Realtors trying to sell Williams College or what is called John Hopkins Spring Mansion or just "The Spring Mansion" these days are challenged in the current housing market, and the current owners have reduced the asking price from something like $6.5 million.
The realtors confide publicly to the press that "there were a lot of wild parties there in the sixties." Maybe there were. Dr. Schoenfeld mentioned to me he'd hosted some large parties at Farley Hall, but I don't think that's the kind of party the realtors are winking at. And certainly the occasional campfire sit-a-round where we barbecued corn on the cob to celebrate a birthday wouldn't qualify as winkable, not in anybody's book. Nor would those late Sunday afternoons the residents spent at a small line of weber cookers on the great patio. Could basting and turning or even admiring the stately Washingtonia palms ever really be regarded as winkable in any way?
I suspect when merchants are signaling to the press about "wild parties there in the sixties", in an attempt to spice up a property description, such historic gossip might actually be a cultural memory handed down to posterity about the times when the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company rehearsed at Williams College.
That makes sense, because theater troupes and dance groups all knew of Williams College as a place in Berkeley that offered rehearsal and dance space.
This theater troupe, The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, because of sheer numbers really needed a large performance space. The company attracted a multitude of members, maybe 20 or 30 or even more if counting the musicians, all of whom drifted on and off the estate, joining together for an evening of long rehearsal that went on far into the night. There was dancing, and music. So I guess that could qualify as a party.
The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, under the helm of Daniel Moore, began creating what he called a poetic sacred folk theater. From 1966 to 1969, the troupe alternated presentation of two plays: "The Walls Are Running Blood" and "Bliss Apocalypse". In each, there was a lot of pageantry and ritual, costumes and masks and painted bodies, flags, props, planetary imagery, prayer scrolls, thunder, lightning, gongs, horns, cymbals, more combinations than can be outlined in a single sentence. The performances were powered by music, and, according to Moore, "the music cut through to the other world, domain of all possibility."
"The intention underlying both of the productions was the transformation of evil and dark energies, such as were driving the Vietnam War, into positive and light energies, through a cathartic initiation, which the central hero had to undergo."
"The impetus and inspiration for the theater company was manifold: Zen Buddhism, which Moore and others of the company were studying at the time, primarily with Zen Master Shrunryu Suzuki in San Francisco, the very vivid and public poetry of the time, by such luminaries as Allen Ginsberg, and its application to open-air ritual theater, as theorized by Antonin Artaud, the music and dance of folk theater, such as Balinese Gamelan rituals, Tibetan monastery rituals of evocation and exorcism, Kathakali of India, etc. and the general wild imagination of the era. Initial poetic "scripts" were written by Moore, with changes, inclusions or deletions, as the members of the Opera Company began rehearsing, trying different things in the kaleidoscope of states we were in at the time,though the final arbiter of changes (usually negotiable) was always left to Moore."
The plays, with singing and chanting, shouting and undulating, like ancient drama went on for hours. At one of their first performances at Live Oak Park in Berkeley, the whole event was closed down by the parks director.
"Just before the 10 p.m. crack down Sunday, the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company completed its ceremony-drama, the 'Quest for the Inner Eye of Truth'. Costumes, gestures, music and words woven by the Floating Lotus led a procession of spectators into a spontaneous dance."
Because one of the residents of the estate shared that she had been drafted to dance on a picnic table at a park with the troupe, one can guess the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company had rehearsed at Williams College at least from September 1968 until sometime in June 1969.
Dr. Hopkins liked the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company and he attended some of their performances at nearby Hinkle Amphitheater.
When the troupe rehearsed at Williams College, afterwards many of the actors and dancers availed themselves of the shower in the rental home that used to house the peacocks. The man living there was pleasant enough about it, and didn't seem to mind the comings and goings.
On the other hand, the neighbors, or to be more precise one neighbor, seemed to mind the comings and goings of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company. Under the aegis of the San Antonio Road Neighborhood Association, a barrage of complaints were launched to the city containing reports of noise, parking issues, great numbers of people swarming about the estate, blue jeans caught drying in the sun on a balustrade, and, what seemed the greatest cause of alarm, one which caused the highest level of outrage, an automobile. As it turned out, this vehicle was not owned and operated by any of the tenants on the estate but rather by one of the visiting actors. The automobile was noticed as it was driven up San Antonio Road and then as it had been parked on the estate premises for many hours while the actor was in prolonged rehearsal. The automobile which excited the inexplicable high state of offense and outrage was a large out of date convertible, something like an early '60s Pontiac, as big as a whale, and covered entirely in feathers.
As it turned out, there was no one left to possibly complain about and have evicted. The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company were already in the process of leaving the estate because they'd been offered living and rehearsal space at an abandoned lumber camp near Santa Rosa and the group moved out of Berkeley entirely.
But as a result of the neighborhood association's noted complaints, the city thus beckoned to duty by upstanding citizens responded, and city building inspectors were assigned to visit and examine all the rental structures, inquire about numbers living in each dwelling, count electrical outlets in each building, advise tenants against the use of extension cords, and so on. So the residents of Williams College had to continue dealing for a time with the administrative aftermath that had erupted as one person's response to feathers glued to a convertible.
So the moral of this story is, if you weren't there, at least try to be accurate about it when recounting history, even if you're trying to make a sale in hard economic times. In the meantime, read the entire "Bliss Apocalypse" and use all the powers of your imagination and pretend you were there.
http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2010/08/05/bignsturdy_cement_palace_in_berkeley_now_15m_less.php
Retrieved 7.26.11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Lotus_Magic_Opera_Company
Retrieved 7.26.11
http://www.danielmoorepoetry.com/theaterNote.html
Retrieved: 7.26.11
September 28-29, 1968 Live Oak Park, Berkeley
"Love and Peace Fest Bummed by Fuzz"
From the Berkeley Barb, Issue 163
http://berkeleyfolk.blogspot.com/2010/12/love-and-peace-weekend-part-ii.html
Retrieved: 7.26.11
