EDITORIALS

Here, there, everywhere

Okay, maybe just all over Argenta’s arts district

WE SAW it in the paper, your paper, Arkansas’ Newspaper, the other day. It said the good folks in the Argenta Arts District in downtown North Little Rock had put together a photo exhibit and a week-long movie festival featuring the Beatles. The promise was that some of the photos were rare indeed, and might be new to even the most ardent Beatles fan. Well, then . . . .

Some friends gathered up and took a stroll down Main Street over the weekend. Our considered editorial opinion: The Beatles still rock, the four members of the group still fascinate,and people still flock to see them-more than four decades after they last played together.

We stopped in at the Greg Thompson Fine Art gallery for the John and Paul photos, only to be stopped dead in our tracks by the Carroll Cloar exhibit, which threatened to hijack not only the day but this editorial. A body could stand in front of a Carroll Cloar painting for most of an afternoon, and run through a number of emotions without taking a step to one side or the other.

What are you supposed to feel upon walking up on Bessie Marie and the Wild Verbena? Is disturbed allowed? That’s one haunting child, if it is a child and not a haint, a wraith, a ghostling . . . . Well, whatever it is, it ’taint of this world.

She/he/it is both familiar and not. Maybe that’s just what it is-a familiar, the presence used by the medium at a seance to contact someone in the spirit world. Or maybe not. So much for those who glibly associate Carroll Cloar with homey old Grandma Moses. This is no simple piece of folk art, it’s a vision out of your dreams. Or a visitation from beyond them.

We had to rouse ourselves to move on to some songs familiar in another, more comfortable sense, songs with “yeah, yeah, yeahs” in them, just to break the trance and clear the mind.

You may have to shake yourself to realize that the Beatles were together, and wildly popular, for only a few years. They first became world-famous in, oh, about 1963 and into 1964 with their first visit to America and their much-heralded appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Then, by 1970, they were done with each other. At least John, George and Ringo were. The late-’60s pics of Paul McCartney showed him to be the happy one, or at least the smiling one. He may have wanted to stay a Beatle even then. Maybe that’s why, when he finally called it quits, so did the band. The group might have been John Lennon’s when they started, but by the end Paul McCartney was the one holding the rest together. Even in the late years for the band. These photographs capture his crucial role.

No exhibit in downtown North Little Rock would be complete without the Thea Foundation’s being part of it. The pics featuring George and Ringo are displayed there. Ringo was always the ham. Could it be that George Harrison was the most handsome of the four?

Across the street, in the brand-spanking new Argenta branch of the Laman Library-open now only a few weeks-pics of the boys in concert hang among the promotional stills.There’s one of John singing at what has to be their last American concert in Candlestick Park. It’s 1966, and John Lennon still looks to be having fun.

Over at The Joint on Main Street, movies featuring the Beatles are on the bill all this week. Including the one that came out not too long ago-Good Ol’ Freda, the one about the Beatles’ secretary who kept their secrets over the years, and still keeps them today. It’s on tap for 7 Thursday evening. You might want to pencil that one in.

WERE THE Beatles an important cultural phenomenon? No doubt about it. Are they still? Let’s just note that the youngest in our group, who, at 10, wasn’t even around when George Harrison died, hummed Rocky Raccoon throughout the walking tour. That’s a song recorded 35-plus years before he was born. The skinny long-haired girl in the group-who looks as though she’d fit right in with the ’60s-kept walking through the exhibits whispering, “This is cool.” She’s 13 years old.

High school bands still belt out Yesterday on Friday nights. Radio stations still have Come Together in the regular rotation. And galleries dedicated to a rock-’n’-roll band that broke up during the Apollo missions still attract the kids.

Our group left Argenta that afternoon after our Beatles fix, satisfied with the exhibits. Still, as we loaded into the car to leave, we plugged in Abbey Road. The medley at the end with Mean Mr. Mustard and the lass who came in through the bathroom window made the perfect soundtrack for the ride home.

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl

But she doesn’t have a lot to say.

Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl

But she changes from day to day . . .

The song didn’t come back to us because it had never left us. Like the Beatles themselves.

Editorial, Pages 16 on 04/15/2014

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