Infinite Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff by Michael Nesmith

Author:Michael Nesmith [Nesmith, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781101907504
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2017-04-17T21:00:00+00:00

Kathryn and I concentrated on setting up a record-distribution company and getting The Prison out as our first release. Because it was a curious piece, to say the least, the going was slow and arduous. The pushback from the press had been devastating; the reviews were aggressively disdainful or cruelly dismissive. But the hippie community I had been orbiting was enthusiastic and embraced the work. Those who enjoyed it needed no rationale, and they were encouraging in their enjoyment. Hope sprang.

We had not managed to sell any records to speak of, only a few hundred, and it looked as if a concert presentation might help open the work to wider appreciation. I decided that I should figure out a way to perform the piece live. This would be difficult, since the work required careful listening and reading at the same time to get the full intended effect. I tried to solve the problem with a presentation where I would read the story and then sing the songs in the interstices of the storytelling. It was a clumsy fix, but it connected with the hippie-yogi culture. I tried it out at a small college north of San Francisco in a presentation that Jots set up. The reaction was very positive, and this gave me more hope.

I decided to try using a dance troupe that would perform to the music, and maybe there would be some way to make that work with the prose as well. I would read the book, the dancers would dance, the songs would inspire, and perhaps all would be fine.

I found the choreographer Carlos Carvajal and his dance troupe in San Francisco, set up a concert performance of The Prison at the Palace of Fine Arts, and began regular rehearsals with them. Even though it felt natural to me, the rehearsals revealed something amiss, ungrounded. I started to feel there was something missing that I could not provide.

I was in my late twenties, and on top of my flagging confidence in The Prison as a play, my mother was beside herself with worry about me and my future, especially now that the counterculture bus had made a stop at my studio. Had it not been for the fact that she liked The Prison, she might have tried to persuade me to leave the arts and show business behind and join her in the office-supply business, but she didn’t. Her marriage was coming apart as well by then and she said she had found some comfort in listening to and reading The Prison.

However, her enjoyment of it did not lessen her reluctance to accept into her life the yogis who had wound their way into mine. Her Carmel visits did become more regular, and our discussions more pointed. She was certain that the hippie element was not spiritual or even cultural but political at its root, and that it was bad for America—and she began to aggressively push this idea. She rejected their spiritual teachings out of hand and encouraged me to stay with her religion and politics.

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