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1968 (Forty years later...)

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southendmd:
Thanks for the good cry, Elle.  I had never heard that before. 

I wonder if Ted wrote that himself.

Ellemeno:

--- Quote from: southendmd on June 03, 2008, 08:53:35 am ---Thanks for the good cry, Elle.  I had never heard that before. 

I wonder if Ted wrote that himself.

--- End quote ---


I don't know.  It's really noble though.  What a funny, incredible mix those Kennedys are.  I was also going to post Bobby's lovely speech about John at the Democratic convention, and Bobby's speech to the crowd telling that Martin Luther King had just died.  I'll go look now.  Thank you YouTube.

Ellemeno:
Bobby Kennedy's tribute to his brother John at the 1964 Democratic Convention

(I'm still looking for a film of this.  I haven't seen it for a few years, but I remember the most exquisite looks passing over Bobby's face as he sees the manifested love for his brother John from the Convention delegates.)

Mr. Chairman, I wish to speak just for a few moments.

I first want to thank all of you, the delegates to the Democratic National Convention and the supporters of the Democratic Party, for all that you did for President John F. Kennedy.

I want to -- I want to -- I want to express my appreciation to you for the effort that you made on his behalf at the convention four years ago, the efforts that you made on his behalf for his election in November of 1960, and perhaps most importantly, the encouragement and the strength that you gave him after he was elected President of the United States.

I know that it was a source of the greatest strength to him to know that there were thousands of people all over the United States who were together with him, dedicated to certain principles and to certain ideals.

No matter what talent an individual possesses, no matter what energy he might have, no matter what -- how much integrity and honesty he might have, if he is by himself, and particularly a political figure, he can accomplish very little. But if he's  sustained, as President Kennedy was, by the Democratic Party all over the United States, dedicated to the same things that he was attempting to accomplish, you  can accomplish a great deal.

No one knew that really more than President John F. Kennedy. He used to take great pride in telling the trip that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison made up the Hudson River in 1800 on a botanical expedition searching for butterflies; that they ended up down in New York City and that they formed the Democratic Party.

He took great pride in the fact that the Democratic Party was the oldest political Party in the world, and he knew that this linkage of Madison and Jefferson with the leaders in New York combined the North and South, and combined the industrial areas of the country with the rural farms -- that this combination was always dedicated to progress.

All of our Presidents have been dedicated to progress: with Thomas Jefferson in the Louisiana Purchase, and when Thomas Jefferson also realized that the United States could not remain on the Eastern Seaboard and sent Lewis and Clark to the West Coast; of Andrew Jackson; of Woodrow Wilson; for Franklin Roosevelt who saved our citizens who were in great despair because of the financial crisis; of Harry Truman who not only spoke but acted for freedom.

So that when he [John F. Kennedy] became President he not only had his own principles or his own ideals but he had the strength of the Democratic Party. So that when he President he wanted to do something for the mentally ill and the mentally retarded; for those who were not covered by Social Security; for those who were not receiving an adequate minimum wage; for those who did not have adequate housing; for our elderly people who had difficulty paying their medical bills; for our fellow citizens who are not white who had difficulty living in this society. To all this he dedicated himself.

But he realized also that in order for us to make progress here at home, that we had to be strong overseas, that our military strength had to be strong. He said one time, "Only when our arms are sufficient, without doubt, can we be certain" of doubt -- "without doubt, that they will never have to be employed."¹ And so when we had the crisis with the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc in October of 1962, the Soviet Union withdrew their missiles and the bombers from Cuba.

But even beyond that, his idea really was that this country should -- and this world, really, should be a better place when we turned it over to the next generation than when we inherited it from the last generation. And that's why -- And that's why with all of the other efforts that he made -- with the Test Ban Treaty, which was done with Averell Harriman, was so important to him.

And that's why he made such an effort -- And that's why he made such an effort and so was committed to the young people not only of the United States but the young people of the world.

And in all of these efforts you were there -- all of you. And when there were difficulties, you sustained him. When there were periods of crisis, you stood beside him. When there were periods of happiness, you laughed with him. And when there [were] periods of sorrow, you comforted him.

I realize that as an individual that we can't just look back, that we must look forward. When I think of President Kennedy, I think of what Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet:

When he shall die take him and cut him out into the stars and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.

And I realize as an individual and really -- I realize that as an individual even more importantly, for our political Party and for the country, that we can't just look to the past, but we must look to the future.

And so I join with you in realizing that what has been started four years ago -- what everyone here started four years ago -- that that's to be sustained; that that's to be continued.

The same effort and the same energy and the same dedication that was given to President John F. Kennedy must be given to President Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey. If we make that commitment, it will not only be for the benefit of the Democratic Party, but far more importantly, it will be for the benefit of this whole country.

When we look at this film we might think that President Kennedy once said that:

"We have the capacity to make this the best generation in the history of mankind, or make it the last."

If we do our duty, if we meet our responsibilities and our obligations, not just as Democrats, but as American citizens in our local cities and towns and farms and our states and in the country as a whole, then this country is going to be the best generation in the history of mankind.

And I think that if we dedicate ourselves, as he frequently did to all of you when he spoke, when he quoted from Robert Frost -- and said it applied to himself--but that we could really apply to the Democratic Party and to all of us as individuals -- that:

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."

Mrs. Kennedy has asked that this film be dedicated to all of you and to all the others throughout the country who helped make John F. Kennedy President of the United States.

I thank you.

Ellemeno:
Bobby Kennedy informing a crowd of mostly black supporters that Martin Luther King had just been assassinated.

(Presumably this is completely extemporaneous.  Incredibly eloquent, it is a lovely, sad tribute to the importance of bridging the differences between people.  He quotes Aeschylus to a group of people who probably didn't have a lot of education.  Is this hubris?  Or a profound respect for all people?)

Warning - after the speech is over, and after some words in Italian appear on the screen, right near the end is attached the sounds of Bobby Kennedy himself being shot, as described in the moment by the reporter who had just been interviewing Bobby as they walked through the back kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel.  If you want to avoid this, just stop watching during the silent Italian words.

[youtube=425,350]http://youtube.com/watch?v=jPYNb4ex6Ko[/youtube]

Aloysius J. Gleek:
From Elle's soberly profound, there's--the ridiculous? Well, no, it's the 60's, and it's art--

(And we'll have to go back to the sober profundity--on Friday, especially--)


From The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/arts/design/04kelley.html?hp


Alton Kelley, Poster Designer, Is Dead


Alton Kelley, 1967
Alton Kelley, whose psychedelic concert posters for artists like The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Big Brother and the Holding Company helped define the visual style of the 1960s counterculture, died on Sunday at his home in Petaluma, Calif. He was 67.



Alton Kelley, left, and his longtime collaborator, Stanley Mouse, in 1967.

Mr. Kelley and his longtime collaborator, Stanley Mouse, combined sinuous Art Nouveau lettering and outré images plucked from sources near and far to create the visual equivalent of an acid trip.



A 19th-century engraving from “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” inspired a famous poster for a Grateful Dead concert at the Avalon Ballroom in 1966 that showed a skeleton wearing a garland of roses on its skull and holding a wreath of roses on its left arm.



"Book of the Deadheads"

The Grateful Dead later adopted this image as its emblem. Mr. Kelley and Mr. Mouse also designed several of the group’s album covers, including “American Beauty” and “Workingman’s Dead.”



A Grateful Dead poster for a concert at the Sound and Light Theater in Gizeh, Egypt, designed by Mr. Kelley.

Mr. Kelley was born in Houlton, Me., and grew up in Connecticut, where his parents moved to work in defense plants during World War II. His mother, a former schoolteacher, encouraged him to study art, and for a time he attended art schools in Philadelphia and New York, but his real passion was racing motorcycles and hot rods. He applied his artistic training to painting pinstripes on motorcycle gas tanks.



A poster designed by Mr. Mouse and Mr. Kelley for a headlining appearance by Howlin' Wolf at the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, Calif., 1966.

After working as a welder at the Sikorsky helicopter plant in Stratford, Conn., he moved to San Francisco in 1964, settling into the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. With a group of friends he helped stage concerts at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nev., by the Charlatans, a electric folk-rock band. On returning to San Francisco, he became a founding member of the Family Dog, a loose confederation of artists, poets, musicians and other free spirits who put on the some of the earliest psychedelic dance concerts, first at the Longshoremen’s Hall and later at the Avalon Ballroom.



A poster designed by Mr. Mouse and Mr. Kelley.

Mr. Kelley was in charge of promoting the concerts with posters and flyers, but his drafting ability was weak. That shortcoming became less of a problem in early 1966, when he teamed up with Stanley Miller, a hot-rod artist from Detroit who worked under the last name Mouse. The two formed Mouse Studios, with Mr. Kelley contributing layout and images and Mr. Mouse doing the distinctive lettering and drafting work. Often, they took trips to the public library in a search for images from books, magazines and photographs.



A poster designed by Mr. Mouse and Mr. Kelley for a headlining appearances by Big Brother and the Holding Company and Bo Diddley, 1966.



One of their first posters, for a concert headlined by Big Brother and the Holding Company, reproduced the logo for Zig-Zag cigarette papers, used widely for rolling marijuana joints.



From the left, Victor Moscoso, Wes Wilson, Mr. Mouse, Mr. Kelley and Rick Griffin.

From 1966 to 1969, Mr. Kelley worked on more than 150 posters for concerts at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore, publicizing the most famous bands and artists of the era, among them Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Butterfield Blues Band and Moby Grape, as well as the Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, and Country Joe and the Fish. They created three posters for concerts headlined by Bo Diddley, who died on Monday.



“Kelley had the unique ability to translate the music being played into these amazing images that captured the spirit of who we were and what the music was all about,” said the Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. “He was a visual alchemist — skulls and roses, skeletons in full flight, cryptic alphabets, nothing was too strange for his imagination to conjure.”

By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: June 4, 2008

Alton Kelley, whose psychedelic concert posters for artists like the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Big Brother and the Holding Company helped define the visual style of the 1960s counterculture, died on Sunday at his home in Petaluma, Calif. He was 67.

The cause was complications of osteoporosis, said his wife, Marguerite Trousdale Kelley.

Mr. Kelley and his longtime collaborator, Stanley Mouse, combined sinuous Art Nouveau lettering and outré images plucked from sources near and far to create the visual equivalent of an acid trip. A 19th-century engraving from “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” inspired a famous poster for a Grateful Dead concert at the Avalon Ballroom in 1966 that showed a skeleton wearing a garland of roses on its skull and holding a wreath of roses on its left arm.

The Grateful Dead later adopted this image as its emblem. Mr. Kelley and Mr. Mouse also designed several of the group’s album covers, including “American Beauty” and “Workingman’s Dead.”

Mr. Kelley was born in Houlton, Me., and grew up in Connecticut, where his parents moved to work in defense plants during World War II. His mother, a former schoolteacher, encouraged him to study art, and for a time he attended art schools in Philadelphia and New York, but his real passion was racing motorcycles and hot rods. He applied his artistic training to painting pinstripes on motorcycle gas tanks.

After working as a welder at the Sikorsky helicopter plant in Stratford, Conn., he moved to San Francisco in 1964, settling into the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. With a group of friends he helped stage concerts at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nev., by the Charlatans, a electric folk-rock band. On returning to San Francisco, he became a founding member of the Family Dog, a loose confederation of artists, poets, musicians and other free spirits who put on the some of the earliest psychedelic dance concerts, first at the Longshoremen’s Hall and later at the Avalon Ballroom.

Mr. Kelley was in charge of promoting the concerts with posters and flyers, but his drafting ability was weak. That shortcoming became less of a problem in early 1966, when he teamed up with Stanley Miller, a hot-rod artist from Detroit who worked under the last name Mouse. The two formed Mouse Studios, with Mr. Kelley contributing layout and images and Mr. Mouse doing the distinctive lettering and drafting work. Often, they took trips to the public library in a search for images from books, magazines and photographs.

“Stanley and I had no idea what we were doing,” Mr. Kelley told The San Francisco Chronicle last year. “But we went ahead and looked at American Indian stuff, Chinese stuff, Art Nouveau, Art Déco, Modern, Bauhaus, whatever.”

One of their first posters, for a concert headlined by Big Brother and the Holding Company, reproduced the logo for Zig-Zag cigarette papers, used widely for rolling marijuana joints.

“We were paranoid that the police would bust us or that Zig-Zag would bust us,” Mr. Mouse said.

From 1966 to 1969, Mr. Kelley worked on more than 150 posters for concerts at the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore, publicizing the most famous bands and artists of the era, among them Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Butterfield Blues Band and Moby Grape, as well as the Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, and Country Joe and the Fish. They created three posters for concerts headlined by Bo Diddley, who died on Monday.

With time, Mr. Kelley’s drawing improved, and the partners virtually fused into a poster-generating unit.

“Kelley would work on the left side of the drawing table and Mouse on the Right,” said Paul Grushkin, the author of “The Art of Rock: Posters From Presley to Punk” and a longtime friend of both men. “They turned out a poster a week.”

At the time, the posters were put up on telephone poles. Everyone who attended a concert at the Avalon received a free poster advertising the next show on the way out the door. Some were sold in head shops for a few dollars. Today, mint-condition posters by Mr. Kelley and Mr. Mouse can command prices of $5,000 or more.

With the waning of the 1960s, Mr. Kelley and Mr. Mouse diversified. They formed Monster, a T-shirt company, in the mid-1970s. They also designed the Pegasus-image cover for the Steve Miller album “Book of Dreams” and several albums for Journey in the 1980s.

In their final collaboration, in March of this year, they contributed the cover art for the program at the induction ceremony at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On his own, Mr. Kelley designed posters and created hot-rod paintings that he transferred to T-shirts.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Kelley is survived by three children, Patty Kelley of San Diego, Yossarian Kelley of Seattle and China Bacosa of Herald, Calif.; two grandchildren; and his mother, Annie Kelley, and a sister, Kathy Verespy, both of Trumbull, Conn.

“Kelley had the unique ability to translate the music being played into these amazing images that captured the spirit of who we were and what the music was all about,” said the Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. “He was a visual alchemist — skulls and roses, skeletons in full flight, cryptic alphabets, nothing was too strange for his imagination to conjure.”



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