Tag Archives: 1970s

Henry Miller: “Asleep and Awake” (1975 Documentary Film)

Tom Schiller Tom Schiller describes his 1975 short documentary (35mins) as ‘a guided tour of the pictures and artefacts of Henry Miller’s bathroom’. Continue reading






Posted in Tutelary Spirits | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Café Mouffe: Remembering “Wild Horses” in Mussel Shoals

I like to think the Rolling Stones got me through high school. Maybe my son would say the same. While reading Keith Richards’ account of the legendary Mussel Shoals recording session in 1969, where “Wild Horses” and “Brown Sugar” were put together, I decided to look for my Stones CDs to listen again to the music that made me move. Forget about the original vinyl LPs, the Sticky Fingers cover with lewd zipper affixed to the cardboard – you can’t reproduce that on a CD jewel box or ITunes download! The LPs are long gone, and, as I discovered, so are the CDs. Maybe they’re buried somewhere beneath the seat of Brendan’s Ford pickup truck. So I turn to YouTube, knowing that these embeds will be even more ephemeral.






Continue reading






Posted in Café Mouffe | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Café Mouffe: Remembering “Wild Horses” in Mussel Shoals

Was Pablo Neruda Poisoned After the Coup?

I remember walking into a coffee shop on Cape Cod in September 1973 when I learned about the right-wing coup in Chile. There was no doubt in my mind, no doubt in the minds of any of the morning habitués there, that Richard Nixon and the CIA were involved in some way. When I heard later that Pablo Neruda had died not long after his friend, President Salvador Allende, I knew the poet had to have died of a broken heart. I was 18, and though I would have denied it then, I was an incurable romantic about Neruda and Chile’s fragile, Communist-led democracy.






Continue reading






Posted in memoir | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Robert Maplethorpe’s Iconic Image of Patti Smith

Patti Smith receives the National Book Award tonight for Just Kids, the memoir of her friendship with photographer Robert Maplethorpe. He took the photo of Smith on the cover of Horses, the debut album that made her the Queen of Punk in 1975. She told the story of how this iconic image was made in an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air






Continue reading






Posted in books | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Robert Maplethorpe’s Iconic Image of Patti Smith

Forty Years Later, Ohio Can’t Outlive Its Anthem

Sometimes when I walk across my university campus, it’s hard to remember how America was so angry and violent forty years ago. Other times I think, this is Ohio, the proverbial battleground state of national politics, and it isn’t so hard to remember. The fear- and hate-mongers are still with us.






Continue reading






Posted in history | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Forty Years Later, Ohio Can’t Outlive Its Anthem