Okay, after seeing this three other places this morning, I had to put it up myself (don't know if it'll come through on the Facebook repost, though - I know YouTube videos don't -- if it doesn't, you can see it HERE).

As someone who honestly LOVES the original movie, without irony, and has directed a stage adaptation of it, and has also always wondered a bit about some of Bugs Bunny's . . . ahem . . . proclivities, this is an obvious step . . .

Current Location: Gravesend

And now it's down to the last 7 performances: 3 for Sacrificial Offerings, 2 for George Bataille's Bathrobe and 1 each for Blood on the Cat's Neck and A Little Piece of the Sun. Looking forward to many things at this point -- the final, excellent performances (I hope), the bigger houses (I hope), and having the month done with (I know). If you're planning on coming, get your tickets now, they're going fast (especially for Blood and Piece).

Then, a rest for a few weeks, and then onward to directing Trav S.D.'s comedy Kitsch at Theatre for the New City for November, and planning next year's shows, including the June production of The Wedding of Ian W. Hill & Berit Johnson. Because of that June show, I was only going to do ONE August show next year (the still-germinating Spacemen from Space), but I've been more and more inclined to a matched set of that wild comedy plus a big, nasty, depressing historical drama, maybe with the exact same cast in rep. I won't mention what the drama I'm thinking of is just yet, but it would be a clearer, in-your-face view of the themes of anti-intellectualism and religious repression that underlie Spacemen.

But that's next year . . .

This August has been a really positive experience, probably the happiest for Berit and I of all our work, and we're slightly at a loss now as to how to continue it and build on it from here. Berit says we learn two or three things every year in our work as to how to improve things for next year, and we surely have, but none of them this year is "how to keep the new audience you've gotten and get more." Whenever I think I've learned that lesson, I've been wrong. It's not blind chance that some things hit and others don't, but it's vision-impaired chance, to be sure.

Just to keep up with noting all the press appearances, there's an interview with Bill Weeden about Bathrobe at Broadway World.com, and Aaron Riccio of That Sounds Cool, who previously didn't very much like Piece and Blood (mainly because of the scripts), now somewhat likes Bathrobe and really dislikes Offerings. [UPDATE: I almost forgot Adam McGovern's kind words on Blood over at ComicCritique.blog] Interesting reactions all around, from the Press and the Audiences. There are people who like, REALLY like, each of the shows, but I'm not sure if there's very many who like (or would like) all four except me and Berit. Ah, well. It's a month of shows that does what I wanted it to do, about as well as I'd like. I can stand by them.

And if you're an audience member who's seen any of the shows, and hasn't voted for us in the New York Innovative Theatre Awards, PLEASE DO. All four shows are registered. It means a lot to me.

And meanwhile, back in the iPod, here's the weekly Random Ten from the 25,563 tracks in there today (with associated links, where available):

1. "Boredom" - Mitch Ryder - The Detroit-Memphis Experiment
2. "That's My Girl" - Monks - Black Monk Time
3. "Her Mind Is Gone" - Professor Longhair - Big Chief
4. "Sous Le Soleil Exactement" - Eyvind Kang - Great Jewish Music: Serge Gainsbourg
5. "Sober Driver" - Dengue Fever - Venus On Earth
6. "Rock on the Moon" - The Cramps - Songs the Lord Taught Us
7. "Getting Into The Jam" - Electric Six - Fire
8. "Rap-o Clap-o" - Joe Bataan - Hot Retro Summer - Lazar's Lounge
9. "Garbage Can Ballet" - Harry Nilsson - Skidoo
10. "Bristol And Miami" - The Selecter - Celebrate The Bullet

I have no new cat pictures today, and the little bastards are hiding and sleeping where I can't find them right now, so I can't shoot any.

So, instead, some videos I've enjoyed this past week (if you're reading this on Facebook, you have to click on "See Original Post" to see these) -- a whole load from Brian Auger & The Trinity with Julie Driscoll, all from '68 (it looks like they were all shot in the same soundstage the same day), starting with a long Donovan cover:

And this next one was the "hit," I think -- years later, Driscoll re-recorded it with Adrian Edmondson as the theme for Absolutely Fabulous -- here, Driscoll sings Dylan as she wanders through a field of Readymades:

From faux-Duchamp to faux-Pop (can there be such a thing?) with "Break It Up":

They seem to have blown their budget on set pieces by this point, and have to move on to different lighting and fast editing for "Shadows of You":

They're down to lines on the floor and turntables by the time of "Road to Cairo":

Ah, but they call in the backup dancers for Brian Auger's big moment in the sun, "Black Cat":

And just because I watched this and now can't get the song out of my head, here's a neat animation someone did as a school project for Le Tigre's "Deceptacon":

Well, back to puttering about and errand-running before this evening's shows . . .

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Meteors - "Cindy" - Hunger

So we're now past the halfway point, performance-wise, of our month of shows. 19 out of 36 performances done, 17 left. And all goes well, mostly.

This is theatre, so there are up nights and down nights, but there haven't been very many down ones thus far, at least as much as usual by my own - overly high - standards (I often find entire runs of one of my shows "unacceptable" to me, while at the same time knowing I'm being ridiculous and that they're perfectly good theatre by any reasonable standard).

Blood on the Cat's Neck had an "off" show on Wednesday -- I think much of the cast knew it, I heard a couple of them say they'd had an off night backstage (and another, who may not have, say "Really?"). Blood may be the one that suffers most when it's just a bit "off," as it has the most problematic script of this group in many ways, where the problems have to be elided through actorial/directorial work, and if some of that work isn't there, the problems leap to the fore (we had what I think are our first two walkouts of the month, too, right around the time I was thinking, "the show's kinda boring tonight" from the back of the house). So it goes. It's theatre, it always changes. We'll probably have another stunning, magnetic performance of this same play next time.

Last night's George Bataille's Bathrobe was really quite superb, and had me smiling and pacing happily in the lobby while it was going (I can't watch the shows seated in the house; I have to stay in the lobby and listen and peek in here and there -- the more I hear things going great, the more I peek). Here, lots of things were off, and odd, and I have lots of notes of things that didn't work, but the overall piece just had some kind of special energy that made it somehow more meaningful than usual. It was saying what I wanted it to say, which is all I could possibly ask.

A Little Piece of the Sun just got a pretty great review from Stan Richardson at nytheatre.com - wish I'd had it yesterday before I sent out the latest email to the Gemini CollisionWorks list, but whatever. Nice thoughts, and I get his critiques, even if I don't necessarily agree with them (as the actor probably being referred to as delivering exposition in "the self-conscious guise of cocktail conversation," you might understand that I wouldn't). Tom Reid becomes "Tim" Reid, but that happens all the time (I've become "Ian W. Hall" and "Ian H. Will" in a couple of online pieces in just the past month). I'm especially glad that Stan pointed out that he didn't retain all of the information that is thrown at the audience during the show, and that he didn't seem to be concerned about it -- if it's important, we make sure you get it, otherwise, it's just part of a flow of datapanik (as David Thomas of Pere Ubu would say) that is there to overwhelm and become a landscape of facts that the necessary incidents pop out from.

However, an actor in one of the other August shows who's seen Little Piece twice now wrote to tell me that he missed some rather important pieces of information at the last performance he saw -- and he's right, some of the crucial facts that we need to get across got a bit fuzzy at the last show. Oddly, as this show gets better and better and sharper all around with each performance, a handful of small yet important moments get a bit more fuzzier and unclear -- I need to talk to the actors involved about these bits tonight (and brush up myself -- I'm responsible for one of the blurry bits that should be crystal-clear).

I wish Little Piece and Sacrificial Offerings were getting some of the attention, press-wise, at least, that Blood and Bathrobe are getting. I didn't expect it for Offerings, the small, strange beautiful child of the bunch, but Little Piece is the big epic of the whole group, and I pushed it as much as the others, maybe even a bit more, thinking of it as the big central show that the others circled, and we had the wonderful press photos taken by Mark Veltman, but to my surprise, no one in the media seems all that interested in that one. I guess that it comes off a bit as what it is - a difficult show, one from and for the mind maybe more than anything else. Blood is from the gut, and Bathrobe is from the heart, so they're a bit easier to understand and access, maybe. Offerings is from the . . . I dunno, "spirit" maybe - something more mysterious - so it's just as hard to push from a press/critical perspective. I don't think of Little Piece as hard work to watch, but I have the feeling it comes off that way in any reasonable description of it - theatrical spinach - good for you, and full of rich stuff, but not so tasty. A pity.

So tonight, back to that scary, awful, exciting world of Little Piece. It'll be damned hot, too. So it goes.

And meanwhile, back in the iPod, a Random Ten for this week (with links to explanatory YouTube videos) from among the 25,465 in there . . .

1. "It Ain't No Use" - The Meters - Rejuvenation
2. "Love of My Own" - The El Dorados - A Taste of Doo Wop Vol. 1
3. "Blue Mood" - Gert Wilden & Orchestra - Schulmädchen Report
4. "Berkeley Mews (BBC version)" - The Kinks - The Great Lost Album
5. "Paint It Black" - The Animals - Winds Of Change
6. "Someone To Love (take 2)" - John Lee Hooker - Alternative Boogie 1948-1952
7. "My Man's Gone Now" - Lorraine Ellison - Heart & Soul
8. "Moisture" - The Mommyheads - Eyesore: A Stab At The Residents
9. "Mary Ann" - Duane Eddy - Girls! Girls! Girls!
10. "Road Runner" - Bo Diddley - The Chess Box

On our way to the theatre each night, we often detour around a crowded part of the BQE by going up Hamilton Avenue, and I've been fascinated by some signs on a little restaurant we've noticed when stopped at a light. Finally, I got some pictures of the place, "Solo Pollo":

Now, there's two things that have bugged me about this place. The first one that hit me, I'll get to in a second, but while we're looking at a picture that's the general view from the car, I'll start by mentioning that Berit and I have been puzzling over the sign at the bottom of the place for some time now: "HOME OF THE 80% BURGER."

80% BURGER? What the heck is that? I have an idea of what a burger is:

So to me, an 80% Burger would look something like this:

To Berit, who thinks more, say, in terms of Photoshop, and thus, opacity, thought of an 80% Burger like this:

So, moving closer, we can first see my main problem with a place called "Solo Pollo," which also helpfully translates its name to "Only Chicken": They sell LOTS more stuff than chicken, and they list a great deal of it on the awning, right below the "Only Chicken" name:

And while that still bothers me - Berit's never found that annoying - we were both chagrined to zoom in on the photo and discover what you may have already noticed, that our many-months consideration of what an 80% Burger could possibly be was rather silly of us:

Oh. Oops. Well, that makes sense.

This morning, at different times, Moni sat on the windowsill and wouldn't let me get a better shot:

And Hooker sat on my lap and wondered why I found the computer more interesting than him:

And to end (for those of you not reading this on Facebook, where the video won't show), a video that reminds me a lot of my boy Hooker:

Hope to see you at The Brick if I haven't yet . . .

Current Mood: uncomfortable
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Paul McCartney - "Bogey Music" - McCartney II

Ah, a quiet day at home in between show days . . . and then an easy week from Tuesday to Friday of one show a night, all shows now running smoothly and beautifully (and needing bigger houses . . .).

I continue to be SO proud of this group of shows I can't tell you. And they just get better and better, for the most part (notes are still, of course, occasionally needed). Maybe we'll get the houses we deserve this week, maybe finally the next and last week. Whatever, we are at least getting enough people to always make them worth doing, and I'm pleased with the audience reaction, so I'm, for once, happy with the work and glad to have it going.

But now, what to do with this day? Music? I'm almost done with my chronological listen to Steely Dan 1972-1980, which has been terrific morning relaxation music this last week. Berit and I generally listen to more "caffeinated" or "speedy" kinds of music - we generally like music that makes you edgy and jumpy and you grind your teeth and want to MOVE - so some "downer surrealism," as Zappa referred to Dan, has been a more pleasant, quaalude-y way to ease into the day; smooth, but with still enough of an edge and levels of irony to be listenable. Maybe some movies, or all the episodes of some TV show? Dunno. Not going out, that's for sure.

In any case, B's still sleeping, and I'm relaxed.

Oh, and here's a nice find of the morning, some videos of David Bowie's 1979 appearance on Saturday Night Live that I've wanted to see for YEARS and YEARS - where he's backed up vocally by Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias, thanks to Ian Zamboni over at Zamboni Soundtracks (and remember, if you're reading this in the Facebook repost, you won't see the videos and will have to check the original post for them). Here's the first number, "The Man Who Sold the World":

And here's the later two songs from the same show -- and DAMMIT, I've had to put them behind a cut (sorry), as I can't turn off the autoplay on the video. I've been wanting to see this disturbing blue-screen version of "Boys Keep Swinging" for over 20 years, since I first heard about it, and whoa, here it is . . .

( Bowie, Nomi, Arias do 'TVC15' & 'Boys Keep Swinging' )

And for fun, here's the original video of "Boys Keep Swinging" that caused the song, which had been rising up the charts as a single in the UK, to suddenly drop down those same charts the day after it aired on British TV, as the bitter irony of the song was made a little more clear to the audience, which had been taking the lyrics of the song at face value . . .

(for Bowie fanatics -- the clearer, non-embeddable, official EMI YouTube of the video is HERE and a cool alternate version of Bowie doing the song live on the same Kenny Everett Video Show set, without the drag sections, is HERE)

Okay, time for the leftover bread from yesterday's Little Piece with some cloudberry and gooseberry jam. A nice day.

Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Steely Dan - "Hey Nineteen" - Gaucho

This week, thus far, has been one of the most pleasantly boring much of the time of any I can remember.

After all the agita of getting the shows together to open last week, we are now pretty much settled on all of them, and can spend our days sitting back and relaxing until it's time to go to the theatre and run a show, remembering whatever disposable props we have to buy anew or get ready for the evening show (different shows need certain props that have to be prepared each time as they are used up or destroyed in them -- fresh bread, olives, chocolate-covered cherries, a vintage photo, a 1985 Ukrainian Communist Party Card, sliced cucumber, fake liquor, incense, 78 rpm records to be smashed, and, for one show, a big pile of blood squibs).

This will change a bit starting tonight for the next few days as we run more than one show a day -- two tonight and Sunday, three tomorrow -- but we're pretty together on what we need to do and get done. And next week we have ONE show a night from Tuesday through Friday. That's NOTHING!

So now I'm getting antsy enough at home waiting for the show each day (and worrying that there's something I need to do for it, which there isn't) that I'm actually getting some massively necessary housecleaning done.

And I mean that literally. Every year, as we do the shows, our apartment becomes a horrifyingly squalid mess as we use the place just for sleeping and working between theatre time -- and this past year, we were busy enough that we never really did the top-to-bottom Fall and Spring cleanings we had in previous years, so the place is pretty awful right now, but I'm now full of enough nervous energy that I should have it cleaned up by September. Maybe. Well, I got part of the kitchen done . . .

This morning, prior to the Random Ten, I've been chilling with the first three Steely Dan albums and going over the various press and notices the shows have received as yet . . .

I've already mentioned the fine fine superfine notice of George Bataille's Bathrobe by Michael Mraz at nytheatre.com. Nice. He liked it. Even better, he GOT it.

We now have -- and it has made some of the cast quite happy, of course -- a mostly-good, and reads-better-at-first-than-it-really-is-if-you-read-it-again-closely notice from Rachel Saltz in the New York Times (!!!) for George Bataille's Bathrobe and Blood on the Cat's Neck. She seems to have generally liked them both, but preferred the Fassbinder. Some stuff I don't agree with, of course, and almost no usable pull quotes (maybe "a wry dinginess"?), but she actually helped me understand a bit more consciously WHY these four plays this year, and how they go together (that is, under one of my three main repeated obsessional themes that I'm just beginning to understand exist, "The Treachery of Language" - the other two, as I think of them now, are "The Heroism of 'NO'," and "Figure on Ground: Man In and Against The City").

Aaron Riccio at That Sounds Cool didn't really like either Blood on the Cat's Neck nor A Little Piece of the Sun. S'cool. His problems mostly seem to be with the texts, with some additional quibbles (some of which are probably justified). Don't agree with him in general, of course, still. So it goes. Some nice amplifications from Aaron and George Hunka in the comments there, too (maybe I should have noted that while Fassbinder's Phoebe is obviously slightly inspired by the O'Donoghue/Frank Springer comic character - and I slightly based the image of mine on theirs - she's still a VERY different character, even down to the name -- the original character has a hyphenated last name: "Phoebe Zeit-Geist.")

Apart from reviews, Matthew Freeman simply had a nice little blurb about the Times piece (and thanks again), and Martin Denton at the nytheatre i lists us among the OTHER theatre things to do in NYC right now apart from the Fringe (thank you, thank you, thank you, Martin). And PennywiseNYC (cheap things to do, or recommendations from an Evil Clown?) had an entry on us as a good cheap cultural thing to do in NYC.

And hey, wow, I just checked the ticket site and we're actually selling some tickets today! And, of course, mainly for the two shows reviewed by the Times. Eeep. Hope someone will actually come to the shows of Sacrificial Offerings. That's going to be the poor little orphan this year.

You can get tickets online for the shows HERE.

Discount packages for multiple shows can be found HERE.

If you're around in NYC, please come on by to whatever sounds interesting. It is.

Meanwhile, let's have a Random Ten again, as we missed last week's. So what comes out of the 25,608 tracks in there today?

1. "Lucky Day" - Tom Waits - The Black Rider
2. "Just Another Fool" - The Abused - Loud and clear 7" EP
3. "Smelly Tongues" - Snakefinger - Eyesore: A Stab At The Residents
4. "Battle of the Planets—Main Title" - Hoyt Curtain - Battle of the Planets
5. "Flash, Crash And Thunder" - The Farmer Boys - Hillbilly Music...Thank God! Volume 1
6. "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" - Elvis Presley - The Complete 50's Masters
7. "Gotta Great Big Shovel" - Sammy Davis Jr. (as Shorty Muggins) - Laughin' At The Blues - A Hilarious And Scurrilous Collision Of R&B And Comedy Like You've Never Heard!
8. "Pêches à la Crème" - Dorine - Ultra Chicks Vol 6: Vous Dansez Mademoiselle
9. "Her Majesty" - The Beatles - Abbey Road
10. "Yellow Girl (Stand By For Life)" - Yoko Ono - Onobox 3: Run, Run, Run

And the kitties haven't been all that happy with us for being away in recent weeks (often leaving them at home at 9.00 am and returning home at 2.30 am for days on end), so they've been all over us this week as we've been home. They've also been crazy. Here they are, playing with, and breaking, a blind in the living room:

Not so crazy? Look at these eyes . . .

Okay, time to start getting ready for a two-show evening. Audience?

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Les Sinners - "Les Bouffons" - Les Sinners

Okay, so, I was finally going to catch up today on a bunch of show- and personal-related stuff now that the four shows are open (and opened quite well they did I may say).

However, I've had to spend much of the morning dealing with canceling tomorrow night's performance of A Little Piece of the Sun due to a death in a performer's family. If the actor had had to miss more than one show I would have asked another actor to step in and do the part with script in hand for as long as needed, but only one show will be missed, and it's silly to go through teaching an actor to walk though the part for the one show, so we're canceling, which means emails and posts galore to try and reach everyone who might show up (though I will still have to be at the space tomorrow to turn away anyone who still comes to see the show).

This is the second time I've had performances of a show cancelled when an actor's parent has died, and it's been a weird, conflicted thing for me both times. The previous time, I was particularly close with the actor, so my pain for him was great, while still feeling upset about the loss of some shows (not helped on that occasion by some audience members yelling at me for some time about not having understudies, and not at all getting that you just DON'T HAVE understudies at this level of theatre, sorry). Now, I'm not as close to the actor, but my own emotions about loss of family members are a bit more bare and ragged, while still caring for the future of my show, so I'm equally conflicted. In any case, we're losing one show, and moving on.

I was also touched that the actor whose father died in that previous show's run also emailed me to ask me to express his condolences to the actor in the current show, which I will.

I now have to redo some sound effects for tonight's show of George Bataille's Bathrobe, so I don't have much more time to go over how great things went this past weekend.

Except to note that Bathrobe got quite the nice review from Michael Mraz at nytheatre.com, and a reviewer from the New York Times attended good performances of Bathrobe and Blood on the Cat's Neck, so I have my fingers crossed there.

I will also note how pleased I was that the two blogs that did nice "preview" promo posts for our season and shows were George Hunka's Superfluities Redux, HERE and Trav S.D.'s Travalanche, HERE. Berit and I were both pleased by this as both of these men are erudite and fine scholars of theatre, but George is -- to some peoples' annoyance, perhaps, but rarely mine -- the most intellectual and heavy thinker in the theatrical blogosphere, and Trav S.D. is the populist, baggy-pants vaudevillian. And while I can sometimes, yes, be a bit . . . well, I wouldn't say annoyed, exactly, but both George's intellectualism and Trav's populism can be taken to extremes that at least make me sigh deeply and shake my head, even when I agree with them (more often than not) . . . I'm pleased as punch to have both of them have such kind advance words for GCW's work, as it is the blend of these two theatrical modes of thought that is at the heart of what GCW is trying to do -- the chocolate and peanut butter making up our fine fine superfine peanut butter cups of theatrical invention.

Trav also mentions the idea of volume in what we do, which is indeed an important part of these festivals -- we don't just do multiple plays for the sake of doing them; there are reasons a group of shows goes together, even if we don't realize it ourselves until they're all together and running . . .

So, in lieu of anything more, below is the email I sent to the GCW list this morning to remind them where they can get more info on the shows, as I remind you now as well . . .

**********

The FOUR Gemini CollisionWorks shows at The Brick have opened!

You can read an overview of our August, 2009 season at the theatre's page for The Collisionworks, with easy links to buying tickets online. Including special package deals for multiple shows!

Or you can visit our own company's Facebook page (and feel free to join our group for more info on upcoming events).

Or you can visit our company's individual webpages for each of the four shows, for even more detailed information on each one:

A Little Piece of the Sun by Daniel McKleinfeld

Blood on the Cat's Neck by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

George Bataille's Bathrobe by Richard Foreman

Sacrificial Offerings by David Finkelstein & Ian W. Hill

And hey, there's already a review of George Bataille's Bathrobe, by Michael Mraz at nytheatre.com, and he really liked it . . .

The ensemble is superb, showing consistent, energetic commitment to characters that are not always rooted in traditional reality or logic. Coupled with director Ian W. Hill's taut and dynamic staging, each of their absurd characters fits as an equally important piece of the puzzle in Foreman's play and each actor carries that weight with dedication and talent . . . George Bataille's Bathrobe is a unique cacophony of sound, color, and visuals that somehow finds a way to touch its audience in ways that are never quite clear. The entire cast and design team are a credit to this . . . Hill's schizophrenic lighting and offbeat combinations of sound and musical pieces work together with Karen Flood's colorful costumes to create a virtual mindscape . . . At times, Gemini CollisionWorks' staging of George Bataille's Bathrobe seems like only a sea of unrelated words. But it makes you laugh and you can't quite put your finger on why; it tugs your heartstrings and you aren't sure how; and it builds heart-pounding suspense to climaxes that aren't really there . . . Gemini CollisionWorks' vision convey a spectrum of human fears and emotions and take the audience on a journey they will spend hours trying to decipher after leaving the Brick Theatre.

Each show now has only 7 or 8 performances left between now and August 30 -- please don't wait until the last minute! See the links above for all the details you'll need.

We hope to see you at The Brick very soon

Ian W. Hill, arts

Berit Johnson, crafts

Gemini CollisionWorks

GCW Online:

BLOG: CollisonWorks on LiveJournal

IMAGES: GCW at Flickr

INFO: Our Facebook page

STORE: Our CafePress Store

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Location: Gravesend

And I'm (sorta) back and it's (sorta) begun . . .

We opened A Little Piece of the Sun to a nice-sized and appreciative house last night. It's hard to tell what people make of this show -- it kinda hits you in the face with a big load of nastiness and doesn't let up -- but they actually laughed at the (very dark) humor when it was there, and a couple of people, strangers (always nice), were quite effusive in their praise outside afterward.

It was a good performance, but still a hair shaky here and there in spots, often with people so determined to get their lines right that they were jumping in and stepping on other peoples' the moment there was a (deliberate) pause. But it was a start, and a good one. Nothing to be ashamed of, at all. The first performance of thirty-six we're doing this month (nine performances each of the four shows).

More info on Little Piece and the remaining performances at the Facebook page HERE, along with many of the great promo shots taken earlier this week by Mark Veltman. Wow. Here are a few favorites:

At the Funeral of Lenin (Roger Nasser and other company members):

Andrei Chikatilo sees the Light (Tom Reid):

The interrogation of Chikatilo and Kravchenko (Tom Reid, Fred Backus, Adam Belvo):

Portrait of Issa Kostoyev (Gavin Starr Kendall):

Portrait of Alla Rakova (Alyssa Simon):

Two stories heading for two trials:

Today we open all three of the other shows in our season of works at The Brick, The Collisionworks. I think we're ready, though I'm still not sure if I may be going on today with script in hand for a VERY sick actor.

I still have to finish one of the programs, and Berit and I still need to get to the space early to finish some props and set stuff, but here are the Facebook pages for the other three shows, and some images from each:

Blood on the Cat's Neck by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Info HERE. Some pictures (mine, not as good as Mark's):

Phoebe Zeitgeist (Gyda Arber) enters a new world:

The Policeman (Danny Bowes), The Girl (Shelley Ray), and Phoebe:

The Teacher (Eric C. Bailey) and The Wife (Samantha Mason) argue, with The Butcher (Roger Nasser) nearby:

Most of The Company:

From George Bataille's Bathrobe by Richard Foreman. The costumes for this one are by Karen Flood (Berit and I handled the design of all else on all shows). Info HERE. Pictures:

Frank Norris (Bill Weeden) in his cell:

The Man From Another Planet (Timothy McCown Reynolds) dances:

A confrontation (Timothy McCown Reynolds, Sarah Malinda Engelke, Liza Wade Green, Bill Weeden):

Frank (Bill Weeden) annoyed by The Dandy Fop (Bob Laine):

And finally, you can get info on Sacrificial Offerings, by myself and David Finkelstein, HERE, and here's some images from David's video, Marvelous Discourse, featuring David, myself, and Agnes DeGarron, which makes up half the performance:

Okay, time to finish up the last of the programs and get moving. Three more shows to open in one day. Phew.

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Location: Gravesend

Yes, of course, no post this past Friday and no more for the near future. We have four shows opening this Friday/Saturday. We are barely sleeping. The shows look great but to make them right will require more craziness.

Now, back to work on the Little Piece sound cues. Tonight's the last time we run it before opening . . .

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Gravesend

A reminder and promo . . .

**********

THE COLLISIONWORKS
An Annual Presentation of Theatre
from Gemini CollisionWorks

August 7 to 30, 2009

at The Brick
575 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NYC

4 Shows designed and directed by Ian W. Hill
assisted by Berit Johnson

featuring

A LITTLE PIECE OF THE SUN by Daniel McKleinfeld

The Soviet Union, 1978-1990

Chernobyl Reactor Unit #4, nuclear power plant. Official Body Count: 31.
Actual Body Count: Will never be known.

Andrei Chikatilo, serial killer. Official Body Count: 53.
Actual Body Count: Will never be known.

Two true stories of murder.
One true story of lies and corruption.

A documentary for the stage, examining the stories of serial killer Andrei Chikatilo and the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor through a collage of found texts that reveal these two stories of mass death to be one story of institutional corruption in a theatrical autopsy where Art is the only scalpel sharp enough to cut through the mangled flesh of the lies to reveal the glowing fragment of truth underneath it all.

performed by David Arthur Bachrach*, Fred Backus, Aaron Baker, Olivia Baseman*, Adam Belvo, Eric Feldman, Ian W. Hill, Colleen Jasinski, Gavin Starr Kendall, Roger Nasser, Tom Reid, Melissa Roth, Patrick Shearer, Alyssa Simon*

August 7, 12, 15, 21, 23 and 27 at 8.00 pm
August 9, 16, and 30 at 3.00 pm

approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes long (including one intermission)

*****

BLOOD ON THE CAT'S NECK by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

(which is sometimes subtitled Marilyn Monroe vs. The Vampires) is a 1971 play by the iconoclastic playwright/filmmaker in which a beautiful, blonde, vampiric Amazon of a space alien is dropped into a bourgeois cocktail party with an unlikely group of guests in an attempt to learn about human beings, without much success, until her plundering of the guests’ minds becomes a more direct and physical acquisition of their life essences.

performed by Gyda Arber, Eric C. Bailey*, Danny Bowes, V. Orion Delwaterman, Rasheed Hinds, Toya Lillard, Samantha Mason, Amy Overman, Roger Nasser, Shelley Ray*

August 9, 14, 19, 22, 25 and 26 at 8.00 pm
August 8, 15, and 29 at 4.00 pm

approximately 80 minutes long

*****

GEORGE BATAILLE'S BATHROBE by Richard Foreman

An abstract play by that receives its first fully-staged American/English-Language production, interpreted here as the story of an elderly, controversial writer in a prison (perhaps real, perhaps metaphoric) on his dying day, as he is confronted with his memories and regrets made flesh, both tormenting him and attempting to help him pass out of this life with peace and acceptance.

performed by Sarah Malinda Engelke*, Liza Wade Green, Justin R.G. Holcomb*, Bob Laine, Kathryn Lawson, Patrice Miller, Timothy McCown Reynolds*, Bill Weeden*

August 8, 11, 13, 18, 20, 28 and 29 at 8.00 pm
August 22 and 23 at 4.00 pm

approximately 75 minutes long

*****

SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS by David Finkelstein & Ian W. Hill

-- a dramaticule -- began as an improvisational performance duet created by the two authors as the basis for a multilayered video artwork by Mr. Finkelstein for his Lake Ivan Performance Group.
Mr. Hill has taken the improvised text and transformed it into the story of a drawing room séance among the upper class, with a version of Mr. Finkelstein’s video (Marvelous Discourse) presented mid-performance as the appearance of the “spirits” into the room.

performed by Eric C. Bailey*, Larry Gutman, Stephen Heskett, Justin R.G. Holcomb*, Kirill Khvenkin, Victoria Miller, Ben Robertson, Eve Udesky*

August 8, 14, 22, and 28 at 10.30 pm
August 16 and 30 at 8.00 pm
August 15, 23, and 29 at 2.00 pm

approximately 40 minutes long

**********

Tickets: $15.00 (except SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS: $10.00)

Or 2 shows for $25.00, 3 for $35.00, or all four for $40.00!

All tickets available at Theatermania.com (212-352-3101)

www.bricktheater.com

*appears courtesy Actors' Equity Association

**********

DONATE TO GEMINI COLLISIONWORKS! IT'S TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!

1. If you wish to donate by check, they MUST be made out to "Fractured Atlas," with "Gemini CollisionWorks" in the memo line (and nowhere else), and should be given to us personally or sent to us for processing at:

Gemini CollisionWorks
c/o Hill-Johnson
367 Avenue S #1B
Brooklyn, NY 11223

2. You can also donate directly online securely by credit card at
https://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/1394
(please double-check to be sure you're at the "Gemini CollisionWorks" donation page)

All donors (if donations are received by August 1) will be listed in all our programs for the 2009 season under the following categories with our current donors (donations after August 1 will appear in our 2010 programs):

$0-25 - BONDO

Edward Einhorn

David Finkelstein
$26-50 - RAT RODS

Lynn Berg

Citibank
$51-75 - CHROME

Sarah Engelke

Richard Foreman
$76-100 - LOW RIDERS
$101-250 - CANDY FLAKE

Centre Group Holdings

Wendy Coyle

Thomas Reid and Eileen White
$251-500 - FLAME JOBS
$501-1000 - T-BUCKETS

Luana Josvold & Gary Johnson
$1001-2500 - SUPERCHARGERS
$2501-5000 - KUSTOMIZERS
over $5000 - BIG DADDIES

hope to see you at the shows, and thanks for your continued support,

Ian W. Hill, arts
Berit Johnson, crafts
Gemini CollisionWorks

Gemini CollisionWorks is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Gemini CollisionWorks may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
**********

Ian W. Hill/Gemini CollisionWorks online:

blog: CollisionWorks on LiveJournal
images: Gemini CollisionWorks on Flickr
info: Facebook page
store: CafePress Store

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Gravesend

Well, here I am, a day late on my weekly posting, and here we are, Berit and I, with two more days of rehearsals to go, today and tomorrow, one rehearsal each for each of the four August shows. Today, Sacrificial Offerings and then Blood on the Cat's Neck, tomorrow, George Bataille's Bathrobe and then A Little Piece of the Sun. We open the first show two weeks from yesterday.

Everything with the shows themselves is going well. All of them will now get one more rehearsal (which means anywhere from one to four run-throughs at that rehearsal), two tech rehearsals, and a preview before opening. That's more time, and runs, with shows this ready, and opening this far away, than I have ever had. I'm still occasionally freaking out. Of course.

Looking back, this is almost the same entry as last week. Well, actually, I'm less freaked now. A lot. Still . . .

The first techs won't be 100% complete. I'm still rushing to have most of the sound cues ready. Tonight's my one and only real time to get a lot of that work done, and it's slow going most of the time (sometimes just as I wait for multi-track files to be mixed down in GarageBand). I have all the music set for Bathrobe and Blood, but now I have to pretty much compose Little Piece's sound score. Things will get a lot simpler a lot faster now.

Berit has built a little scale model of the set from pipe cleaners and foam core, and actually looking at that makes me feel like the dreaded construction process on Monday won't be so bad. I'll have some photos of the funny little model and some other prop stuff soon (I'd have 'em now, but I left my camera in the car).

Oh, better get the Random Ten done. Here's what comes out of the 25,578 in the thing today . . .

1. "Your Heart Out" - The Fall - Dragnet
2. "The Cross" - Laibach - Jesus Christ Superstars
3. "Budweiser's a Friend of Mine" - Billy Murray - Victor-16049 78 rpm
4. "That's Pep" - Devo - Freedom of Choice
5. "Rhumba Chillen" - Albert Williams - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 4
6. "Push Push" - Sunset Love - The History Of Texas Garage Bands In The '60s Volume 6: Psychedelic Flower Power with Sunset Love
7. "Your Love Is Burning Me" - Thane Russal & Three - Voyage Through The Sugarcube 1
8. "Kiss, Kiss, Kiss" - Yoko Ono - Onobox 4: Kiss, Kiss, Kiss
9. "El Mundo (Is A Weirdo)" - The Wayward Youth - El Mundo 7"
10. "Time Rarely Stands Still" - Guv'ner - Spectral Worship

Hooker gives not a damn for our work and stress; he just wants to know why Berit and I are never home anymore . . .

And time to rush out the door and over to The Brick now. I think if I get all the stuff done between now and Friday that I'm supposed to, I'll be okay. Okay?

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Lady B - "To the Beat Y'All" - The Sugar Hill Story: To the Beat Y'All

Tonight was the New York Innovative Theater Awards "Nominee Announcement Party," held in the spacious basement (Demo Hall) of Our Lady of Pompeii, in Greenwich Village, near NYU and all the places I lived in and hung out at from 1986-1990 or so.

I once saw a Fringe play in this hall about the Bronte clan done by an L.A. theatre company, featuring my old friend David LM Mcintyre; they weren't too happy about their show being put in a church basement with no AC and no real tech facilities.

The area has changed a lot, but certain recession-related artifacts are beginning to result in a slight resurgence of seediness that seemed to have been wiped away in the last decade.

I was amused to see that the IFC Center movie theater is showing Blood Simple as a midnight show currently, as on my first solo trip into NYC in the Summer of 1985 I saw that very movie, still on its first run, in that same theatre when it was still The Waverly.

I had been asked to come by early to be interviewed by local cable TV (actually, one of the best interviews I've done in terms of saying what I wanted to say without tripping over my tongue, swearing, or omitting something important, and remembering to get a plug in for my upcoming shows, which won't air, of course, but still . . .), and then I had time to kill so I got a sandwich and hung out in the little park on Father Demo Square (once, for an NYU location sound recording assignment, I recorded the sound of this little park, noting that I believed that "Father Demo" was the patron saint of 4-track recording, appropriately for the Village; my teacher was vaguely amused by this).

Having left the space after the interview meant not being let back in until the doors opened for the event, which happened later than planned, but once in, the joint got hopping quickly.

I didn't realize these nominee parties were such a scene, but as Brick Grand Pooh-Bah Robert Honeywell and Erez Ziv of Horse Trade (both visible below at front) said, "It's like being at a prom with the people you WANT to hang out with!"

It's a little sparse still in the above shot because everyone was still at the rear of the house getting the free drinks (I had quite a bit of sangria, myself):

By the time I went back for the third sangria, the whole place had filled quite a bit, and it was hard to move around. Unlike my last time there, the hall was definitely air conditioned, but it either stopped working or was just not up to handling the number of bodies that crowded into the room:

Gyda Arber, her mother Wendy, Robert Honeywell, and I were the first people in the door when the place opened, so we commandeered the table most front and center as soon as we got in, where we got to hang out and somewhat hold court as friends from all across the Indie Theatre community came by and said hello (and we also kept going away, mingling with other groups and friends at their "courts," and getting more drinks ourselves).

We were there to represent The Brick en masse, and six of the seven staff members wound up being there (Berit decided to stay home and have an actual day off from rehearsal) -- and yes, we all knew we had some nominations coming up. Here's (a lousy photo of) Hope and Jeff of The Brick and Piper McKenzie, who were most directly responsible for me being there tonight, instead of at the rehearsal I decided to cancel:

The tables had nice arrangements of candy on them, and other neat things. I made the mistake of trying to eat a Tootsie Roll with my dental plate in. Ouch.

The executive directors of the NYIT Awards, Nick, Shay and James, came out and spoke:

And then announced the people who would be reading the nominations -- I knew two of them, Aaron Riccio, writer//critic, and Stephanie Cox-Williams, stage manager/propmaker/actress (at center):

Then the nominations were read -- it took almost 40 minutes; there are quite a few, and everyone nominated for "Best Ensemble Performance" was listed -- and there were some big ensembles in that category.

Several favorite groups or people were listed and I joined in the cheering.

And eventually, some of the Brick-related nominations came up. Here's the second:

And here's Ivanna (who I got to direct as Aunt Fanny in my Ambersons) with her nomination certificate for her performance in Piper McKenzie's The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice:

To my pleased surprise, Gyda's nomination for Suspicious Package was for "Outstanding Production of a Play"! For her interactive Zune Player piece. This is cool:

And Gyda was happy . . .

And, yes, there was indeed a definite reason I had decided to show up this evening rather than have a rehearsal for a show this evening, and why I was there early to be interviewed by the cable TV people . . .

And this actually means an awful lot to me . . .

Despite the fact that I've actually done more lighting design for theatre than I have anything else, including acting, I'm still quite surprised and delighted by this validation that - sometimes at least - I'm doing something right as an LD. If you gave me an actual budget and needed a plot drawn up, I'm not sure if I could actually do it (I last drew a proper light plot when I was 17, when it was all by hand on paper with drafting tools and the little plastic stencils I had - and still have - with all the different light shapes that are now outdated), but if you show me the room, the script, and tell me what you want and show me the pile of equipment I have to work with, I'll make it look as good as it can within the limitations there are.

You can see some images of Granduncle, with my lighting, in two sets of photos by Ken Stein HERE and HERE. My own photos of the production aren't as technically good as Ken's, and were done at a dress rehearsal with incomplete costuming, unfortunately, but the color palette in them is a little closer to how it actually read in performance, I think, and they can be seen HERE.

It really is an honor just to be nominated.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: John Lennon - "God Save Oz" - Anthology

Okay, first we started hearing about "Swarm Robotics." That is, the creation of robots that, as the name suggests, interact and are able to swarm together to accomplish a shared task. Interesting, yes.

However, a few months ago, Berit and I were a hair unnerved to read that one of the tasks that was being looked into for these robots was the ability to swarm together to hunt down human beings, for military and/or law enforcement purposes.

Okay. Now, B & I are fairly big pro-science people, but not so much that red flags don't go up when we read about the CREATION OF ROBOT TECHNOLOGY THAT CAN HUNT DOWN HUMAN BEINGS.

As in, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS THINKING?

So merciful Cthulhu help us if they combine that technology with another that is now being worked on. Here's a press release that's meant to be comforting and as a bit of damage control after some concern was expressed publicly about a new and understandably exciting (in many ways) technology coming our way (h/t to Brad DeLong, Wired, and a few other places online, all of whom have generally headlined their stories with the classic pull-quote boldfaced below):

POMPANO BEACH, Fla.– In response to rumors circulating the internet on sites such as FoxNews.com, FastCompany.com and CNET News about a “flesh eating” robot project, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. (Pink Sheets:CYPW) and Robotic Technology Inc. (RTI) would like to set the record straight: This robot is strictly vegetarian.

On July 7, Cyclone announced that it had completed the first stage of development for a beta biomass engine system used to power RTI’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR™), a Phase II SBIR project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Sciences Office. RTI’s EATR is an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling.

RTI’s patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips – small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI.

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO. “We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.”

Okay, fine, this is . . . somewhat . . . reassuring. At least it was for me until Berit pointed out what wasn't mentioned in this official press release . . .

Nowhere, NOWHERE, does it say that these robots are or will be INCAPABLE of feeding on human beings.

Now, if YOU were putting out a press release designed to assure people that your foraging, biomass-powered robots would not be feeding on living or dead animals or human beings, and if it were true that these robots couldn't actually feed on flesh, that it was indeed IMPOSSIBLE, wouldn't you feel that this was one of the ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY things to say in the press release?

And yet, this release makes no such claim or statement.

I'm stocking up on some big mother-effin' magnets.

Current Mood: terrified
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Proctor & Bergman - "Tobor Radar Robot" - TV Or Not TV

We officially open the first show of our four August productions three weeks from tonight.

As we're incredibly ahead of schedule on several things and a bit behind on others (no more than usual, but still, behind), I'm variously either strangely euphoric or hideously depressed moment-by-moment all the time right now.

The casts are in pretty good shape, and one is in much more than that. Now I'm just all panicked about the tech stuff. Here's a picture of my breakdown of the sound cues for George Bataille's Bathrobe, which I've only scratched the surface of finding and creating:

There you can see cues A through OO -- the breakdown goes up to cue NNNNN, that is, 118 sound cues in a 75-minute-long show. Whee. And I still have to record, process, and mix lots of those cues. Blood on the Cat's Neck is a bit better -- just 101 cues in 80 minutes, and most of them are just straight music needle-drops, with no additional elements.

Next, the incredibly complex Little Piece of the Sun soundtrack/score, which will be like composing an almost wall-to-wall underscore for the two-hour show, transforming samples and sound fragments into musical themes or at least tonal drones (and possibly also adapting some of the themes/drones for electric guitar as well, if I have the time).

So, as I may have mentioned before, I'm incredibly happy with where the actorial/performance elements of the shows are (though all need work, in different ways/at different levels), HOWEVER, the tech elements are making me unbelievably nervous to the point of paralysis - exactly NOT the reaction needed. I may just relax about it through the weekend if I can (not much time between now and Monday to do anything anyway, with rehearsals tonight, and both Saturday and Sunday afternoon and evening) and then just dig in first thing Monday morning.

Oh, right, I also need to get my lines down for Little Piece At least, having done the show 8 years ago, they seem to be coming back quick, and I've already been off-book for sections of rehearsal.

Here's three shots from this week's rehearsals. First, a large-cast shot from Little Piece, as a vision of Issa Kostoyev appears to young Andrei Chikatilo at Stalin's funeral:

Most of the cast of George Bataille's Bathrobe is visible here (two of them obscured) as Frank Norris prepares to smash his glasses:

And a shot from Blood on the Cat's Neck that features the whole cast:

A whole big album of rehearsal shots can be seen HERE. I'm pretty well done taking rehearsal shots now, I think, except for some more Little Piece ones, as I'd like to get a few with the entire cast in them.

And here's today's Random Ten from the 25,594 on the iPod (most of the additions since last week being the Nino Rota cues I'm using to score Bathrobe and the Ennio Morricone cues scoring Blood):

1. "Psychedelic Pill" - The Tyde - Gravel volume 5
2. "Pesadelo" - Patife Band - Corredor Polones
3. "Cry For Fame" - Dieter Meier - Cry For Fame 7"
4. "Bad News Blues" - Grahame Bond - Love Is The Law
5. "Gimme Some Lovin'" - The Spencer Davis Group - The Finer Things
6. "Toybox" - The Geraldine Fibbers - Butch
7. "Here To Here" - Peer Pressure - S/T 7" EP
8. "Civil Defense Spot: Excellent Chances" - Groucho Marx - Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From the Golden Age
9. "See Emily Play" - David Bowie - Pin Ups
10. "Past Is Past" - The Dishrags - Past Is Past 7" EP

I've taken too much time here today as it is when I need to get back to work on the shows, but here's some pictures of our sweet little kitties from this morning.

Hooker appears to be deep in thought (hah!):

And Moni enjoys her cave amongst a pile of old props, fabrics, and supplies:

And here's a couple of videos that have kept me sane this week.

First, a very SERIOUS PSA that is a bit FAIL because some celebrity spokespeople just don't work doing these kinds of things . . .

And sometimes, you just need a Scopitone of 1960s French interpretive dance to pep yer spirits up (and yes, the song, "Psyché Rock", by Pierre Henry and Michel Colombier, is the one Matt Groening gave to Danny Elfman as an example of what the Futurama theme should sound like, and someone on WFMU has used it as a sound bed for years). Here's Les Ballets Jackson with "Fiesta Hippie" (NSFW):

Back in a week . . . if not before . . .

Current Mood: wary
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Possums - "She Loves Me" - Shutdown '66 - World's Only 60's Punk Record

Waitaminit, it's Friday!

Boy did THAT week pass quick. But, luckily, productively.

We are now into less than a month before the shows all open, and, fortunately, they're all in pretty good shape. All need work, and in different ways, but it's happening. From now on until opening, Berit and I have at least one rehearsal a day for a show -- on Sundays (and Saturdays after tomorrow) we have two rehearsals for different shows.

It's tiring, but actually worth it -- at least I feel more like it is this year than I have the last two, where I've spent a good deal of the month asking myself if the ultimate reward of the shows was worth the work and exhaustion of this month before they go up. Yes, it always is, but at least this year I can feel that way in the hours outside of the rehearsal room (I'm always happy when I'm in rehearsal, but more and more often I've been spending the hours before rehearsal dreading the work to come and just wanting to quit this whole process; this has, for some reason, not been the case this year).

Me last night, directing:

So every day Berit asks me "which one is it today?" And I check to be sure myself and we grab the correct script or scripts from the pile and go off to either The Brick or Brooklyn Arts Exchange for rehearsal (in the past, we've also been at Champions Studios or The Battle Ranch, but except for one more time at the latter, we're down to just the two locations now).

Here's what I was directing last night in the photo above -- half of the cast of Blood on the Cat's Neck, at BAX (two others were there, but not in this shot):

That's Rasheed Hinds, Gyda Arber, Shelley Ray, Roger Nasser, and V. Orion Delwaterman, in the middle of the opening "monologue" section" of the Fassbinder play.

Here's a shot from two nights ago at The Brick, rehearsing the "racetrack" scene of George Bataille's Bathrobe -- our first night together with the full cast (which we're fortunate to have for the rest of the rehearsal process, amazingly), and here's 6/8ths of them -- Bob Laine, Sarah Engelke, Liza Wade Green, Bill Weeden, Justin R.G. Holcomb, and Timothy Reynolds (with Berit's hands and stage manager script lower right):

More recent rehearsal shots can be found HERE.

We've now had a chance to stumble through each of the shows a few times, and what needs to be worked in each one is more and more apparent. Bathrobe just needs to be gone over start to finish as much as possible with the full cast, now that we have them, so that everyone can remember the dream logic of the play that links the bits together -- people keep forgetting what's happening and why, as we haven't been able to connect the bits of this fairly abstract play together too well as yet. I think repetition will help (French for "rehearsal," I'm told: répéticion). The pattern needs to be felt in everyone's bones.

Blood is in the strongest shape of the three now, and is at the stage where it's all about lots and lots of niggling little notes to the actors about pace and word emphasis. And this will keep up all the way through tech and after into performances, I get the feeling.

A Little Piece of the Sun needs aspects of both the above to be worked on, but not to the extent of the other two shows -- the pattern needs to be felt more in everyone's bones, and I need to fix the tone of many little bits. Just not as much of each as in the above shows.

Actually, pace will be the continuing problem, I think, as it ALWAYS is for me (I get physically ill when the pace is off in my shows; it upsets me more when it's "wrong" than almost anything else). I know it's been drilled into actors more and more that "faster is always better," but it's not true, and especially in my shows. Cue pickup is usually meant to be quick (and if it isn't, I'll tell you), but too often I'm asking the actors to PLEASE slow the damned lines down for chrissakes! When you do shows that are fairly meditative, many beats need to have time to land and be thought about for a moment before the next one rushes in, but more and more I'm really having to demand that actors slow the hell down. I don't want milking of lines and moments, but I want the impression sometimes that what is being said is being thought about before, during and after it hits the air.

We have another 6 or 7 rehearsals for each show, followed by two tech days each and a private invited preview before proper opening, and I think all will be set fine by then.

And the 4th show, Sacrificial Offerings is going at its own, slower, pace as it's a short, easier show (we start our tiny rehearsal process in a couple of weeks). I just cast the fifth actor of eight in the cast -- Ben Robertson, like me a graduate of the Northfield Mt. Hermon School, Class of 1986! I think we last acted together at the age of 15 in Lanford Wilson's The Rimers of Eldritch at NMH. With him in that show and Aaron Baker (NMH '86) in Little Piece, I'm now directing 2 people I've known over 25 years in two different shows. Weird.

David Finkelstein last night gave me the draft of his video version of the same text - now called Marvelous Discourse - to be used in the middle of my play version. It's unfinished, but quite wonderful, and will work well for what I need it to do in my stage piece.

Tonight, Little Piece at BAX. More little things to fix. Whee.

And so, this week's Random Ten from an iPod now full of 25,570 tracks (with links to the songs or something similar):

1. "Monks" - King Missile - Failure
2. "All Messed Up" - Jess Hooper - Tennessee Rock 'n Billy 1955
3. "Heroes And Villains" - Brian Wilson - Smile
4. "Surfari" - The Boardwalkers - NPR's International Beach Ball
5. "Dreamer" - Joyce Harris - Domino Records Story
6. "Everybody's Got A Little Devil In Them" -Tommie Young - Soulin' Vol 1
7. "Didn't I Do It Right?" - Gary Glitter - 22 Of The Best
8. "Don'cha Know" - Bill Cosby - TV Characters Sing Just For You, Vol. 1
9. "Wurlitzer Jukebox" - Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
10. "Roadrunner" - The Heinz Kiessling Orchestra - Like A Breeze

And, yes, some newer kitty pictures of the little monsters.

Here's a drowsy Hooker kitty napping on the sleeping Berit:

And here's BOTH kitties napping on the sleeping Berit (these are the easiest times to get pictures of the brats, when they're curled up and sleepy, which usually means they're sleeping on top of one of us humans):

Now, time to get laundry and nap before rehearsal. More shots from the rehearsals soon . . .

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Elvis Costello & The Attractions - "Clowntime Is Over" - Get Happy!!

A nice, busy week. Whee!

Well, the three larger August shows - A Little Piece of the Sun, Blood on the Cat's Neck, and George Bataille's Bathrobe are completely cast, and Sacrificial Offerings is 1/2 of the way there. These are some fine fine superfine casts that it's a pleasure to work with, and here they are:

A Little Piece of the Sun
David Arthur Bachrach*, Fred Backus, Aaron Baker, Olivia Baseman*, Adam Belvo, Eric Feldman, Ian W. Hill, Colleen Jasinski*, Gavin Starr Kendall, Roger Nasser, Tom Reid, Melissa Roth, Patrick Shearer, Alyssa Simon*

Blood on the Cat's Neck
Gyda Arber, Eric C. Bailey*, Danny Bowes, V. Orion Delwaterman, Rasheed Hinds, Toya Lillard, Samantha Mason, Amy Overman, Roger Nasser, Shelley Ray*

George Bataille's Bathrobe
Sarah Malinda Engelke*, Liza Wade Green, Justin R.G. Holcomb*, Bob Laine, Kathryn Lawson, Patrice Miller, Timothy McCown Reynolds*, Bill Weeden*

Sacrificial Offerings
Eric C. Bailey*, Larry Gutman, Stephen Heskett*, Eve Udesky* and four others as yet unknown (though I've asked two people and will be reading a third shortly).

*appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association, as I have to say even here I think, so AEA readers, you can get in free to all of these, space permitting (I doubt it will be a problem but I hope it will, of course).

So now we're 35 days from the first show opening, and 31 days from planning to have them all "finished" for several previews/final dress-techs for close friends, Brick staff, and significant others of the cast (maybe press if I think we're all ready long before - each show has two tech rehearsals before that, a damned luxury for me, so we may actually be ready before opening, for once).

Now, besides having to deal with some things coming into (and continuing at) The Brick in the next week, I just rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. All the shows are now almost completely blocked, I just need to plug in the actors we haven't been able to have in there yet, and run and run and run the things. From now until August 9, Berit and I are in rehearsal or tech every single day anywhere from 3 to 10 hours (except tomorrow, where we're working at The Brick most of the day and night).

And in our downtime, we have to design and send out the postcards for each show, build the set and get the props (and hope we can do this early and store them in The Brick while the July shows are going on), do the fairly complicated sound designs, and figure out what the hell we're going to do about costumes. B & I can do everything in theatre except costumes, hair, and makeup, and we were only able to hire a costume designer (the always-wonderful Karen Flood) for George Bataille's Bathrobe this year. So now, with very little money and resources, we struggle to imagine what we want for the rest of the casts (as opposed to other design elements, we just CAN'T visualize costumes; we know what's right when we see it, but before that, it's just vague senses of color, cut, and period).

But actually, four shows or no, we're ahead of where we normally are on all of them at this point, so we're feeling okay. Not cocky, but okay. Paperwork and press releases all done (though I made a minor date mistake on two of the releases I'll have to fix in an update in a couple of weeks). Moving forward.

This week, I took the time to clean about 200 songs off the iPod that I didn't really need on there, and then I wound up grabbing about the same amount of songs from the iTunes playlist of "Things I Want to Move to the iPod When There's Room" and putting them on, so it's full again, at 25,612 songs (with another 401 that I still want to definitely move over when I have to chance to clean it up again). Here's a Random Ten from the newly-cleaned iPod:

1. "Roll Over Beethoven" - The Beatles - With The Beatles
2. "Teacher Teacher" - Rockpile - New Wave Hits of the 80s Volume 3
3. "Let Me Sorta Touch It" - WFMU - Station Promos
4. "Remorse" - Gerald Fried - Star Trek - "Amok Time"
5. "Audience Of One" - Peter Ivers - Terminal Love
6. "Blue Suede Shoes" - Johnny Winter - The Johnny Winter Story Vol. 2: Eternally
7. "Flypaper Boogie" - L.B. Lawson & James Scott Jr. - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 1
8. "New Dawn Fades" - Moby - Heat
9. "Trackin' Down Jody Pt. 1" - Darker Shades LTD - Jody
10. "She's A Drag" - Dry Grins - Back From The Grave 8

And we have the camera charged and ready around the house once again, which means we're back to shooting endless pictures of our kitties.

Here's Hooker demanding attention by grabbing B's foot:

And here's Hooker with Moni on a chairload of clutter (including, I see, an obsolete rehearsal/performance schedule for one of the August shows):

And I've saved up too many good videos to drop all at once, but here's two I really liked this week (reminder - if you read this when it reposts on Facebook, the videos won't make it there; you have to click on "View Original Post" to see them). First, on a Sammy Davis, Jr. show in 1966, The Andrews Sisters meet The Supremes, and a medley is done . . .

And Hitler's subtitler, like so many others today, thinks having a lot of fonts makes them a typesetter:

And finally, a couple of other classic images, from the history of advertising, with a Cats & Dogs motif.

First, beware of the lean dog of Despair:

And second, a product for making pussy stay away:

Oh, right, and lastly, an album cover depicting one KILLER team-up adventure:

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Beatles - "Tell Me Why (mono)" - A Hard Day's Night

We wound up having to cancel last night's rehearsal (too few actors could make it), which was nice on another hand as it meant we could spend a few hours at Coney Island helping Sarah Engelke (who has appeared in GCW's The Magnificent Ambersons and Everything Must Go) celebrate her birthday along with her fiancee Timothy McCown Reynolds (who was in Ambersons and Temptation for us -- and both of the couple are currently in George Bataille's Bathrobe coming up in August) an a couple of other friends of theirs.

It was only actually about three hours of leisure time, but it felt like a long, lovely, incredibly pleasant day at the seaside.

Here's Sarah and Timothy right around the start of the day's festivities:

There had been some worry about thunderstorms, which had been predicted to show up at 4.00 pm, right when we were all going to meet, but . . .

. . . it didn't quite work out that way.

I brought our camera, and had a fine old time shooting pictures like I haven't done in years, so, behind the cut, a giant load of shots from a lovely, fun afternoon/early evening had yesterday by Berit and I with friends.

(and this is only a third or so of the shots, all of them can be seen HERE or HERE, the latter with tags and commentary):

( Sarah's Birthday at Coney Island - 07/01/09 )

Current Location: Gravesend

Well, here we are, on our way with the four August shows.

Today, the press releases all went out en masse to every bit of NYC and Tri-State media outlets that might want them. Which I do every year, so here's hopin' it works out this year. Sometime it does, sometimes it doesn't.

Five - count 'em FIVE - separate releases went out. Took me forever, with trying to format them to look good int he body of an email, and send them out without any of my email ISPs deciding I was a spammer.

Here's the first one of the five -- I'll be posting them all over the next couple of days -- for the overall month in general. I apologize if the formatting comes out wonky -- I've been trying to get these to resemble the originals, but it keeps changing without me doing anything . . .

**********

06/30/09
For Immediate Release, please list under Off-Off Broadway
Critics are invited to all performances
Contact: Ian W. Hill/Berit Johnson: Gemini CollisionWorks
geminicollisionworks@gmail.com / 718-339-3116 (phone/fax)

The Brick Theater, Inc. presents

The Collisionworks

an annual presentation of theatre from
Gemini CollisionWorks

August 7 to 30, 2009

designed and directed by Ian W. Hill / assisted by Berit Johnson

For 11 months of the year, Ian W. Hill and Berit Johnson are the technical directors of The Brick, one of Brooklyn’s (and New York City’s) most vibrant incubators of innovative theatrical arts. But every August, when other theatre festivals run amok with whatever crazy-sounding stage enterprise they think will bring audiences into small, inefficiently-air-conditioned rooms, The Brick hands the keys to their moderately-sized, moderately well-air-conditioned room over to Hill and Johnson and they become the creative entity known as Gemini CollisionWorks, producing multiple works in rep that have run the gamut from Hill’s NECROPOLIS series of dramatic collages (including the acclaimed World Gone Wrong) and his original plays Spell andEverything Must Go to the rare Richard Foreman boulevard farce Harry in Love and the bizarre Marc Spitz comedy of addiction The Hobo Got Too High.

This year, Hill, Johnson, and GCW are pleased to present four new productions, running the gamut from a violent, bloody comedy of manners to a dark documentary of institutional lies and murder in Soviet Russia to an improvisation-based combination of séance and video art to a surreal look inside the head of an elderly, dying writer on the slide toward death. These are:

A Little Piece of the Sun, by Daniel McKleinfeld, a documentary for the stage, examining the stories of serial killer Andrei Chikatilo and the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor through a collage of found texts that reveal these two stories of mass death to be one story of institutional corruption in a theatrical autopsy where Art is the only scalpel sharp enough to cut through the mangled flesh of the lies to reveal the glowing fragment of truth underneath it all.

Blood on the Cat’s Neck, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, (sometimes subtitled Marilyn Monroe vs. The Vampires) a 1971 play by the iconoclastic playwright/filmmaker in which a beautiful, blonde, vampiric Amazon of a space alien is dropped into a bourgeois cocktail party of an unlikely group of guests to attempt to learn about human beings, without much success, until her plundering of the guests’ minds becomes a more direct and physical acquisition of their life essences.

George Bataille’s Bathrobe, an abstract play by Richard Foreman that here receives its first fully-staged English-Language production, is interpreted by Hill as the story of an elderly, controversial writer in a prison (perhaps real, perhaps metaphoric) on his dying day, as he is confronted with his memories and regrets made flesh, both tormenting him and attempting to help him pass out of this life with peace and acceptance.

Sacrificial Offerings, by David Finkelstein and Ian W. Hill, began as an improvisational performance duet created by the two authors as the basis for a multilayered video artwork (known as Skewered Remarks) by Mr. Finkelstein for his Lake Ivan Performance Group. Mr. Hill has taken the improvised text and transformed it into the story of a drawing room séance among the upper class of many decades past, with a version of Mr. Finkelstein’s video presented mid-performance as the appearance of the “spirits” into the room.

For more information on these four productions, and exact dates and times for all performances, please see the individual press releases you should also have received or contact Gemini CollisionWorks at the number or email above.

Director/designer Ian W. Hill has created 59 stage productions since 1997 as Gemini CollisionWorks, including works by Vaclav Havel, Richard Foreman, T.S. Eliot, Clive Barker, Mac Wellman, Ronald Tavel, Jeff Goode, Mark Spitz, and Edward D. Wood, Jr., as well as several original plays. As a designer (light, sound, projections, sets) and technical/artistic consultant he has worked with many other stage artists and theatres for the past 20 years. Berit Johnson has been the co-director of Gemini CollisionWorks since 2001, and has stage managed, created props and puppets, and designed many other elements for many NYC theatre companies since 1997.

at The Brick

575 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211

½ a block from the Lorimer stop of the L Train / Metropolitan-Grand stop of the G Train -- www.bricktheater.com

All tickets: $15.00 (except Sacrificial Offerings: tickets $10.00) -- any two shows for $25.00, three shows for $35.00, or all four shows for 40.00!

Tickets available at the door or through theatermania.com (212-352-3101 or toll-free: 1-866-811-4111)

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Neil Young - "Broken Arrow" - Neil Young Archives #1: Live At The Riverboat

Well, this just went off to the Gemini CollisionWorks mailing list, and I'm posting it everywhere else I can -- Facebook, MySpace, etc. -- so I might as well include it here for anyone who would miss it elsewhere.

Ah, yes, it's the annual Season announcement, and more-than-annual request for donations. Not the most enjoyable part of putting the shows together, but now that we can actually receive tax-deductible donations, we need to do this to keep the shows going at a reasonable level.

So here's what the several hundred people I've acquired on the GCW email list over the last 12 years are getting today:

You're receiving this because you're on the Gemini CollisionWorks/Ian W. Hill/Berit Johnson email list - if you don't want to be on this list, please reply with REMOVE in the subject header, and we'll take you off it. We apologize to those hit by this on both our mailing list and our Facebook list, but thank you for your interest and support.

**********

Hi friends!

Once again, it's nearly that time of year where we stop being mainly the tech directors for The Brick and once again take over that space -- Brooklyn's "most vibrant incubator of innovative theatrical arts" -- to present our yearly collection of theatrical work, our "factory showroom" of the ideas, techniques, and styles we've been thinking about and looking at this past year.

Our now-Annual collection, henceforth called The Collisionworks, is comprised this year of three shows that have been on our wish list to do for many years now, and a fourth, original work that has happily appeared from our recent collaborations with another theatrical company. This August's shows are:

A Little Piece of the Sun by Daniel McKleinfeld

Blood on the Cat's Neck by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

George Bataille's Bathrobe by Richard Foreman

Sacrificial Offerings by David Finkelstein and Ian W. Hill

Rather than take up space here, you can find out about these shows, including brief descriptions, the cast members and (soon-to-come) performance dates and times at either our Facebook page or The Brick's page for our shows.

We're glad that our association with The Brick for the past 4 years has led us to become a more secure and business-oriented company (as much as one run solely by two people who really only know how to do theatre at this point can be), and has led us to create work of a grander scale than we were first able to do when GCW first started producing work in 1997 on Ludlow Street at NADA (about 60 productions ago!).

However . . . larger budgets and scale, presented in a small space at a reasonable ticket price, can pose some financial problems. Rehearsal space, costumes, set construction -- and a lot of it is needed this year -- can - and has - cost a pretty penny.

So, remember -- and yes, we're aware of both the recession and that the majority of people receiving this are also struggling artists, sorry -- you can always . . .

DONATE TO GEMINI COLLISIONWORKS! IT'S TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!

a. If you wish to donate by check, they MUST be made out to "Fractured Atlas," with "Gemini CollisionWorks" in the memo line (and nowhere else), and should be given to us personally or sent to us for processing at:

Gemini CollisionWorks

c/o Hill-Johnson

367 Avenue S #1B
Brooklyn, NY 11223

b. You can also donate directly online securely by credit card at

https://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/1394

(please double-check to be sure you're at the "Gemini CollisionWorks" donation page)

All donors will be listed in all our programs for the August 2009 season under the following categories:

$0-25 - BONDO

$26-50 - RAT RODS

$51-75 - CHROME

$76-100 - LOW RIDERS

$101-250 - CANDY FLAKE

$251-500 - FLAME JOBS

$501-1000 - T-BUCKETS

$1001-2500 - SUPERCHARGERS

$2501-5000 - KUSTOMIZERS

over $5000 - BIG DADDIES

(NOTE: If you give $1,000 or above - and someone actually always does - you will need to fill out a special gift form to accompany your donation, so please let us know so we can supply it to you)

We both hope to see you at our shows this August, and thank you for your continued support,

Ian W. Hill, arts
Berit Johnson, crafts
Gemini CollisionWorks

Gemini CollisionWorks is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Gemini CollisionWorks may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

**********

Gemini CollisionWorks online:

blog: http://collisionwork.livejournal.com
images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geminicollisionworks/
info: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32799964037&ref=ts

http://www.myspace.com/geminicollisionworks
store: http://www.cafepress.com/collisionworks

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: a loop of Elvis Presley singing "slander my name all over the place"

Meanwhile, back in the clean world . . .

My friend - and author of one of the plays I'm doing in August - Mr. McKleinfeld, has had some GarageBand fun I wanted to share.

Here's a particularly hideous piece of video news:

And here's Daniel's remix of same:

Enjoy! Happy Pride Week!

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Jackson 5 at MSG, 2001

Busy and satisfying week, for the most part.

Between Sunday and yesterday, Berit and I auditioned 17 actresses for the 7 female roles we had to refill in the four August shows (and we saw one man for one of the 5 male roles in one of them, Sacrificial Offerings, and he was good for one of the parts, so, great).

We saw a lot of good people, and have wound up with a list of people to ask, though I'm waiting a bit on informing them as Berit is still asleep, and I want to have one last discussion with her before I send out the "we want you for the part, do you want it?" emails.

For two of the parts, in two different plays, there were four different women who were all REALLY good for the part, in wildly different ways. I think B & I decided on who we most wanted for Lyuba Kovalevskaya in Little Piece of the Sun, but there was a time yesterday when we were weighing three different actresses and Berit was saying, "I wish we could have a combo of bits of the qualities of all three." But (I think) we went for a way that was VERY different from the way we originally cast the role, as well as the way it was originally cast and played back in 2001.

And I also have to wait until B is up to hash out who we want for "The Mistress" in Blood on the Cat's Neck. Again, a wealth of choices for that part, of vastly different types.

I may just email the two women we want for The Brundi Twins in George Bataille's Bathrobe right now -- we know who they are . . . okay (he typed a half-hour later), they've been emailed.

Now I'm in a holding pattern on emailing people, as the next steps are dependent on the first answers I get -- as in, if the first people I ask to play one of the Brundis from George Bataille's Bathrobe and Lyuba in Little Piece say no, then I have to move around the people playing The Model and The Mistress in Blood on the Cat's Neck to other shows/parts to get the mix right. Let's hope for all the first choices being on board . . .

Wow, everything seems to be going fine and full-bore ahead on the shows . . . B & I are just waiting for the other shoe . . . ANY other shoe . . . to drop.

Yesterday was a nice big 14-hour day at The Brick for B & I, but work was done and shows were seen, and the two sellout/near sellout house we had were good and easy to get in and deal with. Berit's on duty again tonight, and I'm hoping she'll be okay with me staying home.

And as for this week's Random Ten from the 25,596 tracks in the iPod (nothing has changed there for a while, no time to keep clearing the thing out and refilling it, though I have an iTunes playlist of 322 to put on there once I clear out some dross), here it is . . .

1. "Tacoma Trailer" - Leonard Cohen - The Future
2. "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" - Esquivel - Four Corners Of The World
3. "I Need You" - Eurythmics - Savage
4. "I've Been Crying" - Tommy Louis - Lost Deep Soul Treasures 3
5. "Mucha Muchacha" - Esquivel - Space Age Bachelor Pad Music
6. "Met a Girl on the Corner" - The Orchids - A Taste of Doo Wop Vol.1
7. "53 Miles West Of Venus" - The B-52's - Wild Planet
8. "Yeh-Yeh!" - Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames - Mod & Beyond
9. "Ain't Gonna Worry About You" - George Tinley & The Modern Redcaps - Club Au-Go-Go 6
10. "Reject" - Green Day - Nimrod

Well, that was an odd collection of pop songs that for some reason could all sound kinda mournful and elegiac on a cloudy Friday morn, following a long week and a whole bunch of surprising deaths that probably shouldn't have been (surprising, that is), which now lead to me dumping a TON of video on y'all.

Well, Michael Jackson is gone.

I can't pretend immense fandom of his work, but I can damn well support the more-than-a-handful of brilliant, timeless pop singles he created and co-created, which (I hope) will long outlast what anyone knows or claims to know about his life.

I was only going to post two videos of him that are the way I'd prefer to remember him, but some Facebook comments came up on the man that I wanted to mention.

Scott Williams noted, summing up my feelings quite well, that he was "getting sick, both of the bathetic sentiment slobbering wetly across the media and facebook over the recent death of certain talented (but increasingly irrelevant) people, and over the mean-spirited (but mostly humorless) haters who think that acting like they don't care shows their "rebellious" side. If you're gonna be a hater, you gotta learn to be witty, too, or you just look like an asshole." (Scott notes later he was also referring to Farrah and Ed McMahon with this).

And an old friend of mine, who I won't name, comes close to being in the latter category, but JUST not quite, when she notes that she "understands the 'MJ as life soundtrack' thing for some folks but she was listening to P- Funk, The Who and the Clash. And the pedophile thing was a turn off. Sorry, but there it is."

So I wrote a response to her and then didn't have the balls to post it directly to her on Facebook (I'm too Scandinavian at heart to deal with conflict I don't have to), though I surprised myself with being so red with anger:

You seem to be on the edge of a false dichotomy here, XXXXX. Some of us were listing to MJ, and all of the above you named, and a lot more, and whatever else, and a lot more whatever else. One does not preclude the other. And I sure as hell don't see his hideousness (which goes beyond "issues") being ignored anywhere, we're all well aware of it (though, hey, anyone remember the anti-semitic lyrics he wrote and got in trouble for at one point? "so-called chosen, frozen?" yeah, that seems to have vanished down the memory hole . . .)
UPDATE: D'OH! Speaking of memory holes . . . Daniel McKleinfeld points out on Facebook that I am misremembering my anti-semitic remark controversies -- it was PUBLIC ENEMY that had the "so-called chosen, frozen" lyric . . . MJ had the "jew me, sue me" lyric . . . ick . . . that's what I get for not listening to the little voice in my head that was saying I was making a mistake here . . .

And lots of personal things (about even some of the artists you name) were as big turn-offs -- look into the life of Keith Moon, which sure as hell isn't all good-natured fun as often presented, for a long list of unforgivable, immoral and criminal behavior. Or how about Mr. Peter Townshend's collection of child pornography?

Or the actually-convicted-of-crime geniuses that are Ike Turner, James Brown, Arthur Lee, and Chuck Berry, to name a few (where are the white folks? do they get off with a slap on the wrist and "boys will be boys" when they do hideous things? like Keith Moon did?).

But I will listen to "I'll Be There" and "Billie Jean" with as much pleasure as I do "Rocket 88" or "I Can See for Miles" or "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" or "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks" or "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" (or for that matter "Song for Michael Jackson to $ell"). Sorry, but there it is.

His main criminal act for me personally was becoming artistically irrelevant the older he got, but then so do a LOT of artists.

Two other comments sum up much of my feelings on this, a balanced view from Matt Zoller Seitz and a fairly negative one from music critic Chris Morris which discusses the basic coldness and hollowness of even Jackson's better work (h/t Jim Emerson). In this, I agree with Morris' observations, but not necessarily his conclusions (I believe that "warmth" and "fullness" are nice things to have in art, but by no means automatic virtues, nor the absence of them automatic debits). And Crooks and Liars posts two amazing comparison videos of The Jackson 5 doing "I Want You Back" on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1970 and (unfortunately, a brief fragment) at Madison Square Garden in 2001.

And of course, The Onion has its own last word.

And - spending more time on the man than I would have ever thought myself caring to, and probably more than I've ever spent before all put together - here's three videos of MJ in ways I'd like to remember him, from Free To Be... You and Me (with Roberta Flack), the famous (and yes, COLD) performance from the Motown 25th Anniversary show, and a fan-made video that puts together the vocal tracks on "I'll Be There" with a TV lipsync of the song . . .

As for Farrah . . . I actually missed a lot of her cultural impact. For some reason, though I watched endless hours of bad 70s TV, Charlie's Angels never actually made it in there (at least while FF was on the show; I think I watched it in later seasons). I remember her instead, and happily so, from The Burning Bed, Extremities and Myra Breckinridge, the latter of which is one of those "bad" films I will defend tooth & nail, in which FF plays an apparently dumb blonde, who winds up with more layers than the title character figures on, and whose humanity and kindness winds up shaming Myra into realizing how cruel she has been . . .

Also gone, a man whose music is quite a bit closer to me than MJ's was, and who had his own odd and famous (to his cult audience) problems, Mr. Sky Saxon, lead singer of the great band The Seeds:

And as for Ed McMahon, let's end on a laugh . . . a piece of video that makes me crack up every single time I see it . . .

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Squeeze - "Take Me I'm Yours" - Singles 45s and Under

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CollisionWorks

an occasional view of internal craft and external insanity

Recent Entries

PULL THE STRING! AIN'T I A STINKER!

You Got To Pick Up Every Stitch

Life in a Midway Point, As It Stands

August Day Off #2

What's Goin' On In The CLEAN World?

Show Updates and Links - Some Housecleaning and otherwise

One Down, Thirty-Five To Go . . .

Barely Functioning

Less Than Two Weeks Away . . .

Entering Tech Week

It's an Honor Just to Be . . .

"We Completely Understand the Public's Concern . . ."

Friday Attempt at Keeping Calm Random Ten etc.

If It's Friday, This Must Be Little Piece

Some Assembly Required

Yesterday, at Coney Island

PRESS RELEASE - A Month of Shows, August 2009

The Collisionworks

Gemini CollisionWorks - August Season and Donation Message

C'mon You Homosexual Demon!

Thank You, We'll Call You

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