Muhammad Ali: People Like That Never Get Knocked Down

Rarely have performative and athletic aptitudes intertwined with such fluency. When we first noticed him, around the Liston fight, we noticed he was different—different in the way an exposed diamond is different from a chunk of cement. It was as if the boxing ring had become a bejeweled pulpit, and the sermons that rang from above held more holy suspense than blood action.

It became obvious—for Muhammad Ali—that boxing was a secondary skill, one that furthered a spiritual quest. He was a seeker for that which  lay far beyond Vegas hotel rooms and ringside misery.

Once called the most famous man on earth, he had a detachment from those who wished him good or ill. Redemption arrived from beyond the roiling crowds and praise and money. If the gloves were cut off, the hands would remain in prayer.

At the end, when the body failed and he could no longer raise his arms, salvation swooned and led him from the Ring. Ali then entered the mystic, that forever sanctified, quiet kingdom where victory and loss are unknown. 

Rest assured, people like that never get knocked down.

#muhammadali #boxing #miketyson #anthonyjoshua #boxinglife #floydmayweather #canelo #tysonfury #mma #ufc #boxingtraining #deontaywilder #boxeo #mannypacquiao #mayweather #caneloalvarez #ggg #knockout #champion #ryangarcia #cassiusclay #boxinghistory #fight #ali #boxer #fitness #thegreatest #boxingnews #fighter #tyson #letsplaysomethingelse

Anna Fallarino: Tales of Pleasure and Pain

 

A crime of the heart?

Zannone. A beautiful Mediterranean island. Italian. Warm waters ebb and flow. Overhead, an azure sky. In the 60s, the Marquis Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, or just Casati Stampa, leased the island.

His villa was the scene of endless parties, replete with orgies. There was a 'hidden mirror room' where the marquis and friends would watch sex sessions, many involving his wife, who often swam naked with guests.

His wife. Anna Fallarino, an actress searching for a different stage. Off to Zannone. Lots of lovers. A cache of nude photos. And more and more.

But then, what? Call it love. Massimo Minorenti, student/porn actor, a regular sex partner, captured her heart. And they met off the island—an extremely dangerous adventure.

Rome. August 1970. Enter Casati Stampa with a shotgun. Six shells. Three for Fallarino. Two for Minorenti. And the final one for himself. All gone.

A crime of passion? Hardly. Sexual jealousy is no substitute for a crime of the heart.

Today, Zannone is in ruins. At night, wild sheep sleep under their indigo sheets, unheeding the whispering surf with its tales of painless pleasure.

 

#zannone #casatistampa #annafallarino #sex #1960s #island #italy #marquis #lamarchesa #annaecamillo #MassimoMinorenti #letsplaysomethingelse

Warren Beatty: Never a Dandy in Aspic

 

Strategic sex

You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht

Your hat strategically dipped below one eye

Your scarf it was apricot

You had one eye in the mirror, as you watched yourself gavotte

And all the girls dreamed that they'd be your partner

They'd be your partner and

You're so vain.

-        -  Carly Simon

Closer to Narcissus than Priapus, or perhaps neither, because Warren Beatty was strategically vain. He had a discipline matched by temerity and talent. Sexual conquests were guided by pragmatism. Like most enduring film stars, he was self-reverential with a charming detachment.

Beatty had little time for the 1960s zeitgeist. He was never counterculture, always closer to the Rat Pack than Haight-Ashbury. But pure Malibu, no Vegas. By the time of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), he had perfected the character of an inchoate man, burdened by cultural confusion and societal norms. He wanted to belong but lacked an invitation. Unsure, mumbling, Beatty in Shampoo (1975) can’t be redeemed by his face alone—so alone he must stay.

Know when to leave

His personal narrative belongs to America for it’s grounded on the terra firma of independence. No other soil breeds those so hungry for freedom that they risk all to remain untethered. Beatty could act, write, direct and produce. His ambition was puzzling. Was he a new kind of movie star? Carey Grant never attended political conventions.

Then the films began to fail, and he just stopped. Didn’t matter—because he was protected by instinct. He was never a dandy in aspic. You see, anybody can show up; only the chosen know when to leave.

 

 #warrenbeatty #shirleymaclaine #shampoo #bonnieandclyde #movie #star #oscar #hollywood #shampoo #reds #swinger #1960s #pop #culture  

 

Nina Van Pallandt: Detachment is Another Way of Belonging

 

The beauty of detachment

Born 1934. At first it she was Nina Magdelena Møller. From Denmark. Then, after marrying Frederik Jan Gustav Floris, Baron van Pallandt, she became Nina, Baroness van Pallandt… or just Nina Van Pallandt. They formed an unlikely singing duo, Nina & Frederik. Sang folk music, including calypso (!?). Had chart success. Divorced. Nina became a film star. Frederick was murdered in a drug deal.

The future is calling me...

With Nina van Pallandt, the ciphers don’t line up, but still the lock opens. A mystery. We have an attractive woman who is way too European for the 1960s—and the 1960s loved all things European—or thought it did. Somehow, with that elegant poise, Teutonic mannerisms, and a royal title, maybe we understand the cultural confusion. But her awkwardness bespeaks knowledge, not nativity. It’s odd, but there’s an American vibe coming from her attitude, from the way she half-regards a threat; a rebellious nature not found down the cold corridors of the Danish Queens. Her spirit was not indolent.

Nina, a free spirit on a windy beach, the Pacific Ocean frames her figure. And that’s why Robert Altman chose her for The Long Goodbye, for the character Eileen Wade, because of her organic, outsider status. That slight, indeterminate accent that lets you know she’s a survivor. 'Yes', we feel,' she belongs in Malibu much more than Barbie'. A 1960s beach bunny wouldn’t have worked. Beauty isn’t symmetrical; it’s the appearance of symmetry. Meet Nina.

Eileen Wade. It’s her greatest role unless you count the earlier one—as a Danish folk singer married to a royal soon-to-be drug smuggler. Nina Van Pallandt proves that detachment is just another way of belonging.

#ninavanpallandt #frederick #singer #actress #actor #thelonggoodbye #robertaltman #elliotgould #film #popular #pop #culture #ianmclarke #raymondchandler #cliffordirving #howardhughes #ibizia

Jane Fonda: Redeemed by Resilience

 

“Well, there's this man... and I don't know exactly what he wants out of me, or anything like that. But he took care of me… When you're used to being lonely and somebody comes in...and moves that around, it's sort of scary I guess…I want to...manipulate him. In all the ways that I can manipulate people. I mean, it's easy to manipulate men. Right?”

-          Dialogue from ‘Klute’ (1971)

She was never robust, but had a hardness about her, as if Life, early on, had delivered low blows…. a mother’s suicide, an industry that celebrated beauty above brains… You could hear it in her sharp delivery, see it in her curt smiles. Perhaps Jane Fonda’s sublimated pain compelled her – professionally and personally – to haphazard choices.

We have a sex queen in Barbarella (1968) evolving into a political activist who poses in a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun unit in Hanoi (1972). Just four years apart... Aside from an extremely private pursuit of integrity, she’s to be admired more for diligence than condemned for dreadful photo ops.

It comes as little surprise that her greatest role is of an emotionally damaged prostitute, striving to escape ‘the life’. The film Klute (1971) seems tailormade for someone detaching from the corporeal and sliding into a more cosmic vibe, the world of the mind where people can’t find you.  Jane Fonda always hummed with a West Coast 60s ethos…but never a hippy like brother Peter. There was a drive to escape herself, to transition the entertainer, the dancing bear, to Citizen Jane, to be taken seriously, damn it.

And she was. Jane Fonda was redeemed by her resilience. She never let up. Even her exercise videos attest to a discipline unknown by many. Relaxation is not in her lexicon.  She always had more angular lines than curves. And it was this emotional awkwardness that empowered her performances. Her difficulty in expressing compassion and understanding did indeed look real.

Again, from Klute.“You make a man think that he's accepted. It's all just a great big game to you. You're all obviously too lazy and too warped to do anything meaningful with your life, so you prey upon the sexual fantasies of others. I'm sure it comes as no great surprise to you when I say that...there are little corners in everyone which were better off left alone. Little sicknesses, weaknesses, which should never be exposed. That's your stock in trade, isn't it, a man's weakness? I was never really fully aware of mine...until you brought them out.”

In her best roles, perhaps in her life, Jane Fonda reveals the difficulty of emotional honesty. And the camera just loves emotional honesty. It’s so easy to fake.

#janefonda #klute #donaldsutherland #peterfonda #1960s #cult #film #rogervadim #barbarella #vietnam #film #review #pop #culture

Glenn Gould and the sacred gift of silence

A musician so outrageously gifted that he worshiped silence, listening to the notes as if small, restless friends. 

He shied from human contact yet always embraced Bach.

 Head-flung-back ecstasy

Genius does not go unpunished. There were the obvious eccentricities, the quirky cadences, the sotto voce, preternatural humming that came as a prayer to gods others could never know.

Weighted with awareness

Always alone, even with people, communing with that music of dark space wherein you risk deafness by the awful beauty of solitude. So Canadian: it is the distance between us that pulls the soul upwards.

You can see it in the hunched back, weighed with awareness, in the hands that were always beautiful white wings, and the head-flung-back ecstasy as music holds him as a lost lover.

Glenn Gould, when in the deep trance of talent, gave us whatever music always meant to reminded us of.

The awful beauty of solitude

The Prisoner: Say Farewell to Number Six

I read the news today....oh boy...

"Popular culture is the collection of ideas or memes that are popular, well-liked or common and create the prevailing culture.

"Popular culture is the views and perspectives most strongly represented and accepted within a society." - Wikipedia

"What we now call the 1960s began with JFKs Inaugural and ended with Nixon's resignation...roughly."

- I. M. Clarke, in an isolated moment of insight


It's fitting that we begin this blog on 60s pop culture a few days after the death of Number Six, aka 'The Prisoner', aka Patrick McGoohan (1928 - 2009). Thesis have been about this TV program (which lived for just 17 episodes), trying to unravel—what TV Guide suggested—is "a weird, enigmatic drama, a Kafkaesque allegory about the individual's struggle in the modern age."

Very '68.

Which TV programs of today stem from The Prisoner's family tree? What of music? And fashion? As Ray Davies once wrote: "Where have all the swinging Londoners gone? Ossie Clark and Mary Quant. And what of Christine Keeler, John Stephen and Alvaro, where on earth did they all go? Mr. Fish and Mr. Chow, I wonder where they all are now."

We're only 'here' because we were once 'there'. But be careful as we consider 'pop'.

Wikipedia defines 'reminisce' this way: "Indulge in enjoyable recollection of past events." Sounds like a dead end. Why don't we breathe fresh air and 'remember' 60s pop with an eye on 2009.

So long pal...

Let's invite Emma Peel and The Haight and Matt Helm and Lava Lamps and Nehru Jackets and Jim Morrison and Ken Kesey and Mimi Farina and Ram Dass and all of them in for a fondue dinner. In fact, I wonder where they are right now.

Last thought to Ray Davies. "And I wonder what became of all the rockers and the mods. I hope they're making it, they all have steady jobs."

Bobby Kennedy near the Vanishing Point



Bobby: near the vanishing point

Shortly before he died, Bobby Kennedy was photographed (May 24, 1968) alone on an Oregon beach with his dog close by. The photograph was taken by Bill Eppridge. It made the cover of Life magazine the following month.

Kennedy has his back to us in full flight. He’s neither running to something nor away. He’s cradled in ghostly aspic, protected for the moment.

Already he is outdistancing Freckles the dog, who will soon weary of the sun and sea and sit and watch as the man thins into the blue surf and sky.

Notice that Kennedy’s feet no longer touch the ground: they no longer need the ground. The tide has already buried his footprints.

The next time we see him (June 6, 1968), once again through the lens of Bill Eppridge, he is in a coma on the floor of a kitchen in the Ambassador Hotel, a bullet in his brain, and he’s struggling to lift his head but already he's alone.

It’s obvious to me that the two photographs are out of order.

Somehow Bill’s camera has slipped a sprocket and the last image we should see, that we must remember, is that of a spirit ascending. So that’s the way I play it.



Reverse the order...

Time can be so arrogant. It remains for us to make patterns that make sense to the soul. Einstein said that hours and minutes are more flexible than warm rubber. In the Big House, there are no clocks.


For Bobby Kennedy is still on the beach, but it's far from Oregon, near the Vanishing Point, where clouds sail.