Where's Armand?

Always On A Mountain

It's been decided. We'll be making a trip up to the summit of Mauna Kea in early May to scatter the last of Armand's ashes. You may recall the other spots around the world where he also remains:

Grand Teton National Park
Grand Canyon
Dream Lake
Africa (video link)

This will be especially sweet because Armand's daughter Ann likes to spend time beneath an umbrella reading, napping or talking with friends on the beach at Mauna Kea. When Armand was alive, he was often the topic of those beach day talks and Ann would run through a list of locations where he could be found. Some things never change, thank goodness.

 Photo: Alaska TravelGram

Mama Don't Take My Kodachrome

From the Armand Diaries:
September 15, 1947:

Hmm, may as well tell it: after the shots I took at Rainbow Bridge, just before the new reel jammed, not one picture will I get - none of Florida, Acoma, Haiti, plane trip, or Cuba. Something happened to shatter and it never opened.

Just found it out last evening when I found several rolls returned unexposed - 3 or 4 not yet in, but will make no difference, unless shutter had  a spell of working: I doubt it. Was about flattened when I saw results last eve.

Toying with idea of returning alone at Xmas for about a week, repeating the job. Loss in film and money for trip to return in neighborhood of $300 or more. Stathers suggested maybe the university would help a little with expenses of a return trip. Maybe! 

My first 3 rolls of 36 Kodachromes all turned out fine.

[1992: i.e., as against the rest, which were ruined.]

~~~
This must have been a devastating experience, enough for Armand to read and make note of it again some 45 years later.

For those of you still wondering where the title for this post came from, here is Paul Simon via Lala Song Player.


Photo: Public Radio.org

 

Looking for Love in All the Right Places

 

When Armand spoke of love, it most often was in regards to Mary White. In 1935 he admitted to his diary that he desired "someone well-educated, intelligent, a lover of the outdoors, plus an infinite capacity for over-looking my faults."

In the next two years, he met and pursued Mary before asking her to marry him in April, 1937:

"Saturday night I told her I wanted to marry her as soon as I could afford (what a word!) it and she virtually said yes! ...It is just a question of money (small detail!) before we get married...The Lord must surely look after the interest of the unworthy likes of me!"

Read all about it, just in time for Valentine's:

Finding Mary.
Finding Mary, Part II

Reflecting the Film

From The Armand Diaries
Saturday, June 18, 1949:

Joel McCrea, Virginia Mayo in Colorado Territory - filmed not in color, in New Mexico's south west canyon country. Story of a train robber who decides to go straight, and how he is finally hunted down and killed, with his bride to be, by a heartless, callous posse, interested in the $20,000 reward.

His end comes into sweeping, deep canyon country, which is made to seem a part of the action. The westerns often fail to tie landscapes into the story, but this one does.

The story is old, but gives new touches to it. Obviously in The Treasure of Sierra Madre, there was just a hint of morality (or religious) play here, at least the hint of retribution for sins...Pretty well acted. One of those pictures that in a minor way leaves you sad and thoughtful on leaving.

Through years of conditioned training a movie goer has come to expect a happy ending in a western and even wants it. In fact, our "movie" morality is so low, we cheer for the crook-hero-a-victim of circumstances, etc. - though a killer and want him to escape with the $100,000 he's stolen from the train, to Mexico and marry his reformed dance hall girl and be happy.

Gets you to wondering just what the tragic ending does to you (beyond pointing a moral) - the Aristotelian katharsis, etc. I suppose, among other things, it makes you count your blessings, love your own wife, family, girl, etc., more (the girl of course you identify with girl in picture, the hero with yourself).

Does it purify you through vicarious suffering, a substitute for having to have it actually happen to you yourself? You do feel different in some way after wards. Or is it a desire for self torture, a mild form of masochism, that makes one want to experience a tragedy?

Note the picture's title. Most all movie westerns are named after a state, territory, or a city.