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| Red Shoes - cellphone photo - 2024, DS. |
(Text added & revised February 9 - 15, 2025)
About the photo: It looks like it might be a reject from a fashion-photo shoot; in reality' it was anything but. Nor was it any sort of "selfie," or so I thought when I shot it.
Actually, when I first noticed the way the shadows were falling on the motel balcony that night, my first thoughts were on all the geometry that lay beneath my feet. I had to use it. Shot in just the right way, the shadows, the balcony, the railing, my feet...
well, to make a long story shorter, I think it worked. Basically, I just kept my eye on that corner in the foreground and kept shooting.
"I began to see the possibilities offered by the regular division of the plane. For the first time I dared to create compositions based on the problem of expressing endlessness within a limited plane."
I've posted the (single) money shot (above). Poised in the red shoes, I seem to be standing on a spiraling, impossible plane designed by M.C. Escher, (quoted directly above). Success! A birthday gift!
But, then, there was the matter of the red shoes. Because, apart from the pop of color the shoes provided, intuition informed me that the red shoes had more significance; perhaps, a personal one. It also occurred to me that, although I had heard references to red shoes in the past, I had never read the original fairy tale...
(Continued below the jump.)
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"... Booker T. & the M.G.'s played a handful of instrumental R&B tunes, wearing brilliant lime green suits, then they were joined by an identically attired Otis Redding who electrified the audience with his sexually charged singing style.He sang his 1965 song "Respect" which was topping the charts because of a popular new interpretation by Aretha Franklin. Redding finished with a riveting "Try a Little Tenderness". The crowd responded by standing and screaming for more. Redding had been included on the bill through the efforts of promoter Jerry Wexler, who saw the festival as an opportunity to advance Redding's career. Until that point, Redding had performed mainly for black audiences, besides a few successful shows at the Whisky a Go Go..."
The festival would be one of his last major performances: Redding died only six months later, in a plane crash, at the age of 26."
- A quote sourced from the Wiki entry for the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival which rock purists recognize as more relevant to rock music history than Woodstock, the larger and more famous festival which followed in 1969.
I found the video (above) of Otis Redding on Christmas day. It was my first gift of the holidays. In spite of his tragically short career, Redding was considered the King of Soul and it's confirmed by this stellar Monterey Pop performance. There's a few moments in the video when he extends a note in such a way it pierces your heart. Can't touch that.
Note: Redding died at age 26; a tad too soon to gain entrance into the 27 Club. Interestingly, however, also performing at Monterey were Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin... while Brian Jones wandered through the crowd. And they, like Morrison and, later, Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain, are members of that incorporeal group of rock dignitaries who died at the tender age of 27.
Otis beat them to it.
Happy New Year!
(More below the jump...)
