don't look now

Echo Park, July 2011

...

poem by Charles Green Shaw

Saigon, December 1967

saigon showgirl, wall, 12-1967

It's funny sometimes, looking at my father's pictures. I find myself drawn to take photos of the same things he does, ripped, peeling posters and paint, double exposures revealing hidden truths about their subjects, and all the small things and people that make up the world

Marrakech, 1971

Photo by Roger Steffens
Taken at a campground in Marrakech, Morocco, 1971

Was this bus painted by The Fool?

California, 1974

The Jeans Freaks, California, 1974. Photo by Roger Steffens.

the best weapon

S. Broder, Office of War Information, Poster Number 7, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942.

Sound - 1967

In 1967, the jazz documentary filmmaker Dick Fontaine made "Sound" featuring Rahsaan Roland Kirk and John Cage. If you've never seen live footage of Rahsaan, then get ready to be blown away...
This is Part 1. Watch Parts 2 and 3 here and here.

"Tom" - a short documentary

Awesome early Seventies documentary about an acid loving surfer/potter named Tom. It was made for the National Institute of Mental Health, although for what purposes I can only imagine! I wonder where Tom is now, and whether he'd be pleased to know there are people in 2011 living just like he did, as broke dropout artists playing in nature...

making time to make art every day

My own little slice of creative space

"Creativity is when you deal with things you've never dealt with before, problems you have to solve. As soon as it becomes easy, it's gone.  That's why I keep moving in all different directions, with different combinations.  My life is very complex, my ideas as well.  I've got to make work that relates directly to the way I live.  I just can't do any one thing at a time.  The work I make in the various media are all separate but all one." - Jamie Summers, from the book "Art to Wear"

Laura Archera Huxley

Laura Huxley was a hip, hip lady.  In addition to being a violin prodigy, filmmaker and humanitarian, she was the author of several books that continue to resonate with me.  In 1963, she wrote a series of recipes for life, published as "You Are Not the Target".  The recipes, with their evocative titles like "The Art of Converting Energy" and "Lay the Ghost", combined meditation and psychological reflection and still feel relevant and useful today.  In 1969, Huxley wrote "This Timeless Moment", about her courtship and life with Aldous Huxley.  That book (which you can read most of via Google Books) details one of the most tender romances between an intellectual and a free spirit that i've ever read.  
From Recipe #6:
Go into a room by yourself. Put on your favorite music. Throw off your clothes. And dance.

true thrifters

Image by Jaime Hernandez, reposted from threadbared.

electroacousticecstasy

Sufi Dancers

"A rock concert is in fact a rite involving the evocation and transmutation of energy...

The Led Zeppelin show depends heavily on volume, repetition and drums.  It bears some resemblance to the trance music found in Morocco, which is magical in origin and purpose–that is, concerned with the evocation and control of spiritual forces.  In Morocco, musicians are also magicians.  Gnaoua music is used to drive out evil spirits.  The music of Joujouka evokes the God Pan, Pan God of Panic, representing the real magical forces that sweep away the spurious.  It is to be remembered that the origin of all the arts–music, painting and writing–is magical and evocative; and that magic is always used to obtain some definite result.  In the Led Zeppelin concert, the result aimed at would seem to be the creation of energy in the performers and in the audience.  For such magic to succeed, it must tap the sources of magical energy, and this can be dangerous.”  - William Burroughs, Crawdaddy magazine, 1975

what to watch out for

Be careful or Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk will send you to the Zone of Zero Funkativity.

painting from the third eye

My first exposure to the artist Paul Laffoley happened in 1999.  I had recently moved to Austin, Texas and the AMOA on Congress was turning out to be one of my favorite places in town.  In the span of a few months, I was lucky enough to catch retrospective exhibits of both Laffoley and an incredible local painter, Julie Speed.

Both blew me away with their visions, but only Laffoley left me wishing I had a few more hours to take in the information his art conveyed.  Canvases that are equal parts art and lesson, in everything from astral projection and time travel to theosophy and Wilhelm Reich.  Laffoley's radio is tuned to Coast to Coast AM and his aim is idea transmission through art.

Read a thoroughly wild interview with Laffoley here and hear him talk about his experience as one of the architects of the World Trade Center here.

dusky mind

it's like a strange fuzzy

A wonderful scene from Milos Forman's 1971 movie Taking Off.  The early Seventies are my favorite era for film-making, and quite a few gems like this one have still not been released on DVD.  I would love to curate a Criterion Collection Super Seventies Special:  DVD plus soundtrack re-releases on LP.  I'd start with Harold and Maude and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

Los Angeles, 1968

I recently came across these photos of the Sunset Strip in 1968, taken by my Pops.  Wish I could have gotten to see that Arthur Brown Live in Anaheim show!

music to start a cult to

Gram Rabbit are a band out of Joshua Tree.  They sometimes play here in LA with my buddy Crooked Cowboy.  Their first two albums are dusty, stoned masterpieces of desert psychedelia with an electronic touch.  They make great road-trip music, and if you have a chance to catch them live, in full bunny-eared, gorilla-masked glory, you will not be disappointed.  Here are my two favorite songs from their second album, Cultivation.


Waiting in the Kountry


Angel Song

magic places

I started a Flickr account for my photography.  Is anyone even on Flickr anymore?  Are you?  Come say hi and see more magic places...

wallflower