Sources

Temporary page containing links and sources.

Dates

1966
1966 1966-12-21 The Baytown Sun: Christmas Festivities in Full Swing on Lee College Campus Reb Dance The gymnasium was the scene for the Rho Epsilon Beta Christmas Dance which was held Friday. Three bands, The Jolly Itch, The Red Crayolas, and the Inmates provided music for the semi-formal dance.

1967

1967 1967 The Red Crayola live photo The Red Crayola live, 1967 Photo by Dr. James Cunningham Mayo Thompson, Frederick Barthelme, and Steve Cunningham. 1967-04 Houston Chronicle Note: not found There was a Houston Chronicle from April, 1967 article mentioning that the "Red Crayolas" (sic) were playing a fashion show there, but they refer to it as "an old church" and not La Maison. 1967-06-03 Red Crayola plays opening of Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine [Photo of poster] This is the grand opening poster for the Love Street Light Circus and Feel Good Machine in Houston, Texas on June 3rd 1967. The bands included the Red Crayola, the Starvation Army Band and Fever Tree. The reverse side of this handbill is autographed by members of Jefferson Airplane who visited Love Street after a performance in Houston. It is believed that this was the second version of the handbill that was printed and that it was more widely distributed than the first version. During conversations with the original owner, he indicated that no one could read the first version (see below!) [Photo of poster] This is probably the first version of the grand opening poster (or large handbill) for the Love Street Light Circus. It promotes the same bands and the same dates, but includes a lot of information in the psychedelic lettering Some more info on the venue 1967-06: The Parable of Arable Land LP Released by International Artists 1967-06-29: Angry Arts Festival Red Crayola performance Live 1967: Venice Pavillion Concert, Afternoon Venice Motel, Evening, Piece One Venice Motel, Evening, Piece Two 1967-06-30: The Berkeley Barb: Folk Scene 1967-06-30: Berkeley Folk Music Festival Red Crayola performances 1967-07-02 performance Live 1967: 7/2, Evening: "Dust" 1967-07-03 performance Live 1967: 7/3, Afternoon: Red Crayola with John Fahey 1967-07-04 performance Live 1967: 7/4, Afternoon: Jubilee Concert 1967-07-17 The Rag: Berkeley Folk Festival review pg. 12 & 11 1967-07-21 The Berkeley Barb: Berkeley Folk Festival review pg. 8

1968
1968 1968 Mother: Houston's Rock Magazine interview Band interview 1968-07-01 The Chicago Seed Reviews of Parable and God Bless

1969
1969

1970

1970 1970 Frederick Barthelme - Rangoon book Front cover: Text and photographs copyright by Frederick Barthelme Illustrations copyright by Mayo Thompson All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-118570 Manufactured in the United States of America at Valley Offset Winter House Ltd New York 1970 Mayo Thompson - Corky's Debt to His Father LP Released by Texas Revolution 1970-08-30 Houston Chronicle: The Barthelmes, Houston's Own Hardy Boys ... His brother, Frederick Barthelme, is 27, an artist and the author of a just-published book of short fiction pieces, "Rangoon." (Winter House $7.95). Another book will be published soon by Doubleday. ... Frederick Barthelme went to St. Thomas High and the University of Houston. For a while, art was his major interest. He had a show in May 1967 at the Louisiana Gallery and he won the Oklahoma State Fair's purchase prize. His sculpture has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art. Frederick Barthelme had shoulder-length hair as long ago as 1967, which indicates an independent spirit. He played with a musical group, "The Red Crayola," and recorded "The Parable of Arable Land." His first book, "Rangoon," is the first book to be published by Winter House, a publishing company formed by Laurence Dent and his wife. Dent says that "Rangoon" is a modernization of Joyce, Camus and Stein. According to Frederick Barthelme, its central thesis is "the thunderous acceptability of the human lack of condition."

1971
1971

1972

1972 1972-02-13 Houston Chronicle: Books: Fiction Explored From Frederick Barthelme... 1972-02-13 Houston Chronicle: Books: Fiction Explored From Frederick Barthelme... By Ann Waldron, Book Editor [Photo of Frederick Barthelme by Larry Evans, Chronicle Staff] And now we have Frederick Barthelme, "experimental novelist." Some people think he's better than his brother, Donald, whom the New York Times Magazine called "the most interesting writer in American today." Other people think Frederick is a put-on, a dabbler too lazy to write so people can understand him. He's had two novels published -- "Rangoon" and "War and War." An excerpt from a third "Ten Bears", appeared in Works in Progress, but was turned down for publication by the publisher who had contracted for it. Frederick Barthelme is back in his native Houston, working occasionally at the Contract Graphics gallery, "relaxing," thinking about writing, talking about a new musical group, discussing his work. "It's strange being out of New York," he said. "You lose contact. But I've stopped worrying about it. I decided to give up the posture of the famous New York writer down on his luck." What posture has he assumed? Well he's at work on a fourth novel, but hasn't written a line in three months. "I wouldn't write anything until I could write something that would really knock me out," he said. "Most of the work I've done is limited, on the arcane side. There's some kind of truncation, the reader doesn't get involved in it. I'm trying to cross that boundary without becoming Jacqueline Susann. I don't mean telling a story. I'm not interested in a story. I'm more interested in saying that John killed Sally in one exquisite sentence than I am in the fact that he killed her. "I don't know why that is. That's just the way I'm built, little lady." Frederick Barthelme grew up in Houston, one of the five children of Donald Barthelme Sr. He went to Tulane and the University of Houston, amassing 212 hours, but no degree in seven years. He painted and his work appeared in several group shows around town. "I was writing, too," he said. "I wrote some plays, very strange, only 1000 words, some only one sentence. They were a cross between painting and drama. In my brash youth, with my vast knowledge of painting, I decided painting was confining. I wrote short stories and never tried to publish them. All the characters were horses. They talked and went to communion." He played drums in a three-man band, Red Krayola, which made two records and played concerts here and in California. In 1967, he went to New York and worked for a while at the Kornblee Gallery. "I sat there and answered the phone and talked to people who came in." Then he quit work to write fulltime. How did he live? "With a friend," he said, "and she had a good job." Barthelme worked hard, and waded through a first novel, "Hof." "It's never been published," he said, "and I've robbed it for other books." His brother, Donald Barthelme Jr., author of "Snow White" and "City Life," helped him find an agent. It had taken Frederick only three or four months to write "Hof," and although it didn't sell, several publishers asked "what Mr. Barthelme is writing now?" So Frederick obligingly sat down and wrote "War and War" in one month. Doubleday bought "War and War" in 1968. It wasn't published until June, 1971, because the editor who bought it left, the second editor didn't get along with Frederick and the third editor didn't do anything. Finally the fourth editor was found. Meanwhile, Barthelme put together another novel, "Rangoon," which he says is a "combination of stuff," presumably some of the bits and pieces of "Hof," and a new publisher, Winter House, brought it out in 1970. "Rangoon" is illustrated by Mayo Thompson, an old friend of Frederick's Red Krayola days. "'War and War' is the leading edge of my development," Barthelme said with a straight face. "It's more serious." Neither book got much critical attention. "War and War" was panned on Page 46 of the New York Times Book Review. Barthelme started on "Ten Bears" and came back to Houston last summer to finish it. Doubleday decided not to publish it, and Barthelme say it's "in limbo." Meanwhile, he says he's learning how to relax. "I used to hate Houston," he said. "I used to think it was a real dump. Now it doesn't bother me, except that the air is rotten and the terrain is flat and the trees were all designed by Roy Hofheinz' engineers." What does he read? He doesn't seem to be a great reader. "In 1967 I was very hot on John Barth," he said, "and Wilfrid Sheed and William Gass. I never could stand Tom Wolfe. When I was writing 'War and War' I was going through a mock-intellectual period and read a lot of philosophy. I'd read ten pages and be so bored I couldn't go on. I read the mystics, the Don Juan books -- that's sort of life-living made simple, 'Cliff's Notes' on living life. I used to read Simenon and Dick Francis. I liked Alfred Jarry's 'Ubu Roi.'" What will become of Frederick Barthelme? Who knows? An editor at Doubleday wrote a meme that said, "This guy is a genius and... in the long run he is better than his brother...he really plows new ground...it's frighteningly good." "I do not believe that fiction is a microcosm. I do not believe that fiction is a "little world" which is in some vague way a reconstruction of a possible "real world." A fiction is autonomous, and while it is necessarily referential in character, it is ideally an addition to as against a reconstruction of a possible world. "Lazlo says that fiction describes a process or method of working (specifically writing) which holds as its originary impulse the imagination, and which does not necessarily submit to any regulation other than that imagination. I find this definition satisfactory." -- From "War and War," by Frederick Barthelme.

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