On Thursday, 11.6, or the same night that J.C. Chandor‘s A Most Violent Year screened at AFI Film Fest, the Hammer Museum in Westwood hosted a cool-sounding Joni Mitchell event, which, being a lifelong fan, I would have liked to attend. It was a screening of The Fiddle and the Drum, a 2007 film about a social-lament ballet that was scored by Mitchell and choreographed by Jean Grand-Maitre. The 71 year-old, cigarette-smoking Mitchell sat for a q & a in the Hammer courtyard following the screening. She also plugged her new compilation album, “Love Has Many Faces,” which pops on 11.24.

In searching around for video of this event, I came upon a well-worn video clip of Mitchell performing at the 1970 Isle of Wight concert, and I could help but re-experirence a mixture of alarm and fascination when that Charles Manson-like psycho comes out and tries to talk to Mitchell about some message-from-God announcement he needs to share with the crowd, and then he gets thrown off the stage by security, etc. I have to say he not only resembles Manson in certain ways, but also (and I’m not saying this just to provoke for provocation’s sake) the father or the uncle of Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci. Tell me I’m wrong. I also love it when Mitchell tells the audience that they’re “acting like tourists” and that they need to “show some respect.”