This is an interactive post, with pictures and accessible links, so that you can feel yourself inside the book. Enjoy! :)
PART TWO: CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC.
In this part of “The White Album”, my friend Joan shows us that she can write about everything.
A) JAMES PIKE; AMERICAN.
By starting with a very interesting and engaging retelling of James Pike’s story, she gives us the profile of a man who, in my opinion, represents the radical shift of the America he peaked on.
James Pike was an American Episcopal bishop, accused heretic, writer, and one of the first mainline religious figures to appear regularly on television.
Pike's outspoken, and to some of his fellow bishops, heretical, views on many theological and social issues made him one of the most controversial public figures of his time. He was an early proponent of the ordination of women and racial desegregation within mainline churches. The chain smoking Pike was the fifth Bishop of California and, a few years before he began to explore spiritualism and psychic phenomena in an effort to contact his deceased son, became a recovering alcoholic.
James Pike created his own values, like a much powerless Henry The Eighth. For some, a progressive theologian, for many, a controversial figure. Nevertheless, Pike is still somewhat of a polarizing figure to this day, respected by some for his boldness and forward thinking, and criticized by others for his unconventional beliefs and actions. Remember what I told you about dichotomy? Well…
You can take your own conclusions, but one thing is certain: By telling us his story, Joan Didion welcomes us to the true California.
B) HOLY WATER
In “Holy Water”, Joan walks us through California’s water project operations, and it’s many intricacies. We’re seeing the state up and down, in and out, we’re looking at everything. It’s incredible to see how much we learn about her own relationship with water by reading in detail about her day at the California State Water Project Operations Control Center. How complex is the meaning of owning a pool? She’ll tell you.
It is raining in California, a straight rain Cleaning the heavy oranges on the bough, Filling the gardens till the gardens flow, Shining the olives, tiling the gleaming tile, Waxing the dark camellia leaves more green, Flooding the daylong valleys like the Nile.
Karl Shapiro
C) MANY MANSIONS & THE GETTY
“Many Mansions” and “The Getty” are masterpieces, and their main subject is focused on the social and political landscape in America. California politics and controversies are covered on essays about two controversial buildings: The governor’s residence and a $17 million museum to house the art and items of oil baron J. Paul Getty. These two essays will show you how everything can be a political statement, even houses, and how the tastes of the so called ‘critics’ will definitely change with the social and political climate in which a construction is built. Everything is shiftable in the cultural and political terrain, and even the simplest pictures of ‘important’ constructions can show us that.
We really do go through a “Maximalism is cool!” and a “Minimalism is cool!” phase every once in five years (now with TikTok, every once in five months), and there is a whole political and economical undertone behind that. There’s a whole staff of people in some company, working, plotting and scheming overtime to make you think that being a ‘clean girl’ is cool. And being minimalist is the fashion trend of the moment. But, of course, you’re only a minimalist clean girl if you buy their shit.
Either way, the way you see a construction will show you exactly who you are, and how you see the world around you.
The Old Governor's Mansion State Historic Park in Sacramento, Calif.
The music room in the Governor's Mansion in Sacramento.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthiest art institution.
You might want to take a look at this…
D) BUREAUCRATS, GOOD CITIZENS AND NOTES TOWARD A DREAMPOLITIK.
In “Bureaucrats”, my friend Joan recalls a few meetings she went.
The first one to discuss civil rights at Sammy Davis Jr’s house, where nothing was solved. Classic.
A little more further, she tells us about the second one: A story about a dinner she went with some Jaycees.
A Jaycee is a member of the Junior Chamber, a worldwide organization of young professionals that is not affiliated with any particular religion or political party. Jaycee members are men and women between the ages of 21-40, who meet regularly in local chapters to build connections and community.
Jaycees - All you need to know, really.
Anyway, this is pretty much a panoram of America’s political scenario for the last… fifty years or so. Fancy ass dinners where much is eaten, many pictures are taken, “look at what we’re doing for the kids!” is shown. Hollywood actors show up occasionally and do their thing (pretending they give a fuck) and voilà!
And nothing really happens.
I mean, there is an intention to solve the problem, which must be enough, which HAS to be enough.
In “Bureaucrats”, Joan Didion shows us that in the meetings and dinners to solve our sufferings and issues, a rich old white man (problem solver/ demigod/ courageous white savior)’s wife tells him that they should leave immediately because ‘the food looks fucking gross’. Frustrating, no?
No one cares. And everyone is inclined to do what ‘feels right’. Because a rich, white man said so. And it’s in this same context where our famous American cult leaders are born. Cult leaders are nothing but charlatans who are only interested in a personal goal, but pretend they care about you. They’re going to fix this mess. America is going to be reborn through their inexistent womb.
This was the vibe Joan wrote about in the second part of “The White Album” - by covering a ‘godlike’ figure like priest Robert Theobold.
Robert J. Theobold made all his followers move to NOWHERE,CA just because he made a ‘prediction’ that an earthquake was going to destroy everything. This earthquake being one that he totally saw on the news before it happened. In such a shaky political landscape, people need heroes, icons, legends, leaders. They find leaders in even the dumbest of people. Didion’s 1960s showed us that.
Nancy Reagan being told to hold a flower while opening the biggest smile to the camera also ‘feels right’. The sniper-like precision of her movements tells you exactly who she was, and what she represented to 1960s America. She was a lady whose white savior husband is going to save you. Ain’t that nice? That’s beautiful.
Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just say no’ campaign.
“Nancy Reagan says almost everything with spirit, perhaps because she was an actress for a couple of years and has the beginning actress’ habit of investing even the most casual lines with a good deal more dramatic emphasis than is ordinarily called for on a Tuesday morning on Forty-fifth Street in Sacramento.”
Joan Didion
THAT was the political scenario then, THAT is the political scenario now and THAT is what consolidated “The White Album” as such a contemporary book. Always contemporary.
And what happens to the victims of all of this? Joan also tells us.
She tells us this by making a short, but accurate analysis of all the biker movies she watched. Yes, bikers, with the motorcycles and stuff.
‘The Wild Angels’ (1966)
Yup. The internal angst, the fury of being overlooked by your governors, the imminent protest that surrounds your every movement. That was indicative of those times. That was indicative of the cultural significance and underlying messages of these films. The rage of being overlooked that no one wants to have, the rage no one misses, but the rage that is within some of us to this day.
Joan’s detailed and brief description of the biker movies shows us the discrepancy of people’s idealized versions of rebellion (often showed in popular media) and the complicated, nuanced reality of actual rebellion.
— FINAL PART —
JODI closes this second part of “The White Album” by telling us about the youth of Palms, CA.
People who live in what Joan calls “an invisible city” at some point, resided by victims of a city that lies to them above everything else, by telling their youth that all their hopes and dreams are a result of hard work and meritocracy.
You could be a movie star by wanting it really, really hard. That’s what the youth of Palms thought before they were met with the cold, harsh reality that was actually on their left, lying down on the floor, starving in Sunset blvd. They all came to Hollywood to be movie stars, too.
Welcome to California.
IF YOU MISSED PART ONE, MAKE SURE TO CHECK IT OUT:
This is the best. I told a friend how your writing has opened my eyes. Helped me too understand and question. How I honestly have a connection with your work. I'm so grateful for your writing and telling about Joan's work. Thank you so much for being you. Thank you for taking the time to answer back. You're wonderful🥹🌹🫂
i love this so much