...LETS DANCE.............

.....Flick Colby died this week in New York , age 65..............

......... as female cultural icons from the 60's and early 70's go , maybe she wasn't up there with Edie Sedgewick , Suzie Rotolo , Anita Pallenberg , Nico or whoever , and most people wouldn't even recognise her picture........she sure as hell though meant an awful lot to males in the UK of a certain generation, me included . Dancer and choreographer, she co-founded Pan's People , the dance troupe on TOTP and gave most of us a reason to be sitting in front of the television on a Thursday night. Amateur night by todays standards they might have been , but in those far off days.........short skirts and high-heeled boots, what's not to like ?.......and we all had our favorite...................

Flick , Ruth , Dee-Dee , Louise , Babs , Cherie .............ask any male over fifty what those names mean...........pin-up girls for a generation.....................

Lets dance...................................

......................and something else from the late 60's finally resolved itself this week ; being an avid reader of AD magazine  ( Architectural  Design ) which could be fairly radical then as far as the profession was concerned , I can still remember a  particular issue from that time where , sandwiched in amongst articles on Archigram and SuperStudio, was a short three verse poem , unattributed  , that has stayed in my head ever since.......................

" All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace................" , and I never knew who by...............

Now, thanks to the current tv programmes running under the same title , I have found the author - the late Richard Brautigan........................

" I like to think ( and

  the sooner the better ! )

  of a cybernetic meadow

  where mammals and computers

  live together in mutually

  programming harmony

  like pure water

  touching clear sky.

  I like to think

        ( right now, please ! )

  of a cybernetic forest

  filled with pines and electronics 

  where deer stroll peacefully

  past computers

  as if they were flowers

  with spinning blossoms.

  I like to think

         ( it has to be ! )

  of a cybernetic ecology

  where we are free of our labours

  and joined back to nature,

  returned to our mammal

  brothers and sisters ,

  and all watched over

  by machines of loving grace . "

Flick Colby , Richard Brautigan - things seemed so much more innocent way back then.

..........let's dance.....................