I mentioned over the weekend that, while watching Gimme Shelter, I was struck by how little sense we get of the Rolling Stones as a group of people. Not so much when they are onstage, because I always sort of knew that what we saw up there was "The Rolling Stones" rather than Mick, Keith, Charlie, Bill, and Brian/Mick/Ron--there are bands who have a performance persona, and there are bands who are up there being pretty much themselves, and I am cool with both (even though I seem to prefer the latter.)

No, it was the offstage stuff that was a little unsettling, like they never ever let their guard down around the cameras.

It occurred to me that a really good example of the opposite reaction is (of course) Festival Express. I mean--every time I watch that damn movie I feel bad about Janis Joplin all over again, because she is just so darned likable.

Also, as I commented during the cake-eating party, when she breaks out that raucous, exuberant wail on the beginning of "Cry Baby"--well, imagine you were out there in the audience on a hot summer night, and it was dark, and you were a bit high, and suddenly there was a light and that voice coming from the stage. You'd be apt to think, "That must be God! And she likes us!"

Also, while re-watching the movie last night for the God-knows-how-manyth time, it also occurred to me that, while the Stones were really good in the Madison Square Garden footage from Gimme Shelter--The Band could kick all their asses. I don't know if everything really does sound better with keyboards, or if it was just the natural tension caused by simmering hatred under the surface (I don't even know if there was simmering hatred at that point) but wow, The Band was much more exciting on the Festival Express stage than the Stones were at Madison Square Garden.

YMMV, of course.

Janis, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Pigpen. What do they all have in common? Yes, they're all dead, but I think they also all died at the age of twenty-seven.

I can't be the only person who is a little superstitious about musicians and that age, am I? For instance, I have no reason to believe, say, that Matt Mays is either self-destructive or particularly careless, but I have to admit that last summer I felt a little flutter of relief when I realized he'd made it safely to his twenty-eighth birthday.

It's not just me, is it?

I just noticed a thread on a message board about a TV game show called Moment Of Truth. I think it's new this season. I have been meaning to mention that, when the previews started, I took in the questions being asked and thought, "How could you possibly expect someone to answer a question like that on television? It would be so demeaning."

Then I thought, "Yes, but the contestants put themselves into that situation on purpose, so it's not like they deserve my pity."

And then I thought, "No, the one I would feel sorry for would be me, watching such a spectacle."

And then I realized, "But if I did, I would not deserve my pity either."

So I avoid the show assiduously, and feel a certain gratitude that it seems I have standards after all. I mean, they are low, and flexible, but apparently they're there.

Yes, there's another chapter summary/critique up over at crevette's journal.

No time for commenting. Too busy reading.

...I was unacquainted with The Eye Of Argon, reputedly the worst science fiction story ever written.

According to green_knight, the author was sixteen at the time, which does not temper my amusement but certainly wins my sympathy. I'm fairly sure I wrote stuff just as bad--although not in the same genre--when I was that age.

He certainly does know a lot of words, though.

(Incidentally--the first time I laid eyes on the author of Heroes of Destiny, I assumed he was a teenager as well. When I learned he was ten years older than I'd initially thought, I became a lot less hopeful about his potential to ever write anything readable.)

I've had an unusual number of visitors today, and according to my sitemeter the majority of hits are on either the post about The Eye Of Argon--or the one with the pictures of the Grateful Dead on horseback.

And now I feel guilty so--yes, I stole the pictures in that post from the Grateful Dead's Web site. I couldn't help myself. They were too cute not to. I mean, the face on Jerry Garcia's horse! The expression of common sense on Weir's Appaloosa!

(Although it could have been worse--when I noticed my first recorded visitor from Oakland, I started to feverishly wonder whether I had said anything to really piss off the Hell's Angels!) (Not that my brain has been warped by the videos I've been watching lately or anything.)

Ahem. As you were.