Joan Baez

 

About that magical day Mimi pulled Bob Dylan's hair because he was being rude: 

Mimi Farina recalls a time when she had had enough of the bullshit that was going down, and remembers with keen pleasure having the guts to do something about it. This moment of glory, it made me so high ... It was an evening in Woodstock before it was "Woodstock." We were having dinner at Bernard Paturel's restaurant. Joanie was leaving the next day, or it was her birthday — it was some celebration on her behalf. And Dylan was ignoring her — talking to other people. Finally, there was a very unappealing girl who was staring at Dylan, and he said, "Come and join us." So she came over. She was genuinely moronic, and Dylan started making fun of her. She was eating and dribbling food, and he kept making fun of it. Finally, Joanie tersely said something like "Won't you cut that out — stop picking on a fan," but he did it all the more. Then he was rude to Alfredo, who couldn't stand to be insulted. Alfredo took about three cuts — I don't know what they were or where they came from — and finally took his napkin, threw it down on the table and said, "I can't take this any longer!" and got up and split — just left the restaurant. And I thought, "Ooh, how interesting!" No one does that to Dylan - what fun!" Minutes later, Dick said, "I think I'm gonna go find Alfredo." And then minutes later he was still insulting Joanie, and Joanie said, "Fuck it," and she, too, got up and left. So I was sitting there. He hadn't hurt me yet. He was carrying on and Victor Maimudes was watching it all. So he said something unpleasant to me and I thought, "I don't have to sit here, my company is outside." So I just got up slowly. I made no exit, I just split, and he went on talking to this poor girl. I found them all down the road, sitting on a bench. It was a long walk, about a mile, and I said, "What's everybody doing?" And they were discussing how could he have been so rude. Alfredo: "How could he do that to me?" and Joanie said, "Oh, he does it to everybody" — trying to stick up for him and at the same time being upset herself. Joanie's party was ruined, so I marched back to the restaurant, went in, and sat down next to him. And I said, "Do you know what you're doing?!" And he kind of laughed . . .and because he was laughing and would not pay attention, I took his hair and pulled his head back. And Victor burst out with some laughter, which I had never seen from Victor. I said, "Don't you do that to my sister!" This little burst of identity came screeching out of me. And Dylan thought that was very funny. I think he was quite shocked, because I made his eyes tear, which later delighted me, but at the time kind of scared me. And that was that. But there were many moments like that, when I thought, "He's so mean! 

Excerpt from Baby, let me follow you down : the illustrated story of the Cambridge folk years by Eric Von Schmidt

"Mimi choose what i thought was the most difficult of all paths possible: she chose to sing and accompany herself on the guitar. She chose the path which would doom her forever to a lifelong fight to be introduced as Mimi Fariña, and not as "Joan Baez's sister" or "Wife of the late Richard Fariña.

We put more distance between us when i got married, for though David liked Mimi, he was much too involved with our work (and, perhaps, so was I) to do much hanging out, and I was spending a great deal of time being the world's most fastidious housewife. When Gabe was born, I thought Mimi had turned into a shrew. Looking back, I think Mimi's behavior is not hard to explain. Many years later, she told me of an afternoon at her house when Gabe and I were visiting, and Gabe, in diapers, was twirling around in the middle of her living room rug holding a hard-boiled egg. She was trying to cary on  a conversation with me, and I was gazing at my miraculous child, spinning so cleverly in circles, when he let the egg fall onto the rug and stepped on it. He was gleeful, and catching his spirit, I gushed, "Isn't he cute?" Mimi kept quiet for a moment, but later said she didn't know who she wanted to shoot first, him or me." 

Excerpt from And a Voice to Sing with: A Memoir, by Joan Baez

"I learned that lesson the hard way when Mimi Fariña opened a concert for Gordon and, as offstage master of ceremonies, i had introduced her to the audience as Joan Baez’s sister. After the concert, Mimi came up to me, put her arms loosely around my neck, and said, “Richard, please never do that again.”"

Source: Once upon a red eye - Gordon Lightfoot

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Just a personal note:

24 years latter of Mimi's passing - there are still endless comments on facebook just saying "Joan Baez's sister"  She would hate it. I understand many people actually still don't know they were sisters nor know anything about Mimi, but one comment mentioning it is enough for everybody to read. Give her credit for what She has done and for who She was. I wish people could just stop labeling Her.

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"It’s very bad if all your life you think you’re an appendage," said Mimi after the Offenbach show last week. "I’m labeled wherever I go. That’s a drag."

1967, Elliot Landy

1967, Elliot Landy

1967, Elliot Landy

December 17, 1987 - The Warfield - IN SF - AIDS benefit (presented by Humanitas International and BPG) concert with Jerry Garcia, broadcast on KQED
(i am looking for a video of this performance)

This was a complicated relationship from beggining to end but Mimi loved Joanie no matter what. And Joanie loved her too. 

There were a few other things that were hard for me to read, like this comment: 

 "Towards the end, she gave me the gift of being so awful to me, almost to make it less hard." 

Joan Baez 

The Telegraph

I hope she didn't take it personaly, but I feel some resentment here. 

I believe Joanie did her very best, she canceled concerts and a tour and tried to be there for Mimi but it is very common for people who are dying from a terminal illness to experience anger, emotional withdrawal, or personality changes. Mimi was dealing with so much... it may seem very unfair to her sister and family but the pain and the fatigue could have make her more irritable and less able to engage with them.

Plus, and the most important: pushing loved ones away can be a coping mechanism, becoming distant or even cruel as a way to make their impending death "easier" for others—almost as if they want to be remembered as difficult rather than seeing loved ones suffer.

On the "I am a noise documentary" Joanie made a comment very similar saing she was so awfull to her there was almost nothing to miss. 

Another note on her poems book "If you see my mother, ask her to dance" she wrotte two poems about cancer. I don't like saying those were about Mimi. Those wore about cancer, because they could be related to anyone who was ill. Those were very hard to read, very raw, very hurtful for someone who liked her so much despite not knowing her in person. Just because she is not here and can't be hurt, doesn't mean she does not have people on this earth who don't love her and will be just as hurt by reading such thing. 

"She hated everyone"

No she didn't...she didn't hate anyone. She was just sick, and tired of being sick...