Steve Davis, former Oklahoma Sooner great, died in a plane crash last night.

And, oddly enough, the private plane he was in crashed in to a row of homes in South Bend, Indiana, the home of Notre Dame University.  On Saint Patrick's Day.

Davis played for the Sooners from 1972 to 1976, running the Wishbone Option as quarterback for Barry Switzer as coach.  As a starter Davis compiled a record of thirty two wins against only one loss and one tie.  Davis was the winningest quarterback in the Sooners' proud football history until last year when Landry Jones broke his record.  Davis won two National Titles with the Sooners in 1974 and 1975, and was named the Most Valuable Offensive Player in the 1976 Orange Bowl which sealed the deal on his second National Title.

Those mid-Seventies Sooners teams were some of the greatest in College Football History, as Davis played alongside such legends as the Selmon brothers, Joe Washington, Tinker Owens, Elvis Peacock, and Jimbo Elrod.

Davis later became a college football broadcaster for CBS Sports in the Eighties.

Davis was born in Sallisaw, Oklahoma and lived in Tulsa.  He was sixty years old.  He was also a man of devout Christian faith, testifying wherever and whenever he was called upon.

************

(I watched this game in Tulsa, Oklahoma with Grandma and Gramps.  I was not yet eight years old.)

************

My favorite Davis/Switzer story is the "Molecules in the Universe" story:

I was standing beside Steve Davis late in the game, and we heard the boos starting.
Here was a kid who had quarterbacked at Oklahoma for three years and had never been beaten in twenty-nine games, and now some of the home fans were booing him.
The clock was ticking down and it was inevitable that we were going to lose the ball game by twenty damn points, and nobody in the world hurt worse than Steve did.  It was hard to believe that our fans would boo the whole bunch of us, who had had such success.
I put my arm around Steve on the sideline and told him, "These people we hear are really insignificant.  We can't let them influence us or anything we have to do. These people are just molecules in the universe."

************

And, here are my thoughts on Steve Davis, the Sooners thrilling 1975 Title run, and the sad state of Big Time College Football today; published in this space in November 2011.

************

RIP, brother, and amen!

















mds

This is for Nick C and all that talk about super heroes and villains.

xxxoooxxx,
Ardent

Conversations w/ Nick C, Part Another (Beware The Bard!)

The other day at work, right before I left, I let Nick C and Andrew G teach me all about comic books.  I never got in to comics as a kid.  I read Cerebus, and maybe a few Green Arrow issues.

Like this, except with a hat, and a lute instead of a sword.  The Bard!

We talked about the political differences between DC and Marvel, how their respective Universes compared and contrasted, and they taught me about scores of super heroes I had never heard of. (Honestly, Namor sounds like a really dopey super hero -- sorry, Nick -- and The Punisher scares the pants off of me.  The Punisher is not a comic book hero I could ever get behind or support.)

So, I on the way home I decided to imagine what super hero I would be if I were one, and I came up with The Bard.

The Bard looks like an Elizabethan actor, natch.  The ruff, leather shoes, tights (of course!), plumed hat, poet shirt, etc, ... And his super powers are his amazing singing and acting abilities. He can assume any person's identity, and just by speaking can hypnotize and/or control his victim's mind.  Plus, when he sings and plays his lute he control the minds of large groups of people.  His normal day-to-day identity is Billy Shakes, a twenty-four year old grocery store stock boy, who leads a struggling band, The Players, gigging with them in clubs around town.

I thought it best that The Bard/Billy would inhabit the DC Universe, and would live in Metropolis. Nick C agreed with that, but suggested that The Bard would be better not as hero but a super villain, fighting Superman most of the time, constantly trying to take control of the world.  The Bard would also be chaotic evil (there's a D & D reference for ya!), preferring to manipulate the other villains, never working in concert with them, a lone wolf.

Then Nick C really took off with our idea.  The Bard would be a great villain for DC because any time any kind of new media sensation took hold DC could do a Superman/Bard book.  For example, The Bard could be like a Bill O'Reilly/Beck figure on cable news; a YouTube sensation; a host of a Survivor type reality program; the leader of the latest rock group fad, etc ... And Superman would always have to figure out that it was The Bard again in another identity, and that he must be stopped.

The Bard, naturally, would always be quoting Shakespeare, and Billy Shakes would be a pimply loser slacker kid with horn-rimmed glasses, "Paper or plastic, Miss?" or "If I had a girlfriend right now, she'd kill me." (h/t The Simpsons) That kind of thing.

Nick C is gonna draw The Bard and Billy for me, and I will post the photographs of the drawings at a later date.

Mwah, ... 
Everybody have a splendid Friday!



************

Paul Simon Kodachrome

It is funny how long it took Paul Simon to become truly great.  The first few Simon & Garfunkel records are not v good.  By the time they got Bookends, they were almost there, and Bridge Over Troubled Water was their first truly great album from beginning to end.  It was also their last record.

Once free of Art, Paul Simon really finally entered his own, and became one of best songwriters around.  I have always loved this track.














-Ardent

Poem (March 2013)

Inasmuch as we have heard a
Mitigating sorry excuse for
Such a good soul as thee,

Orbiting an existence,
Suffused with brilliant light,
Ready to spoil the demons,
Yearning for delicious touch,

Climbing the reason to believe,
Leaving all souls behind

Elevate words and text
Write your spirit
Is not your life the
Spirit that absorbs and loves our own



















mds

Allison W will correct me if I am wrong,

But I do not believe I am.

She and Dave B (or Kate H, or two of the three, or all of the three, or none of the three) introduced me to the most fab party game ever, Murder Midnight.  I am not going to delve deep within the labyrinthine, exotic rules of that game right now, but to mention that it was ever so crucial to play that game to the scariest music imaginable, played at an absolutely ear-splitting volume.  The game involved v little dialogue until the "reveal scene", which was perfunctory, and short, and most oftentimes, depending on the quality of the players, was mostly, solved (sussed) as the "villain" began to "corpse"*

Allison W (and David B, and possibly Kate H) always insisted that the music for our game be Stravinsky's, The Rites of Spring.  Certainly terrifying, even at a dull roar, it was an artistic arrow through the brain for a young Michael Spitler, and turned me on to classical music in a way I had never been turned on before.

But, Allison W was not done yet.

Applying the tumultuous pagan spirit of Stravinsky's groundbreaking music for a ballet that Stravinsky always hated, Allison took the whole theme of Spring a step yet further.

Allison W introduced to her eager disciples that the Rites of Spring were not just a ballet score, but a way of life, existence.

To her, and to us (and to me, to this day), The Rites of Spring were a certain point in a person's life, when the weather became better, temperatures rose, the sun set later, and a person's priorities suddenly seemed to change, go haywire.

Do I really wanta write that paper tonight? Fuck it, I would rather go down the Crown and Anchor. Do I really want to go to class tomorrow? Fuck it, I would rather hit Hippie Hollow.  Do I really wanta sit in the cafe, listening to some loser person that most def prob does not even like me? Fuck it, I'd rather hang out w/ my friends, watch Letterman, listen to Elvis Costello, and try on ridiculous fancy new clothes and frocks.

************

Alright, you say.  Okay, you insist.  Allison's Rites of Spring is perhaps not all that unlike the concepts of say, Spring Fever. Or Walpurgisnacht.  I, most respectfully, disagree. Walpurgisnacht and Spring Fever have a distinct sexual subtext to them.  Allison's Rites were much more chaste, more an expression of young unfettered intellectual yearning.  That the World's brilliant limited window was open.  Just a crack.  And, goddammit, we had better bust through that window in the limited opportunity that we have.

And it is that window that children, students (especially), and even old men like me, are e'er so eager to bust through every time, that the Sun finally sets after seven PM.

************

I have a friend that has expressed to me that The Rites of Spring (even if she was not familiar w/ the language and rules that I had not yet presented to her) have already begun! It has not yet happened for me in Twentythirteen.  And, I know not what state Allison W, Dave B, and Kate H are in.

But, as the sun sets later these days.  And, the Perfect Disaster's Up record starts to sound more delicious.  And Veep consumes Tumblr, HBO, and both my Wife and I's life; and as it is ever so nearly the Twelve Days of Michael's Birthday, can I honestly say, that fuck it, I dare not finally care about the signs and tastings and marketing of so many wines I can not whole-heartedly get behind.

It is The Rites of Spring, gosh dangit.  Observe it to your discretion.  For some (many) it might be an excuse for free love.  For this soul it is the moment where life, in its pathetic, tawdry, mundane illusion of existence becomes real.  

Perfect moments abound, goddamit! Get out there and grab them!

All my love,
Michael David Spitler













P.S. One of my fave all-time things is that players, conductors, ballet directors, balletomaine, and composers still hate Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps.  The only folks that love Stravinsky's difficult and groundbreaking music are crazed, difficult drama majors and art students.  Eighty years old, and it is still a bridge so many in the Art World are not ready to cross.  Their loss.









mds

Parade's End is a bloody good little

Melodrama.  The mini-series was written by Tom Stoppard, and as he is also a producer, I imagine it is his little baby.  He has probably been itching for years to bring the Ford Madox Ford Parade novels to the big screen, and as so much of the best "films" today are television series, mini-series, or cable movies, why not have the Beeb and HBO birth your beautiful new baby for you? Plus, it certainly can not hurt (and HBO were v smart) to show Parade's End, an aristocratic English upstairs/downstairs smart-alec's soap set during The Great War, right after Season Three of Downton Abbey concludes.

Parade's End is infinitely better than Downton Abbey.  But despite being set in the same period, the comparison is not fair.  DA is an-open ended continuing series, whereas Parade's End is five hours long, full stop; an adaptation of what some critics thought of as an impenetrable or unadaptable series of novels.  

Yet, Stoppard was not deterred.  Good for him, and us.

Parade's End tells the story of Chrissie Tietjens,"the last Tory", and one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, watching stone-facedly as "his Jerusalem", "his green and pleasant land" vanishes before him, being replaced by trade unions, suffragettes, a rise in Roman Catholicism, loose morals, liberalism, partisanship trumping what is right, a totally Twit of the Year officious ruling aristocracy (h/t Monty Python), and just the whole world going to hell in a hand basket.

And, oh yeah, his drop dead gorgeous socialite Irish Roman Catholic wife is a horrible flirt and adulterer; spoiled rotten, and so consumed with only herself that at one point she uses one of her past flings to get her to the Western Front so as to ask her husband if she can be allowed to take up residence at his old family pile, Groby.  (The Wife and I literally wanted to strangle her throughout the entire series.)

Stoppard has done such a masterful job with this material, and has created something perhaps lately unique, a "film" that demands repeated viewings not because of glorious sweeping visual moments, or hilarious sight gags, or jokes; but so the viewer can completely digest and settle with some of the seriously breathtakingly lovely high brow novelistic dialogue.  Honestly, there are some scenes I will simply have to watch again.  And, I am greatly looking forward to that.  This is not a film that speaks down to its audience in any way whatsoever.  And, you really can not blink, either.  A lot of serious plot points are not played on the screen, at all.  You must pay rapt attention, though the rewards are worth such rapturous devotion.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Chrissie Tietjens, and Rebecca Hall plays his wife, Sylvia.  It is some of the finest acting I have seen in a while.  Cumberbatch, in particular, is really building quite an impressive CV.  Cumberbatch's posture, face, and strange muttering strangled voice almost completely make you forget about the actor.  (That voice can be a challenge though for viewers.  We watched it with subtitles, just so we could get every juicy word.)  Ms Hall's attack was near as good, if of a different more technical style.  She has absolutely no intention of fooling you that she is someone else.  She is Rebecca Hall, dang it, and she has never looked more lovely in her life.  Red hair suits her.  Ms Hall prefers to attack her character through words.  And, it is absolutely delicious and ravishing to hear her roll and loll her tongue around Stoppard and Ford's exquisite high style language; to see her sulk and play exasperatingly bored is divine and sexy as all get out.  

"Hmmm, how best shall I torture my insubstantial half-man husband today?"

Parade's End comes supremely highly recommended by me.  I think you have to watch it through an HBO platform right now, or procure it through the grey market of the interwebs.  It is well worth it, though.  Those in love with the English language at its finest; or devotees of the themes of selflessness, sexual repression, unrequited love, honor, and relationships dominated by weakness and resentment should devour with relish the five delicious hours of Parade's End.

 Mwah, ... 

P.S.  And, then it is fun to watch Cumberbatch and Hall w/ James McAvoy and Dominic Cooper in Starter for 10 after you are done w/ all that heavy lit stuff!

Counting Backwards

I definitely think there is hope for the industry, and for all people, particularly young people, if a film like The Perks of Being a Wall Flower, which although seemingly aimed at people my age, can truly resonate and touch younger folks in their teens and twenties.  

Mae Whitman

If it can do that, does do that, then it can avoid the trap of being strictly a nostalgia shadow box, a frozen moment of time on display for everyone.  Many, like myself, an absolute mix tape fiend back in the day, and others my age, will be helpless but to peer inside the box.  Others of all different ages might pass right by.  And, that is alright, of course. 

One of the greatest joys about art, and something that is ever so smartly built right in to the picture, is the intense feeling of personal ownership.  A friend of mine in college once said, "My R.E.M. is completely different from your R.E.M." I understood exactly what they meant.  The film, The Perks of Being a Wall Flower (and I gather the novel does, as well) does an excellent job of capturing the extreme, faintly erotic sense of possessing, or "living inside" something like a David Bowie record, or a JD Salinger novel, while at the same time makes a hearty attempt at becoming the type of art object that merits such cultish adoration.

As I said, if the film speaks to folks not of my generation (and I think it does) then the artists involved should be spectacularly proud and pleased.

It is not a film I think I need to own, or something that could bear multiple repeated viewings on my part, but, I am glad it is out there, and I hope it inspires the same kind of devotion from its fans that I had for ChangesOneBowie or Franny & Zooey.  "My Perks is completely different from your Perks", indeed.

(A few random notes:  It sure was nice to hear Throwing Muses and Pavement in a film, right? And, I could probably watch Mae Whitman unload a dishwasher onscreen and be absolutely enthralled.)  

All my Friday love,

Your cranky know it all critic,

Michael

Saw two movies with the Wife

Last Sunday.  One of them I kind of sneaked in there while Renee was working on dinner, and snacks.  By the time we might have had a chance to start our intended main feature, Renee was already engaged with my foreign pick and it was nearly over.

My movie was an Italian psychological thriller entitled The Double Hour.  Despite an ambiguous ending, and a couple of gratuitous sexytime scenes, the film was a decent little entertainment.  It reminded me of Repulsion a little bit, and the big twist near the end of the second act is actually quite ingenious, totally believable, and fun.

Here's the trailer:

Our main feature was Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, and it was a whopping disappointment.  I actually enjoyed the theatre setting for the story, all the sets, and the costumes were indeed v lovely to look at.  The problem was not even Keira Knightly (not one of my faves, really), but the subject matter.  I just did not really give a fig about Anna's tragic story.  It seems she brought it all on herself, and she was going to have to pay.  I just did not get the sense of any real danger or guilty tragic passionate love between her and Vronsky.  That is not just the actors, the whole direction for the film seems detached, as if observed from an arch distance.

I am a big style over content kind of guy, but this film definitely could have stood to have some grounding.  The stakes desperately needed to be raised for these characters to make this work.  It is a flipping melodrama already.

I can sum up the Wife's feelings about Anna Karenina with one sentence, something she said out loud near the end of the film, "Is everybody in Russia named Alexei?"

Next time you are idly cruising Netflix check out The Double Hour.  Stay away from the most recent Anna Karenina.  (I am going to check out some older film versions.  I have absolutely no desire to read the book.)












Mwah, ... 

Progmania! (Part Four)

Some of the songs from the Drive soundtrack remind me of this fab Can song.

Progmania! (Part Three)

The great story about this track is that Esquivel conducted and recorded two separate orchestras simultaneously.  One orchestra is the left channel, and the other is the right.  Oh, and the two orchestras were in two different studios across town from each other.

(And, yes, I am using the term Prog for Progmania v loosely.)









Mwah, ... 

Progmania! (Part Two)

Progmania! (Part One)

We saw this "kid" on an episode of It is Always Sunny in Philadelphia the other day.

A.J. Brown:  Yeah, so, ... uh, item:  We need to have a conversation about the mood of the British Parliament, the bumps in the road ahead, and whatnot --

MALCOLM TUCKER:  I'm sorry, I don't, this, uh, situation here ... is ... is this it? No offense, son, but, I mean, you look like you should still be at school with your head down a fucking toilet.

A.J.:  Your first point there, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take it.  Your second point, I'm twenty-two, but, uh, item:  It's my birthday in nine days, so, if it would make you feel more comfortable, we could wait.

MALCOLM:  Don't get sarcastic with me, son.  We burnt this tight-ass city to the ground in 1814, and I'm all for doing it again.  Starting with you, you frat-fuck.  You get sarcastic with me again and I will stuff so much cotton wool down your fucking throat it'll come outta your ass like the wee tail on a Playboy Bunny.  

************

A couple of notes:  The "kid" is an actor named Johnny Pemberton, and the second season of Veep starts on April 14th, a week after my birthday.  Woo-hoo!

Mwah, ... 

Good frickin' grief, I started seeing through

This guy's schtick years ago, right around the time of the Clinton Administration.

Bob Woodward, today, is exactly the same kind of guy he was as portrayed by Bob Redford in All the President's Men back in the Seventies.  A not too bright registered Republican without any real passion or conviction re policy or politics or people, who though handsome (back then) is severely lacking in social skills and graces, and since he is no great shakes as a writer or reporter, is supremely dependent upon others for his livelihood.

Back in the Seventies, Woodward's "others" were Carl Bernstein, Benjamin Bradlee, and Mark Felt, aka "Deep Throat".

I mean, no wonder Bernstein and his wife, Nora Ephron, kept trying to sex up Bernstein's character, as portrayed by Dustin Hoffman, in Bill Goldman's excellent screenplay for the film. They were worried Woodward would become the "star" of the production.

Which is exactly what happened.  Woodward became a Star Journalist, and Woodward's new "others", his new "Edge" became the classic Courtier Press VIP card that he was awarded sometime around the Carter Administration.  Big Time Bob was now allowed in the room while the Very Powerful Serious Folks argued about what best to do about the rest of us.

It has always been about the power of access for Woodward.  And, for big time book deals, and maintaining his vast Georgetown pile.  Never about you or me, dang it.  Or, all the kids that have died in our stupid military actions.  Or, the ever growing gulf between the haves and have nots in this country.  Because as long as Big Time Bob gets to sit at the Grown Ups Table, all is hunky dory in his world.

This explains Woodward's hissy fit last week.  And, his (sort of) retraction, too, when his slip was showing.

Why anyone would be paying any amount of attention to this tired old William Hurt from Broadcast News character is beyond me.  Do not feed the troll!

************

And, then there was this:

"I'm happy to blame the media...The thing that was frustrating to me is that people didn't really get to know Mitt for who he was. People weren't allowed to see him for who he really was."

-- Ann Rafalca Romney on Fox News yesterday.

(h/t Charlie Pierce.)


Gosh, if only Big Time Bob thought you guys were serious players, you might be in the Other Cool House right now.






No matter who you vote for, the Government always gets in.














All my Monday love,
mds

After our lovely dinner

Date last night, the Wife had a few rules about what we would be allowed to watch at home:  No reading (subtitles); no stories about young people in love; no coming of age stories; although black and white could be acceptable it was not preferred; and more than anything, she expressed a desire to see a documentary about political scandal and corruption, especially if it involved sex. Something like Client 9.

The Wife even suggested we just find Client 9 on the apple teevee, and see what suggestions they had for us based on that choice.  After a fair amount of circumnavigating I came across Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson.  I had seen it before, the Wife had not.  She was reluctant but prob too sleepy to put up much of a fight.

Gonzo was just as good as I had remembered it to be.  My fave parts are Hunter's coverage of The Hell's Angels, the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas bit, and his unsurpassed, groundbreaking coverage of the 1972 General Election (Renee said, "Gosh, McGovern seemed like such a nice great guy." Yup.)

But, the best part is the retelling of Hunter's Rolling Stone article about Jimmy Carter's tour de force Law Day speech in 1974, wherein Carter quoted Bob Dylan's song Maggie's Farm, and told all those rich privileged Southern lawyers and judges how bad they should feel for not getting behind someone like Martin Luther King Jr back when he was still alive.

Here is the speech in full:

Anyhoo, sure enough the Wife fell asleep, and I finished the film, completely forgetting that Alex Gibney directed it.  (And, that Graydon Carter was one of the producers!)

Alex Gibney has got to be the best political documentary filmmaker alive right now.  Look at this credit list:  We Steal Secrets; Mea Maxima Culpa; Catching Hell; Client 9; the abortion segment of Freakonomics; Casino Jack; Taxi to the Dark Side; and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. All of those have been made in just the last eight years.  Stunning.  And, a quick look on his imdb CV indicates that he has a doc about Fela Kuti coming out next.  (I have just discovered Fela recently, and will be v eager to see it.)

Keep up the good work, Mr Gibney.  And, all of those films, plus Gonzo come v highly recommended by me, espec Enron, Casino Jack, Catching Hell, and Client 9.  

Mwah, ...

Work week over.  Woo-hoo!

P.S.  I started watching Melville's Le Cercle Rouge after Gonzo.  Meaning the Wife woke up to a v long French early 70s thriller with subtitles.  I told her before we crawled in to bed, "Are you sure you can not stay out here a little bit longer? There are only two more hours left with the film."

I definitely

Enjoyed the Ginger Baker documentary, Beware of Mr Baker.  The Wife, not so much.  She browned off right around the time Baker had started taking up polo.

The mad Ginger Bastard

I really had no idea how difficult, awful, and talented Mr Baker was.  I really loved what Charlie Watts said about Baker's groups, That you always loved them, and that you expected they would last forever, but they would always break up within a week.  The Graham Bond Organization lasted about three years, Cream about two, Blind Faith less than that, and Ginger Baker's Air Force (which looked like a truly smashing band) even less than that.

I love Baker's dedication and passion, and I understand how that type of compulsion can wreck a person's personal life, or his family's.  One of his sons said it best, "Dad would have been a whole lot better off if he had never had any kids." Ouch.  That is a kid who has finally come through to the other side, and accepts his father's "role" in his life.

And, Baker truly is a jerk.  Make no mistake about it.  But an amazingly talented jerk who was one of the finest band organizers and leaders (even if he could not always keep them together) and player who refuses to play music you can put in to boxes, and plays Music full stop, instead.

My fave parts of the film, Johnny Rotten's introduction ... the fact that the filmmaker posed as a Rolling Stone writer to gain access to Baker, and then later sold the story to Rolling Stone ... the Graham Bond Organization, I had never heard of them before ... the Stevie Winwood interviews ... the video of Ginger Baker's Air Force ... the badass drum battles that Baker had w/ some of jazz's biggest drumming heavyweights ... learning about Fela Kuti.  Baker lived in Nigeria, playing with Fela for a number of years ...and Baker socking the filmmaker in the nose with his cane.

Beware of Mr Baker comes recommended by me, it is available to rent or buy on iTunes.  For serious fans of Cream or Blind Faith, the film is essential.










xxxoooxxx

Another Woman Michael Loves, Astrid Kirchherr

Astrid Kirchherr and Stuart Sutcliffe

I had not even realized that over this past weekend in which I had been watching Martin Scorsese's very fine documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, that it was right around the time of George's birthday, which is today.  Happy birthday George:

Ms Kirchherr is such a lovely, warm, and humble soul, that I can not help but to love her.  She has never complained or fought about the rights to her photographs of the Beatles in Hamburg, though they are without question some of the finest rock photographs in the (short) history of that genre, and could have made her an extremely wealthy person.  Her attitude now is as it always been, that she did not mind the world using those photographs, because they were just pictures of her friends, and meant to be shared with an entire globe that thinks of itself, still today, as "friends" with The Beatles.

She also is so humble as to never take claim for inventing the "Beatles haircut", which she rightly claims was a style already popular amongst German boys at that time in the early sixties.  But, Ms Kirchherr was the first person to cut Stuart Sutcliffe's hair in that style, and the other Beatles at that time followed suit by having one of her friends, Jürgen Vollmer, cut their hair in the same fashion in Paris.

In fact, just the Beatles' days in Hamburg are enough to write a truly great novel, although one which many might find unbelievable, even if you reassured them that it all really happened.

Astrid and Stuart Sutcliffe, who had just quit The Beatles to become a full-time painter, were engaged to be wed, but Sutcliffe suffered an aneurysm and died en route to hospital, the young Ms Kirchherr with him, holding his hand as he passed.

But, she has never been a bitter or jaded person.  Or even ever tried to carpetbag on the group's subsequent unheard of (and perhaps will never see the like of happening again) monumentally massive success.

A truly wonderful person.

One of the cameras Ms Kirchherr used.

Ardent