In 1990-91-ish I was living in Allston with Mary Lou Lord. I was madly in love with her and she was through with me. She'd come home late and sleep in the living room. I wrote her a heartfelt letter once and came home to find it torn in half in the trash. When I expressed alarm, she said, "What? I already read it. Why keep it?" People can be so far apart in the same room. I took a one week trip to London to clear my head and go record shopping. That week she brought Kurt Cobain home to the apartment. He was in Boston for a gig, before the release of Nevermind. She met him when she convinced the door man with the tracheotomy and the voice box (Mitch?) at The Rat to let him in to see...I don't recall. Mary Lou if you're reading can you fill in the details? 
In the apartment she played and sang him the entire Nevermind album on her acoustic guitar, fastidiously and passionately learned from an advance cassette she'd been given by our friend Dave Gwiazdowski. The album was not out and Kurt was reportedly floored. Mary Lou moved out shortly thereafter and went on tour with him in Europe and the rest of that story can be read elsewhere. But while I was still in London, heartbroken and lonely, I went to Camden Town Market on a Sunday and found a vendor selling incredible graphically beautiful yet horrific Polish posters for 6 pounds each. They pretty much captured what I was feeling right then and I bought four of them. Over the years I've had them up on my various walls and most of my friends have found them more disturbing than beautiful. Today I picked up the new issue of 
The Believer because there was an article on this phenomenon, which they only provide a portion of on that link. It brought back a lot of memories, but really my enthusiasm and love of this art was the greater part of the memory as odd as that may sound. I've found a few other links so you can have a look at some of these beauties. Well Medicated. RetroCrush. And an excellent article if you scroll down a bit here.My friends will recognize these two.
XVI Dias De La Musica De Antiguos Maestros - Musica EspanolaXVI Dni muzyki starych mistrzow
designer: Stasys Eidrigevicius
year: 1987
In the Middle AgeOriginal Polish movie poster
film, China
director: Wang Quimin
designer: Wieslaw Walkuski
year: 1986
.jpg)
Posts
4 comments:
The context of your acquisition of the posters makes me mildly more comfortable with them. They are beautiful, really.
are fantastic!
Love the story behind them. it's very real.
I was comfortable living with the slightly creepy musician;the (non-Polish, I think) horse with the giant penis over the breakfast table was a bit off-putting though.
That was a different apartment Bridget; father up Comm. Ave. No horse penis there.
Post a Comment