Our Own Pop Culture

We try to create our own pop culture world. I bought three grapefruits and put one next to Zora, next to her Yoko Ono Grapfruit book. I'm discovering that she loves to follow certain instructions, such as those found in the pages of Ms. Ono's book. The overall result from having the actual grapefruits, though, is that I'm eating a grapefruit. Maira and Zora don't seem to be interested in them, certainly not without the extended preparation they often receive prior to being served. I haven't had a grapefruit in a long time. I do recommend pealing them and eating them, after enjoying the smell of the skin, which I understand can be tossed into the fire to enahnce the smell of its smoke. I guess my mother told me that and also enjoyed eating its white rind, suprisingly tasty overall, though the tradition of serving a carefully prepared grapefruit at a room service breakfast can be fun too. Of course it is not only simpler but also tastier to just peal it and separate the slices. This touches upon my preference for minimal food preparation (I used to cook that way for myself) though Maira does like eating what she cooks, meals which are always fun to eat. I still find Ms. Ono's recorded work a challenge and I'm not sure how well it goes over with Maira and Zora as I am often out walking Fancy while it plays. However, I could see from the Tate Modern Yoko exhibit that we got to see in the beginning of August that Zora had a good connection with the interactive work there (hammering nails, tracing sillouettes and sliding around in bags) and as well as finding fascination with some of Ms. Ono's collaborators (one who did the animation, and there was a Japanese documentary about its artists from the 60's which held her attention). We also saw the Maysle movie of her Charlotte Morman homage with people cutting off her clothing, and most memorably with great music too, The Fly. I'm confronted with the question of buying Ms. Ono's double album, The Fly. Speaking of the Maysles, on my bike ride home from the Street Theater performance at Jackie Robinson Park I passed by The Maysles Center. They were showing The (1973) Spook Who Sat by the Door, so now I know of that movie. I think we tried another one, from a "Black Cinema" category, the Sweet Badass? -- The 1971 Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. The major monstor movie from that era for me is Cotton Comes to Harlem. We also heard the biggest number from Miriam Makeba thanks to Terry Lee King including it in the Street Theater Pre-Show dances. I had already bought one of her albums since I loved other material I had heard played on WKCR radio but the one I got was one of those RCA controlled recordings (I guess Harry Belefonte helped her get signed with RCA. He would often have these generic orchestra accompaniments too). Now at last we know, Pata Pata is hers! We get some pop culture from TCM which showed Jean Paul Belmondo movies, and as a result showed Truffaut's Mississippi Mermaid and Goddard's Pierrot La Fou, as well as the short Goddard made with Belmondo prior to Breathless. As a result we learned about the lovely south of france destination island, porquerolles. These are examples of our own pop culture.

He became distracted from his architectural plans, wasting time with other things that became the House that Jack Built.  I keep returning to that supremely unpleasant movie since it captures a delusion we can maintain while alone, that we are better than everyone else, that we're superior, simply by not putting ourselves under their scrutiny.  It's only at the end that we confront the grand project we've been working on all our lives, that it's a measly pathetic little thing, hardly begun. 
I take breaks to eat yogurt and grapes.  I sit here at the all-purpose dining room table, defeated because I can't find the simple music notebook I'd left on the piano, resting upon a prior notebook, because it's part of the grander Augusteia project. 
The end, no more yogurt and grapes in the bowl.
We're ready to sleep. 

And this is the extent of my thoughts for now, a day at the office followed by a day home, both nights consisting of music rehearsals for a CLE show, this one about the business of Marijuana in a country where States can legalize while the Federal Government can maintain it as contraband.  It was never worse than alcohol, because alcohol is pretty bad for the brain.  How do people manage to live with it and grow old with a sharp mind?

And what point can I make to produce readability?  Will I ever be of a mind to express myself?  Why do I think the crafted way is the better way?  Why can't freestyle be comprehensible, be worth reading.  Oops mosquito. 

Entertainment Notes from Sunday, August 29, 2021 including Prof. Tommy Stathes Cartoon Carnival Program #97, Out to Sea at The City Reliquary

I'll work backwards on (my own) questions from Sunday. There was a 1966 Jan Svankmayer (b September 4, 1934) puppet movie called Punch and Judy on youtube which Zora and I watched before I went to bed... Maira introduced Zora (and me) the the work of Jan Svankmayer through his Alice feature film, also on youtube. The Punch and Judy characters are not Punch and Judy, so the question is, what is that 10 minute movie? imdb trivia: The two protagonists from the traditional Punch and Judy puppet show are Mr Punch and Joey the Clown, a buffoon and jester? The title of the movie is Rakvickarna, and it could be more accurately be called by another name by which it is "known," "The Coffin House." oh, from imdb user reviews (what great free content imdb acquires from its contributors) the US title should be Punch and Jody (Judy's male counterpart). The guinea pig is nature's indifference to human conflict. Tommy's 16mm screenings incuded Small Fry, Max Fleischer, 1939, and the question is about its adaptation of the Hoagy Charmichael song. Did the movie introduce the song? no, lyric by Frank Loesser, introduced by Bing Crosby in Sing You Sinners, 1938. Fleischer's 1930 Barnacle Bill's soundtrack seemed familiar but not the wild animation. I thought it was a Popeye cartoon. The one he showed after called Dizzy Divers 1935, is a Popeye Cartoon, about splitting a treasure chest 50/50 with Bluto. Ah, there are many Barnacle Bills...It's a old drinking song. I'm realizing the end of the first release of Zappa's Gregory Peckery includes a question asked as in this drinking song. THe Wreck of the Hesperus is an 1842 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with Mickey Mouse saving the day and the ticker tape parade that honors him. Ub Iwerks Davy Jones Locker and Sinbad the Sailor featured expressions of Iwerks' unique imagination. I don't have examples. Perhaps its the transformations and unlikely connections in the animation. Inquiries into these individual cartoons are already well covered on familiar ground. Animated movies lend themselves well to obsessive history exploration. One thing I didn't know and we learned at Fort Green is that there were martyrs from a British Prison boat buried at the top of the hill under a massive tower, perfect for Rapunzel letting down her hair; thank you, Zora, for making that connection. We ate at Cafe Paulette at the base by the tall antena across from Fort Green Park. Its bathroom movie poster is La Valseurs, one of the series of the girl idolotry (I don't know what else to call it) of the comic duo by Bertrand Blier. 1974 movie. Cast from members of Cafe de le Gar, the Director was 35, the two leads 26 and 25. The Street Theater performances this weekend were at Fort Green and the day before at Sunset Park.

Spirited Away Notes

You have to keep working or the spell will be broken -- Slave. I'm bound to give work to whomsoever asks. In prison of choice. Mentor, help me. Remember your name or you'll never return home. No sleep. Amusement park, Spa for spirit guests. A Disneyland for the afterdeath. I don't need it. Staying inside will make you sick. It's a spa...

Orson's Shadow, a History Play of the royal families Welles, Olivier, Leigh, Tynan, and Plowright at the crossroads of the year 1960

Both Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier, around the same time, sought to transfer Shakespeare's History Plays to the fixed audio visual medium of cinema, and we can be grateful for what they got done. Mr. Olivier provided movie versions of Henry V, Richard III, and the tragic history of the Danish Prince, Hamlet. Mr. Welles accomplished with greater limitations, a transference to the screen of Macbeth, Othello and a Falstaff blend distilled from Henry IV, V and Merry Wives of Windsor called Chimes at Midnight, which follows in the wake of the Verdi/Boito adaptation, Falstaff. Austin Pendleton, the playwright/actor/writer/director/instructor/singer whose own performing arts history continues from 1960 to the present day, has his own story to tell. Perhaps it can be called the shadow of Orson's Shadow, because he is the writer of a play conceived by Judith Mihalyi, wife of Rene Auberjonois, a stage/screen/TV actor who would have played Laurence Olivier, had he lived. Orson's Shadow, the play Mr. Pendleton dramatized at her request, is currently celebrating its 25th Anniversary with a new production at Theater for the New City, under his direction. Sure Austin's own career is unique but did he have any direct contact with these entertainment icons? He reminds us that, for example, he and Mr. Welles worked together in the Mike Nichols movie version of Catch 22. It's mind-boggling to consider the nebbishness his own appearance so easily communicates throughout his life. Reviewers John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards observed that the play puts Hollywood celebrities at the crossroads of Modern Theater and the more radical artworld of the late 20th Century. I suppose radical art is always with us, but there is a crossroad where the radical becomes popular. The Eugene Ionescu play demanded an English production in 1960 because it engaged with resonence beyond the absurd. The catch phrase for audiences engagement was ... it's about facism. For Laurence Olivier to become worthy of leading Britain's National Theater, he would produce and star in this play. His younger co-star couldn't help but lead him toward it. By engaging with Ionescu, Olivier was engaging with her. So this complicated construct becomes the dramatic opportunity of actors to portray Hollywood royalty. We see the foibles and something of the talent of Laurence Olivier, Vivian Leigh, Orson Welles and Joan Plowright with supportive guidance from critic Kenneth Tynan, and a stagehand named Sean. We see people we look up to as though they are our own royal family and we see them as our friends. Why should we be interested in them? Theater tells the story of people who live large, most of the time. Its characters are usually us as we would be without boundaries. PART TWO Barbara Kahn's 30th Theater for the New City production: Fair Winds/Winds of War Here we are firmly situated in Greenwich Village, 1939, with people closely connected by their Polish and Jewish ancestry. The Landau's, a family already established here is saving their relatives by giving them a place to come to. Coincidentally ... a woman is recording a jazz vocal album of songs she wrote... ok this is what we have for now...