Mimi Farina, modeling ski fashions

[Mark Kohut]

What year was this, Kai? 

--- On Sun, 10/18/09, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:

> From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> Subject: Mimi Farina, modeling ski fashions
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Date: Sunday, October 18, 2009, 8:02 AM
> 
> ... The Diggers had announced a Halloween event of their
> own, so there
> were three places to go that Monday night, October 31. At
> California Hall
> there was the Calliope dance with the Dead, Quicksilver,
> Mimi Farina and
> 'six authentic witches.' It was agreeably spooky. The
> balconies of the
> hall were hung with nets holding plastic baby dolls. A
> Headless Horseman
> with a flashlight shining out of his decapitated neck
> stalked the hall.
> At midnight a Giant Pumpkin wheeled Death, wearing a red
> brocade Louis
> XIV jacket, around the hall in a wheelchair while
> Quicksilver played
> 'Bo Diddley.'/ For a faithful few there was the chastened
> Acid Test
> Graduation. Pranksters were joined by reporters, including
> television
> crews and representatives of VOGUE and WOMEN's WEAR DAILY,
> a total
> of perhaps 200 people under an orange-and-white parachute
> hanging
> from the ceiling. In the absence of the Dead, music was
> provided
> by the Anonymous Artists of America, friends from La Honda
> days
> who had inherited the Buchla sound synthesizer and other
> Acid
> Test electronic equipment upon dropping out of Stanford
> University
> and deciding to learn how to play music. (...) Kesey
> delivered a
> commencement address with the same message he had been
> delivering;
> it was time to 'move on; this doesn't mean to stop taking
> acid' --
> surprise for the authorities, who were expecting a
> denunciation of
> drugs -- but to do something besides get stoned and go to
> rock
> and roll dances. (...) Kesey later revealed that he had
> consulted
> the I CHING and the verdict of the coin toss was the
> hexagram Fu:
> the Turning Point. (...) The last week in October a ski
> shop opened
> in North Beach with the Grateful Dead and a light show.
> According
> to the society page story, it was attended by Hell's Angels
> as well
> as post-debs; Joan Baez was there and so was her sister
> Mimi Farina,
> modeling ski fashions. A few blocks away on another social
> level,
> a North Beach topless bar was advertising a show called
> 'The LSD Trip':
> twelve minutes of flashing images from three film
> projectors with a
> soundtrack of rock and roll and heavy breathing, after
> which the
> topless girls came back for another set of dancing ...
> 
> (from Charles Perry's "The Haight-Ashbury. A History"
> [1984], NY 1985:
> Vintage Books, pp. 102-3, 106)
> 
> Water or Snow?
> KFL
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b-aVDy6JfQ
>      
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