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THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Sunday, September 23, 1973

Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, September 23, 1973


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Joplin: Livin


BUJRIED ALIVE: THE BIOGRA-
PHY OF JANIS JOPLIN By My-
ra Friedman. New York; Morrow
and Co. 333 pages, $7.95j
By TONY SCHWARTZ
In many ways, it was a pheno-
menon which originated 'in the
sixties. Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hen-
drix,, Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison,
Grace Slick-the driving, high-en-
ergy, reckless rock-and-roll super-
stars who made thousands of dol-
lars in a couple of hours, playing
before frenzied young people who
put the little money they had into
viewing their heroes in person.
I suspect there were a lot of
other people my age, back just a
few years, who shared this fan-
tasy: to take the stage, grab a
mike, sing their hearts out to 5,000.
at the Fillmore Or 50,000 in Shea
Stadium, to overpower a crowd
with sheer sexuality and charisma.
The heady power attendant with
it all, particularly to another kid
plodding along anonymously in
high school, was intoxicating.
Nonetheless, by the end of high!

school, it had become clear that
the life and times of a rock super-
star were less. than smooth and
easy. It wasn't the long hours on
the road, the lonely nights in un-
known motels, or even the exhaust-
ing task of trying to get it up
night after night. Rather, the
roughness of the life style was evi-

g igl
which really gets into the life and
thoughts of a rock superstar. And
it is an achievement on at least
three basic levels: as a penetrat-
ing biography of a complex and
wildly misunderstood figure, as a
statement about the rock-music
world which was so much a part
of the sixties and as one honest,

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HELD OVER SHOW TIMES 7 & 9:15

dent in the toll it took: like flies, sensitive, affecting portrait of at
the superstars began dropping, decade which remains in many1
victims of one too many needles, ways a puzzle.
excesses of alcohol which tore Janis Joplln was torn Tn wind-
away their livers, bottles of pills swept, one-dimensional oil town of1
used to artificially vary their Port Arthur, Texas. Friedmans
moods. spends a long time describing thec
Of all of them, Janis Joplin was town and Joplin's childhood-thet
undoubtedly the best embodiment'trauma of a terrible complexion,
of all the passion, the drive, the obesity, and the attendant senset
total commitment to a public life- of isolation. But why, finally, its:
style-and finally, of all the mis- imprint was so deep on Joplin,{
ery. Joplin, the white lady of the why despite her enormous suc-f
blues, was a massively unhappy cesses and her obvious attractive-
woman, and largely as a result, an ness to many people, she felt so
alcoholic (Southern Comfort her constantly inadequate, is never an-
well-known t r a d e m a r k) and a swered. Instead the rich web ofi
heroin addict. It was from an the narrative lays out the varied1
overdose of the latter, back in factors, speculates here and there,
1970, that she died. but leaves the reader to draw itt
Myra Friedman, Joplin's former together.
press agent and one of her few Joplin began her singing career
close friends - and an incredibly by imitating others-Bessie Smith,
perceptive writer to boot-has now ' -
written a book about her which is
superb. "Buried Alive" is the first
important work I've come across
h ~ d

and

Odetta, Jean Ritche - and after
moving to San Francisco in 1963
began to develop the guttural,
driving sound that was so uniquely
hers. Friedman winds through Jop-
lin's experiences of the next (and
last) seven years in great detail,
pausing occasionally to comment
on the drug-subculture, record
companies, Woodstock, Bill Gra-
ham, Haight-Ashbury, R o 11l i n g
Stone and a variety of other sym-
bols of the sixties counter-culture.
Although Friedman is meticulous
and painstaking about the details
of Joplin's life, sometimes even to
the point of writing very self-con-
sciously, certain consistent pat-
terns clearly emerge.
Joplin, as Friedman sees it, "was
consumed and driven by a need
for love that was preposterous in
its magnitude, her excessive nar-
cissim the result of bitter frus-
trations and the very stuff of her
insecurity, her desire for constant
attention and her gluttonous hun-
ger for approval.".
That obsession explains many of
Joplin's apparent contrasts - for
she was often willing to mold her

dying
actions in a way that would bring
her the approval she was seeking.
At her most relaxed, she could be
incredibly spontaneous and honest,
a delight to be with. At the more
frequent uptight times, she was
alternately tough and insecure,
snide and easily bruised.
Joplin's only way of relating to
relationships was through sex.
That she was bisexual is well
known. But what Friedman claims
is misunderstood is that sex was
-whether with a man or a wo-
man-for Joplin the ultimate ex-
pression of her need for approval.
To be sexually attractive to a
person was equated by Joplin with
love and conversely, she was dev-
astated by rejection-even by a'
less than super sexual performance
by a partner.
Through all of it, of course, there'
was the driving music-along with
backup groups Big Brother and
later, Full Tilt Boogie. The music,
however, did not exist in any way
apart, was instead bound up in her,
life and trials. "Interviewers,"'
Joplin once said, "don't talk about
my singing as much as about my.

young
lifestyle. The only reason I can
see is that maybe a lot of artists
have one way of art and another
way of life: in me they're the
same."
Toward the very end of her life,
ironically, Joplin had begun to get
involved in an apparently mean-
ingful relationship - with Scott
Morgan, a student and the son of
a wealthy, prestigious New York
family. For the six weeks prior to
her death, she was happy and re-
laxed, recording and seeing her
new lover on weekends, finally
even making plans to get married.
On the day she died, Joplin made
a series of phone calls, one to
inquire about her marriage license.
Later in the day she did up-few
knew she was even taking heroin
-went out to do some errands,
came back to her hotel room late
in the evening, and died sometime
during the early morning.
A statement she had made only
a short time before to an inter-
viewer seemed then a chillingly
appropriate summation: "Maybe
my audiences can enjoy my music
more if they think I'm destroying
myself."

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LOOKING BACK: A CHRONI-
CLE OF GROWING UP OLD IN
THE SIXTIES By Joyce May-
nard. New York; Doubleday, 160
pages, $5.95.
By LAURA BERMAN
Two years ago,. when she was
18 and a sophomore at Yale, Joyce
Maynard wrote a cover story for
the New York Times Magazine
about what it was like to grow up
in the sixties. The article "made

3

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IN
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One of Brando's earliest films, it brought him
an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Mexi-
can revolutionary hero, Emiliano Zapata. Made
in 1952 by Elia Kazan, the film also boast aI
screenplay by John Steinbeck and a Oscar-win-
ning supporting performance by Anthony Quinn
as Zapata's brother.
NEXT WEEK: FELLINI FESTIVAL
A ARCHITECTURE
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' 7 & 9:05

rup old

laments of an eighteen year old

in the sixties:

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1214 S. UNIVERSITY
DIAL 668-6414
Sat., Sun, and wed. at 1. 3. 5.
7, 9 p.m. Other days at 7 & 9 only
-11) ) ARIIA
is an exquisite
mnovie'
-REX REED,
Syndicated Columnist
A NOVEL BY
HERMANN
HESSE
A FILM BY
CONRAD
ROOKS
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her famous, and now Maynard has
written a book, "Looking Back,"
which is an expanded version of,
her original piece.,
It's not easy to be objective about
a writer who is one month my
senior, who has already received
critical accolades and a lot of mon-
ey, and who has won it all by ex-
ploiting a subject that any col-
lege student could write about in
one way or another. I am admitted-
ly jealous, but I'm also a bit re-
sentful because Maynard has elect-
ed to write her book about "us",
about who we are and how we got
that way. And much of the time,
what she has to say simply doesn't
ring true.
In a prose style that ranges from
a kind of. pithy eloquence to glib
gum-chewing American idiom,,
Maynard propounds the not-too-or-
iginal theory that we were children
of the media: We sought life on a
TV screen where assassinations
and moon launchings and war
were mixed indiscriminately with
"The Donna Reed Show". We
thrived on sensations, Maynard
says, on immediacy and newness,
and now that we are nineteen and'
twenty, we are tired.
So here we are, victims of "the"
new lethargy", nineteen year olds
ready for the old-folks home. And
somehow this writer who grew up
in the sheltered environment of a
small eastern college town has ap-
pointed herself our spokesperson.
It's a dangerous game Maynard
is playing, and ironically it is only
when she gets off her soapbox and
stops making vast generalizations
that her writing rings true.

Maynard's pronouncements on
"what it all meant" are imma-
ture and pretentious. She's still too
close to the time she is writing'
about 'to have an honest sense of
perspective. But' the sections of
"Looking Back" devoted to Joyce
Maynard on Joyce Maynard are-
very fine. She has an eye for de-,
tail, an instinct for pinpointing the
image that will trigger shocks of
recognition.
0
0
S
The misery df going to dances
in junior high, the absurdity of
sixties fashions, junior year obses-
in wit q AT nn 17UI ~_'

we are told what it was like for
everybody.to grow up everywhere.
Here's a brief sampling of Joyce
Maynard on 'us":
-"Throughout the Beatles' exist-
ence we held some sort of con-
trol, we could act. Their appear-
ance gave us our first sense of
youth as a power - one that could
hold moratoriums and keep LBJ
from seeking re-election without
depending on grown-ups for any-
thing."
-"I can't say that none of us
read books, but certainly we
weren't a Generation of 'Readers.
We never had to read - there was
always TV, and so we grew accus-
tomed to having our pictures pre-
sented to us, our characters de-
scribed on the screen more satis-
factorily . . . than five pages of
adjectives."
Sometimes, Maynard's percep-
tions of our generation hit home
but most of the time I don't see
myself nor my friends in her all-
encompassing "we". And in the
end of "Looking Back" she apolo-
gizes "for saying 'we' all through
this book, when there are so many
people I've no right to speak for"
a generation can't be general-
ized about.'

I

sion witLi scores ( t1 U .e mur- izedabout.
mur "730-how awful!'" in earshot Joyce Maynard, sits on the front
of those who 'gof '500s")-May- jacket of her book, peering wist-
nard's memory is keen. Sadly she fully out from underneath thick
is unwilling to let it work. Her book bangs, her leg tucked against her
is not a confession; rather its sub- chest, her big, brown innocent-
titled: "A Chronicle of Growing looking eyes opened wide. She
up Old in the Sixties". Instead of has sold out to be published and
a perceptive memoir of Maynard's rich' and famous and she knows
life in Durham, New Hampshire, 'it. And I am still jealous.

mm

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EMA II -TONIGHT ONLY
FRENCH SUNDAY CINEMA'



pioneers of
modern painting
AN UNUSUAL SERIES OF NEW FILMS ON ART

MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S 1969
The third of Rohmer's moral tales in which he contends with how man acts in the
context of his world and how men reveal themselves in their relationships. "By
far the best picture in the entire competition (Academy Awards, 1972) " An-
drew Sarris, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Francoise Fabian. Subtitled.
sun, sept23 ud a angell hall 7:00 and 9:00 $1.00
NEXT WEEK: Francois Truffaut's TWO ENGLISH GIRLS
aud a angell hall in collaboration with Ann Arbor Film Coop

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RESERVE YOUR SERIES
SUBSCRIPTION NOW!

Written and narrated by LORD KENNETH CLARK,
originator of the "Civilization" series

SCHEDULE
Two Showings Each Evening: 7 and 9 p.m.

Monday, October 1

Wednesday, October 3

Edouord Manet-Paul Cezanne
Monday, October 8 Wednesday, October 10
Claude Monet-George Seurat
Monday, October 15 Wednesday, October 17
Henri Rousseau-Edvard Munch
ALL lHOWINGS IN THE MODERN LANGUAGES BUILDING,
across from the Rackham Buildina and Washinaton Street. on the

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Series Subscriptions: Adults, $6; Students, $5;
Only series tickets will be sold in advance
Purchase Tickets by mail with the c o u p o n below or during
selected hours at: the Museum of Art, 525 S. State Street (763-
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