Canadian figure skater Toller Cranston has written another autobiography
(the second in as many years), this one titled When Hell Freezes Over
(Should I Bring My Skates?).
As you know, Toller appeared on Joni's album Hejira. In his new book, he
devotes an entire chapter (6 pages) to the photo session, which took
place on an outdoor hockey rink near Buffalo, New York, in 1976.
Evidently, Toller had never heard of her. On meeting Joni, he asked,
politely, "You sing, don't you?"
Cranston describes a party a year later at Joni's house, where he saw,
among others, Julie Christie, Warren Beatty ("he had no ass"), Bob Dylan
(who didn't talk to anyone), Jimmy Webb, Jack Nicholson, and Her
Blondness Herself, whom Toller discovered hiding in her bedroom smoking
dope.
It's a fun chapter, although it doesn't reveal as much about Joni as it
does about La Cranston himself.
Here's the website for the book:
http://www.mcclelland.com/releases/hell_freezes.html
Jim
