time out of mind

 ---------------------------- [excerpt from Chronicles, by Bob Dylan.  Simon & Schuster, 2004.] ------------------------

I didn't know what age of history we were in nor what the truth of it was.  Nobody bothered with that.  If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and good.  

Folk songs had taught me that.  

As for what time it was, it was always just beginning to be daylight and I knew a little bit about history, too - the history of a few nations and states - and it was always the same pattern.  

        Some early archaic period where society grows and develops and thrives, then some classical period where the society reaches its maturation point and then a slacking off period where decadence makes things fall apart.  

I had no idea which one of these stages America was in.  

There was nobody to check with.  

A certain rude rhythm was making it all sway, though.  

It was pointless to think about it.  

Whatever you were thinking could be dead wrong.

-30-

"this conversation is getting a little strange"

 

The Graduate is back on Amazon Prime.

A Commenter on You Tube wrote:

--------------------- This movie was released at the height of the Beatles' popularity.  

The Vietnam War was going badly and was being protested in the streets.  

The hippie culture was rampant.  

People were questioning authority, social convention, sex and inter-personal relations.  

This movie catches lightning in a bottle.  

It is simply a gloriously brilliant critique and statement of the times.  

What a radiant burst of human genius!

-30-

2nd Man

 

That writer I met in the Black Hills is listed in the IMDb movie catalog as "2nd Man."  The guy standing next to him in front of the restaurant is "Man."  (I guess it goes left to right as we look at it - "Man" is the guy on the left who asks "Havin' some trouble, lady?")

My friend's line is spoken off-screen - the camera stays on Jessica Walter and Clint Eastwood - "Yeah, let's split.  Looks like he's got enough trouble already."

        I wonder if they had to get their SAG cards for such brief parts....

2nd Man's voice is still familiar to me - he had a way of speaking kind of matter-of-fact and yet intense, at the same time.

I received a note from him in Boston, in 1978 or '79 wherein he informed  me that he had finished writing and editing the novel; he said it took a lot of work and added, "I'll never smile again."

        I had the impression that "I'll never smile again" was maybe an expression common in his generation.

I learned later it was the name of a song by Tommy Dorsey.

-30-

"...but the point is probably moot"

 

At a wedding dance, all kinds of songs were being played (streamed through AI) - it was so good, and then there were a lot of songs that I didn't know but the young people (teens to 26 years old, approx.) were singing every word along with the recordings.

        Then the guy played "Jessie's Girl" and the kids were singing that one, too, and my brain did a double-take:  wait, that song came out in 1981, how do these people know this song...?

I thought "Jessie's GIrl" must have been used in a movie that they all saw, or something like that.

Had to go home and Google:  it said "twenty-two-year-olds know Rick Springfield's 1981 hit "Jessie's Girl" primarily through pop culture osmosis...."

        It said the song was in a film called Boogie Nights, and was covered on the TV show Glee.

It also says, "The song is a default karaoke standard, frequently plays at sporting events, and is heavily featured in coming-of-age comedies, embedding it in the cultural zeitgeist."

-30-

unanticipated acquaintance

 

        When some other kids and I went to meet the writer - actor - restaurateur in the summer of '77, it occurred to me that he kind of didn't mind some company because - it was probably one of those times when - a person who leads a busy life in Carmel, California, with social events and atmospheres and all, and he's writing a novel but hasn't got it finished, says to himself, "I'm going to take a break, stay in our family's cabin in the Black Hills for a little bit, and finish writing my book.  I can concentrate there; I'll be alone there; no distractions."

So he goes; he types; he smokes cigarettes.

At some point, however, he starts to feel like:  "All this alone-time.  I miss socializing."

Right?

We want something.  Then we have it.  Then pretty soon we want the thing we had before.  Some conversation; some dancing; blah-blah-blah.

-30-

Maxwell Perkins and Huey Long

 He gave me a copy of his as yet unfinished novel - it was in manuscript form - double-spaced, front only of each page.

I read it, and liked it, and got it back to him, with comments / observations.

We exchanged a few letters the first couple of years I was in Boston, going to school.

(All these memories came back to me, as I remembered other parts of it - some things I had not thought of in quite a while.)

        There was a new book out, a biography of Maxwell Perkins, who was editor of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and other major authors from the early part of the 20th Century.  I remember I recommended it to him, and maybe I even sent him my copy of it when I was finished reading it - I'm not sure....

And I sent him a paper I had written for American History class - would have been my sophomore year, I think.  The paper was about Huey Long, governor of Louisiana from 1928 - 1932, and U.S. Senator from 1932 until his assassination in 1935.

        He wrote back to me - the paper had a "B" grade on it, and he took a firm stand, saying it was "an 'A' paper."  He was a little ticked at the professor!  LOL.

I didn't send it to him to get his judgment on what the grade should have been - I only wanted to share it because I had fun writing it, and I guess I was proud of it, and just wanted him to see it.

Did not expect him to take umbrage about the grade!

It was funny.

Next time I wrote to him, I said I was glad he thought it was an A paper, but not to be concerned, because I wasn't worried about getting a "B."

357 Beacon Street, apartment building where I lived, sophomore year at B.U.

-30-

trouble already

 Yeah, let's split.  He's got enough trouble already.

------------------------------------------------------

I only heard him say that in the movie many years later.

At the time, you couldn't stream it or watch it on DVD or on a VCR tape.

If you didn't see it in the theater, or on television if they showed it, then - you missed it.

        You couldn't get it.

It was a crazy world when you didn't have movies at your fingertips.

But we didn't know it was crazy.

It was just - Wednesday. ...

------------------------------------------------------

        That summer, in 1977, the writer asked me to take a copy of his manuscript so far and read it, and put comments in the margins, & - I did.

I was very honored to be asked to do that.

        Remembering it now makes me smile.  Again.

-30-