Itty Bitty Pretty One: And so it goes....

It started as most fascinations in my life have....a movie. A movie trailer to be exact. You see a few years back when Mitchell first moved to Santa Barbara to attend UCSB and I had long since lost any common ground among those who I would have called friends I used to go to the movies alot. Like alot alot....it didn't even have to be a movie I was particularly interested in seeing, it got me out of those house and gave me an excuse to eat nachos and soda. I always went alone. Let me be perfectly clear however...I like to go to the movies alone. Call me what you will, I just feel a huge sense of falling out of reality when I go alone...and let's face it reality bites...which is also a good movie I might add.

Okay so it would be a fair assumption to say that I love the experience of going to the movies just as much, if not more than the movies themselves. Where this came from, I am not really certain. I do know that as a kid my Dad worked alot and the only time we really saw him was on the weekends and family vacations. I loved my Dad, I still love my dad. Well on Saturdays, usually every Saturday, my Dad would take us to the movies. He spared no expense on popcorn, soda, candy and treats...I loved going to the movies with my Dad. So as far as I can tell...this is where the love of Movie Theatres began.

Moving on. Now there are some people that will tell you that if a movie starts at 9:30 you can really get there by 9:45 and still be on time for the movie. "It's all the dumb previews and trailers...those last forever these days". Now I would say this is an abomination to movie theatres everywhere. In my opinion going to the movies INCLUDE the trailers. I feel this huge sense of loss if the lights dim and the previews start and I am not comfortably seated, I LIKE THE PREVIEWS!!!

So there I was a few years back, no doubt sneaking In N Out Burger out of my purse at the movie theatre when the trailers started, I don't remember what movie I went to see that day. Sienna Miller's face fills up the screen, her hair is pixie short and blonde with dark roots. Her eyes are heavy with black eyeliner and makeup,

(Sienna Miller as Edie)

there is 60's music playing I think it was "Shaking all Over" by the Guess Who. The trailer tell the tale of this "Edie Sedgwick", one of Andy Warhol's "Superstars", part of the "Silver Sixties". Now I had always kinda had a weird obsession with the sixties and hippies and all that but that was a San Francisco California in the sixties thing. But this was New York and this was about Pop Art and the whole "Mod" movement. Hmmmm is this a real story, is she a real person? Cause I'm a big sucker for biopics. I had obviously heard of Andy Warhol, associated him somewhere in my brain with art I didn't understand. A soup can....how is that art, I didn't get it. So I made a mental note to google and wikipedia this "Edie Sedgwick". So I did and she was a real person and I went to see "Factory Girl" when it came out...and I loved it. This led to reading as much as I could about Edie. I was a bit obsessed for a while....for some reason I really like attractive people, maybe if I stare at them long enough or read enough about them I can somehow absorb some of that beauty?

(Real Edie)

Then I ended up moving to Santa Barbara...and guess who grew up in Santa Barbara? Guess who died and was buried near Santa Barbara. Oh that would be Edie Sedgwick. In the biography I read about her there was a copy of her death certificate...I never paid attention to it before but then after moving somehow I discovered it. The address where she lived, where she was found dead, was just a few blocks down from where I lived. I was living on the same street where she lived with her husband some 40 years earlier. Only a few weeks living in Santa Barbara and I convinced Mitch to take me up to Ballard where she was buried in the Santa Ynez Valley.

Lake Chumash on the drive up.

Mitch mapquesting the Cemetery

Me and Edie...such an unassuming headstone

There she was

The drive up to Ballard California where she is buried next to her mother is beautiful. The whole Santa Barbara area is very picturesque. We pull into this rather dull looking cemetery in this tiny town (Population 1,000) and I of course had no idea where she was. We start looking up and down all the Grave markers and Head Stones and realize that this is probably going to take a while...finding her. We happen to pass by some older looking gentleman who is sweeping dirt, weeds and debris from some of the older looking headstones, we figured he worked there. He did not, just lived nearby and was concerned about the appearance of the cemetery....kinda weird. Anyways he knew where Edie was buried and walked us over to a small granite headstone which if we had paid attention had a little yellow flag indicating it's location. He said that after the movie came out people starting coming out here to see her grave so the cemetery marked it with the yellow flag.

It was rather humbling. I had read all out her glamorous and turbulent life, seen all the photos of how very beautiful and sweet looking she was and yet she ended up at 28 as we will all end up at some point...in the ground, dead. It didn't matter how beautiful she was, it didn't matter how screwed up her life was, how exciting it was...she was dead and gone and all that was left was this small unassuming flat headstone. So after all that I kinda put the Edie obsession to rest.

However a few months later when becoming pregnant part of me when I found out the baby I was carrying was a girl wanted to name her "Edith". But Mitch said no way and then I saw "Grey Gardens" and decided an association with the a "Beale" Edie would have been a disaster!

Still maybe I'll get a cat one day and name her Edie...we'll see. But this post isn't all about Edie....it was meant to be about a fascination that was born out of my "Edie days".