Northern Gothic: The Beales of Grey Gardens

Edith Bouvier Beale, once a successful model and aspiring actress who later lived a gothic life in Grey Gardens, a dilapidated 28-room house in East Hampton, N.Y., with her mother and dozens of cats, raccoons and opossums, was found dead in her small apartment in Bal Harbour, Fla., on Jan. 14. She was 84. . . . . (Douglas Martin, "Edith Bouvier Beale, 84, 'Little Edie,' Dies," New York Times, 1/25/2002)

Flashback to 1975. The Maysles brothers' (Albert and David) Grey Gardens documentary.

"Listen, kid! I'm extremely organized. I know exactly where to look for this stuff. I've got it under control right here, but I can't find it. Get it?" (Little Edie)

"It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present. You know what I mean? It's awfully difficult." (Little Edie)

Fast forward to 2006. The Beales of Grey Gardens, a sort of alternate take on Grey Gardens from the same filmmakers (though David Maysles died in 1987).

Fast forward to April 18, 2009. Michael Sucsy and HBO present a biopic version of Grey Gardens starring Drew Barrymore as Little Edie and Jessica Lange as Big Edie.

For so much more, see Buster's Grey Gardens News at: http://greygardensnews.blogspot.com/

Pop music aficionados will probably have seen or at least know about the Maysles brothers' Gimme Shelter (1970), the documentary that follows the Rolling Stones to Altamont in 1969.* In Grey Gardens, see Little Edie perform "The VMI March," something close to my heart because I briefly served time in the Virginia Military Institute barracks in the late 1970s, at the time of the Guyana Tragedy at Jonestown.

*(with Charlotte Zwerin, of Detroit).

Today's Rune: Journey.