Through Being Cool: The Summer of 1981
Here we go! Back to the 80s!
Raiders of the Lost Ark was released on June 12, 1981. I was 9-years-old. While I don’t have a clear memory of seeing this one in the theaters, Raiders was very important to me… Arguably even more so than Star Wars.
While I do remember seeing Star Wars in the cinema, my memory is one of sheer terror and shame. I’m pretty sure it was at the old Cheri in the Back Bay which had one of the biggest screens around. But I don’t remember the grandeur of watching that famous opening crawl on the big screen nor do I remember the fun of flying with the Millennium Falcon for the first time. No… What I remember is this… When Darth Vader blows his way onto Leia’s spaceship at the very beginning of the film I fucking panicked and ran out of the cinema crying. It must have been at a friend’s birthday party or something because I also remember the parent coming out to check on me was not my mother but someone else’s mother. How embarrassing!
Now, I don’t have a memory like that of seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark at the cinema but I do know that I loved it and probably wouldn’t shut up about it. Why? Because my parents somehow found a teddy bear that had a fedora sewn on and gifted it to me for my 10th birthday. I named this bear… wait for it… “Bear-ison Ford.” I was already starting to have an inkling of growing out of stuffed animals but I still loved that bear.
This is all a roundabout way of saying, welcome to the summer of 1981! Musically, another bountiful summer of hits and underground classics. The best discovery of this week’s research was the Japanese art-pop band, Ippu-Do. I had never heard of them before but ran across their album Radio Fantasy and I love it. Also, I admit, I listened to it because of the cover art…
Anyways, here is the playlist… Please enjoy!
