Doc. Sportello
It was in September 2009 that I read Pynchon’s Inherent Vice. The novel, which I enjoyed, was filmed by Paul Thomas Anderson. I didn’t get to the cinema to see it, but I have watched it several times on DVD. I watched it again last week when I had the house to myself for the evening.
The evening was a delight: Indian food from our local restaurant, beer, and DVDs. As well as Inherent Vice, I watched the excellent Anthem to Beauty, a “classic albums” documentary featuring the Grateful Dead commenting on Anthem of the Sun and American Beauty. The two films worked well with each other, sharing an era in common.
Also common to the two are narcotics. Inherent Vice deals with both Doc Sportello’s permanent residence in another consciousness and the emerging darkness around the hippy dream (Charles Manson is name checked twice), as well as the emergence of the narcotics industry. Anthem to Beauty covers similar ground (by implication rather than overtly): the band’s early gigs as part of the Acid tests and an openness to changed consciousness are important foundations, but the modern viewer is also aware of the consequences down the years. If Pynchon is exploring the mythology of the sixties, the Grateful Dead embody it.
Steal Your Face
Particularly poignant are interviews with the late Jerry Garcia as a young man, never far away from a chortling laugh at some ridiculous notion or situation, and the words unspoken as Bob Weir and Phil Lesh listen back to the studio master tapes, their faces pictures of reflection on what once was and what things became: hand-me downs, the thoughts broken.
More generally, I was reflecting over the weekend on what became of the counter-culture. In large part, of course, it was absorbed into and became part of the mainstream as time passed–Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, said Don Henley. This became noticeable today when the death was announced of David Bowie: a freakish outsider in his early days, apparently a national treasure now, as competitive grieving sets in on social media.
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