Meriwether - Reading the Grateful Dead: a critical survey

Halloween Costume Party

Bob Cooperman

A neighbors son asks

if he can borrow

anything we still possess

from the Sixties:

bell-bottoms, peace symbols,

beads, bandannas, anything.

I feel ancient,

a shard of brief

archeological interest,

and wonder how many teens

will slouch into his party

in old clothes, a compliment,

I suppose,

but one Id rather not be paid.

Still, I root up

a Grateful Dead teeshirt,

my wife, a blouse she once wore,

spectacularly diaphanous.

She tries it on; skeletons

in top-hats sashay

across my regal belly.

Inspired, I play

a scratchy vinyl anthem

on our finicky turntable,

and we dance, memories

of music and youth

trancing our feet and hips.

The door opens,

our neighbors son stares

as if hes caught us naked.

Permissions

The chapters in this collection were originally published in nine different volumes. The majority appeared in Dead Letters (20012009), a four-volume series that served as the unofficial proceedings of the Grateful Dead area of the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Studies Association. That series was complemented and eventually succeeded by the Program for the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus (20082010), which was finally supplanted by Dead Studies (2011 ), a peer-reviewed journal published annually under the auspices of the Grateful Dead Archive at UC Santa Cruz. I gratefully acknowledge the contributors for permission to republish here.

Bob Cooperman, Halloween Costume Party, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 1. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Oakland, CA: Dead Letters Press, 2001), 95. Used with permission.

Matthew Armstrong, The Education of a Deadhead: A Letter from a Novelist, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 3. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2006), 9. Used with permission.

Dennis McNally, The Grateful Dead in the Academy, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 4. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2009), 1328. Used with permission.

John Perry Barlow, Thinking About the Dead: Amateur Anthropology, the Human Comedy, and Making Good Ancestors, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 4. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2009), 2934. Used with permission.

Nicholas G. Meriwether, The Thousand Stories Have Come Round to One: Studying the Grateful Dead Phenomenon. An earlier version of this was published in First Fusion: A New Renaissance . Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (San Rafael: Marin Symphony, 2011), 5782. Used with permission.

Natalie Dollar, Mapping the Deadhead Social Science Trip, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 3. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2006), 3549. Used with permission.

Michael Kaler, How the Grateful Dead Learned to Jam, Dead Studies 1 (2011): 93112. Regents of the University of California. Used with permission.

Jon Ney, Terrapin Station, Postmodernism, and the Infinite, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 2. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2003), 3944. Used with permission.

Robert H. Trudeau, A Super-Metacantric Analysis of Playing in the Band, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 4. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2009), 103119. Used with permission.

Ryan Slesinger, And Closed My Eyes to See: Buddhist Resonances in the Lyrics of the Grateful Dead, Program of the Thirteenth Annual Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus . Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press for the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, 2010), 6578. Used with permission.

Nicholas Meriwether, The Dead Play Egypt, Thirty Years Later: Myth, Memory, and Marketing, Program of the Thirteenth Annual Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus . Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press for the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus, 2010), 7994. Used with permission.

Joseph Holt, Crowned Anarchy: Songs, Segues, and the Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 2. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2003), 510. Used with permission.

David Bryan, The Grateful Dead Religious Experience, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 4. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2009), 143160. Used with permission.

James Revell Carr, Shakedown Street: A Benjaminian Approach to the Grateful Dead. Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 3. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2006), 8599. Used with permission.

Alex Kolker, What Are Deadheads? An Informal Survey, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 3. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2006), 1123. Used with permission.

Rebecca G. Adams, Terrapin Station Demographics and Deadication: The Furthur Festival 98 Data, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 4. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2009), 5162. Used with permission.

Mark E. Mattson, Autobiographical Memories of Grateful Dead Concerts: Two Descriptive Approaches, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 4. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Columbia, SC: Dead Letters Press, 2009), 207220. Used with permission.

Christian Crumlish, And I Done Some Time: Bobby Petersen and the Grateful Dead, Dead Letters: Essays on the Grateful Dead Phenomenon , Vol. 1. Ed. Nicholas G. Meriwether (Oakland, CA: Dead Letters Press, 2001), 1024. Used with permission.