Protecting Our Nation's Valuable Heritage

Berit has always complained about the disparity in Federal Homeland Security spending per capita between New York State/City versus states that, logically, are a lot less likely to show up on a terrorist's list of top-drawer targets, and I quite agree with her.

And of course, with recent changes, even the "per capita" has pretty much gone out the window.

So when I read an article in the New York Times that details some of the high profile targets in Homeland Security's database, and was about to read it aloud to Berit, her first comment was, "Lemme guess, the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota?"

Uh, nope . . . not quite . . . even worse . . .



More likely targets than the Statue of Liberty?



Soon to make its way to this list . . . Lester's Diner in Bryan, OH, famous as the "home of the 14 ounce cup!"

(makes as much sense, especially if you throw in the Thursday Night "beans & weiners" special . . .)





Or maybe even the Moxie Festival in Lisbon Falls, ME, where I spent a few hours this past Saturday . . .





 . . . because what this world needs is more MOXIE!

And when we've lost our Moxie, the terrorists have already won . . .

Strange Minds Think Alike

Got a strange little frisson today.


Read a blog that had a link to the cover of Bob Dylan's upcoming album Modern Times. I've been looking forward to this for almost five years now after his last two home runs with Love and Theft (2001) and Time Out of Mind (1997), so I clicked over.

Immediately was taken aback. Here's the cover:



And here's a still from Scene 31 of my play World Gone Wrong from last year, featuring Adam Swiderski as Ned Daley, private detective, being taken for a ride by gangster flunky Johnny (Bryan Enk), in front of a familiar projected background:




And damn, me, but I can't remember the photographer's name on this shot -- I got it from the book The New York School: Photographs 1936-1963, my favorite collection of photographs. I flipped it for this scene, and added the red title that's barely visible above Adam's head in this shot.
For its use in Scene 15, in Part I, when Bryan took me (as doomed "noir fall guy" Bill Mist) for a similar ride, I used it as originally printed:




As Berit would say, "Yeah, so? It's a great photo. Not too great a coincidence there." But it's always weird to feel you've "claimed" something from another source, a song, a quote, an image, whatever, and then see it bigger than life somewhere else.

Almost feels like there should be a Registry of Cultural References to keep moratoriums on recently collaged/sampled elements of new art works from showing up in other works for a certain period . . .