First, Go Ask Alice,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Ask_Alice)
Go Ask Alice
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Go Ask Alice | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Author | Anonymous (Beatrice Sparks) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Prentice Hall |
| Publication date | March 5, 1971 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 214 |
| ISBN | 0133571114 |
| OCLC Number | 164716 |
| LC Classification | PZ7 .G534 |
This article is about the book. For the health website, see Go Ask Alice!.
Go Ask Alice is a controversial 1971 book about the life of a troubled teenage girl. The book purports to be the actual diary of an anonymous teenage girl who became addicted to drugs, and is presented as a testimony against drug use. The diarist's name is never given in the book.The story caused a sensation when published and remains in print as of 2010. Revelations about the book's origin have caused much doubt as to its authenticity and factual accounts, and the publishers have listed it as a work of fiction since at least the mid-late 1980s. Although it is still published under the byline "Anonymous", press interviews and copyright records suggest that it is largely or wholly the work of its purported editor, Beatrice Sparks. Some of the days and dates referenced in the book put the timeline from 1968 until 1970.
The title is from the lyrics to the Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit". Grace Slick wrote the song based on perceived drug references in the classic novel Alice In Wonderland. (On July 14 [page 36 of the 2006 edition], the writer says she "feel[s] like Alice in Wonderland" and "maybe Lewis G. Caroll [sic] was on drugs too.")
Plot summary
An unnamed fifteen-year-old begins keeping a diary. With a sensitive, observant style, she records her thoughts and concerns about issues such as crushes, weight loss, sexuality, social acceptance, and difficulty relating to her parents.Her father, a college professor, accepts a teaching position at a different college and the family will move at the start of the new year, which cheers her up. After the move the diarist feels like an outcast at school, with no friends. She soon befriends Beth. They quickly become best friends. When Beth leaves for summer camp the diarist returns to her hometown to stay with her grandparents. She reunites with an old school acquaintance, Jill, who is impressed by the diarist's move to a larger town, and invites her to a party. At the party, glasses of soda—some of which are laced with LSD—are served. The diarist unwittingly ingests LSD and has an intense and pleasurable drug trip.
Over the following days the diarist continues friendships with the people from the party and willingly uses more drugs. She loses her virginity while on LSD. She becomes worried she may be pregnant, and her grandfather has a small heart attack. These events and the tremendous amount of guilt she feels begin to overwhelm her. She begins to take sleeping pills stolen from her grandparents. On returning home she receives sleeping pills from her doctor. When those aren't enough she demands powerful tranquilizers from her doctor. The friendship with Beth ends as both girls have moved in new directions.
The diarist meets a hip girl, Chris, when she shops at a local boutique. The diarist and Chris become fast friends, using drugs frequently. They date college boys Richie and Ted who deal drugs. They begin selling drugs for the boyfriends, passing back all the money made. One day they find the boys stoned and engaging in a sexual act. Realizing Richie and Ted were using them to make money the girls turn them in to the police and flee to San Francisco. They vow to stay away from drugs. Chris secures a job in a boutique with a glamorous older woman, Sheila. The diarist gets a job with a custom jeweler whom she sees as a father figure.
Sheila invites the girls to lavish parties where they resume taking drugs. One night Sheila and her new boyfriend introduce the girls to heroin and rape them while they are stoned. The diarist and Chris, traumatized, move to Berkeley where they open a jewelry shop. It is a small success, but the diarist misses her family. Tired of the shop, the girls return home for a happy Christmas.
Back home, the diarist finds extreme social pressures and hostility from her former friends from the drug scene. She and her family are threatened and shunned at times. Chris and the diarist try to stay away from drugs but with their resolve lapses. The diarist gets high one night and runs away. She drifts through homelessness, prostitution, hitchhiking, and homeless shelters, before a priest reunites her with her family. She returns home but she is drugged against her will, has a bad trip, and is sent to an insane asylum. Chris escapes the problems when her family moves to a new town.
The diarist finally is free of drugs. She becomes romantically involved with a student from her father's college, Joel. Relationships with her family are improving, as are friendships with some new kids in town. She is worried about starting school again, but feels stronger with the support of her new friends and Joel. She decides she no longer needs a diary; now she can communicate with her family and friends.
The epilogue explains that the diarist died three weeks later of an overdose. Whether it was premeditated or accidental remains unclear. She was one of thousands of drug deaths that year.
Then, take a moment to enjoy some music with Grace:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rabbit_(song)----"White Rabbit" is a psychedelic rock/acid rock song from Jefferson Airplane's 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow. It was released as a single and became the band's second top ten success, peaking at #8[1] on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was ranked #483 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time,[2] #27 on Rate Your Music's Top Singles of All Time and appears on The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
History
“White Rabbit” was written by Grace Slick while she was still with The Great Society. When that band broke up in 1966, Slick was invited to join Jefferson Airplane to replace their departed female singer Signe Toly Anderson who left the band with the birth of her child. The first album she recorded with Jefferson Airplane was Surrealistic Pillow, and Slick provided two songs from her previous group; her own “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” , written by Darby Slick and recorded under the title "Someone to Love" by the Great Society. Both songs became breakout successes for Jefferson Airplane and have since been associated with that band.One of Grace Slick's earliest songs, written during either late 1965 or early 1966, it includes comparisons of the hallucinatory effects of psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms, with the imagery found in the fantasy works of Lewis Carroll: 1865's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass. Events in these books, such as changing size after eating mushrooms or drinking an unknown liquid, are referenced in the song. Characters referenced include Alice, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, the White Knight, the Red Queen, and the Dormouse.
For Grace and others in the '60s, drugs were a part of mind-expanding and social experimentation. With its enigmatic lyrics, "White Rabbit" became one of the first songs to sneak drug references past censors on the radio. Even Marty Balin, Grace's eventual rival in the Airplane, regarded the song as a "masterpiece". In interviews, Grace has related that "Alice in Wonderland" was often read to her as a child and remained a vivid memory into her adult years.
Set to a rising crescendo similar to that of Ravel's famous Boléro, and having a strong Spanish influence to it, the music combined with the song's lyrics strongly suggest the sensory distortions experienced with hallucinogens, and the song was later utilized in pop culture to imply or accompany just such a state.
While the Red Queen and the White Knight are both mentioned in the song, the references are incorrect in detail. In Lewis Carroll's original text, the White Knight does not talk backward and it is the Queen of Hearts, not the Red Queen, who says "Off with her head!". The movie Alice In Wonderland (1951) often refers to the Queen of Hearts as the Red Queen.
The last lines of the song are "Remember what the Dormouse said. Feed your head. Feed your head." and do not explicitly quote the Dormouse as is often assumed. "Remembering what the Dormouse said" probably refers to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", Chapter XI 'Who Stole the Tarts', wherein a very nervous Mad Hatter is called to testify:
"'But what did the Dormouse say?' one of the jury asked."It is therefore better to say that the lyrics were inspired by the book, rather than referencing them directly.
"'That I can't remember', said the Hatter."
And now, Last, but most certainly not least, meet my Alice
What would "go ask" Alice have survived to experience? is it so much better? Ask MY Alice;)
References for Alice video:
- "Salt of the Earth" 1954: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_of_the_Earth)
Salt of the Earth (1954) is an American drama film written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. All had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their involvement in communist politics.[1]
The movie became a historical phenomenon and has a cult following due to how the United States establishment (politicians, journalists, studio executives, and some trade unions) dealt with it. Salt of the Earth is one of the first pictures to advance the feminist social and political point of view.
The film centers on a long and difficult strike led by Mexican-American and Anglo miners. It is based on the real-life 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico; in the film, the company is identified as "Delaware Zinc", and the setting is "Zinctown, New Mexico". The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike. In neorealist style the producers and director used actual miners and their families as actors in the film.
"How shall I begin my story that has no beginning? My name is Esperanza, Esperanza Quintero. I am a miner's wife. This is our home. The house is not ours. But the flowers... the flowers are ours. This is my village. When I was a child, it was called San Marcos. The Anglos changed the name to Zinc Town. Zinc Town, New Mexico, U.S.A. Our roots go deep in this place, deeper than the pines, deeper than the mine shaft..."
- "Girl From Ipanema" Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, 1964 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_From_Ipanema)
"The Girl from Ipanema" ("Garota de Ipanema") is a well known bossa nova song, a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s that won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Portuguese lyrics by Vinicius de Moraes with English lyrics written later by Norman Gimbel.[1]
The first commercial recording was in 1962, by Pery Ribeiro. The version performed by Astrud Gilberto, along with João Gilberto and Stan Getz, from the 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, became an international hit, reaching number five in the United States pop chart, number 29 in the United Kingdom, and charting highly throughout the world. Numerous recordings have been used in films, sometimes as an elevator music cliché (for example, near the end of The Blues Brothers). Ipanema is a neighborhood located in the southern region of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
In 2004, it was one of 50 recordings chosen that year by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.
- "Roxanne" The Police, 1974 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxanne_(song) )
Police lead singer Sting wrote the song, inspired by the prostitutes he saw near the band's seedy hotel while in Paris, France in October 1977 to perform at the Nashville Club. The title of the song comes from the name of the character in the play Cyrano de Bergerac, an old poster of which was hanging in the hotel foyer.
Sting had originally conceived the song as a bossa nova, although he credits Police drummer Stewart Copeland for suggesting its final rhythmic form as a tango. During recording, Sting accidentally sat down on a piano keyboard in the studio, resulting in the atonal piano chord and laughter preserved at the beginning of the track.[1] The Police were initially diffident about the song, but Miles Copeland III was immediately enthusiastic after hearing it, becoming their manager and getting them their first record deal with A&M Records. The single did not chart at first, but it was re-released in April 1979 and reached #12 in the UK and #32 in the U.S., and went on to become one of the classic Police songs as well as a staple of Sting's performances during his solo career. Roxanne has appeared on every single one of The Police's Greatest hits albums.
Rolling Stone ranked it #388 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
This was also the appropriately first song the band performed live (at the 2007 Grammy Awards) to kick off their 30th Anniversary Reunion Tour.
Rapper Cam'ron sampled "Roxanne" for his single "What Mean The World to You".
Eddie Murphy (as convict Reggie Hammond) is found singing "Roxanne" in his prison cell in the movie 48 Hrs. (1982)
The song was one of the many remixed covers in the film Moulin Rouge!, named "El Tango de Roxanne".
The Arctic Monkeys song 'When The Sun Goes Down', refers to Roxanne in the lyrics, and he told Roxanne to put on her red light.
- "The Third Man" dir. Carol Reed, 1949 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_third_man)
The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard.
The scenes used from this film, are actually recreations I made myself, shot by shot, out of 3-d paper forms.
- Alice herself is a character I made up. I animated her going through some of the daily, mundane tasks that I've seen myself and the women around me rotely go through, as a comment on the increasingly powerful frustration I feel at watching so many of the people around me(women esp.) go through their day to day feeling cheated, run down and used, to only have to wake up the next day, and start the whole goddamn thing all over again . The mechanism of the video feed(the actual singular phrase of the video all together is 6 seconds long in total)continues looping after that. As the video repeats the viewer's mind will have to grapple with this fact, and so as time passes, the mind processing this information will reveal different aspects/details as she/he has time for the loop to start filtering into some comprehension and meaning. On another note, this is also why most of my video's loop. You can't possibly have enough time to look at a video(which often times the individual has never seen before), appreciate its aesthetic and all of the complex pieces that make it up, process the visual content and context and still have time to ponder the depths of its meaning, if you're watching a video play once on a screen somewhere. For me that is a great tragedy and insult to the videomaker, especially because it denies the viewer the pleasure of interacting fully with a medium which speaks her visual motion picture language, which is so regularly cultivated in most people's daily lives. After all, repetition is very purposeful for learning complex things. So repetition of images you can identify with, sounds you've innately submerged in popular music culture, speaking in a language of visuals and motion that are both familiar and comforting, yet cynical and dark(in my opinion)...repeated so the viewer can stand and/or sit as long as they need with it, feels to me like a piece of work that is openly accessible and engaging for a wonderfully broad and open network of viewers(which are the kind of terms I like to communicate with).
As far as the particulars of the imagery& select audio& sound chosen for Alice, I'd like to draw some attention to the "I have never had some" line from Salt of the Earth, and the connection to the psychedelia references in the Jefferson Airplane&"Go Ask" Alices. I wont say more than this, please watch the "Welcome to MAPS" video on this homepage:
http://www.maps.org/home/
and this
and this
****** A Note on Bossa Nova******
I am very much aware of the common musical threads between "White Rabbit","Roxanne" and "Girl from Ipanema". I myself am half Colombian and grew up very much listening to different woven musical styles, if you want to know more about Bossa Nova, Bolero, Samba, Tango and the other immeasurable contributions Latin musical culture has made(esp. in popular "American" music culture) please investigate for yourself ....you can start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bossa_nova
¡Disfrutas!
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