Among my many extremely specific obsessions

30Oct11

is an obsession with creative communities. I want to live in all of them. All of the ones I read about. I probably live in a creative community now but unfortunately I am unable to perceive it. It must be something similar to what the author of that NYT magazine story about déja vu pointed out: that there is a patina over a particular mental scene that connotes memory. I want to live in the patina.

So I am listening to Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon on Spotify and googling photographs of Laurel Canyon to see if it really looks the way I imagine from, oh, Weetzie Bat and Diane di Prima’s memoir.

NYT, 4/20/1969, Susan Gordon Lydon:

“Joni Mitchell lives in Laurel Canyon, in a small, pine-paneled house lovingly cluttered with two cats, a stuffed elk’s head, stained glass windows, a grandfather clock given her by Leonard Cohen, a king’s head with a jeweled crown sticking out from the brick fireplace, votive candles, blooming azaleas, a turkey made of pine cones, dried flowers, old dolls, Victorian shadow boxes, colored glass, an ornamental plate from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where she grew up, an art nouveau lamp in the shape of a frog holding a lily pad, a collection of cloisonné boxes, bowls and ashtrays, patchwork quilts, Maxfield Parrish pictures, various musical instruments, and Joni Mitchell and Graham Nash.”

xx
djd
p.s. Isn’t Nash’s appearance at the end of that paragraph an unfortunate shoe-dropping >thunk<? In context, who cares about his presence in this scene?
p.p.s. Recommended: Emma Forrest's memoir Your Voice in My Head.