August 15, 2022

"Connie's Place"
commentary for scene 2 of #book1

JUMP TO: Plot Summary - Cultural References - Locations - My Thoughts

TAGS: #book1 #MaryAnnSingleton #ConnieBradshaw

Link to the text: Connie's Place (starting on page 14) (Scribd membership required)

Plot summary: Mary Ann arrives at Connie's apartment where she hopes to crash while looking for a new apartment. After she settles in, she looks around the place and is overwhelmed by the explosion of pop-culture kitchyness but also by the evidence the apartment gives of Connie's sexual liberation.

Connie also gets out their old high school year book, but Mary Ann is not eager to look back to anything from Cleveland.

Cultural Refences:

• American Tourister - a popular brand of luggage at the time. The company was bought by their competitor Samsonite in 2009. Today the brand is used for Samsonite's more-affordable lines of luggage.
   
• Up with People - according to Wikipedia, Up with People was a project that was started in 1968 "as an offshoot of the evangelical Protestant group Moral Re-armament and founded with the aim of opposing the 1960s counterculture and left-wing political movements." The project mostly involved the use of tuition-paying volunteers who staged big song and dance performances promoting themes such as religion, racial equality, and positive thinking."
  
  The group was sponsored by several oil companies (including Exxon-Mobil and Halliburton) and was backed by far-right/evangelical Christian figures such as Patrick Frawley, Jr. and Republican Party politicians including Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. --- Also, weirdly enough, during the 1970's and 1980's, Up with People performed at the Indy 500, The Cotton Bowl and Super Bowls X, XIV, XVI and XX! Oh... and they had a Network TV special in 1973!
   
• Banana Cow - It took me awhile to figure out what this product was, but then I discovered this ad from 1976 for a product called Hereford's 30 Proof Cow Spirits," which was a line of milk-based alcopop drinks with 15% alcohol (30 proof) and in four flavors: Mocha Cow, Banana Cow, Strawberry Cow and Chocolate Mint Cow. According to a NY Times story from April 9, 1977, the drink was initially marketed to women and African-Americans (it was advertized in Ebony magazine , here's another of their ads in Ebony).The drink was made by Heublein Spirits.
   
• Plastic Tiffany lamps - Tiffany lamps were attractive Art Nouveau style stained lead glass lamps, but by 1976 there were a lot of knock-offs on the market, some being made out of plastic.
   
• Ankle-deep shag carpeting - I was born in 1976, so my early childhood memories often revolve around this kind of crazy deep plush carpet.
   
• needlepoint Snoopy pictures - There were quite a few different patterns being sold in this era for needlepoint designs of Snoopy and other characters from Peanuts
   
• “Hang in There, Baby” kitten posters - According to Wikipedia, these were one of the first virally-popular motivational posters.
   
• monkey pod salad sets - These were popular sets of salad bowls made of Acacia Wood, but weirdly enough they were marketed as being made out of "monkey pod" wood.
   
• Macramé plant hangers - I remember this as being quite popular in the early 1980's in Oklahoma (Oklahoma was always 5-10 years behind the coasts when it came to trends)
  
   
   
   
• Pet Rock. - a crazy product that featured a plain rock in a box (with air holes of course) and a manual for care of said "pet rock". The fad was big from 1975-1976, but amazingly is still being sold for $19.95 at PetRock.com!
   
• Black velvet bullfighter painting - I wonder if this might have been what it looked like?
   
• Connie's "Library" housed on shelves made of orange Foremost milk crates
  • Jonathan Livingston Seagull
     
  • How to be your own best friend - a book that has been described as "the origin of the contemporary self-help industry"
     
  • The Sensuous Woman - a groundbreaking book that spoke of the importance and practice of sexuality for women
     
  • More Joy of Sex
     
  • Listen to the Warm
     
  • Oui Magazine - a pornographic magazine published by Playboy, but intended for a younger audience.
     
• National Forensic League - actually this was a speech and debate organization
   
• Future Homemakers of America - today FHA is called Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA)
   
• Y-Teens - a youth organization for girls that was affiliated with the YWCA
   
• Let's Make a Deal - a game show that has aired (in different formats) since 1963, but my favorite memory of the show was the famous "Wheel of Fish" parody in the movie UHF by Wierd Al Yankovich
   
• Aftershave lotions - Brut, Old Spice, Jade East
   
• 1968 Bucaneer (high school yearbook): Assuming that Connie and Mary Anne both graduated from high school the sane year, Mariane would likely have been born in 1950 or 1951, which makes sense given the text here saying that Connie is 25 years old (in 1976, we learn the year a bit later on in the text). The author was born in 1944, so Armistead is writing about a character who is 6 years younger than he was at the time.
   

Locations:

• Connie's apartment - the text gives no clues on where her apartment is located in SF.
• Coed Bathhouse on Valencia Street - I found several reports of bathhouses on Valencia Street (including a female-only one that was open as late as 2008) but I didn't find the article from Oui magazine.

My thoughts: This scene is an explosion of kitschy over-the-topness, packed to the gills with detailed bits of the pop culture of its time, intentionally over-the-top like the Garfunkel and Oates crazy/offensive/hilarious video "This party took a turn for the douche."

Interestingly though, this scene works better in writing than in video form. For fun, I watched this scene from the 1993 PBS Mini-series, and was surprised how the scene was chopped down but also how that most of the super-specific cultural references were cut out. --- Which meant I spent a lot of time with Google in reviewing this episode and discovered that my previous understanding of some of these cultural references (based on context) was completely wrong.

But also I have to say that the mini-series so got the casting right for these two characters. Laura Linney had the benefit of having a previous scene to build up her character (Mary Ann), but Parker Posey had to jump out from her front door instantly in full character, and she nailed it. Together... it just works. Mary Ann is getting more and more awkward at the same time that Connie keeps trying harder and harder to impress Mary Ann.

Lastly, I really enjoyed delving into the colors and visual imagery of this era while researching the cultural refernces from this scene, as it evoked a strange mix of emotions.