Philosopher’s Daughter

Jennifer Stace in 1976

January 10, 2013

Good news from Jennifer Stace!
She has finished writing her memoirs, “The Philosopher’s Daughter, the Memoir of a LA Knocker.” Here’s the outline she sent, stay tuned for the publication date…

As the daughter of the famous Hegelian philosopher, Walter T. Stace, Princeton University scholar and pioneer in the study of Mysticism, I thought I was special; dancing for Einstein as a child and professionally as an adult, testing every rule placed in my path regardless of consequences.
I was not the proper little girl Mummy wanted. Born in Ceylon, an Indian princess in my imagination, she was exotic, tiny, color-conscious and displeased with my dark eyes, gypsy curls, olive skin and thoroughly wanton ways. I was not blue-eyed and blond, not an academic like my brother and father. I smoked, drank, was sexually active, fought like a wildcat, loved fun and formed fun-loving, rule-breaking gangs.
Daddy didn’t seem to mind; he’d been a rebel in his youth—a poet—at the end of a long line of military men. Where he’d fallen in love with words and reason, I fell in love with the theater and dance. I choreographed films and commercials and created the avant-guard comedy troop, The LA Knockers. Regulars at the Comedy Store and the Improv, The Knockers performed with Zappa and Dr. John at the Forum, were featured in Dick Clark’s Rock and Roll Revue (Las Vegas), and toured the U.S., Canada and overseas during their twelve-year run.
I wasn’t old then. I had my son, Michael. I had husbands and lovers. I dreamed big, worked hard, found success—and tragedy, witnessing Michael’s incarceration for “attempted murder” and his devastating death from AIDS two months after his release. I didn’t live alone as I do now—except for horses, chickens, dogs, cats, and ducks—in Baja California, where I teach the salsa to lively retirees on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I tend my animals, and I’ve been writing this memoir.