Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Perhaps before turning to internet movie database or some other
links that come up through a click on the google page I can consider
what I actually thought of the unique film from 1962 called Jules
and Jim, a flamboyant work and one that anticipates some of the
charming interaction I know from ken Russell's films. These unique
individuals following their own call somehow disappoint me in the
end when all that is left is an expression of underlying tension and
hostility, or something else I can't understand, in that they drive
off a cliff, basically, and that the rules of what can be done with
their ashes must be followed... who are these people, and what is
the meaning of the German heritage of one of them, well, I suppose
he is austrian, and a second world war is brewing as the lifestyles
come to an abrupt halt. There is such happiness, joy and beauty
experienced in the end result of the film. It is flashing about at
images, ever unexpected and certainly there is great sadness in what
seems to bring us back to reality, that there is an underlying
tension fomenting...Maybe there's something else there. I wish there
was because the vision was beautiful, or, what may be my own
limitations, hauntingly familiar, and as I am a product of that
familiar behaviour, I'd like to see a thriving outcome... well,
bringing me back to my own perceptions versus reality. My favorite
scene is the slap followed by the laugh. There is a moment of
antagonism, one of several where Jules says something that offends
Catherine and in my present state I am unable to recall what the
comment was. She slaps him. he laughs and the all three laugh... the
threesome is a French genre when I think of films of Bertrand Blier,
which I haven't thought of for some time. There is another moment
when she throws herself in the water... Ms. Moreau, after hearing
quotes from Beaudelaire following their attendance of what might
have been a strindberg play. the flamboyant Ken Russel style now
seems to have its origin in Truffaut. All in all, a yearning arose
from the film, and for that I'm grateful.
posted by Peter 8:43
PM
[edit]
Sunday, August 16, 2009
EDIT of January 4th, 2010: I have expanded the short last sentences
of this post.
Waking up in the early hours of the morning I turned on the TV and
saw the end of The Pianist, a mostly silent journey through towns in
spectacular states of destruction, before the arrival of the
Russions. The closing credits feature a close up of a pianist
playing what I thought was a concerto... it's a chopin polanaise for
piano and orchestra. The first words spoken thereafter on this IFC
channel were announcing an upcoming show... Someone in the ad asked,
"Isn't masturbation a form of prayer?" reminding me of the
play I'd seen earlier, Viral by Mac Rogers, a Gideon Production.
Playwright Mac Rogers articulately takes his audience on a descent
into a realm we'd never imagine entering. As it confronts someone's
need for suicide, it addresses the state of mind of one who is
there... In fact, I thought that state of mind would pervade into
others, but no, it is unique to the one character, and the
transformed character is a woman who grasps her own identity by
rejecting the temptation of the soon-to-be-deceased. I so respect
and admire the ambitous scope and risk of the work. Last year's Hail
Satan was uniquely humourous in its conviction. Here again there is
attention to boss helper domination, but the whole viral enterprise
is so enobled that I was forced to confront my general confusion
about suicide... The one thing I know in my life is that I'm going
to die, so the need for acceleration escapes me. Our material
presence exists as a blip in time, although I'm sure it's eternal in
some other dimension...Moving right along to the standard fare that
inspires me as I attempt a musical coherency for A Question of
Solitude was the further return on TV of the Kubrick film, Lolita...
You can turn to a Turner Classic movie on demand menu and press
play... I always identify Lolita as containing the great example of
a real time scene... the diary discovery into the car accident...
Seeing th 20 mintues last night I remembered the forbidden nature of
human attraction surpassing unhindered attraction. Then I thought,
oh, yes, of course, Pianist Director Roman Polanski suffered some
euro-ostracism in America for a collision similar to Humbert's... My
exposure to Lolita was at an age of, well, 15. At for the quote from
the IFC channel that "masturbation is a form of prayer,"
as it relates to the play, "Viral:" Viral addresses that
the collective observation of an event (a suicide) can be achieved
through the use of RECORDING EQUIPMENT. It announces a market for
recordings documenting the passing from the body of life. The
willing participant in a documented suicide is the gold mine. With
not a hint of cancer or some other slow torture to rationalize the
death decision, the decider decides on suicide... We confront the
right to die against the right to life... Our presence or absence
makes a great difference in the material world...
posted by Peter 9:17
AM
[edit]
Monday, July 06, 2009
Just to change what has been my latest Michael Douglas blogpost,
I'm writing now. The East Village was quiet over the 4th of July
weekend because the fireworks moved to the west side, a great idea
whose time has come, thanks to the anniversary celebration of Henry
Hudson. The Hudson River is majestic; The East River is turbulant!
My minimal Time Warner Cable report for the weekend includes some
thanks... The Sundance channel permitted an on demand broadcast of
"The Man Who Fell to Earth and feel from grace and skimmed both
his knees...
oh those days. I really went to the movies then. It was 1976, the
200th anniversary of Independence Day. I remember seeing Taxi
Driver, The Fury and Carrie...
I was reading online the various biographies and descriptions of
the great acting foursome, David Bowie, Candy Clark, Rip Torner and
Buck Henry. My discovery this weekend (Aside from the possibility
that the anxiety conveyed by David Bowie was real.) was the musical
contribution of John Philips to the MWhoFTE soundtrack. Do you
remember when a full length screening of that movie became
available? I had already seen it a few times at two hours and loved
what I saw... It lacked 20 extra minutes.
I acknowledge that the story of alien discovery and wonderment
came to me, not by way of the 1963 novel, but through Alexander
Keys' scholastic books publication, The Forgotten Door. Another
movie broadcast this weekend was Escape to Witch Mountain, also
based on a book by Alexander Keys, which also has a likeable cast.
I don't want to leave out from this litany of titles, The
Wild-Eyed Boy from Free Cloud, a song by David Bowie.
The mob chases the alien to the mother ship, or the door, which
is why I connect most with The Forgotten Door.
As for Nicholas Roeg and his hilarious casting, I still love the
transition scene from space mission to the hidden hotel room.
There's a fellow who dives in and lifts his wife out of the pool and
onto the pool deck...I thought it was filmed in reverse, but it
looks like he really did that.
Another great movie document broadcast on demand this weekend was
Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth, an important telling of the doomed
lovers' story. It is sad, as is the Man Who Fell to Earth, and
equally colorfully vibrant. The Man Who Fell to Earth, though, at
its most morose and awful, and it reaches uncharted depths, is just
too much fun.
You know, Mr. Bowie got to work with Oshima on Merry Christmas
Mr. Lawrence.
Well, I'm sure there are great movies coming out today... I'm
just at least 20 years behind, and even when I do see them it's just
as likely I will hate them. In fact, hating the movie experience
tends to be a good indicator of how much I will love it later... The
best recent example is There Will Be Blood.
I also saw a dvd of Orlando, which also plays with agelessness
through the passage of time. I think that is a good barometer of the
opposite level of cinematic dedication. Everyone can parade around,
but if you want to see people in a movie, see The Man Who Fell to
Earth...
Labels: Nagisa
Oshima Sally Potter Daniel Keyes David Bowie Rip Torn Candy Clark
Buck Henry Cruel Story of Youth The Man Who Fell to Earth
posted by Peter 10:24
AM
[edit]
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
It is helpful to keep track online. So on Monday a plane flew around
downtown manhattan for purpose of having as a backdrop the statue of
liberty. And it was a beautiful day... just buzzing around with a
little jet satelliting it. Somehow that led into the ted kennedy
gift of a dog... does this make sense? Everything's going to be
fine.
posted by Peter 1:07
PM
[edit]
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Hi, everyone accessible, I'm on another real estate adventure; I
think there was one posted here previously... I think these postings
are only searchable on my cinema vii mirror site... I'm not sure
that this blog is searchable. I hope this posting is helpful to you.
As my memory needs constant refreshing I can't begin to measure how
helpful it is to me.
It all started March 4th, 1996, the date of death...Anyway, the
first advice I have is what started this adventure... it's called
"going public," and the public announcement is sent out
via the filing of a tax lien on a property... Be aware of that
event. Entrepreneurs, be sure to review those tax liens and
investigate the status of the property for future foreclosure or for
some other way of getting an interest in it.... The name of the case
is NYCTL 1998 - 2 Trust vs. whomever... New York City sells their
tax liens! Good idea. Popular purchasers of the uncollected debt
have names like Expand Co (New Jersey) and JER (Connecticut) and
these3 companies pursue collection which announces the property to
the people looking at the tax lien listings and that's when the
calls begin awakening interested parties... It may actually be
possible to show the court caption to an elderly disabled interested
party and buy up that party's interest for say... $1,000 now with
the promise of more later at the option of the entrepreneur as the
research continues and the value of the property becomes apparent.
However, the interested party, the beneficiary of an estate, sees a
lawsuit caption marked as follows: FORECLOSURE case type...so, it
looks like a big debt even though the amount of the lien could be
quite small and the value of the property quite high... The awakened
interested party sells, or agrees to sell, agrees to agree. The
entrepreneur provides a service here in awakening distant heirs...
Today is March 25th, 2009...
posted by Peter 9:04
AM
[edit]
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
You've got to ask yourself, why am I publishing my innermost
thoughts... is it because I myself can't even keep track of them, or
that I can forget them once written?... anyway, all information is
out there for the obtaining, and when the volume grows so great, the
relevence is lost, unless we choose to be universal, in which case
everything emenates from the oneness of us. I don't mean to be a
tell tale tattler, but I'm not clueless, either. In general I want
mutual awareness. Kundera said the only way to have intimate
relationships is to maintain privacy and secrets, and of course my
current status proves he's right.
Governor Patterson impressed me last night with his well-spoken
speach for Judge Kaye. What an amazing circle is her career, why...
why do you think...? She took over for Sol Wachtler, and Governor
Patterson who will appoint her successor took over for Eliot
Spitzer, and what do Wachtler and Spitzer have in common? They both
were unable to reconcile their personal with their professional
lives and resigned, and Judge Kaye walks in and out of chief
judgeship in the wake of that. Who will be her successor?
Mayor Bloomberg also spoke, and aside from his humor about the
gentleman civil servant, reminded us February 14th is his birthday
and we'd better call him, all eight million three hundred thousand
of us.
posted by Peter 2:12
PM
[edit]
Friday, August 22, 2008
Re: Yessay
Posted by dizozza on 8/21/2008, 2:35 pm, in reply to "Re: Yessay"
Thanks for the memory, and the observation that anti-prowess instrumentation from CBGBs punk followed
prog-rock. I did not understand Yes words but the sound of their records impressed me. The first impression was from hearing Long Distance Run Around... I hung out with older kids, so I'd hear these records new... amidst the pot smoking (in that row of spanish stucco houses on Fleet Street????). Close to the Edge is my favorite of theirs ("And You and I" is worth carrying everywhere...). Their album packaging was also quite beautiful. Their release of tales of topographic oceans was an exciting current event and it began very well. I can't say I got to the end, though. When I was in high school my band liked Yes but not as much as Gentle Giant, Genesis, Queen and King Crimson. This band, Steak and Potatoes, was proud of their ability to cover these songs. They may have covered Roundabout. So this is
Prog-Rock... wow. Rick Wakeman's Wives of Henry the Eighth was interesting... Oh, Emerson Lake and Palmer recorded something called
Tarkus, which was interesting and contained a 2 minute piece that surpasses everything called Jeremy Bender. I love their Letter song after
Tchaikovsky's. Top moments for me are Supper's Ready by Genesis,, The latter half of Gentle Giant Glass House King Crimson's Fractured one note guitar solo... I'm not sure, they all had similar overlapping names... maybe the album is called Red. This was all british school-boy rock...
posted by Peter 11:19 AM [edit]
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Today is a beautiful August 17th, a Sunday, and I woke at 10 and went to the Mary Help of Christians Church where a somber mood prevailed over a loss of one of the parishiners. Father Joy said the mass. I arrived late enough to catch his Allelulia, as always perfectly pitched in G, leading into the gospel reading, about a woman whose demons Jesus removed at the request of her mother who appealed to him by saying, dogs appreciate scraps that fall from the masters dinner table. Mother and daughter were gentiles and their inclusion was apparently the theme, that all are god's children, and the chosen are the ones chosen to lead all toward salvation, and not just battle fiercely the heathen "other" without regard. I played Whatsoever You Do, Make of Our Hearts a Home, and Amazing Grace My quest for objective awareness includes all religious explorations. My upbringing still activates me... Tonight is my Cow City opening, and that piece confronts the awareness of all life forms, including spirits. ("You feel for them." "The true Aspergers makes me capable of designing these.") The universe is in a single room, on a mountain, in a greenhouse cellar, in a meatpacking plant (a humane one..), between a single couple -- I believe in the synergy of two. Of course there are pop elements of a murder mystery with the interchange between victor and victim, predator and prey. It's a sequel to a previous play entitled "(The Expanding and Contracting) O." I share the apartment with three cats and I see how they reach a peace and balance, that includes both co-existing and attacking each other. They are just restless and active and curious and their universe is here. I'm happy that the apartment has many lovely areas. The reason I've gone to blogland is the email I received from The WAH Center of the upcoming Milton Celebration through art and theatre, including my own "Paradise Found," which, a month and a half away, is Collaboratively Formulating. Paradise is a resort in Afghanastan. I haven't been there but I've heard it exists, as it existed for Kipling a hundred years ago, when today's hotspots were British Colonies. Next up, in December, The Chekhov Festival of The Brooklyn Playwrights. I'm adapting the story, In the Ravine. Then January 9th, the Bentley Kassal show! Of course I look forward to singing the songs that arise from all the above in concerts at the SideWalk music venue. And while I return to and learn from the (universe contained in the) familiar, I am ready for an exploration into realms hitherto unknown to me; hopefully to live through it. Cough... Yes, I attended Oliver's celebration of his third Kidney, transplanted into him 30 years ago yesterday. Of course the Kidney's name is Stanley. He circled the martial arts room demonstrating the Chinese swordplay that signifies different breaths of the I Ching. He's in good shape. (The fellow in the bed next to him got the other kidney and died a year and a half later... ) Let's see how much longer I'll be coughing here. Otherwise I feel fine. Honestly, my eyesight is not too stable. Still the world is bright and beautiful.
posted by Peter 8:51 AM [edit]
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Mister Roger-nist meets the narcissists and the gearheads, in that order. The starz channel fills two hours of its premium content-providing obligation with an extended death proof, which means two 45 minutes of build separated by a conversational walk through a hospital corridor. There are single long shots of continuous dialogue and dance, as well as a select group of frames visualizing clinically graphic action moments. A recording of a Serge Gainsborough song ends the movie. A recording of a Lieber and Stoller song provides the lap dance accompaniment. These recordings (from a great juke box!) enhance an ensemble of memorable actors.
posted by Peter 11:23 AM [edit]
Monday, June 02, 2008
all right, I saw some of the PETA video...
Posted by pd on 6/2/2008, 12:57 pm, in reply to "Cow City Theme Song...I have a script..."
I didn't watch much... here are some voyeur lines (at the end of
tentagatnet)... they sit watching a movie of some cannibal holocaust, the guy says, "Turn it off... I feel so powerless sitting here," the girl says, "so go back in time and save them." Food processing...an ongoing carnage of intelligent beings. The energy released is dangerously powerful... poor victim... poor killer...
posted by Peter 11:32 AM [edit]
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Good morning on this lovely Memorial Day Weekend Sunday. I was up until 2:30 a.m. last night watching "The Chicago Ten" with Bob Fass at Theater for the New City. All right, director Brett Morgan, congratulations. Obviously you can't take your eyes off it. At last I have some idea of what went on then. I recall the days of protests and riots. My friends had older brothers always running off to Washington. That 1968 Democratic convention was a non-communicative mess, especially horrifying considering the revolutionary origins of this country... and what happend in 1968? Humphrey won to lose against Nixon. TNC's Lower East Side Festival for the Arts runs through Memorial Day in New York City, and it's full of great surprises, this one beginning at 12:30 AM, following the beautiful "Lower Eastside Stories." Much earlier in the evening I saw parts of a film that explained the origins of square dancing, that the swing your partner director was reciting battlefield encounters with Ulysses S. Grant. I see now that this was a mockumentary called "The Bentfootes." Earlier in the evening I was on the West Side hearing Woon-Sung Choi articulate "Pictures at an Exhibition" on the Merkin Concert Hall Steinway. She also played another Carnival piece, this one of Vienna, by Schuman, (Fauschingsschwank aus Wien). The music in the movie and piano concert were similarly dynamic in range, although the film's score had a very loud playback. The sound design in the film, well, everything about it is a documockumentary accomplishment. In other entertainment news, Chris Force and Maria Micheles shared a reading night at the Brecht Forum, the way Elizabeth Versalie and I shared one the month before. Chris's play is called "Adam Delved;" Maria's is "Round and Round the Night Park." I saw an impressive staged reading of Les Hunter's full length play, "To the Orchard." Cry Baby the Musical turns out to be great. I loved the song collection on the movie soundtrack, which took me until the end of the night to remember. It's a sub-genre of the 50's nostalgia show, the misunderstood Juvenile Delinquent. The lyrics and score, orchestrations, arrangements, directing and sets are great, as are the cast, crew and orchestra performing them. The script reminds me not to confuse John Waters with Tim Burton, although the camp film genre is a treated seriously and sincerely by both. Quick note on meta data, a CLE lecture taught us that meta data is the record of every word I originally typed and evey change I made in this entry. Lawyers, there are programs you can feel obligated to buy that can strip clean your meta data. I say, Be Proud of Your Meta Data!
posted by Peter 7:53 AM [edit]
Saturday, March 15, 2008
OWL
Kristen, you're gonna be mad at me.
PUSSYCAT
Why?
OWL
I swear if I see that Bruno again I'm going to kill him. I can't go back to Albany.
PUSSYCAT
All right. I'm not mad at you.
OWL
You will be. But I think I know the way to give your career a shot in the arm.
PUSSYCAT
You don't have to do that. You're already paying me.
OWL
Well, you're allowing me to explore a beautiful example of the very species to which I am held accountable, and to whom I play a role that can only be described as ministerial.
PUSSYCAT
What do you do again, Mr. Fox? I'm kidding.
OWL
If I see that Bruno again, I will murder him and that will just devastate my family. This is better.
PUSSYCAT
What are you going to do?
OWL
It's complicated, and yes it involves you.
PUSSYCAT
Is it safe?
OWL
No, it's going to pretty bad, mostly for me, though. However, with the pressure mounting, it does provide an immediate out as governor. Your boost into stardom is somewhat secondary.
PUSSYCAT
Thanks. So what's happening?
OWL
I've been churning some of my trust accounts, in a small way. The banks wouldn't even notice except I've goaded them into uploading software to detect a pattern in suspicious transaction activity.
PUSSYCAT
How goaded?
OWL
I hold them accountable for crimes they fail to detect without it. So they have to report me to the IRS. It looks like I'm being blackmailed.
PUSSYCAT
Why are you so sure they're going to bother checking you?
OWL
You know why.
PUSSYCAT
You keep saying how everyone hates you. Why is that?
OWL
How many times have we seen each other? You know I'm not one for toadying. They're right to hate me, because I hate them, especially Bruno. It's a problem for me. I've got to get out of this. I'm going to snap at any minute. I'm so sick of plastering this smile on my face.
PUSSYCAT
I'm going to call your wife.
OWL
Get her on the phone. Call her
cel.
PUSSYCAT (picking up the phone and dialing)
Are they here?
OWL
No, my family is home in New York.
PUSSYCAT
I thought we were having breakfast with them?
OWL
Next time.
She talks to the phone.
Silda, it's Kristin, that's right, your husband's call girl. What? Yes, he called me. No, through the agency. Yes, I gave him my number. No, he insists on calling them. Here let me put him on.
OWL (talking to the phone)
Silda, I'm resigning from office. I'll be out in a month at the most. Yes it's possible.
No, it's not a lot of effort on my part, I don't have to do anything except churn some accounts and spend a lot on Kristen here, which is one of the reasons I was put on this planet. I know, her CD is great, and the children like it; that's the decisive thing, if it plays well with the young folk, anyway, it's great publicity for her. Yes, I want this more than anything. Yes more than anything I also wanted to govern. It was the obvious next step. It was a mistake. Look, I tried but I can't help it. Sometimes you just don't take to people and when I see Bruno I see red. It's only going to lead to trouble so I'm thinking, we'll help Kristin here, make her the call girl of the century. Why not? It's only 2008. No, I think the Ambassador club will have to go down. Oh, it's the Emperor Club, by the way, like Caesar, not
Kissinger. Actually, I, too, am going to have to go down. Why? I'm paying for sex.
PUSSYCAT
You are not. You're paying for my company, but yes I'm very available to you.
OWL?
Doesn't your fee make you feel a little Pre-disposed?
PUSSYCAT
Yes, pre-disposed to follow your command, oh Emperor, so long as you keep safety a priority.
OWL
(Shaking his head, returning to his phone conversation.) Anyway,
Silda, I even had her take the train to DC so in effect I'm trafficking over state lines for an illicit purpose. It's a Federal offense. If I'm caught they may fine me, send me to jail, but definitely they'll force me out of office. I know. It sounds too good to be true. No. Right now they think I'm on the take. They're going to be very disappointed, but I've been pretty severe about the sex trade. This'll turn the gun back at me. I'll be forced out of office. Hypocrites will take to calling me a hypocrite and I really won't have done any harm to anyone except myself, especially with regard to sleep deprivation.
PUSSYCAT
You have to wake up early tomorrow?
OWL
I have a very busy day. We'll wrap this up in a minute. You probably need to get home, too.
PUSSYCAT
I was hoping to join your family for breakfast.
OWL
Next time. I only brought you here to trigger Federal law. I want nothing to do with New York State.
PUSSYCAT
Look, I'm going to go.
OWL
Yes. Go ahead.
PUSSYCAT
Don't you want to jerk off on my tits or something?
OWL
No, I'm fine. Just hearing you say it is enough. Thank you. Hey, I love that CD. So when the Feds contact you, just tell them everything. I should apologize for putting you through this but if you'll forgive my instinct, I sense that you are up for it.
PUSSYCAT
Yes, Mr. Fox. I can't imagine you abandoning your work.
OWL
No, I'm abdicating. If you knew my colleagues and caught a glimpse of New York's future, you'd want to do the same.
PUSSYCAT
I thought the whole point of these trysts was to sharpen your focus.
OWL
A good night's sleep would also help.
PUSSYCAT
Good night.
OWL
Good night.
Silda, are you still there.
SILDA (She is suddenly audible on the other end of the phone line)
Yes. Are you sure this the right thing, Elliot?
OWL
It's better than the right thing.
SILDA
Just let me stand by your side throughout it.
OWL
OK. I probably won't take questions, then.
SILDA
Don't bother. You don't have to. Let them do everything.
OWL
Thanks.
SILDA
Did you just let her go?
OWL
Yes, she left. Is that OK?
SILDA
I hate seeing you blow through your family trust fund.
OWL
It stimulates the economy.
SILDA
But the dollar, Elliot, you're exposing the true value of a dollar.
OWL
Please. Good night,
Silda. Oh, Silda, what about our daughters, are they going to be OK?
SILDA
No, Elliot, nice of you to think of them. It sounds like you've already pulled the trigger on this one. Good night.
A sexy dwarf appears offering advice about sex.
Hello, sexy dwarf.
Oh, just call me Mae West!
------
February 13th, 2008, Mayflower Hotel
from "Client Nine from Outer Space"
A play script by PETER DIZOZZA
posted by Peter 10:37 PM [edit]
Sunday, March 09, 2008
I've got these opening characters, Cis and
Ces, from the two endings for the two spellings of Francis/Frances. One of them survives while the other disappears into a mystery void, like the Vertigo couple. The end result disrupts the education at the school they both attend. It's an all boy's school, but Cis and Ces are male and female versions of the same name. Raleigh Horn and Georgina Abbot Masters return to re-enact their ritual of inquiry into matters outside their experience. The catalyst is Raleigh's son who calls on his father from the school overlooking the Hudson river, even though his father is agoraphobic and living across the continent, even though his mother is happily remarried and has a daughter still in kindergarten.
I may be falling into the Sin City trap. I loved the concept but not the film. The title of my project is Cow City. That is the saddest thing, though, going to Cow City. I came across an aspergers story in an Oliver Sachs book, it's probably the title story, about an anthropologist on Mars, whatever that means. It's a horrifying story about designing
abitoirs. Arbitoriums? The idea of such a makes me so sad. In fact, I feel an underlying sadness and am at crossed purposes regarding telling about it, even about writing here, and withdrawing into a shell.
Oh wow, and now the airwaves will carry not analogue but rather digital signals, by law. $40 dollars of government funding will go toward each citizen's purchase, if necessary, of a digital analogue converter.
I don't know, and tonight the clocks sprang forward. Tighten those clock springs. Cheer up.
posted by Peter 3:06 AM [edit]
Sunday, December 23, 2007
I was completely engaged by a performance last night at Theater for
the New City. I was attempting to connect with my southern Italian
druid roots by attending the solstice dance of the Tarentella. The
existence and Italian nature of a spider dance was news to me. News
to me now is the memory of making passing reference to the word
after a visit to Mama Leone’s in 1982. Mama Leone’s was a
theater district restaurant featuring a hodgepodge pageant of
Italianate cooking and traditions where, after a visit there, I
equated the Tarentella with the Mexican Hat Dance. I remember now
coming from a Broadway Production called Marilyn which I saw because
Debra Dotson was somewhere in the ensemble.
By the way, last night I was coming from an open house at the
Ferencz residence. George, the director and his wife, Sally and son,
Jack, extended their hospitality to family and friends and I spoke
with a few of the Experimenta playwrights, Kim Merrill, Michael
Zeitler (Waiting for Mert), and Yasmina Rana (The Warzone is My Bed)
as well as the author of the upcoming White Whalers show, Mark
Gorman. A fellow named Brian Johnson was moving from helping costume
"Is He Dead?" to Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas where Bette
Midler takes over for Celine. Meanwhile, Julie Rosier is joining
forces with Grace Lee Boggs, and I suppose with Julie's sister, too,
to leave New York, to clean up Detroit and spread the good news
(which goes well beyond the transition at Caesar's Palace).
This was a night of enjoying old friends directly and indirectly,
beginning with Yasmine’s update on Kenny Nowell and Justin
Lambert, and their two daughters. Justine’s Looking Glass Theatre
was one of Yasmine’s first producers in New York. She heard from
Justine that Kenny and I were roommates. Remember, in one of these
other posts my mention of Kenny’s adaptation of Wedekind’s
Spring Awakening.
I arrived at TNC at 8:30... the 8:00 curtain rose forTarentella in
the Johnson Theatre to a packed room with additional chairs already
added so Angelina sent me into Queens of Heart by Sabura Rashid, and
I'm grateful. There is an important element of salvation there and
the voice that comes through to the main character, a voice that is
often supressed under the term schizophrenia, is of an acknowledged
savior, an elder, a grandmother. The piece includes a therapist's
hilarious acknowledgment of spirituality behind and beyond
professional therapy, and a general sense that the voice of the
playwright is aggressively healing.
At the end of the piece I met Fred (Fedele) Spadafora again. His oil
painting of Sabura is in the Theater Lobby along with a few other
still life canvases from photographs. He is a photographer and
designer who has worked in publishing. For example, he designed the
Pro-Choice on Mental Health CD and the privately released Prepare to
Meet Your Maker Soundtrack Recordings. He also took photographs for
The Marriage at the Statue of Liberty. We went to Otto's Shrunken
Head, a Trader Vic bar with music programming by DJ Shred...
While there I got a message from Jeff Marino that he and his family
were near and I joined them at an Indian Restaurant. They had just
seen The Golden Compass. They came by the apartment. It was a
surprisingly eventful evening.
posted by Peter 5:22
AM
[edit]
Sunday, December 23, 2007
इ वास
कोम्प्लेतेली
एन्गागेद।
वहत'एस
गोइंग ओं
हियर?
posted by Peter 5:08
AM
[edit]
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
PM
[edit]
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
AM
[edit]
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
AM
[edit]
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
AM
[edit]
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
AM
[edit]
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
AM
[edit]
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
AM
[edit]
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
PM
[edit]
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
PM
[edit]
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
PM
[edit]
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
AM
[edit]
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
PM
[edit]
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
[edit]
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
PM
[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 most culturally revealing
parts.
Reply . 1/29/2005 2:30:37 PM Eastern Standard Time
Yes, I thought as much. Shot from a jet. Watch out for that... When
there is a battle between the bad and the not so bad, some will die.
When there is a battle between the good and the not so good, some will
live. Rudy Ray is famous for his toasts. I'm glad I caught his titanic
rap.
The 80’s rappers owe, from the 70’s, Rudy Ray Moore, who owes,
from the 60’s up until the present day, singer songwriter Steve
Depass.
Yours truly,
Mantan Moreland.
posted by Peter Dizozza 5:43
PM
[edit]
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
I am my own grandpa.
As one of my songs runs through my head, I realize that I am a
spokesperson for people in my position, including myself.
I'm my target audience.
I exist on two levels, as the creator of my universe, and as a
character within it.
posted by Peter Dizozza 1:18
PM
[edit]
Saturday, September 11, 2004
My Ebay,
by Peter Dizozza
Ebay provides a recreational auction environment where sellers meet
bidding buyers and guarantee their profit by lodging it within the
shipping cost. Shipping fifteen pounds across the country costs $1.30
by non-priority USPS mail in a makeshift folded cardboard box.
Shipping cost charged? $15.00. There is absolutely no problem with
that and is more telling of my jaded tone. Better to get beyond that
to the content herein, filtered through my sieve-like brain, as I
grasp experiences trickling like sand through my fingers.
Ebay listings last 60 days, and those ebay-constructed webpage
addresses run for, well, not pages, but for maybe a thousand
characters.
(At the computer I can check my statements written longhand. It’s
not a thousand…Here’s an address link to a silly page that fails
to include as a selling point the redemptive aspect of poor
Pasolini’s last film, Salo. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=6319579625&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT)
Payments through “Ebay” are easiest made through Paypal. I already
established a Paypal account for my CD sales through Amazon. My ebay
adventure began when my wife, Diana, asked for Mr. Magoo in Egypt. It
lives in her memory although I haven’t found it. “Tut Tut Magoo”
it is not.
I browsed Ebay. I understood its concept. Friends used it to sell
electronics surplus, Sears catalogues and cigars.
When I clicked “browse” for Magoo, a raincoat attired UPA plastic
movable parts Magoo doll appeared, from 1958, my birthyear. Wow,
that’s adorable. I’ll bid 20. It sold for 100. OK.
The first Magoo film feature from 1959, Magoo’s Arabian Nights (my
shorter title) went to me for 35 dollars plus 15 dollars shipping.
Color faded, 16mm, on two spools, ready to spill, sold by kinneman. A
cute film, surprisingly involved, he’s Aladdin’s lamp making
uncle. The music is subtle and the graphics are unique and pleasingly
psychedelic, or rather kaleidoscopic (1959), and not entirely without
blue. (Color film loses blue with age. Cold temperature slows the
loss. Though silver nitrate film holds color, it is often more
valuable melted down. For 50 dollars, no buyer should expect either
Magoo’s or Pasolini’s “1001 Arabian Nights” to be a silver
nitrate 16mm print.)
Unspooling Magoo, I recalled pre-VHS (pre-1980) private film
dissemination, in the form of 16mm optical sound prints. The animated
Magoo film must have been shot from cells onto film bearing width of
35 millimeters, about four times the area of the “amateur” format
of 16mm film. It ran in theatres at 24 frames per second, as does the
smaller 16mm film. US TVs scan 30 frames per second so every few cinema
frames are blurred in their TV transfer. Please clarify.
Then consider the phenomenon of optical sound. The sound is etched on
the side of the film, often in patterns resembling record grooves. In
addition to smoothly flickering frames, the projector lights decode
sound.
So for 50 dollars I bought an old rental print of Magoo’s first and
only movie screen feature. Magoo was an Academy Awards favorite.
Columbia Pictures proudly released his films. I know, he is not a real
person. Although the depicting of a man infirm, or challenged, and
unapologetically at that, may have fallen into disfavor, his cartoons
are benign. Anyone attempting to bring harm upon Magoo brings harm
upon himself, and I think we can learn from that.
Ever incongruous, my ebay adventure continues.
Next on Ebay I bought three pruning shears, two for a penny with a
cell phone antenna enhancer thrown in, and a third with a special
Japanese blade for 15 dollars plus (A "Corona Razor Tooth").
That third one broke sooner, piece by piece until at last the entire
blade was gone. I’m referring to mini 7 inch folding saws. I love to
prune. During the summer I trimmed expansive hedges that hadn’t been
pruned in 30 years and their thick sprouts extended to 10 yards to
catch a space of sun. Through long hours of continuous pruning I
became physically invigorated, especially from the smell of spruce.
Exploring a midlife career change to that of an arborist resulted in
subsequent ebay purchases. I bought a 100-foot spool of white vinyl
rope with flecks of gold thrown in, to throw up the trees to climb
them and remove their dead branches. Last winter was particularly
harsh, but those majestic evergreens refused to die, completely.
Actually, pruning is a basic Dizozza issue. I regularly bite my nails
and shred my cuticles. In fact, I’m falling behind. Excuse me.
The inevitable result of constant self-pruning is going too bloody far
in an attempt to achieve smooth perfection. Did you read my pruning
story from the 1980’s. Like the spruce, “I leave to others the job
of pruning me.”
An ebay search for army cots began after our visit to the Shabby Chic
Shop of Soho. Online, I bought two cots, one useless, the other simply
used, plus an army pup tent, which is great, and a hammock tent, which
may be missing something to secure it to the trees. I’ve yet to
confirm.
I gradually discovered that anything one can imagine is available on
ebay, and chances are that only an hour is left to bid on it. My wife,
Diana, requested a white furby with pink ears. It was something she
needed. Through the bidding process I found myself the winner of two.
Ah, the serendipity. Two furbies are better than one. To be more
life-source-specific, in searching the online animal shelter for a
pet, remember to get two. Cats keep each other alert. Two cats are
better than one. Two cats together have fun!
However, for security conscious readers choosing between a ferocious
watchdog and a Sloman Home Alarm System, I have this to add: A Furby
is a sensor motion detector empowered by four batteries, and when all
is still, it turns itself off.
In addition to providing guaranteed intruder trepidation, a furby does
seem to learn from its awakenings. Furbies develop a rhythm to their
response and they will talk with one another. 1999 was their year. I
think Hasbro bought them from Tiger (a toy manufacturer from China)
just to shut them up. Actually, one hears the mechanics as they move.
Can you imagine the next generation, true baby robots that you can
even send to school for improvements? “I’d like my furby to become
an authority on Home Economics, and I’m willing to pay the cost of
tuition.” Little does the mechanical robot’s parent suspect that
classes consist of a software download.
Following these uncharacteristically tangible acquisitions, many
sending us into the great outdoors, I retreated to the browsing of
ebay’s outrageous sales of celluloid.
Home screening received an additional boost when, during the summer, I
performed at an open mike at the Player’s Club. One of the fellows
there was comedian Bob Greenberg. In describing my “Golf Wars,” I
referred to Martin and Lewis and Laurel and Hardy. He said he was one
of the Sons of the Desert, a group of aspiring comedians who
collectively assist in the appreciation of Laurel and Hardy and other
teams like Bud and Lou, the Stooges, the Marx Brothers and the Ritz
Brothers. I expressed curiosity about the Ritz Brothers, and the next
day he emailed me an invite to see one of their moments in film
history, a version of “The Three Musketeers” with Don Ameche. I
dropped by the screening location, could not stay, but glimpsed the
setting, a residential loft.
I said to the 16mm projectionist/curator, “I’ll bring over
Magoo’s Arabian Nights if you’d like.”
He said, “I have it.” He has everything in 16mm. He assembles
movie soundtracks; actually symphonic scores, from the discs and tapes
or whatever on which they were recorded and from which they were
transferred to their films. Complete scores by Max Steiner, Alex North
and Alfred Newman, including parts not in the films, he transferred to
audio CDs, lovingly packaged.
During the next film night he showed Zanuck’s Wilson, just in time
for the Republican National Convention. The following timely political
issues arose before us.
No Wilson’s League of Nations membership for the United States.
Dispute over a concept that mutated into the United Nations continues.
We report to no mortal. I think John S. Hall said it best on Russell
Simmons’ Poetry Central. We do what we want “until God or the
aliens come along…” John inhabits male thought patterns. I almost
miss the joke, and isn’t that what acting is all about, ever since
the days of Robert DeNiro and his filmmaking obsessed friend, Martin
Scorsese! So here we are, in 2004, unaccountable to anyone but
ourselves, because, basically, and here’s that feel good refrain,
“America Kicks Ass.”
I blame feel-good movies for securing our need for the addictive
feel-good charge.
“Wilson” is a Technicolor film from 1944. The same writer, Lamar
Trotti, scripted both it and Zanuck’s Razor’s Edge (in which occur
hallucinatory moments between Clifton Webb and Gene Tierney.). Diana
was touched by President Wilson’s expressions of love, his
willingness to sacrifice career for love. He didn’t have to,
reelected for a second term, but he seemed to be so inclined.
The presidential lead actor embodying Woodrow Wilson also played the
writer in a Warner Brothers film, “The Sea Wolf.”
And there was much posturing. The “Wilson” cast carried themselves
at least as well as did Daryl Zanuck in his day-to-day regimen.
Off to ebay. A bookseller sent for a dollar, three dollars shipping,
the Mosley Zanuck Bio book, Hollywood’s Last Tycoon.
I’m enjoying it. It’s used. Its former book owner must have been a
heavy smoker, ah, the memories triggered by its imbedded stink, first
edition, 1984, stamped “not for resale.” Hm. “Not for Resale?”
Perhaps it received that stamp when in England where a first sale
doctrine applies, or doesn’t apply. I never remember which. (It
doesn’t apply… In England when you resell your copy of the
copyrighted item you pay a resale royalty to the copyright owner.)
16mm films for sale on ebay embraces (or does it reject?), the first
sale doctrine (Ebay sellers are embracing it!). Bootlegged 16mm was a
black market before video proliferation (1980). In 2004 what could be
sillier than buying a degenerating color print of Powell/Pressburger’s
“The Red Shoes” when you can scan through a vibrant 35mm transfer
to DVD that you bought for 20 dollars?
I lost on “The Red Shoes,” always a blessing in disguise, for we
are but stewards of what we possess. I took, instead, responsibility
for ownership of an old faded “flat” print of a widescreen
masterwork entitled “Oliver!”(exclamation point) on four big
spools needing to be wound on reels for a savings of five dollars.
Spend the five.
As a result of my attention being redrawn toward “Oliver,
exclamation point,” a film I enjoy watching over and over again, I
learned:
n That director Roman Polanski is refilming the Dickens book.
n That the practice of attractive peers seducing runaways into slavery
is timeless, meaning timely, for it is still happens, to a more
frightful extent, today.
n That the film’s morality repartee is spot-on ambiguous. (Witness
the sublime lunacy level achieved in its last three shots. As Jack
Wild’s Artful Dodger does his Lewis-Carroll-Alice-Pose for a
crocodile-innocent Ron Moody, the camera turns to catch their infinite
dance into the sunset, transitioning into the arrival of a carriage to
the white house and the close-up apron strings embrace of Mark Lester
by his Uncle’s wife? The End!
n That I am an extoller of the film’s cinema-craft,
and
n That the flat cropping of the 2:1 wide screen canvas was actually
done with some finesse.
Viewing Oliver! stimulates a concern, a life’s purpose. I see it as
an end in itself, an achievement of vision. Musical theatre is a
distillation of stories oft told. Musicals go through many stages of
development. We begin a hundred years ago with Dicken’s source
material. We wind up with exaggerated childish platitudes, “I’d do
anything,” sung by children! We get integrated choreography,
detailed continuity, plenty of medium shots with evocative detail,
long shots with breathtaking detail, the butchers, the elevated train.
The song, “consider yourself” is the vehicle for displaying every
aspect of 19th century commerce in London. “Oliver!” has, as far
as I can tell, two major sets, one of London’s main streets, by the
Thames, and through the alley to the other, a spectacular swamp
decaying group of tenement buildings. They are visually connected.
Every inch of them is used.
The director loves medium and long shots. He gives no close-up for the
end of “As Long as He Needs Me.” Carol Reed is a dispassionate
observer. He’s a director who shows where things are. He went into
the City of Post war Vienna and preserved its squalor in “The Third
Man.” Here, in Oliver, he created the city. He also went to a
Tavington Square Circle row of white houses for the “Who Will
Buy?” segment. It is “the ordered world.” I imagine Sherlock
Holms living in one of those town houses, Henry Higgins in another and
of course, Oliver Twist’s gentleman uncle a few doors down.
My Michael Douglas Blog is called that because in its first post I
thought it worthwhile to observe that Michael Douglas, the
actor/producer returned to his family in the film, “Traffic,” but
went with one of the other cast members in real life.
I think it also worthwhile to observe that the director of Oliver,
which tells the story of a foundling saved by his uncle, is Carol
Reed, castmember Oliver Reed’s uncle. Actually such oddities delight
and fill me with faith in the serendipitous.
Oliver! is a lesson in filmmaking. Learn from it. Watching it after so
many years made me want to see more. The medium was becoming the
message, when it is really merely the delivery tool…
In my enthusiasm for 16mm films I ordered what turned out to be
another Romulus Production, Moulin Rouge. Black and White. That’s
the John Huston film that won best color cinematography. I haven’t
seen it but it came, the only good news is that the color didn’t
fade to pink. Descriptions don’t necessarily include what’s
missing. A Black and White print -- (shhh) of a Technicolor film.
By the way, favorite recent filmmaking is Larry David’s Curb Your
Enthusiasm, and the Christopher Guest films. They grew from Robert
Altman’s Mash.
Looking for another "Oliver!" I saw a few minutes of Little
Shop of Horrors on TV. The lyrics, the concept, the creative film
directing are great. Howard Ashman revived the musical. We are in his
debt. He wrote The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.
My other recent dose of entertainer entertainment was through meeting
Spats Donovan, Hooch Houlihan, Dennis, I don’t know his exact name,
but he is a spot-on impressionist with a singing voice to match. I
played piano for his “Let’s Be Frank” at the 13th Street
Repertory Theatre. I subbed for Aya Misoshoru, his amazing pianist,
arranger, music director. Patrick Jude did a dead-on older Frank
Sinatra impression, Jim Davidson was Dean Martin, everyone is great.
They re-enact scenes from Robin and the Seven Hoods.
Oh dear. I wound of bidding a winning a copy of that.
The Laurel and Hardy Bohemian Girl, is a mysterious filming of a light
opera. In search of antagonistic lyrics for my song, Living in Freedom
(Again) I included the line, “Bohemian girl bring your sunshine to
me,” and, yes, I bidded on a copy of that as well.
So a little Ebay goes a long way.
Oh, one of my colleagues here just ordered a fisherman’s spear gun
so he can reenact those silent film scenes from the James Bond Horror
film, Thunderball. It’s OK. I hear he eats his catch, the creatures
from the black lagoon.
"We must bless and not curse."
I hope you enjoyed your glimpse into My Ebay.
Let’s collaborate on creating new treasures!
Peter Dizozza
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:32
AM
[edit]
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Okay, late baby-boomers, and you know how crazy we are, another
brilliant contemporary, lost!
Eric Douglas was friends with my friend, Jessica, some 20 years ago.
It was always a pleasure to spend time with him. He was warm,
energetic, helpful, funny and crazy. Parents found him suprisingly
rude and this was on Candlewood Isle which, back then, was, well, a
community most indulgent of the pranks of those late baby boomers.
You'd think he'd have fit right in, but by then the 1970's were
already a fading memory.
His awareness of a legend was compounded by his resemblance to it. His
father's personality performance risks compounded the length and depth
of the shadow over Eric. A man who follows his own code, sets his own
standards, reveals his vulnerability as Van Gogh, how can you possibly
live up to that without first buying the rights to One Flew Over the
... ???
There is seething anger and the feeling of alien presence in the
appearance of Kirk Douglas in studio films of the 1940s. The man who
put Kubrick behind a 70mm movie camera, who sang The Sheik of Araby
with Hoagy Carmichael, so much more... Condolances to this liberating
individual and his wonderful family.
I feel another example of: I lost touch with him and he probably could
have used some friends.
He lived less than 20 blocks away.
Being once pro-choice on mental health I described the loss of Keith
Feibush in uninvolved surface-terms of choice.
Well, I lost touch with him, too, indulging him... Another loss.
The full life.
Maybe all lifespans are the same length.
For some people, time moves faster than for others.
posted by Peter Dizozza 11:36
AM
[edit]
Friday, July 02, 2004
The Glagolitic Storm
It's all Janecek on WKCR. He turns 150 tomorrow.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:55
AM
[edit]
Friday, June 18, 2004
The 1935 MGM film, Mad Love, is in syndication on TCM, Turner's
Classic Movies Station. It was on this morning -- what a great way to
start the day.
Cinema VII
has a film library, too, The Big Tip Off with Richard Conte, a great
Wire Service episode with George Brent (Forbidden Ground), Bob Hope
with Judy Garland, Betty Hutton and Lana Turner recording a disc for
the WWII boys (and girls) overseas, the scat jazzy white girls color
short film, Big Sister Blues, I can't believe this stuff is in my
brain...The Burl Ives Bluebeard TV episode, Mr. Walkie Talkie (a
friendly Korean War comedy), One Half of the great WPA film, One Third
of a Nation, and the bright silver nitrate print of Anthony Eisley's
Lightningbolt with those maniacal Cinema
VII
edits...
It also administers the entire creative catalogue of films, shows and
songs by Peter Dizozza.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:11
AM
[edit]
Sunday, May 23, 2004
"They rejected the perfection. Entire crops were lost."
So we'll see how far we get here. Tony Hightower set up the cable I
still pay 134 for today, and he did that a short time before Keyspan,
formerly BUG, imploded the twin Greenpoint gas towers and those idiot
paradise-seekers imploded the World Trade Towers, and as the second
group of ruptured towers fell I was hooked back on tv, blessed in that
the cable had not been severed. The alternative would have been no
cable, no more hightower antenna, no more reception tv until, maybe,
now when it is again possible to trade cable for rabbit ears.
Cable also gives us roadrunner internet connection which Tony needed.
Tony was unemployed at the time, so that's how this apartment got
cable. What I mean is, getting cable is a job. Much has changed in
these years since, but I still have the overblown cable which means,
while not seeing the whole thing, I can rewatch sizeable chunks of the
Matrix Reloaded.
My sequel is The Matrix Rewritten, and in that I'll show what
persistence achieves on a shoestring. Those brothers did, too, with
Gina Gershon in Bound. I forgot that but thanks to quick internet, I
looked up "matrix," with the internet movie database, the
only website for film info I can think of off the top of my head,
obviously introduced to me by Mr. Hightower, my actions being a
function of info received.
By the way, my most recent selfquote of any personal resonance is
simply, and I finger-wrote it in an arbitrary date page of my visor
while listening to the beautiful NY Composer's Circle music at the 2nd
Presbyterian Church,
"My writing is so crazy that I am in effect not a real
person."
I read The New Yorker Magazine's Nellie McKay review. To summarize,
'cause my copy's gone now, she's playing the crazy card... Her anger's
a generous muse... That brings me to my stingy safe-haven entrapment.
Come appreciate my wealth of creative work, let it empower you. Alas,
I'm too much in the way, having fun. What a mess, and I have so much
talent, so much to offer...
These brothers made films. I would call them major cinema
achievements. Yet my search, my surf, my safe-search-off search,
stopped at the
left-his-wife-for-a-dominatrix-and-explored-his-feminine side
tattling. Oh.
Is a Matrix Reconciliation around the corner? Maybe the Ilsa
exploration will be fruitful for all. Say, who's getting hungry for
another bite of forbidden fruit?
Ah, the brothers are 7 to 9 years younger than I am.
Mr. Hightower's blogger is accessible at NervousNero.com.
Now back to the paradox at hand. Oh, it's late...
Peter Dizozza
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:06
PM
[edit]
Monday, April 19, 2004
Amir Motlagh created Dino Aldino.
His most recent film is called Pumpkin Little
Hi, Before I lose your email in the compuserve autopurge, let's see,
too. The pope watched breakdancing, I think, during his public
convalesence.
Your film is a world unto itself. I basically love it.
My love of film would include you creating a breakdance segment that
actually adds to the intensity of the breakdancer. I am fond of film
segments, as the number of films increases. something like the dna
molecule from which you can create the entire being.
The last scene of the old wb 42nd street was on tv. it's the song with
new york images, ending with the producer sitting on the stage door
steps outside, his energy sapped.
Busby Berkely also shot babes on broadway. a few minutes of that may
elicit actual horror at how much continuous camera movement he forced
upon the mgm cast. That realtime continuity of ensemble movement
deserves dogma applause.
I never saw a cassavetes movie. His performances are so memorable and,
although often portraying him as corrupted, also relatable. all i know
of john... rosmary's baby, a depiction of the problems that arise when
perfectly assembled (by bob evans) talents (polanski and abominably
perfect cast) function full force, ignoring all concerns for
protecting their audience from the void,
and the depalma sequel to Carrie with music by john williams... The
Fury, cassavetes head floating to the floor after his explosion.
godard filmed breathless. i was bored by contempt. i never saw
weekend. i didn't follow the politics in sympathy for the devil, only
the discovery of how the rolling stones evolved the famous song from
their best album.
truffaut wrote breathless and filmed 400 blows... somehow bertolucci
continued truffauts alterego growing up in last tango...
romer? marienbad? who made claire's knee?
fassbinder hollywood style film, marriage of maria braun has
unforgettably funny moments. i don't know if i've grown out of it.
poor hanna shygulla, so wonderful a person, is he showing her
corrupted, i think so, she is germany... are you familiar with any of
this?
Are you writing scripts?
yours truly, Peter Dizozza
In a message dated 4/4/2004 4:47:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
dinoadino@hotmail.com writes:
Peter, very impressionistic meta mail. Um lets see, where to begin.
Yes they are Philopino, well the main character Mike anyway. This film
is very specific to location and linked directly to a suburbian
immigrant experience. When i was growing up, this was the route of
many good kids, and only some regained their composures. Not only was
this for asian americans, but iranian americans, and so fourth. These
groups usually didn;t associate with the prevalent white
experiece(surfers,rockers,skateboarders etc..) and so found exceptence
in ethnic, and more urban culture(hip-hop..etc) and so breakdancing in
the early ninties in the most suburbian of places immerged. And a few
people embraced that form and associated themselves with that
lifestyle. At the same time, with the influx of all these races
grouping, many started to click together and call themselves crews and
party together. This is universal, but really a southern california
phenominon. Party Crews, Tagging Crews and then just plan Street
Gangs. Lots of Philopino Gangs, Vietnamese Gangs and the rest followed
suit. Racial tensions was prevelent between white, black, mexican, and
the rest(asian, afgan, middle eastern) and these new groups had become
the new minority as they felt everyone was against them. Of course not
all the kids went that route, but i still cant tell what gets you
there, and the circumstance that takes you the other route, which in
this case is usually typified as the "ideal student". The
typical sterotype of asians being smart etc......
So with that context, when i came back to my Mom's house one weekend,
i ran into Mike. ANd i was shocked that he still breakdanced(as i did
in my youth with him) let alone applying to Grad school ,and when i
saw that he was in a way a father figure, a mentor to kids that are at
the same age as most kids getting involved with gangs i had to shoot
it. There situation is like a commune, as opposed to the aggressive,
more egotistical days of breakdancing. Its rather beautiful.
As for the the film itself. One thing you might of noticed is that the
music is not in anyway hip-hop or the music they would dance to. This
was a consious way of pulling it past the cliche and putting the
situation out of the Urban home for which the form of breakdancing
emerged. The openiing scenes are with his girlfriend, and i felt it
was a very intimite and naturally action. Though this film is a doc, i
shot some sequences to look like a narrative fiction, so as create a
tension between persepctions. The shots are slow, and very
rudimentary, so as not to add to much tricks to the pace of life. HIs
voice over is also very specific, as he drops names of his youth, and
nobody would know what he is talking about, but that intimacy, and
very specific experience was what i was trying to get at. It doesn't
really matter who for example "John" is, what you can sense
his being and influence on Mike. This contrasts the general and
sterotypical eight grade stories and puts his story into context. Mike
started breakdancing in 8th grade, and in a way that has been the one
stable through line in his life, and is a large aspect of his life. So
decisions we make when where young, no matter how we might deny them,
rearrange our life in ways beyond a certain control.
Now another thing i wanted to stress, was this new, post modern
character of self. This group breakdances and they play guitar
together, and so this was impossibly five, ten years ago. Breakdancers
never played rock and hip-hop was all encompassing. The same with
people who like heavy-metal, or indie rock, never do that, or this.
Those lines have recently dissapatted. Identity is not the same for
the youth as it was. That to me is very interesting.
As for the the sequences with 8th grade stories, the shots where in a
way suppose to resemble the way we sat in our parents car, as they
drove the same routes everday, and how the eyes wander around. The
breakdancing sequences in those shots are from Mikes 8th grade and i
will tell you something else, i myself am in the film. You just have
to find me. And no, my brother is not in the film as i am an only
child, and who the fuck knows what that means.
The reason Peter, that i didn't have more breakdancing was because i
didn't want this to be a showcase for the dancing. I could have shoot
and edited there best moves, instead of the ones i chose which are not
the most gracefull but shots that are practice, struggle, persistence
which drives there obsession.
In your other email you said those other films reminded you of Mean
Streets in a way. That along with ALice Doesnt Live Here are the only
two films i really love of Martin Scorsese. Mean Streets was in a way
a complete ripoff of my favorite American film maker, the late great
John Cassavettes(the man was brilliant). The other filmmakers i really
like are French in origin, Godard, Truffant, Romer(My Night at Mauds),
and Fassbinder(crazy, productive workhorse) and a few others. I rarely
watch movies these days, i have to get over that.
Well, sorry for the length of this letter, i really don't know if its
cohesive since i'm to lazy to read it. I think i got some things out,
but skipped around quite a bit and for the grammar and spelling, God
awful. But if you have any thing else to ask, or comment on, or wonder
about, please feel free.
This electronic age is amazing Peter. I have never met you, we live on
the other side of the country, different ages, experiences, and i have
your CD, you have my films, and there is dialogue. Truly amazing.
amir
>From: Dizozza600@cs.com
>To: dinoadino@hotmail.com
>Subject: Re: Two films, a half hour.
>Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 12:37:11 EDT
>
>The camera didn't often move, the frame was set and action
sometimes crossed
>its path. It allowed for brilliant composition and an odd way, a
real way, of
>seeing the world through the limitations of our periphery. The
world is of a
>group of people that I can not readily identify. Asian in that
they're
>hawaiian or from the phillipine's originally? The opening scene
with the film
>going out of synch was disorienting, the sound seemed to improve
when it went out
>of synch. The crossover for when a group of friends becomes a
gang, and the
>distinction of heirarchy, I suppose, that causes some to act on
the will of the
>leader, and the possibility of market domination, that was a
memorable and sad
>depiction, a degeneration of neighborhood. Those houses always
look so
>innocent. I would love some more breakdancing segments, what was
there was
>beautiful and the shooting of them, with the ending showing the
sluggish breakdancer,
>was cool and aloof. I'm a fan of Robert Marshall's recent fast
shutter speed
>camera choreography (is that who filmed "Chicago?), you could
create
>something both flashy and seemingly incidental that will send the
movie into the realm
>of musical cinema.
Frederick Weisman has a musically choreographed way of
>documenting the deranged world of titicut follies. These are first
thoughts.
>It's daylight savings time here. I like hearing people's memories
of eighth
>grade with the still graphic design. This film assembles of wealth
of beautiful
>images. Enhance my viewing experience. Tell me your thoughts of
>this...Thank you. Is your brother in the film? In a message dated
4/3/2004 6:40:50 PM
>Eastern Daylight Time, dinoadino@hotmail.com writes:
>>Thanks for the watching Peter.
>>
>> Please reply about the DVD of Pumkin Little when you watch
that, as that is
>>my essential style when i'm completely behind the camera, like
the film
>>Still Lover. I would like to know if you find similiarites
between all the
>>works.
>>
>> amir
>>
>>
>>
>>
Hi, Amir,
I saw the two Motlagh films, Dino Adino and Love @ 11:47. They are
well made and they had a realism that transcended the notion that you
might actually be in them. It looks so much in the first one like the
filmmaker is behind the camera.
The split screen of the second worked well. The right screen showed
the fixed idea, either the cracker box or the foooot, or her... I
realize there is a film with four pictures by the Leaving Las Vegas
filmmaker... I think I saw some of it. Was there a film called Wicked
in the 70's that employed that device?
Although both your films are location specific time capsules, they are
expressing an ageless condition that one is always in danger of
slipping into.
Now that we've met Dino, his character can appear more interactively
elsewhere.
These films were very likeable and watchable. Not having watched those
mtv reel documentaries, what were they called?, my only frame of
reference was Martin Scorsese's basic film, Mean Streets. You have a
similar willingness to observe unpleasant things happening to
basically likeable people. There is an element of humor prevailing.
Thank you. I look forward to screening these at the next opportunity.
Ah, "Shipping the Satellite." The content could be humerous
and outlandish and the people who performed it on that one occasion
are great. I hope to one day have a listenable recording. peter
In a message dated 4/2/2004 10:37:15 PM Eastern Standard Time,
dinoadino@hotmail.com writes:
Hi Peter, I listened to your CD a few times, and low and behold, i
woke up singing lyrics from it. Here is my impressions.
Subversively Poppy. ALmost seems to have a little punk rock asethic,
mixed with musical theater and Frank Zappa. Very mixed refreneces and
intellegent. It also has a sweetness that is very evident. The
production was very good, mininal, but that helps i think. It is a
unique concept albumn.
The only thing that i(my opinion is worthless) didn't like was the
bonus tracks, as i thought adding the live performances only took away
from the the tightness and listenability of the rest of the albumn.
Another thing that really impressed me was the way the albumn works as
a whole. It goes through all the tracks as one and doesn't get tiring
at all.
Overall, this work is very impressive. Keep up the work, as i know
from your site, you will do just that.
amir motlagh
>From: Dizozza600@cs.com
>To: dinoadino@hotmail.com
>Subject: Re: an offer you might refuse
>Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 10:24:18 EST
>
>Dear Amir, I also have the tape you sent The WAH Center. I look
forward to
>seeing it and the dvd this weekend. Thank you! Peter In a message
dated
>3/31/2004 7:02:19 PM Eastern Standard Time, dinoadino@hotmail.com
writes:
>>Hi Peter,
>>
>> Got your CD. Am excited to listen to it. I sent you out a DVD
as well,
>>though you got the one before the packaging, sorry, but at
least its numbered.
>>
>>amir
>>
>>
>>
>>
posted by Peter Dizozza 1:53
PM
[edit]
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Has storytelling ever been more palatable?
These Dan Brown debunking books offer interesting concepts which
vaporize, somehow, at the end. I read Angels and Demons and The
DaVinci Code, and I found, on our common hall radiator, a copy of his
Deception point which I'm currently reading.
Here's what I remember of the first two: The lead character was able
to successfully parachute from an ascending helecopter into the Tiber
river. That description is too delightful for words. Also, the story
imploded into its plot -- I'm thinking of the Angels and Demons
illuminati conspiracy. By revealing it as a hoax, enacted virtually
solo, the author is one step from admitting that it is the product of
his own imagination. And does he, perhaps, pander to my desire to say,
"Leaders protect us from their own attacks."
The DaVinci Code leaves behind no memory except the feeling that I
couldn't put it down until I had finished it. I kept thinking he was
going to say something interesting. He must have. Oh, the grail's
underneath I.M. Pei's glass pyramid. The buried apocraphal writings
tell the true history of the outrageous behaviouralist, Christ. Oh,
that's right, Christ's progeny are uniting still, they are the real
sangreal, that most precious sacred blood.... Oh yes, Matthew's
Gospel, first paragraph, establishes Jesus descending through Joseph
from the house of David, and in the second paragraph describes Mary's
immaculate conception.
Both books are written to occur within 24 hour segments, which
enhances their urgency. I suppose part of my disbelief and awe arises
from that achievement. Also, the wind is described blowing an
increasingly familiar crew over a glacier in the page I've reached in
Deception Point and I enjoy that too.
The theme of books left on the common lobby radiator seems to be the
arctic. The last one I found there was Smilla's Sense of Snow. That
one revealed a tendency toward leaving us in the snow near a living
meteor, comparable to the realization of a dead end in the foreign
film (pre Todd Graff reworked) version of "Vanishing."
I remember an Aristotelian requirement for tragedy being that it
occurs within 24 hours.
In other news of pop culture:
The movie, 2010, was on TV. HAL the computer, by cooperating with
orders, is redeemed. 2010 was released in 1984.
Winged Migration was on the Starz channel. Those geese are stars! One
species travelling earth's 12,500 miles, reveals the true meaning of
the term, "Bi-Polar."
Coming soon, the new TV show, "Soul Search" tm...
posted by Peter Dizozza 3:12
PM
[edit]
Sunday, February 01, 2004
The Turner Classic Movie Cable Station broadcasted the 1941 WB film,
Dive Bombers
What about the smoking? Everyone in the film connects with a
cigarette. Shockingly technicolor footage makes sense when the support
of the us airforce is so apparent. The footage is authentic. The
comraderie plays almost romantically. As always, Alexis Smith bears
the brunt of female intervention. I'm not sure if she has any better
outcome than in leaving the men to their own concerns, our concerns,
our country's..., and turning for masculine attention to THE MARINES.
The airforce G tests have increased dramatically, but then, so have
the physiques, thanks to what, less smoking?
The film's other female appearance is comic relief as one of the wives
attempts to get her alimony and finding her husband in the sick room;
eventually he must remain there after he's exposed there to someone
with measles. His language-comedian friend has dinner with his wife,
meeting her at the familiar apartment housing development she need
only mention by name, the parker towers? Her outfits anticipate Marisa
Tomei's in MCVinny.
According to the fine headline review of this film, which considers
Flynn's possibly traitorous involvement, was it therefore not San
Diego but rather Pennsicola Florida where the authentic air/naval base
footage was shot?
A performance of Warner Publishing's "What's New" plays in
the background during one of the
neglect-the-woman-but-attend-to-their-lipstick-dispenser scenes. It is
a beautiful green enameled gold lipstick dispenser.
My Diana attributes incremental technological advancements of the last
60 years to the alien visitation at Roswell. How else can we explain
the computer chip?
Another good early airplane film, released eight years earlier in the
wild 1930s when it was Howard Hughes running air traffic control:
Flying Down to Rio.
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:28
AM
[edit]
Thursday, January 29, 2004
“Not all the costume changes in the world will matter if the
messenger has squandered his treasure by altering his message to suit
the convenience of the audience." Edward T. Oakes.
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:07
AM
[edit]
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
I went to Orin Buck's new residence on East 49th Street tonight to dub
his video of "The Marriage at the Statue of Liberty" (TMATSOL)
the latest addition to the Cinema
VII
Catalogue of projects. For the past three days I've enjoyed editing
the different tapes. There are three, two are of the last performance,
the other, Orin's, from the performance the night prior. Both nights
contained and lacked different elements of music, movement, dialogue
and song. By editing the two performances, there was the possibility
of assembling a complete version of the play.
The digital formats copy, full length, into the computer, and the VHS
dub of Orin's rather professionally shot tape copy into the computer 3
minutes at a time, which made the assembling process somewhat
primitive, like editing in 35mm with 400 foot reels of film.
I was editing in my old fashioned way with the modern computer system.
Before computers, I edited film that had sound already printed on it,
recorded on a magnetic stripe, or, preferably, visible to the eye on
an optical stripe. Film sound is ahead of its image. In digital video
the sound is married to the image. I don't think it has to be. A
program, proprietary in that it must create its own files, called
Final Cut, has separable sound/video capabilities. I've chosen,
instead, to edit a big "avi" file, perhaps the product of
Avid, that familiar word in film production over the past 20 years,
and I'm using a program called Videowave. I use the program, maybe,
because it came with the purchase of my videocard, and maybe I like it
because its video graphics have film sprockets.
As to why bother, two reasons, the first being that I wrote to our
Mayor suggesting that the show, A Modern Ballet with Dialogue, could
be used to assist in fundraising for the reopening of the Statue of
Liberty. The second is a phenomenon created by the dance troupe
involved. They performed the last of their three dances in blacklight,
assembling the statue with different pieces in white.
Being a "hands on" videographer, if I am also the subject of
the video I tend to make horrible mistakes that result in faulty
preservation, the best example being forgetting to press a record
button.
The last night was the best night, of course, and there are two videos
of the last night, both incomplete. About 40 minutes before the
performance I pressed record on the one-hour tape in the camera used
by my wife, Diana, giving me the first 20 minutes to work with. Roy's
fianc�e, Linda, has a public access cable show so I got her tape
at first off the TV, and eventually from her video camera. She chose
random moments to video but got about half the show, perfect to splice
in with Orin's complete tape, with Diana's adding additional angles.
Orin, however, although not already familiar with the show, did a good
job. He laid mikes on the floor, and he even taped the whole show! I
needed his original to match the originals of the more arbitrarily
taped versions.
This essay is called Incidental Terrorism... (While the machines were
dubbing, we walked east to examine the removal of the "FDR"
Highway from beneath Sutton Place onto stumps anchored in the East
River, fascinating. There we received summonses for daring to walk in
what looked like a platform but what the city calls a park after dark!
Public parks close at dusk!)
posted by Peter Dizozza 3:28
PM
[edit]
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
Ah, what part of myself shall I choose to reveal today? ?
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:26
AM
[edit]
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Finally, something of more than purely personal news, a box of art
with a stray piece by Rockwell Kent went from 20 to 16000 at the
public administrator auction yesterday. Thanks to Diana, I got the
signed music by Richard Strauss. No one knew who Dwight Frye was. The
direct prints from the complete alice woodcuts were a pleasure to
behold. The Knabe piano was a great one. Furniture, chandeliers,
all the ghosts were there.
posted by Peter Dizozza 12:34
PM
[edit]
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Anything can happen on the olivejuicemusic.com message board.
Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you...
Posted by zzzzzzzzz -- is he sleeping? on 8/19/2003, 5:01 pm
Record labels and musicians, want to get your releases reviewed here?
We need review copies of your CDs and LPs for our reviews section.
Please contact us at reviews@weirdomusic.com
Pro-choice on mental health by Peter Dizozza is a weird CD. In fact,
we don't know what to think of it. Is this guy serious? According to
his website "he devotes his working life to creating innovative
and stimulating entertainment and helping his audience develop
confidence, enlightenment and serenity through self-expression".
He can't really sing and the 'mini-plays' on this CD ramble on without
making much sense. So check it out if you're into really weird stuff,
but don't blame us if you fall asleep! (added august 2003)
Link: weirdweirdweirdweirdweirdweirdweirdweirdweird
Re: Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you...
Posted by Wide Awake Producer on 8/19/2003, 5:47 pm, in reply to
"Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you..."
That's not very nice. Peter doesn't deserve to be dissed like that.
That cd is what it is. To call yourself Weidomusic and knock that cd
for being weird is a weird in itself. Working on that thing was hard.
Things are much more complex than meets the eye. The music itself
somehow combines Sondheim with early New Wave. It all seems a little
confusing until you hear Peter's off the cuff monologue about his
friend.
I'm proud of the work that went into that & the results. If you
want to sleep to it, well good luck, but I know one thing: A critic is
a critic is a critic is a critic (repeat & fade).
Link: M M Musica
Re: Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you...
Posted by Oblivious on 8/19/2003, 9:34 pm, in reply to "Re: Send
it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you..."
I like Pro Choice... its inventive, entertaining and thoroughly
enjoyable. I love the wit and humour engendered in it. I think that
dude has not a clue and instead of admitting he isnt smart enough to
understand what is an essential antifolk album they cut it down in
their snide little way. Weird is a way of saying "I dont
understand".
A Champion!
Posted by fenton lawless on 8/20/2003, 12:35 am, in reply to "Re:
Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you..."
Peter Dizozza is a champion. A first rate guy and a wonderful
musician.
(no subject)
Posted by peter on 8/20/2003, 10:40 am, in reply to "A
Champion!"
Thank you for the kind words.
I prefer that the CD get reviewed.
What people say is up to them.
I sent it to weirdo cause they include raymond scott, daniel johnston,
henry mancini and frank zappa on their short artist list.
Link: review page
Re: Nothing wrong with being weird!
Posted by MMM on 8/20/2003, 11:17 am, in reply to "(no
subject)"
Looking forward to your show during the fest Peter!!!!
Wed. Aug. 27-7:30-Lippe
8- Breck Alan
8:30- Peter Dizozza CD Release Party
9- Patsy Grace
9:30-Randi Russo
10-Danny Kelly
10:30-Simple
11- Toby Goodshank
12-Phoebe Kreutz
Re: Nothing wrong with being weird!
Posted by Meow on 8/21/2003, 12:56 am, in reply to "Re: Nothing
wrong with being weird!"
Peter has a hot wife
Have your wife reviewed at my site
Link: Wife swap
hi
Posted by Peter Dizozza on 8/21/2003, 6:54 pm, in reply to "Re:
Nothing wrong with being weird!"
Thanks. There's really no comparison.
PARENTHETICALLY:
I can't help but find the generic meow link (it was for porn.com)
funny since, aside from meowing in the Polar Bear Song, I did send my
PConMHCD to be reviewed by a site with the generic weirdomusic.com
name (and I love the music they list there.).
Anyway, I take exception to the suggestion that spouses could just
send each other, like CDs or other possessions, somewhere to be
reviewed.
I wonder if there's a site, asshole.com, to send… oh, of course, for
images of sodomy. Forget it.
This post provides a forum, thank you very much, for a current event
issue worthy of comment,
That poster for a porn site currently up at Times Square, did you see
it? with the slogan, “who said they cleaned up Times Square,”
plastered across the body of a menstruating woman. It means what, that
she’s dirty?
Actually, the poster woman is dressed in that slightly stupid shade
more suggestive than the “Guilty Pleasures” style of haute
couture.
Having been alerted to the conclusion suggested by that ad poster, I
take exception to it.
As for the other stuff, I don’t know how to define it but I KNOW it
when I see it, why, because I ate from
The Tree of Knowledge!
Re: hi
Posted by Oblivious on 8/21/2003, 9:56 pm, in reply to "hi"
yeah so did I then I drank from the River of Forgetfulness to wash it
down and hence my nick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Responses:
There are no responses to this message.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you...
Posted by Weirdomusic on 8/26/2003, 10:13 am, in reply to "Re:
Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you..."
Yup, I admit it: I don't understand what Peter's CD is all about. Has
nothing to do with me being a smartass or whatever. Maybe the language
barrier is a problem here (English is not my native tongue). I
honestly tried to make sense of what is going on - but this is just
not my cup of tea. Peter seems a very nice guy (hi Peter!) but for now
I'll stick to my conclusion.
Link: Weirdomusic.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you...
Posted by peter on 8/26/2003, 5:00 pm, in reply to "Re: Send it
to Weirdomusic.com why don't you..."
Hi, Marco, wow, you're writing from the Netherlands...
Well, if you know about this message board you probably know about the
music info-sites connected with it but here goes,
antifolk.net,
antifolkhomestead.com,
unicornsounds.com
this site's olivejuicemusic.com
new! antimatters.com
also, I first heard some of the music your site highlights through
http://thefeveredbrainofradiomike.com/
Thanks for writing back.
Peter
Re: Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you...
Posted by Weirdomusic on 8/27/2003, 4:15 am, in reply to "Re:
Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you..."
Hey Peter, it was pure coincidence that I ended up on this site - I
was checking which sites link to me.
Anyway, I'll take a look at some of the links you suggest.. and yes,
maybe I must pop your CD into my player again for another listen...
best wishes,
Marco
Re: Send it to Weirdomusic.com why don't you...
Posted by Peter on 8/27/2003, 3:21 pm, in reply to "Re: Send it
to Weirdomusic.com why don't you..."
Wow, the internet. A great communication resource!
and for another listen, this time pop the PConMH cd in the computer
for the hidden MPEG files...
although the film they're from remains unfinished...
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:14
AM
[edit]
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
I dreamt Nicole Kidman and Mick Jagger were married and lived in an
apartment we visited, nicely laid out; she had her own room. I wanted
to respectfully acknowledge her film career but she suddenly dismissed
me for a moment of privacy. I rejoined Diana who was walking (through
a hall along an indoor pool) with Julia, another woman friend of Mr.
Jagger. They were commenting on the ugliness of the art. I liked it.
Peter
Say, those high fallutin' Sparks are back with a new album and a
concert in the park!
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:29
AM
[edit]
Saturday, July 05, 2003
American History X Post update from North Carolina (June 29, 2003):
Hi Peter,
Hows married life... Just a quick note... the director screwed himself
out
of hollywood... he felt the film was out of his control, and
rightfully so,
when the lead actor and studio took over the final cut. He wanted to
Alan
Smithee the film, which he couldn't due to his contract, so he went on
tirade after tirade.. He felt, in a nutshell, that the film was too
sympathetic to Ed Norton and had a bit of a pussy ending with him...
--Kris (aka krisbee)
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:07
AM
[edit]
Thursday, July 03, 2003
"Thank you mama for the nine months you carried me through."
I lost a particularly detailed blogger here. Remember to save your
work. I cannot recreate it. Why must my brain be so parsimonious about
expressing details?
We're back from our Honeymoon on the independent island of St. Kitts
where we stayed at Ottley's Plantation Inn and had a wonderful amazing
time.
Eric Lippe called back this morning. I asked him to photograph our
wedding (Thank you Julia Schell, Bob Strain, Kathleen Sweeney, Tyr
Throne and Orin Buck).
Eric was in Tennessee documenting the showtoppling performances of the
Trachtenburgs, Langhorn Slim and James Brown.
He also said that Aaron Wilkenson passed away. I remember Aaron as a
songwriting, guitarplaying singer with a uniquely south western US
style, he also ran lights and sound at SideWalk for many sets
including a few of my own. He was always a welcome presence and his
youthful condition in no way prepared one for its organic demise.
(I spoke with Jon Berger since then, who reminded me that Aaron was
also once part of the band, The Moldy Peaches. )
A substance abuse doctor is visiting St. Kitts to further research of
that pro-choice spiral with assistance from monkeys drafted from the
rain forest.
Tourists plied with rum also assist.
Gleeful paranoics agree, the island's veterinary school and the animal
testing facility do whatever they can to keep funded. Help stamp out
substance abuse!
posted by Peter Dizozza 1:47
PM
[edit]
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Fibrillations synchronize into a pulse pounding steadily as the story
progresses.
posted by Peter Dizozza 5:54
PM
[edit]
Saturday, June 14, 2003
The rain pounded down harder than I'd ever heard seen or felt it, and
it was, after all, the day of the shower.
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:09
PM
[edit]
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
We saw American History X, which disturbed you, I know. You thought
the technicality of splitting open someone's skull at the jaw (open
your mouth on the curb) was an unnecessarily instructional detail.
I think it's helpful to see someone with messianic capabilities safely
make his impression on a purely audio/visual recording.
I was soothed and disturbed by the photography of the brother. Not
since Deer Hunter's Christopher Walken have I seen such camera
adoration.
No, I couldn't get my eyes off the film, its cinematic creativity and
the overall miracle of its casting way overweighing its servicable
script. How's the director doing today?
Then on another evening after stopping dead in its tracks our
apartment renovation by inadvertantly doing yet again another
something innordinately offensive, I, alone, reconnected to the TV
time-warner's content-providing cable and watched from the floor Kevin
Smith's someone and silent bob strike back. That was a full fun
compendium of a hollywood moment (April 23rd, perhaps, 2001. Thank
you, Mr. Smith. Future generations will salute you for the
more-than-a-single-day's care you took in making it.), and having
dismantled and disabled my apartment to make it a home, I had truly
become the explitive target audience.
What were some of those inadvertant yet innordinately offensive things
I had done? So often are they re-enumerated that, like with pop
culture overload, my brain eliminates as unnecessary the extra step of
storing them. Oh go ahead. Oh, elsewhere...
Say, Kimya and I sang "Don't Cry Out Loud" during her
Kimyaoke Happy Hour on Saturday.
Poor Liza, "The different kind of love she thought she'd found.
There was nothin' left but sawdust and some glitter."
WAAAAAAAAAA
That feels good.
Love,
Peter
posted by Peter Dizozza 2:50
PM
[edit]
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
I know I don't have much to add. I do have some innovative new
material in the form of songs I've been performing live. The need to
watch television for the news was quite time-consuming. Other
activities involve getting married, soon. I've also completed post
production for Songs of The Golf Wars, my new CD.
It's great to hear Kenny Davidsen's CD, Goodnight Baby, which is
production perfect. I hope you like Queen. I hope you like songs
getting stuck in your head. He's phenomenal, and rather personal.
Filmmakers can be powerful. I saw Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger
(1986) and saw sown in it the seeds of war for 2003.
posted by Peter Dizozza 1:45
PM
[edit]
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
The Last Two Jews in Kabul by the man who wrote Harry and Tonto
directed by George Ferencz at La MaMaETC is sure fire entertainment
with a spectacular set.
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:36
AM
Monday, March 10, 2003
Matthew Barney presents, "Find the Orgasm," the cycle of
genitals rising in beaded tapioca and petrojel vomit.
with Norman Mailer, Richard Serra, Ursula Andress and the footless
paraplegic.
Running through the spiral path, white with pink and green pale colors
mostly, with the satanic black and red satin flags reserved for the
black plumaged pigeons decorating the back room with their droppings.
The leopard woman, the dropped gonads, the silliniess. Where's the
orgasm?
The shimmer of video images white based against a white background.
Alarmingly plain.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:04
AM
Monday, February 10, 2003
I received this correspondence over the weekend:
Subj: To Michael Douglas esq
Date: 2/9/2003 8:31:42 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: megaworldd@yahoo.co.uk
To: dizozza600@cs.com
Received from Internet
To Michael Douglas esquire dizozza600@cs.com
Dear Mr Douglas,or should I say Michael Danielovich Demsky ?I am
writing to you in earnest as a fellow Russian- Jewish - origin film
maker for help !
You apparently have been involved in the putting together of a film
about John Drewe .
John Drewe was charged and served a prison sentence in England for
defrauding the Tate Gallery as you well know !
Before he was caught I had been assisting his ex partner Batsheva
Goudschmidt to let out their house at Rotherwick Road,London NW11.
I stumbled on his fake paintings whilst organising the rooms in their
house as I had been left keys to the whole house and one had the
paintings in it !
I had moved the paintings to the garage in the house to protect them
as there were to be tenants afterwards.
Whilst sorting out and organising the property I also stumbled on M16
top secret papers whoch showed dealings over the sales of weapons to
China.
It seems as if Drewe was involved in spy-type activities as well as
fake painting production !
Soon after my discovery of the fake paintings and the spy papers my
own house was burnt and Drewe is still suspect in regards to this !
The police put him in a line -up but according to the New York Times
article on him he had shaven off his moustache and beard and could not
be identified !
For eight years since the fire at my house at 49 Lowfield Road,London
NW6 I have not been paid out any monies by Zurich insurance company
and I have never been given a letter as to why this has been the case
!
This has placed my and my children ,now in Israel :Amir 25,Yaron
21,Tali 15 in a continuous state of homelessness and they have not
been able to come and stay with me !
Yaron is a paratrooper and teaches hand- to -hand combat and Amir has
been in two wars and they need a break !
Kindly help me please .
Yours sincerely,
David Konigsberg Perry C/O 17 Heathcroft,Welgarth Road,London NW117HW
& email :megaworldd@yahoo.co.uk and mobile tel 078903 44970
Subj: Re: To Michael Douglas esq
Date: 2/9/2003 1:58:11 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Dizozza600
To: megaworldd@yahoo.co.uk
Dear Mr. Perry, I will post your letter on my journal if you'd like
but I have no direct communication with the celebrated and talented
actor/director/producer Michael Douglas. I was friends with his step
brother, Eric but I have not seen Eric in about 10 years. Yours truly,
Peter Dizozza
Subj: Re: To Michael Douglas esq
Date: 2/9/2003 2:46:25 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: megaworldd@yahoo.co.uk
To: Dizozza600@cs.com
Received from Internet
Thanks...very kind of you..!!!..David
Subj: Re: To Michael Douglas esq
Date: 2/9/2003 3:03:18 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Dizozza600
To: megaworldd@yahoo.co.uk
Oh, is it all right with you to publicly post the entire email as it
was sent to me? See below for the content. Peter
Subj: Re: To Michael Douglas esq
Date: 2/10/2003 5:03:57 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: megaworldd@yahoo.co.uk
To: Dizozza600@cs.com
Received from Internet: click here for more information
Sure thing ! Have a nice day and you're doin' a very good deed
!.David in the UK
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:35
AM
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Ah, I heard a good song, and why have I never heard it before? I don't
know. It's how old?
This is a comment about Queen, one of the few music bands with
connections to Zoroastrianism. They sing, "Leave it in the lap of
the Gods," a statement both funny and emotionally resonant. Kenny
Davidsen said, the great Queen album is called Sheer Heart Attack. The
song I always listened to, coming in at under three minutes, is Good
Old Fashioned Lover Boy. They wrote performed and recorded so well
that one's imagination can't help but go wild from listening to them.
They are a testiment to excellence. The good song, the companion piece
to GOFLB, is called, "Killer Queen."
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films return to the film forum. He's
another dead overproducer. One of my favorite films is the Marriage of
Maria Braun. Many of his films have great titles like, "The Year
of Thirteen Moons" and "Ali, Fear Eats the Soul."
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:54
AM
Wednesday, January 29, 2003
Amy Philips' writing about the antifolk compilations is at http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0305/phillips.php.
The Dufus song she mentions is noticably exceptional. She draws
worthwhile attention to Schwervon. Hooray for innovative songwriting!
posted by Peter Dizozza 1:40
PM
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
I heard the Jazz Band, Mr. Kite, cover Lennon & MaCartney's Mother
Nature's Son at DUMBO's Redhouse. Cheryl Crow also covered it for a
film called I Am Sam. It's a pretty song.
posted by Peter Dizozza 1:36
PM
Tuesday, January 07, 2003
I don't resent Catch Me If You Can.
I resent About Schmidt and I'm beginning to question the futility
in Election. The director is also responsible for Citizen Ruth.
Mr. Nicholson is playing a former Treblinka Commandant masquerading
as a Nebraskan husband/father and retired insurance actuary, hence the
title. -- oh, did we cut that scene?
The memorable musical moment is by Satie.
In generating an audience for this noble effort, which is a matter
of perfect timing, congratulations to the marketing people.
posted by Peter Dizozza 12:36
PM
Friday, January 03, 2003
Diana and I saw Catch Me If You Can. It was a tremendous investment
and I question the return.
posted by Peter Dizozza 2:05
PM
Monday, December 23, 2002
By the way, those plastic green water bucket tree stands?
-- collapsible, and nothing says Bunuellian Christmas better than an
evergreen toppling on Santa's elves as they're gift wrapping. Tim-bur.
Resurrect it, redecorate it and tie it to a picture hook on the wall.
It is beautiful again, even more so away from the radiator.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:49
AM
This wake a week pattern has got to break. Richard
Pretzer, Deceased as of December 18th, 2002.
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:04
AM
Thursday, December 12, 2002
Christmas trees that are identified as Frazier Firs are
very traditional looking. In fact, they have that artificial tree
look, but they are real. Put 7-Up in the stand. They'll drink it up.
Oh to have a clipped tree, seperated from its undergrowth, vicegripped
into a plastic green platform. It smells great and gives the apartment
that home feeling. It's right next to the iron curlicued Moroccan
daybed. Now all we need is the HO train set circling the little town
at the base, and a glowing embered fireplace.
Rosebud.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:36
AM
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Finally, a new post to put into the past the CD burner problem.
However, this post is a followup to a post of the past regarding
"two in one through the subway turnstyle." I think it was
Abbey Hoffman in Steal This Book who first suggested it and I referred
to it as common practice by John and Sally in the novel, The
Resurrection.
Maki is 8 months pregnant. She went with her husband together
through the turnstyles, and, as it was their second offense, they were
HANDCUFFED AND TAKEN TO PRISON. Members of the New York City Police
Department kept her safely off the streets and in jail for over three
hours. Her husband was in jail for nearly 24 hours. Dear Members of
the New York City Police Department, does it help jaywalkers to run
over them for crossing the street against a red light?
My 8/19/2001 post includes, deep within it, my two-in-one-turnstyle
experience.
(Aha. Note that Blogger's archive does not work for me, nor for
you, perhaps. I have a michaeldouglas.blogspot mirror site at https://www.cinemavii.com/MichaelDouglas.htm.)
posted by Peter Dizozza 12:38
PM
Thursday, October 31, 2002
Here's the rest of the CeQuadrat CD maker correspondence.
Subj: RE: CeQuadrat
Date:10/30/2002 2:29:11 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:Kathie.Upton@roxio.com
To:Dizozza600@cs.com
Peter,
With the problem you are describing you will need to contact Windows
Media. I am sorry but the CeQuadrat can not help you.
Good Luck
Subj: Re: CeQuadrat
Date: 10/30/2002 3:08:13 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Dizozza600
To: Kathie.Upton@roxio.com
Dear Ms. Upton, Please, you can help me if you can tell the computer
my pre-installed program is OK. Windows Media Player is not doing
shutting down my CeQuadrat program unless you told them to do it.
Someone in your programming area came up with this unregistered
shutdown device. Peter Dizozza
Subj: RE: CeQuadrat
Date: 10/31/2002 8:02:58 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Kathie.Upton@roxio.com
To: Dizozza600@cs.com
I am sorry this is not something I can do for you. If you need
technical support for the version of software you will need to pay for
support. It is a $35.00 per incident charge. When calling in we will
get your information and arrange for a call back. Please call
408-934-7283, for the support on this software. You could also check
the web site for your product at http://www.cequadrat.de/english/support/top5.php3
, this site has all the updates along with trouble shooting tips. I am
sorry but I do not have any knowledge about this product. Again your
best resource for the assistant you are asking for would come from
Windows Medias Player.
Subj: Re: CeQuadrat
Date: 10/31/2002 10:08:13 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Dizozza600
To: Kathie.Upton@roxio.com
Someone at your office must know what I am talking about. Please ask.
Peter
RE: CeQuadrat Date:10/31/2002
10:38:55 AM Eastern Standard Time
From:Kathie.Upton@roxio.com
To:Dizozza600@cs.com
NO I do not have anyone I can ask. I am sorry I can not assist you. I
have given you your support options. Sorry.
Subj: Re: CeQuadrat
Date: 10/31/2002 11:12:35 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Dizozza600
To: Kathie.Upton@roxio.com
Oops, sorry. Roxio is responsible for the identification of an
unregistered version of CeQuadrat's CD burning software on an old
computer that came with the software. Congratulations on a piracy
device that also causes planned obsolesence. How silly of me to think
I have a right to software that came preinstalled on my computer.
Either someone there knows what I'm writing about or I am not really
corresponding with anyone at Roxio. Some support.
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:23
AM
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Ah, I see this is the blogger where I referred to the CD burning
capabilities lost upon downloading windows media player beta 9x.
Here's today's correspondence from Roxio, the microsoft media
player affiliated company which coincidentally bought the German cd
burning program, CeQuadrat, which compaq included on my machine back
in 1999.
"Thank you for your letter, my name is Kathie and I have been
assigned to provide you with the information you need to get help with
the issues you addressed in your letter.
"When CeQuadrant is preloaded the support that you may be
entitled to on complimentary bases would come directly from the
company that furnished you with the software. In your case the support
would come from Compaq. There phone number is 800-652-6672.
"You can also go to http://www.cequadrat.de/english/support/top5.php3
, this has all updates that are available for the software along with
trouble shooting tips. This is a free update.
"If you would like to speak to one of our Technicians it would
be at a $35.00 per incident charge and we would have to arrange for a
call back. To speak to Technical Support you will need to call
408-934-7283.
"Again I want to thank you for taking the time to write us.
"Best regards,
"Kathie Upton
Customer Service Representative
roxio
The Digital Media Company
6900 Wedgwood Road Suite 200
Maple Grove, MN 55311 USA
Customer Service: 408-946-4949
Fax: 763-494-7303
kathie.upton@roxio.com
www.roxio.com
NASDAQ:"ROXI"
Featuring the Best-Selling CD-Recording Software in the World"
I wrote back as follows:
Dear Kathie,
Thank you for your response!
You actually may be able to help me from where you are because I
downloaded Windows Media Player 9 Beta and that notified you, meaning
Roxio, of the existence on my computer of the old CeQuadrat software.
My compaq computer is over three years old and I suppose it is to your
software's credit that it continues to run well and usefully. I just
need your permission, now, to run it. Please provide the information I
need to assure my computer that it is OK to run the program. Please
send my computer something (the way it obviously sent something to you
through the media player and then you sent something back to it) to
let my computer know that I have the software legally and that it
doesn't have to arrest itself or me as a result of my purchase of a
computer.
I hope that this proiblem I am having is not the result of roxio/CeQuadrats
dissatisfaction with compaq, in that you feel they have not fairly
compensated you for including your software in their computer. In that
case I don't know what to do. I will notify them of your position and
how it affects their customers.
Sincerely,
Peter Dizozza
posted by Peter Dizozza 11:16
AM
Monday, October 21, 2002
I'm typing in the words of Beck Hansen which appear on my Visor.
"I don't want to be in a situation like some of these musicians
who might as well not have a front door -- anybody can walk in and see
everything. I'm about making art and music and performing. I'm not a
big believer in the everything's-on-the-table philosphy. I don't
understand these people who overexpose themselves. What kind of a life
is that?" uh.
"I'm about making art and music and performing" is a good
reminder for one's life purpose. Is it in answer to the question, Who
are you? No, it answers, "What are you about?" About face!
Right now, my life is about playing piano and teaching everyone
their singing parts for Salad Days!
This is while other things go on about me.
By the way, I lost all CD burner capabilities by downloading
Windows Media Player Beta 9x...
And why doesn't timewarnercable carry the UN channel (78 in
Manhattan)?
posted by Peter Dizozza 3:00
PM
Thursday, October 17, 2002
Is the woman on the phone arguing with her errant marginal lover who
keeps getting in trouble with the law, or with her errant 6 year old
son, who keeps stealing the other child's pokeman?
posted by Peter Dizozza 3:23
PM
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
Spike Lee re-earns his reputation as a filmmaker with his short
subject, "We Wuz Robbed," a spectacular construct of
interviews/portraits and photos. I was most affected, previously, by
his biography of Malcom X, a man who, during my schooling which
embraced Martin Luther King, simply did not exist. The depiction of
Muslim rigor in contrast to the post slavery malaise was inspiring and
disturbing, as is any facist neatening and ordering in our lives. I
also enjoyed a scene, a descent into a crack building, from one of his
films, was it the Malcom X one? using Stevie Wonder's Living for the
Ci-tay... Uh, actually Stevie Wonder (remember Gangster's Paradise?)
is simply too great a composer not to enhance anything that draws upon
his source material...
Definitely NOT Bush, yet neither Gore, nor Lieberman, really wanted
to win. They were conceding. They were forced to put on an opposition.
Lieberman likes Connecticut. Gore enjoys writing knowingly about
subjects he wants to learn more about. With unfinished business,
continuity is important, referring to the son of a former president
becoming president in time to strengthen his family's oil business. We
Wuz Robbed discusses events from a few days prior to the election up
until the US Supreme Court denial. One is left simply flabergasted
anew.
The Palestinian film, Divine Intervention, was at least moderately
budgeted. I asked, were those real border checkpoints? No, he built
them within Jerusalem. "Oh my, what am I doing in Hizballah?"
asked some tourists who drove upon the set. Mr. Pena's description in
the program defines the film as "a provication, but one rooted in
a reasoned expectation of both justice and peace." Upon seeing
the film I ask, what is going on there? and want to issue a blanket
apology.
With the pit and the pendulum, bullies victimize, and enoble-ize
and enable-ize.
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:39
AM
And have uncentered everything else.
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:06
AM
Ah, and now I have centered the little button.
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:05
AM
Oh my, can you imagine. I'm inserting a little paypal button!
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:02
AM
I attended a screening at The New York Film Festival. What fun. Divine
Intervention, plus a Spike Lee rolled Joint.
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:00
AM
Thursday, October 03, 2002
Ah, the grammatical incoherencies of the October 2nd post. Comments
have ranged from sympathy for Marc's father, apparently a very
generous and much revered gentleman, to questioning my statement about
calling an escort service with the expectations of being robbed. It
should not be an expectation. Marc was not running a sting operation.
Escort agencies don't want any trouble. The next step will be a civil
action, against the escort agency, for negligent hiring.
I already covered this story in my 1988 musical, Kingdom Come.
posted by Peter Dizozza 1:53
PM
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Jury duty happens but once every four years, and perhaps after a fifth
adjournment it will be more like five years. Last time I was there it
was as an alternate, one who sits, listens and eats lunch at the Odeon
with the other jurors including the man who made my tuxedo, Flusser,
but does not ultimately deliberate, in a civil case in supreme (before
Lorraine Miller) claiming damages for boyscout child molestation,
regarding incidents that occurred well over 10 years prior to the date
of trial. Can't we just forget about it? The jury did after spending
five days considering the brushing of genitals in the swimming pool
and other suggestive incidents.
And now, here we are, five years later (and that case went on
appeal to be affirmed)... I am in the criminal jury pool. 100 centre,
the place where you're guaranteed a tourist's visit of entertainment.
My friend from Germany had it in her tour guide. NIGHT Court. 2AM,
Can't sleep? Get downtown to 100 Centre and sit in the back.
CASE ONE
So let's review, September 30th, Monday, a fresh batch of jurors,
the cream of the crop, for Judge Herbert Altman. 64 from the 100 in
the waiting room go to his beautiful wireless amplified courtroom on
the 11th floor. I'm among them. Of the 16 called to sit in the box,
three are lawyers. Tell us about yourself, he actually asks each and
they pass down the wireless mike. Lawyer, what school, Harvard, next
lawyer, what school, Harvard, one at Cravath, one at Straub's Wilkie,
the other one, not employed, from Fordham, and quite a few of the
professionals up there were seeking new employment. Also among them
was a cardiologist from Canada employed by Mount Sinai... And a bond
trader who actually made it onto the jury.
After the judge let us meet the panel, the first question from the
DA raised the term, Escort service? Would you give credence to the
testimony of a man who called upon, who invoked, to use my own term,
Escorts? What if he was a former SUBSTANCE ABUSER? Substances? Oh,
please. What if a stripper was a defendant? Would you believe her?
That's it, I'm back there tomorrow. It's my duty as a juror.
CASE TWO
I was not chosen on Monday. I went with another panel to a case in
a smaller courtroom before Judge A. Kirke Bartley. His question, if I
may paraphrase rightly, began, would you take issue regarding matters
concerning gypsy people or as they are commonly called, gypsies? Do
any of you know Duke Stevens? Jack Goldman? Nick Johns? Come back
tomorrow morning.
Me: Hey guys, I have a motion to attend to in the morning.
Professional courtesy (like the shark joke), permitted me to be
excused and return to the jury pool which I did after the motion the
next day, October 1st, signing in and out to check out Judge Altman's
part. It was 11:30 AM, just in time for the jury to enter for the
first time that morning.
CASE ONE (continued)
Opening statement highlight, "and that my client will spend
his 22nd birthday free of these charges." Objection, sustained,
defense counsel gathers his notes and sits down.
I'm thinking, what? Ian, the coconspirator to this charge of
robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and attempted extortion is 21!
Kerry, the big breasted mini-faced blond woman with the swishy moves,
is certainly in her thirties. I'm reminded of Judge Altman's words to
the jurors, willing accomplices are equally guilty.
Witness takes the stand. 45, slender, dark hair kinda wild.
DA"Okay, what do you do,"
"I'm self employed now. I'm a hedge fund manager." What is
that?
"Someone who manages hedge funds."
Defense attorney (probably stifling a laugh), "Could you read
that back please."
I guess further clarification is that a hedge fund hedges funds (I
think it's a daily bet on whether the stock market goes up or down.)
Former DEA FBI employee, Robert Stang, also appeared, hired by the
family and aware of witness victim's problems. He put some men on the
job and stung Ian after Ian picked up his 50,000 check from the house.
Marc slipped it through the mailslot.
Earlier testimony from Marc established that Marc had required the
services of 50 to 75 escorts during that year. He's divorced, you see.
What are we considering here?
I must ask, Mr. Weill, what are you doing, running a sting
operation? You called an escort service, that's like saying, rob me if
you can. The good news is that Marc's father, Sandy, Citigroup's
chairman, no longer employs Marc there.
What did you do with Kerry? Partied. Did the relationship become
personal? Yes, in that I spoke to her about personal matters. I lent
her money, over 8thousand including 5 for her landlord so that she and
her child could move (Ian?) Supposedly she was bringing Ian over to
set up a repayment schedule...
Apparently after Ian's arrest, a search of Kerry's apartment found
the gun allegedly used to point out Marc's face.
CASE THREE
Last but not least, I was called to consider a case on Broadway by
Leonard, an alleged robbery of memorabilia from an eccentric older man
(40) by a cute lanky long strawberry blond haired wire rimmed glasses
wearing fellow with big healed black sneakers.
One of the jurors also dealt in high end baseball card memorabilia.
I would have said, but saw earlier on that neither ADA Scheidt, nor
the soft spoken defense counsel woman were seriously considering me,
that I collect what might be considered memorabilia but not to sell.
Thank you, for the glimpse of the photos of the witness victim's messy
apartment.
CASE ONE (conclusion)
5:15, come back tomorrow, which is today.
Released!
Catch Private Detective Stang (retained by the family)'s testimony.
"I haven't billed them for a while but I'll probably for
today."
"Why were you retained by them?"
"Objection."
"Sustained."
posted by Peter Dizozza 11:53
AM
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
It is over a month since my last die-ray ent-ray. We had a splendid
run of The Golf Wars, I'm onto the next project which is the sequel of
my collaboration with Tom Nondorf who chose, for the St. Jean's
Auditorium Players, to revive Salad Days, a show that includes a magic
piano in the park, and a flying saucer to help them find it when it's
lost. The music reminds me of British Music Hall routines, simple but
fast (the challenge is in getting them up to speed). Then there's
dancing. The piano has to unleash the cast. Hey, it's fun. And The
Golf Wars was fun. I was unavoidably flattered when one of the cast
members thanked me for writing it. I can paint a happy picture, let's
see, I can simply quote Kenny Davidsen. I'm making money and loving
every minute of it and the album will be done in a few months. That's
his quote but I can adopt it.
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:57
PM
Monday, August 26, 2002
Oh, one of songs is downloadable at http://www.olivejuicemusic.com/poetry.html
posted by Peter Dizozza 12:08
PM
This post appeared on the Olive Juice Message Board regarding the new
Olive Juice Call it What You Want, This is Antifolk Compilation and
three songs that appear on it.
Olive Juice Music
[ Post a Response | Olive Juice Music ]
http://members.boardhost.com/olivejuicemusic/
Re: Hurt me! Please!!!!!
Posted by Peter Dizozza Annonymous on 8/19/2002, 5:40 pm , in reply to
"Hurt me! Please!!!!!"
Thank you for recording, mixing and mastering such a wonderfully
varied and legendary compilation. The layout is clear and easy to
follow and it's full of interesting sounds.
Oops, what about being a cryptic wiseass? OK, that's easy, I mean,
Why is your song on it so apocalyptic? Who could guess that we
marry to be free and that if we find ourselves we'll be enslaved worse
than ever? Thanks. It is consoling, though, to know that the world
itself is not actually falling apart.
It sounds good saying it, but can someone please identify "the
####." How can we get it out of "my town" if we don't
know what it is?
Onto another topic. Ignorant about the origin of pretzels, which I
ate just the other day, I asked that special someone who said, and I
paraphrase:
Ballentine Monks rewarded prayer novitiates with pretzels. See them
praying with their arms crossed over their chests? That baker's treat
really took off, yes?
Swastikas, on the other hand must have been an ancient sanskrit
symbol out of India because Kipling used the swastika symbol on the
cover of his 1902 book, Kim. In the 1930s, Nazis revived and reversed
the design, turning it into their symbol.
Thus, unlike monks with the pretzel and its combos*, nazis poisoned
the market for baked swastikas and combos like the mozerella swastika.
Yours truly,
General Foods.
* Combos are pretzel bits stuffed with cheddar.
posted by Peter Dizozza 12:06
PM
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Sometimes the right doesn't know what the left is doing so I'm jumping
to the left, which means rather than write here I'm writing at
http://www.888.blogspot.com.
posted by Peter Dizozza 12:04
PM
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
Oh, I see. Marry to be free because the heart only peaks out its
little paws) feels free when it is in a place of emotional safety.
Goethe puts into the words of Werther, by way of Victor Lange's
English translation, "He is so exceedingly anxious to justify
himself that if he thinks he has said anything too precipitous or too
general or only half true, he never stops qualifying, modifying and
extenuating, till at last it appears he has said nothing at all."
It is time to revise a performance script of The Golf Wars.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:56
PM
Tuesday, August 06, 2002
(from an email)
Diane Cluck is so imaginative and self-disciplined. My head is
spinning.
"We spend 3/4s of the time apologising for the 1/4 of the time
we're thoughtless..."
Monte Carlo creates a clarity moment in the midst of SUFFOCATING
VACATION,
people acting like they own their companions during the time they
are renting them,
clarity shared by everyone through an expressive act of
communication.
At one point in the song she describes what she sees in real time.
From Matt I learned,
You can not heal what you cannot feel.
& Marry to be free, find yourself to be enslaved.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:08
PM
Monday, August 05, 2002
Am I mistaken or are the first words out of Elvis Costello,
"Welcome to my working week. I know it don't thrill you. I hope
it don't kill you. Welcome to my working week. you better do it 'til
you're through it, so you better get to it." (?) It is good
advice. Thank you, EC.
I dreamt I jumped from a plane into the water, and I broke my fall
by intentionally riding the wind.
(The jawdroppingly colorful surfer movie from 1958, Slippery When
Wet, gave some meaning to the comment, I have cable, because it was on
last night and during a break from the surfing, the guys dove!)
Anyway, I landed and, once I was walking around my arms kept
floating up above my shoulders, 'cause I was lighter than air.
I also dreamt of a drought that became apparent at the upper end of
a lake, an inlet, that was grassy instead of watery.
I viewed it from a screened in porch attached to a ranch resort cabana
that I was crashing for the food. ("Do you want any food?"
Reaching for a paper towel, I dropped the paper towel dispenser that
was over the sink which was adjacent to the bed. I dropped the paper
towel dispenser on the bed!)
The porch was ancient and unused since its view was of a depressing
reminder of the vital stream that once flowed there.
I attempted to open a window which crashed off its hinges onto the
ground.
What was a window doing in a screened in porch?
Up above us was the hole of a mountain lake. It once held the water
that overflowed through the stream that led to the valley lake.
I also dreamt I was driving nine people, two of whom were in the
trunk, those two nearly forgotten as we collected ourselves following
my driving the car off a bridge onto the embankment. When we finally
remembered to open the trunk they were disheveled and drenched in
sweat. I was attempting to drive everyone home...
This has been an odd night of irritation. "I'm dying of hunger
and I'm dressed in shorts," yelled a passerby into a cellphone.
The woman at the 2nd Ave. liquor store was losing her head arguing
into the phone and at the fellow running the store with her. "I
don't give a fuck about spending time with you and your friends."
Has everyone decided to quit smoking at the same time?
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:34
PM
Wednesday, July 24, 2002
I went to a private cardiologist for a check-up, 'cause since age 13
I've had an arrhytmia named after Woff, Parkinson & White. That
misshapen ekg beat permits a short circuit within the heart so that a
rapid mini beat occurs. During these palpitations, the blood
circulates minimally; I'm sure it's much easier for the heart to enter
into this little selfish beat, it's just that the rest of the body
doesn't get the blood. The heart contains within itself the blood as
it (merrily?) beats 240 the minute.
This is an old odd story to me, and, amidst the lessons we are
learning daily, consider the following.
After a prescription renewal mix-up on the part of the
(inefficiently run?) office of Dr. Mayer Ballas, in Forest Hills,
renewing one prescription and not the other, and as a result of it,
Dr. Ballas refused to speak with me, rejected his doctor patient
relationship and withdrew as my doctor when I attempted to make an
appointment with him.
He has been my doctor for 25 years.
His behaviour has impressed me. I forgive him on both a
professional and personal level.
So I saw another cardiologist. One of the medications really
doesn't need to be renewed. It causes arrhytmia. It's called
Quinaglute. I've stopped taking it.
Once again, my only ailments are mental.
posted by Peter Dizozza 11:12
AM
The Park Fests are progressing well.
Progress... My creative work exists under the name, Cinema
VII, simply
because it is exists apart from me, contained within a preserved
medium. I am the source, yet I see myself as not always the source. In
fact, I want my work to exist apart from me so that I can move on. I
love the technology that permits us to be regenerated. Is there
something missing in the regeneration?
I preserve what I've done and move on. Forgetting what we learned
we keep learning.
Merce Cunningham, 50 Years of Forward Motion...
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:29
AM.
What a stupid post from July 11th! Regarding one's financial
decisions, if I sold then the money I would have received would be
7,500 more than now. Oh, Roberta just brought in an email regarding
bottle deposit return on Budweiser. A thousand dollar investment would
have returned a coupl'a'hunerd.
What else is new, please?
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:26
AM.
Thursday, July 11, 2002
I spent so far this year over thirty thousand dollars and if I sell
the stocks and funds I own I will have lost another thirty thousand or
nearly half their value. Boy, I had no idea I had that much money!
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:30
AM
Saturday, June 22, 2002
Prepare to Meet Your Maker, the surrealist musical mystery play, had
its 29th performance, its history documented elsewhere on the
cinemavii.com site. We performed the fifth of its six performances at
the WAH Center, last night.
The Twenty-Ninth Performance of Prepare to Meet Your Maker went
well. I participated with Drew Blood; we had taken over for Josh and
Jason who dropped out last week, and that is when the phallus in
Orin’s display went missing. The whole point of the story is the
missing phallus; I mean the Isis Osiris story incorporated into ours.
Audience members included Bruce Brown and Enid, his wife, and Marc
Baron and Cinti and her friend Candida, and two Hasidic boys, well
garbed, in time for sundown since we began at 8:30.
We’re in the longest days of the year, so sunset couldn’t have
been much later here in New York, along the same latitudinal meridian
as Barcelona.
Our next performance features me at the piano. Tonight Kenny and
Brian performed beautifully, with amazing dynamic variation, with that
$200 Yamaha Keyboard, the best around. Please, it’s a quite
unreasonably good sounding keyboard. Yamaha electronics have a
superior musicality, my prior experience being with the QY10 and the
original DX7.
Tony Hightower continues to achieve new heights of drama and
entertainment, along with his splendid singing voice, this time as
Quasimodo with Meghan Elizabeth Burns. The miracle here is that for
the past four performances the originator of the role, Lisa Dery,
returned to the role with some perspective and great charm. They both
do wonderful unique interpretations.
Lisa Sredniawski (Lisa Shred) took over as Mathilda for Linda
Kobylinski (who was needed in Sharon's Putnam which had its run
extended at a new theatre.) I was backstage throughout our performance
and it was always a pleasure to see Lisa smiling and enjoying herself.
Kimberly Mossel continues to keep the show running, and doing a
wonderful job as she improves her presentation skills and adjusts to
the echo-ey surroundings. Seeing a performance by Laurel Hoffman
simply sells you on Laurel Hoffman. Drew Blood, well, I directed the
torment of his restlessness upon myself and he was helpful and
dynamically unique, as Tyr Throne, the director, could not be there
this evening.
Petris came by this evening; he's the Finnish director with plans
to do a play about a boy named Lionheart. We look forward to seeing
more from him.
The WAH Center third floor is resonant, wet, I believe, is the
term, and naturally so, so it sounds great. The cast has learned to
adjust. Rene Moreno, the artist who is often there at the Center, ran
lights and even held a beautiful umbrella over Laurel and Lisa as they
performed the Pokida/Samama scene.
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:05
PM
Thursday, June 13, 2002
July, 1938. Winston Churchill, in his speech on Civilization, defined
it as a society based upon the opinion of civilians. In its soil grow
continuously freedom comfort and culture! It is there that the
traditions of the past are cherished and the inheritance bequeathed to
us by former wise or valient men becomes a rich estate to be enjoyed
and used by all. Unite to defend civilization, freedom and peace. Show
yourself possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and
atavistic forces will stand in awe.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:09
PM
Wednesday, June 05, 2002
Sharon Fogarty's play, "Putnam," considers the excesses of
fame, providing its cast with the opportunity to portray the famous.
There is a crossover between achieving fame and providing the world
with valuable personal offerings. The untimely death element follows
closely along the path to fame. Perhaps untimely death follows along
all our paths, particularly those on the paths less travelled. In
"Putnam" Sharon rejects the connection between fame and
untimely death (Note: I have replaced the word "disaster"
with the term "untimely death."). Her view was that the
death was a ruse and that the "famous" faked their deaths to
continue pursuing their life's purpose, whatever that might be. She
considers the charged careers of Marilyn Monroe, Billie Holiday, Elvis
Presley, John Lennon and Janis Joplin.
I will jump immediately to the pleasures of the play. John Lennon,
the composer, the songwriter, was inspired. His work inspired others,
and I mean that in a nearly technical way. There is a school of
composition arising from his inspiration and Sharon furthered it by
writing a beautiful song in his style. Al Quagliata gave a very
pleasant performance seated with the fictitious Mr. Putnam as they
drew with crayons on paper plates. The cast offstage did the "Ahhh"
back-up vocals so typical of the dreamy side of John Lennon. Lennon
did a beautiful job expressing love as a universal state of being and
Sharon furthered it. This scene is a beautiful theatrical moment.
Rather than approach head-on the dramatic material put forth by
Sharon, I will now list some John-Lennon-inspired breakthroughs, those
of which I am aware, and these are highlights for the artists who did
them. Billy Joel's "Laura," and ELO Adrian Lynn's "My
Shangrila has gone away.... fading like the beatles on hey jude???
Judy Judy Judy..."
Putnam's Lennon moment followed a psychedelic Janis Joplin moment,
convincingly created by Linda Kobylinski (She sings as Mathilda and
Samamama in the Prepare to Meet Your Maker Soundtrack.). The feeling
of nostalgia it created may simply be of the Strawberry Alarmclock
cameo in the film "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (to some
of you this reference will not be obscure). More recently, I attended
a party in an abandoned building next to the Williamsburg Bridge,
which means I have a real psychedelic '60's nostalgia that dates from
a mere two months ago. Anyway, Mike Meyers has made this nostalgia his
niche so for a dose of it you know where to go.
Hey, Mike Meyers is famous.
So riding on the wings of fame can provide the boost needed to fly
on your own.
Sharon's play rides on the wings of the famous while providing a
fictional character who lacks the iconographic mannerisms of the
celebrity. Maybe if she assigned a real person, I don't know, like
Bono -- who is actually one step away from nonentity in my mind,
replaced by impressions of Brian Pilten covering Bono's amazing
"One Love One Life Love is a something or other..., an ember, ...
a temple?" It sounded like Bono's answer to Sting's "Every
Breath... Every Move ... I'll be Watching..."
Bono. He's surely famous. Give Putnam Bono's iconographic
mannerisms... Bono must have some magnetism, I mean, Werner Herzog
attended to him, I think... In fact, seeing someone immitate Bono will
increase one's appreciation of Bono.
The pleasure of the play is to see how well the cast's personal
magnetism filtered through their "immitation" of the
stars...
As for the folks they immitated, good thing they are famous because
they can continue to inspire us. They inspired the cast...
I saw the Sunday performance of June 2nd, 2002.
posted by Peter Dizozza 9:31
AM
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Lach was back running the antihoot at SideWalk, NYC, last Monday,
singing "Smokin' Again" and "Drinkin' Beers with
Mom." People packed the place. Last Up Larry was first up at the
open mike with help from blues wailer Amos Simplesoma Elpmis, singing
something like "the last time I took acid I went insane,"
but that's the Jeff Lewis version. Jon Berger ran the Leisure sUit
Larry slide show that accompanied Larry's dreamy effect-enhanced
brilliant guitar playing. There was a movie screen mounted on the
stage. That was what brought me into the lobster booth close to the
stage. It's an enclosed red booth. I was sitting with Charles Herold,
The New York Times Computer Game Critic. Already in the booth were
Eric, a playwright who had signed up to play, & Lindsay, a young
lady and pure audience member who intends to sign up next time, both
of whom were attending the antihoot for the first time. The slides
were striking transparencies of Larry's hallucinatory artwork, such as
a lady witch and a masculine wingless dodo bird over a caldron on the
land's edge, surrounded by water, the bird squeezing the contents of a
toothpaste tube into the cauldron. The landscapes are spectacular,
usually involving some body of water, rivers from mountains, ponds,
spindly christmas trees populated by spindly figures, spindly santa
clauses, astronauts, monsters. The colors are brilliantly combined
with a sophistication worthy of the Disney staff. Quite the
imagination stimulant. Last Up Larry plays SideWalk Sunday (5/26/2002)
at 10 after my Golf Wars at 8 and Helen Stratford at 9.
Next up, Aaron Brady sang about phoning or being phoned and knowing
both want it and if she says no he'll find someone else instead,
perhaps not without a bit of sardonic bitterness. Maybe it was without
irony and simply a song of accurate reporting. He also sang about a
beautiful thing.
Charlotte had a big out of tune voice, meaning she stretched the notes
or contracted them in revolt against the guitar accompaniment. Lyric
ending the first song was "Hold my head up high and see what life
brings." In the second she sang, "I will web you and drink
your blood," I think. "Fly away from here" was also
among the sentiments she expressed. People who do not find Grace Slick
irritating may also enjoy Charlotte.
Casey, Jen Lindsay's collaborator, sang on an electric guitar, Thin
Air and Carousel on the Moon.
Helen Stratford continues to confront people with her zonked leachy
used abused woman routine in "Me." "No more sleaze,
just a hug" is the ending plea, which tempers and touches. Well,
now I've had enough to confront the possibility that she is simply
being clever and contrived. The rhymes arising from the list of drugs
is more cole porter than lou reed -- this is fine. Then she sings,
beat me or something... "I deserve punitive damages and by the
way can I hit you up for a sandwich?" The audience loved it.
She's a real German chanteuse like Deitrich and Lemperer. It's growing
on me again to write about it, but I was beginning to feel, yech. I
suppose -- and forgive the graphic suggestions for they are worth
considering -- predators, men in particular, are manipulating such a
woman to become the way she is for purposes of turning her into a sex
object and should confront the reality of her after they've through
her been satiated. The predator's actions arising from his or her fear
of intimacy produces a victim far more cloying. Predators? Victims?
Become more goal oriented... Someday you'll meet your equal.
Nino, who is, I believe, Argentinean, played next. The amazing sound
system picked up every click of his guitar. It's a percussive
instrument. He introduced his second song as being "about one
night stands." "I was born to tell this story."
"How's my hair?" he asked, an inquiry that betrays being
self conscious about one's basically handsome appearance.
Julian Ballard took to the piano singing all right with you. If it's
all right. Julian has a nice low voice. His performance was not
without snaz, and it was almost a challenge to like him. The music
demands to be liked. His technique and quirky material win out in the
end. See him there Saturday at 8.
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:33
AM
Thursday, May 16, 2002
Publication Notice: A new AntiFolk MagaZine centering around SideWalk
artists who also play the RaVen is now available. What was formerly
called AntiMatters is now AU Base and its editor in chief is none
other than the amazing Patsy Grace.
By the way, regarding Rick Shapiro, like Lach says, he's "The
Only Comedian That Matters."
posted by Peter Dizozza 1:16
PM
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
Sometimes I feel sad and dissolute, in a state of suspension.
Anu cut my hair last night. She did so in gratitude for the Anu
Hair Graduation pages at https://www.cinemavii.com/Events/13Feb2002Anu.htm.
My hair looks good!
Then I attended the SideWalk performances of Toby Goodshank and
Kimya Dawson. Theirs is a style in stark contrast to the antifolk
history of histrionics (a subchapter). The intensity remains. The
delusion of a relaxation aura permeates. They are acting like wheel
cogs performing their assigned function. They are highly observable.
They are honest and confrontational and yet pleasing to the eye. Their
material is outrageously humorous. I will take them up on their
performance suggestions, I who was always the piano pounder, singing
above my natural register... A parallel to their progression (Through
"Hammel on Trial" into "Major Matt Mason, USA")
may be traced in the performance of Hoagy Carmichael. He seemed to get
slower, from the bix band days into the lazy river days. He didn't
deintensify his performance, he only made it sound like he did.
I ran into Rick Shapiro. He had read something I wrote about him
that I think you will find in these archives, around July 2001. It was
a wonderful moment to see him look back at me with some inkling of
recognition.
posted by Peter Dizozza 2:26
PM
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
The Prepare to Meet Your Maker Soundtrack will be mixed on Saturday.
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:17
AM
[4/26/2002 9:34:44
AM | Peter Dizozza]
The Association of the Bar of the City of New York hosted a scotch
tasting evening last night. Clunk on the floor. My favorite was that 19
year old dark one with the smokey aftertaste, but please, at one point
my throat was emulating the Strept Condition. Barley and malt ferment.
Single malt? The Scotland Highlands. The problem with a promotion like
that is afterward you can't remember a thing. Last night my innards were
burning. That's a hearty crew. Later on I ran into Turner Cody, Brer
Brian, Spencer Chakidis, Monica, Turner went back to tip the bartender,
our anti-hoot friend George Levy, hey, the Cinema
Place on East 11th got its liquor license. I walked with him to discover
all this.
Brer helped improve the Cinema
VII
collective with some worthwhile links to be found on his star galaxy
page, and I note here his info about Surf Reality (open mikes Sunday
hosted by Face boy) and Collective Unconsciousness (open mikes Wednesday
hosted by Rev. Jen) <- that's the info. I saw him twice yesterday,
once in the morning and once in the evening.
Hey, tonight the moon is very full.
Sunday, April 21, 2002
Dear Terry and Yuko, I include in this email an informative, if
completely outrageous, speach given during one of the early runs of
Prepare to Meet Your Maker.
Here's an announcement:
The theatrical centerpiece of the WAH Center's Apocalypse '99
returns to the stage June 2nd, 7, 8 & 9 & 14, 15 & 16
Celebrating the release of the WAH Center's first musical theatre
soundtrack album, the WAH Center Theatre Wing will present seven
encore performances of Prepare to Meet Your Maker.
For your consideration: The Essay: Prepare to Meet Your Maker and
the Issue of Consent (Please note that, herein, kiss may be
substituted for all terms of passion.)
Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen. Allow me to introduce to you
Prepare to Meet Your Maker, the heavenly musical mystery play by Peter
DIzozza (celebrating the release of its soundtrack album with seven
performances at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Center.)
This surrealist masterwork depicts the meeting of a corpse,
Cementeria, and a gravedigger, Quasimodo, who, through contact with
one another, are both invigorated and revitalized.
The action takes place in and around a pearly-gated community,
called the Ordered World. Only people who have been to the baptist may
enter this exclusive enclave.
Cementeria (an unwashed cindergirl) takes drastic, and some may say
offensive, steps to be with the baptist -- in doing so she follows in
the footsteps of Salome.
By beheading the baptist, she gains entrance to the Ordered World,
but, once inside, she meets her maker, dies and is promptly removed by
Quasimodo and other hunchbacked gravediggers, who treat her lifeless
body like so much after-dinner garbage.
The male romantic lead in this work, Quasimodo, initially sees
himself as repellent and solitary, certainly not above administering
rohypnol, the "date/rape drug," if such were available.
Instead, he satisfies himself with the dead. Therefore, the only
Ordered World residents he embraces are corpses.
The discarded Cementeria offers much to those with whom she comes
in contact, and Quasimodo is the first to discover this.
When Quasimodo's graveyard lovemaking awakens Cementeria, her first
order of business is to improve his health and posture "I don't
like you hunched over like that. Stand up straight."). Then,
applying lessons in personal hygene learned from her experience with
the baptist, she and Quasimodo return to the pearly gated community of
the ordered world (through a side entrance) and present themselves as
a proud couple that the ordered world residents wish to embrace and
include among the best of them.
All goes well for a time until Quasimodo reveals their secret,
"She's dead and my fucking her is what's keeping her alive."
Upon learning this, a strong-arm coalition of necrophiliac-bashers
force them to separate.
The rest of the story portrays their reunion and subsequent
rehabilitation as participants in an ancient Egyptian tale of
resurrection, the legend of Isis and Osiris.
(Kerrigan Webb as Cementeria and Charles Herold as Quasimodo)
Along with the dead, many issues are raised within the breathtaking
scope of this work, not the least of which is the issue of
preservation or disposal of the dead, currently an issue of cryonics
or cremation. Furthermore, as a surrealist work, Prepare to Meet Your
Maker defies explanation, yet one issue does reoccur which is worth
considering during the Dawn of the Age of Romantic Enlightenment
announced within the work, and that is why, I suggest we consider
Prepare to Meet Your Maker and the issue of consent.
"'At the moment of consent I say, 'It wasn't what I meant.' It
only takes an instant to be cured of a forfeiture.'"
That quote from one of the 12 songs in the show (The Cage is
Chilly) is important because both Quasimodo and Cementeria act in
ignorance of consent at some point early in the story,
Cementeria in kissing the baptist,
and Quasimodo in kissing (fucking) Cementeria
both actions occur at times when the object of their affection is
unable to refuse,
the baptist, because he has been beheaded
and Cementeria because she is dead.
There is little more to be said on the subject except that
Cementeria does come to appreciate and instruct Quasimodo on the
importance of consent for mutual satisfaction in long-lasting growth
relationships. It is she who advises him, "a woman should be
conscious before you start getting excited about her."
Here is yet another example of how Prepare to Meet Your Maker
contributes to the greater goal of Romantic Enlightenment for all. Go
forth in a state of exuberance. Thank you.
And thank you, for wading through this. Perhaps it will be of some
assistance in promoting the show.
We can sell the soundtrack CD at the performances and on the
WAHCenter.org site to raise money for theatre development there...
Yours truly, Peter
posted by Peter Dizozza 11:54
AM
Tuesday, April 09, 2002
I'm moving Part Two of the April 8, 2002 antihoot to the end of part
one.
posted by Peter Dizozza 12:23
PM
Wow! Welcome to Wowtown! It's the April 8th, 2002, Antihoot at
SideWalk and I'm deciphering my memo notes. Thomas Tumax played a
great song about the groundhog that passed (it peaked out its nose
into the path of a passing meteor). "It's a Full Moon Over
Wowtown." See him Friday at Sidewalk with David Dragov opening
the night.
Chris, wearing a Ramones T and playing a nylon string guitar, and
Dan, on bass, played a great first song and the second, a two chord
walk on the wild side song.
Joe Bendik's opened with an open tuning steel slide of a song with
the lyric,"My Landlord Not Feeling What I Mean." He's always
up against The Man, and frankly, I think he can handle it. Next song,
a list song with a gospel blare repeated that "It's a a fine Line
between," well, a list of things, most memorable being, as Lach
quoted throughout the night, a blow job and getting sucked... I think
there was a female reference contained in the line.
Robin, like Chris, was also in nylons (nylon guitar strings,
originally catgut??? more easily obtained than wire... Smithsonians?
History lesson please.) She sang about the Blackstar Cowboy with
buddhist tendencies.
Casey Holfet back from California with Jenn Lindsay talked about
riding in the back middle seat of the car, riding bitch, and an
audience member corrected him, saying the term referred to the
passenger on a motorcycle. Casey played a 12 string, filling the room
with it, and his voice, during the chorus climax of his great second
song, one of his earlier songs.
Sonia, in love with the pencil bearded silent bob (yes, the man
with a view askew), but respectful of his marriage vows, (it's the
innovative filmmaker/writer/actor/auctioneer, Kevin Smith -- she
confessed her fondness when Lach asked about the cartoon graphic
sticker of him and his blonder counterpart on her guitar.), Sonia, at
eighteen, is one powerhouse vocalist and simply the coolest of the
coverers. I am so grateful for her performance of Look how they shine
for you, referring to the stars; it's a strong song by Cold Play. Good
thingI was sitting with musicologist tv personality Dave of Dave's
Place. She also referred to that good feeling when they knocked out
the Death Star, a Star Wars reference, thank you Joseph Cambell for at
least making such info available, again I owe understanding the
reference to The Dave of Dave's. The reason for the reference being
the parallel in movie history heights achieved with the ending flames
of The Fight Club. Then she played the Pixies song that plays under
The Fight Club end credits, "Where is My Mind," beautifully
performed. Pixie guys, you'll love her. (Before her I only knew
"Is she weird? Is she white? Is she promised to the night? -- and
her head has no room -- is she...").
Lach observed that the Sinking of the Bismark was, like the
destruction of the death star, a turning point, this one for England
v. Germany. He just saw the Christopher Lee film version. He also
described a Real World documentary about a cosmonaut stuck up in the
Mir Space Station during the Soviet/Russia transition. You're going
next week, right? AntiHoot Open Mike hosted by Lach every Monday at
SideWalk, 94 Ave A, NYC's East Village.
Next stop, the Nemo conference performer presenting a cliche ridden
specifics aversion song for the Poor Little Rich Girl and all the
kings horses couldn't put richie together again. (Noel Coward wrote to
her, "don't drop a stitch too soon." Did he coin the PLRG
phrase? Brikell well caught the gist when she songwrote to the iconic
Edie Sedgwick)
During the second song ("clone me" inspired by the pet
cloners' press release), I started critiquing the steak wrap I was
eating. Dave pointed to the salt & pepper shakers and I started
critiquing them until his definitive "vintage" left nothing
more to be said on the subject. Anyway, and obviously, the performer's
two songs were quite strong in that they made identifiable marks upon
the memory. .
Chris Taylor started off slow and ended big with what is the very
big "Come Over Here My Love," and followed with the not too
dissimilar sounding "I'm Sorry." He brings to mind the later
set of James Levy. Both have strong realistic rock ballad voices and
songs that grow.
Lach with the elegant Chuck on Sax performed "I Always Love
the Girl Who Lives in a Private World, and I Become a Jester Just to
Get Her To Smile at Me," and with regard to the statement
contained therein, SO DO I, although I'd love to temper
"Always" with "when I think she on to something,"
or is that, "when we discover the near spiritual connection that
has ALWAYS existed between the two of us?" Dream on.
He followed with his hilariously unique brand of the blues riff,
"Drinking Beers with Mom."
Jordan Corbin performed the indelible Halfway Dingbat Halfway Smart
Halfway Science Halfway Art. And the Bird on a Painting song which
some say refers to female orgasm. Dave observed that vocally she bears
resemblence to Jil Sobel. I forgot to ask who that is. Could it be the
woman I know as Just Jill?
Nell Baliban, with "Just No Forcing Love" followed by the
beautiful jazz chorded "Wallow," provided a Joni Mitchell
moment or two.
Next played a fellow wearing a parks department shirt; I meant to
ask, does he play guitar for the NYC Parks Dept? He'd pasted his ID on
the guitar. I think Sean was his name. Parks permits are essential
during the summer.
James Levy played Cementeria or, rather, something about
cemeteries, and was joined by Dina Dean for Smoking in my Window.
There's a girl at my window.... "Who on earth is tapping at the
window?" asked Elvis Costello. "She Came In Through The
Bathroom Window," was a refreshing moment during the mordant
second side of the Abbey Road album with the funeral march cover. Was
Paul Dead Or Not? Not in that song. (added note: I'm just remembering
how depressingly horrifying that album was. Can an audience really
make entertainers THAT weird?)
Yuka played and sang one outrageously controlled simple single note
sounding ukeleili song, followed by and joined by Joe Driscoll for the
beautiful Yes Yes Yes! Joe provides beats -- tasteful mouth
percussion. Joe runs Artland on Grand Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Do you think I keep up with this detail? I played next joined by
J.T. Casaubon. Maybe more later. See you there Sunday April 14th at
10! This is a continuation of the blogger entry that precedes it.
Last night I played "Cul de Sac" and, with Josh (J.T.
Casaubon) singing, "Don't Leave Me Behind (Prisoners of
War)," then went downstairs to speak with Jenn about California
venues. She likes Javanikan in Pacific Beach and Zodiak Cafe in La
Mesa, both locations suburbs of San Diego. In San Francisco she likes
Coffee House at Stanford University, The Hotel Utah Saloon and Cafe Du
Nord.
Regarding Jamie Litt I have The Dave of Dave's note, nice hair,
longer than ever.
Earl Pickens did his cowboy routine with open shirt revealing a T
that read "Don't Fuck with New York." Let's all add the
poetic follow-up line together, "'Cause New York will fucking
kill you." He plays Saturday with his Black Mountain Maurauders.
Magicomic Asi bent spoons with his eyes. Jordan Corbin tried to
afterward. He asked Jordan to sign his mailing list and she promptly
took his sharpy and traced over her police academy sweat shirt,
actually only over the "po" part...
Of Thee I sing, Baby.
The Thee of which I Sing is You!
The thee of whom I sing is you?
Eric McFadden of Funkadelik introduced the above word ideas with
intricate guitar interplay.
Dave provided these names for while I was occupied: James Levy, we
remember him. Lorraine Leckie, Timothy Dark, oh, I was back for
Pre-War Yardsale. Their next stop is London!
Mary Gatchell played a song to help us recover from the inadequate
Titanic Ballad, quite an inspiration to hear.
Anika played, oh, and it's anika that rhymes with Monica, her
second song being an earlier one, "fuck with me. She sang, if you
do, then do it right. Lach managed to offend a woman from England when
he regretted missing the premier to Spiderman. Apparently, he'll be n
England where they're just getting premiers of Planet of the Apes.
Atoosa combined Karma, Hades, Isees and Pythons in her first song.
Her second song, a new one, quite beautiful and simply accompanied,
was called sun yellow reversal. Was she wearing a sun yellow reversal
at the time? We get spliced from circles into triangles.
Leaving I saw Adam Green, Joie DBG and Cockroach in the restaurant
area, Cockroach being particularly well shaved. Apparently the way to
go is a woman's bic with aloe. Sidewalk resumes serving its breakfast
special after midnight. No one with three dollars shall go hungry
there! Before the eggs arrived, I left.
And that's all I have to say about the latest in popular music as
of last night.
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:27
AM
The Golf Wars first concert reading, at La MaMa e.t.c.! April 5th,
2002, with Nadja Stokes, Beth Benjamin, Helen Senechal, J. T.
Casaubon, Peter Dizozza & John Seroff. It returns to the stage May
26th at SideWalk! https://www.cinemavii.com/projects/thegolfwars.htm
posted by Peter Dizozza 8:18
AM
Thursday, March 28, 2002
At The New York City Bar Association's Bar All-Star Revue organized by
Havona Madama I performed "Let Me Be," "Don't Leave Me
Behind" (from The Golf Wars) and Tu Pac's "I Get
Around." I had the pleasure of welcoming Maria Guccione back to
the stage with her singing "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" and
"Buddie Beware." Other performances by Jonathan Perkel,
Ondine Darcyl, Ellen and Frank Estes, Elizabeth Keitel, Jennifer
Shafer, Erik Hanson and Tyrone Mark Powell. I played piano for Erik's
performances of Flanders and Swann's "Have Some Madiera, My
Dear." (Forget the Rohypnol. A swig of this and she awakens with
a smile on her face and his beard against her cheek.)
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:13
PM
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
"Welcome to my Inner World. ... There are no flies on me!"
-- no, not here.
Last night Steve Espinola and I wrote a song for collaboration night
at Sidewalk. Steve Shiffman on guitar joined us in our presentation of
it, which followed immediately thereafter. It was another instance of
spontaneous combustion during an evening that began with The 48 Hour
Spontaneous Combustion Production at Manhattan Theatre Source. There
may be a stillness to the inner world, but in the collective outer
world it's like we're living fifty years in a day.
posted by Peter Dizozza 7:26
AM
Wednesday, March 20, 2002
The parallel in Sweet Smell of Success between the leads and Ike and
Tricky, Eisenhower and Nixon, is humorous to say the least. Where
Sunset Boulevard the musical merely stimulates yearning for the film,
The Sweet Smell of Success may actually supplement and stand on its
own.
posted by Peter Dizozza 6:15
PM
Sunday, March 17, 2002
A new version of my ghost story, "The Eleventh Hour," opened
Friday the 15th at the WAH Center to a warm response. Congratulations
to John Seroff and all involved. The date also marked my grandmother's
97th birthday.
"In the stillness of suspension, as the suspense continues,
onto other matters including tending to the matters of the day."
(The utterance of that line ended the 1999 version.)
posted by Peter Dizozza 10:15
PM
Wednesday, February 20,
2002
Kurt Kobain would have been thirtyfive on the day the zeroes were
bookened between the twos. Covering Nirvana songs can reveal
limitations, even though Nirvana songs sound like anyone can sing them.
Certainly anyone can feel them. posted by Peter Dizozza 10:24 PM
Tuesday, February 19,
2002
Last night at SideWalk I received the reminder of where the innovative
songwriters go. I heard cool music coming from the system. It was Joe
Bendik's new CD. Testosterone Kills opened with a Korg Moog
accompaniment. Then Jen sang about the "can of sleep" that I'd
like to open and pour into my aluminum stovepot. Prewar Yardsale took
the stage with I am the Life of the Party. I am Alone at my party. All
my friends left, or were clumsy to fall through a trap door. A great
song. They played a rhythmic version of the Nirvana song with the line,
"with (your) eyes so dilated, I become your pupil." I thought
the line was theirs, but there's a 35th birthday event that they're
participating in at the Knitting Factory, playing the whole
well-recorded album, "nevermind," apparently that pupil song's
on it. Hey, that album returned my attention to popular music. The Olive
Juice crowd participating may have picked up a few songwriting pointers
and you'll see them if you, like I, plan to go to the Nirvana Knitting
Factory evening this Wednesday. Steve Schiffman asked, How come
everyone's getting married (song one), then played his hit song, "I
don't want to spend a day..." Jeff Lewis with his decorated
although not exceptionally crafted in appearance guitar performed Living
in the Graveyard. It's an unbelievably favorite song of mine, fitting
into a Lenny Molotov favorite category because of the unique sounding
tuning guitar twang. I miss Jeff's mother's little brown Martin, but
this guitar sounds great. What a fun song! Tamany reintroduced herself,
she was arrested in Seattle with Seashepard, a group that rams boats,
and I mistook the boyfriend influence element to be reference to Sam
Shepard, and she said he can ram into her anytime. Sugar pills and
peroxide seemed to be part of her first song's prescription. In the
second, for the lesbians, she acknowledged someone as being "so
down for me." November Rain, Don't Cry, these are favorite guns and
roses songs. The subject of G&R came up when Joie DBG appeared in a
Tumbling Dice at Vegas Guns and Roses t-shirt. He sang Rock Star
Junkyard with audience yelps, connecting with the brilliant Lach crowd
control. We remembered a guns and roses blue and red double cd,
"Illusions, Use them or lose them" The "Down" lyric
("so down for me") continued with Major Matt's double,
"Come on Down" and "The Whole Way Down" followed by
Cockroach's "Calm Me Down." There was some variance when
Cockroach's next song featured the line "Hold Me In." Dave of
Dave's place popped in with a reminder of grammar school classmate of
mine that he met. I was sitting with Brer Brian and Baby Skins. Dave
Deporis sang, "Watch as my country goes to war again." He
prepared a guitar and sang possessedly. He also had a line about Onion
Breath. He drew the longest applause of the night. Dina sang, "No
that ain't tea in Grandma's cup" in Hold up the Night, a great song
with the I II IV progression strummed in a new rhythmic way. Her voice
and that song are exceptional. What natural ease! I miss the Flowers is
another note I have in my little memo book, what do you think? I
remembered any of this? I'm just typing out my notes in a semblance of
sentences. Actually, I remember it as I write it, not otherwise, though.
Our sensory perceptions stay in the brain as memory but we need
stimulation to access them. "Why you sitting over there when
you got a warm place to share IN THE PRINCE'S BED" asked Adam
Green. Uh, well, a memorable new song. Jordan overwhelmed the
blues wailers of the past, my favorite of her lines being "Go get
the nipple of your goddess moon." Kimya played two beautiful
songs, and yes, by not writing memory lines and simply gushing with
acknowledgement over how wonderful her set was, I'm left commentless...
Her brother's coming back. She had an evolving pattern in the chorus,
her strumming fingers worked like a centerpede upon the strings.
Pab, the Argentinian Cellist singer songwriter, sang I don't cry for
Argentina, but for my family living over there! It was president's
day and Lach was asking who's your favorite, and with regard to
Argentina, being that the terms there have run in the weeks, we reached
a funny new awareness of the differences in the world. His second song
had a great rhythm. I played at some point in the night, Take Me
Love, and the song I'd recorded that day with Major Matt entitled
"Don't Leave me Behind," which by now you'd think I'd know.
"Unlawful combatants, Unwilling Detainees, just call us Prisoners
of War." Maybe next time I'll actually sing that. Lach dispelled my
notion of the kinder than Guilliani Bloomberg with 30 tickets for
postings on public property of a gig at The Sidewalk. He didn't have the
number of the artist who posted (or who had directed his lackey's to do
so for him) so SideWalk gets the tickets. Major Matt sings eloquently on
this subject, a flyer upon a flyer upon a flyer, and everyone represents
a dream.. to paraphrase... posted by Peter Dizozza 3:53 PM
Saturday, February 09, 2002
I've met again Donna Ong, who I know from the second Witchfinders
Production in 1997. Her website is www.athena-music.com. I must include
her in the Star Galaxy. We're at Lisa Dery's apartment in Englewood
right now.
It's
"whom," isn't it...
posted by Peter Dizozza 4:31 PM
[2/5/2002 7:02:28 AM
| Peter Dizozza]
Ah. Another opinion just in, Polly
Paulusma, singer songwriter from London, with whom Major Matt Mason
USA and I shared the bill at Spice of Life. "Peter, I LOVE
Pro-Choice on Mental Health. You get me at that crying/laughing
cusp."
[2/4/2002 6:36:02 PM | Peter Dizozza]
Ah, returning to the office this morning after our London trip I found
the following on my desk, the first review of the Pro-Choice on Mental
Health CD and it's terrible. It's so bad that I must put it on the
website, linked to the PConMH project page, and here it also is:
It's the 4th of February, 2002. The following criticism leaves the
reader with no doubt that it is a negative review of the Pro-Choice on
Mental Health CD.
Applause! Applause! Volume VIII, Issue 2 Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens
Editor in Chief, Tel/Fax: 718-357.7075 A subscription publication
John Patrick Schutz
Pro-Choice on Mental Health - Peter Dizozza
CD Review (CVII Recordings)
As the album cover states, "Pro-Choice On Mental Health - A Seven
Song Cycle with Monologues and Mini-Play" originated on a Strange
Folk Sunday at Lach's Fort at SideWalk in January of 1996. Somehow
though only thirty-seven minutes and twenty seconds long, the piece
seemed to me to take at least two or three geological ages of the world.
Then I actually had to listen to it AGAIN in order to review it
properly. I would love to sue to get that hour and a half of my life
back. To be fair, I am unsure whether this performance art piece is to
be taken seriously or considered a satire of the mental health system in
this country. If seriously, I am very frightened for the artist, and
suggest that he get a new therapist and get off the medication he claims
on the album they are prescribing for him. If this is indeed satire, I
failed to find the humor. Yes, our mental health system leaves much to
be desired, and yes, the "magic pill" for every problem in
your life may have created a generation of insecure neurotics who think
peace of mind can only be found through chemicals. Unfortunately, this
piece doesn't find any recognizable humor in these foibles. The
monologues are abrupt and lacking in focus, and the songs are recorded
with the singer off-key against a sythesized score with a mechanical
rhythm device. Again, extremely unfortunate if serious and extremely
annoying if purposeful.
The song lyrics are simplistic and without clear direction; "Thank
you doctor, you heard all of it, and your pills they do not hurt a bit.
I have been caught in time, to sit with dreams benign. But come the
clear sign, I lash out like lions - in their prime." And so on, and
so on. If you care to listen to someone else's therapy, perhaps this
album is for you. As for me, in ten years of reviewing, I have always
strived to find something positive to say about any work I review, no
matter how unpolished or incomplete. It hurts me to do so, but
unfortunately, the only positive thing I can find about "Pro-Choice On
Mental Health is that having listened to it twice, I will never have to
listen to it again. The album appears to be available through
www.cinemavii.com.
Peter Dizozza comment: It appears from a web search that John Patrick
Schutz is a 2 time MAC nominee Cabaret Performer (The Manhattan
Association of Cabarets & Clubs gives out MAC awards.). He has
worked with Neil Burg, a songwriter music director whom I know from the
BMI Music Theatre Workshop. Although his review is dismissive, I find no
fault in it. I question whether the literal meaning of the word
"listen" applies when he uses it, since it is my position that
if he had listened he would have enjoyed the album. His quote from The
Song of Laughter and Forgetting is representative of my lyric writing. I
do not claim to take medication in the album. Although he states it as
obvious, his well-worded statement, "Yes, our mental health
system..., Yes, the 'magic pill'...." accurately summarizes the
album's intent.
Here's
you're chance to get a copy of your very own. (The new edition is
enhanced with an MPEG scene from The Last Dodo and bonus tracks,
alternate takes of songs from other CVII recordings, featuring my
controversial vocals.)
[2/3/2002 5:18:59 PM | Peter Dizozza]
While in London, I bought Time Out London's number 1640 & 1641.
Here are their Dizozza descriptions.
Number 1640
Friday 25, * Peter Dizzoza + Conrad Vingo + Overwater + Liam Moore +
Andi Neat Up All Night at Spice Of Life W1. Unsigned talent showcase,
headlined by funny anti-folk fella Dizzoza, who plays keyboards for
Major Matt Mason USA and here promotes his new CD, 'Pro-Choice On Mental
Health'.
Number 1641
Wednesday 30 * Peter Dizzoza + Amy Thomas + James Henry + Toph Up All
Night at River Bar & Brasserie S#1, Dizzoza is the latest (and
possibly strangest) star of downtown NYC's anti-folk scene to make it
across the pond. Imagine a nerdy John Turturro playing Woody Allen and
chanelling Harry Nilsson and you're half way to grasping the Sondheim
meets Burroughs vicissitudes of new CD, 'Pro-Choice On Mental Health'.
Maybe he'll perform his sublime, hysterical 'miniplay', 'Self Rape Among
Tubing'.
[1/17/2002 7:50:26 PM | Peter Dizozza]
Heroes is Marvel comics contribution to the World Trade Center Disastor
Relief Fund, the Twin Towers Fund, and the comic may even mention the
idea of someone organizing an auction of the original drawings. Thanks
to Mr. Kay, (first name?) the auction took place this evening at Club
101 at 101 Park Avenue. I piled four country's food atop a plate and
took my seat by Coleen Delaney and there I remet my friend, John
Sturner, who has moved from his DuRona studios (he made children's
comercials in the Yonkers terrytoons studio) into collecting, and his
collecting includes comics. The auction was beautifully conducted by
filmmaker Kevin Smith who bid against the audience for the last piece
and went home with it, THEY DIDN'T EVEN give him a bag, actually there
were bags there, he was just carrying it out to show people its
splendor. It's of a firefighter appearing out of the carnage THANK YOU
to save us (The artist is Brian Stelfreeze). You may know Kevin's alter
ego, Silent Bob, who conducted the silent auction, one of the items
there being a Mercedes Mountain Bike. I wonder who got that.
[1/11/2002 10:14:47 PM | Peter Dizozza]
I spent the past week at the New York City Bar Association with other
members of the Entertainment Committee preparing for this past evening's
presentation of Scaling The Heights: The Life and Times of Betty
Ellerin. I learned that she was the presiding justice on the Appelate
Division, and now Judge Nardelli is acting justice. The governor
appoints the head of this appelate court. The group of people working
together became, rather quickly, a family where people were genuinely
interested in talking and getting to know one another. These times when
there is a project with a due date, a performance project, these are
quite the happiest times. It's also great and expanding, in this ever
expanding universe, to meet new people and to rediscover the world
through them.
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