Showing posts with label Late 1960s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Late 1960s. Show all posts

Excerpt (Chapter 1): The Crystal Ship

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Taken 24 December, 1968
Apollo 8 mission
Courtesy: NASA

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Christmas Eve, 1968

(Ninth revolution around the Moon)

85 hours, 44 minutes, and 58 seconds into the Apollo 8 mission, astronauts James Lovell, William Anders, and Frank Borman broadcast photographs of Earth from lunar orbit.

"The vast loneliness up here on the moon is awe-inspiring...makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth," says Lovell. "The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space."

"We are now approaching lunar sunrise," Anders says. "For all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message..."

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth..."



Taken 24 December, 1968
Apollo 8 mission
Courtesy: NASA

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(Santa Monica, California)

I’m sprawled out in the work room with Levi, a some-time clerk at The Crystal Ship and a drug dealer on the Strip.

Excerpt (Chapter 1): Blue Moons

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From Apollo 8: December 24, 1968
Photo courtesy of NASA (Blue tint added by webmaster)

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Christmas Eve, 1968
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(2001 Ivar Street, Hollywood, California)

Blue Moons.

Black dots from the linoleum rise up and float, planets bursting into blue, red, yellow, green, purple, orange.

Birthing galaxies...

Does God feel the same awe?

Excerpt moved to Memoir Madness

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Dark Side

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December 25, 1968


(Tenth revolution around the Moon)

Christmas Day, 89:22:34. On the far side of the Moon and out of radio contact with Houston, Apollo 8's Service Propulsion System (SPS) has been ignited to accelerate it out of lunar orbit.

At 89:34:16, radio contact has been re-established with the crew.

89:34:25. Astronaut Lovell: "Please be informed there is a Santa Claus."


(Hollywood)

Far out Blue Moons.

Stoney and I don’t come down until after three–we crash for a few hours. Then, about seven, we go to Cecil’s Stand for cheeseburgers and fries.

Later we exchange presents–he gives me a jade ring and a petrified wood ashtray in psychedelic colors; I give him a blue rock. Both from The Crystal Ship. I’m not sure what he likes.

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Flying Solo

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December 1968
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Stoney left 45 minutes ago for San Francisco, to score some acid. We decided it would be best if I stayed behind–save money to buy a van.

It’s so cold in here, no heat, no one to keep me warm. I wish I could have gone with Stoney. He says he’ll be back, at the latest, by tomorrow evening.

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Decision Time

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(December 1968)

Stoney and I look at a VW van. I found my old savings passbook from Sioux City: cool! I still have $136.14 left. We need two or three hundred yet. If we don’t get the van, then maybe I’ll use the money to visit Big Brother in Pennsylvania.

I love Stoney, but I’m sick of being stoned all the time. 

Excerpt (Chapter 2): Thirteen Tabs

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(December 1968)

Stoney didn’t come home last night. I worry that he’s been busted, so I hunt all over Hollywood and Santa Monica for him. I even check with the fuzz down at L.A. County.

I find him hanging out at The Crystal Ship, flirting with his ex old lady Syndi, she hanging all over him. She’s a skinny chick with short red hair, in a pixie style popular about three years ago, all doe-eyed, and looks about 15. But there’s nothing innocent about her...

Excerpt--New Year's Eve, 1968: "Fire"

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(Hollywood, California)

The window opens to the freeway. As the sun slips behind a hill, I lean forward and breathe in. The air, still unseasonably warm, foreshadows a chill, the specter of the diminishing year only hours away.

2001 Ivar Street, our space odyssey.

Excerpt moved to Memoir Madness

New Text: Autobiography vs. Memoir

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I would never write my autobiography for public distribution.

For one thing, I'm not a famous person, nor have I accomplished any extraordinary feats or deeds. Noted people and celebrities can get away with writing about the mundane details of their lives because publishers understand that most readers will put up with the ordinary to get at the nuggets. They won't do that for Jennifer Semple Siegel or any other unknown.

Also, I did not grow up in a third-world country, served as a child soldier, or been married to a serial killer.

As a whole, my life has been rather mundane, so I would rather not bore a readership with the minutia of my day-to-day life. Let us not worship at the altar of the ordinary.

However, four and a half months of my life were somewhat extraordinary and occurred at a time when the world around me was changing, while I, too, was changing from child to young adult. I didn't exactly do any extraordinary actions, but an extraordinary event happened to me, and I reacted in a way that forever changed the course of my life.

Thus, my 415-page memoir focuses primarily on a finite period of time with some apropos flashbacks and flash forwards.

So, then, what is the difference between "autobiography" and "memoir"?

On Pub Rants, Agent Kristin differentiates between memoir and autobiography:
A memoir is a story (with a story arc not unlike what occurs in a novel) told through a prism of one particular life experience and it usually focuses on a finite period of time and not the person’s life as a whole. A memoir has crafted scenes that build on one another to reach a pivotal moment.

An autobiography has remembrances of important events throughout the author’s life and how it unfolded from that person’s unique, inside perspective. They can be separate from each other and don’t need to build to a climatic moment.
These comparison/contrast lists expand on Agent Kristin's definition:

Autobiography
  • True first person account (“I”).


  • Covers the details of the writer’s own life, from birth to the present.


  • Usually written by noted people: actors, singers, writers, politicians, artists.


  • Focuses on the autobiographer's life to this point: the events leading up to the autobiographer's professional life, defining moments, roadblocks, and accomplishments.


  • Concentrates more on facts and verifiable data (personal papers, official records, journals, letters, diaries, interviews, and newspaper and magazine articles), though personal remembrances are also important.


  • An autobiography is likely to include an extensive index.


  • Fact-checking of details is likely to be quite rigorous.
Memoir
  • True first person account (“I”).


  • Incorporates fictional story-telling techniques and offering some kind of "resolution."


  • Covers only an aspect or event of the writer’s own life and is based mostly on recollections.


  • Memoirs are written by both noted and ordinary people.


  • Usually, the aspect or event itself moves the narrative, not the person.


  • The memoirist's viewpoint can be subjective; thus, family, friends, and acquaintances may view the same event differently.


  • The memorist concentrates more on personal remembrances, though facts and verifiable data (personal papers, official records, journals, letters, diaries, interviews, and newspaper and magazine articles) are also often used as sources.


  • A memoir normally does not require an index.


  • Publishers tend to trust the memoirist's voice; fact-checking of details is likely to be minimal, although after recent "faux memoirs" (ala James Frey and Margaret Selzer), this may be soon changing.
Writing a memoir can be a satisfying and cathartic experience; it can also be acutely painful to dredge up old memories.

For me, one unexpected surprise: during the eight months (2004-2005) I wrote the first draft of I, Driven: memoir of a teen's involuntary commitment, I tended to "revert" back to being 18 years old, and, sometimes, I found it difficult to shift back to the present.

I now know, however, that was part of the process of writing a memoir.

Perhaps those who write their autobiographies also experience this phenomenon as they cruise down memory lane.
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"Autobiography vs. Memoir" is copyright 2008, Jennifer Semple Siegel.

This text may not be republished or reposted without permission.


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Outtake: The Politics of Memoir

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Jubilant Jennifer and Jeff together, Spring 1970
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Article moved to Why I Write.
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"Jennifer Juniper," Donovan Leitch, 1968 (YouTube)

Jefferson Airplane

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Jefferson Airplane: "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love"

Jefferson Airplane performing live both "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. More
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