No cake, just music - Dylan Turns 70

That today is Bob Dylan's 70th birthday is, by now, news you have probably heard at least four times. That some of us of certain ages find this worthy of note is not news at all.

If you haven't seen them, the Martin Scorsese documentary, NO DIRECTION HOME, or the D. A. Pennebaker-directed, DON'T LOOK BACK, offer a lot of Dylan as he spans the years.

His third album, THE TIMES THEY ARE A'CHANGIN', was released after I'd left home. It was not one I would play on the living room stereo while I sat on the floor, trying to learn the words. The title song still reaches me. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

What's all this then?

As I thought this morning of the universe, churning and thrashing and kicking some (or all) of us in the head as it seems to be doing of late, the visual that appeared was of George Clooney from the Coens' Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou? His Ulysses, startled, mystified and unprepared for the events which overtake him, expresses those emotions as they rampage through me.

My state-of-mind veers from peaceful and reasonably content to confused and distraught, without apparent cause and definitely without warning. "Boys, we're in a tight spot," Ulysses says on more than one harrowing occasion. It is just that I'm not sure what the tight spot is.

Mixing protagonists, I would say it seems the game is afoot, but again, what game? Going where and for what reason? Is it just me, a wonky chemistry, a wobbly constitution, or are these unsteady times, uncertain in a way that eludes capture? Things feel jittery around the edges, a bit carsick at the core. Then it subsides. If I am in this alone, I've made a low-grade spectacle of myself here. There are times when a modest readership is a good thing.

Ulysses, as he and his fellow chain-gang escapees wrangle with each other over who will lead their trio, says his vision is for someone with, "...the capacity for abstract thought." May be there is such a thing as too abstract.

Hollywood, revisited

The following is reprinted from April 27, 2010, based on a question from Laoch in his comment to yesterday's post. My answer was Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. All things Raymond Chandler seem to jam their foot in the blog door often. Herewith, a real connection to a fictional world.
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Within a few months of my son's birth, the two of us had a part-time job that involved typing at home, then doing errands all over Hollywood. Our employer was a non-profit organization, funded to develop programs that would improve the employment rate among unions in the entertainment industry.

"The Institute," part of its actual name, had its public office in a Hollywood Boulevard building, rumored to be the same location in which L.A.'s greatest hard-boiled private eye, Philip Marlowe, was based. How could you not love it? The Institute director actually worked from home, first on Cahuenga near the Hollywood Bowl, then in a Beachwood Canyon house with the standard show business pedigree - as in, "This house used to belong to...(fill in the blanks)." I never met a dwelling in that town that didn't have a history.

With my baby in his stroller, we walked the boulevards and avenues - from the photocopy shop on Highland, owned and run by a family from India who greeted my boy like a prince each time we visited, to the elevator at Marlowe's location, frequently sharing the ride with clients of various agencies at that address, many of whom were in states of loud and raging delusion. In the early 80s, as it may still today, that simply went with the territory.

From his much-closer-to-the-ground seat, my son - with his early verbal skills - greeted the locals as they gleaned cigarette butts from the gutter. Because he saw them at eye level, he engaged them all with a smiling "Hi!" and opened the door to conversations that I might have preferred to sidestep. I don't remember seeing many other children, let alone babies, in that part of town; had I been the one bent over the curb, I know I couldn't have resisted him. Had I been looking to make new friends along The Walk of Fame, I had my little rolling ice-breaker.

During my year in the job, it was such a gift to be able to have his company while I did paper work at home or acted as delivery girl in the shadow of the Chinese Theater or Musso and Frank Restaurant. In that year of my administrative assistant duties, the Institute held two benefit concerts, one for the striking Screen Actors' Guild, later for the Musicians' Local when they struck. There was a touch of show business glamor to balance the more real-life aspects of providing services to under-employed creatives.

I think these memories were sparked by the news story yesterday that Hugh Hefner had donated the final $900,000 needed to keep the land around the Hollywood sign from development. With his sum added to the gifts already received, the sign will be protected and its surrounding terrain will belong to the people.

As a native daughter, I have never minded that aspects of Hollywood are only glittering in our imagination, for the truth is powerful beyond illusion. The dream that lured the writers and actors and immigrant entrepreneurs west has not diminished; we are captivated and transformed by images on film. I choose to believe that, should I need to hire him to buy back incriminating photos or locate my missing chauffeur, Raymond Chandler's hero still keeps office hours on Hollywood Boulevard, no appointment necessary.
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I've included the comment left at the time of the post. Penny and I and a number of other bloggers, including Donna and Robert had recently found each other. Not long after this note from her, the Australian writer/wife/mother/friend died from injuries received in a single-car accident on a road near her home. We miss her.
Posted by Marylinn Kelly at 7:33 AM
1 comments:

Penny said...

It's good to know that the Dream Factory is still a lure. No irony intended :)
I have just spent a delightful lunch hour reading many of your posts luxuriating in phrases such as "lasso the moon" or "Finnish foozle cloth" or "fluent in happiness".
I'm going to put you in my blogroll, if you don't mind, you're a treat to be savoured.
I've not read Proust either, yet.
April 27, 2010 8:39 PM

Werner Herzog reads "Curious George" and I wonder about stuff, too

At Twisted Knickers, Susan T. Landry's statement of purpose, I would call it, is, "trying to get things straight." At what point do we acknowledge this has become our life's work?

Keeping sight of the bigger picture is my great wish, my primary intention. If only there existed a monitor to alert the staff when I fell below a certain level in that aim. As it is, I have my own warning system that only kicks in once I've slipped all the way off the wagon. It, life, feels like trying to recreate the cute basket of kittens shown on the puzzle box when some of the pieces are missing. The next step is finding a way to be happy with the gaps and vacancies while not seeing yourself as a chump.

This could be easier if, say, one was a horse with the option of blinders or blinkers or winkers, take your pick, which restrict vision to the rear (don't look back) or the side (deadly comparisons) and, "...keep them from being distracted or spooked." But blinkered or winkered mean not engaged, not part of the flow, uninvolved in the exchanges that layer and texture and embellish our days. Or that mystify us and, with a rough hand, shove us forward, trying to get things straight.

Since my primary source of confusion is my relationship with self, reweaving that tattered fabric, the blinders would serve no real purpose. Somewhere along the journey, what may once have been whole became fragments. While able in brief sprints to create an illusion of completeness - or maybe the truth always leaked through - such artifice was not sustainable. Reclaiming and restoring the scattered parts became a true do-it-yourself odyssey. Nancy Drew and the Stormy Search for the Self. The job demanded new skills: scraping, resilvering, soldering, stripping away...any task that might be mentioned on This Old House or Antiques Roadshow.

If all of the above does not match your experience, I can tell you that I spend my days in activities that are not all weeping and wondering. Well, yes, there is a lot of wondering but much of it in the abstract for there are no answers, or none that can be accessed, and that leaves the hands and part of the mind free for light-hearted pursuits.

Nearly 45 years ago I had a friend who saved my life. She referred to human existence as, "this vale of tears." When she first said it, I thought veil, as in something worn for the purpose of hiding. It made sense. By either spelling or definition, it was a sentiment I shared. Perhaps I did have some of those winkers once upon a time and when I wore them, all I saw were the dents and the damage. They were all I felt.

Light, however, as wave, particle, or a measure of weight and speed, finds its way through that which seems impossibly dense. In her post of May 15, Beth Coyote, under "Squirrel Adventures," tells of such persistence. And so, despite hammered barriers and exhausting vigilance, our true natures find us. It was after I began designing rubber stamps, images referred to as whimsical, that I realized cunning optimism had built a nest in my attic.

Life, as it appears to wish to be lived through me, is a relentless stalker. It pries me out of hollows on the undersides of beach rocks. It pulls the closet light cord to reveal me crouched behind outdated computers. It wants me to play and cannot BE discouraged. How am I to make sense of that? So many years, more than half believing simply being here was a mistake, replaced by occasions of untainted happiness.

Since the third grade, my favorite reading has been mysteries. In fiction, unlike what we think of as reality, there were solutions. Seventeen years ago, one of my early stamps said, "It's all a mystery." This is one of the days when I see that as the best possible answer.

Playing for time

Today's blog writing has become a progressive dinner...appetizer here, entree there...not the way I work best. So instead I will post a bit of mail art created in my active rubber stamping days. Rubbermoon Stamps shared it on Facebook today.

Watch This Space. Writing. Here. Tomorrow.

(I am unable to make the photo larger without losing definition.   If you are on Facebook, please take a look at Rubbermoon's photo album and visit the link above to see their stamp line.)

Why there is not a REAL post today

Two posts wait in draft...such plans I had for Sunday. In the gentlest of spring showers, at 7:34 a.m., neighborhood power transformers exploded and electricity has just been restored...telephone updates told of workers being summoned, restoration times ranged from 10 p.m. to unknown. I have passed the point of writing anything today that would be worth reading. And it has been weeks, I know, since I visited, let alone commented upon many of your blogs. A new week looms, a fresh start.

Peace.

Shared

This morning my son is having coffee, as he does every week, with his step-mother. When she phoned several years ago to tell us of his father's death in another country, she asked me if he would still want to see her. I promised that he would, for I knew it was the truth.

Rebecca, at Radish King, suggested that today we honor the good in our children, which had already been my intention. To be the mother/parent/guardian of a person who is strong and reliable in friendship, kind, generous and forgiving, funny and quick and not a bit fooled by malarkey is a gift bigger than all the iPads, books, new-to-me used cars and cleaning services in the world.

At 12:30 my son and I will sit with our favorite-restaurant take-out lunch and watch the Lakers either find the oomph for another chance or end their season. Watching movies, sports, comedy together really became a habit as he recovered from illness. Without his teachings, I would be stuck somewhere around 1994, ignorant of Asian martial arts and crime dramas, embarrassingly ill-informed about the NBA, clueless in the world of graphic novels and directors any younger than Sidney Lumet, a dinosaur among robots in a society that I could not hope to keep up with, were it not for him.

I met his step-mother 4 1/2 years ago when he was in Intensive Care. It was not the easiest day of my life but I knew the more people around him who loved him, the better his chances. Their mutual affection has meaning for them and for me. I am glad to share his Mother's Day with another who knows his worth.