Friday, October 25, 2013
Bongo Drums
Aunt Ludmilla thought I could always get a job as a secretary, and as Uncle Taddeus had income from bonds and other investments safe from who after a lifetime in the Federal Reserve called "the crooks" on Wall Street, perhaps even a penny stock or two, a typewriter appeared long about 1959. Complete with a matching green brush to whisk away eraser debris if you made a typo. And it sat in a built-in carrying case that had a lock and key. Courier No. 10 type font. That's important to my story, critically important. I took typing classes in school from a man who was a bit effeminate and had perfectly colored windswept yellow hair despite his age.
There was a typewriter just like this in "Bell, Book, and Candle" (starring Kim Novak). Remember seeing that in the movie? I do.
The movie involved bongo drums and a little Greenwich Village beatnik club. A scene where musicians played a song speeded up.
Can you guess what might have influenced the naming of the Circle of the Zodiac (a beatnik coffee house down in Pomona, where Frank would play sometimes far back in time ... ). Frank liked this movie (about really different people getting together), and he liked getting records for Christmas. When I saw Jack Lemmon getting a couple of albums as a present, I nearly fainted in shock! That was an expensive present! A 45 was all I could afford.
(This scene above ,,,, that's what we all aspired to do, you know .... summon the power and make weird faces and discordant music and freak out the people who knew us in the past and made fun of us (ha ha ha, you're the one who always went barefoot and were put on probation at school) ... and they'd continue to do so, make those snot comments and maintain those attitudes, but we'd freak 'em ... freak 'em, daddy! If I were tracing the spread of ideas in cultural history, or even an intellectual history of the United States, and simultaneously wanted to provide an indicator of possible direction and future artistic growth of a couple of artists, like a narrative Künstlerroman (yeah, you heard me right), I'd say this was IT! This was absolutely positively IT! ¶ 10/25/2013 11:25:00 PM
There was a typewriter just like this in "Bell, Book, and Candle" (starring Kim Novak). Remember seeing that in the movie? I do.
The movie involved bongo drums and a little Greenwich Village beatnik club. A scene where musicians played a song speeded up.
Can you guess what might have influenced the naming of the Circle of the Zodiac (a beatnik coffee house down in Pomona, where Frank would play sometimes far back in time ... ). Frank liked this movie (about really different people getting together), and he liked getting records for Christmas. When I saw Jack Lemmon getting a couple of albums as a present, I nearly fainted in shock! That was an expensive present! A 45 was all I could afford.
(This scene above ,,,, that's what we all aspired to do, you know .... summon the power and make weird faces and discordant music and freak out the people who knew us in the past and made fun of us (ha ha ha, you're the one who always went barefoot and were put on probation at school) ... and they'd continue to do so, make those snot comments and maintain those attitudes, but we'd freak 'em ... freak 'em, daddy! If I were tracing the spread of ideas in cultural history, or even an intellectual history of the United States, and simultaneously wanted to provide an indicator of possible direction and future artistic growth of a couple of artists, like a narrative Künstlerroman (yeah, you heard me right), I'd say this was IT! This was absolutely positively IT! ¶ 10/25/2013 11:25:00 PM
