Blues and Rags of 1955
In these long breaks between the signature 21 Essays series, I thought I
might try a new feature focused on possibilities for future series. I’ll
spin the roulette wheel to pick a year (or set of years) and then brainstorm on
some potential essay topics.
So... first up on the random year generator:
1955. And here’s my second 1955 series possibility: 11 essays on “Folsom Prison Blues.”
“I shot a man in Reno/Just to watch him die.” On his 1955 debut album, 23-year-old Johnny
Cash nails an iconic lyric. All it takes
is just eleven words and a chugging acoustic rhythm. So simple you’d think anyone could do it… How about 11 essays for these two lines, one
essay for each terse word?
Leaving Reno for Termite Terrace (Hollywood home of Chuck Jones), my friend Dan Kocher reminds me that 1955 was the year of One Froggy Evening, with the debut performance of Michigan J. Frog:
The Fred Astaire of the frog world well deserves a spate of essays.
Leaving Reno for Termite Terrace (Hollywood home of Chuck Jones), my friend Dan Kocher reminds me that 1955 was the year of One Froggy Evening, with the debut performance of Michigan J. Frog:
The Fred Astaire of the frog world well deserves a spate of essays.
Over the next three days, I’ll be proposing some more 1955
ideas (with no promises that I’ll necessarily be getting to any of them…) But I’m wide open to other suggestions. Any ideas for 1955 movies, books, short
stories, poems, songs, or other cultural artifacts that might inspire a good 21 Essays series?
Next blog series: 6 essays on Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail (1929)
as part of the “For the Love of Film”
Film Preservation Blogathon
May 13-18, 2012
© 2012 Lee Price
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