Household furnishings, 1968 style.

On the TV: Cissy of “Family Affair” gets hip to 1968.

Could Spock be rejecting trippy space psychedelia?

Bewitching.

Pop culture artifacts, 1968.

“Arms Up” 1.0

“Arms Up” 2.0

Jane Fonda is “Barbarella”.

The exhibit was originally mounted by the Minnesota Historical Society, where my  sister-in-law, Wendy, is Head of Museum and Education Programs (if it were up to me, I’d just tell you Wendy invented 1968).

There’s plenty to see at the Oakland Museum, including the first retrospective of graphic novelist, Daniel Clowes, a 1960’s protest poster exhibit, and Oakland’s great permanent collections.

After August 19th, the exhibit heads off for dates in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and St. Louis, through 2014. Highly recommended.

Read more about this year’s history in Mark Kurlansky’s book, 1968: The Year That Rocked the World.

All photos by Jay F. Miller.

Dirty Frank’s Bar, 347 Pine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102,  215.732.5010

Clifford Clinton created his forest oasis during the Great Depression in 1935. Inspired by the family’s tradition of service, he created a world “… of imagination, dreams and whimsy—away from the troubles that we hope can be left at the door for just a short while.”

Ray Bradbury, Jack Kerouac, Robert A. Heinlein, Jerry Leiber and Walt Disney have all been loyal patrons. (This fantasy forest was completed twenty years before Disneyland.)

Check before you go—Clifton’s is under restoration. This year the Clinton family sold Clifton’s to luxury night club creator Andrew Meieran. His plans for preservation offer some hope—he transformed the old downtown powerhouse into the very nice
Edison nightclub.

Meieran will be adding a speakeasy, a cocktail bar and more, but also promises to restore Clifton’s original facade and old time charm, including re-creating the Water Wheel,
Old Tree Wishing Well, Limeade Springs, Sherbet Mine, and the long-employed greeter—a stuffed raccoon.   “All existing historic fabric will be thoughtfully and carefully retained—including the Chapel, the Waterfall and Brook, … the Redwood trees and Terraces—the elements that have made Clifton’s an institution for so many decades.”

Magically kitchy, Clifton’s Cafeteria is worth a special visit.
Clifton’s Cafeteria, 648 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014, telephone: 213.627.1673.

Check out the panarama the L.A. Times created for Clifton’s Cafeteria.

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UPDATE:
#thejellostays
After a four year restoration, Clifton’s Cafeteria  will conduct it’s preview celebration on September 17, 2015 and reopens October 1st. Let’s cross our fingers. The Los Angeles Conservancy has already praised Andrew Meieran’s preservation of Clifton’s ground floor and mezzanine and there’s been a lot of good press in the LA area.
And the jello? Yes, #thejellostays.

On a recent trip to L.A., I took the exit off Interstate 5 to Bakersfield. For most folks it’s not exactly a destination, but for me it was a pilgrimage. I was going to Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace.

In the 1930s, Bakersfield was the land of the Dustbowl Okies. It was Woody Guthrie’s this-land-is-your-land America. The Okies descended on Bakersfield, desperate to find jobs in the oil and lettuce fields. With them they brought their tradition of old-timey country music.

This is where the twang of the hard-drinking Bakersfield Sound evolved. While Nashville was recording lush string arrangements with crooners like Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline, the Bakersfield Sound was cutting through the bar-din of local honky tonks with a plaintif steel guitar and the twang of the Telecaster.

Buck Owens moved from Texas in 1951 to play the Bakersfield honky tonk circuit. He soon landed a guitar gig at the hardscrabble Blackboard Cafe with Bill Woods, the father of the Bakersfield Sound.

Buck made a name for himself and stepped forward to form his own band, The Buckaroos, featuring Telecaster genius, Don Rich. The 1960s was Buck’s decade, with Ringo Starr covering Act Naturally and Ray Charles covering Cryin’ Time, and a concert at Carnegie Hall.

Buck bought the local radio station, KUZZ, produced records and hosted TV’s HeeHaw with Roy Clark. In 1996 he created his personal country music hall, The Crystal Palace.

Merle Haggard grew up in a trailer a mile away in Oildale, California. He was just one of the Okies’ kids of the 1940s who embraced the Bakersfield Sound. His first hit was Okie from Muskogee in 1969.

Today, Brad Paisley and Dwight Yokum carry the torch. Homer Joy’s The Streets of Bakersfield became a #1 Billboard smash hit for Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam in 1988 and Starr and Owens cut a new version of Act Naturally in 1989.

There were a few urban pioneers back then. One bright spot on South Street was a shop whose walls were covered inside and out with fanciful mirrored mosaics and drawings on ceramic. The Eyes Gallery imported South American molas, masks and ceramics, and its’ mosaics created a lively spirit amidst the urban decay.

Much to my delight 0n a rare walk down South Street this past winter, everywhere I looked I found those same fanciful mosaics I’d remembered. Big mosaics on alley walls, building fronts and door stoops. Not only had South Street become an urban shopping and entertainment destination, the mosaic magic had grown way beyond the old gallery storefront and into the whole neighborhood.

It was on this walk I discovered the ultimate expression of this great extravagance—a complete multi-level garden full of sculpture and imagination. While Isaiah Zagar, the mosaic artist and husband of the Eyes Gallery owner, was decorating surfaces throughout his neighborhood, he’d also spent fourteen years excavating and decorating tunnels and grottos on a three thousand square foot vacant lot next to his studio on South Street.

In 2004 the owner of the lot was ready to sell.  Fearful of losing their treasure, the neighborhood bought the property and created the nonprofit Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, and dedicated themselves to preserving Isaiah’s garden and his other prolific mosaics on South Street. And now Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens is open to amaze every day of the year with tours, workshops and events.

John Ehn’s cement and paint pioneers are politically incorrect, sometimes violent, always full of wit and more than a little creepy.

Like S.P. Dinsmoor’s Garden Of Eden in Lucas, Kansas (I might get to those photos soon), John Ehn populated his story-filled setting with lively and foreboding pioneer spirits—complete with their own ominous Boot Hill epitaphs.

Three years after the self-taught artist’s death in 1981, they’d been designated a state cultural landmark, but that was no assurance that they would be protected from city development.  An airport expansion soon threatened them and they were miraculously moved out of harm’s way to a grotto 26 minutes away behind the stables at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, just a half hour west of Hollywood on Highway 101 and where they can be seen today.

There are easily more than 50 pieces, and some of the cement inhabitants are on fully decorated and very heavy bases. No one seems to know who undertook the arduous task of moving these heavy characters, or even who maintains them to this day.

Check out Part 1 if you missed it—complete with photos of the Wright models on display.

It’s the Marin County Civic Center, a sprawling, low-slung building with it’s blue roof and golden spire, set deep into the hills of Marin.

It was Frank Lloyd Wright’s last commission and his only civic building—and it’s celebrating it’s 40th anniversary this year. I’d passed by a number of times, but this time I had the presence of mind and a little extra time to stop and explore.

This post is part one. It hints at the original models and historical documents on display at the civic center that describe how the project got off the ground—and how it nearly met a terrible demise.

Watch for Part 2, a photo essay that explores more of Frank Lloyd Wright’s last commission.

A project recently brought me close enough to my alma mater in Philadelphia
to make a side trip.  The trip was extended by several winter storms of historical
magnitude, allowing a lengthened odyssey of DADA art, medical monstrosities,
colossal columns, mirrored cities, an art heist, great beer and fine dining
—mostly in the form of cheese steaks.  Much more later.

© jay f. miller creative  2011-2019