what was the question?

yeah, you're right, our conversation about patti smith/the 70's/our growing-up years (back in the day)/south Jersey (that thread's personal) began almost a year ago, Fright Night 2006. the buzz around us, you're right again (but you usually are), has escalated since then: can't pivot in public these days without crashing into some 70's ref, if not a specifically ps musing.

but does that mean "bye bye to all that" just now?

i can let go -- no problem there -- my gene for separation anxiety underdeveloped as it is -- though we/i/you haven't answered my initial question:

why the 70's, why now?

because they who made them have passed on or turned 60? because, simply, it's a babyboomers' fetish, the last hurrah of a senescing generation? because the up-and-comers can't know it like we remember it, even if they wear it better than we did? because bottle blonde can't cover gray quite as well as it trashed browns back then?

perhaps, history's in the making? Ed Hamilton just published Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living with the Artists and Outlaws of New York's Rebel Mecca; among the "rare individuals" who took five in the Chelsea's rooms, on its stoop, across the doorway after a speeding4art binge were, of course, our subject and the 70's cru who have come to matter, other artists with the mostest of that day.

legends?

Pattie Boyd penned Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me with Penny Junor, reviewed in this Sunday's New York Times Sunday Book Review by Stephanie Zacharek, the tale of the woman behind two spotlight 60's crooners. possibly boyd is the real "Layla," possible there was "something in the way she smiled." although zacharek believes boyd's worth reading, she begins her review noting that some readers won't be inspired to turn the first page: pishwa, those nonreaders might snarl, she's just a wife; who cares what she has to say. the times might have changed boyd's life; the music might have changed her life; in any case, the review suggests that boyd witnessed two guys take off on a three chord jitney, upending hers, theirs, everyone else's soundtrack: they changed the world and her life, incidentally but significantly since she sat in the first row, with one opening 4/4 time blast of GCGG.

ps, percolating, figuring out what words to use to take center stage from jesus, when boyd let harrison and then clapton squeeze her little model hand for the camera (imagine what happened behind the bedroom door?): ps cast '77 as the new '68. boyd inspired the big boys (how flattering!); ps fronted the band (no public chatter about what she's like in the sack).

i can let go, but i'd really like to know.