Damn Cold in February: Buddy Holly, View Master and the Atomic Bomb

September 29, 2015 11:01 AM

Someday this country’s gonna be a fine, good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in the ground before that time can come: An essay on the summer of the Atomic Bomb, by Joni Tevis. Originally published in The Diagram
posted by Rumple (8 comments total)

A great piece -- I'll have to go back and re-read. But one thing bothers me. There is the conceit that somehow Buddy Holly is doing the opposite of what everyone else did in those long-gone days and played to "the fans of the future" rather than mugging for the camera or acting the fool or whatever it is that she imagines Elvis and the other rock stars of the time doing. But that's not true at all. None of these people who are now ossified in iconhood thought that anything they were doing would last more than two or three years if that. It was a fad, it was a way to make money, it was a way to get laid, it was a way to escape dead-end small towns. None of them was thinking about the future. How can you think of the future when the future is now? Buddy Holly wasn't thinking of much except the next gig, getting the hell out of Lubbock, and staying the next step ahead of penury.
posted by blucevalo at 11:48 AM on September 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

You're wrong sorry. Buddy was a genius songwriter and poet. We lost a lot that day. Maybe everything.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:31 PM on September 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

blucevalo, where does your deep, almost mystical knowledge of the inner thoughts of Buddy Holly come from?
posted by IAmBroom at 6:28 PM on September 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

And now that I've read it--great article!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:36 PM on September 29, 2015

I find the elevated quality of this evenly-hovering prose invigorating on a rainy night in southern Appalachia. Some daring, thought-provoking associative leaps here re: America, nuclear war, and pop culture. Thanks for posting, Rumple!
posted by Bob Regular at 6:56 PM on September 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Janis, what a piece of writing. First off, the style exemplifies post 1945.
The epigraphs are excellent and the energy that was Buddy coupled with our knowledge of what was lost, like Glenn Miller before him. The Searchers just melds the story like butter. Ala confee. The light, when Ethan finally looks in that room, jaded camera tilt, stark sky. 1953. Readers Digest published 'Cancer by the Carton", Wynder and Grahmn.
Cryosurgery, LSD. 538 million in TV ad revenue, mostly ciggerette advertisers.
But the Band Wagon with Fred Astaire. Blocks, Suite Hebraique.
Drought. And the IBM 701.

Business needs.
St. Vitus breakfast box.
posted by clavdivs at 7:32 PM on September 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

I kept hearing it as voice overs from The Watchmen.
posted by bonobothegreat at 6:12 AM on September 30, 2015

Great article that makes me even more excited for the return of Manhattan.
posted by HumanComplex at 6:51 AM on September 30, 2015