Free To Do What I Want Any Old Time

Okay, so in an attempt to keep my blog from being completely barren of new posts and to tell a bit about me (I think I've been mysterious... not) I have taken the Creative Blogger Award from the lovely Kirby. I say "taken" because she kind of left it out in the open for anyone to do. I think I'm somewhat of a creative blogger, so I'm doin' it. Heh.

10 random things about me:

1. I'm what you'd call an "Army brat". That kind of conflicts with my love of '60s idols (the words "flaming liberal" fly around my house a lot, haha).

2. I have pretty recently gone vegetarian. And NO, mother, it is not strictly because of Paul McCartney.

3. I am a Texas girl at heart, and I'm currently moving back. And I don't take a particular joy in cowboy boots/hats/accents, so there's really no explanation!

4. I'm probably younger than you think. But I should have been born in 1945, so no matter.

5. I alternately call John Lennon, Jim Morrison, George Harrison, Keith Richards, and Mick Jagger my boyfriend.

6. I'm a complete nerd, and my favorite subject is social studies (history).

7. I play guitar, electric and acoustic. But I prefer acoustic. :)

8. I have seen every episode of Seinfeld. Ever.

9. I keep an autograph from Bono to my mom framed in my room. It says "Love to lovely Tracy - Bono, 1986" but I don't mind.

10. I collect Beatles paraphernalia, books on sixties counterculture, RECORDS, and... thimbles.

As for who I am nominating for the award...

My biffel Jordan at Randomly Outgoing

My other biffel Molly at Molly's Fancytastic Blog

and

My bloggy biffel (are you tired of that word yet?) Alexis at Dolly Rocker Girl

Oh, and by the way, happy birthday to Stevie Nicks!

I'm Going Up The Country

Hello lovelies-

I probably won't be posting for a bit - two weeks or more (aaaaarrgggghhh!) because I am in the process of packing and moving into a new house. I've been living in a place (Georgia) quite different from where I hail from (Texas) and I'm happily moving back. Well, I'm going to miss my friends here in what I affectionately call Jogia, but that's about it. 
Until I get back to my hard drive on the good ol' Mac, I won't be able to post big photo posts. My mom hates me taking up space on her laptop with photos and my iPhone will only post photos from URLs. Which take forever to load. Ehhh. 
Something to look forward to, though, is the 150+ BEATLES PHOTOS I scanned just before the Internet was disconnected. They're HUGE and fabulous. 
Anywho, have a great summer, bloggy people. :)

Peace and love-
K

P.S.
Happy birthday, Bob Dylan!

The Beatnik Goes On

Before there were hippies, there were Beatniks. Beatniks were followers of the Beat Generation - influential poets and authors through the late 1940s to the early '60s. Jack Kerouac came up with the "beat generation" concept - the underground, anti-conformist youth gathering in New York that he was a part of. He also related the term to the Biblical beatitudes and the hipster phrase of being "beaten down". Though at first Beatniks had a prophet-like connotation, the term came to signify a stereotype of people that, as Joyce Johnson (a Beat writer) said: "sold books, sold black turtleneck sweaters and bongos, berets and dark glasses, sold a way of life that seemed like dangerous fun—thus to be either condemned or imitated." They were anti-materialistic, soul searching people, open to drugs and a bohemian lifestyle. They hung out in smoky coffeehouses, listened to jazz and blues, were usually proficient in art or poetry, liked to dress in all-black, and had an air of mysteriousness about them. They highly influenced culture of the decades following - Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Pink Floyd took on Beatnik characteristics and morphed in to free-thinking hippies. Allen Ginsberg led the way for the conversion.

(Photos from Corbis and TFS.)

The Store Where the Creatures Meet

Themis was Pamela Courson's clothing boutique, which she ran from 1969 to 1971. She was Jim Morrison's longtime girlfriend, and to make her happy he funded the boutique. Originally they wanted to call it "Fucking Great" but for unknown reasons, Pam settled on "Themis", the name of the Greek goddess of divine order, law, and custom. The boutique had odd hours, as Themis designer Tere Tereba said: “Themis was ‘incredibly exclusive’ because it was never open. You could count on one hand the times it was open.” Despite it's exclusivity, it was filled with fanciful clothes, jewelry, and decor picked out especially by Pamela on her travels to sell occasionally. It was more of a hangout for the beautiful people. It had lots of richly colored tapestries on the walls, small mirrors and feathers on the ceiling, tie-dyed dressing room curtains, lots of candles, perfumes, incense and racks of clothes that were very European with styles that had not yet gained popularity in the U.S. Some famous people who shopped at Themis are Miles Davis, members of Three Dog Night, and Sharon Tate.
"(Themis was) a romantic poetry den- not at all like any place you would imagine being located in Southern California- more like something from Paris”. - Raeanne Rubenstein (Themis photographer)
"She mirrored the ceilings and then bought thousands of pheasant skins and layered them onto the ceiling with mirrors.  It was all padded and velvet.  Actually there weren't a lot of clothes. It was more of a place to hang out than the normal kind of shop.  There were always a lot of hip people hanging around and it reeked of dope." - Mirandi Babitz (boutique owner contemporary)
“I remember Jim wanting peacock feathers on the ceiling and Pamela wanting them on the walls. They both could not compromise so they had them on both the walls and ceiling! It’s the first thing you notice when you walked in. I think it was a genius idea. There were also many mirrors and curtains on the doorways in different colors. Pamela also had small colorful stuffed animals around. Horses, unicorns, monkeys... all over the shop... you turned a corner, out popped a unicorn. Needless to say my daughter who was two at the time loved going there. Pam always gave her a stuffed toy when we visited." - Anne Marie (Pamela's friend)

Original article featuring Themis in Show Magazine

Sharon Tate (wearing the same robe as Pamela)

Three Dog Night's album, It Ain't Easy

People wearing Themis clothing

(Photos mainly from Pamela Courson Tumblr - an absolutely amazing place! Title from "Love Street" by the Doors.)