12:11 1 Jan 2009

Hearing all of those people in Times Square singing Imagine and the sanity and peace of those words in everyones' hearts and minds. This is a beautiful moment for a new year, maybe era, maybe moment. Went on the roof on my apartment building and saw fireworks from the Delaware River, South Philly and the Sckylkull River against the skylines on a bitter cold night under a cobalt sky and midheaven constellation.

Now, it's time for Garbo.

upcoming- Waiting for your dough....a comedy in one reel

from
Day of Mercury

sighted at its vanishing point on the

When in 1999 we lived the
days echoing
enfolding quietly,
lit in children's weather,
gone by elsewhere,
a terminal brilliance
on a missed eclipse
of forecasts, unapocalyptic

As a test of
secular faith
As a sign that all
is forgiven in flight
forgotten by the sytheclocks
of water
and shadow
time unshrouded
from memory
swept back in
a hollow nova
(don't open a book
for God's sake
The scribbled of the dooms
are for the self damned)
...minds.

I wouldn't have thought
that the lilac would
dance out through the
breeze in quite that way
so unpatterned
or that there would be
that suspension of clearness that is
caught by the eye only
in a windstream that carries
Bach's universe.

I thought of the universe
as an amusement for itself,
with no relation to physics,
without an idea of creation,
or the certainty of collapse,
or any other unreasonable human
vanity,
all facts being relative to
Nothing at all.

Bugger! I've lost my place.

LOTD- "All he talks about is the 70s, no actually, it's worse than that... he actually said, I want to know what love is, I want you to show me." overheard- Burt to Steven at Woody's.

Philadelphia Orchestra NYE concert

Rossen Milanov knows how to give the old tattered year a send-off with classy orchestral repertoire. Even though the entree Strauss waltz seemed to have a presciently sluggish hangover, The overture to Die Fledermaus couldn't have been more bubbly. Singing the masquerade ball scene in character were Heidi Stober, soprano and Hugh Russell, baritone. They had such charm and operatic vocalese for the 'Csardas' and 'The Watch Duet' that you want to hear the whole opretta. Milanov's always charming intros to the pieces, was again made him a perfect host with a sense of occassion. He kept to muscled punctuation in the waltzes. The pristine vista he essay in 'The Blue Danube' was unfortunately marred by a cellphone on cue.

bloggerflix

Meryl Streep's performance in 'Doubt' is so layered and played out in full scenes ala the period in American filmmaking that the film happens to be set in. Rarities on both counts. Lucky this year that there is another performance that is just as compelling with some of the same qualities- Frank Langella's scathingly human portrait of Richard Nixon in Ron Howard's film version of 'Frost/Nixon.' Langella, who created the role on stage last year, reprises it with Shakespearean tragicomedia, intact on film. With any luck these two actors will consider teaming up in, say, a much needed new American version of 'MacBeth.'

potd by Jan Carroll
Sphvanx for the memories

LOTD overheard

"He proposed and gave her the ring and when she opened the box said without pause 'this is princess cut, I have to have square.'

note to Miss Dubois

Cold staring over a sliver a moon tonight is Venus masquerading as the biggest star.

Bloggerdrill:

From NYT's political writer Bob Herbert's column today.

"When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country."

I second that with a revisit to my Dec. 2006 article 'Beyond Bush'


I remember how much our generation hated Nixon and that hate galvanized the issues into real action, not just mud-slinging. But to many, Nixon’s bigger crimes and misdemeanors was his mishandling of an immoral war and his sacrifice of American soldiers in abstruse concept of ’peace with honor’ in Vietnam. Nixon’s war lies were stifled by the Watergate flood. I say this as a gay liberal pacifist (for lack of a better political label) who disagrees with the President on just about everything.

After he got in, Bush made it clear that any pro-gay stance by his administration was off the table. It was very difficult for me not to despise the President after he courted the gay vote in 2000, then endorsed the rabid anti-homosexual agenda for the next 6 years. And there is no forgetting the vitriolic attitudes his administration held against opponents of the war in viciously questioning their patriotism.

winter Sphvynx

POTD by Jan Carroll

From
Jeffyfish Ball

Platinum ice dome
Matches my hair
Absorbed the sun that
Hex spotted the rolling
Veil, the corps
fanning at dusk,
Exposing and hiding
Their fleshua, descending
Cracking
Picked up whales’ sonar
(same old slabs loitering
Since forever)
Trolling for our iniquities
Flying in unlikely
Formations and mistaken
For our escorts
the pink
Fairy crabs trying
To radiate their
delusion
When they blithely
Signal the
Beginning of this dance
Vesci enshrouds her
Topaz veins,
just to take the floor
That expanse
waves
conclave
Domed plumes,
she trips ova
Her lilac cape aswirl
Exposing a cancerous spine
Brilliant against
The ice basilica
Her mercury scrim
Ballone on the tendril
of the satin phallus
and the laughing hymen

from Madrigal

Clive: Whilst that he make only a lonely heart.
Ian: A heart that waits not to be so alone.
Clive: But that he liveth in anothers’ exile.
Ian: That it is so willed by others.
Clive: When others disgrace my heart's meaning.
Ian: Thou in thy holy company.
Clive: Don’t dare consider it mine.
Ian: Who has but last considered it?
Clive: One that is true to thy heart.

Purrr Eartha

Eartha Kitt has died at age 81.

Last year, I was lucky enough to get to interview Ms. Kitt for Edge Magazine. She may have played a campy Catwoman on Batman but over six decades she had nine real lives on stage, recordings, film and tv. She most endured as an indelible and influential cabaret and jazz singer.

Ms. Kitt never forgot her legions of fans in the GLBT community. In fact, she told me “I owe a lot to the gay world. When I got into trouble with the government, the gay world they kept my name alive . They kept imitating me, and bought my records… so I’m very grateful for that.“ Like a lot of gay men, her purr was on my hard drive before I had a computer.

Here is part of our interview from May 2007, a week before she appeared at an arts fundraiser at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

A growly contralto came through my phone in May of 2007. “Yes?” This is Lew.. “Yes?….” Can I call you Eartha……..“yesss“ Forget Eartha, I was turning to stone by that devastating voice. Ms. Kitt had agreed to a phone interview with me a week before her last performance in Philadelphia. Will there be any way to journalistically capture a conversation with Eartha Kitt? Impossible from the start because it is a completely unique live experience. But that voice is so well known that everyone who has heard it and can hear it purring in their mind at will.

For me I can still summon the image of Eartha singing ‘Santa Baby,’ looking naked except for a white fox stole she held in front of her. Eartha surrounded by mirrors, every inch of her percolating as she sing the sumptuous ‘C’est Si Bon.’ Eartha telling Nat King Cole that he should play his own music in the movie ‘St. Louis Blues.’ And later, in Philadelphia, Eartha at Equus, singing in the day singing her campy disco hit. And further back. Eartha as Catwoman! Only Ms. Kitt could make everybody fall in love with her with the line ‘I want to be evil, I want to spit nails.”

Come On-A My House

“I’m sitting out here on a balcony and a veranda that looks over the Saugatuck. I have to be where water is, I have to live where I can see the water.” Kitt said quietly. Such a concrete image, Eartha on a balcony. There were so many that were swirling in my head as I was trying not to fawn.

Kitt is celebrating her 80th birthday this year and will be performing at a gala arts event honoring Pennsylvania Mayor Ed Rendell at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia May 17, then she will be appearing at Carnegie Hall and with various symphony orchestras.

She returns to the famed Carlyle Room in New York this fall, her current CD Kitt was in ‘Nine, the Musical’ on Broadway “those women were absolutely fabulous. I just finished in ‘Skin of our teeth’ and which will probably be fixed to go to Broadway with it.” A whole new generation know her through her characterizations in Disney movies.

“Now I’m going to be with the symphony in Ottawa, I’m leaving in a couple of hours. My program is varied from doing legitimate theater or it can be cut down or enlarged. What is this place that I’m coming to now?” she asked.

For her return to the Carlyle she will not be performing only her standards. “ Some of those things I’ve done there before, that what‘s on Live At The Carlyle. We’re always working on new songs, not what they are writing these days because I think those songs are not very meaningful. The business is so so so commercial for money…..I think it’s lost it’s salsa, as we say in Spanish, the soul.

blogdiary

Another postponed holiday family outing, so for anyone who is home, I'm with you. Talked for two hours with my mother, Ann, widower to widow, still struggling. I'm listening to the radio (Nancy Wilson singing 'Oh, Holy Night') reading ('Body, Remember' Kenny Fries moving memoir about his life growing up with congenital birth defects, gay and Jewish). No live performances around town, but, it's raining I'm going to stroll down to Rittenhouse Square to look at the community Christmas tree and the Menorah.

A fungal xmas


POTD by Jan Carroll

blogflix

Just too cold to stay in last night and I dashed across town on my bike, Greg, to see 'Doubt.' It is understandably getting mixed reviews, obviously not to every taste because it is a movie with well constructed theatrical scenes, character driven dialogue and thoughtful performances.

Be warned holiday moviegoers- Nothing explodes, no one's face gets pealed off, it is not about the apparently endlessly fascinating topic of serial killers, it doesn't rob from classic films and it is not an animated fairy tale with famous voices phoning it in.

Even though it is very stagy, even has leaden symbolism, but how lucky are we, for $9to be able to see Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, two of the finest actors working in films, face off in a Pulitzer Prize winning drama. Contrived, certainly, but well-made plays usually are.

unscripted

The opposite of death is desire

Tennessee Williams was a Virgo and it has often been speculated that Blance Dubois, the vainglorious doomed heroine of A Streetcar Named Desire was a female version of the playwright, or at least represented his emotional life.

He made Blanche a Virgo and sharing her sign, I have all had the thought that we really are all Blanches. The difference among us is how we play her. Williams seems to written the blueprint to our souls which we instinctively want to share with the world, but soon come to understand that bared souls are something to toy with. Williams stated in an interview that he viewed Stanley and Blanche representing human impulses in all of us.

Virgos also are astrologically driven to stay pure, so they don’t handle guilt well. They must eventually confess their sins. The avoidance of this takes them down paths that they wouldn’t have lovingly chosen. And we have the added cosmic distinction of not have a sighted planet.

Blanche’s sister Stella tells Stanley, her husband, that a brutal world changed Blanche that ‘no one was more loving…..’ Blanche is so sensitive and tender she falls in love with a gay man in pursuit of a empathetic companion.

Her shock at the discovery that he wasn’t just a poet but a sexually active homosexual causes her to lash out, so her lover kills himself. Blanche cannot handle the guilt of this and starts to escape in liquor, fantasies and sex.

She logically handles her romantic fantasies by embracing poetry, literature and music and tries to make her life as a high school English teacher. Her libido is more stoked by romanticism and after the death of her mother, her grief is acted out by avoidance. Her seductions and hunt for sex to forget tragedy throws her into a mid-life heat. Williams wrote this decades before it was culturally understood that many women hit their sexual peaks at Blanche’s age.

She usually ‘takes her victims to the Tranantula Arms’ she defiantly tells her hapless suitor Mitch. The opposite of sex is desire- this classic Williams line speaks to a psychological mystery of heightened libido during the grief period when a spouse dies.

After my husband Jack died I would watch that scene over and over again. My inner Blanche was totally unleashed. It is a psychodrama that unfolds often at the death of a spouse often arouses the libido. Unless, like Blanche, you are led offstage to an unstable future in a state facility for poor, traumatized relatives, one must work it out alone.

Ouija world

A time sketch faintly summoned
For someone else’s dream
lyric its memory
from the pulse of escape
Sound trapped inside reason of
Cursèd motive
Recalled in sepia yet
Of such vibrant emotion
The figures rewound out of the room.

Sometimes fragments of music
Fade in and out
Sometimes collapsing blood cells
Are heard
Sometimes touch is felt
Digging graves are words.

Shadows of the planets dance
An echo implodes
In the rooms of the dead
Without notice
The lace poised in foredrop
Grasp the unknown.

Rarer still
The overture of dying and death
Rarer than ever soundproof grief
Cascading unrest
Forever indiscreet.

Forever forgotten
A soul’s gaze
forever
Its battlement crumbling on
The concert of the days

The dismissal heralded by
Trumpets as
Your heart
your rooms
Your halls

I turned away the
Flowers in your gardens from
The glare that opened
Your gates to let me float out.

Still the scent of lilac
Led me out of the path.

potd by Jan Carroll




fall exit

sombra

They didn't cut

‘A Chorus Line’ taps into the ’I really need this job’ mood of the country right now. 1n 1975, Michael Bennett’s workshops with out of work and struggling Broadway dancers resulted in one of Broadway’s biggest hits. He brought show gypsies up front and the allegory of everyone working their asses off just to get a chance to work their asses off resonates now more than ever.


scene backstage:

Hanging out with Nate D & Michael C before the show in the Forrest alley. After the show, one of them thought we were just having an intermission drink. Anita was also seen loitering with intent.

Tap on ice for a closer look




No slacking from me for once... on Jan Carroll's Icepics which I really love. Here are two favorites-

So much for ice cubism

upcoming.....more icepics

POTD by Jan Carroll



'kickkick_stepstep'

club solstice

the air is not silent
it is hissing and it is
heavy and thin
like the memory of mothers' milk
like the memory of cum
like the foredrop of arsenic or
godivas or
morning tobacco saving last
night from the
smell of burnt coffee and locker rooms
But mostly I see it
and it is a chunk of theater or
points of azumith exploding
or neurons from
inner space or
the attack of body displacement
or the nightswimmer silencing
the fall.

winter 1979

scene backstage

Schmucks/
The play’s structure is as kitschy as its East Village diner set- formica tables, vinyl booths, glass bloc cutaway onto Warner Bros. noir exteriors. The rainmaking was fab and Patsy and Elvis are on the pastel bulb jukebox. The Wilma should consider installing it in the lobby. Other than a few heavy drama drapes, this play is a gas man A great fantasy sequence. A silent hint- it’s dancey, honky, snorty and has a song medley from, among others, Doris Day, Gene Kelly and Ethel Merman.

winter alive

Merlin


barky treats


POTD by Jan Carroll

Cassiopia spacelens


Beethoven all day on WRTI. Why talk.

just in

Winter storms.................................because it's winter.....
................Gov. Rod Blagojevich maintains his volumizer even with conditioner looming.................................Beethoven's birthday................again...

ballet moments

Riolama Lorenzo and Sergio Torrado who were so thrilling in Balanchine’s Nutcracking Sugarplum Fairy-Cavalier pas de deux. Lorenzo leapt and locked on Torrado’s shoulder so solidly in sequence that it took your breath away. Beside tricks, their classic stage presence, diamond hard technique and smoldering chemistry is hypnotic. They could dance this on any stage in the world to slavish cheers, but fortunately, you have to come to Philly to catch them.

the lion in winter

Gowns by................................................Adrian
Bunzie:
Oh, no, no Adrian
not the silk, dear
please, that hairy
silk makes me look like a cello case.

Adrian:
Don't you thing
I know hwow to dress
you bynow, you haridan in waiting
I'm doing this desing
for you in spiked linen, I alweady
told you.

Cecil:
(to himself)

God, who do we have
but the dead stars!
Garbo, who else?
Leigh, god who wouldn't
Crawford, there's always more
Deitrich, antifascist Nazi
Davis, elegant hysteria
Harlow, defines gravity
Bankhead, Mr. Woman!

Bunzie:
Oh, yes, you did say that
but I don't trust you
but I'm stuck with you
because everybody thinks you're
the best.

Adrian:
Suwe, Sura, petite
It's all loves and kwisses on
the ass and hips, you can
almost hear the balls dropping!
nocque. By the way are you
going to Kitty's tonight?

Cecil:
Oh, I could go on and on
Did I mention Jean, the singing Athena
Oh, are you listening fellows?
But don't you see that
this dress is't form fitting
in its present form, there's a big difference


Bunzie:
Weill, I was going to
go
but I don't have anything to put on
this shell of a body.

Adrian:
darling, do yew thing I'd leve ya in the lurch?

Cecil:
It's what I live for.

Bunzie:
remember last time
I walked in that room and
it was like the the room dressed me.
what was it made of mercury or something

Adrian: (to Cecil)
Oh, delusion leads to seclusion
Yes, dear, thas is liquid plutonium on you
I lost my fingerprints for that dress!

Cecil:
As a matter of fact
you could dress the gods!
No do you think you
can find something for me that
doesn't make me look like
Eleanor Roosevelt in drag?

Adrian:
Look that way for the answer.

Cecil: Hah, I remember that one from the Navy.

Bunzie:
Well, you gave this to me last year!

Adrian:
To throw away, ducky!

Cecil:
Attractive brute!
venal wench!

Bunzie:
You know you haven't really done
your best work since Marcel died
I hate to say it.

Adrian:
Well, you could actually be right for once,
so write it down Cecil.
He was...well I have more time now to fuck it up.

Cecil:
You two were too too divoone
Everybody adored you both
You know this town was a lot more fun
with you two.

Adrian:
Yes, well, you know, shut up!

Bunzie:
It must have been devastating, darling
Catastrophic. I didn't want to mention it.
How do you get through it?

Adrian:
By murdering Cecil later.

Cecil:
It must have been..well..just too too much
Don't think about it darling.

Adrian:
Too late!
Yes well. You knew
when Marcel was on his deathbed he broke my
heart for the first time and I couldn't
handle it when he handed me that check.

I nevwer knew whether
he said to get a headstone
or a stone as big as his head. Hah!

Bunzie:
Oh, the ring
that...I love that Gotterdamnering!
There, how do I look?

Cecil:
You've got to be kidding
is she Hitler's maid or something?

Adrian:
Oh, she's grand. Just grand.

Cecil:
I thought you clipped that beard?

Adrian:
Oh, she's fine.

Bunzie:
I think so. I wasn't going to
tell anyone, but do you know what happened?
I was arrested for drunk driving and they
threw me in the ....

Adrian:
Pokey?!

Cecil:
Slammer?Brig?Bighouse?Can?Hoosegow?Roundhouse?

Bunzie:
Pokey! I told them it wasn't the booze but
the drugs and they just roughed me up anyway.

Cecil:
Well at least you were picked up.

Adrian:
When was the last time Cecil.

Cecil:
I don't really remember. I think Salome was bartending!

Bunzie:
Boys, boys. Remember me.
Anyway I bought this this morning
in case you didn't have anything for me.

Adrian:
I hate you, you know,

Bunzie:
You love me and that's it. Anyway,
I bought this this morning.
A pastel pasley fabric weaved by imprisoned nuns
on the Barbary Coast. Isn't it
just...

Cecil:
Yes, just..

Adrian:
What is that color? It's like
vomity orange.

Cecil:
Impeach! Impeach!Impeach!

Bunzie:
Well I got it at Coco's after all.

Cecil:
Big as a house!
I saw one of those on Devil's
Island. From above.

Adrian:
No one over the age of
12 should wear puff sleaves or
florals unless you are dancing
Agnes' part in one of her stupid
ballets.

Bunzie:
Well!

Cecil:
Well! well, what is
she wearing Adrian?

Adrian:
Oh, yes sourry darlings.
This is going to be magniviscenti
on you.
You are not even going
to be wearing that dreass
it will wear you.

Bunzie:
Oh, god, yes yes yes
Oh, I love you
darling Adrian
You are a god!

Adrian:
Dear Bunzie.

Cecil:
Alright. Halt. Basta. Don't speak.

Bunzie:
Guess I'm off.
By the way...ah,
what is wrong with your voice dear.
If you don't mind me asking?

Adrian:
Well, if you must know and I know you must.
I too recently spent ze time in the
how did you put it? pokey? myself....
actually it was more of a brig.

But that is too big a story for
such a little day.
let's face it the men are impossible.

Well, maybe I tellya abat et with cocktails?

Let's go for drinks?!

Bunzie:
Cocktails finally!

Cecil:

Coctailas, at last.

Adrian:
Yes, lovely get me a drink. Vokavater, mater's ruin.

tbc


tbc

BLOGDRILL

Don't spare the rod

Illonois gov. Rod Blagojevich will be doing the Nixon 'I'm not a crook' dance tomorrow when he eclipses the soaps with his own opera. Republican operatives are doing punch fronts to link Barack Obama to Rod's political snakepit. Never mind that the Prez-elect obviously has nothing to do with this. Republicans are determine to deny the incoming president a honeymoon even before he gets into office. Come to think of it, he can even forget the wedding night.

As for the hissing gov- hack the Dan White hair and fall on your own rod.

and now for something completely fouffy

Smiles on SCHMUCKS

Roy Smiles’ new play SCHMUCKS will have the US premiere at the Wilma in Philadelphia. He writes scabrous comic and political plays, but, at the beginning of his career, was not so successful as a stand-up comic. The play pits an up and coming commedian, about to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, against comic legends Groucho Marx and Lenny Bruce when he meets them in a NY diner during the infamous 1965 blackout. A comic pissing contest ensues, with fried egos on the side.

This is excerpted from an email interview with Smiles from his home in England for Edge Mag.

Lew: What did they mean to you creatively, as a comic writer?

RS: I am certainly influenced by their iconoclastic view of a repressive society: they mocked patriotism, conservatism, racism, nationalism, name it. Which is as refreshing today as it was then. If I have any purpose it is to mock the staid notions of smug and self-satisfied societies. Particularly in England, the most anal nation on earth. We mock Americans going to therapy whilst we start soccer riots and are drunks to a man. Hey, we’re so superior…

L: Groucho got away with murder with sexual innuendo. Compared to British comics, was Groucho as popular in England as he was here?

RS: Huge, Particularly in the North of England, Scotland and Ireland, where they tend to be anti-government and officialdom anyway. They’re certainly sexually obsessed - as was Groucho in real life and on screen. The Marx Brothers were the most popular American comics of the 1930s in the UK to a considerable degree. With the working classes as well as the highbrows.

L: -Lenny changed the landscape for everybody. Did Bruce have the same impact in England?

RS: Lenny had an impact in England because Peter Cook brought him to the Establishment Club in ‘62 where he caused a sensation to such a degree that when Cook tried to get him back in ’63 for the Edinburgh Festival the Home Secretary barred him from the UK – forever!

The Beyond The Fringe team never stopped raving about him in interviews of the time. Jonathan Miller signed the petition in his support when he began to be busted. Having said that though, save amongst comics, he’s sadly forgotten in the UK today.

L: Lenny Bruce was one of the first comics to talk about gay life. When you look at Bruce, especially after the trials, he relentlessly tried to break taboos and sexual barriers.

RS: Lenny was sympathetic to gays and had many gay friends. Which didn’t stop him mocking them of course. Lenny tended to side with any group that was being persecuted or being judged by the conservative values of Eisenhower/McCarthy America.

Famously suggesting the Lone Ranger wanted sexual knowledge of Tonto, got him into all kinds of trouble. The Catholic Church and the Catholic-Irish police (particularly in Chicago) were rabid in their pursuit of bringing him down/arresting him as much as possible for his use of language.

L: How difficult is it to write dialogue for Lenny Bruce & Groucho Marx? Are you intimidated by these icons?

RS: I’m intimidated by Sean Connery, Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus; anyone else is fair game, mate! No, I find writing Groucho and Lenny speech patterns quite natural as I’ve been listening to their albums or watching their movies since I was a kid, so it’s ingrained in the Old Noggin to a degree.

L: Do you enjoy the pubs in Philly?

RS: Being part Scots-Irish it feels like coming home. The pubs are God-like. London pubs are overcrowded and unfriendly so it’s great coming to a city where you can get a seat and the bar staff actually smile…

L: Because of their legendary status in the US, Schmucks could be a huge hit or a big risk in its premiere here. Any predictions?

RS: Yes, a huge risk! Who’s this big nosed English fool, coming over here, writing about our famous comedy Jewish Gods…he’s a Protestant atheist for crying out loud, how dare the Limey swine! No, I just hope the American public recognize that the play is written with love and sympathy for two guys who, though far from perfect personally, were trying to tear down the walls of hypocrisy …that surrounded them.

Holiday missile

Not to be horrid on the eve of the collective holiday season, but, even in an economic meltdown, I keep hearing friends trying to juggle their busy lives with the expectations of families who want to relive A 1960 Christmas. Note to seniors in retirement with a lot of time on their hands- those days are as gone as leaded tinsel.

Those in the active work force who pump money into the economy that prop up a whole host of government programs including social security benefits, medicare and medicaid, are tired. Most people I know who can afford to just have one job, are working twice as hard to keep it. Summons to appear at family holiday gatherings and all of the other 'festive' holiday activites should be off the holiday table this year.

Holiday card to adult children who appear every year and are considering bailing-
Let 'em eat guilt.

poeme commedia

Dora Maar avec le chat

The eyes of Dora bothered Pablo
more than anything else
He forgave her hideously veiny hands
spanking
His brushes against the wall coverings and
He had nightmares about her
cyclopean calluses
so he also knew
He had to paint them
and spread them
Out over her body
As soon as the light was right..
He mused that he thought her eyes shallow,
after all that sex
So refused to actually look at them,
but
Committed to paint her portrait.
Little doubt
She knew of his intimate contempt
And cursed his penis instead of cutting it off
As a humanitarian act.

She got him back though
and sat 3 days for him without moving a muscle
Making him feel like he had to work nonstop
She secretly replaced his
Strega flask with the turpentine can.
And almost broke tantric concentration
when he ran to the bathroom, tripping over his
mocassins
She exhaled only when the cat swiped her paw at his ass
pulling the strings of his underwear.

But otherwise Dora stayed perfectly still.



Of course Dora, now famed
for her lethal stoicism and fearless ability
To scale and sail.

Her storied crossing across the
Iberian peninsula barefooted was
The subject of modern cave drawings
She rounded Cape Horn in a tin sailboat
During an oceanic earthquake.
She remained unbroken after two-weeks of the 3rd degree
by the KBG
And inched down the Eiffel
Tower undetected the day the Nazis seized Paris
She was in a stare off with
Gertrude Stein
so long that the famous lesbian
spent the rest of her days
Staring at the sun (and ignoring Alice)
trying to relive the experience
( Pablo painted Gertrude
without her knowledge or consent).

Pablo knew cosmically
He must capture Dora for posterity
so
‘Dora Maar avec le chat’
Ended up at Sotheby’s Auction
In an investor grudge match and a mystery
Bidder called in 95.2 million.
Dora is reported to have
Been pissed about
Bidding second to Pablo’s
‘Garcon a la Pipe’ which sold for 104 million
Two years previously
Actually as far as we know the blue boy didn’t even
Get a new pipe out of the deal,

Picasso reportedly painted him in a rush
Commission after Martha Graham
Threw him out of her dance rehearsal
for giggling.
He was supposed to start a portrait of
Martha in
pencheè arabesque
over Dora’s Cat
but Dora kept pulling out catnip.
When he got back to his studio Dora
had the coffee ready
To distract Pablo from the episode.
They talked about the afternoon
and the Cat kept
Hopping from lap to lap until Picasso got aroused
and told Dora to stop looking at him.
“Two thing bother me about you Pablo, you
Vant to know? No? I tell you anyway. Your face.”

scene backstage

Anita Stoylichnaya just drunk texted me to say that it wasn't her, that she was in fact dancing in both acts in the back of the corps de ballet.

Opening night of Pennsylvania Ballet's Nutcracker

Forgiven audience members who forgot it started at 7, but unforgiven those audience members who were taking pictures. It is not just an annoyance, it is a very real danger for the dancers. Besides the pic results are usually too far away and crappy if it is just a regular camera. If that doesn't convince you, beware that you could be ejected for flashing in the Academy.

After that bit of nastiness, it's time for something fungal.

How about the secret life of 'schrooms













'Been5' by Jan Carroll

politcal cave-ins

Patricia Blagojevich, the wife of aflame Illinois Gov. Rod, is being cast as Lady Macbeth in the media. Shakespeare can fill in the gaps.

Lady Macbeth:
What's the business,
That such a hideous trumpet call to parley
The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak.

and of course these infamous parting words spring rhymingly to mind

Lady Macbeth: Help me hence, ho!

LOTD x 2In an email after I suggested to Jan Carroll, a photographer among many other things, that she catch 'Wonders are Many' a doc about Dr. Atomic on PBS this week.

"I like opera.... til they start singing."then the follow-up.

"I'm not sure that's a new line. I probably heard it somewhere. Are there new lines about opera?"


POTD by JC ' A comedy tonight'

Classical
Two piano recitals this week were occasions for brilliant undecorated musicianship, but reminded that classical music can be as thrilling as every other musical genre.

The Curtis Institute of Music’s Alumni Recital Series brought violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute to the Field Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon. Koh first played Partita No. 2 by J. S. Bach, with casual confidence and almost rote skill. Jokubaviciute accompanied Koh for Brahms’ “Sonata no. 2.” There was even an intriguing reserve from both musicians in the atmosphere of this reading of Brahms that is never overwrought Jokubaviciute particularly pointed away from the intrinsic romanticism.

Or were they saving themselves for their diamond hard performance of Bé la Bartok’s “Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano.” From the assaulting opening passages, this work just ripped through the consciousness. It is like each instrument is a speeding parallel train without tracks. The players were expert as jazz artists in the handoffs, the tonal collisions and framing the solos. The scarred tremolos of Koh’s violin lead to Jokubaviciute’s exploration of Bartok’s desolate chambers. A darkly metaphysical work completely illuminated by these two thrilling artists.

On Monday, Daniel Barenboim continued his conquest of Philly, musically, if not personally. He was in town for a solo piano recital in Verizon Hall. On Saturday, WRTI broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera production of “Tristan and Isolde” was no less than a complete triumph. Everything came over in the five hour broadcast- the power, poetry, drama and epic grandeur of Wagner- conducted brilliantly by Maestro Barenboim.

It was redemption of sorts for Barenboim and WRTI listeners after his thorny interview the week before with Crossover host Jill Pasternak. He barely let her get her questions out and pretty much sounded like he wasn’t interested in what she had to say as a musician herself. She hung in there and landed one of the show’s most compelling interviews. Barenboim couldn’t have been more gracious in front of the almost sell-out audience at Verizon, as he unceremoniously launched into a program of Franz Liszt.

For anyone who thinks of Liszt as a showy, Barenboim was about to reveal the real musical world of the 19th century composer. Amazing that such a bombastic personality as Barenboim could achieve the stillness of Liszt’s ‘ Petrach Sonnets‘ with such skill that the serenity extended out to an unusually transfixed audience right out of the gate. Those Sonetto (47, 104, 123) are part of the composer’s musical diary - from his student travels observing nature to his studies and loves. Barenboim, measured and engaged, essays a supple musical journey with such relaxed precision it was a sight to behold and to hear.

The watery entrance of ‘Legendes’ has a slight comic flair in Barenboim’s hands, because of his ease with the density. In fact, there was even some mach- tempo muddiness, he was so fast. The clarion opening of the so called ‘Dante Sonata’ (Liszt’s unattributed passages from the Divine Comedy) Barenboim’s states with steely muscle and virtuosic attitude befitting the themes.
The second half brought Liszt’s ‘paraphrases’ (as opposed to transcriptions) of Verdi operas “Aida”, “Il Trovatore” and “Rigoletto.”

The maestro pianist is incandescent in transmitting his understanding of the import of Liszt’s operatic achievement for the piano. He is so operatic, in fact, that these fanciful cameos condensed images of Aida summoning her guard, Leonora dazed and Rigoletto lurking in the night. Mopping he head at the end, the crowd was able to coax the pianist out for one more and Barenboim condescended with a little Schubert.

tintype no. 5

The Dreamers' Dream

Awoke to ink drunk
Picasso circus
Loop
With/ Gayboy acrobats
Torsos in aerial whips / Concussive on a flying trapeze bar
Knocking me off the platform.
T dance at the M & M
In Atlantic City
Waiting for club drugs
When Timmy
asked us to danceWith him if we wanted any
As we bumped our brains out
With flesh camouflage surrounding
The music .

Underground with water pipes
Standing in the subzero drain
Smoking.
We didn’t collapse because we were
Pushed together on the dance floor
But we both had concussively
survived
You said I saw this in a movie
And we laughed like idiots.

Saw Chet in the lav waiting for drugs and
He played us a mournful ballade.
We stood up O’Hara at the opera and fucked instead.
(those dreams mingle so he can sleep)

Found the record that we used to let play
As we headed to the beach and we could
Hear it from the house as we watched
The night swimmers coming back from
Their underwater fuck.

Took everything back
To the point of excavation
And saw you coming toward me
Over and over again
Even as I was loosing you / Cancer, Disappeared / Still Lives
The handwriting above the headlines

Had this dreamers dream
Cutout of the ocean off the
Port of New York and
All of the creatures of Atlantis
Pressed on the crystal bloc
For inspection
Like animation from Verne

You said not to look and not to be afraid
Then you said that’s how we should die
I woke before I knew what you meant.
Actually the next day we were

On the beach and you went into the water with me
With your cigarette and we danced in the surf
While everyone had lunch and cocktails
on our blankets.
They laughed at your arm
holding the cigarette
Above the wave as we were thrown ashore.

We swam over the augers of the deposed
We swam in our own amniotic sea

The solid structure of the universe
ends in a beam
shadeless and prismatic
a distance to the mind
somewhat of a fantasy
Particular to the man
on seaward time
(starlit rock cut in sinister design)
The cut male structure as
Seen standing up
May be a late movement in art
sometime just a stratagem
Some equatorial gilt pendulum
casting light to secular hearts
Burning off the color of the water
Vaporous reprimand
And this proffer is a sacred
Notion
Of crystal desire in the sand
Dashing in the ocean.

For Jack Nespoli
remembering all of the summers together

TV is still gloriously out. Eat my cable Comcast. Fortunately, I still have a tv with a vcr in it, so last Aug. I taped all of these movies but never watched them. Last night, dozing during a Garbo documentary and woke up at different times to Camille, Ninotcha and these trance inducing images of Garbo doing a screen test in 1949, looking luminous.


upcoming-

Gowns by .....................................................ADRIAN

Koresh prog. 2, Dec. 7

KDC’s Negative Spaces, a work expanded from a very rough cut shown at DanceBoom! Festival in 2005 is another very ambitious narrative work in 17 scenes without intermission, does not have the cohesion achieved in ‘Theatre,’ but has many choreographic strengths. Very interesting next to Theater, because it again shows Roni Koresh’s expanded narrative template.
Negative Spaces is the real and imagined life of a ‘bum’ played by the mesmerizing Eric Bean. Not only a brilliant dancer, but a heartbreaking comic actor. His punch-drunk duet with fellow souse Mecah Geyer, may have pratfalls, but also sleek somersaults and capoera moves. When someone Bean him he’s a bum, it cuts deep “I’m not a bum, you don’t know me” Bean brings all the universality to this.

Matinees

12/6

Doug Varone Dance, a favorite Dance Celebration PA emigree, was positively luxurious in LUX, but completely lackluxier for the rest of the program.

12/7

best B gets A++++

At Curtis Alumni Recital Series Jennifer Koh and Ieva Jokubaviciute warmed up with Bach & Brahms, but couldn't take the chill off the recital for a spellbinding performance of Bartok's Sonata no. 1 for violin & piano.

gyrascopes v4.var


My lover
Possessing psychic powers
I knew nothing about this until
He casually remarked that
Our late friend Alan
Had passed through
The bedroom mirror
that faces our bed.
He then recounted other
instances in his life
When he had been in the
company of the once living
(I unwillingly rethink all of this data on one grainy
Weekend when I hid from everything but my
Disconnected thoughts of shooting stars and

scene backstage

unconfirmed reports that Anita Stoylichnaya arrived at the wrong theater dressed for the harem dance Coffee, and attacked a stagehand when she was informed that she was in fact cast as Mother Gingerbread. "Get away from me vith that cookie, cookie or I'll kick your neck in." she screamed.

‘Theater of Public Secrets’ premiering at The Roberts Theater, in its complete two acts is a bona fide Koresh Dance classic already. Shown in excerpts in Philly last winter, choreographer Roni Koresh has been developing and expanding it all year, and it has become the Koresh work to see on tour in Japan, Turkey and Israel. For those not in the mood for holiday fluff, this is dance drama you can sink your teeth into. Melissa Rector and Jae Hoon Lin’s incredible chemistry depicting a passionate and troubled affair, is hypnotic.

Anita Stolichnaya tells the children before they rehearse first act about

about the night prohibition ended on this day in 1933. "Af curse, prohibition, never stopped me. Mr. B. and me, you know children we used to get drunk always, he had the boys cart it around for him. prohibition, I didn't know what they were talking about, until we were getting drunk... in the gulag or what do you call it here?... the pokey."

upcoming

Anita Stolichnaya is back in town as guest prima ballerinska in several area productions of the Nutcracker. She will also be blogging at will, from backstage. Stolichnaya is returning to the stage after recovering from a pointe shoe incident that occurred at the Russian embassy in Prague.

notes

Verizon Hall

Philadelphia Orchestra. Wagner/Beethoven/Brahms program

The program notes that Schoenberg wanted the strings out from under the virtuosity of the piano passages of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1. Result is both captivating and frustrating because you yearn to hear those piano scales with all of their diamond hard clarity. But, this is a musical tryst to remember. Loved the clamorous sonic drapery of the 2nd movement.

MaestroAndrey Boreyko builds the drama with beautiful detailing, not completely evading some sloshy symphonic soup. The Intermezzo is ponderous even for Brahms.
But, what a first rate 4th movement rondo, played with such character style and thrilling tempi. The flute and string roulades that broke into a rowdy Hungarian dance.

gyro 3v.

In an undisclosed location.
There are also roused diseases like
Ebola shaken
Out from under the tropical canopy
These diseases,
if disturbed enough
Can transmutate to human.
Something that astounded virologists
until they admitted they
were behind the science, again.

C’est la vie
Microbes, microbes
And we all fall down
I’m thinking that I will eat shit.

:Gabbros excavated from
The Pacific Ocean floor
West of Costa Rica
Were formed from
Magma that boiled out from the core
15 million years ago
Now pebbles that
Are extra pieces:

diary entry

My cable is off, so I'm hearing just the headlines on NPR, but in a lot of ways that is better. Hearing the news from India, it's hard not to hate those who destroy others in the name of their own politics, beliefs, country or religion. Hard to stay involved with life really, because it is so ugly at times. But we must fight any impulse to be passive and we must stand for peace in the world.

Milk it

Deflected invitations for Thanksgiving and wasn't able to drive to see my mother, so I played holiday hooky- ignored dls, went to Sweat, then to see Sean Penn in Milk. A great part for him and he milks it with everything he has. He'll get the oscar for this one. Operatic in its intensitity and full of the stations of the gay cross. Absolutely loved it. Beautiful performances from Mr. Penn and James Franco who plays Milk's his first lover Scott. Kept forgetting that Mr. Franco isn't the reincarnation of another James. Josh Brolin is hypnotic as Dan White, should snag him an oscar nod.

Not holding the tears back at reliving what GLBT America lost when Harvey Milk was gunned down. Harvey's speeches still resonate today.

upcoming poss.- C I Mag

CI or Cave-In:
Reference of appearance or behavior that provides evidence that said person has
imploded, whether they acknowledge it or not. (Me out in a blizzard, clutching a box of wine, in desperation for a drink would be an example. Multiple face-lifts would be another.) Might have to use roman a clef to avoid lawsuits.

Speaking of cave-ins- can you believe that gasbag Rush Limbaugh is still emitting megamethane into the atmosphere. What will it take for him to go away.

Bernstein bill and a little Lenny

Carnegie Hall, 11/14

At the Metropolitan Opera’s final performance of Dr. Atomic, if you were seated in the side balcony, it was hard to take your eyes off of conductor Alan Gilbert, he was so connected to every aspect of the performance, commanding in every detail.

Not that he is dancy or lording over the pit and audience, rather, he maintained a steeled exactness delivering John Adam’s seismic score. It was so interesting to see him in front of the New York Philharmonic the following night at Carnegie Hall.

On this occasion Gilbert was hopping around trying to coax expression and control out of his orchestra celebrating the music of Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein would have loved his the brutal wiliness of Dr. Atomic, but perhaps would have been less thrilled with the waywardness of this program.

Bernstein’s score to ‘On the Waterfront’ may have been a rough cut for the composer in Elia Kazan’s classic film, but it is nonetheless a compelling narrative work for the concert hall. It can evoke images and drama from the movie, but can be cut free as well. The Philharmonic is relied on the cinematic narrative progression, was tentative instead of subtle. The jazz structures, are completely dimensionless as played; the city fanfares just loud, when they should be driving. It bloomed more cohesively in the back half. There is even eloquence, as the orchestra thunders during the end passages, you could see a bloodied Brando (if not Bernstein) making his was through the crowd.

The most interesting work on the program is Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium) with violinist Glenn Dicterow. The entrance solo by Dicterow, posing Bernstein’s philosophical questions, is beautifully essayed by Dicterow. From there, the Philharmonic is scrambled in the more ponderous enclaves, all the more jarring because they play some pretty tight passages. Dicterow settles in to an academic performance, that frequently framed muddy orchestral hand-offs.

Perhaps it seemed more glaring with such fresh memory of the thicket of colliding ideas in Dr. Atomic that Gilbert effortlessly controlled the night before. Last month, Loren Maazel conducted the NY Philharmonic in an all Tchaikovsky program in Philadelphia that was erratic in similar ways.

Who doesn’t love Bernstein’s score to ‘West Side Story’ but on this night it came off as completely gratuitous, teetering on being a crashing bore. Soprano Ana Maria Martinez and tenor Paul Groves left any chemistry offstage for their stiff duets in Suite No. 1. Groves was all goofy earnestness singing ‘Maria.’ The singers fared better on ‘One Hand, One Heart’ with moments of gorgeous vocal blending that was marred by their clunky body language. They sang ‘Somewhere’ like an art song, instead of a communal manifesto.

‘Suite No. 2’ had more life thanks to New York Choral Artists. Martinez loosened up for the always treacly in concert ’I Feel Pretty’ helped by three spirited women from the chorus. There is such charming faux swagger by the men for the ‘Jet Song’ but fellas, a little more vocal threat wouldn’t hurt. But what do I know, Gilbert obviously connected, and the audience begged for more, which fortunately kicked the concert into Bernstein cruise control.

Sheryl Staples, concertmaster, cues the orchestra for ’Candide’ with the conductor's stand vacant, in tribute to Bernstein. Presto, Lenny’s glitter and sarcasm was all in place. The fun remained in spades for ‘Mambo’ the orchestra both bongo cool, the chorus rowdy and the hipsters really airing out Lenny’s best imitation of Basie.

upcoming

the holiday vortex

The Philadelphia diaries

Diving back into articles and other projects to fill out the writing year, but a little concerned that I am written out. Want to finish 'The Ladies of Newport' and have done, but cannot settle on that fait a compli otherwise known as the third act.

Talked to Mark Wolverton about his new bio 'A Life in Twilight' about J. Robert Oppenheimer's years in unofficial exile. Getting a crash course on Oppenheimer with Dr. Atomic last week at the Met, reviewing the upcoming PBS documentary 'Wonders are Many: The Making of Dr. Atomic' and reading Mr. Wolverton's book.

LOTD- Nuclear Wagner

Ode to Dorothy Parker

Is that the city sinking?
I heard it sink before
When I walked home from your
Hospital room
unable to face the morgue
Is that my mother crying?
I thought I recognized that song
She whispered it in a lullaby the night her grandmother was gone.
Is a vanquished soul with me tonight
As the rumble becomes clear
Will I live with them in the after night
when the depth remain permanently unclear

Is that my mind approaching
I think I recognize its fate
That piteous fear awakened the consciousness escaped

Is that our bodies
Wrestling to permanently encoil?
(A thought of pristine emotion)
Or the sweaty descent to the boil.

Is that my breast beating
Or my mother’s breast
No, the streets are gone again
Still vanishing in
Your full silhouette.

writers united

Final moments with nea writer's group. Nov. 18

Gryroscopes.2v.

When I twist into fetal cry past REM
Under the rocks
Remains of a fish with eight fingers developed
Under its 60s Dior flare of fins
Scientists suggest that
This singular amphibian
used these digits to pan
For ecological gold through
the silt in search of food.
Geologist must now insert a new found age in their
Paleolithic cross-sections.
The sex is unrevealed,
Though there are rumors of reptilian
Transexualism, gods forbid
So I think we have a show.
The trace remains of an instinct that
Requires me to search for my mutant destiny

Fetash-

Fetash- accidental variant of fetish, accented on my returning lisp. Pseudonym - Fetasch. nonsequitor.

noted by Kelly at L2 restaurant when I tried to order something funny.

Flesh & the devil in Faustian details

La Damnation de Faust
Nov. 10, Met, Lincoln Center NY
Opera Company of Philadelphia’s Robert Driver directed Fidelio for the first time in his 40 year career because he had the opportunity to present a high concept production design that he felt pointed to the specific musical challenges the opera presented.

Driver collaborated with conceptual artist Jan Kaneko to come up with a minimalist multi-tech art installation for the set. The reaction from critic and the public was mixed. For some, the starkness and neutrality completely served Driver’s purpose, but for many, the minimalism was a complete distraction.

There is no split decision on the production designs for Robert Lepage’s production of ‘La Damnation de Faust' which just concluded a successful run at the Metropolitan Opera. It is a hi-def, state of the cirque art, complete distraction.

Set designer Carl Fillion is Lepage’s stage alchemist and he creates a bounty of stunning stage pictures. The four-tier 24 cube matrix, is the backdrop to multi tech film elements.
The Met orchestra is subjugated from the scale of this, which, considering the epically wily scale of Berlioz’s structure is perplexing. Not that James Levine didn’t try to hold sway with a mostly rote lushness especially in the choral sections. Chorus and orchestra together had the might to face off grandly with the set.

The physical production may make this a Faust for its time, but it also blatantly overwhelms the music. Marcello Giordani, a tenor, maintains Faust’s intense vocal serenity in the opening scenes, as he contemplates his suicide, that draws one into the nuances, even as the set opens up into a series of cinematic distractions. Later, his vocal performance seemed unfocused and, his characterization lacked dimension. Perhaps it was one of the tech miscues or some of the thuds from backstage. Eventually, he vocally ducks out of the way of the spectacale.

John Relyea fared better as Mephistopheles, even in a Members Only oxblood waistcoat and plumed hat, has an Errol Flynn swagger that is more devilish than dark. Relyea’s bass-baritone is fully charged in the role. When he does flash his evilness in brief moments, he make it count.
Susan Graham’s fine mezzo-Margeurite, is detached and roaming through the rooms of an shockingly unimpressive estate, she triumphs in her own zone.

Both Ms. Graham and Mr. Giordani are unengaged in their key love scene, tentative, even vocally ackward. In contrast Graham’s live feed spectral image was being engulfed in flames in back of her but her voice was a lazar beam of ariatic control.

Choreography isn’t usually front and center in opera, but co-choreographers Johanne Madore and Alain Gauthier’s dances are just too campy to ignore. Garrotted soldiers descend on the laps of seated women auditioning for Martha Graham’s Lamentation. Later, The devil summons his Solid Gold ballerinas for some epileptic arabesques and scrambled twirling. And then there are those harnessed demons flying in ala Cirque du Soleil. Buff and crowd pleasing.

Even with some tech problems, Lepage’s direction is surprisingly cohesive thanks to the designs concept. Berlioz created his own symphonic montage of scenes and Holger Forterer and Boris Firquet’s video and image designs, as well as Sonoyo Nishikawa’s vivid lighting, provide inventive narrative threads.

Hell is realized, through simple stagecraft and mighty music, with a phalanx of naked men, singing Berlioz’s devil-speak, with an orchestra boiling over. For heaven, Maestro Levine is so committed to reach musical beautification for Margaurite’s ascension, that he seems possessed.
It would be interesting to hear this orchestra play Faust where all of the flesh and the devil remained in the pit.

Gryroscopes install.

from

Gyroscopes

There are over
One hundred billion
More galaxies than we know about
and astronomers have suggested
The amount may increase as they sift through
Fossils-dust and tumbleweeds
In the after image of exploding nova
That appear on red interstellar transmissions.
wormholes
Dwarf sosess
radio novas
darkmatter
Blackholes
/texasT
Barefoot not to trip
Negative light-
blank perspective
Vanishes at azimuths
The chimera
Tango past horizon
flash over
Reckoning of monstrous
Secrets of human life.
The success of replicated cells
Pure Burlesque
referred to as
Cloning with
Micro-biologist claiming a
exponential curdling.
So we’ve become rattly
and feeding on each other
I sang that song and
found that the feasts of vermin
Live somewhere in my heart even now.


gyroscopes continues later

performance notes

Jeremy Denk, concert pianist and metroblogger, played Beethoven's Hammerklavier and Ives' Concord Sonata in Zankel Hall on Nov. 11. his encore was the Alcotts movement of Ives'
Denk's breaks in both pieces reminded me of a figther gathering himself for different opponents. Like a great fighter, he was rapturous in the technical precision that both pieces required.

Nea music pals

upcoming


Ethicom.

Remembances of the promises and despair of the 60s on the 45th observance of the death of President Kennedy. My much feared depression era 5th grade teacher Mrs. Blake, came into the classroom after lunch and announced that President Kennedy had been killed. Her stony deportment completely gone, she cried as she was telling us. A moment later she punched a kid in the mouth for his nervous laughter at the news.

lobbies&curtains

The Academy of Music chandelier is back to its restored glory. Can't wait until they start lowering and raising it to cue the curtain ala The Met.

Ran into Walter Dallas, premiere Philadelphia theater & opera director, at 'The Italian Girl in Algiers' who is set to direct a new play in DC, this spring.

Chet Plays the Mercury L

Chet Plays the Mercury L


Before the rain
Eroded a
Whisper ballade
The private pictures
in sordid songs
About stupid hearts and
Busted scales
Trashed in
drop dead lipsticks
Chipped onyx cufflinks,
Silver-lined
deco cigarette cases
Passed on by
Discarded lovers
Thrown through smoke
Of scared promises
Playing the whispered psalms of a
Cobalt wind.
Not singing
Driving a pink panel
55-crome
Chevy convertible
your Lakehair
Playing cello
wind tide on
His lap and
you make him hum
‘Where or When.’
As you kick your shoes off
Of the window to feel the
Wind between your blond toes
Or Else he pisses you off and
His horn can lead him in
A scarred melody about you
He’s locked in his room
And the management has seized his luggage
So he works on a song
Not ‘Where or when’
Slunk in a suitcase
But the brow
Of toppling raven hair
sweating
The expiration of
Notes left cradling
his trumpet in that flat.

Ute's boa journey

belated LOTD

sung in Joe's Pub

The vamp history of Ute Lemper's fuschia cabaret boa tracking it through the Weimar Republic, through wars, affairs, divas and momentarily to Sarah Palin.

(photo- KarenMoorman)

Roulades & Yuks

Opera Company of Philadelphia

The Italian Girl in Algiers

11/21/08

Busty, bawdy and as gay as Liberace in Casablanca, the Opera Company of Philadelphia all but sets the rainbow drapes on fire for Rossini’s ‘The Italian Girl in Algiers.’

For those who don’t know the story there is a built in harem in heat for the rotund Mustafa, who is looking for foreign ‘bon-bons’ to play in his palace. His pirates pillage for him on the high seas. His dressers are so fey they jete in the new silks.

But Isabella wasn't pushed around on the boot or in Algiers. She’s a femme fatale that can whither swords both steel & flesh. Making the best of a shipwreck, she is going to do some pillaging of her own. A Mezzo-tranian farce ensues as she dupes pirates, eunuchs, sultans and the Mediterranean hoi polloi.

It may be stooge opera, but this cast can boast a lot of great singing headed by Ruxandra Donose, a fine mezzo who camps and vamps it up every moment. Lawrence Brownlee, equals with a commanding tenor as her lovelorn secret love. The singers starred in OCP's Cinderella on 2006.

Daniel Belcher, a flings his foppish baritone about with nimble comic acting, posing as Isabella’s uncle instead of her lover to save himself from being impaled. The phallic jokes get so literal that guardsmen actually polish their spears.

Kevin Glavin uses his buffo bass to every advantage as Mustafa, that has him spooning and mugging like Curly one minute and checking out his butt in the mirror the next. And the man can work his turbans, whether they look like Mars attacks or a Carmen Miranda knockoff.

Rossini’s quintets and quartets are sung with gusto and sharpness by this able lead cast. Atop rolling cubes in one scene, they are rolled around the stage by slaves and it becomes vocal jousting from every angle.

Credit such meaty moments to director Stefano Vizioli. Corrado Rovaris, OCP’s resident conductor specializes in Italian opera and his punctuations are crisp and the clamorous Rossini canter brought to full gallop with one whip.

-Whittington

Later

for GLBT Prop 8 report from NY

a thousand dreams later

Danse Macabre

Down and outward
my gray heart
Gargoyled limbs and swayback
Plies
Wistful discord
Stabbing lights
Silhouettes eat
Fragments of night
Venal lunges and livid eyes
The slack of the bodies
Only the tongues rush by
Vestiges of emotions
In complete undoubt
Violet shadows
Inner sculptures flung out
Promenade flouncing
Flicking the obscure
The minuet of abstract
The savaging
Crashing bore
Seek the devils
With these
Feet and hand
Enfold me into your body
So we are unforeseen
Night creatures who obliterate all along
To that very moment
Before the moment’s gone.

Another fouffy poem because I forgot

The Music Rooms

The Lustrous Emotions The Emotion of Luxury

The Luxury of the silence of emotion
lyricism 5/4 4/4 3/2 7/8 damn,
did I will
This fetal beat fragment recalled
Deep in a dream.
another ABpositive blood dream
That starts out like a silent horror movie.
So the afternoon
lies on lies and I hear the guests arriving so I can continue?

Get out or maybe I should

He is of Lustrous Emotions
an O negative to my AB pallor
Almost campy vampiric the night
He inked my body, then
I thought
This is all the same to him
With his body Some neural charge or a radiation afterburn
Architect = Sonic

Keeping them out
Passing a bottle of
‘52 Chateau Margaux back and forth in bed laughing until we were drunk.
Construct of a dirge or maybe the

madrigal of our torsos the valor of our space and time
descending or lurching ostinato
when I left him in
bed with a pointed toe spooling the silk or to return outside my glamour

We get up to have tea.
an overture incessant, a disbelieved fanfare,
a bare-knuckle string battle

He's lit a cigarette without even noticing
the decrescendo in phantom blue for goodnight, sweet shadows
Dance in the smoke

He made the rooms absurdly big for us, there is a
Metallic sound to any whisper
He placed a Louis XIV blood-velvet divan
A dead god lurks under glass

In the gallery, sacred instruments from Nepal
the only other object in the room
is my Steinway
he will look in on me from his distant gallery after the hours and he is naked up there dreaming bringing in a lyre
with his hair lacquered
the
Discord of his strum
our final silence
I heard him once Then forever

He builds and I compose.

For John Way

The Music Rooms is based on portraits of John’s lovers he painted in his NY loft in the 50s.

upcoming

Notes from NY

Opera impressions

Invocation

A favorite poem to launch this public diary.
I don't know from blogs, but I've jumped off bridges before.

As a diarist, I've used the Isherwood-Rorem- gay model of formless entries, but
substantive and hopefully amusing. We'll see. And stealing Donald Vining's 'LOTD' feature.

Often a sketchbook for random notes about performances and performers.

In August, Shadow of Janus

In August
Shadow of Janus by Lewis Whittington

The realms of false sky, descending.
Vanquished
upon the metrolights

Hearing the godless
Gods and goddesses
Liars and demons
Souls and the soulless
Blur along the street
Where there is no darkness unseen
No stillness unnoticed
Or forbidden thought forgotten
On these lost paths
I hear Mercury keeping vigil along
The promontory
Igniting the arrowheads,
Brushing his temples
Eyes fixed,
body ready for flight,
whispers
‘Let’s go’ he
Says, ‘for we are the hunted now.’
Ice basilica
At daybreak and
The running flame
That consumes
The haze
Opened to the sudden shade
Pulling away
The corrupt prayers uttered before
The vanished armor
Offering smoke
And it is just in that
Hour, That I know there are no secrets
Unveiled onto this night
Discovered galaxies are
Noticed for a moment then
Passed away from
The moons
So barren that skin and bone
Feel the same
And emotion is
a remembrance of another life
Or dying star
Foretold by Mercury
Tracking
Heathen and Virgo
In the afterburn
I hear them confide
‘What chance.’
I wired Scorpio
So couldn’t
Break the code to
Mean nothing past that moment
To record the laughter at the
Eclipse over Jerusalem.
Cobalt
Silhouettes arch
on the waters
With flights
Of firebirds and
Of deaths
Told in the fanfares of Tatarus
In this music field
Of disgraced tones
Invites a coarser rhythm
I called
‘not a word, Terpsichore.”
The assault
Beats down over
What existed again but not before
And when the music enters
The body
It digs up
An infinite
If
To be met with ideas and peace
Waiting to be lived
By havoc and adornment
Waiting to die and
This is the water music we feel
I see Janus
Azimuths,
Vanished at horizon
Shielding us
From home.

For Jack Nespoli