Pill Box

Below I present the full text of a statement given to a student reporter who is working on an article on the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and the issue of birth control. As a result of having trouble arranging a time to meet, I prepared this statement and emailed it to her. Comments are, of course, welcome:

The so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s is a misconception, largely because whenever anyone refers to the so-called “Sixties,” they are almost always referring to the end of the Sixties, the period 1967-1970, a consequence of the extensive media coverage of the first “Human Be-In” at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in January 1967, which introduced hippie culture to genteel, middle-class America. The hippies were what was then called “sexually liberated,” but actually were a very small percentage of the American population, which I assure you did not participate in the presumed “sexual revolution” of the Sixties. In general, American culture remained as Puritanical as it always had been. The Sixties “sexual revolution” was, in reality, a consequence of the widespread introduction of the antibiotic penicillin after 1945, the result of which removed all fear of venereal disease. In effect, you could have sex with whomever you wanted because there was no reason any longer to fear sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis. If you look at the statistics available from the Centers for Disease Control on live birth rates among American women, births among unmarried women compromised 4% of live births in the United States in 1950, up from 3% in 1930. In 1969, at the presumed “height” of the 1960s, that number had climbed to 10%, an increase of only 6% in 20 years (but more than double the increase 1930-1950). One may assume that if there had been a real "sexual revolution," the resulting libertine atmosphere would have prompted a sizable increase in births to unmarried women, which is not borne out by the facts. I suppose one could argue that the birth rate among unwed mothers did not increase as drastically as it could have because of the introduction of the first oral birth control contraceptive in 1960—“the Pill.” But this claim is false. The Pill had virtually no impact on live birth rates among unmarried women during the decade of the 1960s for the simple reason that the Pill was not made (legally) available to unmarried women in all fifty states until 1972. In contrast, preliminary data indicate that in 2008, 40.6% of all live births were to unmarried women. Thus, despite the existence of both contraceptives and of legalized abortion, in the 40 years 1970-2010, births to unmarried women have increased by over 30%, or roughly 15% every twenty years, more than double the 6% rise during the period 1950-1970. If you wish to speak of a sexual revolution, you really need to date it from 1945, as a trend that began after World War II and the introduction of antibiotics such as penicillin.

My Bird Sings Sweetly

In his Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1985), Italo Calvino suggests that “melancholy is sadness that has taken on lightness,” just as “humor is comedy that has lost its bodily weight” (19). He also observes that the ancients thought the so-called “saturnine” temperament was the one “proper to artists, poets, and thinkers, and that seems true enough. Certainly literature would never have existed if some human beings had not been strongly inclined to introversion, discontented with the world as it is, inclined to forget themselves for hours and days on end to fix their gaze on the immobility of silent worlds” (52). Calvino contrasts the saturnine temperament with the mercurial one, the former “melancholy, contemplative, and solitary,” the latter, mercurial one, “inclined toward exchanges and commerce and dexterity” (52). Yet despite the fact the saturnine or solitary temperament is essential for artistic creation, and for reflection and introspection (“know thyself”), individual (private, solitary) experience is typically denied or devalued by the general culture. Roland Barthes makes the observation in Camera Lucida, “Photography cannot signify (aim at a generality) except by assuming a mask” (35). He goes to say, "Society, it seems, mistrusts pure meaning: It wants meaning, but at the same time it wants this meaning to be surrounded by a noise . . . which will make it less acute" (36). What he is talking about, it seems to me, is the way "society" (to use Barthes' term) prefers the stereotypical (the general truth) rather than the singular (the particular), in this case, the undeniable validity of solitary, contemplative experience. I think Barthes is here making the same point as Michel Leiris in his essay, "The Sacred in Everyday Life" (1938), in which Leiris uses his own past experience to argue for what he calls "the personal sacred" (the need for the sacred in a secular society). Following both thinkers, society tends to avoid the difficulty of the singular or personal, preferring general meaning instead, because the general meaning (the stereotypical) is more easily accessible and therefore "safe"--the comfort of generalities and commonly accepted truths, rather like Flaubert's “received ideas.” Hence Leiris's essay is unusual in that he is trying recover the validity of the personal, singular experience, the undeniable reality and value of his own experience, which the general culture devalues or denies. As Camera Lucida reveals, for Barthes, the value of photography is precisely its ability to capture the This, the singular, irrecoverable moment. In turn, Leiris would say that the validity of singular experience is abject, that is, is degraded (as irrelevant) by the general culture. What Leiris is trying to recover is the value of the personal (private) in human experience.

I was once told by a friend that because my astrological sign is cancer, the crab (one who carries his home on his back), my temperament is to prefer being home. I take this to mean that I'm happy to be alone, to be solitary, and I think that's probably true. Not that I'm a misanthrope, but my temperament is saturnine. I'm perfectly content to be alone because, as the title of the song by XTC says, "my bird performs." The cage is open but I have no urge to fly . . . because my bird sings sweetly. I guess you'd have to call this song by XTC my theme song.

Elfman-Burton Box Set Delayed Until April

I received an email last night informing me that the Danny Elfman and Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box Set has been delayed (again), with the ship date now early April, which I suspect is accurate. The email said, in part, ". . . we ran into some manufacturing issues in China and sadly could not get everything completed by the country's New Year. This delay added weeks to our turn around hence why we could not have the package to you by the end of this month. We have prioritized the Limited "Collectors" Box Sets and these will be delivered before the standard edition. The main piece that we are waiting to have completed is the hand crafted tin box and zoetrope." Wanting to assure buyers that the box is nearing completion, there was an attachment to the email consisting of an image of the exclusive book and USB (shown above). There was also a link to a short video that shows a sample of all the items put together:

Warner Brothers avers it will provide frequent updates and photos "showing we are still on track to deliver this item in early April." Given the delays, perhaps WB should re-title it the 26th Anniversary Box Set.

My previous post on the subject is available here.

Happy Lupercalia

Once, long ago, two days after the Ides, on February 15, there took place in Rome a mysterious ritual called the Lupercalia, one of the many festival days named on the pre-Julian calendar. According to the ancient Roman scholar M. Terentius Varro, considered a reliable source on Roman religion, the Lupercalia consisted of a sacrifice made at the Lupercal (the cave where legend has it the she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus) by the Luperci. Varro refers to a goddess named Luperca, whom he associates with the aforementioned she-wolf of Roman legend, and hence with the founding of Rome. But Ovid and Plutarch, in contrast, refer to a she-goat, suggesting for some scholars of ancient religions that no single god or goddess was necessarily associated with the festival. The ritual associated with Lupercalia is generally considered to have been a purification and fertility rite involving the sacrifice of goats and a dog. Once the sacrificed goats were dis-membered, the Luperci ran amok, lashing the participants with strips of flesh. Apparently wives were especially eager to be lashed by the Luperci with these bloody pieces of flesh, believing it promoted fertility and facilitated childbirth. (The goat-like satyr -- a later Roman conflation with Faunus, analogous to the Greek god Pan -- was to become a conventional symbol of carnal appetite.) The Lupercalia also consisted of great revelry and drinking, allowing one to infer that the birth rate in Rome significantly rose about nine months after the end of the festival, around the month of November.

No wonder, then, that the Lupercalia survived the onset of Christianity, which required a different form and a different deity, the Roman martyr (as legend has it) Saint Valentinus. (The love for which he died, however, was of a higher form, not that of Eros.) The ancient form of expenditure, ritual sacrifice, is now, of course, replaced by a different kind of expenditure, a financial one, involving the purchase of expensive diamonds and jewels, the value of which is so dear because the financial loss is so tremendous.

Mellow Yellow

In yet another development regarding the ongoing search for John Lennon's white 1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V (see the previous and related posts), Steve Barratt in the UK, having read my post which started it all, The Ballad of John and Yoko's Rolls, kindly sent me a message in connection to the past history of EUC 100C. He correctly surmised that I would be quite interested in the following picture taken in 1971 featuring EUC 100C parked next to the automobile which he now owns (center), the Mercedes-Benz 6.3 once owned by Sixties pop star Donovan. Information on JMO 9K, and the fascinating story of its restoration, is available on Steve Barratt's website.

Image taken 1971 at Arbourfield Cross, Wokingham, England

Mr. Barratt's extensively restored Mercedes is classed as one of the best right hand drive models around, and was once on display at Mercedes-Benz World in England. I have not been able to verify the assertion, but Mr. Barratt believes the driver of EUC 100C at the time of the above snap was the famous rock 'n' roll bodyguard Alf Weaver. Eric Roberts, who has been conducting extensive research on the current disposition of EUC 100C, keenly observed about the state of the white Rolls in the above picture: "The twin inlets beneath the headlights are there, but the trophy "badges" usually mounted in front of the radiator are missing. Which is odd. (These "best of show" trophies must have come with the car - they are attached to PPB 1 in Georgy Girl.)" For images of the car as it appeared in Georgy Girl (1966), see the video attached to the previous blog post below.

Like many of us, Mr. Barratt wants to find out the current whereabouts of EUC 100C, but he has a slightly different motivation: he would love to arrange to have a photo of JMO 9K taken next to EUC 100C again, thus reuniting the two famous vehicles after forty years. Mr. Barratt says, "Hopefully the current owner [of EUC 100C] should take me seriously when I find him and ask him about having a picture taken after forty years."

I for one would love to see it happen.

Postscript: Interestingly, the car worth the most money in the picture in today's market is the car at the far right, a Shelby. Apparently it is now worth a fortune, but was not so in 1971.

Special thanks to Steve Barratt for permission to reproduce the above photograph.

Ballad of EUC 100C

Frequent guest blogger Eric Roberts has assembled a short informational clip featuring images of the 1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V once owned by John Lennon, license plate EUC 100C, the whereabouts of which remain an ongoing search. The video, available below, consists of extracts from four archival sources:

1. Georgy Girl, 1966

2. ITN NEWSREEL, December 1985

3. DUTCH TV NEWSREEL, Amsterdam Bed-In for Peace, 1969

4. BALLAD OF JOHN & YOKO Music Clip, 1969

This video is presented for informational purposes only. Copyright is retained by the respective owners of the material.

During the first months of 1966 in London, a hire company in Chelsea supplied the latest model Rolls Royce for the film Georgy Girl (filmed approximately January – March 1966, released the summer of 1966) starring Lynn Redgrave, James Mason, Alan Bates, and Charlotte Rampling. Shot in black and white, it is impossible to tell the color of the Phantom V, which plays a prominent supporting role in the film. Later the same year, around the time he met Yoko Ono, Lennon purchased this particular 1965 Phantom V from the hire firm. He ordered it to be re-sprayed and reupholstered in pristine white, and at the same time, an 8-track stereo, mobile phone system and polarized windows were installed.

Please note: The number plate of the Phantom V in Georgy Girl is PPB1. Rob Geelen left the confirmation of this on the International Movie Car Database forum: "1965 Rolls Royce Phantom V Limousine By H. J. Mulliner, Park Ward design 2003 5VD63, delivered May 65 to to Patrick Barthropp Ltd., registered PPB1, and used in the movie Georgy Girl (UK, 1966), and subsequently by the Beatles. So not ordered new by Lennon."

When in 1971 John and Yoko decided to settle in New York City, virtually everything they owned was left behind at Tittenhurst Park, including, presumably, their white 1965 Rolls Royce. Ringo Starr acquired Tittenhurst Park from Lennon in September 1973 and lived there until early 1988. At the end of 1985, EUC 100C was put up for a charity auction organized by Christies of London. It was withdrawn from sale and has not been seen in public since.

After moving to New York, it appears that Lennon and Ono acquired a right hand drive white Phantom V to replace EUC 100C. Since 1999, Lennon's American Phantom V has been one of the main attractions in the Tebo Auto Collection in Colorado, USA.

For more about EUC 100C and the search for its current whereabouts please visit: http://www.60x50.com/search/label/John%20Lennon.