Beatnik Harem

            I didn’t go anywhere on Sunday. I pecked at my essay from time to time throughout the day in hopes of immersing myself in that steady stream of inspiration for an hour or so that seems to happen lately once or twice a day. It wasn’t until evening that it happened this time and I was able to rework a paragraph about William Blake’s symbolism of winter as poverty. It didn’t change the size of my paper though and so it still stands at four lines into the sixth page.

A little later I did some more work and extended it by one more line.

The light of nature is essential to the growth and well being of humanity and Blake draws attention to this by showing what life is like for those that are denied the touch of those nurturing rays. He exposes the plight of impoverished children that are forced to bear the brunt of winter cold while ironically cleaning chimneys that heat the homes of the fortunate. Starved of sunlight by an uncaring populace and held back from nature in a parentless prison of urban circumstance, these waifs are denied the joys of singing and dancing on the echoing green. Instead they sleep on beds of soot and the black stains on their heads and faces depict the darkness of the night in which they live in the day. These innocents are the most extreme example of the vulnerable poor that crouch shivering at the cold and dark bottom of a heartless class system that feeds on night and generates winter as waste.

The rural snowy season is distinguished from urban winter in his Songs of Experience poem “The Chimney Sweeper", which paints a before and after picture of a happy child playing in the pastoral snow but then transplanted to suffer as a blackened urchin bent alone against a backdrop of dirty burghal grue without the warmth of family love. In Blake’s poetry night and winter go hand in hand to represent the environment created by negative aspects of human nature. But any land where children are orphaned and poor exists in eternal winter, with no sunlight, no harvest and where the pathways are overgrown with thorns.

            I had an egg and toast with a beer for dinner while watching an episode of Peter Gunn. This story begins in Texas with a cowboy named Ross out riding when someone swings a rifle down from a tree branch, knocks him off his horse, kills him with something we can’t see and then rides off on Ross’s horse. The coroner determines the death accidental but Ross’s brother Clay doesn’t think so and so he flies to LA to hire Peter Gunn to prove his brother was murdered. Gunn dresses in western attire for this case and though he claims to be rusty on a horse, his riding doesn’t seem any choppier than that of the locals. Clay’s ranch hand Frank asks a lot of questions of Gunn and doesn’t seem to want Gunn to look too closely at Ross’s horse, which he says came back lame. Later that night Gunn goes to look at Ross’s horse and discovers that it isn’t lame but has an inflamed area on its flank. Gunn goes to the spot where Ross died and takes the rock that Ross was supposed to have fallen on. He takes the rock to the coroner who determines that the rock did not kill Ross but rather a long thin instrument driver through his eyelid and into his brain. Ross’s body was found by two miners named Luke and Phineas. Gunn goes to talk with them and nothing much comes of it but ornery old coot style comic relief. Gunn finds the long needle that both killed Ross and stabbed the horse. Ross’s widow Wilma comes to talk with Gunn and insists that Ross died accidentally. Gunn lies and tells her that Luke and Phineas saw the murderer and then he goes to see the old miners again. He convinces them to help him in a sting. Wilma must have told Frank about the miners because he goes out to their shack, sees them through the window sitting at dinner and shoots them both. But what he shot were just stuffed sacks wearing the miners’ coats and hats. Frank killed Ross because Wilma promised him a piece of the ranch for his trouble. There is a long fistfight but Gunn wins.

By the time the show ended I hadn’t finished my beer and I still wanted to have dessert and coffee and so I watched another episode.

This story begins with a marine salvage company co-owner named Moffat working late. He hears a noise and investigates. He follows flipper prints down to where the boats are and a frogman kills him with a spear gun. At Mother’s Edie Hart sings “You Brought A New Kind of Love to Me” by Sammy Fain, Irving Kahal and Pierre Norman. 

An insurance man comes to hire Gunn to investigate the theft of $260,000 worth of merchandize over the last few months and the murder of Moffat. Gunn goes to the office of Moffat and Garvin and talks with Garvin’s wife Jackie though he doesn’t know she’s his wife because of how she’s flirting with him. Garvin walks in and seems more upset over being questioned than about his wife. Gunn goes to see the local scuba expert, Jeff, who seems to be a free loving, free spirited bohemian. His three assistants are all free spirited beautiful women who are dancing happily while Jeff plays the congas. They take a liking to Gunn immediately and Jeff doesn’t seem to mind. Gunn hires Jeff to take him under water to where Moffat was killed. After that Gunn rents some equipment and goes out on his own. He finds a stash at the bottom of the river where the stolen merchandize has been hidden. Lieutenant Jacoby hires Jeff to help him get the rest but while they are there Jeff cuts his airline and tries to kill him. It turns out that Garvin is the good guy as he shows up with a partner and saves Gunn’s life. Jeff is arrested.

The only interesting episode was the second one and that’s only because of the Beatnik harem scene.

Dottie was played by Georgine Darcy, who was the dancer referred to as “Miss Torso” in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” as she practiced her moves and Jimmy Stewart spied on her and his other neighbours across the courtyard.

Olga was played by Swedish born actor Eva Lynd.

            Midge was played by men's magazine supermodel Diane Webber, who posed for every men's magazine and was Playboy Playmate of the Month twice. She was an avid nudist and posed uncovered for the covers of several magazine that promoted the lifestyle. She graced a wide selection of album covers throughout the 50s and 60s. From the end of the 60s to the end of the 80s she was a renowned belly dance performer instructor.