Theatre Talk

My previous post, With the Words, featured a poetry performance of mine from April of 2018, and since we're on the subject of performance, not to mention recordings of New York Society for General Semantics events, why don't I follow up with the panel discussion that followed up our poetry program. This one took place on May 2nd, 2018, and the title was Language, Symbol, and the Theatre, and I think it was a really great discussion, if I do say so myself. And that's because of the participants, not on account of the moderator, which was yours truly, although I do take credit for bringing these folks together.

Anyway, here's the write-up:

General semantics is concerned with the ways in which language and symbols function as representations of our outer environment and our innermost feelings and thoughts. These representations function as maps of our external and internal realities. They help us to understand what we perceive and experience, they guide us in evaluating and navigating our world, and they give us tools for thought and action.

Different representations or maps may be more or less accurate or more or less useful in helping us to achieve certain ends. But different representations or maps may also help us to learn about different aspects of our reality, providing us with different perspectives, and abstracting out of external events different parts of the greater whole. What scientific modes of representation tell us about the world, for example, is quite different from what literary modes reveal, but each one provides us with knowledge that the other cannot.

The theatre is one of our oldest forms of literary expression, one that has an extraordinary influence on our use of language and symbol, from the Attic playwrights of ancient Greece and the introduction of the proscenium arch, and the unparalleled creative production of William Shakespeare in Elizabethan England, to the avant-garde experimentation of Bertolt Brecht in 20th century Germany, and Lin-Manuel Miranda's combination of hip hop and history in the Broadway hit Hamilton.

It follows that it is worth considering questions such as, what is unique to theatre as a mode of representation? What are its advantages and limitations, its problems and potentials? What are the relationships between dramatic performance and language and symbol, spoken and written word, play and script? Importantly, what role can theatre play in helping us to understand our world, in education, in social and political commentary?

Given that programs for the New York Society for General Semantics are held in the historic Players Club, founded by Edwin Booth, the greatest dramatic actor of the 19th century, as a social club "for the promotion of social intercourse between the representative members of the dramatic profession and the kindred professions of literature, painting, sculpture and music, and the patrons of the arts," a panel discussion on theatre was especially appropriate.

The participants on this program were:

Robin Beth Levenson, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, and author of Acting Chekhov in Translation: 4 Plays, 100 Ways (Peter Lang) , published in 2018. A graduate of the Media Ecology Doctoral Program at New York University, with an MFA from the University of California at Riverside, her articles have been published in journals such as Dialogues in Social Justice and Communications from the International Brecht Society. Her research explorations include how language influences thought and behavior, and the nature of performance.

Emily Lyon, a Brooklyn-based theatre director and dramaturg who recently created a theatrical piece, How We Hear, inspired by Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. Her other directing work includes The Summoning (Best Direction, Best Production: sheNYC), Sword & the Stone/The Tempest tour (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), The Secret in the Wings (Hedgepig Ensemble), Women of Williams County (Best Ensemble: Manhattan International Theatre Festival), Interior: Panic (FringeNYC), Max Frisch’s The Arsonists (DCTV Firehouse), Some of the Side Effects (Best Premiere: UnitedSolo), and As You Like It (Geva Theatre Directing Fellow).

S. Brian Jones, Director of Operations for The Players, recently completed his masters in the Masters of Applied Theater program at CUNY School of Professional Studies. He has served as a Teacher in Residence and Arts Administrator with schools, regional theatre companies and social service agencies, conducted credential training workshops for teachers with Delaware Institute for Arts in Education, served as an advocate for Arts Education within the educational and government systems, and worked at Foundation Theatre, Freedom Theatre, Delaware Theatre Company, Christina Cultural Arts Center, New Castle County Parks and Recreation, La Jolla Playhouse, Horton Grand Theater, Ensemble Arts Theatre, Creative Management Group, Dorwell Productions, Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, the 1199 Child Care Corporation, The Artist Playground Theater and Inside Broadway. Most recently, he worked as the Education Programs Manager for the award winning Off-Broadway Company, Epic Theatre Ensemble.

M*** S******* is a New York based actor, director and writer. As a performer, he has appeared on Broadway in the 39 Steps and off Broadway in Small World at 59east59, Checkers at the Vineyard Theatre, Tryst at the Irish Repertory Theatre, As Bees In Honey Drown at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. His directorial work has been seen at The Alley Theatre, the Fulton Opera House, Virginia Stage, the Westport Country Playhouse, Arkansas Repertory Theatre, George Street Playhouse and many others. His play, The Dingdong: or How The French Kiss, an adaptation of Feydau’s Le Dindon, premiered Off Broadway and has played around the country. His adaptation of A Christmas Carol, which he will also direct, premieres this December [2018] at Florida Repertory Theatre. He is a graduate of Brown University and received his MA in Communication and Media Studies from Fordham University, where he teaches film courses. *Name withheld by request.

The discussion was moderated by Lance Strate, Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, President of the New York Society for General Semantics, member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of General Semantics.

It was a lively and dramatic discussion!

And now, without much further ado, here is the recording:






And what more can I say? It was a class act, don't you think?

 

The Mind of a Mentalist

So, back again to report on another New York Society for General Semantics program here on Blog Time Passing. This one took place last October 8th, and featured my old friend and fellow Media Ecology Program Moshe Botwanick, aka Marc Salem (his stage name). The title of the program was Words, Mind, and Magic: A Talk by Mentalist Marc Salem, and here's the write-up:

We all have wished for, at one time or another, the power to read minds and decipher the thoughts of others. And while true ESP may be out of reach, it is possible to interpret clues to what others are thinking, a power that leads to greater success at work, in relationships, and in every aspect of life. The key is to pay attention to aspects of our world that we typically overlook, find the hidden meaning in conversations, negotiations, and personal encounters, and understand the meaning of nonverbal communication.

Marc Salem, aka Professor Moshe Botwinick, holds advanced degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University, where he earned his PhD studying with Neil Postman, Christine Nystrom, and Terence Moran, and has served as book review editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics. He has been on the faculty of several major universities, was a director of research at Sesame Street Workshop where he studied the development and nature of mental processes, and is a world-renowned entertainer.

His show, Mind Games, has completed two successful runs on Broadway, as well as the Sydney Opera House, Singapore's Esplanade, London's West End, and the Edinburgh Festival. Salem has been profiled on 60 Minutes, and been featured on Court TV, CNN, The O'Reilly Factor, Montel, and Maury. The New York Police Department, and businesses across the country have turned to Marc Salem for advice. He is the author of Marc Salem's Mind Games: A Practical Step-By-Step Guide to Developing Your Mental Powers, and The Six Keys to Unlock and Empower Your Mind, Spot Liars and Cheats, Negotiate Any Deal to Your Advantage, Win at the Office, Influence Friends, and Much More, soon to be published in a second edition.

 And here's the video recording of his talk, minus a few mysterious, unexplained gaps:





All in all, it was an evening that was nothing less than mind-blowing!

Summer Reading for Roy Part 1

So, for several years now, Roy Christopher has asked me to contribute to the Summer Reading List post on his blog, as one of a number of scholars and intellectuals who provide a list of books that we intend to read over the summer. And in the past I've reposted that list here on Blog Time Passing because, well, why not? Here now is a list of my previous entries:

• 2012: Some More Reading List 
• 2013: S'more Reading Listed 
• 2014: Some More Reading for the Summer
• 2015: Another Non-Listless Summer

And now, if you're chronologically minded, you may notice that there's no entry for 2016 on the above list. And the reason for that is not that I didn't do one, and if you don't believe me, you can check out Roy's post from last year, Summer Reading List, 2016. It's just that last summer I was hard at work finishing up my new book (see my previous post: Media Ecology: Some Details Regarding My New Book) and just didn't have time to do much blogging, and by the time I got back into the swing of things, summer was long over, and I just plain forgot about the summer reading list.

So, fortunately there's no statute of limitations on this sort of thing, so before sharing this year's list with you, let me fill you in on last year's summer reading list because, after all, the books are still worth listing, and reading.

Summer Reading List 2016

Here in New York, the Broadway musical Hamilton has been all the rage for the past year, so I have decided to start my summer reading off with The Federalist Papers, authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay (New York: Signet Classics, 2003, originally published 1787-1788 under the pseudonym of Publius). While we're on the subject of authors with the initials A.H., my list also includes Ends and Means: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Ideals by Aldous Huxley (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2012, originally published 1937).

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I recently received a copy of The Book of Radical General Semantics by Gad Horowitz with Colin Campbell (New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2016), and I would want to read it under any circumstance, but all the more so because I recently became president of the New York Society for General Semantics. I also plan on rereading Lewis Mumford's The Condition of Man (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1944). And I have heard great things about the recent book by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence (New York: Schocken Books, 2015), so that's on my list as well. 

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For scholars in the field of communication and media studies, Arthur Asa Berger is a familiar name, having authored many books on media and popular culture, and I look forward to reading his newest, Writing Myself into Existence (Seattle: NeoPoiesis Pres, 2016). Regarding communication, I also have on my list Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age (New York: Penguin, 2015) by Sherry Turkle, a scholar often included in media ecology circles. And on the related topic of the study of time, I am also including Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015). 

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Poetry books play a prominent and pleasant role regarding summertime reading (and the rest of the year as well), and this year my stack includes a collection by David Ossman of Firesign Theatre, Marshmallows and Despair, (Seattle: NeoPoiesis Pres, 2015), and Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2015). 

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My son has recommended the work of playwright Jenny Schwartz, so I'm also including two of her plays, God's Ear (New York: Samuel French, 2009), and Somewhere Fun (London: Oberon, 2013). Finally, there's a mystery novel I just have to read, Death by Triangulation by John Oughton (Seattle: NeoPoiesis Pres, 2015). 

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So, in case you were wondering, The Federalist Papers, Ends and Means, The Condition of Man, and Reclaiming Conversation, all played a role in the writing of my new book. And Stone was the subject of a book review I wrote for KronoScope, the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Time. 

And, now that I've taken care of last year's list, I'll get to this year's selections in my next post.

My Language Poetry

So, maybe you remember how I've been serving as president of the New York Society for General Semantics for the past year, and maybe you even subscribed for updates over on the NYSGS website. And if not, please feel free, you don't have to be in or anywhere near New York to get the latest news on our events and resources added to the website (which I put together, and it's not too shabby, if I do say so myself).

And maybe you saw my previous posts on the subject, New York Society for General Semantics, my initial announcement, and the two posts on panels I put together prior to the 2016 election, Political Talk & Political Drama Part 1: Election 2016 and Political Talk & Political Drama Part 2? Pretty interesting stuff, wouldn't you say?

So, now for something completely different, or maybe somewhat different, another of the sessions that I organized for the NYSGS was a series of poetry readings. You can see, and hear, all of them over on the NYSGS site via the following link: The Language of Poetry (Video Recorded September 28, 2016). And they're also available on the NYSGS YouTube Channel. 

As far as this post here on Blog Time Passing is concerned, I just want to share my own performance of several original, unpublished poems. I think you'll find there's still some connection to politics and other issues and controversies, as well as to the theme of language, and to general semantics. Well, for better or verse, here it is:





In case you were wondering about where this reading took place, it was at The Players, a pretty cool site where all of our events have been held over the past year. And for this one in particular, I connected the NYSGS event to Poetry at the Players, a group that meets periodically at The Players to engage in readings of poetry (which is all about the performance, dramatic readings, so the rule being that you cannot read poems that you yourself have written). I have taken part in the readings for this group a number of times, and whenever I've been able to make it, but less so since September because I'm teaching and holding NYSGS sessions on Wednesday evenings, the same evening that this group meets.

Anyway, the evening began with Poetry at the Players for the first hour, and that was followed by a second hour of readings and performances of original poetry. And that helps to explain some of what I'm saying in my introduction to the session, which I include here mainly for the reference to general semantics and poetry:





And I should add that the place was packed, with something like 100 people in attendance. So it was quite a night, all things considered! And maybe we'll do it again sometime... Subscribe, and you'll know!

Houdini Whodunit

So, seeing as I'm still playing catch-up, I figured I'd post one of my op-ed pieces from the Jewish Standard, this one published in the June 24th issue. And just so you know that I haven't been a total slacker as far as this sort of thing is concerned, I did post it online on my Jewish Standard Times of Israel blog on June 30th. That post included an update to the original column, and this version is further updated, as you'll see if you read through to the end:

My son was about 8 or 9 when we had our first family outing to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey.

As I recall, it was his first time in the amusement park, and my first time as well. And I was pleased to discover, soon after entering, an attraction called Houdini’s Great Escape. It paled in comparison to anything that can be found at one of Disney’s or Universal’s theme parks, but I was happy to have the opportunity to introduce my son to the great Jewish showman Harry Houdini.

Houdini was a household name when I was growing up, immediately recognizable as the world-famous escape artist of a bygone era. The fact that Houdini was Jewish also was well known, especially within the Jewish community.

Houdini’s fame persisted long after his death in 1926, at the age of 52, but it began to fade in the waning years of the 20th century. I wonder how many millennials have heard of him these days. For that reason, I applaud Six Flags for keeping his memory alive. I am particularly grateful to all those who protested when Great Adventure closed the ride in 2008, and convinced Six Flags to bring it back in 2011.

We bought my son a hamster about a month or two after our trip to the amusement park, and I asked him what name he wanted to give to his pet. He answered, “Harry.” I smiled and said, “So you want to name him after Harry Houdini?” “No,” he replied. “After Harry Potter.”

I immediately realized that Houdini’s Great Escape made a much greater impression on me than it did on him, and that there was no competing with the young adult novels by J. K. Rowling, and even more so with the Warner Bros. film adaptations, with their amazing special effects, which made magic seem real. This amounts to a bit of a reversal, as stage magicians produced some of the first special effects to appear in early cinema.

Houdini himself started out as an illusionist performing in vaudeville, before achieving widespread fame by specializing as an escapologist. He also starred in a few silent films between 1906 and 1923, but he did not enjoy the same success on the screen as he did in live performance.

Significantly, Houdini was devoted to stage magic as a profession, and led the Society of American Magicians as president of that organization for almost a decade, his tenure cut short by his untimely death. The society pays for the maintenance and care of Houdini’s grave site, which is in the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens. The monument displays both his stage name, Houdini, and his actually family name, Weiss; he was born Erik Weisz in Budapest, the son of a rabbi, and was only about 4 years old when his family emigrated to the United States. That’s when Erik Weisz was changed to the German version, Erich Weiss.

Though Houdini died almost 90 years ago, his name recently has been resurrected on television with the airing of Houdini & Doyle, a series launched last spring on Fox. It’s based on the actual friendship between the great escapologist and Arthur Conan Doyle, the British author best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. While drawing on bits and pieces of historical fact, essentially the series is fictional and full of anachronisms, blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction in ways that have become quite common in recent decades. The central fiction is that Houdini, who is performing in London, teams up with Doyle to solve mysteries that baffle the police.

In this new series, Michael Weston (née Michael Rubinstein, grandson of Arthur Rubinstein) became the most recent of at least a dozen actors to have portrayed Harry Houdini. His predecessors include Tony Curtis, Harvey Keitel, Norman Mailer, and Adrien Brody. In this role, Weston looks Jewish, but not in a way that might be deemed stereotypical or particularly overt. His speech does not feature any obvious form of Jewish (or Hungarian) accent, although it does strike me as very similar to the kinds of voices I hear at my congregation. In short, in this series, the fact that Houdini is Jewish is downplayed significantly—but it is not entirely absent.

Houdini & Doyle is a TV version of the buddy film genre, a type of narrative especially commonplace in American popular culture, no doubt due to the diversity of American society. That’s because it depends on strange bedfellows, or if you prefer Neil Simon to Will Shakespeare, an odd couple team-up. The buddies often contrast opposing qualities—rich and poor, white and black, male and female, young and old, professional and amateur, and so on.

The great French anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, argues that a culture’s myths are ways of symbolizing significant polar oppositions, and scholars analyzing popular culture, such as Arthur Asa Berger, have applied this approach to film, television, and other media. Looking at Houdini & Doyle through this lens can be quite revealing.

To begin, Houdini is American and Doyle is British, Houdini is ethnic while Doyle is a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASPs are an ethnicity, of course, but traditionally they are presented as non-ethnic in American popular culture), and Houdini is an American immigrant while Doyle is native to Britain. (The show is set in London.) Houdini’s background is not emphasized in the first few episodes, but in the third episode, “In Manus Dei,” he falls ill and his mother, who has accompanied him on his travels and speaks with a noticeable accent, gives him chicken soup as a cure. Her character, Houdini’s own devotion to her, and the insecurity associated with being an immigrant all are featured more prominently in episode 5, “The Curse of Korzha,” and the fact that Houdini is Jewish is discussed briefly in episode 6, “The Monsters of Nethermoor.”

On the one hand, it is quite positive that a Jewish-American immigrant can serve as a symbol of an American in general. On the other hand, Houdini’s Jewishness mainly is reflected in his being a victim of prejudice, as he reveals in episode 6. This also makes him a champion of tolerance, as he defends another character facing discrimination and scapegoating, which is commendable. But in this respect, there is no contrast with Doyle, who is sympathetic, albeit revealed as never having been the victim of bias, while the third main character, Constable Adelaide Stratton, Scotland Yard’s first policewoman (an anachronism), also is subjected to significant prejudice and therefore is in favor of tolerance.

Having viewed seven out of the 10 episodes that comprise the first season of the program, a joint British, Canadian, and American production, I would have wanted to see Houdini’s Jewishness reflect something more than ethnicity and open-mindedness. I would have liked it to reflect as well some aspect of his religious heritage. But of course that would undercut his role as a symbol of Americans in general.

Other contrasts come into play. Houdini is a famous and self-promoting entertainer, while Doyle enjoys the quieter esteem accorded as an author, one somewhat embarrassed by the popularity of his Sherlock Holmes stories. Houdini’s success makes him relatively affluent and his brashness marks him as nouveau riche, while Doyle is the model of upper-middle-class propriety, as befits a physician. (That’s his day job.) There is a bit of a contrast between low and high culture, between the sensationalism of the popular performer and the reserve of the man of letters, which also maps onto the egalitarianism of American society and the elitism of the British (Doyle eventually receives a knighthood). It’s also the contrast between the rags-to-riches story of the ethnic immigrant and the conservative narrative of old money. Additionally, there is a contrast between Houdini’s physicality, as an escape artist and also as a fighter, and Doyle’s cerebral quality.

The major opposition on which the program turns, however, is between Houdini as a skeptic and rationalist and Doyle as a believer and spiritualist. While the belief that it is possible to communicate with the spirits of the dead is age-old—King Saul speaks to the ghost of Samuel in the Tanach—the spiritualism movement began in the 19th century. It was inspired in large part by the ethereal (but decidedly earthly) form of communication introduced by the invention of the telegraph, and later by messages sent over the air by radio.

Doyle actually was an ardent believer in spiritualism. He believed in it so strongly that this difference of opinion eventually brought his friendship with Houdini to an end. And Houdini actually was firmly committed to debunking anyone claiming to have psychic powers or the ability to communicate with the dead, invariably revealing them as scam artists using the same methods as stage magicians.

Houdini & Doyle draws on these historic facts to set up the program’s main opposition. It’s similar to The X-Files, except that Gillian Anderson’s Dr. Dana Scully was the skeptic and David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder was the believer. Doyle’s scientific background as a physician does come into play when he solves mysteries, but it does not prevent him from believing in psychic phenomena. Interestingly, Houdini’s and Doyle’s roles are reversed in “The Monsters of Nethermoor,” but only because the unearthly phenomenon being investigated is, in fact, alien beings, and Houdini is willing to believe in the scientific notion that life on other planets is possible.

Houdini, then, comes across as something of a 20th century Spinoza, a modern secular humanist, in contrast to Doyle’s apparent superstition. And the episodes clearly favor science over spiritualism, while portraying both buddies as sympathetic characters. Here too, however, I would wish for something more than rejection of belief on Houdini’s part. I’d have liked some positive expression of Jewish faith, its emphasis on ethics, even a touch of true spirituality.

Still, I applaud the show’s creators for bringing the spirit of Houdini back to life and with renewed vigor. This doesn’t seem like the kind of program that will gain much of an audience, or even make it to a second season. But escaping cancellation may just be Houdini’s greatest trick of all.

First Addendum

Two additional episodes have aired since I wrote this op-ed, one after it was published on June 24th. At the end of episode 8, “Strigoi,” which features their contemporary, Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, Houdini discovers that his mother has passed away. This and other matters prompts a trip across the Atlantic in episode 9, “Necromanteion” (the title referring to an invention of Thomas Edison's, who appears in the episode, that is supposed to allow communication with the dead via radio waves).

The episode includes a scene of a Jewish funeral. Incredibly, Houdini is shown at the grave site minus any form of head covering, and walks out on the ritual, criticizing the solemnity of the proceedings. While the intent is to show that Houdini is suppressing his feelings of grief, it also resonates with his rejection of superstition in an unfortunate manner. The episode ends with his return to his mother’s grave to recite a Hebrew prayer, alone and therefore not as part of the Jewish community. This no doubt reinforces his connection to Doyle and Stratton, but at the cost of a positive portrayal of Jewish community, and one of the most essential functions of any religious tradition.  

Second Addendum  

In the final episode of the season, "The Pall of LaPier," Houdini receives spiritual advice from a native American that he finds comforting. This is a common trope in American popular culture, the "noble savage" as a source of wisdom and superior spiritual connection in contrast to us sophisticated moderns, but once again, this appears in the absence of any link to Houdini's own faith, any interaction with a rabbi, and almost not acknowledgement of Jewish mourning rituals.  And just to be clear, the problem is not in this one series, but the fact that this is typical of the way that Jewish characters, whether historical or fictional, are portrayed in our popular culture.

New York Society for General Semantics

So, back in January, I became president of the New York Society for General Semantics. And I know what you're thinking⎯why did I wait until now to let you know about it? Well, the organization had been inactive for a couple of years, and it's taken some time to get it started up again.

Actually, it's still in the process of re-organization, but I've set up a new website at http://nysgs.org which has a modest amount of resources, as well as general information about the organization and what it represents. Go check it out. And please feel free to subscribe for updates on events and other news, especially if you are in the vicinity of the New York Metropolitan Area.

Here's the new logo for the NYSGS, courtesy of my old friend Peter Darnell of Visible Works Design:

As you may know, that letter A with the bar or line over it is a symbol for not A or null A, which is short for non-aristotelian, general semantics having been developed as a non-aristotelian system by its founder, Alfred Korzybski. What he meant by that was a kind of post-Aristotelian logic that could take its place as principles of thought alongside the new non-Newtonian physics and non-Euclidean geometry that were associated with Einstein's paradigm shifting revolution in physics in the early 20th century. Science fiction fans may also recall the Korzybski-inspired null-A novels by A. E. van Vogt.

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Anyway, when I first became associated with the NYSGS many years ago, it was run by Allen Flagg, and held monthly meetings that generally consisted of a speaker, or other kind of presentation, on topics of interest, such as language, symbols, media, and technology, communication, consciousness, and culture. I don't know very much about the early history of the organization, I'm sorry to say, except that it was founded in 1946, on September 9th of that year to be exact. And its name indicates a connection to the larger Society of General Semantics that was founded three years earlier by English professor S. I. Hayakawa (later to become notorious as president of San Francisco State College and then United States Senator from California), and communication scholars Wendell Johnson and Irving Lee. In 1948, the SGS changed its name to the International Society for General Semantics, a name it retained until it merged with the Institute of General Semantics in 2004.

The NYSGS has had a long association with the IGS, including serving as a co-sponsor of the annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture and the symposium that follows, which is almost always held in New York City. And given the New York connection, there is also a significant association with Neil Postman, who was the former editor of ETC: A Review of General Semantics for over a decade⎯ETC was founded by Hayakawa and published by the SGS/ISGS until the merger, after which it has continued to be published by the IGS, most recently under the editorial helm of my friend, Ed Tywoniak. And among the resources that are available from the site are Postman's piece on media ecology and general semantics from the 70s, and a wonderful document entitled, Instant Pep* for Language (*Postman Enthusiasts Project) by the Staff of Fort Meyer Elementary School, Arlington, Virginia, originally published by the ISGS in 1968. And there's more of interest on the site as well, but I'll leave it for you to explore.

So, my plan is to hold events at The Players, a club in the Gramercy Park section of Manhattan that was originally founded by Edwin Booth, the most famous stage actor in 19th century America, and brother of the infamous John Wilkes Booth, along with Mark Twain and other notables, back in 1888. According to their website, "The Players is a private social club that draws its membership from the international theatre community, the related fields of film, television, music, and publishing, as well as respected patrons of the arts." This should add some creative energy and synergy to our programs.

Our programs will begin in earnest in the fall, but we'll be holding a preliminary meet-up at The Players on June 2nd. It's free, but registration is required. All the information is over there on http://nysgs.org, so let me wrap this up right now, so you can stop wasting your time over here, and go take a look, and maybe sign up. And otherwise, stay tuned! 

Waiting for the Firesigns

So, the recent passing of Phil Austin, one of the four members of Firesign Theatre, prompted me to write a couple of blog posts featuring their second, and most popular album. Just on the off chance that you missed those posts, or are in need of a review, the first was A Nick in Time for Firesign, and the second was Of Flip Sides and Firesigns.

Well, now I'd like to turn to their first album, Waiting for the Electrician of Someone Like Him, released in 1968. Like side 2 of their second album, How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere At All, which features "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger," side 1 of Waiting for the Electrician of Someone Like Him includes some of their more accessible, mainstream material, relatively speaking.

In fact, side 1 consists of 3 short pieces, again relatively speaking, as opposed to "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger," which takes up an entire side of the album, and as opposed to side 1 of How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere At All, which, while listed as several separate pieces, is really one long journey through an insane, hallucinogenic landscape, and mediascape.

So, let's start with the first track of side 1, which is given the name, "Temporarily Humboldt County" for reasons I could not fathom. A quick hop over to the wikipedia entry for the album, however, reveals that, "the group had been told by friends in Humboldt County, California, that the local Indians added 'Temporarily' to the county's name as a way of saying no one could really own the land."

"Temporarily Humboldt County" is a parody of narratives that tell the story of the discovery of the New World, colonization, westward expansion, and our treatment of Native Americans. It's just over 9 minutes long, so here, take a listen:






As I recall, some time ago I was speaking to someone who was teaching a class on audio production, and he used this particular track as an example of what can be done with an acoustic medium and a radioplay format. No doubt, he also used it because it is relatively straightforward as a narrative.

Clearly, this recording also reflects the understanding, still not all that widely held in the 60s, about how Europeans treated the "Indians" (as they are are still officially referred to by the US government), and satirizes not only mainstream, but also the counterculture mythologies. Coming out of California, the Firesigns would have been much more attuned to both the stories of the wild west, and of the Spanish conquest, than us northeasterners.

Waiting seems to be a theme here, whether it's for the electrician referred to by the album title, or someone like him, or the "true white brother" the Indians are waiting for in "Temporarily Humboldt County" (and disappointed to discover it wasn't us). 

Perhaps the connection can be traced back to Waiting for Godot? Certainly, Firesign Theatre can be seen as heir to playwright Samuel Beckett's absurdism, creating sonic environments that place the listener at the center of the play, immersed in the action, spatially rather than sequentially in medias res. Orson Welles referred to radioplays as theater on the air, and the Firesigns also are part of that lineage, creating an acoustic theater of the absurd.

Waiting... what a concept! As much as we live in a temporal environment measured by nanoseconds, even picoseconds, as much as we eschew delayed gratification, as much as we want everything to be available on demand, it seems that waiting is as much a part of our lives as ever, and in some ways, due in large part to all of our technological innovations, more so than ever. It's like sports journalist Tim McCarver used to say when he was calling the New York Mets baseball games, nothing slows the game down more than speed.

Meir Ribalow Memorial at The Players

Last night, I attended a memorial, or rather a celebration of the life of Meir Ribalow at The Players in New York City, a club that Meir loved dearly, and was very active in. You may remember that I included information about this event in my previous post, In Memory of Meir Ribalow, where I also provided some extensive comments about this extraordinary individual.

The program included multimedia presentations, a performance of Meir's favorite compositions on piano by the composer, Byron Janis, a sing-along of "Amazing Grace," and short talks by about 20 individuals, ranging across his family, youthful friends, colleagues, collaborators, lovers, and protégés.  There were many references to Meir's affection for westerns, his strong sense of self and code of conduct, his creativity—especially his sonnets, and most of all his caring and compassion for others.

The participants included Alec Baldwin, who worked with Meir on the Creative Coalition (and I have to say it was pretty cool to have been inches away from him and hear him speak from the heart about a friend of mine), and Maria Cooper Janis, the daughter of Gary Cooper, who I've met before through Meir, along with some incredibly talented people.  And me. I was there to speak on behalf of Fordham University, and NeoPoiesis Press, and I was told I'd have 4 minutes to do so. So I wrote out some comments, and timed it out at about 5 1/2 minutes, reading fast, so I think I probably slowed down a bit when I spoke last night, but happily there were no complaints.

So, let I would very much like to share my remarks about Meir here now, with the understanding that 40 minutes would not have been enough time to say all I'd want to say about him.

Meir Ribalow Memorial, The Players, November 10, 2012

Meir Ribalow was my colleague at Fordham University, where he taught for over two decades, and was an Artist-in-Residence. But more than that, Meir was my friend, and it was both a privilege and a pleasure to have known him.

Meir was a talented individual who selflessly gave of himself to encourage and develop the talents of others. In other words, he was an educator. I know they say, those who can't do, teach, but that's a cynical view of education, and Meir gave the lie to that old saw. He was a can-do kind of guy, and a can-do kind of teacher, and he brought out the best in others, at Fordham and everywhere else he went. Meir took pride in his achievements, but always with modesty and humility. And he was not jealous or fearful of the accomplishments of others, but rather shared in the joy of their triumphs.

I want to say there's no me in Meir... And I want to say there's no I in Meir...  But what I can say is that Meir is a Hebrew name, and the Hebrew words for me and I aren't in there.  And the meaning of his name in Hebrew is one who shines, or bringer of light. And how very appropriate for one who shone so very brightly, and who shared his light with so many others. 

And how appropriate for someone who taught courses about the movies, who studied them, admired them, and loved them so very much. Every semester, Meir taught two sections of a course named Movies and the American Experience, and they were among the most popular courses in all of Fordham University. And how very fitting that he taught a course about movies; not film as some obscure and elitist exercise in theorizing and throwing around jargon and French language. But movies, as a genuine American, popular, democratic medium that mixes together the vulgar and the sublime, art and entertainment, industry and inspiration. Meir instilled in his students an appreciation for the art of the moving image and the theatrical performance; an understanding of the craft of movie-making; and the aesthetic sense to tell the difference between quality and crap, and between crap that's good, and crap that's just crap.

As a colleague at Fordham University, I feel obliged to mention that in our department meetings, he was always a voice of reason, and if you know anything about academia, you know how rare a quality that is.

I treasure all of the conversations we had about movies and television, science fiction and superheroes, politics and baseball, and religion, by which I mean Judaism and the New York Mets.

I loved the sense of connection and devotion he had to his father, and his father's work, including updating and coauthoring his father's books on The Jew in American Sports, and Jewish Baseball Stars, both surprisingly thick volumes. Six years ago, when I took over the adult education program for my small Reform Jewish congregation in Leonia, New Jersey, Congregation Adas Emuno, and was given no budget whatsoever, I turned to was Meir, and he generously drove across the Hudson to give a talk about Jewish athletes that folks still refer to to this day.

Meir participated in a number of academic and intellectual events that I organized, and he helped to bring in talented participants, such as his close friend Leslie Carroll, who participated on several roundtables featuring celebrated authors. And there was an extraordinary panel about movie heroes that we put together, that was held here at the Players, and that included, in addition to Meir and myself, Susan McGregor, Maria Cooper Janis, Lee Pfeiffer, and Victor Slezak. But what stands out in my mind from all of that was how truly amazing Meir was as a moderator. Panelists were often shocked at how well prepared he was, how well he researched them and understood their work, how appropriate and insightful were the questions he asked, and how much in control he was of the panel discussion. He was an extraordinary moderator and interviewer because of his integrity as an individual, and his empathy for others. For Meir, it was the relationship that counts.

Several years ago, when I told Meir how I helped to start a little publishing group called NeoPoiesis Press, he mentioned that he had written and published quite a lot of poetry, and I asked him if we could put out a book of his work. Last year we published Chasing Ghosts, and this year we followed that up with his book of sonnets, The Time We Have Misspent, and his novel, Redheaded Blues. And I want to share with you that our editor-in-chief, Dale Winslow, made a heroic effort to rush those two volumes into print this past spring, and set up a book party here at the Players where Meir did a book signing, gave a reading, and enjoyed a thunderous standing ovation. This is the kind of devotion and love that Meir inspired in all who knew him. And it has been an honor for us to play a small role in helping to preserve something of Meir's mind, his wit, his words, and make it available for others to share in.

Speaking on behalf of my colleagues at Fordham University, and NeoPoiesis Press, I want to conclude by saying that Meir's life was truly a blessing, we miss him terribly, but we are thankful for the time we had together, thankful for the bright light that he shined, the light he shared with all of us.

The Lion Lies Down on Broadway for Autism

So, on this past Sunday, October 2nd, my wife took my daughter to see The Lion King on Broadway.  Now, there is nothing all that exceptional about that, except that this was a special showing of the play organized by the Theatre Development Fund, the folks who run the TKTS discount ticket booths in New York, which offer tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays at up to 50% off. 

So, this special showing was an autism friendly presentation, one that involved a number of accommodations and modifications for a very special audience.  Here is the report that aired on MSNBC, describing the event, and featuring one of my daughter's classmates, Evan:

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All told, four families from my daughter's school, and a great many more from the North Jersey area, were in attendance, and made up a very appreciative audience.  Much thanks goes out to the Theatre Development Fund for its progressive work towards inclusion, and for a truly gracious bit of noblesse oblige!