Episode 11 of Playboy After Dark, When Jerry met Hef.

The other day while shopping at Sunset Foods, I heard St. Stephen by the Grateful Dead. Sunset Foods is one of a small chain of grocery stores that used to frighten Peggy and myself when we first moved to Highland Park. The chain itself didn't frighten us...not even the store. We were askeered of the shoppers. They seemed very aggressive in their parking, their cart navigation and frankly in their attitudes.
The shoppers were a source of frequent disparaging remarks we could make about our town.
To wit...when asked about winter vacation plans, another shopper replied, "Florida, Arizona, California, the Islands. Where can you go? Really. We don't know."

Lately, since Peggy's knee operation and even before her operation, I began to shop for and prepare food for meals. 

Floris van Dyck, dude from Harlaam.




These "meals" have led me to go to Sunset Foods between 4 and 7 times a week. It is not very scary anymore. As to whether the scary people moved away or we are on different schedules, I enjoy the experience. The workers and the management are very customer focused and helpful.

As I am walking down a non-food aisle of dish soap, detergent, enhanced liquid stuff for your dishwasher, and various other cleansers liquid or solid, I heard the recording of St Stephen. 

You have got to watch this video. Even the first 30 seconds. 



This is recorded in 1969 on a program called Playboy after Dark, which ran in 1969 and 1970. Although youtube says January '69, dons's basement has learned that the Grateful Dead appeared in episode 11, March 1969. Sid Caesar was also on the program that night, along with Sydney Omarr , nee Kimmelman, syndicated astrologer and astrology consultant to the rich and famous. Hef also appeared.

Here are the lyrics to St. Stephen: (Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, who is also credited with singer on Playboy after Dark. (The link to St. Stephen is from "The Annotated St. Stephen and is much smarter than your deservedly humble author.)

Speaking of this "Annotated St. Stephen" site. Here is part of their fair use policy. 

In other words, it's ok to read, use, and link to this site in any way except for utilizing its contents to make money. Clear enough? And, of course, appropriate permissions for re-use will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

 

Saint Stephen with a rose, in and out of the garden he goes,
Country garden in the wind and the rain,
Wherever he goes the people all complain.

Stephen prospered in his time, well he may and he may decline.
Did it matter, does it now? Stephen would answer if he only knew how.
Wishing well with a golden bell, bucket hanging clear to hell,
Hell halfway twixt now and then,
Stephen fill it up and lower down and lower down again.

Lady finger, dipped in moonlight, writing "What for?" across the morning sky.
Sunlight splatters, dawn with answer, darkness shrugs and bids the day goodbye.

Speeding arrow, sharp and narrow,
What a lot of fleeting matters you have spurned.
Several seasons with their treasons,
Wrap the babe in scarlet colors, call it your own.
Did he doubt or did he try? Answers aplenty in the bye and bye,
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills,
One man gathers what another man spills.

Saint Stephen will remain, all he's lost he shall regain,
Seashore washed by the suds and foam,
Been here so long, he's got to calling it home.

Fortune comes a crawlin', calliope woman, spinnin' that curious sense of your own.

Can you answer? Yes I can. But what would be the answer to the answer man?

The version I heard at Sunset must have been from Aoxomoxoa. But I remember it from Live/Dead.

The Dead playing Playboy after Dark is one of those Don Shearn paradoxes. Like the Buddy Love versus Grady personality divide.

Mood is wrong. Mood is wrong.                                          

Buddy Love wants to be the center of attention. The most charming and yet in many ways the most obnoxious guy in the room. Grady likes peaceful things. Like watching television. Hanging around with Fred Sanford.

The very late Mad Men style, part British tailoring/lounge lizard drinking and smoking, 'swingers' (sexually adventurous but not necessarily in organized groups) have to confront their future.  Panchos, beards, head nodding.  

Thus so, I walked through Sunset Foods, softly singing Saint Stephen.

Garry Winogrand the 4th, "To Live and Die in LA"

Of the 175 photos at the Garry Winnogrand exhibit, 56 are posthumously printed. Garry Winogrand died at the age of 56.

Coincidence, I think not.

Here are two of the posthumous photos.

Los Angeles, 1980-1983: Garry Winogand

It is the beginning of the Reagan era and there is no turning back. This woman of uncertain age....(is she 30 or 60) sets sail against the win her hair and dress flow beyond the traffic. A car pulls away. A sign is part of the tangle. There is open sky but it has a haze... from the photo's exposure, pollution, or  our sense of a personal LA.

The woman turns to look; at a friend, a stranger, a lover or a threat. She does not give her self away. She is in control and is deciding which way to turn.

Los Angeles, 1980-1983: Garry Winogand

This photo is so bleak that it looks staged. A woman lies dead or fallen on Sunset Boulevard as a Porsche convertible drives by. In the subsequent 35 years of art, movies, photoshop, and internet, I have been frequently misled by images some of which are true, other are lies. Is this a shot of despair, neglect or hopelessness? Or journalistic distance capturing a single moment in time. 

Did Winogrand ever see this shot? Did he see it and reject as being too grim for display?

It is part of the mystery of posthumous printing. Part of the mystery of art and image.

Garry Winogrand: III: The Drunken Women of Fort Worth (note the click bait title)

After hanging around New York, taking photos in various boroughs from 1949 to 1971, Gary Winogrand needed a job. In 1971 Winogrand began teaching, first at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design (through 1972) and then at the University of Texas at Austin (1973–78), before moving to Los Angeles. " Preceding comes from the Encyclopedia Britannica which is some sort of Wikipedia imitator.  (check out the article on Winogrand , it's much more thorough than this blog) 

Texas gave Winogrand a new set of faces and places to unfold before him. 

I find in the relationship of the hands and faces a tangle of emotion, abandon, and surprise. Through the hands, the women express their concerns about the photograph, the setting and each other.

#1 seems to be reaching for an earring. She wants to go back to normality or maybe she wants to go home.

#2's hand is comfortable on #3's shoulder just above her left breast.

#3 has got some serious length in her arms. Her right hand holds the fascinating cigarette and her left, bracelet clad arm is soddenly grabbed by #4 who holds on for dear life.

Contrast Fort Worth with the photograph used to publicize the Winogrand exhibit at the Met.

1955: El Morocco, New York

It is a powerful contrast. Is it East and West? The post-war American triumphalism or the Viet-Nam era fatalistic party time. Intensity or casual slackness?

If you are interested in street photography, you can check out Downtown at Dawn for more a contemporary look at city, citizens and visitors of New York.

You can also read Eric Kim Street Photography. This guy is way into Winogrand and the art form.

Good stuff.

Garry Winogrand #2: Untitled: Blogger in the dark

Garry Winogrand, Untitled [Sailor on Street], 1950; At SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)

The internet does not do this photo justice. The interplay of dark and light, the loneliness and freedom are not captured by the computer monitor. When I saw the print of the photo at the Met, the image struck me as so metaphorical that I couldn't hardly believe it. (Also it is a blast to be at the Met. I am not dissing the Art Institute but the Met is way bigger. And it has the temple of Dendor)

Selfie at Temple of Dendor.

Lonely sailors at home. Great theme right. Is this guy relieved to be on dry land or terrified at being in the strange land called home?

What strikes me are the street lights playing against the gray of the sky. The sailor is walking away from the light. Somewhere the kid (GW)from Bronx is snapping his photo. The composition is painterly. And so real that I can hear the next footfall that he takes on the street.

Is it optimism or abject resignation? It is a picture of a guy on a deserted street but what is the sailor thinking.

Garcia and Grisman's drunken sailor. (start of 40 second to avoid tuning)



Or the Village People's very happy mariner. (as interpreted by the Muppets)