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.

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...

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.

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.

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...

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!

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

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.