Derived jointly from the Semina roster and a mother lode of never-before-seen photographic portraits culled from the thousands of unprinted negatives in the artist’s estate — Berman was killed by a drunk driver on the eve of his 50th birthday in 1976 — “Semina Culture” provides a rich and detailed historical cross section of a fascinating layer of American culture and a superabundance of cool art. Co-curated by Michael Duncan and Kristine McKenna (both occasional Weekly contributors), “Semina Culture” casts a wide net and serves up a smorgasbord of old rubber boots and ripe red herrings — beautiful if you have eyes to see, and deeply compelling if you’re looking for a few good stories.
Take Cameron, for example, a.k.a. Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel, cover girl for Semina 1 and author of the specific line drawing (a peyote vision in the doggy style) that sent the LAPD into such a tizzy. Cameron is known to aficionados of arcane Angeleno lore as the elemental vessel for Jet Propulsion Lab founder Jack Parsons and pre-Scientology L. Ron Hubbard’s “Babalon Working” — an attempt to spawn a “moonchild” or apocalyptic “Scarlet Woman” to usher in a global empire based on the magickal principles of Aleister Crowley’s Thelema. You know. After Ron fucked off with Parsons’ wife, Betty, and 10 large of his petty cash, Jack married Cameron before dying in a mysterious chemical explosion in his garage in 1952.
more from Doug Harvey at the LA Weekly here.