ARTS Archives - Page 2 of 2

Flogging Plutarch

July 26, 2017 By admin

A R T S Back, back, back, way back, in my high school freshman honors English Lit class, our teacher (who’d just arrived from pre-Summer of Love San Francisco) swathed our 15 year-old brains with classical music from then underground FM radio as a backdrop to the classical titles we were expected to read in class. These included Homer’s Odyssey, a small selection of the Poems of Ovid, Volume I of Plutarch’s Lives, and a poet of our own choosing. I chose the decidedly unclassical Jack Kerouac. It was 1965, after all, and I’d been drawn to the Beat authors, painters, and musicians since I was about 12.

Plutarch was difficult for me, but I got through it with Mrs. Ware’s accompanying mini-history lessons to explain who these people were. I think it was her class that sparked my interest in history, and I chose to read Plutarch’s second volume over the following summer vacation. Imagine that. Mod little me sunbathing in our back yard in my Hawaiian two-piece bathing suit and my perfect Pattie Boyd flip, listening to the Beatles and the Beach Boys on KRLA while reading Plutarch. Or trying to. Fortunately, my mother had raised me not to give up on a book however difficult, but to keep a notebook and a dictionary at hand, and to boldly annotate the margins. Predictably, I never checked Volume III out of our library, and soon, 1967 happened and I turned my attention to reading the popular books of the era: Brave New World, Siddhartha, and literally everything by Richard Brautigan.

It has been 51 years since Mrs. Ware prised my eyes, ears, and mind open so I recently decided to give Plutarch another go. A free eBook is a free eBook, after all, and I decided, with both anticipation and trepidation, to flog through Volume III. I have to say Plutarch was much easier reading for me than he was in 1965. The vocabulary wasn’t an issue and the names were much easier to pronounce. Still, sitting down to read it felt like a chore compared to my accompanying reads, The Letters of Pliny the Younger and Stephen Fry’s Moab is My Washpot. Unexpectedly, I found the lessons in each of these books to be basically the same. Biographies, memoirs, and letters are interesting enough, but these books explore the moral and ethical characters of the authors and the people around them. What helped me most was my love of ancient and classical history. When I was younger I couldn’t put faces to Plutarch’s strange names. They weren’t people. Now, after a lifetime of autodidactic education, assigning humanity to these names was automatic.

So thank you, Mrs. Ware, for giving me the time machine that continues to take me places where I meet people I wouldn’t have otherwise ever known existed. Would that there were more teachers like you!

SK Waller is an author and composer. Books One and Two (With A Dream and With A Bullet) of her rock and roll series, Beyond The Bridge, takes places in late 70s London. Read more at SK Waller Blog and SKWaller.com.

Dylan Encounter

June 28, 2017 By admin

A R T S I first encountered Bob Dylan in 1964 when I was asked to perform Blowin’ In The Wind at an Elks dinner in Ballard, California. I was a tender 12 at the time and I’d actually been asked to perform two songs that night. The other was If I Had A Hammer. I’d heard that song the year before on the popular TV show, Hootenanny! but I’d never heard Blowin’. I loved that show. I’d watched Sing Along With Mitch and played albums by Joe and Eddie, the Kingston Trio, Odetta and many others since I was a kid so when Hootenanny! aired, I was hooked. It was in fact the popular single, Walk Right In by the Rooftop Singers that fired my obsession with the 12-string guitar so I guess you can say I’m a folkie from way back.

Someone pointed me to Bob Dylan so that I could learn Blowin’ In The Wind for that gig, but I think I learned it from the cover by Peter, Paul & Mary. I liked the song. I thought it was pretty, but it was the lyrics that grabbed me. It sounded like an anthem. It was saying something important, a message I’d heard many times before, but this time it was delivered in a way that was like a bullet in the brain. I had to find the original recording.

When I brought home The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and tore off the cellophane wrapping, I had no idea my life was about to change and that it would continue to change and evolve for the entire time I’d walk this planet. I think I’d been prepared, though. I think all of those folksingers before had been leading me up that path, some gently—the Kingston Trio, for instance—and some not so gently, like Odetta. On that afternoon Dylan became a lifelong mentor. Oh, he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t even know I exist, but his work affected me like it has affected so many other songwriters. It’s safe to say I don’t where the hell I’d be musically if he hadn’t happened. I don’t know where music would be.

Hear Bob Dylan Recite His Nobel Prize in Literature Lecture

Stuck on the Island

May 1, 2017 By admin

A R T S There was an endless parade of silly baby boomer sitcoms. The best/worst is arguable, but the most iconic is clear. None reaches the pop culture television status of Gilligan’s Island.

Virtually everyone, including the creator’s agent, panned the idea before it debuted. The then-president of CBS West Coast remarked: “I thought it was a stupid show. Nobody liked it.” The network brass complained all the way to the bank.

The sitcom had solid ratings from 1964-1967 and attracted even more viewers in syndication, becoming one of the most re-run television shows. But wasn’t this at the same time that baby boomers were in “serious” rebellion against traditional values?

Hollywood legend Sherwood Schwartz said that he envisioned the castaways to be a microcosm of society who demonstrated how very different people could come together to help one another in a crisis. Who knew? It was a serious counterculture theme in clown-face disguise; maybe that’s why boomers dug it, even if the attraction registered only a subconscious level.

Schwartz wrote an “exposition” theme song—a music opening and summary repeated on each show—that told the complete story premise. Complete it was, the longest such song in television history. Schwartz overruled his writing staff who didn’t care for the idea or lyrics.

Hollywood gods work in mysterious ways. Schwartz wanted Jerry Van Dyke (Dick’s brother) to play the goofy, inept Gilligan. Jerry thought the show would never fly and chose instead to star in My Mother The Car, which barely made it through one season and is often judged the worst television show ever. Bob Denver’s role as beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on Dobie Gillis had just ended, and he jumped on the chance to be Gilligan, who was basically Maynard without a goatee.

A young Dabney Coleman auditioned for The Professor. Carroll O’Connor (Archie Bunker) tested for the role of The Skipper, which went to grade-B movie cowboy Alan Hale.

Jayne Mansfield turned down the role of Ginger, which fell to Tina Louise, known for serious (sensual) acting parts. There was a running battle between Tina and the producers over everything from Ginger’s personality and status to her costumes. She refused to go to Gilligan reunions and complained later that the role had destroyed her career as a serious actress, which gives new meaning to the phrase “whatever was she thinking?!”

No less an actress than Raquel Welch lost out to Dawn Wells for the character of Mary Ann. Dawn was a former Miss Nevada.

Terry Hamburg writes the Baby Boomer Daily about the exciting and revolutionary baby boomer years.

Working the Art

January 18, 2017 By admin

A R T S By gallery standards the canvas was rather compact, about one by two feet; painted in the horizontal format favored by landscape artists. It was possible to pass by without it making an impact though viewers who happened to pause were rewarded by a moment of exhilaration and possibly even the light-headedness associated with drinking Champagne. The first time I visited the gallery I walked right by the work. Later, at a party, I heard the critic, Masi Clarkson, talking about ‘effervescence’ and the ‘ethereal quality of light.’ The visual image had wormed its way into my subconscious; I knew exactly what piece he was talking about.

I went back to the gallery at the end of a harried day. It was raining and the wet afternoon walk down the street and up a steep flight of slick stairs nearly made me change my mind. I entered through the stone entryway and ahead into the gallery. There were a few diehards left from day visits. The after-work group, often there as much for the wine as the art, had not yet left their offices. Later they would fill the gallery with the murk of a hundred conversations. The smell of Chardonnay spilled from plastic cups onto the wood floor would mingle with expensive perfume, the scent of fancy coffees created by street venders in their kiosks, and the sticky odor of weed.

My second visit coincided with being in a literal drought with my own art. Nothing was working. There is only so much inspiration one gets from outside the brain and eventually the thought occurs that maybe there is nothing new to say with paint. I wait, with no shortage of anxiety, for the return of the muse. Visiting galleries and art museums can jiggle loose some creativity but there are no guarantees.

I approached the painting, hung midway down the chocolate colored wall, and was surprised and happy to have it to myself. Is that a face? Where did that amazing color come from? What’s behind the image? That is a face! I stood there dumbstruck, squinting and weaving my head side to side as I tried to identify what I was seeing. I was so drawn into the work, time stopped until I heard chattering behind me. A mom said, “Keep going, this one’s too hard for you to understand.” “Mom, that’s a face!” “No, I don’t think so, what a weird color, the artist must be depressed” she said. “I like how it looks like there is a light behind the color” said the kid. “No, artists try to trick people into thinking there is something to their art. Most of the time there isn’t. Artists are weird and they think abut things in a weird way. Let’s go. If we hurry, we can make it to the gift store and I’ll buy you that book about the color wheel.”

Kim Kohler writes on the uncertainties of living in a liberal hot spot where everybody has an opinion, every opinion counts and nobody uses turn signals.

When I’m 65

November 30, 2016 By admin

65_rubbersoul A R T S Until about five years ago, if you asked what the number 65 meant to me, I would’ve replied, “That was a great year! That was the year the Beatles released Rubber Soul! I was 14 and I’d just written my first batch of songs.” These days, however, it means I have to make a trip to the Social Security office to fill out a bunch of forms, and make an appointment to see my doctor to check the dosages of the prescriptions I must take.

But, really, if I’m honest, it means less to me than it used to. I’ve been on a pretty involved, eye-opening journey for the past five years, one that’s led me to realizations that seem to be pretty typical of a lot people my age. Sometimes it’s been complicated by the constant battle of Old Notions vs New Insights, which I think is especially pronounced in this time of age bias and youth worship. I don’t think my grandparents—or even my parents—had to draw so many lines in the sand and stand up against so many devils. Life during their generations was pretty cut and dry. Grow up, marry, have kids, have grand kids, get old. The pressure to stay youthful, firm, fashionable (women), productive (men), f**kable, and fascinating just wasn’t part of their reality. Not like today, anyway. It was perfectly fine at a certain age to start dressing less provocatively, to gain a little weight, to go gray, and to slow down. I remember that if a woman didn’t dress in “age-appropriate” clothing, if she wore youngish makeup and jewelry, colored her hair, or surrendered to cosmetic surgery, she was judged severely for not growing old gracefully. We still battle this to some degree, but not as much as, say 40-plus years ago.

As I move closer to my birthday, I really don’t feel 65. Or what I somehow imaged 65 was supposed to feel like. In fact, as long as I stay away from mirrors it’s easy for me to drift into a perpetual state of thirty-something. Not physically, but internally. Me. That person who looks out through these eyes. Some days I feel even younger and I’m obligated to do things I used to do, like put on the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and dance with myself (which usually plunges me into feeling a lot older the next day).