SONG TO A SEAGULL
Joni Mitchell
Song To A Seagull
WEA : 1968
[Buy It]
Eleanor Friede, the book editor who sent "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" on its nonstop flight to publishing glory in 1970, died on July 14 at her home in Charlottesville, Va. Here's what Gore Vidal had to say about JLS:
It is a greeting card bound like a book with a number of photographs of seagulls in flight. The brief text celebrates the desire for excellence of a seagull who does not want simply to fly in order to eat but to fly beautifully for its own sake. He is much disliked for this by his peers; in fact, he is ostracized. Later he is translated to higher and higher spheres where he can spend eternity practicing new flight techniques. It is touching that this little story should be so very popular, because in its way it celebrates art for art's sake as well as the virtues of nonconformity; and so, paradoxically, it gives pleasure to the artless and the conforming, to the drones who dream of honey-making in their unchanging hive.
Other cosmologies here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.Labels: alex, drones who dream of honey-making in their unchanging hive
