My partner and I watched the movie about the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. We liked it so much that we rented the dvds with the outtakes: more Janis Joplin, more Jimmy Hendrix, more...crowd shots. Those clothes, that hair, that makeup, those hats!
Intrigued by the colorful, psychedelic outfits worn by the festival attendees and performers, I am now rereading Trina Robbins memoir, Last Girl Standing, in which she chronicles her life as a cartoonist, but also as a fashion designer among the rock stars.
Also on my reading list, Hippie Chic, published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which chronicles the fashion of the 1960s, its origins and various manifestations, from the low of the streets up to the high of designers who opened expensive boutiques.
Back to the "Monterey Pop" film. It provided evidence that people -- mostly young people in their teens and twenties -- were gathering and getting high, yes, and expressing through their wild colors and assemblage of ethnic garb (ponchos, long robes of various kinds, floppy hats, beads, lots and lots of beads) a desire to live differently.
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Then, yesterday, as I was walking into town from campus, I ended up behind a student who was wearing serious bell bottoms, as in very wide at the bottom, and, well, a very tight bottom at the top. I took my time looking in detail at those pants, wondering if they were vintage or new. I sensed that they were new (the Free People brand perhaps, where hippie fashion can be bought already assembled). Was her outfit a sign of the times to come? Is another counter culture coming our way? I sure hope so. I am ready for another reality.
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That film, those books, those images of people wearing wild clothes, long hair, ethnic jewelry, caftans and head bands -- basically watching people escape from their reality frees the current day viewer into their own escapism, albeit of a different kind. What are we escaping from and why? What is wrong with our reality? The younger generation has always reacted to the evil doings of those in power, whether it be war, corruption, demagoguery or the pitiful state of mother earth. But I am no longer young, yet I am still rebellious. Perhaps what I yearn for is some kind of idealized past, one in which I imagine that people paid less attention to themselves and more attention to their surroundings -- in this case, the amazing sounds coming from the stage. Little did the attendees know that someday, they would have quite the story to tell. To have seen Jimi Hendrix live in concert, among all the other pop, rock and blues bands that performed during those three days must have been a hell of an experience.
