So I finally saw the American Masters doc on Hendrix... and have to say, I could listen to this all day. So much I didn't know about him. So much to discover.
I was talking to JS about this, and there are some artists that need to be rescued from the College Dorm Room haze (Hendrix, Bob Marley..) and others that need to stay there (Dave Matthews...).
So I took J to the Corcoran on Sunday morning to see the collection (for free!) before it gets swallowed by the NGA. Lots of good stuff - plenty of 19th Century American - Niagara Falls, the West, that Biersdadt:
But what really grabbed my attention was a massive late (France-era) Joan Mitchell - Salut Tom:
Which just _breathes_. And, of course, is infinitely better in person. That and the Bontecou would be well worth seeing again.
J counted 10 horse paintings, which, of course, she duly recorded in her notebook.
I've been thinking of my trip lately.. And mountains. And the sea. And this Frankenthaler. That room in the basement of the NGA, with Lavender Mist on one side and this on the other:
I've been meaning to re-watch Out of the Past.. something about the way the people move. The way Mitchum talks. Jane Greer. The way the story unfolds. Those final scenes in the mountains. Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum squaring off. That house on Lake Tahoe. Mitchum caught in the nets on the beach in Mexico:
This crispness in the air is deliciously invigorating.
Lucinda Memories:
St. Andrews Hall, Detroit, May 1999. Driving up from Toledo on impulse and walking into a tiny room where she blew me away. I remember her guitar player.. sinister, bluesy, menacing. Fresh off Car Wheels and in fine form. Encores. I asked for water, you gave me gasoline.
Stubbs, Austin, March 2006. A bigger room, outdoors. Lots of friends and family in the audience and Austin stories. But not nearly as intense.
I went backwards and fell in love with Lucinda Williams and Happy WomanBlues and Ramblin. And paid vague attention to her later albums. Get Right With God. Essence. West. But my interest has been fading.. I'm curious how this new album works (or doesn't).
In book notes:
In Angle of Repose there's now a move from California (New Almaden, near Santa Cruz) to the Dakotas. She's headed east while he gets set up again. Have I mentioned I need some time to just.. read.
I also finished In Search of the Blues - which was interesting, but not as helpful as I'd have liked for my purposes. I do have some names and leads to run down.
And I picked up Eat, Pray, Love on the theory it could work as a model for a memoir based on my Arizona-California trip (which, over lunch at Le Pain Q the other day, fellow prof JC suggested I write..) so far it's.. interesting. Also Hiking Los Angeles..
The great Michael Corcoran puts together a fantastic list of the best Austin shows... ever. Oh to have been at any one of them (though he leaves off Johnny Cash at Emo's in '94 and plenty of others). I found that picture of the Dylan press conference in the Statesman negative collection at the AHC back in my Photo Curator days (another image from the same session is here). And used to live in what was left of the Villa Capri (that mid-century hotel turned into ramshackle apartments just off South Congress). And there are times I miss that job.. and that city. I love the energy of the east coast - and my old criteria for a place to live (a major league baseball team and a good art museum) still stand... but.
Meanwhile, here, in the present. My dad in town this weekend meant lots of Gordon Lightfoot and Pete Seeger and Johnny Horton and the Beatles and the Weavers. H Street festival adventures. On stage somewhere along H, J watching a band with a female lead-singer said to me, quite sincerely (with a hint of disappointment) - "That's not Wanda Jackson." She loves this song, which she first heard on that drive to Cinci, and still insists on playing over and over:
