If I need a header for this morning's wake-up call, I'd have to call it Woman of the Dunes. I saw that as an art house movie in Los Angeles in the very year of its release. The aura of the film and its natural symbolism impacted every one who saw it, which was probably just about everybody, and that geographic metaphor wormed its way into many films of the era, great and small. I knew or met a few people who participated even tangentially in some these. John Fahey provided the soundtrack for that "terribly long and horrible skinflick" ("Zabriski Point"), while others found their spot near the tufa in "Shoot the Whale" (which I have never seen).

Those were the darts of memory beginning to jab about here and there. Actually, my first thoughts were about my encounter a few years back with a woman who was once a part of the found art movement around Los Angeles. Her husband had made his reputation as an artist, and they were also part of the colony (made up of artists and jazz musicians and other types) who lived out on the sand dunes (roughly about the same timeframe as when the Japanese movie was released). She, like the lady with the Romany Marie's circle I told you about once and the guy I just read about with his baby books, had kept letters, poetry, and notebooks off and on throughout all those years. When I met her, she told me she had pretty much burned them all. I believe her.  ¶ 5/21/2006 06:08:00 AM