If 6 Was 9

The Road…the River

2021-May-8 the counterculture film, Easy Rider is watched in my hollow…my first observation in decades. I had a penchant – a required revisiting of the road with Billy and Wyatt. What was the appeal? The ways of Dennis Hopper – his being…his voice – manic – a reminder here of another road – the river of the Apocalypse.

Do you know that if is the middle word in life?  Where does if take us in its discordance…the expected unexpected…whatever conflict or peace that might be? The musical drone…familiar….deflective…I’m curious…very curious…there’s somethin’ happenin’ out here man…It’s one through nine…

Its dialectics. The inverted 6…the inverted 9…separated by a quarter of a clock face, three hours or three parts…or…simply having slipped. The effects…the construct…the chaos of identities within time…and a voice, a voice. My draw to Easy Rider? Soundtrack…discordance…If 6 was 9…another little wing from the six wires of Purple Haze, Hey Joe…a red house over yonder…the wind crys Mary.

Jimi Hendrix wrote If 6 Was 9 in 1967. The song, considered an “individualist anthem”, was released by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on their second album, Axis: Bold as Love.  Easy Rider, written by Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Terry Southern, became the “touchstone for a generation” and was released in 1969. The song and film speak directly to counterculture. Together they are the desire to willingly caress thorns and barbs rather than follow the yellow brick road…you can’t dress like me.

What are my discordant edges in my momentary captures of light? My amplified abstracts and impressions in my search of the road…if art what art…if distortion what distortion…if percussion what percussion? Now if 6 turned out to be 9…I don’t mind…I don’t…if is the middle word in life.

Images by Paul Ferguson