jim provided: >Okay, again, I'm very glad to have this new information, that Rousseau painted jungle scenes. I don't know paintings- I'm a photographer. :) That's very interesting but in Joni's song, Joni's fantasy of Rousseau, he *is* painting the bar scene. Check this: "In a low-cut blouse she brings the beer. *Rousseau* paints a jungle flower behind her ear. <snip> With his hard-edged eyes and steady hand *he paints the cellar* full of ferns and orchid vines and he 'hangs' a moon above a five-pieced band." In Joni's fantasy of Rousseau, the jungle painter is in a cellar nightclub, rendering the primitive that he perceives within the urban scene. As if Joni's saying, "If Rousseau was here, here's what *he'd* see. This is what he would notice and capture." Just my two cents.> I don't mean to be intrusive, really... and of course I must always apologize for being behind as I always am... (hell, I heard I got flamed and I haven't even gotten there yet! LoL!) I do realize this discussion has long since passed on, but I just couldn't refrain from comment on 'painting in the cellar nightclub', though not necessarily as regards Mr. Rousseau... this has been previously documented onlist by cul heath and brian moss. (around feb-mar '99 for you archive diggers) picture a coffeehouse (called 'The Cellar' btw) in a not-so-big lakeport city which had been opened and closed twice before... closed once for drugs I heard rumors... 1966, a VERY creative HS art teacher (bill mandt, an important name in Joni history) undertakes a massive class project of forming a NonProfOrg, reopening this cellar nightclub for the third time, primarily for two reasons... one, to *paint* it... (no, I don't mean hauling out the rollers and painting the walls, (which ended up all black, btw) by that I mean sending forth the best of his art students, cul heath among them, to do a white-on-black motif mural of the entire coffeehouse! see pics here and take note of the walls: (and read captions) http://members.wbs.net/homepages/b/a/d/badwolff/cellar4.JPG and: http://members.wbs.net/homepages/b/a/d/badwolff/cellar2.JPG and it is also discussed in the article, here: http://members.wbs.net/homepages/b/a/d/badwolff/cellar1.JPG and here we have a quote from cul, one of the artists himself: "Bill Mandt was the art teacher at Port Huron High School who with the help of a couple of other teachers, took a bunch of us students who were into art and music and... had us take over this basement of a downtown building and after cleaning and painting the place black with white murals. I got the chore of painting the entrance stairway walls with abstract stuff. We called it the Cellar. It became the site for an amazing array of performers including Chuck and Joni Mitchell." ...which leads into Mr. Mandt's second reason, to bring back, at all costs, Chuck and (mostly) Joni who had played there in it's previous incarnations. I just thought I'd throw another $.02 into the ring... interesting, I think, in regards to where Joni may have picked up her 'painting in the cellar nightclub' imagery... of course there were probably other clubs, especially in NYC and I believe either the Riverboat or the Pennyfarthing in Toronto was a cellar club, but here we have at least one link between the cellar club and painting... and it was even *called* The Cellar! :o) cheers, pat NP: Jericho http://members.wbs.net/homepages/b/a/d/badwolff/badwolff.html Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com
