You know when you are too tired to know what you desire. That was the whole Summer that year in Texas.
My friend was pregnant on top of it, and I was trying to mc art happenings to keep the neighborhood inspired. We were suffering for our art, we told ourselves that year.
In truth, it was simply too hot—even for art. Our minds or imaginations no longer worked. We were monkey machines going through the pre-prescribed motions of life. We weren’t really living. Not because of the heat exactly, but more due to a general malaise which it only intensified, amplified—made overtly obvious.
None of us were happy. And we were all Americans, so we were doubly unhappy that we weren’t happy. No smiles that year. No white teeth or white sneakers. We were just too hot for appearances.
We used to do outdoor cinema on the sides of buildings back then, and I remember that Summer we kept showing Lawrence of Arabia to try to take courage from a very white man making it through the desert.
That year we also worked through several several director’s whole oeuvres so we could sound smart by fall.
We did Felliini, Kurosawa, Hitchcock, several French new wave directors and threw in some New Hollywood at the end. I think we even watched American Graffiti while actually making an outdoor mural. We were ambitious, young, half naked half the time, and very hot that year. We were just being ourselves, which is enough in itself. To be or not to be was our basic existential quest. Whether in a bar or temple didnt matter to us. We just wanted to be home with ourselves, and then potentially guide people home. And, if we were lucky, the art would be good.
The best thing about that Summer was the long nights.
We sat on porches sipping rose wine from rnorthern france, and talking about all our favorite mise en scenes in every movie ever. And why they were great.
We talked a lot, but mostly at night-luquascious us. The days snuffed or smothered all possibility of intelligent conversations. Everyone had no IQ until nightfall.
Anyway, my friend was pregnant, so we didn’t see her at all during the day. She was reading Tolkien and binge watching Columbo and other reruns on Cozi -tv.

America’s nostalgia can’t go back very far, but you work with what you got, in terms of memory. Old 70’s cop shows, comedy reruns like the Honeymooners, sad episodes of Mash, which never got old….war and humor, can get you through Summer.
Well, that was that summer anyway, and she had her baby, who eventually became a poet. So, it was a good summer, despite the heat.