Clock World

This is how I feel about Wednesdays.

Maybe I'll spend my lunch break napping by the lake.

-"Five O'Clock World" by The Vogues, from the album Five O'Clock World (1966)

I'm Sad and I'm Lonely

I've been listening to lots of old folky music recently (I spent most of Saturday reading and listening to Pentangle), and just came across this guy Derroll Adams. He was an American musician who spent most of his life in Antwerp, recording creative music and hanging out with a young Scottish kid named Donovan. Listening to Adams's music now, it's easy to see how much Donovan was influenced by him. But before I digress (which in truth means that I should probably get back to my job), here is a piece of Adams's music for you to enjoy. Or cry about, depending on how temperamental you are.

Oh, and I finally finished Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City on Saturday. The whole thing is written in the second-person, which was mainly why I picked it up. While I give the author major praise for such an ambitious undertaking, I was wholly underwhelmed by the novel's characters, plot development, and quality of writing. It's a hundred times better than any novel I could write, but that still doesn't make it great literature. But, you know what? If you're intrigued, give it a shot. The novel isn't earth-shaking, but it's a quick easy read, and probably a pretty effective reminder of why the eighties weren't so great. Or so I've heard from my elders.

- "I'm Sad and I'm Lonely" by Derroll Adams and Jack Elliott, from Riding in Folkland (1966)

Session Man

Today, I can already hope, will be a productive day. I am going to send in my final paper for the fall semester (yay!) and then I will be done with Wellesley academics until September. What a strange thought.

But that's not too enthralling, and to be quite honest my mind is still pretty focused on finishing up said essay, so instead here is a song.

-The Kinks' "Session Man," from Face to Face (1966)

I Call Your Name

For all the drugs and debauchery, The Mamas & the Papas somehow managed to make some wonderful music. This song was originally written by John Lennon and released by the Beatles on their Long Tall Sally EP in 1964. The Mamas & the Papas covered it for their first album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, which came out just two years later in 1968.

You have to give them some credit for their idiosyncratic album covers:

That's more than enough background, though. Here is "I Call Your Name," as performed at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967:

Grand Junction, Colorado

Yet another day of driving, this time across Utah and into Colorado, where we ended up in Grand Junction for the night. I walked around town for a bit when we got here and happened upon a one-hour photo place (those still even exist?) called Snap Photo. I've only shot like two rolls of 35mm on this trip, but I'm going to stop by in the morning and see if I can't get them developed before we leave town because I have a hard time being patient. Fingers crossed!

But today was a really nice day. My dad and I crossed the Great Salt Flats and visited Saltair (which is not actually the original building). Some brief background, in case you're in the dark like I was:

Saltair was originally built in the late 1800's as an amusement park on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Misfortune (and fire) befell the place again and again, and after reconstruction and several revival attempts, it burned down for good thanks to arson in the 1960's. A concert hall, modeled after the original architecture of the Saltair, now sits about a mile down the shore from where the original structure was first constructed. If that's not enough history for you, Wikipedia's there to help.

Anywho, we stopped there because--and this interest is fairly prototypical of my family--the park was used in the 1962 film Carnival of Souls, which is a wonderfully eerie gem that's been lost in the annals of horror history. Its influence on contemporary cinema is fairly remarkable; George Romero once even said that it was the film that inspired him to make Night of the Living Dead, which ghouls gave way to the zombies Romero crafted in Dawn of the Dead. Which is basically a roundabout way of saying that zombies, as they stand as a contemporary cultural phenomenon, might not exist were it not for this film. And all of that disregarded, it's just a darn-good horror film that scares my pants off every time.

Anyway, if I did a good job selling it at all, here's a poor-quality version of the full movie on YouTube, courtesy of the public domain:

After we left the moderately-depressing site of Saltair, we passed through Salt Lake City, saw some mountain storms, and listened to The Association, which was one of my dad's favorite groups back in the day. I'd never really listened to them before, but they have some super-smooth melodies and harmonies. It was rewarding to see the look on my dad's face when I pulled up their music on the stereo, because he hadn't heard them since he was in school. Here's a video of them performing the song "Along Comes Mary" on the Smothers Brothers; it's pretty wonderful if you ask me.

 

-From And Then...Along Comes The Association (1966)

And that's all I've got for today, so here are some photos from the road!

Salt Flats, looking South from I-80

I swear there are ghouls living here

Minarets!

I-80, just west of Salt Lake City

Utah Highway 6

Just East of Wellington, Utah

Utah Highway 6, looking West