pictures from kathryn's lry archives

Springtime '81

Nan, Amy and Kathryn on the Porch

Taco Villa, Spring Equinox, 1981
i'm pretty sure peter ward took this one

Here we are - Nan Warshaw, Amy Shapiro, and me, Kathryn Price - getting ready for the Grateful Dead concert at the Boston Garden. A bunch of our friends came into town for the show, and the Villa sort of became Deadhead central for a few days. Though I never was much of a Deadhead, it seemed like almost all my friends were. So, I kind of went along for the ride. It was fun dressing up and dancing, and it was pretty cool how the subway (“the T”) on the way in to the show was crowded with colorfully dressed, singing people. The Dead played rather badly that night, as far as I could tell. Inside sources say Jerry was tripping very heavily, and had been awake for days - and I'm afraid the music suffered for it. I think the best part of the experience was having our friends visit, and the party we had at the house before and after the show. Oh, and dancing on the subway was fun, as usual.

Kimba LePunque Taco

Kimba writhes ecstatically in her beloved Lasagna Box
photo by kathryn

We bought this huge box of bulk lasagna noodles at the Co-op, and stashed it on the top shelf of the pantry. (Nan liked to bake lasagna. With cloves.) Kimba loved to get up high and look down on us all, and when she discovered this box, she was in heaven. She would writhe around in an ecstatic, altered state up there... like someone had sprinkled catnip on it or something. Eventually she spent so much time on the box, that the top started to bow in, and she got cat fur all over the noodles. Or we assumed. She loved it so much we had to let her have the thing, and we didn't want to take away the noodles (even if any of us were willing to dare eating them at that point!) - who knows, maybe it was something in the noodles that made her so happy. But who can really grok the mystery that is the Lasagna Box.

Kimba, surveying her domain

or deep in a visionary trance state... it was hard to tell with kimba
photo by kathryn

Amy and Keith show us their teeth
photo from kathryn's soup collection

Amy Shapiro and Keith Knost - I forget if this was taken at Ridgewood or Princeton.

I actually missed Ridgewood '81, as we had a printer's deadline for Soup, and I had to stay home and do layout (for the Social Actions double issue). Thankfully, Laurie Roth stayed at the office with me, and the two of us pasted up most of the issue together. Then later in the weekend Richard Terass arrived and Amy returned early from the conference. The four of us settled in for the home stretch and managed to finish just in time for the galleys to be delivered. So I had to settle for stories of Ridgewood that year. And pictures. One of the cool things about editing Soup is that people sent me pictures.

Princeton Conference, Memorial Day, '81
photo courtesy brian oelberg, probably taken by paul borneo

back row: Eric, Ursula Shea, Jim Hodges, Debbie Bright, Lee Beckerman, Kathryn Price, Keri, John
middle row: Brian Oelberg, Jennifer Moore
front row: Gabriel, Jenny Curry, Brian (Basie?), Jonathan Holloway, Joe Forehand, Chris Wise

After the conference, a number of us hiked into the woods out back and had a big party. Lee and I got married on the très picturesque swinging bridge over the ravine. We exchanged beer-tab wedding rings (I still have mine). I think it was the Right Reverend Donny Rickert who performed the ceremony. Debbie Bright was my bridesmaid and Keith Knost “gave me away.” (The Karma! The Karma!) Keri gave us lovely wedding presents, and we sped off on Lee's motorcycle.

The above photo was taken hours after everyone else had left, and the last brave few holdouts gathered in the fading light for this final group photo. The berry-red van was named "Bruce Berry" - after the Neil Young song, tonight's the night, and the “working man who loads the Econoline van.” Bruce Berry later carried a pack of LRYers off to Rainbow. But you'll have to see Ursula's pictures for that story...

Keri
Supreme Commander of the 51st Airborne Division.
photo by brian oelberg

Ah yes, Keri... One of our less, shall we say, p.c. LRYers. Here we see Keri, uh... sharing his feelings.

The Dead Baby

the mystical power of The Dead Baby is so intense it causes kathryn's camera to malfunction.
attempt to capture the mystery by kathryn

for more photos from the princeton conference, see:
Ursula's photo pages

next page: star island '81 and villa afterwards

soundtrack: through the mists of time and memory
side two: “in the moment” march '81 - june '81:
pumping (my heart) - patti smith
looks like rain - grateful dead
meant for me - jewel (cringe, i know, but it fits)
april skies - jesus and mary chain
dance away - roxy music
man-size - pj harvey
sweet jane - lou reed (live version, from rock and roll animal, with the amazing guitar intro by steve hunter)
brown-eyed girl - van morrison

pictures from kathryn's lry archives
picture index & soundtrack notes
the midwest, fall '79 - summer '80 | office and villa, fall '80 | joe taco's housewarming party, fall '80
spring '81 | star island '81 and villa afterwards | con con '81 | tacos on tour, summer '81
fall of '81 | cog in the eighties | the tribe(s) in the nineties and beyond
how i wound up doing this site

Copyright on all contributions belongs to the individual artists.
(In cases where photographer is unknown, I have listed the copyright to the person who owns the print, to the best of my knowlege, in order to legally protect our rights as the photographers and subjects.)
All text copyright ©1981-2001 kathryn price theatana & kpt/katharsis ink
Site copyright ©1999-20001 kathryn price theatana for big electric celt productions
kathryn@bandia.net