-David B. Axelrod at Lhotzky’s Literaturbuffet

von am 20. August 2018 um 10:28
Veröffentlicht in: Allgemein, Poetry, Text

David B. Axelrod at
Lhotzky’s Literaturbuffet

The place to visit for the bookworm in Vienna is Lhotzky’s Literaturbuffet, Rotenstrengasse 2 at the corner of Taborstrasse in the 2nd district. Kurt Lhotzky offers a selection of German books, concentrating on political and historical themes, including English books. There are tables whether you can sit, read and order snacks. Kurt is noted for his aromatic coffee and homemade cakes. A different cake is featured every day, and as far as this writer and gourmet is concerned, Kurt’s cakes are among the best in Vienna. Aside from good vittels, book presentations and readings are featured at the bookshop

David was in Vienna from July 14th to 18th in 2008.

German Translations: Herbert Kuhner

 

 
David B. Axelrod reads „BRAINS & „TALENTS VS. PERSISTANCE“  video by Fritz Kleibel

 

Brains and Talent vs. Persistence

If I had half his brains,
I always thought I could
be somebody. And that one –
what talent! But my genius
friend never could fit in –
drinking, drinking until
he shrunk his brain
to ordinary and my
truly-gifted friend
couldn’t focus, bumping
into thing after thing,
leaving me, “Axelrod-
the-poet,” still doing
what I have to,
still hoping I will win.

Verstand und Talent vs. Ausdauer

Wenn ich halb seinen Verstand hätte,
Ich dachte immer, daß ich
jemand seien konnte
Und dieser –
welches Talent! Aber mein genialer
Freund konnte nie dazupassen –
Trinken, trinken bis er
sein Gehirn verkleinerter
zu gewöhnlich und mein
wirklich begabter Freund
konnte nicht fokussieren
und er stieß
in Ding nach Ding,
sodaß „Axelrod der Dichter“, übrig blieb
der immer tut was er tun muß
mit der Hoffnung, daß ich gewinne.

 

 

The following poem was inspired by our mutual friend Jozo Boskovski who left us for the Universe in 2008.
Jozo’s poems will appear here presently.
– H.K.

 

The Man Who Said “Maybe”

 

He said a European flight
from Macedonia
took more time going
than returning
because the earth turned favorably.
Try to explain the world a single entity – earth
sky and sea –
he’d listen patiently.
Next time he’d mention
travel, his theory
of anti‑gravity
was there again
more steadfast than
Foucault’s pendulum.
If a helicopter
hovered over a city,
would the next city
come along eventually?“
“Maybe.”

 

Der Mann, der „Maybe“ sagte

 

Er sagte man braucht mehr Zeit
für ein Flug
von Mazedonien nach Europa
braucht man mehr Zeit
als für den Flug zurück
weil die Erde sich vorteilhaft dreht.
Versuchte ich, die Welt zu erklären
als eine einzelne Entität – Erde
Himmel und Meer – Hörte er mich
geduldig zu.
Aber sobald er
Wieder von Reisen sprach,
war seine Theorie
von Antischwerkraft
wieder da,
standhafter als Foucaults Pendel.
Wenn wir in einem Hubschrauber
über einer Stadt schwebten,
würde die nächste Stadt
schließlich
unter uns erscheinen?
“Maybe!”

David in Mnemosyne. Autumn, 2011, Issue 8

 

Jews Don’t Get Tattoos

 

Sounds like a funny rhyme but
the only people with tattoos when
I was growing up all hated me—
tough guys, anti-Semites, wearing
their black marks like signs saying
I’m not one of you. Now body art
is everywhere—wrapped around
the waitress in her cotton summer
dress, a mural of forest creatures.
The young student with a flower
on her breast (and I’m not
supposed to look).
It was serious.
My grandparents‘ friends with
numbers on their wrists—long
numbers so you knew how many
others died. My brother, who
came home with a black spider.
My own daughter with a black
cat on her ankle. I still cringe
when I see a tattoo. Others
see art, a personal statement.
I think it will be the death of me.

 

Juden werden nicht Tätowiert

 

Die Tätowierten, als ich aufwuchs
haben mich alle verhaßt –
üble, antisemitische Typen
die ihre dunkeln Zeichen
mit der Botschaft trugen:
Ich bin nicht einer von euch!
Jetzt ist Körperkunst überall:
die Kellnerin in ihrem Baumwollsommerkleid –
eine Gemälde von Waldkreaturen.
Die junge Studentin mit einer Blume
auf ihre Brust (und ich soll nicht
hinschauen).
Es war ernst.
Die Freunde meiner Großeltern mit
Nummern auf ihren Handgelenke – lange
Nummern, so daß man wußte, wie viele
andere starben. Mein Bruder der
mit einer schwarzen Spinne
heimkam.
Meine eigene Tochter mit einer
schwarzen Katze auf ihrem Knöchel.
Mich schaudert’s immer noch
wenn ich eine Tätowierung sehe.
Für andere sind sie Kunst – ein Ausdruck ihre Individualität.
Ich denke, daß sie mein Tod sein werden.

 

Weapon of Choice

 

I admire guns
their finality;
the vociferation
of a blade, too long;
the bludgeon‘ s
argument diffuse.
A gun, point
not to be argued.
I admire the bullet
proof that less is
more; not
the perturbation
of poison, nor
vagaries of accidents.
A bullet, end
of story.

But most, I admire
the target;
predestination
a question; the gods
aloof; concentric
circles truth.

 

Waffe der Wahl

 

Ich bewundere Waffen —
ihre Endgültigkeit;
das Herausschreien eines Degens, zu lang;
das Argument des Knüppels zu kompliziert.
Ein Gewehr,
keine Diskussion.
Ich bewundere die Kugel —
ein Beweis, dass weniger
mehr ist; weder
die Unruhe
von Gift, noch
die Launen von Zufällen.
Eine Kugel, Ende
der Geschichte.
Aber am meisten bewundere ich
das Ziel;
Vorherbestimmung
eine Frage; die Götter
erhaben; konzentrische

 

Watching You

 

I spent till sunrise
watching you, your
restless breaths,
your high-boned face,
your nakedness defined in blue-gray
light of quarter moon.
You sighed and turned
and still I stared,
the thick curled knot
of jet-black hair tied up to bare
a soft, strong neck,
supple shoulders,
the outline of small breasts.

Until you turned again toward me,
eyes flickering in half-surprise.
I spent till sunrise watching you,
protector of your
dreams and sighs.

 

Dich beobachten

 

Ich betrachtete dich
bis zum Sonnenaufgang
deinen unruhigen Atem,
deine gemeißelten Züge,
deine Nacktheit
im blau-grauen
Licht des Viertelmonds.
Du seufztest und drehtest dich um
und ich starrte dich immer noch an,
der dicht-kräuselte Knoten
deinem schwarzen Haar
gebunden über
deinem graziösen Nacken,
geschmeidige Schultern,
der Umriss
deiner kleinen Brüsten.
Bis du dich nochmal
zu mir drehtest,
flackernde Augen
in halber Überraschung.
Bis Sonnenaufgang
habe ich dich angesehen,
Beschützer deiner
Träume und Seufzer.

Single Heron
There is a single heron,
tilts in the night waters
a foot poised
an eye for silver to flash
down — a patient fisher
after supper; teaches me
that balance counts
as much as speed, grace
an equal for any force.
From it I learn to swallow
life whole and down the gullet.

 

Single Heron

 

There is a single heron,
tilts in the night waters
a foot poised
an eye for silver to flash
down — a patient fisher
after supper; teaches me
that balance counts
as much as speed, grace
an equal for any force.
From it I learn to swallow
life whole and down the gullet.

 

Ein einzelner Reiher

 

Ein einzelner Reiher
beugt sich in den Nachtwassern
um schillerndes
Silber von unten,
ein Fuß verharrte
unten — ein geduldiger Fischer
nach dem Abendmahl; lehrt mich
dass das Gleichgewicht
ebenso wie Schnelligkeit,
Anmutigkeit zählt.
Gleichgewicht für jede Kraft.
Davon lerne ich das Leben als ganzes
durch die Speiseröhre hinunterzuschlucken.

 

More of David

In Munich
(from a New York Times report)

´´
Plasticized corpses are on display in a museum.
“I must be doing something right,” their creator says,
injecting the bodies of volunteers with a solution
that hardens into statues. “200,000 people
have viewed my work in just one week.”
Art critics say it’s art. Theologians argue
if it’s disrespectful. No one mentions
how the murder of 6,000,000 souls
also became an art.

In München
(von einem New York Times Bericht)

Plastifizierte Leichen werden in einem Museum ausgestellt.
„Ich habe sicher das Richtige getan,“ sagt ihr Schöpfer.
Er injizierte die Körper von Freiwilligen mit einer Lösung
das so hart wird daß eine Statue entsteht. “200.000 Besucher
haben meine Arbeit in nur eine Woche besichtigt ”
Kunstkritiker sagen, sie sei Kunst. Theologen sagen
sie sei respektlos. Niemand erwähnt
wie der Mord an 6.000.000 Seelen
auch Kunst wurde.

 

 

Faith and Prejudice

 

Faith begins where reason leaves off.
Thirty-two students are shot dead by
a boy who is angry. „God has taken them
to do his work in heaven,“ one mother
says. Prejudice substitutes for reason.
All so-and-sos are criminals or lazy.

Faith and prejudice go hand in hand.
Because you do not worship
my god, you are not worthy.

All those who do not worship my way
are of no account or should be dead.
Kill the infidel. Kill the Christ killers.
Drive out the non-believers.

Faith is the prettier name for prejudice.
I do this in god’s name. The devil makes
them do that. Nothing can prove that my
religion is the true faith. Nothing you do
therefore is true. If it is built on false
assumptions, it can not by its very
nature, ever be reliable or true.

 

Glaube und Vorurteile

 

Glaube beginnt dort, wo Vernunft aufhört.
Nachdem zweiunddreißig Studenten von einen
zornigen Jungendlichen erschossen worden sind,
sagt eine Mutter „Gott hat sie zu sich genommen.“
Vorurteile ersetzen die Vernunft.
Alle Sonderlinge sind entweder Kriminelle oder faul.

Glaube und Vorurteile gehen Hand in Hand.
Weil du nicht betest,
bist du der Gottesgnade unwürdig

Alle diejenigen, die nicht an meinen Gott glauben
sind unwürdig und verdienen den Tod.
Tötet die Ungläubigen! Tötet die Mörder Christi!
Sie verdienen es vertrieben zu werden.

Glaube ist ein schöner Name für Vorurteile.
Alles was ich tue, tue ich in Gottesnamen.
Die Taten der Ungläubigen sind Teufelstaten.
Daß mein Glaube der wahre Glaube ist,
kann ich nicht beweisen.
Wenn du auf eine falsche Grundlage baust,
ist alles weder vertrauenswürdig
noch der Wahrheit entsprechend.

 

Sophistry

 

The only god I’ve ever worshipped
is the bell-shaped curve.

 

Sophistik

 

Der einzige Gott, den ich je verehrte,
ist die Glockenkurve.

1.

Life is a series
of random events.

Random events
produce a probability curve.

Probability patterns
guide our lives.

2.

What guides our
lives is god.

Probability guides
our lives.

The bell-shaped
curve is god.

3.

A lack of god means
life is random.

Random events
produce a pattern.

A lack of god
creates a god.

1.

Das Leben ist eine Reihe
von zufälligen Ereignissen.

Zufällige Ereignisse
produzieren eine Wahrscheinlichkeitskurve.

Zufällige Muster
dienen als Leitfaden des Lebens.

2.

Was unser Leben steuert
ist Gott.

Zufälligkeit lenkt
unser Leben.

Die glockenförmige
Kurve ist Gott.

3.

Ein Mangel an Gott bedeutet,
daß das Leben zufällig ist.

Zufällige Ereignisse
produzieren ein Muster.

Ein Mangel an Gott
schafft einen Gott.

And here’s a piece by David:

THE ART OF BEING TOO JEWISH
by David B. Axelrod

It was a very good summer for me in 1982. My career was taking off as a poet with a big New and Selected Poems just published and lots of performances. One prominent venue on Long Island, Guild Hall in fashionable East Hampton, scheduled me to perform and it was particularly gratifying as I would have so many friends and even some senior poets and mentors in the audience.
I had already lived on Long Island for a dozen years and the renown poet, David Ignatow, had taken me under his wing. By then, he was in all the anthologies, as often for the poem about chasing a bagel! He’d won awards and grants, but to me he complained, “Never the Pulitzer.” Other senior poets presided in the Hamptons—like Michael Braude, Simon Perchik, Kenneth Koch, Phil Appleman, H. R.Hayes, Amrand Schwerner, Richard Elman, Stanley Moss, Frank O’Hara, Harvey Shapiro. Even John Hall Wheelock elderly as he was, was still actively writing.
Guild Hall was well-attended the night of my solo performance. I don’t call myself a performance poet, but I am known for my repartee between poems—even some jokes and “shtick” that liven up my presentations. I was particularly on the mark—or so I thought—that evening. Certainly, the audience laughed, and as is always the measure, the laughs were “on cue”—with me, not at me!
It ended with some gratifying applause but even before I could make my way off stage I saw a flange of three poets aiming at me at. It was Dave Ignatow, Michael Braude and Si Perchik rushing me from the back of the hall. They were visibly agitated. Reaching me, surrounding me, they said, all but in unison, “How could you do that?”
“What did I do?” I asked, concerned I had crossed some unseen line of political correctness or propriety.
“You said all those Jewish things. You should never do that.” They were clearly horrified.
It had never occurred to me that would be an issue. The book had a little section of poems “For my Family” which even included a series of three poems for Jewish holidays. In the course of the reading I told a story about my Lithuanian Orthodox Jewish grandfather, Louis Axelrod, and even used a Yiddish accent. I read a poem about Hanukkah and my Russian grandfather Philip Kransberg and did a little shuckle that he used to do when he lit the menorah.
“It’s the kiss of death,” the threesome told me. Oh, how upset they were. How concerned I’d sunk myself. “Don’t you understand?” they berated me. You can’t ever get ahead if you are known as a Jewish poet.
Later, Dave Ignatow told me he really believed that folks like Untermeyer, a king maker in his days of his Golden Books Family Treasury of Poetry, and Robert Lowell with his “Brahmins,” were the ones. “I’d have had the Pulitzer if not for being Jewish,” Ignatow said. (Louis Simpson, got one, but he converted!)
Not long after, I picked up Howard Nemerov at the Port Jefferson, Long Island train station and hosted him for a reading at an event I sponsored. At a private dinner with me after, at which he drank more than his share, he was talking freely so I asked him, was it so? Was it so dangerous to be publicly Jewish as a poet. “Oh yes, absolutely,” he said. “Look at me,” he said. “What do they call me? An ‘epigramist’?”
Well, what can I do? I have a cousin who is very assertive about his Jewishness. I’ve told him about anti-Semites I met over the years; folks who wouldn’t rent an apartment to me if they knew I was a Jew, or even let me stay in their motel.
“I’d have taken them by the collar and punched them in the face,” my cousin hollered.
“I told them I was Welsh and got the place I needed to stay,” I confessed. But I’m no self-hating Jew. I may not be at all religious but I grew up glad for my cultural roots and there is one thing I also know. Try as a Jew may, pretend, put on airs, deny… One day just one little “Oy” will creep out and it will all be over!
That’s why I figure I might as well shout it out, even at a fancy East Hampton performance.

 

*******

 

David Axelrod was born in 1943 in Beverly, Massachusetts. He resides in Selden, Long Island where he is Suffolk County Poet Laureate (2007-2009). Axelrod has published eighteen volumes of poetry, the newest of which is The Impossibility of Dreams (www.ahadadabooks.com). He is founder/Director of Writers Unlimited Agency, Inc., publisher of Writers Ink Press, and president of 3WS, World Wide Writers Services.

He can be found on the web at www.writersunlimited.org   and at  http://www.poetrydoctor.org/

 

 

– Herbert Kuhner

-Reform House & Book Shop

von am 17. August 2018 um 11:54
Veröffentlicht in: Reviews, Text

Naturkost Brunnader

I live in Gentzgasse in the Eighteenth District in Vienna. The next intersection is the pedestrian zone of Kutschkergasse, where there are two restaurants, a café and an ice cream parlor. Great to sit there in sunny weather! Further up, there’s a street market. On Saturdays the farmers come in, and you can buy direct from the source.

At the market there is an organic store: Brunnader’s with tables in the back and a sidewalk café for warm days. The fare is delicious vegetarian dishes, homemade bread and deserts and
you name it, they’ve got it (with the exception of meat.)

They are real Greens. Everybody is a vegetarian and nobody smokes. (As we know, the most
consistent chain smokers are doctors, nurses – and Greens.)

Does that sound boring? It isn’t. There’s nothing boring about this family.

I go the store regularly for a great cup of coffee and cake. My wife joins me there on Saturdays. And needless to say, that’s where we buy most our groceries.

It’s easier to deal with life as a team. There’s nothing worse than fighting a war on two fronts.

Perhaps I appreciate the family all the more, since I don’t have a positive attitude. I just try to make the best of things, if you know what I mean.
Walter Jr. told me that a customer asked him how he could father a child in times like these. I replied that the times may not be good, but this is, and I gestured, indicating the store. . Yes, the microcosm that they have created is good, and a giant step in the right direction.

“Concerning the family who bakes and sells produce, you make the comment “the family sets a good example.” I love the way you write. You set a good example. You are economical, almost “dry,” but you do the job well with just the right details to create a clear tone and a point that I relish. You make blogging an art (and I’m skeptical about the whole blogging thing.)”
– David B. Axelrod, axelrodthepoet@yahoo.com

 

Kutschkergasse 29, A-1180 Wien
Tel.: +43 1 402 43 68 – Fax: +43 1 406 21 55 –
e-mail: naturkost@brunnader.at
www.brunnader.at

 

 

Kurt Lhotzky’s “Literaturbuffet”

The place to visit for the bookworm in Vienna is Lhotzky’s Literaturbuffet, Rotenstrengasse 2 at the corner of Taborstrasse in the 2nd district. Kurt Lhotzky offers a selection of German books, concentrating on political and historical themes, including English books. There are tables where you can sit, read and order snacks. Kurt is noted for his aromatic coffee and homemade cakes. A different a different cake is featured every day, and as far as this writer and gourmet is concerned, Kurt’s cakes are among the best in Vienna. Aside from good vittels, book presentations and readings are featured at the bookshop.

Lhotzky’s Literaturbuffet (Buchhandlung)
Adresse: Rotensterngasse 2, 1020 Wien
Öffnungszeiten:  click here
www.literaturbuffet.com/
Telefon: 01 2764736

 

 

-Alan Dershowitz

von am 14. August 2018 um 10:45
Veröffentlicht in: Polemics, Text

Snitching on a Predator

From Alan Dershowitz: Is Paterno Getting a Bum Rap?:
(Joe) Paterno and I come from roughly the same generation.
We grew up during the period of McCarthyism,
and my parents taught me, as his parents may well have taught him,
that the most unforgivable sin is to ‘snitch’ on one’s friends and colleagues….
Others point out that the Catholic Church too, is a hierarchical organization,
and when priests reported abuse to their bishops and the bishops
reported the abuse up the hierarchy, the problem persisted.
Yet others take the view that if Penn State is a hierarchy like the Vatican,
then Paterno was ‘the Pope,’ and the buck stopped with him.
He, not his superiors, was the person responsible for reporting the episode to the police.
That seems unfair in light of the fact that popes can’t be fired,
and yet Paterno was discarded like a bag of putrid garbage,
when it served the interests of the Board of Directors to distance themselves from him.” [1]

Alan Dershowitz has an interesting slant. We don’t snitch.
We learned that in the days of Tail-Gunner Joe. Too bad, kids!

And it must be noted Dershowitz came to Paterno’s defence –
not before it hit the fan, but rather while it was hitting the fan.
That’s true loyalty – but to what?!

Dershowitz presents comparisons with the Vatican.
The comparisons are valid. Penn State is indeed microcosm.

Paterno, who kept things under wraps, can’t come clean.
Death conveniently removed him from the scene.

In the macrocosm, the Pope can’t be fired, as was the President of Penn State,
nor has the Big Boss conveniently removed him from the scene – he has to face the music.
Survivors of abuse have brought charges against him at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Get thee to the Hague, Alan! This is one that’s made to measure for you!

Alan Dershowitz

 

-Herbert Kuhner

* * *

[1] Huffpost/Newsmax , Nov. 11, 2011.

-Grace, Buster, the Stooges and the Dead

von am 28. Juli 2018 um 20:05
Veröffentlicht in: Text

A Princess

There was a beautiful princess who went to Hollywood and became the most elegant and attractive actress in the history of cinema. She acted well in every film she was in and each one was a box office success. You could say that she had a dream career.

In her mid-twenties, the princess decided that it was time to wed. She found an eligible prince, who however was not a prince in the same sense that she was a princess. They tied the knot, making her a genuine princess. That was the end of her film career and the beginning of matron-hood. It was as if a fairy godmother had waved her wand over the princess, but the wand was a wand in reverse. It did not provide magic, but rather removed it.

She was more of a princess before she became a princess. The sparkle in the eyes disappeared and her beauty rapidly faded. She played her new rule well, but it was the least exciting of all her roles. It was a role that she would play until her death.

The moral of this story is that being a tinsel-town princess beats being a real princess.

 

I Prefer Buster

Charlie came first and then came Buster. Charlie pratfell and caused pratfalls, and he battered around with the heavies. Charlie had a mean streak but Buster was always gentle. When the Looney Tunes cartoon characters came on the scene, they carried on in the Chaplin roughhouse manner.

Buster was the earnest and sincere one, always trying and failing and falling until before the fade-out There were the beauties that, in spite of his bashfulness and awkwardness, would sense the pure heart that beat in his breast, and thus Buster was rewarded.

Yes, Buster was pure of heart with innocent charm, and he had a grace of movement with a touch of gamin. He just kept on trying and trying again. There was no bilking or cadging.

It was Buster who captivated me. But then I’m biased. Not that I wanted to be like Buster. I wanted to have a smooth ride, but due to my Buster qualities, I’ve always had a rough one.

In his silent films Buster always got the girl at the end. However, when sound came in, Buster took a tumble and there was no girl waiting to go off with him. It’s not true that audiences weren’t ready to hear him speak.

He made the mistake of giving up his independence by signing with MGM, which amounted to signing his life away. Louis B. Mayer wanted things his way, which was not Buster’s way. Unlike Buster, Louis B. was not a genius, and as a result Buster’s films flattened and star rapidly faded, along with his fortune.

Unlike Charlie, Buster didn’t have a business sense. It was easy-come and easy-go. Buster hadn’t invested, so when the flow of money stopped, he was left high and dry. And to quench it all, there was the bottle.

Orson Welles relates that when Chaplin hired Buster for Limelight, his scenes were so wonderful that Chaplin left the best in the cutting room.

The myth is that audiences weren’t ready to hear Buster speak. Actually Buster’s foghorn voice did work, and there was a Keaton revival in the Sixties shortly before he became immortal.

 

Homage to the Three Stooges

Manny, Moe and Jack are not the Three Stooges; they’re the Pep Boys. The Pep Boys used their first names after Moe saw a dress shop called Minnie, Maude and Mabel’s, way back in the Twenties. The Pep Boys didn’t have an act. They were the owners of the Pep chain stores for auto parts.

The Ritz brothers, Hal, Jimmy, and Harry did have an act. They took the name “Ritz” after seeing the name on the side of a laundry truck. There was, however, nothing ritzy about them. They were a sort of B-film ersatz for the Marx Brothers. But they never approached the popularity of the Marx Brothers, who were the intellectual elite of all threesomes.

The three Stooges: Moe, Larry and Curley, had absolutely no intellectual pretensions. Their films were pure slapstick, with Moe giving – and Curley’s bald pate – getting most of the blows. Bonk was the sound most-heard between lines.

Although the Stooges provided comic relief in such prestigious celluloid ventures as Dancing Lady, a Joan Crawford vehicle, their own films were not even the B-part of a double-feature bill. They mostly starred in short subjects, which were sandwiched between the A-film and the B-film.

The Stooges are my favorite threesome. I first saw a Stooge film in 1940 in New York at the age of five, and they never wore off. To me, they’re in the wacky category of Spike Jones, only minus the instruments.

My sophisticated friends are aghast when I tell them that the Marx Brothers put me to sleep, but the Stooges keep me awake. Their films are not weighed down by a silly plot, and there’s no sappy romance to slow things down.

I can’t help it, I’m a Stooges fan. And I’ll be one to the end.

Speaking of an end, the Grim Reaper broke up the act by removing Moe from the scene. And with Moe gone, who would deal out those blows? No, without Moe, it was just no go!

In 1975, the Ritz brothers were called upon to fill in for the Stooges in Blazing Stewardesses. But soon after the release of that cinematic masterpiece, the Reaper broke up the Ritz’s act too.

Bonk!

 

Bringing The Dead to Life

John Huston brought James Joyce’s The Dead to life, or rather to the screen. It came to life in the sense that the beautiful Irish dialogue was spoken rather than read, as was the monologue that is the coda to the story.

John Huston brought James Joyce’s The Dead to life, or rather to the screen. It came to life in the sense that the beautiful Irish dialogue was spoken by the actors and heard by the viewer, rather than read by the reader, as was the monologue that is the coda to the story.

The Dead, as unfilmable, as any story can be, became a film due to the magic of the director and a cast of Irish actors, with voices imbued with the music of the brogue that lilts the Emerald Isle, actors whose home is the legendary Abbey Theatre.

The story is simple. Christmas dinner in 1904 marks the end of an old world and the beginning of a less humane new world. And then there is the coda in which Gabriel Conroy relates the death of a boy who loved his wife when she was young. He spends a rainy night below her window and catches pneumonia.

John Huston, a director of masterpieces like The Maltese Falcon, films containing masterful scenes and bombs like The Bible, decided that The Dead would be his swan song. He directed in a wheelchair with an oxygen mask at hand. Huston knew that this would be his last film.

Too much gallivanting, too much smoking and drinking with intemperate men such as himself, had made the end premature. Living life to the hilt means living a shorter life.

A dying John Huston kept himself alive so that this pet project would not go unfinished. And although Huston drew his last breath before it was finished – it did not go unfinished, His son Tony, who wrote the screenplay for another masterpiece Wise Blood, had adapted the Joyce story for the screen, and Tony had to put the finishing touches on The Dead.

To quote a sentence from Gabriel Conroy’s monologue: “One by one, we’re all becoming shades.”

While Huston was becoming a shade, he provided us with a film worthy of James Joyce. And that is an exemplary way of passing from this life.

– Herbert Kuhner

-Brecht and Lenya

von am 15. Juli 2018 um 13:52
Veröffentlicht in: Allgemein, Text

Brecht and Lenya

In the famous photo of Brecht, you can almost smell the tattered stogie. He’s is a dead ringer for Groucho, but without the pasted-on brows and mustache – and the sly humor. Besides having an aversion to the odor of the stogie, I’m put off by the shabby atmosphere of his plays and the high-pitched moralism. I never liked sitting in classrooms, and I’m not wild about drama in which the author uses a blackboard and a pointer.

Unfortunately like many others, the writing of it took precedence over the living of it. And later, during the Berlin uprising, he remained in the confines of his theater until the storm had passed. He preferred to say it and to have a venue for saying it, rather than carrying through. Prior to that, when things got hot in the States due to McCarthy’s witch-hunt. When he was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he simply belied what he allegedly was all about. And the next day he flew back to Europe.

To quote my late friend and mentor Emile Capouya: “Claudel was a Heavenly imperialist.” I say that Brecht was a Marxist imperialist, which I don’t think is a contradiction in terms. He wanted the world to be Marxist, come what may, as long as his plays were on the bill. Brecht did for Marxism what Claudel did for Catholicism. Claudel’s pragmatism also overrode his ideology. Claudel may have wanted the world to be Catholic, but besides being an idealist, he was a practical man. He is reputed to have fashioned a paean he originally wrote for Marshal Pétain to fit General de Gaulle. And he was right. Why waste well-wrought sentences after Pétain had justifiably fallen from grace? It’s a writer’s business to publish, and words should take precedence over deeds.

In the Fifties, I saw the legendary production of The Three Penny Opera with Lotte Lenya in Theatre de Lys in Greenwich Village. That was when the Village was still the Village. There were theaters with off-Broadway productions and lots of non-chain bookshops, instead of just cafés, restaurants, bakeries and artsy-craftsy shops.
The Opera was marvelous indeed, thanks to Brecht, as well as Kurt Weill, John Gay and Brecht’s lady friends, who filled in what the master told them to fill in à la Rubens.

Weill broke with Brecht before they left for the States, because he didn’t want to be second man in a tandem. He did indeed become his own man and that man became a very American composer. He left the hard-hammer German mode behind for a lilting Broadway one.

Among his achievements is the classical Broadway musical, Knickerbocker Holiday, which included the great standard, September Song. And speaking of Marx,  when Weill left Brecht, it was like Groucho leaving Harpo and Chico. (Padron me for bringing Groucho into it again.)

Another marvelous Village production was Brecht on Brecht, directed by George Tabori with Viveca Lindfers.
I begrudgingly have to admit that it was good, but I that I wasn’t enraptured

I’d like to salute the ladies who played a role in his life, and especially the lady who is best known for playing roles in his plays and operas. She relates an anecdote that would make any author envious, including Brecht and his stable of lady ghostwriters.

Lenya and Weill left Berlin, thanks to Adolf Hitler, and arrived in the States in 1933. And what did Lenya do after arriving? She went shopping. In her own words: “I went to Saks Fifth Avenue and bought a sweater, and in my horrible English, asked the clerk, “Would you rape it for me?” “Sorry miss,” he said, “but it isn’t my type.”

Village Cigars

It’s still there – Village Cigars on 7th Avenue and Christopher Street in the West Village with its white lettering on a red background. It’s been there forever, and it’s one of the few popular landmarks left.

Greenwich Village is still an address. There good restaurants and bakeries, but the theaters and bookshops are gone. Not only that, even the cafés are gone. Café Figaro is no more and a lot of the artsy-craftsy shops are gone.
Sado-maso shops are doing good business on 4th St.

And my God, the Waverly Theater on Sixth Avenue is gone. How could that ever be? There’s still a movie house there, but it’s not the Waverly.

I remember the Village of the Fifties and Sixties. I saw a wonderful production of the Three Penny Opera in the Cherry Lane Theatre, and I still have the bilingual French and German poetry books I bought in the 8th Avenue Bookshop.

Yes, the Village is still an address, but that’s all it is – an address. If the Village symbolizes anything now, it symbolizes the decline of culture.

I have always been irritated by smoke, and I have swallowed more than my share of the grey substance that was blown my way. Why is it then that I love the Village Cigars shop? Because it’s all that is left of the Village I knew. There it stands with the Christopher Street Subway stairways going down on both sides of the triangular front. I wouldn‘t say it’s attractive.  I wouldn’t even call it pleasing, but it was and still is visually a part of the Village – the Village I knew.

When I stand in front of it, it’s as if I were standing in the old Village – the old Village that is nothing but a memory now.

 

– Herbert Kuhner