Thursday, September 13, 2007
I was entirely engaged by a work in progress last night, a reading
of "Ribbons" at Theater for the New City. This play is a
fantastic ensemble piece of naturalistic interaction and bonding
occurring under a perfect absurdist catch-all for disabilities. It
builds to a rioutous comedic sequence, and continues from that to
show the joy of people allowing themselves to connect with one
another.
Then I joined Bob for dinner at the Frank restaurant. Earlier that
evening Bob had marked a cel phone message for me as urgent because
my myspace icon wasn't loading. I hope I was able to transfer to
that dinner meeting a fraction of the glow I gained from attending
the reading.
Welcome to Haiti! The most generic bit of information I have to
relate is that before falling asleep at 11:30 I watched a 1/2 hour
of a dvd on my computer of a 1932 independent film called
"White Zombie." Waking up at 4:30, I saw the other 45
minutes. Bela Lugosi makes a familiar appearance...familiar if
you've seen Robert DeNero play horror.
This achievement of masterful filmmaking probably required the
minimalism of its budget.
One scene of dialogue runs 5 minutes without a cut, even when the
Dr. character fumbles a line.
The matt montages are awe-inspiring.
The ocean cliffs, the castle, the piano room, are spectactular.
Three soundtracks run concurrent throughout the film.
One: The synched dialogue.
Two: The continuous music, percussion, chanting or crickets.
Three: the synched sound effects.
And it's the first Zombie film!
posted by Peter 1:43
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Sunday, August 26, 2007
Anyone who enjoys accelerated storytelling has a fondness for
cartoons, I suppose. "The Boy Who Would Be Queen," an
episode of the Fairly Odd Parents cartoon is basically the premise
of 2.2.2, Hermaphroditism Through the Ages. Both explore gender
switching between couples of the opposite sex.
The cross-over of Fairly Odd likings includes skull crusher comics
and goo goo love soaps. I turned on the TV show because the
"Fairly Odd" term had already become part of my
consciousness when it appeared in my short play about the retired
electric train engineers... That play featured Rosa and David, a
lovely couple.
The Fairly Odd cartoon episode included a brief voodoo moment of a
girl in a mall ripping up another girl's photo and the other girl on
a perhaps not too distant escalator, suddenly stricken as if by an
invisible lightning bolt, i.e. suffering a stroke. (Strokes are thus
named because suffering one is like being struck by lightning?)
In addition to turning the boy into a girl, the Odd Parents have to
switch their own genders for the time, apparently at the whim of
that boy; is he their son?
In the Fairly Odd Parents, oh it's a mutation of Grimm's fairy
godmother...The two sexes with their two languages are called geeks
and girls.
This morning I made a reverse discovery. I have another cartoon to
credit (Porky in Wackyland inspired "The Last Dodo"), but
this latest one is completely after the fact. I continue to write
with broad strokes.
The execution of the basic idea is another step in the creative
process.
posted by Peter 7:29
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Friday, August 24, 2007
Recent review of events.
I wrote 2.2.2 (Hermaphroditism Through the Ages) to offer a cure for
war. The opening lines of Orpheus expanded a quote from George Bush,
that "we will not leave until victory is achieved." The
additional lines are, "until then I return to my home and my
family. Thank you, good-bye..."
Zeus says, "To forestall armegeddon I will turn them into
hermaphrodites."
There are three depictions of this metamorphosis, an exchange of
plugs for sockets, sockets for plugs, between three couples on three
different islands, in three different time zones. The transformation
is more than a distraction, it is a defusing of inner tension and
turmoil. There is a definition of yoga that it unites the male and
female energies, that the practice of yoga is the process of moving
toward hermaphroditism.
The mole king calls for the marriage of the three couples before a
fresco from Pompei. That artwork indeed graphically depicts the
lovemaking implied throughout the piece. I looked closer at this
accomplished creation of artist Richard Scott. Incredible. Now what
am I supposed to do with it?
The backdrop for the entire play, painted by holographic artist Sam
Moree, which is a 10' 6" x 7' canvas, currently hangs across
the back wall of my home office.
The mole king character is an independent force. He is a little
mole, the recipient of people's calls to the dead.
This is a relatively upbeat and encouraging new musical combined
with Ballistic by Ed Malin and Aphrodite by Maria Micheles in
"Oh Happy Three," a production of Manhattan Theatre Source
for their summer series, Straight from the Source! Directed by Sarah
Marck, it ran for eight solid performances.
More fringe update: A stage adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman film
Cries and Whispers?
Sharon Fogarty's contribution to the Straight from the Source summer
series is "Portrait of the Artist as a Dumb Blonde, a musical
in one stupid act." It ran for five performances and received a
review last Tuesday from the New York Times, and it was not even a
favorable one. Why did they bother saying they didn't enjoy it,
especially during the Fringe Fest when they could have used the
space to draw attention to something they DID like?
Blinded by Blondeness...After seeing Sharon's show I saw Nelly
McKay's show at Joe's Pub. She was at the piano with her piles of
music, making that instrument sound great, playing as well as any
piano player around. Her casual pure ennunciation and the pitches of
her voice were both abrasive and joyous.
I also saw Walmartopia which has mighty fine material. (My typically
clueless remark about never having been to the Paris Hilton applies
here.)
I read some of Marc Eliot's 1993 Disney bio. (I didn't realize until
Mr. Eliot's website alerted me of a controversy that his publisher
added a Max Shreck shadow to the book jacket's cover photo of Mr.
Disney.) Am I mistaken or does Mr. Eliot ultimately admire Walt
Disney's maverick tendencies? In case we're concerned our children
are missing out on voyeuristic yearning, there's something out now
called High School Musical, which probably uses the same musical
theatre gestures found in Walmartopia... Help! I'm just trying to
add to what's out there.
Oh, in keeping with my attempt to post useful observations, there
was a big building block, it was a former Deutsche Bank building,
made entirely of asbestos, opening the boulevard of Hamburg's
Reepabahn. I remember walking by it on my way to the Dom back during
the early nineties. It couldn't be torn down because of its
materials so it just blackened the skyline. I wonder if it's still
there.
Labels: 2.2.2.,
Deutsche
Bank Building in Hamburg, hermaphroditism
through the ages, Marc
Eliot, nelly
McKay, Sharon
Fogarty, Walmartopia,
Walt
Disney, yoga
posted by Peter 9:06
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Monday, August 20, 2007
The Fringe Fest play, Dirt, was misleading. Is the production an
Austrian import? Transferring an illegally immigrated Basra roses
peddler from 1992 Hamburg where white faces break glass upon him, to
New York City where he yells over the sound of the subway trains,
did not resonate fairly... hopefully Hamburg's population is not
that hostile either. I kept thinking of Mahfouz's The Theif and the
Dogs, and also of Lawrence Durrell's culture shock in his Alexandria
series. I hope, anyway, that Dirt or Dreck, by Robert Schneider, did
not accurately portray the personality of this City.
This is the second European import I've seen in this festival. The
other, Baaah, was also something of a repackage. It is The Suede
Coat, by Stanislav Stratiev (1974). Felipe Bonilla, who originated
the role of Gormin Dials in TentagatneT at La Mama was the lead.
One more, dare I call it, repackaging... Dan Fogler's Elephant in
the Room... based on Rhinocerous by Eugene Ionesco.
posted by Peter 3:23
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Saturday, August 18, 2007
Welcome to the world of blogging... I saw Mac Rogers Hail Satan last
night, tone perfect, plenty of writing on it in addition to in it.
Such mixed feelings on the dry, light, unwaveringly satirical
presentation. Here, from one comment (I think it is Mac's...)...
"But a playwright who only writes plays like Ruins or Hail
Satan is essentially telling lies by obscuring part of the truth,
the truth that the human race is genuinely capable of compassion and
empathy and companionship and the accumulation of wisdom. "
Keep up the good work. Yes, I want to see more. This material,
engaging on a basic level, establishes your newer, better Omen
series. Do you actually want to write more here? The source material
is devries bible? (Anton LeVey's Satanic Bible) It's hard for me to
distinguish the book from the play. Everyone did such a great job.
I'll write the sequel if you want...
posted by Peter 7:37
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Friday, August 03, 2007
Promise of tens of billions of dollars in us weapons and military
aid to fight back extremism at Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, by Sue
Pleming and Andrew Gray. Before leaving for the middle East, Rice
announced military aid to Egypt of 13 billion of 10 years, the same
level as for at least the last six years. But Washington is offering
Israel an increase of about 25 percent to 30 billion over 10 years.
Defense officials saidArabia and other gulf states would get at
least 20 billion in arms sales and other help over the next decade
but final figures had not been agreed yet.
posted by Peter 7:17
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Tuesday, June 12, 2007
You can't get away from those Sopranos. "It was sometimes hard
to bear the encomiums" (Alessandra Stanley). Skimming the
post-last-episode newspaper writings from AM New York and the New
York Times, I was moved. Did you know that the black-out scene was a
"hit" from the victim's point of view? And as any death
should be, it is followed by credits. Can we get some credits
rolling?
I credit Tony Hightower for getting my apartment hooked with a cable
maybe six months before September 11th, 2001 because when the TV
antenna went down with that tragic landfill complex from the 70's...
we still had reception (which supplemented our view from the roof),
which became an essential part of my life almost up to the present
day.
Yes, I watched television as a child... the re-broadcasts of the
Flintstones and Lost in Space and those late night screenings of
Peter Medak's "Negatives"... and then I watched regularly,
from September 2001 until December 2006, favoring (while attempting
to follow the news progression from Afganastan to Iraq) first South
Park, then Curb Your Enthusiasm, then The Daily Show, then The
Colbert Report, and finally, ultimately, Sponge Bob, which leads
back to an appreciation of our own nightmares... ever savoring my
digital access to The UN Channel by manually entering the number
"78" into the cable box.
Media content is still provided to my apartment at a hunderd a month
including internet access which I don't even use because I just get
it from the air...
THEY SHOULD BE PAYING YOU!
Anyway, so at only a hunderd a month I mustv disconnected premium
which means I'm missing out on "movies," and hit series
like The Sopranos, so my channel serfing led me to watching a
Mandarin ballet montage from 8 minutes of Kill Bill...The Tony's
were also on... (I love Kenny Nowell's adaptation of Wedekind's
Spring Awakening)...
As for not getting away from the Sopranos, last night one of its
castmembers, Dominick Chianese, contributed his acting (and
singing!) skills to a benefit stage reading of
"Nightingale" part of a one act festival that included a
clear rendition of my own "Associative Behavior," complete
with song, "Somewhere Under the Radar."
And watching Larry Pine in horn rimmed glasses during Mark
Mitchell's sci-fi piece that closed out the night, I couldn't help
but remember how fond I was of his performance in John Turturro's
staging of "A Spanish Play."
With kindest personal regards! pd
posted by Peter 7:25
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Sunday, May 20, 2007
One thing I could remember for next performance is to thank the
audience for the accompaniment. Thank you, you are a great audience!
And before they reset my compuserve password, my new answer to the
secret security question, "What's your favorite band?" is
"Urban Barnyard."
Today, May 20th, Mary Help of Christians closed to become a Chapel
of Convenience. Father Mark sees himself next in Ohio. The R&B
guy who moved with the weekend flea market from the MHC yard to the
public high school yard said the MHC yard was sold to NYU.
Howard said the funeral home on A and East 12th is not selling.
The parochial school with the Chico Mural will become college dorms?
At least keep the church as a Turino landmark.
The church has steep steps, a tradition in Manhattan. During the
packed service, some attendees were pulling the bell rope. At first
one of the priests was doing it. You couldn't hear anything. I
thought, wow, that's a sound proof entrance, but then some of the
bigger fellows came along and, yes it rang and rang until the rope
broke. I went upstairs. Howard had gone from the alter to the top
floor by the organ. We went to the bell tower, one of two. I climped
up to the rafter and attached the frayed horse-hair with my usual
knot that pulls against the lower knot, and slipped the rope, which
begins as a ribbon through one hole, then downstairs through another
then looking from downstairs tieing a little knot in the ribbon,
through a hole in the crawl space then someone pulled from below,
pulling the length of the rope down. That's a heavy bell.
Cardinal Eagen's name came up today.
Try to remember you have a beautiful jewelbox over there (East 12th
Street between 1st and A). The interior colors are a pale gold beige
with light blues, it's such a light fresh air church. It's your
chapel of convenience. Anyway, I, understatement, recommend you
allow for the maintainenance of this charming legend. It never
looked more beautiful than today, and thanks, Salesians, for being
friends to the friendless. Good point about the batteries that look
the same but only some power the flashlight.
Howard heard me play war-is-over songs on WBAI last month. Bob Fass
must have rebroadcast his Phil Oches tribute.
Today's service incorporated many beautiful musical moments. They
played a lovely recording, "si signore" and during
"The Lord's Prayer" sang what I believe was the "our
father" words in Spanish to the tune of "Sounds of
Silence."
One of the attendees, who usually attends the church on 12th between
Avenues C & D said that Bishop Sullivan, who led this service,
was a priest to watch.
Mary Help of Helpseekers!
posted by Peter 1:06
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
I recommend the writing of Pearl S. Buck. Her book, "Voices in
the House," is a riotous clash between the compassionate
civilized landowner and his sense of intrusion which extends beyond
his own extending family to grandfathered servants in his employ.
This attorney married the daughter who grew up on the Manchester,
Vermont estate. He commutes to the city to at least give counsel to
the indicted mobsters in their constitutionally preserved right to
assert their defense. Meanwhile people are growing up around him and
finding their own way, and one of them has dreams of inclusion that
are denied, which creates her imbalance as daughter of the cook.
I remember standing in the dark peering into some diaramas of turn
of the century New York, and would have remained there, in fact, did
so in my imagination. This girl, of course, truly fits the part of
leaving the servants' quarters and luxuriating about the main house.
She also learned to speak well and receives favorable verbal
descriptions of her general aura of lovliness.
Ms. Buck's reserved and curiously objective descriptions extend to
all parties. At some point she pulls back from the main family, the
husband and wife, to suggest this is all we can expect from them.
Ultimately they explore and acknowledge their part in the bizarre
turn of events...
Truly high level bizarre material has transpired by this time,
involving a large protective attack dog and even sewing needles
???...
"We didn't just -- let her into the house."
Good idea! Welcome her. We grow from our dreams when we explore them
in reality.
At the time of this book's publication, 1953, Ms. Buck was writing
under the pseudonym of John Sedges.
To convey the pleasures and insights to be found within, here is an
exerpt from the book which illuminates the meaning of Adam's Rib:
"Eve, made from the rib of Adam, was only the legend of the
perverse and female moon torn from the side of the newly created
globe of billions of years ago, and the gaping wound of the Pacific
basin, raw basalt at the bottom, was still unhealed as man himself.
And here was the moon as he had seen it last night, whirling above
the yearning earth, remote and unreachable, never again to be
joined, and yet pulling the earth's tides toward herself, only to
reject them again and again in the ceaseless rise and fall of the
rhythms of untiring creation. "
I read the 35 cent 1960 paperback Cardinal Edition with a cover that
looks like it was painted by Darryl Green.
posted by Peter 12:45
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Saturday, February 24, 2007
I will write an opera, even after seeing the greatness of The Magic
Flute and Therese Raquin. Never mind the composers, consider the
challenge to the performers. The breath control is strenuous. Their
diaphram muscles must be well toned. Both productions, The Met's and
Dicapo's, exercised creative staging, capturing the tone and content
of the operas, content which is made crystal clear through
concurrent titles. I like English language titles to supplement not
only German but even English language operas. I'm searching my
recollection for an exciting moment of music. When did I recently
hear one? I do think Adam Green is inspired, with his oratorio
style. I saw him last Sunday at SideWalk. His chords supplement his
melodies rather than guide them, and of course, melody guides Tobias
Picker's opera, and Mozart's as well. Audiences grant opera drama
the time needed for exceptional musical moments to develop. I
suppose there was a 2nd act Mozart moment when the Mason members
were at rest, contemplating wisdom and beauty. Good heavens, there's
actually little I remember from that opera except the hazing, and
the fact that the wicked queen night witch was the one to provide
the magic of flute and chimes, indirectly perhaps, via her three
handmaidens. She also provided the three heavenly soprano boys. And
with regard to the sun king, our first impression of him is through
his prison guard, who did not represent his master's temperence in
the kidnapping perpetrated for purposes of getting someone to join
the masons. I can be pretty clueless. Let's see what other
indiscriminate demonstrations of incomprehension I can display
herein.
The Magic Flute: It's a mathemetician's air display by Ms. Taymor. I
only THOUGHT I knew the content of that yogic journey, watching the
three hour triumph of the spiritual male triumph over the chthunic
female, at least until nightfall.
Therese Raquin: The Postman Always Rings Twice with a Place in the
Sun/Leave Her to Heaven drowning. I suppose the opportunity to
musicalize a paralyzed mother watching justice self-inflicted by and
upon her son's murderers is reason enough to musicalize one of the
Zola stories exposing the underbelly of the urban middle class.
My third opera came in the form of the score to The Most Happy Fella,
which I took from the Performing Arts Library today. Oh, you were
looking for it? Yes, it was me. I'll return it on March 10th.
Anyway, it's another opera of sorts and a great series of beautiful
character songs. The notation is pristinely playable.
Back to the drawing board. I have some corrections to make on my own
scores so that through them the first time player will easily
breeze.
(I heavily revised the above today, March 3rd. I just returned from
John Turturro's actor's actors Spanish Play. The moment I loved was
when the couple (Denis O'Hare and Linda Edmond) lay on the floor
watching while another of the five characters (Katherine Borowitz)
searched her bag for her melodious ringtone celphone. I liked seeing
the two of them laying there enjoying what was going on before them
(And since CSC is a theatre with seating against three of the four
walls, it may have been only my wall saw it.). Robert Thurman
reminded us to love others, like a mother loves her child, and keep
learning.)
posted by Peter 9:28
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007
C14 THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIES WEDNESDAY,
JANUARY 24, 2007 Deaths
LEIMAN-Eugene A., died peacefully in his sleep at age 92 on January
20th, 2007. Gene was our law partner for many years and retired as
counsel only two years ago. A graduate of City College and NYU Law
School, he practiced law for over 65 years, including almost 50
years in insurance litigation at this firm. Gene served as an
Assistant District Attorney in New York County under Thomas E. Dewy
and Frank S. Hogan, and was a Captain in the U.S. Air Force in World
War II. A former Chair of the Admiralty and Entertainment Committees
of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Gene was also
the principal lyricist, song writer, and musical director of the
Associations' Twelfth Nights and annual shows for over 50 years. His
beloved wife Betty Ann predeceased him; a brother, Harmon, age 83,
of Scottsdale, Arizona is his only immedate survivor. Memorial
Service will be held at 5pm, February 9, NYC Bar Association, 42 W
44th St, New York, NY.
Mound Cotton Wollan & Greengrass
LEIMAN-Eugene A. The City Bar Entertainment Committee mourns the
loss of its beloved songwriter, lyricist and music director. For
five decades, Gene was the guiding force behind our annual musical
revues. "The song is ended but the melody lingers on." A
memorial service will be held at the Association, 42 W 44 St. 5pm,
February 9th.
Peter Dizozza, Chair
posted by Peter 10:47
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Monday, January 15, 2007
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
Four people read from four copies of the same script and the drama
was intensely and hilariously involving. A reading can be the height
of theatre... I loved seeing the free reading of Augusta, by Richard
Dresser, directed by M. Z. Ribalow at the Players Club (presented by
the Players Playwrights Workshop in association with New River
Dramatists). I'm writing this to urge the Mr. Dresser to arrange to
see this cast working together.
Christopher Ceraso read the part of Jimmy; Patricia Randell, Molly;
Laura Heisler, Claire, with Narrative by Rosalind Rita. The play's
setting is immediately visualizable... A National Chain Service
Provider employs the near-unemployable to clean mansions using the
bureaucracy of a self-monitoring hierarchy (everyone pointing
fingers at everyone else in a cutthroat climb to an imaginary top).
A new supervisor's appointment of a cleaning crew team leader turns
out to involve a team of two. The pettiness of the three-person
power plays means that a near-cold reading of the script is probably
the most effective way to present it.
The actors are perfectly cast, both individually and as an ensemble.
This is one of my favorite evenings at the theatre (memory
accessible other two: Elizabeth Ashley, Kier Dullea and Fred Gwynn
help perform Mr. Williams original "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
script at the Connecticut Stratford Theatre, Philip Bosco does
Macheath at the outdoor Delacorte Public Theatre 2nd try of the 3P
Opera). Thank you.
posted by Peter 8:25
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Friday, December 29, 2006
Songs for the Four Corners of the Room
"Keep Trying" is one.
"Squares One through Four" (another title for the
"Square One/Set the Prisoners Free" Song) is another.
For now "Chimney Flu/Heigh Ho" can be the two others.
----------------
The conclusion of the assignment of a counting numeral is always an
opportunity to examine all that it contains, and the year 2006 is no
exception.
Well, for now there is too much hidden meaning in everything I write
for me to write an assessment of the year that was. Suffice it to say,
in addition to turning a national election tide, and a low level grade
of generalized optimism bolstered by a return to interpersonal
enlightenment (how upbeat can I be?), 2006 was eventful on a personal
level.
----------------
In the One Dream stage production of "Legs Like These," in
1989, the director suggested that all the participants would find each
other and marry. In retrospect, I see something like that happened to
four of them. I wonder how they are today. That composing job for me
arose from a recommendation from one of my fellow participants in the
BMI Music Theatre Workshop, and it was great challenging fun...
----------------
In case it is not already apparent, I have been ploughing through the
Memoirs of Tennesse Williams (Tennessee Williams Memoirs "A raw
display of private life"--New York Times Book Review), actually
reading them after all these years, thanks to Mr. John Waters' recent
essay published in the New York Times Book Review. Previously I'd only
opened to the index to find some fragment, particularly those on
Williams' collaborations with one of the guiding forces of Italian
Cinema, Luchino Visconti (What a name that fellow had! It just looks
great as a title on the screen.). Tennesse Williams has a credit in
Visconti's Senso, a vaguely annoying Italian Nationalism period story
of the choice, such as it is, between military glory in the field of
battle and cowardice in the field of the bedroom, with tennis player
Farley Granger. I guess that story is an expression and examination of
challenging human conditions. Furthermore, I guess the weight of
Visconti's name connects with the weight of his work product. He was
an independent Hollywood. Mr. Williams' book touches briefly on how TW
got or gave the film that gratis TW credit; it was in appreciation to
LV for making a woman named Maria part of the production. The
comprehension test question for readers of the Memoirs is, Who was
Maria?
Obviously at this rate I'll never get to a full examination of the
Memoirs, which I imagine myself comprehending, so consider this
fingernail journal entry something containing the DNA strand to
generate an entire human body, living, breathing, interactive. So,
thank you, John Waters, for alerting me to the readability of
Tennessee Williams Memoirs, illustrative of the personal breakthrough
that followed his hobo years. It looks like he used his heart problem
to good effect in that it got him, not just out of gym class the way
mine did, but out of his job as a shoe salesman.
That's one 2006 personal event worth mentioning, after all those years
ingesting oral beta blockers I never had a heart problem. My
debilitating palpitations break when I do the opposite of cringe and
wilt into them, which is to stick out my chest in silly defiance.
----------------
posted by Peter 4:25
AM
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Thursday, November 09, 2006
I saw 54 televised minutes of Mel Gibson's Aramaic Passion Play before
becoming completely disagreeable. I love the blue beginning and very
much enjoyed seeing a soldier's torch add spectacular color to the
blue. It was also a pleasure to welcome back the demons in the desert.
I suppose they are always out there, waiting for our imaginations.
It is my recollection that the messiah is indeed supposed to be
coming, if he hasn't come already, and many have claimed they were
he... Sabattai Zevi is my favorite. What is this coming of the
messiah? It accomplishes what? Given expectation of one, it is
understandable that when one of us among us takes on the title for him
or her self that we might become disillusioned and pissed off from the
elevated hopes and inevitable disappointment.
Only the heights of salvation can achieve the depths of despair. Who
else wants to claim messiah status? And remind me, what good will the
messiah do again? Perhaps his or her coming will release the tension I
feel compelling me to write this. Although Paul's success with Rome is
undeniable, Mr. Gibson's film is a great reminder that Christianity is
a sect of judaism.
posted by Peter 1:06
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[edit]
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Briefly with regard to visiting West Point, I only cried twice, once
after the recruiter urged the posthumous white star recognition for
his close friend's father... They pinned it on the soldeir in the
battlefield, and wouldn't acknowledge it thereafter. Witnesses still
live to confirm... To the children surrounding him as we walked by,
overhearing, spellbound by his extemporaneous speech, he said join if
you're devoted and passionate, beyond the ability... have the
willingness to give yourself. You can take the man out of the military
but you can't take the military out of the man.
He walked off with a limp...
It was homecoming for the graduates of 1981, of which I was one, FROM
QUEENS COLLEGE, a City University, not a military academy....
The morning tatou of chopper-dropped paratroupers, guiding their
chutes as they descended, surfing to the parade field on purple smoke
streams, then the afternoon football game where Army mostly loses to
dedicated football universities; you see, career football players get
a better deal at Ohio's Kent State, but Kent State lost by three
points in overtime as the kicked football came sailing at us in the
sun.
The Kent State/National Guard incident occurred on May 4th, 1970. It
went into Watergate Overtime.
OK, the Army team is called "The Black Knights," no, not
Black Nights of the Soul. They have two mascots, the helmutted comic
book black knight and the buff mule, muscles rippling washerboard
style on the suffocating costume... no problem wearing those outfits
for the cadets... the cheerleading girls with black warpaint on their
cheeks, throwing themselves across the sidefield, bouncing, flipping,
bouncing, moving fast forward, always landing on their feet.
Then the mules parade out during half-time... "A mule is the
issueless offspring of a horse and a donkey..." The half-time
orchestra covered "Hey Jude."
The great orchestra is sitting in the stands with percussion and
horns, playing throughout the game.
Yellow low level horns blow out burial ground elephant calls. The
cadets do their push-ups on the field at a touchdown. The girls flap
their arms, tiny dancers standing on the the outstretched hands of the
strong men.
They played against the Golden Flashes...the name of the Kent State
football team.
So The Black Knights beat the Golden Flashes. !!!
Greeting the arriving freshman, blasting Linkin Park, the Eagles,
Zeppeline, Modest Mouse... beer and an aromatic Bar-B-Q!
High School graduating military devotees, get to know your
congressperson. Each member of congress selects two enrollees a year.
For those black nights of the soul, Bushnell Night Vision! View
photons on a phosphorescent screen.
Free army visor with a completed Visa application, and you'll need the
visor for the sun.
All the fodder for a wonderful essay, right here in
semi-comprehensible phrase scraps... Thank you.
posted by Peter 9:35
AM
[edit]
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
100% Community Betrayal
I actually love watching baseball but the pro-leagues lost me during a
strike the teams held some time ago.
Sorry this is so late but today's groundbreaking is like hitting me
over the head with a hammer.
The young audience members at Yankee Stadium can take their bats and
balls and catchers mits and go out to the fields of Maccombs Dam Park,
their PUBLIC PARK, where they can play their own game, learn from the
pros across the way and maybe someday, themselves play in the big
league stadium next door...Yippee! Oh, no, this sport is for
professionals. Let's build a new stadium where the park is and give
the local kids the old stadium as a memorial to baseball embalmed.
This concludes the credibility of the very well spoken and intelligent
Mayor Bloomberg.
posted by Peter 6:17
AM
[edit]
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Enough moaning. The serious issue of "tenancy and home"
needs to stabilize in fairness to all parties, but with regard to my
own living quarters, thank you for your kind consideration. Now it's
up to me to make it work.
Meanwhile, welcome, another million people, to the population of New
York City!
Guess who loves New York? I do. Peter Dizozza
posted by Peter 10:19
AM
[edit]
Monday, July 24, 2006
The 315-321 East 12th Street buildings are just east of the Elizabeth
Home for Girls.
Let's see the old map.
Stuyvesant's farm extended to Tompkins Square Park.
His street, the one that bisects the East 9th and 10th Street grid
between 2nd and 3rd Avenues (where St. Marks Church is) bisects East
11th and East 12th between 1st and 2nd.
Oh, I can read the map now! What a wild goose chase. All this time I
thought the map read "St. Marlos," it actually reads
"St. Marks."
Stuvesant street ran along the border of St. Marks Cemetery. My
apartment is built over the North corner diamond of old St. Marks
Cemetery...
That makes much more sense.
posted by Peter 1:15
PM
[edit]
Sunday, July 23, 2006
July 23, 2006
Dear Sir:
I am having another sleepless night here in your apartment.
Does government rent regulation law so forcibly affect your
speculation plans that you must make a “free market” offer to your
unregulated tenant that is that much more financially debilitating?
You are forcing me to buy or leave my home of 17 years without regard
to what I can afford because it is what the letter of the law allows.
You are acting within the letter of the law even though my apartment
is part of the 86% of shares in a “non-eviction” cooperative
residence plan that have remained unsold for 17 years while the real
estate market rose precipitously, and while the tenant therein, me was
ever told he could only rent, never buy.
You, as incorporator of an LLC formed to be the third “purchaser”
of UNSOLD shares, pay a monthly maintenance of $872, to yourself as
managing agent, while I pay $1,625 to you.
Although in your final offer you allege to have “shot your wad,”
and “tapped yourself dry,” please note that in order to fulfill
upon your offer, I must do the following:
Because I can only pay $75,000 of your purchase price, I ask a bank
willing to underwrite mortgages in a less-than-51% owner/occupied
building to lend me the rest.
After closing, my monthly payment will be $872 to you and $3,128 to
the bank.
Rather than paying $1,625 a month, nearly double your maintenance
cost, I will pay, at a minimum, $4,200 a month, for the next 30 years.
If that is your idea of free market negotiations with people and their
homes, then re-exam the GBL Article 23-A language, which you swore the
attorney general you would uphold. This is the same language you say
housing judges in Manhattan will ignore based on an appellate term
decision involving a tenant who took possession of an apartment 5
years after it went "Condo."
First let's look at a dictionary.
The holder of UNSOLD shares in cooperative corporation is NOT a
PURCHASER:
"Sold" means "to be purchased."
You swore to the attorney general to comply with this language.
GENERAL BUSINESS LAW
ARTICLE 23-A. FRAUDULENT PRACTICES IN RESPECT TO STOCKS, BONDS AND
OTHER SECURITIES
NY CLS Gen Bus § 352-eeee (2006)
§ 352-eeee. [Expires June 15, 2011] Conversions to cooperative or
condominium ownership in the city of New York
1. (e) "Non-purchasing tenant". A person who has not
purchased under the plan and who is a tenant entitled to possession at
the time the plan is declared effective or a person to whom a dwelling
unit is rented subsequent to the effective date. A person who sublets
a dwelling unit from a purchaser under the plan shall not be deemed a
non-purchasing tenant.
2. (ii) No eviction proceedings will be commenced at any time against
non-purchasing tenants for failure to purchase or any other reason
applicable to expiration of tenancy; ...
(iv) The rentals of non-purchasing tenants who reside in dwelling
units not subject to government regulation as to rentals and continued
occupancy and non-purchasing tenants who reside in dwelling units with
respect to which government regulation as to rentals and continued
occupancy is eliminated or becomes inapplicable after the plan has
been accepted for filing by the attorney general shall not be subject
to unconscionable increases beyond ordinary rentals for comparable
apartments during the period of their occupancy. In determining
comparability, consideration shall be given to such factors as
building services, level of maintenance and operating expenses.
187 Misc. 2d 243; 721 N.Y.S.2d 459;
2000 N.Y. Misc. 573,
Park West Village Associates, Respondent, v. Chiyoko Nishoika,
Appellant, et al., Respondents.
# 99-562
SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE TERM, FIRST DEPARTMENT
187 Misc. 2d 243; 721 N.Y.S.2d 459; 2000 N.Y. Misc. 573
October 26, 2000, Decided
LEXIS OVERVIEW: Appellant entered into possession of the apartment at
issue under a lease agreement five years after the residential
building premises underwent a non-eviction type conversion to
condominium ownership. The lease agreement expired, and respondent
landlord brought a holdover action. The appellate court held that, in
light of the legislative purpose underlying § 352-eeee, appellant's
post-conversion leasehold did not fall within the statute's reach.
posted by Peter 2:51
AM
[edit]
Friday, July 21, 2006
"Tryin' to make a dollar out of thirty-two cents."
In purchasing the shares entitling me to lease my apartment, financial
debilitation is not my only concern. I asked the seller's attorney for
permission to review the coop minutes for the last three years. She
referred me to the anthropologist who sold his interest in the
building's unsold shares after his decade of using them for rent
income.
Six months after selling (and not to me, I might add), he still
attends the coop meetings. His Park Square Associates are still the
managing agent for the building, although Arthur, sole principal of
the newly formed LLCs created to buy the unsold 86% of the building's
coop shares, is president of his own perfectly good managing agent
company, ABC Realty.
A great luxury renovation is to commence upon the facade and hallways
of this six story walk-up. Who will be in charge? Will it be someone
sensitive to cosmetics or to the long-term residential aspect of the
building?
And speaking of quiet enjoyment, one of the traditions of this
landmark lower east side six-story tenement neighborhood and of this
building in particular is its ever potential structural demolition via
sound-waves from the floor to ceiling speakers connected to the dj
system in the cellar.
It is notable to consider the success of sonic defense weaponry in
warding off pirates on the high seas. Apparently a well-aimed sound
blast can trip a heart attack.
Could there not also be a frequency, which only floor-to-ceiling
speakers ensconced against the cellar walls are capable of amplifying,
that compromises a building's support foundation?
Every solid object has a rattle note.
Are low frequency sound waves what produce the layer of white dust
here, or is it the pneumatic renovation drills?
This building celebrates its centenary, but the land beneath it has a
much longer past and I have some maps that will help decipher it.
As for the great WPA movie personifying a tenement building -- giving
it a life of its own, so to speak -- I recommend, at every
opportunity, seeing Sylvia Sydney play an activist who does her best
to care for her increasingly demented younger brother, played by
Sidney Lumet, in "One Third of a Nation."
posted by Peter 7:22
PM
[edit]
One of the benefits from reading the writing of Hannah Arendt is her
unleashing of the English language as instructive. As I found myself
saying with my limited reading of the works of Freud, I would call her
writing Great Literature.
And I'm, of course, currently in the enviable position of feeling
pressure from human forces external to me, which excites the hell out
of me if, if, if, I CAN WRITE ABOUT IT.
For previous chapters in my East Village Residency I refer you to the
controversial song cycle with monologues and mini-play entitled,
"Pro-Choice on Mental Health." For an update on the contact
address listed on that album, 321 East 12th Street, Apartment #8, look
no further. Here's the story thusfar.
The Rhodes Scholar anthropologist investors for Oscar Gruss were the
first to buy my home's unsold securities, in 1995. These Gruss
wonderkids are the two Michaels who put the Lenin statue on top of Red
Square (It's a Beetlejuice-designer building on Houston Street).
Although Michael Rosen is the more published Pace University
Professor, the memories burned in my mind are with my encounters with
the furtive Michael Shaoul in 1995 after he sent me a lease renewal
nearly doubling the rent I was paying.
Watching my friends move out (Under unregulated leases they were being
subjected to eviction and unconscionable rent increases from a
generically named managing agent, "Park Sqaure Associates.")
I said, sell it to me, but they would only rent, never sell, which
they did for 10 years. After coming to terms on the lease, in fact,
most fairly, I remained for the eventful decade that brings us up to
the present.
They really were pretty fair, although there had to come a time when
they cut off personal communication.
During our meetings, Michael Shaoul was not at all devoid of
appreciation for my artistic side with my monthly piano set at
SideWalk, and my theatre work at La Mama, then of my liaison work with
the City organizing the East Village Singer/Songwriters' yearly
outdoor concert in Tompkins Square Park (This year it is Saturday,
August 12th.)
My rent under Bernadette Mineo's lease in 1989 was $789. In 17 years
it went up to $1,625, which I currently pay, Month-to-Month, so I am a
testament to the possibilities of a free market tenant/landlord
relationship. Yes, the identical shares (numbering between 1440 and
1470) assigned to apartments currently under rent regulation therein
are, well, let's see the schedule. $197, 631, 526, 741, 305, 132, 628.
hmmm... and the monthly maintenance assigned to those shares is
between 836 and 884. So at least my rent payment is covering the
maintenance paid by the purchaser of unsold shares plus $753 a month,
said 753 going where? It is paid to the MANAGING AGENT, the same
people who under an LLC are the holders of the unsold shares.
In a coop conversion, the Landlord sells his building to a
corporation, then, under his own corporate name, may buy UNSOLD shares
in the corporation. If he vows "non-eviction" he may buy as
much as 85% of the building, thereby getting that 1903 built tenement
building out of government monitored rent regulation.
Since the landlord became the holder of UNSOLD shares, the appelate
term court in Manhattan contorted the conclusion that he is a
PURCHASER under his "plan," and therefore no longer bound to
his non-eviction promise to his post conversion tenants.
(The appellate term applied NOT the language of the General Business
Law governing coop securities, but rather the legislative INTENT
producing it...)
The words applied to such a transaction look like this: With a closing
date of October 29th, 1989, 315 East 12th Street Associates sold its
building to 315-321 Apartment Corp., a corporation in which they
momentarily sell 15% and hold unsold 85%of the shares. They will
eventually hold 86% after they foreclose on the purchasers who were
over-optomistic about paying the monthly debt service and maintenance,
taking back AS UNSOLD those purchased shares that helped qualify for
the conversion.
This foreclosure, of course, refers back to the Keith Feibush story in
"Pro-Choice on Mental Health."
I saw Law Review articles on illusory coops suggesting that 10 years
of pure rental activity raises the inference: Cooperative Apartment
Plan Abandonded.
At the 10 year mark, Oscar Gruss/Park Square Associates/PSA 321 East
12th Street LLC sold its unsold shares to Arthur Cornfeld/East 12th
Street, LLC/ABC Properties/ABC Realty. The tenement's going luxury.
It's time for me to buy or vacate. The market's getting shaky, look at
those interest rates, look at that glut of new apartments and
conversions. Forget about yesterday. TODAY, the gatekeeper standing in
the doorway between me and my home is selling.
My current calculation for my lowest monthly debt service and
maintenance nut for the next 30 years after a $75,000 down payment is
$4,200.
How did I come to live on East 12th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue
on the isle of Manhattan? What am I doing here? Why does the value of
the US dollar and money in general continue a precipitous decline
without anyone noticing?
Let's consider all that in the next installment.
My albums, including "Pro-Choice on Mental Health," are
available through itunes, CD Baby, antifolk.net, olivejuicemusic.com
and Amazon.
posted by Peter 7:25
AM
[edit]
Thursday, July 20, 2006
People call me with bizarre problems, because I work as an attorney,
an associate at a law firm specializing in personal injury,
particularly those arising out of motor vehicle accidents. What a
bizarre accident I just heard about. Driver and passenger in a car
were having an argument when its passenger pulled the emergency brake
(lovers' quarrel, accusations of betrayal and infidelity?), this on
the West Side Highway near dawn, while the car behind them was doing
80.
All miraculously sustained minimal injuries in this short stop
rear-end highway smash-up. Amen.
I listened, I shared my experience, but when push comes to shove, what
are my skills? Jerry, successfully settling at trial today, reminded
me he can make people look bad under cross examination. He's a former
legal aid trial attorney who has discounted testimony from the
toughest witnesses the prosecution could offer. I suppose he has a
gift that threatens, that results in the profitable outcome once he
reaches the standoff, the front lines of the battle.
That ability to threaten victory under pressure sustains the office
where I work, paying the salary for me and his seven other employees,
even as we sustain him, sending him forward to that crisis point.
My results tend to be considerably less threatening, unless I threaten
people with my thinking about them.
What can I do that no one else can?
Let's see, I can absorb and tolerate worry and aggravation as I "happ'ly
wait for my next happy moment."
What are my goals? James Chladek, during my 15 minute New Yorker
interview last night, asked, where do I see myself in five years? I
said, I see myself living in Manhattan, with my shows running with
lives of their own, and a country place to work and raise a growing
family with my loved one.
Well, facing eviction or financial debilitation, I acknowledge that,
in fear of ridicule, I have ridiculed just about everything I could
have held sacred in my life,
Even the term "loved one" used above carries with it the
funeral director's dearly departed connotation...
My life, my priorities, my loves... my belief is, they, me, everyone,
we all withstand ridicule.
I was bullied as a child. I never reached the stand-off. I ran home,
then resented my parents when they lost faith in my ability to take
care of myself.
Wounded, I act wounded, attracting the similarly wounded and sometimes
appearing to reject what I perceive to be their wounded offer of
assistance. I'm afraid.
I read on a church's outdoor marquee during last week's Jitney ride,
and I paraphrase with my usual gift of faulty memory: "Jump.
Sometimes you have to build your parachute on the way down."
Then the song reprise begins. "We're in this love together."
We are all in this universe together.
posted by Peter 2:49
PM
[edit]
Monday, June 26, 2006
Hello. Yes, I continue to be Up In Arms... "Up In Arms" is
the title of Danny Kaye's first film, and probably the only time his
manic energy was matched/tempered/balanced by a uniquely musical
female lead, Dinah Shore.
Look, I've been dealing with pressure from work and the apartment and
all I ask Dick Parsons to provide for my 144 dollar a month cable bill
on the rare occasion when I would sit down for more than an hour and
relax and actually watch something worth watching coming from the
premium digital cable television, is that his cable provide an
uninterrupted digital stream broadcast, not this jamming and
scrambling of random stills and missynched sound that Turner Classic
Movie Station broadcasted last night from 8PM to 9:30....
Manic Depressive Pictures Presents
"Hello, Fresno. Goodbye!"
Produced by Manic
Directed by Depressive
And hopelessly jumbled by Time Warner Cable's premium digital
television stream.
As for the increasing homogeneity of media content, gentle readers,
please, another time...
posted by Peter 11:45
AM
[edit]
Thursday, February 09, 2006
The Movie Experience at the Film Forum, February 7th, 2006
So often, my backlog of interests guides my actions, such as wanting
to see all the films of James Whale and Val Lewton, and I’ve at
least heard of the director, Edgar Ulmer. A film of each comprised the
triple feature at Film Forum last Tuesday during the Karloff festival.
One present day development comes to mind, my preference for stories
told in an hour and fifteen minutes. I suppose the more gruesome the
subject matter, the shorter the better. It’s amazing how eventful
the time can be. Ultimately, though, I did spend four and a half hours
at the movies, basking in the reflected glory of 35mm prints, one, The
Old Dark House, from the archives of our own Library of Congress!
I intended to miss “The Black Cat” and when I arrived there, that
was the one starting.
When I bought a ticket at 2:40 they warned me that the theatre was
almost full. When I left at 7 a crowd of people waited to get in and
the line for standby tickets extended half the block.
The art deco home of an architect portrayed by Karloff, built atop the
remains of a fort that 10,000 people defended to the death, made use
of overhead fluorescent light, giving the actors from the 1930’s a
shadowless pallor, as if they were in a bland office of today.
Boris’s reward for his nasty behavior toward his guests and
colleagues was to be stripped to the waist and flayed by Bela Lugosi.
In a parlor with a bay window overlooking the Alps, this film, “The
Black Cat,” staged a chess match for the lives of the young couple,
so “The Seventh Seal” of Ingmar Bergman comes to mind.
I want everything to be pleasant and harmonious, yet it remains my
intention to make a horror film, so I found these films to be
worthwhile. I justify fantasizing by adding conflict to the fantasy. I
deny myself what I want for purpose of exploration and growth, yet
I’m too frightened to actually live conflict. I’m simply
considering an invented reality, such as a novel or a movie, or an
audio recording.
In the Maxfield Parish Elysium I put a snake in the grass just to keep
it real. Dave Chapelle shared, in a 2004 rerun last night, what
happens when keeping it real goes really wrong.
The fly in the ointment.
In Storm Cloud I pretended I was famous through an alter ego, Kevin
Vargas, but chose to explore giving him everything I wanted by adding
a fear of exposure to the fame, yes, in the ugliest way possible. Sure
the casualty is supposed to be a misunderstanding, but someone in his
film Dies and the unpleasantness, the reality of the fantasy goes well
beyond my capabilities.
The Robert Wise adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Body
Snatchers was gruesome. Take me back to Disneyland! The Satanism of
the Black Cat is consistent. Guess what, facilitating destruction upon
others brings it ten-fold upon oneself. That’s easy. I’m not
entirely convinced Karloff didn’t want to be flayed by Lugosi.
I actually want peace and harmony, which I see existing in nature. The
mere finding of a cause worth dying for is enough to call the
confrontation upon oneself.
There is a crossover into beauty one finds in a horror film that may
be worth exploring, but what are the emotions that support it? Has the
director crossed over into an embrace of nastiness? I haven’t seen
“Carrie” for many years but I recall how utterly hilarious I found
the hand reaching from the rubble matching the hand from (Amy
Irving’s) mother, and the music pounding away. In retrospect I’ll
call the Carrie finale a reasonable victim backlash. It’s a warning
of victim victorious, with the caveat that the expedient way to put
destruction to rest is to put all its participants to rest.
posted by Peter 1:32
PM
[edit]
Friday, November 11, 2005
Galapagos Introduces Sara Silverman... Not Catholic so she needn't
feel guilt for her thoughts
On Wednesday, November 9th, they actually took two little 35mm
projectors and showed her movie. It was a free screening so I can't
complain that they only played the secondary soundtrack, which means
you couldn't hear the words to the songs.
(Gene Stavis explained: "Undoubtedly they were playing the
optical track and were unable to synch the digital tracks which are
common today. Or, perhaps, the equipment they used was of an older
type which does not properly reproduce a more modern red track.")
It has a great escalating opening from a drab apartment room to the
big stage.
"American Airlines: First through the towers."
Ron Jeremy keeps his pinky out "'cause he's classy."
She takes cluelessness to the level of high art. As a narcissist, she
has also mastered the art of expressing heartless compassion.
Despite her obvious capacity for empathy, she has one weakness, the
desire for a pretty jewel that is only found on the tailbone of Ethiopian
babies.
We make fun of people we're not afraid of.
"I'm not racist, I speak facts. You can't smell yourself..."
And now, I keep returning to the following issue.... What is
pornography?
Hem haw, I KNOW it when I see it.
She doesn't, thank heavens! A&E were cast from paradise not
because they were naked but because they KNEW they were naked.
-------------
In other comedian news: Apologies to Robert Shapiro for my mistaking
him for his brother, Rick on Monday by the 6th Ave Bus stop... SORRY!
Jeez.
Then there's the wit & wisdom of the Drew Blood...
posted by Peter 10:58
AM
[edit]
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
From the point of view of Cupid, David Souter (GHW Bush USSC nominee,
1990) and Harriet Miers (GW Bush USSC nominee, 2005) were a match made
in heaven.
On to other matters.
Oh, vote!
In very local news, the New York County District 60 voting machine at
the Sirovich Center accepted four choices for Mayor.
I discovered this today at 10:00 AM while considering a vote for the
"Rent Too High" party candidate for the position of Public
Advocate. He was actually one of the candidates bunched in for Mayor.
The levers should lock after the maximum number have been pulled. They
did for all the other choices.
I only voted for one Mayor, but I could have voted for four! I was
actually inarticulately upset by this but did manage to convey the
discovery to the pollers.
My getting upset tends to help no one, unless it is my intention to
achieve the opposite result.
In more general local news, say good-bye to mechanical voting
machines.
Do you suppose this evening will bring any election result surprises?
I do not.
And thank you, New York 1, for last week's full week profile on
"Top" Independent Party Member Fred Newman. What was the
connection again?
posted by Peter 10:20
AM
[edit]
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Oedipus was a detective in search of himself.
How could Harriet Miers know her path was his as she led her search
committee toward the next Supreme Court Nominee?
How could I know how similar to Jackie Mason I would feel in
expressing that parallel?
Is a "how could you" question answerable or rhetorical,
asked by someone making a point?
Yet I ask it.
-- How could you? I can't even look at you. Don't let it happen again.
Sunday, October 2nd from 5PM to 6PM at the Bryat Park Book Fair,
continued.
As for my Book Fair report, following Art Spiegelman in the New York
Times Book Review tent was Pamela Paul to personally introduce us to
her new book, "Pornified."
If you sense a kinetic energy in your hotel room, then perhaps it's
because, sniff-sniff, it's been pornified!
In case I was not already alarmed by my potential comments about a
hundred million dollar industry, following Pamela Paul and a summer
camp break with Christopher Lehman-Haupt, was author Ariel Levy,
introducing her new, red book, Female Chauvinist Pigs, describing her
undercover work during the spring break shoot of a show called
"Girls Gone Wild." (This show, immortalized by Larry David
in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, is mostly comprised of minimally
solicited public-breast-bearing "reality" clips. In
syndication, perhaps it should rerun as "Girls Went Wild.")
If I add anything to the self-perceptions of the "wild" ones
whose body displays were freely offered to cameras in those episodes
-- especially to those who masturbated –- it is this suggestion;
rather than being victimized in retrospect, consider the respect you
offered to a 100 million dollar industry and its customers by mooning
them.
Perhaps there are times when the act of observing something does NOT
change it. Let voyeurs watch. The power to change in their observation
is negligible compared with a scientist looking for an electron
through a microscope.
Yes, bodies are fascinating, ever-surprising in their breath-taking
beauty, and worthy of time spent looking at them.
No, I haven't seen March of the Penguins, but I'll bet we benefit by
observing them, too.
If pornography is images of people who prepare and present themselves
and others in various displays of sexual arousal then, yes, the world
is pornified.
But what is pornography? The knowledge of it, like the knowledge Adam
and Eve acquired about being naked in the Garden of Eden, was
contained in the definition; "I KNOW it when I see it."
The standard has become what a community/planet will tolerate.
Perhaps for sexual arousal to be pornographic a measure of self-hatred
is required.
Pamela Paul's featured video description was of “sheiks” clenching
Abu Ghraib prison photos as they surrounded the military-garbed woman
they held responsible.
In this video after a suggested decapitation they drench the woman
with their self generated kinetic fluids.
“Masturbatable,” perhaps with self-hatred. Consider, in response
to the blinding rage "generatable" from the previous
near-dada description, how powerful emotions (i.e., hate, love...)
readily couple with physical feelings of sexual (reproductive)
arousal.
-- Don't just stand there, do something.
-- I can't. It's on film; it already happened.
-- How could you? I can't even look at you. Don't let it happen again.
posted by Peter 8:23
AM
[edit]
Monday, October 03, 2005
To write one of these MD posts I like to have some kind of general
interest update to share.
I just returned from a day of jury duty in 2d Dept. Federal Court, and
no I wasn't picked but I was among the first called to join a panel
seated within a beautiful courtroom jury box after watching a
hypnotizing video projection. I didn't catch the video title but it
was directed by Jody E. George of the Federal Judicial Center and
screened in double projection with capital-letter-captioning, white on
black.
"We're going to show you a film. What the film does is give you a
brief idea of what it's like to do jury service here in Federal
Court."
Yes, it cast a spell upon all, turning random individuals into
prospective jurors.
Only by the judge saying these magic words, "You are
excused," may the juror spell be broken, and he did to me, so I
missed out on determing the controversy raised by Ralph Lauren suing
Jordache and the United States Polo Association for trademark
infringement of the double horse logo, which I confess I cannot
picture.
The judge conducted the voir dire of the jurors as the eight attorneys
and two rows of interested observers sat with senses on alert.
"Do you rent or own where you live?"
In addition to clearly establishing the trial schedule, Judge George
B. Daniels asked other probative questions, and unearthed amazing
coincidences. (i.e. My husband is a partner in the plaintiff's firm,
I'm friends with one of the defense attorneys (waves exchanged) and I
just submitted an opposition brief to your honor on another matter.,
or -- I provided fringes for Lauren clothes, I met him often and yes,
he was very good to me., -- Or, most generally, my attorney suffered a
psychotic episode and was disbarred during my med mal trial.)
A jury of eight was quickly, impressively, and admirably had.
I went for lunch to the corner dim sum place and ran into the owner of
a sea food restaurant, "Up the River," in Westley near
Mystic. He and I struck up a conversation because I couldn't help
noticing that his shirt had a bright polo insignia of a man on a horse
swinging a mallet. Now there's an original trademark for a polo shirt.
Look, if you invest, time, money and effort in some(any)thing, then
you should have at least the modicum of self-interest (and
intelligence) to create a defendable ownership stake in it...
The jury service waiting time after lunch was an opportunity to read
the daily free paper, "AM New York." A brief article within
it speculated about the identity of Bush's next supreme court nominee.
Will it be his former personal attorney?
Again, if you, the term-limit-public-servant, have a choice
discretion, you may also wish to factor self-interest into the
equation.
Suddenly here appears a general header for everything I write:
Dear gentle reader, I don't readily access past sensory observations
as readily as I access the internet so an additional purpose served by
this writing is to refresh my memory.
Furthermore, my undercover expose' tone (like I'm a spy on the
"Girls Gone Wild" shoot) is a reverberation from what I
enjoyed yesterday afternoon when I attended -- and forgive me because
any literature distributed at the event had run out by the time I
arrived at 5PM -- some kind of book fair at the park (Bryant) behind
The New York Public Library.
Multiple tents were up, plus a carousel! One tent had a waiting line
extending throughout half the park, because a panel discussion by New
York Times Op Ed writers was soon to ensue within.
Another little tent was wide open for seating. I heard the buzz word,
Heidegger, and asked a distinctively tee-shirted attendant. She said
that speaking in there was Harry Frankfurt (I am only now realizing
that the City of Frankfurt is his surname) reading from his
philosophical treatise "On Bullshit." (on dancer on donner
on prancer...).
The word "Bullshit" still has its punch as a period, a
conversation stopper, or at least, as an argument starter.
Mr. Frankfurt's primary observation is that the bullshiter simply
doesn't care if what he says is the truth in contrast with Iago, that
liar, who does.
He concluded by reading from his treatise what I will paraphrase as
follows: Our general acceptance of bullshit means that we, yearning
for its substitute, discern and respect sincerity. A person whose
expression holds the ring of truth, from being true to him or herself,
is the final exemplar of bullshit, because in truth, no matter how
true to ourselves we sincerely are, reality exists apart from our
perception and expression of it.
I agree, even as I, with all my sensory caveats, seek clarifying
expressions of reality.
That little reading tent was like The New York Times Book Review,
Live, and I kept getting up, and then sat back down after they
announced the next author.
I knew of Harry Frankfurt's book, as well as Pamela Paul's Pornified
and Ariel Levy's Female Chauvenist Pigs from the past year's New York
Times Book Review. And the novel The Mad Cook of Pymatuning was read
by its author, Christopher Lehman-Haupt, a reviewer of books for the
New York Times.
As for the Target Logo appearing within the New York Times banner
behind these authors in the little tent, although it remains unclear
what the "Target" trademark represents, I am familiar with
it because its trademark holders, whoever they are, had bought out an
entire New Yorker issue’s ad space for red and black graphics,
making that issue so obviously a collector’s item that I promptly
threw it away.
Also appearing within the tent was the amazing Art Spiegelman. He
followed Mr. Frankfurt and I sat down in disbelief immediately upon
hearing his name as I greatly admired Maus and enjoyed his
attention-grabbing New Yorker Covers. He crucified the Easter Bunny
over some tax forms and illustrated the slurp kiss between two people
who would more likely share an employer/employee relationship, among
other covers suggestive of George Grosz paintings. Mr. Spiegelman did
the black on black World Trade Center cover in the wake of their
demolition. What better person to do the cover? Not only does his
family live two blocks from the calamitous site but his is wife the
cover editor for the New Yorker. After his presentation he went to
sign copies of his "graphic novel," In the Shadow of No
Towers.
I am sorry to only now think of asking him, does he have any update on
the activities of his fellow Raw comic book artist, Mark Beyer?
I must go now. MORE LATER...
tail-end notes...
Supposedly you could get your book appraised from professional
booksellers at this fair; someone showed me multiple hardcover first
edition copies of On The Road. No, I could not imagine what they were
worth and thanked him for letting me look at them.
Somehow, the idea that buying a 15 dollar N.Y.T. tote bag would
entitle one to enter an area of, and fill the bag with, gently used
books was vaguely annoying.
Oh, thank you for telling me about the book fair.
posted by Peter 1:44
PM
[edit]
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Movie making consists of capturing and communicating an experience not
otherwise safely available to our senses, at least not in this
lifetime. One such experience is a visit to Vegas.
Vegas is infinitely trashable.
I've never been to Vegas, and movies that use it as a backdrop lessen
my desire to visit... Bugsy, The Godfather Part II, Casino, Leaving
Las Vegas, the Tristan Isolde segment of Aria, Oceans 11, and The
Cooler. Any others?
Yet Vegas inspires a degree of greatness in those films.
posted by Peter 8:12
AM
[edit]
Monday, August 22, 2005
As he does most every day Jackie Mason on August 18th, 2005 presented
himself on the Broadway stage, making observations and asking people,
challenging them with the question, "Do you understand
this?"
Thanks to an attorney friend at 13th Street Rep, I finally saw Jackie
Mason.
I wanted his take on current events, and will probably get that by
tuning into his comcast radio show. My favorite observation was a pure
joke about job discrimination and fat people... fat people can't get a
job. Fat people are starving to death. Do you understand this?
He criticises to improve. Would he if he didn't care? No. He loves
this country.
He uses dirty words because he recognized the audience was comprised
of a lower class of people.
Change the station if the abusive words offend.
For those of you no longer satisfied with verbal abuse, consider a
friend who attended a warrior workshop at the Catskills Nevely and
came back with a limp and a bandaged knee.
It was a workshop where martial arts experts (physical, versus verbal,
comedians) suprise-attacked and hospitalized many.
Now THAT's abuse.
As for those of you prefering the beauty of the ethereal, listen to
Jackie Mason's singing voice...
posted by Peter 9:45
AM
[edit]
Thursday, June 02, 2005
"Under-promise and over-deliver," is one of the kernels of
powerful advice imparted to B. Keith Fulton, an executive at Verizon
and graduate of New York Law School, by the speaker he introduced, the
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner,
Inc., Richard D. Parsons.
Dick Parsons appeared before a group of people at New York Law School
last evening (Wednesday). As Time Warner's CEO he earned in 2004,
according to Forbes, not including stock options, $13,245,165.00. He
is a great spokesperson for the concerns of a company whose soul is in
both (journalistic) media content providing and (journalistic) media
content CREATION. Create, then distribute! Look for reruns of CNN news
episodes in syndication.
Prior to spinning off their music business to Warner Music Group
because the music business is too substantially afflicted by the
ability of people to pirate peer to peer, Time Warner Inc. was the
world's largest copyright owner.
Before fielding questions, Mr. Parsons spoke of two of his concerns,
journalistic confidentiality and intellectual property protection.
He felt compelled to consider the first concern because two nights ago
Mark Felt identified himself as the 1970's media informant, "Deep
Throat." It's safe to say we wouldn't be where we are today if it
weren't for his help in bringing Gerald Ford to power.
Jump to the 21st century when journalists Judith Miller, Matt Cooper
and Time Warner, Inc. as Matt's employer, are threatened with prison
and fined, respectively, for not revealing to a Grand jury the source
that leaked the CIA status of Valerie Plame. Identifying a CIA agent
is a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, since
another country might hear CIA as synonymous with SPY! While we
recognize as protected confidential communication between certain
parties such as priests, spouses, doctors, lawyers, the shield
protecting communication between journalist and confidential informant
is in question. Forty-nine states have a shield law but the Federal
Government does not. The First Amendment right that protected
Woodward, Bernstein and the Washington Post arguably protects Miller,
Cooper and Time Warner from revealing the identity of their government
informant source.
The U.S. Supreme Court is next in line to determine this controversy,
if they rise to the writ.
New York Law School Q&A Moderator, Michael Botein, announced
plenty of time for questions. I was one of five people who had the
opportunity to ask during the program. During the reception Mr.
Parsons stayed to answer others.
The journalists' government source committed a felony by breaching CIA
cover. I questioned the distinction between a reporting that
endangered the wife of U.S. Diplomat and non-CIA agent Joseph Wilson.
(Mr. Wilson was critical of US reasons supporting the starting of a
second gulf war.) versus the first amendment protection of free speech
during Watergate.
Mr. Parsons clarified his concern that the dialogues of inquiry into
the identity of a journalist’s information source must be made
before the public, not in some place behind closed doors resembling a
star chamber. Furthermore, the objective of the press is to inform the
public. The Federal investigation forced reporters to reveal their
source in private.
I believe Mr. Parsons was referring to a Grand Jury investigation,
which is secret and one-sided, involving not the accused but only a
potential prosecutor seeking indictment of a crime. Reporters'
objectivity would be compromised if they could be compelled to
cooperate therein.
(U.S.V.P. Chief of Staff Lewis Libby, the government leak source,
waived his right to confidentiality and Time Magazine's Matt Cooper
testified before the Grand Jury in August of 2004.)
Dupes no more. In other news, we're in The Digital Age. This led into
the second concern that Mr. Parson shared last night.
Do you remember the beauty of diminished copy quality? Black and White
contrast became gray. Pure sound became hiss-filled. Xeroxes of
xeroxes became pockmarked as text widened and lost crispness. Those
copies were of a pre-Digital Age.
Technology today gives the public the capability to reduce media
content to electronic impulses that can be moved around and recreated
almost perfectly. Perfect copies, distributed to one or one billion,
stretch the rights of intellectual property ownership. Here's another
controversy for the courts to determine. In 1984 The Supreme Court
found that Sony's sale to consumers of its Betamax was not an
infringement, being merely the instrument of potential infringement,
as well as of other lawful uses such as fair use and time-shifting
(Sony was the defendant with exposure and ability to pay substantial
damages.). Today, intentions of software programmers will face renewed
Supreme Court scrutiny.
Where do rights of property owners stop and rights of casual users
begin?
Mr. Parsons just got back from China. 95% of China's media content is
pirated. They neither have nor enforce copyright laws, thus in China
there is a barren creative community. China used to be by far the most
developed cultural country. (I love those carved ivory chess sets.)
Today artists there can't make a living. All their invention is stolen
from them. Creativity atrophied because there is no legal protection
afforded to the creators of intellectual property.
Do you remember the incentives arising from ownership? There are
always those with the creative urge (I'm one.), but for it to be part
of a vibrant thriving community/industry, we need enforceable laws to
let us know where we are and how we are protected. If not, we may as
well abandon the field and go be farmers.
We need more laws. The last person to ask a question, Bob Mendez,
included this reminder: laws inspire creativity (like those athlete
artists on the playing field who win while abiding by the rules of the
game). Throughout the term of our agreement to abide by laws we become
increasingly creative in how we do so.
posted by Peter Dizozza 3:00
PM
[edit]
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
I contributed songs to a series of 10 new one act plays called
"Love Bites" which ran at the Neighborhood Playhouse
tonight, Tuesday, May 17th, and last night. At first I thought the
title referred to computer bytes because I remembered going to the
Neighborhood Playhouse to see a reading of a musical about the love
affairs of the computer dependent, among whom I count myself. No.
These are hickeys, plain and simple, and I can't tell you how much I
enjoyed introducing each one with a song.
Patricia Watt produced the series and Steve Ditmyer directed it. Steve
picked out the songs from a collection I assembled for the occasion.
We chose "Absotively Posilutely (Through with Love)" to open
and close the evening. That's the Keely Smith/Louie Prima style song
that Owen Kalt and I wrote for our musical adaptation of "Next
Stop Greenwich Village" in 1993.
On the first night, the show opened with the one man dream play,
"Hymie's Angel" written and performed by Jamie Lorenzo. You
could see him grow from his experiences in Hell's Kitchen as he
relived them with us.
Dan Calloway sang "Never Too Sure," (1980) a kind of
catch-all song about distant memory recognition relationships...
"Haven't I seen you somewhere? Haven't we met before?" That
introduced Craig Pospisil's devastatingly blunt inner monologues of
four people misreading one another. Basically, although they yearn
elsewhere, the two men give into the wills of their women companions.
It establishes hell on earth for all, and in addition was a great
acting vehicle for Jamie Bennett, Danny Cleary, Jane Petrov and Darcie
Siciliano.
The play that promised to make the whole evening superficially obscene
turned out to difuse itself into a subject worthy of awareness; and if
you already examined the subject (I believe John Giorno has...), then
this play would be a compendium of redundancy, since everthing anyone
could imagine was imagined and/or assembled for us from modern art
history by playwright David Brandon Harris. The characters were
likeable, especially the bad Russian painter who spoke the word as a
multispectrum woof: "Piss." I played incidental music (Doomy,
Colonial Williamsburg and an instrumental Mountain Casino) during
that. Dan introduced "Piss" with an excerpt from the aptly
titled song "Golden Age," (1997) which includes the lines,
"That stream is mine." and "Please put it away!"
Stephanie Rose directed with all her heart. It featured Colette Bryce,
Dan Callaway, Ben Hersey, Gregory Korostishevsky and Marina Kotovnikov.
The transfiguring "Almond Eyes" introduced
"Rewind," a play by Renee Flemings about gameplaying
childhood sweethearts who grow up to be parting lovers. Given that
there is a real gun in the boy's house, it confirms the black girl's
mother's quote that white people are scary. Erica Ash and Michale
McEachran shared chemistry in the roles.
Darcy Siciliano sang the early song, a last minute inclusion,
"Resume" (1979) to open the young man/older woman
conversational exchange of hopes and dreams called "The Keeper of
My Dignity." It could indeed be called The Keeper of My House,
because the boy's family occupies the older woman's home and learns,
and is nearly sucked into, all the past curses therein.
The next night opened with Craig Pospisil's "Whatever." He
described it as a spinoff of Poe's Raven, but it seems to be about a
needy, dependent woman (perhaps Megan Bryne) exerting her dominance
over her inquisitive reality-checking friend (perhaps Cassandra
Seidenfeld). They both recently lost boyfriends. They both stay in for
the night.
Darcy sang an ominous "I Love You Much," (1979) introducing
the monologue "Rebound" by Georgia Metz, performed by Helen
Lantry which had attributed celebrity status to a descendent of Calvin
Coolidge. The casual sex convincingly degenerates into anger.
"Never Too Sure," as a duet this time between Darcy and
David Macaluso, opened Con Chapman's "Welcome to Endive."
There's a long standing mountain restaurant in Danbury Connecticut
called Ondine. Same restaurant? It was a full meal for three couples
without the food featuring Margot Avery, God Engle, Barbara Halas,
Christine Pedi and Joseph Schommer.
"Good Way to Be" opened Father Figure. Make no mistake, the
truth can make you damned (A well-adjusted husband admits to his wife
his approval of his childhood abuse by his father.). However, the
instinctive protection a mother affords to her unborn child is what
keeps us, the human race, alive over time. Thanks, mom. Michael
Patterson and Colette Bryce played the husband and wife.
We used the "I've Come to Know Them" part of the song
"Love them Both" (1997), changing the line "I've come
to love them both," to "I've come to know the truth" as
the opener for Bruce Jay Friedman's economical play The Trial, a
powerful confrontation showing the triumph of the pure at heart. (His
characterization of God in his play, "Steambath," made a
lasting impression on me. ) Stephen Bradbury and Paul Haller saw
themselves as interchangable in playing the two roles.
Singer David Macaluso's opera training allowed me to play a big piano
accompaniment to the last song.
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:51
PM
[edit]
Sunday, May 15, 2005
I did go out this weekend. I saw on Saturday "Music from a
Sparkling Planet." It had a poignant production beautifully acted
and staged at The Amateur Comedy Club, directed with all the non-sequitor
challenges surmounted by Scott Glascock, whom I know as a fellow Lamb.
This play explains why playwright Douglas Carter Beane wrote the
screenplay for the upcoming Bewitched. It also alerts us to the
volatility of the late baby boomers who had their deepest
relationships with television. The bursting optimism of fictitious TV
personality Tamara Tomorrow is stimulating. What will the future
bring? There's a Manhattan public access guy who always says what
Tamara says in the play, "I'll see You in the Future!"
Anyway, as we learn about her past in the play, we observe three
mid-life crisis fellows uncover her present whereabouts.
Oh Brave New World!
I didn't live in Phillie where Mr. Beane's fabulous construct is set.
The days of neighborhood networks are past; well, we have Manhattan
Neighborhood Network, but not those cartoons in syndication... I'm
sure we do somewhere.
Do I regret that the highlight of my youth was the films or TV shows
that I saw?
I currently also demand unrestricted access to foreign broadcasts.
The other highlight on Sunday was a film that followed the Arlene
Grocery Picture Show Screening of "Songs from Prepare to Meet
Your Maker #10." What followed was a film called "Farming
with Stanley." It's an impressively paced family documentary
about a fascinating topic, tobacco, a sticky big leaf plant with tar
residue. I want to buy a pack of camels.
There is a feeling of Deja Vu about this film. I spoke with someone
about this, perhaps the filmmaker, once before, probably at Anthology
during the Dolemite event, and basically repeated the exact questions
I asked today. Anyway, I'm glad David Hollander scheduled the two
films back to back because it reminds me, I should really considered
going to Philip Morris for PTMYM funding.
There was a Camel cigarette photograph, backlit for barroom placement,
of a woman, complexion blue as death, with smoke escaping from her
face, which caught my eye during our performances at SideWalk.
My noticing and remembering this ad better than a conversation I might
have had two months ago is an indication of my late baby boomer
status, where an artistic represention, even a Camel Cigarette poster,
competes for the sum total of my human experience.
So the farming film is a reminder of how people commerce in the
miracles of nature outside of the big cities. Obsessive drudgery is a
trap for all, is all I have to say.
Please note, I'm feeling particularly self-centered and down on myself
of late because of my abject failure as a husband.
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:20
PM
[edit]
Monday, March 14, 2005
Apparently, arts conventions begin with suites at a hotel, and
eventually grow to move to the armory. The organizer, i.e., "divafair,"
rents the suites and subdivides them into exhibition booths, nice ones
at that, with bathrooms... On Sunday, after a walk through the
incongrous new Irish Hunger Excavation Site overlooking the majestic
Hudson River (Does a speck of ancient construction exist within
Battery Park City? I suppose everything there has to be new since it
is built upon WTC landfill.), I went to the Embassy Suites Hotel. It
is indeed filled with two room suites attached by a hallway that
overlooks the lobby atrium, kind of a mini Time Square Marriott
Marquis without the wrap around and the 50 floors. This one has six.
The third and fourth floor were occupied from March 10th-13th, with
the various digital video galleries who joined the divafair. That's
Divafair.com, the digital video fair, and the winner is, from the
curator of Williamsburg's First Two International Surrealist Film
Festivals, who is ever partial to Wago Kreider's "Marvelous
Creatures:"
Ivan Toth Depena's video, "Incidental Antinomies," which,
for purposes of stimulating the memories of others who may have seen
it, may be called "Trees Lit By Street Lamps."
Second Prize: Nomad, by Eva Koch
Alexandre Castonguay converted a Brownie Camera and used its lens.
Honorable mention...
And it is always a pleasure to see further incendiary material from
the Dada Changed My Life crew... What happened in Fallujah???
The fair was a tribute to the work of Bruce Nauman.
posted by Peter Dizozza 2:13
PM
[edit]
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Was that Rudy Ray Moore on the phone?
From Dave Hollander: that was indeed, rudy ray. thanks for films peter
and very nice to meet you. i look forward to watching what you gave
us.
--------------------
On Wednesday, January 26th, Dave Hollander screened a DVD of “Dolemite,”
at Anthology, not without first calling Rudy Ray and amplifying his
permission and blessing over the P.A.
Rudy Ray is Dolemite. Is the 2005 Sundance’s “Hustle and Flow” a
remake?
I learned a lesson in independent filmmaking from the directing. In
framing your photoplay, use plenty of light with a mostly stationary
camera observing the action from angles mostly unavailable to those
seated in the audience of a stage play.
After an hour seated, neck craned, in the front row with Orin Buck,
who invited me to this free alcohol/film submission event of which the
screening of Dolemite was the centerpiece, I left to enjoy Steve
Espinola, Jordan Corbin and Jon Berger at SideWalk. I left Orin, who
wanted to vault at the opening credits, enthralled. I wonder how it
ended. Well, for all, I hope, for the cast was exceedingly likeable. I
stayed long enough to catch Rudy’s titanic rap. That was somehow a
toast that gave birth to rap and hip hop. Jon Berger knew about Rudy
Ray, as someone others reference. This was all news to me.
I repeat here that the film that comes foremost to mind at the mention
of black seventies cinema is Ossie Davis’s, “Cotton Comes to
Harlem.” (February 5, 2005, Why didn’t he direct more? He leaves
behind a great legacy.)
From Orin: 1/29/2005 1:28:39 PM EST
I'm sorry to say that several people did not end happily -- the other
black guy who tried to take over the club died in a hail of bullets.
The mayor, after having an angry phonecall in the nude which grossed
out the delicate members of the audience in the back, died trying to
leave town, shot by the black FBI guy off the wing of his private jet.
All in all, I think you were there for the |
