.....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.....................
