The 1960s have many associations. President Kennedy. Civil Rights. The Vietnam War. Beatles. Cannabis. Hippies. Assassinations.
I suppose you could add many other things to those, but among the “things” associated with the 1960s are lava lamps, those warm, gently bubbling devices that can be as meditatively relaxing as TM.
Lava Blobs
An Egg Timer
In 1948, while in a pub, British accountant, movie maker, and entrepreneur Edward Craven-Walker noticed something on a stove top “made out of a cocktail-shaker, old tins, wax and things“. Liquids bubbled inside.
A man had made the device for his daughter. The cocktail shaker went into the water with an egg and, as the water heated, the wax would melt and float to the top in the time it took to perfectly boil the egg. [2011 Guardian article]
Lava Blobs
A Lamp
The inventor of the lava lamp Edward Craven Walker and his wife and business partner Christine with the company van in the 1960s. (picture from https://www.dorsetmagazine.co.uk/people/made-in-britain-cressida-granger-from-iconic-brand-mathmos-1-4089181)
Craven Walker decided he could do something else with the mechanism: create a lamp that displayed those blobs. He combined two insoluble liquids, which according to a Smithsonian article, one [was] water-based, the other wax-based. The exact recipe is a proprietary secret, but a key ingredient is the solvent carbon tetrachloride, which adds weight to the otherwise buoyant wax. The heat source at the bottom of the lamp liquefies the waxy blob. As it expands, its density decreases and it rises to the top—where it cools, congeals and begins to sink back down.
He had hired British inventor David George Smith to develop the device and the chemical formula required put his idea into practice. Smith is credited as the inventor on the original U.S. Patent 3,387,396It took him 15 years to figure that out.
Crestworth Ltd was formed in September of 1963 to manufacture the lamp.
Lava Blobs
Neither
Looking like a rocket (remember there was a space race on), the lamp is hardly that. Perhaps a night light is a better comparison, but given the refreshments that many young Boomers found themselves enjoying, add a slow-motion bubble lamp to a darkened room, a glowing joint, and some, let’s say, Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma and you have a recipe for groovy, for heavy, for Dude.
Lava Blobs
Astrolamps > Mathmos
By the end of the decade Crestworth Ltd. manufactured millions of “Astro Lamps,” as he called them, per year. In 1965, he sold the U.S. manufacturing rights to a company called Lava Lite.
Crestworth Ltd sold millions of lamps worldwide in the 1960s and 70s. In 1989, Cressida Granger and David Mulley took over the running of Walker’s original company, Crestworth, situated in Poole, Dorset, and changed the name to Mathmos in 1992. Mathmos is the bubbling force in the sci-fi cult 60s movie Barberella
In Europe Craven-Walker’s original lava lamp designs have been in continuous production since the early 1960s and are still made today by Mathmos in Poole, Dorset, UK.
Lava Blobs
Another Claim to Fame
American 1964 newspaper advertisement with Travelling Light as second feature
The inspiration for a bubbling lamp wasn’t Craven-Walker’s only idea. He was a nudist and decided to make a nudist movie in the form of an underwater ballet. Released in 1960, it was called Travelling Light. He intended it for private showings to encourage his naturist way of life.
Toward the end of the 1990s, Craven suffered from cancer. He died in Hampshire on August 15, 2000.
The Lava Lamp itself continues to evolve even today including non-liquid mechanics into the design called the Crestworth Traction Lamp which “features a model steam engine working inside an illuminated enclosure of a lantern or a ship’s storm lantern and provides the romance of the steam age mixed with the power of the past.”
We ended June with some States reaching the upper phases of reopening their economy, yet others, that had opened too soon, having to go back and restrict contact. It would be a terrible month in the US and many other parts of the world.
U.S. Reports Nearly 50,000 New Coronavirus Cases, Another Single-Day Record
July 1: the United States reported 49,932 new coronavirus cases, the fifth single-day case record in eight days, according to a New York Times database. North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas also hit daily records, with Texas reaching more than 8,000 new infections.
As new cases rose, states and localities reversed course on reopenings. New York City decided not to let its restaurants resume indoor service next week as originally planned. Miami Beach said that it would reinstate a nightly curfew beginning Thursday at 12:30 a.m., extending until 5 a.m., to try to curb the spread. And California shut down bars and halted indoor dining at restaurants in 19 counties that were home to more than 70 percent of the state’s population. [NYT article]
July 2020 COVID 19
532,687 COVID Deaths Worldwide
July 4: 11,364,440 cases; 532,687 deaths worldwide
132,302 COVID Deaths USA
July 4: 2,934,168 cases; 132,302 deaths in the United States
July 2020 COVID 19
States Shatter Coronavirus Records
July 4: NPR reported that state authorities had again reported a record-breaking number of new coronavirus cases.
Florida and South Carolina both reported passing their previous single-day highs, while Alabama, Texas and a slew of others continued to reel from recent records of their own.
In Florida on July 3 alone, there were more than 11,400 newly confirmed cases of the virus. That sum shatters a record that was set in the state just a couple of days ago — around the same time that the U.S. as a whole recorded the world’s highest-ever daily tally, with more than 55,000.
In a desperate bid to curtail the latest spike in the statewide caseload, local leaders in Florida implemented a slew of measures to tamp down the weekend’s usual holiday festivities. Miami-Dade County, for one, has instituted a curfew beginning at 10 p.m. “until further notice,” while beaches across much of South Florida are closed.
July 2020 COVID 19
Coronavirus Is Airborne
July 4: the NY Times reported that the emerging clusters of infection increasingly confirm what many scientists had been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby.
If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation, the consequences for containment will be significant. Masks may be needed indoors, even in socially distant settings. Health care workers may need N95 masks that filter out even the smallest respiratory droplets as they care for coronavirus patients.
Ventilation systems in schools, nursing homes, residences and businesses may need to minimize recirculating air and add powerful new filters. Ultraviolet lights may be needed to kill viral particles floating in tiny droplets indoors.
The World Health Organization had long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor.
July 2020 COVID 19
Trump administration moves to formally withdraw US from WHO
July 7: the White House officially moved to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), a senior administration official confirmed, breaking ties with a global public health body in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S. submitted its withdrawal notification to the United Nations secretary-general, the official said. Withdrawal requires a year’s notice, so it will not go into effect until July 6, 2021, raising the possibility the decision could be reversed. [The Hill article]
July 2020 COVID 19
Another national record & at least five states set single-day records for infections
July 8: the NY Times reported that as President Trump continued to press for a broader reopening, the United States set another record for new coronavirus cases, with more than 59,400 infections announced, according to a New York Times database. It was the fifth national record in nine days.
The previous record, 56,567, was reported July 3.
The country reached a total of three million cases July 7 as the virus continued its resurgence in the South and West. At least five states — Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia — set single-day records for new infections on this date.
As of July 7 the country’s daily number of new cases had increased by 72 percent over the past two weeks. And by this date 24 states had reported more cases over the past week than in any other seven-day stretch of the pandemic.
July 2020 COVID 19
552,781 COVID Deaths Worldwide
July 9: 12,196,982 cases; 552,781 deaths worldwide
134,883 COVID Deaths USA
July 9: 3,159,514 cases; 134,883 deaths in the United States
July 2020 COVID 19
Another US record
July 12: the Florida Department of Health reported at least 15,299 new Covid-19 cases, the highest number of new cases in a single day by any state since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The test positivity rate — which could indicate how rampantly the virus was spreading — reached 19.6% as of July 12, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Across the country, more than half the states are dealing with increased rates of new cases compared to last week. And more than half the states have paused or rolled back their reopening plans in hopes of getting coronavirus under control. [CNN article]
July 2020 COVID 19
572,227 COVID Deaths Worldwide
July 13: 13,062,585 cases; 572,227 deaths worldwide
137,787 COVID Deaths USA
July 13: 3,414,105 cases; 137,787 deaths in the United States
July 2020 COVID 19
C.D.C. Stripped of Control of COVID Data
July 14: the Trump administration ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning July 15. The move alarmed health experts who feared the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.
The new instructions were posted in a little-noticed document on the Department of Health and Human Services website. The department — not the C.D.C. — would collect daily reports about the patients that each hospital is treating, the number of available beds and ventilators, and other information vital to tracking the pandemic.
Officials said the change would streamline data gathering and assist the White House coronavirus task force in allocating scarce supplies like personal protective gear and remdesivir, the first drug shown to be effective against the virus. But the Health and Human Services database that would receive new information was not open to the public, which could affect the work of scores of researchers, modelers and health officials who rely on C.D.C. data to make projections and crucial decisions.
“Historically, C.D.C. has been the place where public health data has been sent, and this raises questions about not just access for researchers but access for reporters, access for the public to try to better understand what is happening with the outbreak,” said Jen Kates, the director of global health and H.I.V. policy with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. [NYT article]
July 2020 COVID 19
582,320 COVID Deaths Worldwide
July 15: 13,504,043 cases; 582,320 deaths worldwide
139,189 COVID Deaths USA
July 15: 3,548,546 cases; 139,189 deaths in the United States
July 2020 COVID 19
White House reversal
July 16: the US Department of Health and Human Services changed course on its controversial decision about hospital data, directing the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to re-post public hospital information onto its website.
On July 14, the HHS had told hospitals to stop reporting the data on coronavirus hospitalizations to CDC, saying the agency was posting the information too slowly. HHS, the parent department of CDC, said it would manage the information instead.
CDC had taken down some of the data from its website on July 15th, but on the morning of July 16, HHS said it was directing the agency to put the data back up. [CNN story]
July 2020 COVID 19
U.S. shatters its single-day record for new cases, with more than 75,600
This was the 11th time in the past month that the record had been broken. The number has more than doubled since June 24, when the country registered 37,014 cases after a lull in the outbreak had kept the previous record, 36,738, standing for two months.
As of July 15, the country’s seven-day average case number exceeded 63,000, up from about 22,200 a month before.
July 2020 COVID 19
For 1st time, Trump urges Americans to wear masks
July 21: the daily death total in the United States exceeded 1,000 for the first time in weeks, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were likely far more infections than have been reported.
The news came as President Trump abandoned his consistently rosy forecasts and told reporters during his first coronavirus briefing since April that the outbreak would probably “get worse before it gets better.”
Having previously described recent outbreaks around the country as just “embers” of the virus, Mr. Trump conceded that there were now “big fires,” particularly in Florida and elsewhere across the South and West.
He also reversed his past resistance to masks, for the first time imploring Americans to wear them and acknowledging that “they have an impact.” [NYT article]
July 2020 COVID 19
620,292 COVID Deaths Worldwide
July 22: 15,121,827 cases; 620,292 deaths worldwide
144,958 COVID Deaths USA
July 22: 4,028,733 cases; 144,958 deaths in the United States
July 2020 COVID 19
U.S. nears a single-day record
July 24: the United States came just short of breaking its single-day record for new coronavirus cases, adding more than 73,400, the second-highest daily total, and signaling that infection rates show no signs of slowing.
The single-day record, set on July 16, is 75,697 cases. Since June 24, the seven-day average had more than doubled, from 31,402 to more than 66,100 on this date, which was also the fourth consecutive day with more than 1,100 deaths reported.
As the number of cases has continued to climb, so has the number of hospitalizations, which had skirted its own record in recent days.
The number of people known to be hospitalized with the coronavirus in the United States was 59,670, according to the Covid Tracking Project, a few hundred short of the record of 59,940 reported by the database on April 15. [NYT article]
July 2020 COVID 19
Florida
July 26: Florida recorded more coronavirus cases than New York. Only California, the most populous state in the country, had more.
As of July 26, data from Johns Hopkins University showed 423,855 people in Florida had tested positive for the coronavirus, compared to 411,736 in New York. California lead with 450,242 cases.
New York, once the epicenter of the outbreak in the U.S., managed to bring the number of deaths and hospitalizations under control in late spring, as cases began to surge in many Western and Southern states.
In Early July, Florida reported 15,299 new resident cases in one day, marking the largest single-day increase in any state since the start of the pandemic and overshadowing a record New York had set in April. It recorded more than 9,000 new cases per day since then.
And its death toll was starting to catch up. On July 23, Florida reported 173 new deaths, its largest increase in a single day.
Florida logged 9,338 new cases among residents and 77 new deaths on July 26, while New York’s latest daily numbers reflect 536 new cases and three deaths. [NPR story]
U.S. July cases more than double the total of any other month
July 31: The United States recorded more than 1.9 million new infections in July, nearly 42 percent of the more than 4.5 million cases reported nationwide since the pandemic began and more than double the number documented in any other month, according to data compiled by The New York Times. The previous monthly high came in April, when more than 880,000 new cases were recorded.
The virus was picking up dangerous speed in much of the Midwest — and in states from Mississippi to Florida to California that thought they had already seen the worst of it.
Those who have seen Taking Woodstock, the entertaining movie about the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. know that as entertaining as it is, accuracy isn’t always at the fore.
Was there an Elliot Tiber? Yes. Did his parents run the El Monaco? Yes. Was an old barn on that property that Allan Mann’s Earthlight Theater renovated into a theater? Yes. Did Tiber write the book by the same name explaining his role in the famed festival? Yes
From there, Ang Lee, Taking Woodstock‘s director, and writer James Schamus, as any director and writer do, told a story “based on a true story,” but made fanciful and entertaining more than valid.
Lee prominently featured the Earthlight Theater in Taking Woodstock. Nudity and eccentricity are common parts of a movies and cinema often sees their combination as even more attractive.
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
Allan Mann/California
According to Allan Mann, he had started The Realization Theater in Los Angeles which led to he being hired as Artistic Director of the Century City Play-house by David Sheehan. Mann also performed with a comedy group called The Committee and taken a film course at UCLA during the summer of 1968.
His film won first prize and he was offered a scholarship to attend UCLA Film School. He thus faced a career decision: whether to start training for a career in film or go back to New York to pursue a career in theater
He studied dance with Anna Sokolow and fell in love with Jane Richardson–today, Jane Richardson-Mack). They went to hear Sri Swami Satchidananda–a name founded in Sanskrit: sat [existence], chid [knowledge], and ananda [bliss]–speak at the Universalist church. He approached Satchidananda and spoke to him afterward.
Both he and Jane and I became students of his
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
Earthlight Theater
Mann wanted to form a theater company that had the same energy as he’d experienced with Hair, Paradise Now, and The Serpent.
He and graduated Columbia University and friends there let him use a storefront social club they called Tree House Two. He and Richardson auditioned actors and began workshops and rehearsals.
The original members included Sheila Cohen (later Rachel Lovey), Robin Mide, Wendy Blakely, Jean Morris, Dale Picciano, Darlene DiDomenico, Carlos Corujon and his monkey Celeste (the baby in our production of Alice Tripping in Wonderland), Paul Gloss, Tylar Gustavson, Miriam Iron, Gil Martinez, Steven Smith, Peter George, Sally LoGalbo, and David Starr Klein
Though artistically satisfying, the venture made little money. In April 1969 he saw an ad in the Village Voice. Elliot Tiber was offering summer barn for free if someone turned it into a theater. The idea of giving the Earthlight troupe a communal experience in the country appealed to Mann.
Paul Johnson, a friend of Mann, drove him to meet Tiber in Bethel, NJ. Tiber’s offer was: build the theater and pay $800 season rent for a nearby six bedroom Victorian . $200 up front. Mann offered Johnson a house for the summer for $200. Johnson paid.
To select a name for the new company Jane, Robin Mide and Mann threw the I Ch’ing. It gave them the image of light coming out of the earth: Earthlight.
Earthlight moved to Bethel at the same time that Woodstock Ventures was jumping through legal hurdles in Wallkill, NY in its attempt to put on a rock festival.
It comprised a variety of short stylized pieces written by Mann and created in collaboration with the ensemble. The idea was that since it was the end of the season the troupe needed to build up as much capital as possible in order to continue. Thus S.E.X.
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
Woodstock Haze
Some say there were 500,000 attendees at Woodstock. Some say that there was a million surrounding those 500,000 who never got to the festival. Richie Havens said he played on Friday for two and a half hours. Many believe that everyone was high, skinny dipping, sliding around in mud, and that there was one continuous orgy occurring. Others say if you can remember Woodstock, you weren’t there.
Elliot Tiber said he was responsible for bringing Woodstock to Bethel after Wallkill kicked out the venture. Michael Lang disagrees. Artie Kornfeld disagrees with both.
Allan Mann said he spoke to Tiber about getting permission and then contacted Woodstock Ventures to come to Bethel.
Wherever the truth lies, it is true that the Woodstock Music and Art Fair did come to Bethel, did find Max Yasgur, and did have its its still famous festival on August 15, 16, 17, and 18, 1969.
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
Sri Swami Satchidananda
Woodstock Ventures hired the Earthlight Theater to perform locally before the festival as well as around the festival itself.
Mann says he was instrumental in having Woodstock Ventures invite Sri Swami Satchidananda to open the festival. Artist Peter Max says it was he.
In any case, the opening honors actually went to Richie Havens who played approximately 45 minutes and left the stage to boisterous applause to his improvised Freedom.
Following Havens, Satchidananda spoke with the Earthlight troupe next to him on stage.
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
Back to California
Hoping to find a financial backer, the troupe performed their play S.E.X. at the Open Theater in NYC. That didn’t succeed, so Mann and most of the troupe decided to move to California.
There they received positive reviews after performances of The Kindred.
As in Bethel, a friend offered them a space in Venice if they’d convert it into a performance venue. Some of the troupe left at that point, others joined. They did the conversion and all continued to go well.
Sarah Lukeman, their booking agent, got them a gig at Northwestern University in January 1970. Chicago. In January!
They went and Larry Kagan of The Daily Northwestern wrote: ““Nearly 1,000 people were baptized Sunday night at Cahn Auditorium, and the medium was neither fire nor water. It was Earthlight … the best parts of the Second City, The Committee, Hair and the Living Theater are embodied in this young, fluid, and really together company.”
Back to LA for more successes as well as other college gigs. Then cross-country tours.
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
Live Music
Mann realized that for the troupe and their performance to evolve, he needed to continue to renovate. He decided to invite the band Pure Love & Pleasure to join both as a part of the troupe as well as performing separately.
They performed for two weeks at the Gracie Square Theater, on New York’s upper east side.
The New York Times’s Mel Gussow wrote in the November 4, 1970 edition:
The touch of the “Earth light Theater” is gentle…. The audience at the Gracie Square Theater sits in bleachers and on pillows piled on the floor. The actors shake hands with their guests, cozily share pillows, then flow towards a bandstand where a group called Pure Love and Pleasure is pounding high‐decibel rock. The cast is vigorous and attractive, heavy with hair, and wearing jump suits. One warms to these young people and the atmosphere of innocence, and goodwill.
Then Earthlight opened off-B’way at the Garrick Theater on January 20, 1971, received other rave reviews and ran through April, but by this point only four of the original Bethel troupe were still with the company.
Managerial disagreements let to the troupe’s demise. In the end, the only originals were Mann and Jane.
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
And Back Again
Back to California. With Pure Love & Pleasure also having left the group, Mann teamed up with composer David Cohen. The partnership succeeded until Cohen and Jane fell in love and left Earthlight.
After a reluctant spring tour, Earthlight ended
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
PS. Taking Woodstock–not!
Mann was not a fan of the movie. He wrote: on the evening of August 28, 2009 I sat in a movie theater and watched my magnificent Earthlight creation trashed before my eyes and millions of others on the big screen in Ang Lee and James Schamus’ movie Taking Woodstock. They represented Earthlight in a totally fictitious and ridiculous manner. I’m not a good enough writer to express what I felt watching that shock-ing insult to myself and all the other Earthlighters who brought the world not only the Woodstock Festival, with Swami Satchidananda, but also some of the most extraordinary theatrical experiences audiences have ever had anywhere at any time.
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
Nowadays
And as has occasionally happened with this little Woodstock site, I received this comment on a post in 2020 from Allan Mann:
We’re planning an Earthlight Revival for animation (from old B&W tapes), stage, book, documentary, Quick Bits for the internet, video recording, song recordings & possible feature.
Earthlight Theater Allan Mann
What's so funny about peace, love, art, and activism?
