Ryan H. Walsh's 'Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968' (2018)

Ryan H. Walsh, Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968. New York: Penguin Press, 2018.

A kaleidoscopic time portal into trippy Boston centering around 1968, but opening out into the 1960s and 1970s. The possibilities for further study of its phenomena are wide and deep. 

The biggest revelation for me was musical, with Boston bands like Ultimate Spinach (a sort of psychedelic Doorsy head band); and interesting historical context for powerful music with which I was already quite familiar (James Brown, Velvet Underground, Van Morrison).  

And you get all sorts of crazy details about the local music scene, clubs, musicians, cultish and political activism (particularly "the Lyman family"), underground newspapers, Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970), the freaky What's Happening, Mr. Silver? show, Howard Zinn, Timothy Leary, Steve McQueen, the Boston Strangler, Tony Curtis, Aerosmith, Maria Muldaur, astral projection, Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, Barney Frank -- and more! 

Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 probably syncs well with an altered state, too, or so one can imagine. Can you dig? 

Today's Rune: The Self. 
   

Evald Schorm: 'Návrat ztraceného syna' / 'Return of the Prodigal Son' (1967)

Evald Schorm's Návrat ztraceného syna / Return of the Prodigal Son (1967). Stars Jana Brejchová (who played Princess Bianca in Karel Zeman's Baron Prášil / The Fabulous Baron Munchausen / The Outrageous Baron Munchausen, 1962) and Jan Kacer.

Jan, a sensitive engineer (and architect?), has tried to commit suicide. The film explores the aftermath of his suicide attempt and its impact at his psychiatric facility and on hearth and home. All of the main characters are restless. Jan's wife Jana retains Jiří (Jiří Menzel, director of Academy Award-winning Closely Watched Trains / Ostře sledované vlaky, 1966) as a paramour in plain sight, while the therapist's wife has a sweet tooth for Jan. 

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." ~ Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). 

Still from Evald Schorm's Návrat ztraceného syna / Return of the Prodigal Son (1967)

A case of mistaken identity forces Jan to run for his life. This scene reminds me of ones taking place when the tables have been turned, and the oppressors are hunted down by the formerly oppressed. However, Jan is mostly depressed, and now he's come alive -- if only out of a primal response to being pursued by several women with pitchforks. 

The Good Doctor and the Good Wife -- more or less. Kafka meets Jaroslav Hašek. Prague Spring is just around the corner, to be followed by a violent crackdown. 

RIP, Kate Spade (December 24, 1962-June 5, 2018) and Anthony Bourdain (June 25, 1956-June 8, 2018). 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Sean Baker: 'The Florida Project' (2017)

I first learned about Sean Baker's The Florida Project (2017) because one of its stars, Willem Dafoe, received an Academy Award nomination for his performance in it. 

The Florida Project zeroes in on some of the people attached by work or residency to the Magic Castle and Futureland motels on the ragged Kissimmee periphery of Disney World. 

We see things largely though the perspectives of circa six-year-old kids, particularly Moonee (Brooklynn Kimberly Prince), Jancey (Valeria Cotto) and Scooty (Christopher Rivera); their mothers/guardians Halley (Bria Vinaite), Ashley (Mela Murder) and Stacey (Josie Olivio); and Bobby, the manager of Magic Castle (Dafoe).  

This film is a gem. The milieu and performances are right on. The perspectives are so evocative that The Florida Project unleashed a flood of memories for me, from when I was six years old! It's so true!

When I was six, my immediate family was living in an apartment complex in Justice, Illinois, about nineteen or twenty miles southeast of Chicago by car. We resided there for a couple of years as a transit point between Pennsylvania and Minnesota, based on my father's job trajectory.

There I had friends and acquaintances named Boatsie, Pic and Misty -- pretty close to names like Moonee, Scooty and Jancey. We would run around the area, in and nearby the apartment complex, exactly as they do in the movie -- it was a most excellent thing being a "Free Range" kid, sometimes on the dangerous side.

We occasionally got into the same kinds of trouble the kids do in The Florida Project, but much more dramatic events for us included seeing the devastation brought by tornadoes ripping through the nearby landscape, a huge building fire in our complex, and helping out afterwards. 

Where were you when you were six years old?  The answer may inform your response to The Florida Project. What you bring may translate into what you see reflected. So, at least, it was for me. 

Today's Rune: Fertility.           

Amy J. Berg's 'Janis: Little Girl Blue' (2015)

Amy J. Berg's Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015), a state of the art documentary biography of Janis Joplin (1943-1970), presents her life in a most compelling, sensitive and soulful manner. My first serious foray into this field was Howard Alk's Janis (1974), which I saw at the Melkweg in Amsterdam when I was twenty-two -- and I loved it, not to mention the audience's raucous response. Now I'd consider Alk's documentary as a complement or supplement to Berg's. There have been other films, and there have been excellent books on Janis, too. As anyone who knows her music can testify, Janis Joplin was intense. Amy J. Berg has done her justice here. 

Today's Rune: Signals. 

A Reading of Proust: Take III

Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998), A Reading of Proust (London: Dennis Dobson, 1967; originally published in 1964).

Let's bring this show to a close, for now, with a few more observations:

"No one knows exactly what anyone else is thinking or plotting. Every one knows only partially, or suspects, or believes he [or she] knows. Such approximations of knowledge and ignorance account for the human comedy and . . . tragedy. These two terms have to be used simultaneously, because in Proust comedy is always tragic." (p. 128).

"According to Proust's canon, only the artist, when functioning as artist, is fully conscious." (p. 147).

"A work of art is the life of the artist. Marcel has just made the momentous discovery that a record of this life resides in the deepest part of himself . . . And he is the only one able to read this book, or to decipher it." (p. 262)

"The milieu, the world described by the novelist, is not important. What is important is the reflective power of the novelist, his [or her] ultimate value as a mirror." (p. 265). 

I think what he means by this is that choice of setting, world, genre, etc., can be anything, if it's done well. Whatever works. 

Finally: "An individual life is so bound up with the lives of the men [and women] of his [or her] time, and with the very existence of the world, that there is no end to his [or her] mystery, no clue to his [or her] absolute reality. Analogy is the only principle by which we begin to understand the mystery of human life." (p. 268). 

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

A Reading of Proust: Take II

Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998), A Reading of Proust (London: Dennis Dobson, 1967; originally published in 1964).

There's so much to cover here that I'll compress these ideas into three snippets, with brief responses.

"[W]hat is communicated between two individuals is at best fragmentary and usually susceptible of radical misunderstanding." (p. 100). 

This reality is both comic and tragic. Anyone can know -- even from social media alone -- how often glancing is our actual communication, usually coming down to Iggy Pop's cartoon news watcher, reducing most responses to either "Approval" or "Frown." (Social media time is like a roadrunner). One's immediate circle will understood much more, but such deeper understanding will still be incomplete -- while our self-understanding will probably also remain incomplete and subject to change. 

“[W]riting is not a transcription but a reordering of life . . . [O]bjective reality is never fully knowable. All that we can hope to have from it is illusions, and the artist’s work is the record of these illusions.” (p. 109).

This is true regardless of genre, format, or intention. We simply cannot transcribe real (or fictional) lives -- even our own -- or events -- with anything close to full accuracy in the sense of chronicle or diary. If we tried, we'd be spending more time writing about one day than in having lived it in the first place. (See James Joyce, Ulysses, 1918-1920). 

“The artist looks at the world freshly and does not see it in the same way as others, trained by habit and custom, see it. . .”  (p. 109).

This is the best part of artistic impulse, no doubt. Even if there may very well be a lag time (if ever, except for the sporadic and blessed peregrine) before this freshness is understood by anyone else beyond a small coterie, it's worth the effort of trying.

Today's Rune: Signals.   

A Reading of Proust: Take I

Wallace Fowlie, A Reading of Proust (London: Dennis Dobson, 1967; originally published in 1964).

I originally read this in the late 1980s after meeting Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) in North Carolina, and still find it interesting and helpful, not only about Marcel Proust -- one of the great and enduring global authors -- but also in its observations about art and writing. Some brief samples follow.

"A literary work is not a copy of life, but the development and . . . deepening of an original intuition. The permanent law of all art is the necessity of choosing . . ." (p. 7).

"If a novel is looked upon as a creation . . . it will inevitably call to mind the analogy with the Creation of the world." (p. 8).

"The artist does not rival the universe, he [or she] is a universe unto himself [or herself] . . . The creation of the novelist, according to one of Marcel Proust's most cherished beliefs, is more 'real' than life . . ." (p. 15). 

"An artist expresses not only himself [or herself], but hundreds of ancestors, the dead who find their spokesman in him [or her]." Because of this, the conscious, psychically aware artist will oftentimes be creating with a certain gravitas.

"The Book ends by becoming, in the language of the poet [Mallarmé], an instrument of the spirit . . . in which the smallest detail has some meaning." (pp. 35-36).

"[Henri] Bergson's distinction between two egos, the social ego (le moi social) with its discursive knowledge, and the real ego (le moi profound) which is intuitive and and continuous, residing below the social self, will be brilliantly illustrated in Proustian psychology." (p. 37).

"[The poet Charles] Baudelaire and Proust were both deeply and persistently conscious of the vanity of man's ambitions, of most . . . achievements and even of . . . existence, and yet their work retains and consecrates the poetry, the magic  and the beauty of certain moments of life." (p. 40).

In Proust, "the  principle becomes clear to the narrator that the past which seems lost because it is time elapsed is not lost. It is within us, and ready, under the appropriate circumstances and the appropriate stimuli to return as the present . . . Time is constantly destroying the present. But memory is able to restore the past . . ." (p. 55).

And: "A lifetime is required to understand life" (p. 84) -- or even a substantial part of it. In a strange sense, life's past moments become more important in the act of remembering them, funding them with deeper meaning than could have been understood the first time around.

D'accord. Today's Rune: Signals. 

Nancy Buirski: 'The Loving Story'

Nancy Buirski's The Loving Story (2011; HBO 2012), focuses on Mildred (Jeter) Loving (1939-2008) and her husband Richard Loving (1933-1975), their desire to remain legally married in the Commonwealth of Virginia after marrying in Washington, D.C. in 1958, and the Supreme Court ruling on Loving v. Virginia (1967) that struck down then still existing state laws (in sixteen states, all of them in the South), thereby making "mixed marriages" legal throughout the USA ever since. 

The Loving Story is beautifully done, with fantastic archival footage of the Loving family, their lawyers, and some of their opponents. It's a microcosm of American history, and completely pertinent to battles over marriage even now, in 2014. It's quite moving. 

The Lovings come across as gentle, yet firm people. Though Mildred communicates more openly, there are worlds of depth in Richard's soulful eyes, and in hers, too.  It's also interesting that Mildred was part African American, part Cherokee and part Rappahannock, the latter a small amalgamated tribe that has survived in the area of Caroline County (northeastern Virginia, about 90 miles from Washington, D.C.) since the 1600s. 

Today's Rune: Signals.  "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." -- Frederick Douglass (1857). 

Games

I saw Curtis Harrington's Games (1967) on TV when I was a kid and it scared the hell out of me. It gave a glimpse into adult life, something that could apparently be even more bizarre than childhood! Never forgot it. 

Games. All the more interesting now after seeing the correspondence in basic story idea with Les Diaboliques (1954), a flick discussed in yesterday's post. What cements the deal is the reoccurrence of actor Simone Signoret. 

Striking in Games is the atmospheric use of Pop Art (like Roy Lichtenstein), which serves as a sort of Greek Chorus. 

Hard to believe, but even James Caan was once in his twenties. That's Katharine Ross on the left and Simone Signoret on the right. 

Two other films on TV that terrorized me as a kid: The Boston Strangler (1968; confusing because Tony Curtis was usually a nice guy in movies) and Crowhaven Farm (1970), a tale of reincarnation, modern witches and flashbacks to events in colonial Salem, Massachusetts. 

Happy Hallowe'en, folks!

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Tar Heel Nation 3: Maceo Parker

"Pass the Peas!" Maceo Parker (b. February 14, 1943, in Kinston, North Carolina), sax player and all-around cool musician, comes from a family of musicians -- including older brother Kellis Parker (trombone) and younger brother Melvin (drums). All three played in Kinston (Blue Notes, Junior Blue Notes, Mighty Blue Notes) and all three went on to college, the two younger brothers to North Carolina A & T (Agricultural and Technical) in Greensboro in 1961 and 1962 respectively and Kellis via the very first small wave of students to desegregate and begin integrating the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1960. (In case you were wondering, it took nearby Duke University until 1963 to desegregate -- so we're just fifty years on as of this posting).

The younger Parker brothers were hired by James Brown -- a whole story in its own right. 

I came to know about Maceo Parker through listening to James Brown & co. recordings -- records, cassette tapes, eventually CDs, whatever was at hand at the time, beginning in my later teens. Try like I did a long version of "Cold Sweat" (1967) and hear JB rapping in 1960s' style: "Put 'em where it's at now. . . Let 'em have it!  Blow your horn! Blow your horn, Maceo! . . . Get it!" The name Maceo stood out (Spanish-traced name for "gift of God") -- making me want to know more.   

This fall, Maceo Parker will be touring in countries like Argentina and the Czech Republic, but he can also be experienced live in Tar Heel Land. Where and when? Memorial Hall at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (where I saw my first formal jazz performance as a teen) on Friday, September 27, 2013, with George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic. Here's a link formore details. From the promotional:

'It’s hard to tell which came first, Maceo Parker or the funk. Maceo got his start with James Brown, and for over 20 years he has been building a new funk empire, fresh and stylistically diverse. In his blistering solo career, he navigates deftly between Brown’s 1960s soul and George Clinton’s 1970s freaky funk, while also exploring mellow jazz and hip-hop.' 

Can you dig? If all else fails, you can get yourself a brand new bag.

Sources include:

Markus Gruber documentary, My First Name is Maceo (2003, 2004 DVD).

Maceo Parker, 98% Funky Stuff: My Life in Music (Chicago Review Press, 2013), especially pages 41-53. 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Samouraï (Take II)

Man, the Criterion Collection has got to be a fun place to work. What a job they do preserving films for posterity! I try to see as many Criterion DVDs as I can, while juggling a host of other things on the ceaseless agenda. Worth the effort every time. 

Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967) sticks in mind for a number of reasons. It's cool as in cool jazz, hip as in hepcat, beautiful as in Paris, nifty-fifty as in Alain Delon working with Melville both in top form, and glidingly graceful as in zen. What's not to love, dreamers? I should point out that Delon's Costello character is not a superhero and is not imbued with magical powers. He's a bit more along the lines of the early Sean Connery Bond, not as unstoppable as a Sergio Leone-Clint Eastwood "Man With No Name" character. I find this interesting -- and a refreshing rejoinder to many of the more dingbatty action films of recent years.

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Jean-Pierre Melville: Le Samouraï (Take I)

Watch carefully and you may be blown away by Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967). In the memorable dreamscape of this noir masterpiece, Alain Delon rocks the house stealthily. 

As with several of Melville's movies, you can "see" the continuity in filmmaking history, from American gangster sagas and crime dramas before and offerings by, say, David Lynch, the Coen Brothers, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino afterward. And in keeping with Melville's experience in the underground during World War II, again there's only a matter of degree in differentiating the types of operational tactics used by police and criminal, organized or otherwise. 

In Le Samouraï, the police employ all sorts of surveillance and interrogation techniques, while criminals use evasive maneuvers and stonewalling to avoid lockup or death. This near-equivalency comes by direct comparison: while Costello (the hitman played by Delon) uses a large set of special keys to steal cars, police use a large set of special keys to break into and enter Costello's apartment to plant a bug. 

As is often the case with Melville, Le Samouraï showcases a dazzling effort that works the mind and senses subliminally as well as superficially.

Today's Rune: Signals.     

Not Fade Away

Not Fade Away (2012), David Chase's theatrical film debut, has strong elements -- the historical backdrop of the 1960s, both locally (New Jersey) and broadly; James Gandolfini as the father of a nuclear family; three sisters from two families, all interesting; extended family and friends; ditch-digging workers; and period music, with visual footage -- but all in all, it can't surpass any single episode of Chase's The Sopranos on HBO, nor Mad Men on AMC. The problem is point of view. We hear narration from one of the sisters, which is fine, but the main focus is on a dingbat brother who lacks charisma, charm, drive or courage as he becomes part of a fledgling garage band.* Much better results would come from a closer, sustained look at life from the perspective of the James Gandolfini character -- he is put upon, he becomes physically sick, he has epiphanies -- or either of the Dietz sisters (Joy and Grace, played respectively by Dominique McElligott and Bella Heathcote), both Bohemians, one mentally unstable and the other rock steady.

I enjoyed the period feel and details of Not Fade Away, brief scenes of and banter about the Rolling Stones, blues and the times, and quips about Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup / Blow-Up (1966). About Antonioni's film, Grace Dietz suggests that the rustling of trees serves as musical soundtrack during a key scene, rather than a more heavy-handed signaling of how specifically to respond as film audience. Small victories for Not Fade Away, but better than a total wash.

Today's Rune: Warrior. *Of the band members, only Gene (Jack Huston) shows any spark.   

Kierkegaard Says

In carting around ideas and notions put forth by Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), let's take a look at a couple from Frygt og Bæven / Fear and Trembling (1843). These definitely seem to hold continued relevance in the early 21st century.

"Fools and young men prate about everything being possible for a man. That, however, is a great error. Spiritually speaking, everything is possible, but in the world of the finite there is much which is not possible."  (Walter Lowrie translation, Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death, 1968 edition, Princeton University Press, page 54.) 

To me, this is pretty basic -- everyone who can has to choose carefully what they are doing with their lives, or bumble along; either way, our options are limited by time and place. Choose wisely -- if possible. Not everyone can do X, Y or Z. But maybe more could mind their Ps and Qs.

"He has comprehended the deep secret that also in loving another person one must be sufficient unto oneself."  (Lowrie, page 55).

The optimum relationship is one between existential equals. This is not to say that everyone can function optimally at all times or even at the same level, only that such would be an idealized balance.

One more quip as a bonus point: "He resigned everything infinitely, and then he grasped everything again by virtue of the absurd." (Lowire, page 51).

Zen and the art of grokking. Compare with Donovan's "There Is a Mountain:" 

"First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is . . ."

Today's Rune: Journey. 

Smoking Typewriters II

When I first heard the name "Joe Pool Lake," I chuckled. It sounds so goofy and quaint. I wondered: What is it? Found out it's a North Texas reservoir and recreational area named after none other than Joe Pool, a Congressional Representative from North Texas (in the 1960s).

In the last couple of years, about the only time Joe Pool Lake has seemed to make news headlines has been when someone dies there. Items like: "Another one drowns in Joe Pool Lake" or: "Boat capsizes, three drown in Joe Pool Lake."

In any case, I finally finished John McMillian's Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (Oxford University Press, 2011). In it, Representative Joe Pool makes a couple of comical appearances as a rabid opponent of the Sixties underground press. Apparently he hated actual free speech and attacked anyone opposed to the US-Vietnam War. In Chapter 5 ("Either We Have Freedom of the Press . . . or We Don't Have Freedom of the Press"), Pool is quoted as going after the Underground Press Syndicate, an underground version of Associated Press and United Press International wire services, in 1967.

Here's Joe Pool: "The plan of this Underground Press Syndicate is to take advantage of that part of the First Amendment which protects newspapers and gives them freedom of press."  Doh! So what's the problem with free speech in Texas? According to Joe Pool, "These smut sheets are today's Molotov cocktails thrown at respectability in our nation . . . They encourage depravity and irresponsibility . . ." (Smoking Typewriters, page 129).

What a dope. 

So what happened to Joe Pool? About six months after the Tet Offensive began in early 1968, he keeled over dead in Houston, Texas, age 57, at the airport.

Of Joe Pool: ". . . outspoken critic of Vietnam war protesters and resisters to the draft . . . member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities . . . often said he would vote for a declaration of war against North Vietnam." ("REP. JOE POOL DIES SUDDENLY," Gettysburg Times, July 16, 1968). 

If only more Texas politicians were as adamant about protecting the First Amendment as they are about bandying about the Second . . . but alas, they'd rather go jump in Joe Pool Lake, and drown.

Today's Rune: Signals.     
   

Le deuxième sexe

Where were you born, when? What kind of "upbringing" did you have? How much "socialization?" How did you learn about the world, how do you learn about it now? All these "factors" go into our worldview, our ideology, our way of perceiving, filtering, interpreting "reality." So it's no surprise that people -- those who publically share how they think about perception and ideology -- tend to emphasize one or two elements and neglect others. "Race." "Gender." "Socio-eocnomic class." "Religion." "Sexual orientation." "Disabled Status." Political theory -- or political "leanings." Dispositions. Preferences. Response to the "laws of the land," especially those contested or challenged. All worth thinking about, as a mix and blend just as much -- more so, as far as I'm concerned -- than as isolated or stand-alone ingredients. The whole is greater than its constituent parts. Strength through diversity, as it were.  

Year of birth, location, situation. Consider that in 1967, Loving vs. Virginia overturned the status quo about "race relations" in the USA: henceforth, "mixed" couples could be together without being criminalized.

Consider that in the previous year, James Brown scored a hit with "It's a Man's Man's Man's World."

Some of the lyrics:

You see man made the cars
To take us over the world
Man made the train
To carry the heavy load
Man made the electric lights
To take us out of the dark . . .
This is a man's world
But it would be nothing, nothing
Not one little thing
Without a woman to care . . .

Consider that "adult women" (21+) could only begin voting throughout the entire United States in 1920. 

Consider that "black people" (then considered anyone with any degree of African ancestry -- did that include those of "white" African ancestry, too?) were "guaranteed" equal protection as citizens in 1868 (a direct result of secession and the American Civil War).

Consider a core component of the XV (15th / Fifteenth) Amendment to the US Constitution (1870):

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.  [Note: women therein obviously not conceived of as citizens, nor anyone under 21].

Consider the case of the War of 1812 veteran who purportedly killed Tecumseh in battle -- Colonel, Congressman, Senator and US Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson (1780-1850) and his "common law" wife, Julia Chinn, who happened to be "black" (or "mulatto," as she was sometimes characterized at the time).

1) They were never formally married.
2) They were an "interracial couple."
3) They had at least two daughters (Imogene and Adaline/Adeline).

Consider that upon is death, Johnson was honored with a considerable obelisk in the Frankfurt (Kentucky) Cemetery, but that after her death in 1833, Julia Chinn (without recorded birthdate) received no marker at all (so far as I can determine). Also, she'd been his father's slave. But unlike South Carolina Senator and presidential candidate Strom Thurmond (1902-2003), Johnson was quite open about his "crossing of racial barriers" in his own time and place while he (and she) lived. 

Now, pluck Julia Chinn and Richard Mentor Johnson out of their time and place and drop them into the world of 2013.  What would be different? What might be the same? How much would it matter whether they lived in Paducah or New York City, Palookaville or Phoenix, Arizona?  

Today's Rune: Journey. Pictured above: the latest English language edition of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, originally published in French in 1949 as Le Deuxième Sexe (Tome I as Les Faits et les Mythes).         

Four Banana, Three Banana, Two Banana, One

Just finished checking out "Electrical Bananas," a chapter in John McMillian's Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (Oxford University Press, 2011).

McMillian starts off the chapter with Sara Davidson's observant coverage of New York City in mid-1967: " . . . especially noteworthy for Davidson was the sight of a young hippie in a wizard hat selling bananas on an East Village corner. They were going for ten cents each, with a three-cent deposit on the skins" (page 66).

Reports were circulating at the time, describing the hallucinatory effects of smoking dried banana peels. . .

As in: Gone fishing, gone bananas . . .  

McMillian follows various leads as to the origin of the idea of smoking banana peels, and looks at contributions ranging from a 1963 article through Country Joe & the Fish, and Donovan, with even a footnote about The Velvet Underground and Nico (including Andy Warhol's banana cover), all circa 1966-1967. 

But how did this notion spread from there? The subtitle for "Electrical Bananas" suggests an answer with "The Underground Press and the Great Banana Hoax of 1967."

Beyond that, semiotic bananas must have been part of the Zeitgeist, the spirit-ghost of the high-time. Because there are other examples, even beyond the main scope of McMillian's study, moving from 1967 into 1968 (The Banana Splits TV series, Juanita Banana) right into 1971 (Woody Allen's Bananas) and probably right into the
21st century . . . 

If this theme song for The Banana Splits doesn't sound trippy, I'm not sure what does:

Tra la la, la la la la.

Four banana, three banana, two banana, one.
All bananas playing in the bright blue sun.
Flippin' like a pancake, poppin' like a cork
Fleagle, Bingo, Drooper and Snork. . .

Today's Rune: Signals.     

Dreamgirls

With Beyoncé, Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Hudson all sittin' pretty in Schaefer City these days, and fresh from checking out the Barack Obama 2.0 Inauguration and Super Bowl XLVII celebrations, I finally came around to watching Dreamgirls (2006) -- and liked it. Here in Bill Condon's adaptation of the 1981 Broadway show, the setting is moved from Chicago to Detroit. This fits well with its alternative universe take on Motown and the rise of a "girl group," in this case the transformation of the Dreamettes into the Dreams, with a few attendant nightmares thrown in to keep things spicy. There is a firm sense of historical backdrop, things like Martin Luther King, Jr.'s early tryout of the "I Have a Dream" refrain at Detroit's Cobo Hall during the "Great March to Freedom" of June 23, 1963 (distributed on vinyl by Motown) and the 1967 Detroit riot. 

The full story of Motown is a hundred times more compelling than the streamlined refraction of it depicted in Dreamgirls, but for legal reasons, we'll have to wait for the mini-series with the real music. Maybe by the year 2060 or so, somebody will get to see it. Still, in Dreamgirls, Eddie Murphy is good as an amalgam of singers, Jamie Foxx stands in deftly for Berry Gordy, Beyoncé equates with Diana Ross, Jennifer Hudson with Florence Ballard and the Dreams with the Supremes. Let's not forget Danny Glover as an old school manager, plus Anika Noni Rose as the third main Dreamette-to-Dream singer.

Today's Rune: Journey.