The Jefferson Airplane and I

Paul Katner's recent passing made me think of my experiences with the Jefferson Airplane.

The very first time I heard Somebody to love I was sitting in a friend's convertible in North West London, tuned to the BBC, probably, when the song came on. We both looked at each other and wondered what the fuss was all about. Compared to Cream, Pink Floyd or even the Beatles it was not what we expected of psychedelic rock from America. However, another friend soon received a copy of Surrealistic Pillow from his sister in Boston. That changed everything. We played it constantly. It has remained one of my all-time favourite albums. I still play it often.

Then, one day in 1969, (I must admit I had forgotten the precise date, I only remembered that it was -- very unusually -- on a Wednesday,) I saw them perform at a free concert on London's Parliament Hill Fields in Hampstead. I found a write up about it on the Internet that is shown below as a link. It was a cloudy afternoon but The Airplane were terrific and really brightened my day. It was so poorly attended you could see them easily and just move around and get close to the group.
Great times.

Also in 1969 was the Stones famous concert in the Park. (London's Hyde Park.) I attended that naturally, and afterwards went to  a friend's flat on Tottenham Court Road where I met his flat-mate a young man studying for his Master's in Architecture. He had friends with him and we got to  talking and discovered that they had just attended the same concert, and one of the friends was introduced to me; It was Skip Spence. The original drummer for the Airplane and later co-founder of Moby Grape. The flat-mate had met him while doing research in America and Skip had flown over for The Stones concert and hooked up with his old friend. He was impressed that I knew him and of the first Airplane album that he played on. (The Jefferson Airplane Take Off, because it still had not been released in Britain.)
Such were those great times growing up in London in the Sixties.



http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/camden-Festival.html

Authentic Cuisine

I recently read an article that discussed the "authenticity" of American-Chinese cooking. It truly annoyed me. If, I a Canadian, goes to Beijing and with a Chinese friend's help cook a dish for us, is in somehow not authentic because I am not Chinese? I use this weird example because the central point was that orange-chicken and chop suey are not authentic as they are not prepared in Chinese homes usually. Both those dishes were made in America and Canada by Chinese workers who  came here in the C19th to work on the railroads. These were "adapted" dishes due to the lack of available ingredients.

When those Chinese workers were laid off after the railroads were completed. Many remained and some started restaurants which featured these dishes; and have done so for over a century. They  can also be found in the Chinese restaurants in London where I grew up. (As well as in other countries I have visited; All prepared by Chinese cooks.)

The argument for authenticity is ridiculously warped when we examine "Indian" cooking. The majority of Indian restaurants in Britain, and lots in Canada, are run by Bangladeshis, not Indians at all. The food is just what we ate in Indian. The most popular curry in Britain is Chicken Tikka Masala. This curry was "invented" in London by an Indian immigrant and copied by just about everyone else. It is featured in every cookbook on Indian cooking, printed in English, these days.

By the definitions of the article on authenticity it isn't an Indian dish, though.

Do not get me started on Italian pasta...

The Great Lover - Rupert Brooke

THE GREAT LOVER

I have been so great a lover: filled in days
So proudly with the splendor of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame: -we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: - and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: -we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden forever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming....

These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, fairy dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to
touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such-
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns....
Dear names,
And thousand others throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing:
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mold;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; -
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramental covenant to the dust.
Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends now strangers . . . .

But the best I've known
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.

Nothing remains.
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed
Praise you, " All these were lovely"; say, "He loved." 

Cultural Appropriation

Dr. Jessica Metcalfe (who is a Turtle Mountain Chippewa from North Dakota):
states that when we don Pocahontas costumes or " dress up...  for Halloween or for a music video, then you stop thinking of us as people, and this is incredibly dangerous because everyday we fight for the basic human right to live our own lives without outsiders determining our fate or defining our identities."

I have real trouble with this extension of an old tradition -- costumes, and claiming we do not recognize the originators of a specific item as a whole group. [That is my italics in her quote, by the way.]

The idea that we take these because of an imbalance in the power structure in the underlying societal fabric is  flawed, in my opinion.

If there was no mixing of cultures and ideas the whole literary tradition will collapse. Was Shakespeare wrong to write about the Italian family traditions of the Montagues and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet, which is based on an old Italian folk tale.
A piece of drama since been adapted for Latinos in New York, (West Side Story,) or Baz Luhrmann's 1996 MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet about gangs in L.A.

I completely agree that there has been  misuse of cultural imagery by colonial powers, but I think too many people throw around this sociological theory as if it is profoundly correct when a little more insight is required to understand what is really going on and the amount of deliberately negative stereotyping that is implied.

Cult Movies

Last year I read a book on Cult Movies. Very interesting and of course, made my mind race for what I would choose.
I tried to write to the author but my email returned undeliverable.
However, I kept the email with my choices and post it now for any friend's curiosity.


Hello {name deleted},
I enjoyed your book on cult movies, and as you rightly pointed out in the Intro, we all react by going :"Never, how could he choose that one, or why isn't <My Life Part III>, etc listed".

I did feel it was lacking on some great foreign language ones, or British ones from the '60s.

My feeling for a cult movie would be one I would enjoy being stranded on a desert island with and have an electricty source for the portable video player!
The following films would never bore me and remind me of the society I was stranded from:

"Z"
Women in Love
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
Andy Warhol's Frankenstein
Diva
2001:A Space Odyssey
Morgan, A Suitable Case for Treatment
Alfie
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Little Big Man
Run, Lola Run

michael lavalette
Bedford, Nova Scotia

>from an old geezer who has loved movies from childhood with cowboy & Indian fanatasies.. who also had the luxury of seeing Roy and Dale and Trigger in real life + Gene Autry and Champion the wonder horse when they did world tours in the '50s.
Loved Astaire, Don O'Connor, Marx Brothers at mignight showings when I was a student.
To living the swinging London of the Sixties and enjoying North America in the last quarter of the C20th.
I have always been a part of a movie loving family and circle of friends.<
thanks for an interesting book.

Bob Dylan

My sixties vinyl, I gave away in 1970 when I emigrated. My '70s & '80s Vinyl are in my basement storage. My CD's are in the living room "cluttering up" the place - my wife says! My digital collection is on this computer as I type. I couldn't sleep last night -- listened to Bob in the dark, again & again, with headphones plugged into my iPhone , as my wife slept uncluttered. Wherever I am, there's Bob !

Daddy Cool and oldies playlist for a friday. (Or any day.)

 I recently played the sultry tune , Fever by Peggy Lee a hit from 1958 on my Radio Cobequid show.  Here is the original by Little Willie John's and his RnB hit from 1956. To me it sounds somewhat sexier.

Another hit from that year is Church Bells May Ring by The Willows. A group from Harlem that had a hit with this song on the RnB charts and then in 1957 the song was chosen by Canada's Diamonds  singing group as the follow up to their big hit Little Darlin' and their version made the Top 20 in Billboard. Of course, this was very common in the fifties where a black group's hit (still called Race Music by many stations,) was covered by a "white" group who by virtue of wider radio exposure, became the bigger hit. I am sure many will remember the hilarious scene in the  Dreamgirls movie where this was played for laughs.  Listen for the bell ringing in the song. The bells are played by a young Neil Sedaka who happened to be in the studio. This is another fairly rare song which I had difficulty getting any details about in Wikipedia and my source books. Then through the wonders of  the internet sales pages,  I found 18 copies for sale at the absurd price of $1.32 !

After them is Rosie and the Originals with Angel Baby. Rosie Hamlin was the lead singer. She is quoted by John Lennon in a Seventies interview as one of his favourite singers. High praise for a singer with not many hits to her credit. It reminds me of my exam time in London. I should have been revising for my O levels but was tuned to the Radio Luxembourg listening for the new releases in early 1961 -- this was one I loved back then.

 

SONGS

Fever 3:22 Peggy Lee

Church Bells May Ring 2:26 - The Willows

Angel Baby 2:47 - Rosie and the Originals.