The Hills. The Show.

 The Hills. The Show.

<previous; Deeper Into The Canyon

 

How easy it is to become so focused on details, that

  we miss the larger picture. This is the sixteenth post here at The Lost Canyon Project, and it occurred to me just last week that no one, outside of Pete’s friends, and a few local viewers knows where these Whittier Hills are, or what makes them special. So let’s have a look.

First, let’s go to Google Earth and pin down our location.:

Here, in the red outline, are the Puente Hills. This part of the range takes in LaHabra Heights, and the Whittier Hills. Here's a closer view. (click to enlarge) Notice the tiny red circle to the left of "Hacienda Hills" in the upper left corner of the hills. It marks the pagoda you will see in subsequent photos:

Pete found magic in the details of this small region.  It is the subject of the vast majority of his work. Here are some pictures taken in the Powder Canyon area of what is now Schabarum Park above La Habra Heights.

Notice here the difference in the two canyon walls. The South wall (left) faces north, and is much greener, and more thickly grown than the North wall which has its face south to the sun.

This has been a remarkably wet year here in Southern California, and the hills are on their way to blooming as lush and green as they get. Nonetheless I have not been hiking up there yet. I’ll get up there soon, and take some pictures. 

These pictures of La Habra Heights, and the Whittier Hills are from several years ago. This picture (below) is the Turnbul Canyon area in Whittier, west of Schabarum Park .

While much has been preserved, much more of the hills has been lost. Remember the tiny red circle in the satellite picture? Here is the pagoda at Rose Hills Cemetery.

This view was taken in 2009. The Lost Canyon was around here somewhere... Ironically enough, the  Rose Hills cemetery devoured more of the hills than the home builders. Here is a close-up from the satellite photo with the pagoda in the red circle just to the left of "Hacienda Hills". All this land is strip-mined for expensive grave sites.

A final note before we move on to the performance of “The Lost Canyon Trip”. Where, exactly was the “Lost Canyon?” We’re still not sure, but Pete wrote volumes about his adventures in the hills. I’m playing detective as best I can. More on this later.

But back to the show:

Coincidence. Odd coincidences continue to cluster around this project. I was going to dig through the notebooks, and writings to search out a few things  on the show, in Pete’s own words. As it turned out, yesterday I opened the closet where I have the not-yet photographed boxes and bags of paintings. I opened a black plastic trash bag, and found this sitting on top of everything. Thanks, Pete!

If you had been around the La Habra / Whittier area in the mid 1960’s to the mid 1970’s you may have seen this flyer tacked to a telephone pole. 

This particular showing was at “The Gem”, which was a school auditorium in La Habra Heights. (probably the best venue for the show) Other showings were held in the El Cerrito Elementary School cafeteria, or in various church basements around town. The first showings were held in Pete’s parents’ garage.*^{see note}

Imagine then, that you paid your two and a half dollars for a ticket to The Lost Canyon Trip. You would probably show up to an elementary school, or a church basement in Whittier or La Habra. In the front of the cafeteria room there would be Pete’s three-section screen, with his speaker boxes on the side.

There would be a few dozen folding chairs,  with a center aisle. Pete’s table with the tape recorder, and slide projector were, of course, at the back.

  The lights would go down, the audio-tape would roll, and Pete would work the slide projector. He knew by heart all the places to slow the sequence, speed it up, hold on a particular image- turn up the volume on the tape, or soften it slowly, all to keep pace with the  narration. In the midst of all this he would provide some sound effects live during the performance.  Pete had amazing talent doing bird calls, frogs, and sounds of all sorts.

Later when he invented his smell machine it added another layer of complexity to the show.

Dee Gayer was Pete’s production assistant on many of the showings. Once again, he has provided for us some wonderful recollections:

Dee Gayer writes:

“One of the biggest things we worked on together was saving the “Lost Canyon”.  We put together his pictures in order to present the “Lost Canyon Trip” so other people could see thru his slideshow what the Lost Canyon looked like. We put numerous slides together and got a fog machine so they could get the full experience. He would say that we were going to show it in 4D complete with smellavision. When we finally did the show he was behind the projector narrating and making different bird calls, sounds and noises while I worked with putting scents in the fog machine to give the full 4D effect. You saw the pictures, heard the sounds and smelt the scents of the as well as saw the fog from the fog machine. It was definitely an experience nobody that ever saw it would ever forget. The whole idea of smellavision would be considered unique even with today’s technology. Pete Hampton was definitely way ahead of his time with his recording sounds so he could learn to do them and using different scents and sounds in his “Lost Canyon Trip”.”

It was a small, funky, very home-made production. The names on this credit picture are pre-teen neighborhood kids (including my brother) who helped Pete out in some way. I'll have more on this curious panel next week.
 
The show was brilliant. It was terrible. It was a window into Pete's strange genius.

  I’ll have some more notes from Pete on the show next week, also more coincidences swarming around the project. Plus we’ll be looking at a new archive of Lost Canyon paintings.

Next: Wrapping up the Third Archive>

·       ^*note: Pete actually did a performance at a club on Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach in 1968. The place was called “The Golden Bear”. Guys like Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix played there back in the day.