The Record Album: Entertainment Drought 1964 And "State Fair"

The Record Album:  Entertainment Drought 1964 And “State Fair”

          A 1995 Review, Love is in the air (mail)

by Michael J. Vaughn, from the Internet

          The Anxiety of Influence   by Harold Bloom

A Review

A review of two musicals “she loves me”

And “Most Happy Fella”

Refers to “The entertainment drought

That followed the Kennedy Assassination”.

Influence

In the United States that mourned

It is the swerve of Influence described by

Harold Bloom.    Along a neural pathway

A specific work of art.

Thought turns instead

To a continuum and immediacy

For that national emergency and shock.

Physically I turn off art

I would have experienced.

In State Fair 1962 the family

Reaches Dallas in the convertible.  And thought

Turns instead to the tragedy.

The Record Album

The entertainment drought

Rose from the audience.  State Fair 1962

Was set in Dallas.  On my album cover

From Andrews and Burnett,

Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall

Enormous sheepskin chaps

From Neiman Marcus – Big D,

Little A, double-L,  A,  Ess…

After, I almost never listened anymore.

The concert

While the tv stayed on with serious music

News and No commercials in 1963

She came back in the evening from

The Runeberg Lodge Choir fiftieth anniversary.

They presented their concert but cancelled

The Sunday Banquet and the people

From Canada started back.

From the backyard garage and steps

Through the back porch, into the kitchen.

She would have figured out On Friday

if we had wanted to go with her

that Saturday Evening.

The Record Album, Again

I almost never listened anymore. 

Orange cover - They have on their

Enormous Sheepskin chaps from Neiman Marcus.

On the internet:  a you tube video of What’s My Line

With Carol Burnett, February 1964.

As she shakes hands with the panel

And she hugs Buddy Hackett,

She continues to look so solemn.

I was confirmed in 1964

In school and In the front pew directly beneath

The national prayer for the bereaved

we continued into spring.   Confirmed, young

And influenced, we were bereaved.

State Fair Critics

Before the entertainment drought

Critics gave State Fair a Fair.

But did they swerve

As described by Harold Bloom

Stigmatized by the stigmatized topic

Of mental illness.  Influence.