Trivia, High Art and Madness

It is hard to believe that a mere two weeks ago I found myself lifted, as a phoenix, from a rather tenacious moment of melancholy to a grand and gratifying endeavor of quite possibly history changing consequence! I was feeling a bit dispirited by my dear Auntie Minerva’s recent involuntary commitment to Danvers. She had acquired the habit of locking herself in her gynaeceum for weeks on end, surviving with her peculiar talent of catching cockroaches with a bar of soap, on those rare occasions when her interest waned from the incessant blast of the television’s parade of game and talk shows, played at a volume that would surely have cast an elephant to ground had one been able to share such a minuscule space. Obviously this could not go on, so the family had the most unpleasant task of sending ‘round the boys in white. Seeing dear Minerva dragged from her apartment, screaming about how an all cockroach diet was essential to good nutrition, and that Star Jones was a prophet and veritable overweight Obadiah, who must be heard and comprehended before all was lost, was not a scene I hope to witness again in a hurry, believe me.

In the nick of time my good friend Chloe rang and announced that she had been chosen to aid a most prominent and respected artist of international renown in the realization of his latest project. It was hardly necessary to interrogate her further, as she was most anxious to fill in every detail posthaste.

Chloe told me the brilliant German conceptualist Rudolf Günter had leased a large space in Sag Harbor, and was preparing to build the most physical aspect of this new installation. It is the first part of a massive undertaking, which will, upon fruition, question every presupposition we have held most dear about History, Chance, and the Personality of Evil. To be finally titled “The Eccentric Assassins”, this symphony of sights, sounds, and experience is to be made up of three parts, working backward in history. It will raise important questions about our understanding of the spirits and motives of the three Presidential assassins; Booth, with “The Assassin Who Thought He Could Fly”, Czolgosz, in “The Virtually Vowel-less Assassin”, and Oswald, in this first installation, with which Chloe was to assist in the creation, “The Laziest Assassin”. It will utilize drawings, charts, diagrams, and a scale model of the assassination site, including a supplementary model of the trail from the infamous Schoolbook Depository to Oswald’s apartment. Mr. Günter’s contention is that Oswald was the “laziest” of these killers, since he chose to ride a bus, rather than walk, to his hideout.

Chloe invited me to accompany her and provide whatever help I could to this exciting project. Of course I accepted! The opportunity to bask in the presence of a mind such as that of Mr. Günter is a rare one indeed, and we and the other volunteers spent the weekend in hard and satisfying work, framing diagrams and drawings, assembling and painting pieces of the magnificent and strangely touching model. Monday evening we celebrated our efforts with gusto at a nearby restaurant. The conversation turned, naturally enough, to the media depictions and theorizing about the Kennedy assassination, on to Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, then to film in general. One of our party spoke of his favorite piece of cinema satire and social criticism, “Network” and declared Albert Finney to be a genius in the part of mad newsman Howard Beale. I spoke up immediately, pointing out that Albert Finney did not play Howard Beale, but curse my failing memory, could not bring to mind the name of the thespian, I remembered later to be Peter Finch, who did portray that prophetic character, and in fact won an Academy Award in the process. My new friend stated most obstinately that I was wrong, and until I provided an alternative name at once I could not prove otherwise. At that point our rather harried waitress came by for our desert and after dinner drink orders. I enlisted her in our debate, asking her if she could provide the correct answer. She was not aware of the film, being of a more tender age than the rest of us, but said she would ask the bartender, an expert in trivia. She returned with our dessert selections, but failed to mention our discussion.

“My dear,” Mr. Günter asked her good naturedly, his deep German accent a joy to hear, “have you made any progress on that actor’s name?”

Slightly rattled, she profusely apologized, and took off for the bar. We had dedicated ourselves to consuming our desserts like starving rabbits, when our waitress returned with our drinks. She, with great flourish, presented Mr. Günter with a bottle of beer, which he had not ordered. He looked a bit puzzled, then read the label, breaking into a robust display of laughter. The rest of us decried being in the dark concerning his merriment, so he turned the bottle for us to read its name.

Clearly misunderstanding his earlier request for “that actor’s name”, our flummoxed waitress had brought a cold bottle of the delicious California brew, Anchor Steam!

Three days later...

In Memoriam

.....or will it rise again?

A Midsummer Night's Typing

As many of you are musicians as well as visual artists, perhaps you may find a bit of simpatico with this anecdote. Last summer, after the sister of my dear friend Chloe discovered she was “in a family way”, and, as tradition and natural laws dictate, “brought forth new life” she chased the father to England, DNA results and various writs in hand, leaving Chloe to function not only as lead vocalist for the punk-jazz ensemble Professional Driver On Closed Road but as publicist as well.

She was not completely unprepared for such responsibility for she had served in that dual role as leader of her first melodic assembly, Cinnamon Sinatra. CinSin, as they became known to the cognoscenti, performed, in the same style as Chloe’s current group, cover tunes made famous by the Chairman of the Board and could only be experienced in a live club setting. That encounter could never be considered complete until, after hearing le jazz punque´ groupe’s renditions of “Summer Wind” and “In the Wee Small Hours”, the show was brought to an ovation by “Somethin’ Stupid”, with Chloe singing, such is the range of her voice, both Mr. Sinatra’s and his daughter Nancy’s parts in that pop classic!

Now her current band, PDOCR, is preparing to release its first cd, “Objects D’Art (Are Closer Than They Appear)”. It will include a few standards, “Lush Life”, “Autumn Serenade”, and “Nature Boy” among them, but, like all artists, their preference is for their own originals, so the release party will feature a live performance of their signature tune, “Do Not Attempt”.

It is this soiree that became Chloe’s first publicity project following her sister’s quest to bring paternistic justice to her paramour, as he clearly had no interest in bringing himself to such justice. I accepted Chloe’s Saturday night request for help in formulating the CD release announcement and arrived at her West Village apartment to discover that her computer had given up its ghost in the machine. She had produced an archaic Underwood typewriter, rolled into it a sheet of parchment and was preparing to hunt and peck her way through this document, using all of the weight in her slight frame to push each key, which would rise from its resting place like some great lumbering beast, crash to the paper with a dull, but thunderous KER-THUNK, leaving an inky mark of typography in its path instead of a footprint. This irregular but persistent noise caused her boyfriend, Myron, to storm from the bedroom, rage about how he could not sleep with this racket and figuratively, if not literally, throw us out of the apartment. A stockbroker, Myron has never been one to relax and the time since the Great Unpleasantness has certainly not improved his disinclination to drift easily into the arms of Morpheus.

Temporarily relieved of a space in which to work, we agreed there was only one alternative: treat ourselves to a bit of imbibitions! The Cubbyhole is Chloe’s favorite neighborhood landing, so off to West 12th we sauntered, trading an occasional example of soft shoe along the way. Upon arrival we ordered our
favorite choices of cocktail and sat down to enjoy the parade humaine. Presently a young man stepped up to our table, introduced himself as Gerard and announced that he was offering free cigarette samples in exchange for answering a few brief survey questions.

He was promoting a new brand, “Ocean Mist Lights”. The prizes were a form fitting, flask-like pack for the back pocket, a regular package, and a cd rom of cigarette commercials. I passed, but Chloe said, “Certainly, ask away”, and after a couple of minutes filling out a brief form (something she does in other ways as well, might I add) she was presented with her nicotine laced booty, and off went Gerard seeking other quarry.

“Why”, I asked, “did you accept such an offer as this is not a vice to which I was aware you were disposed?”

“I don’t smoke tobacco, as you know”, she replied with a conspiratorial air. “I’ve got a part time summer gig teaching English to French exchange students. I’ll give these as prizes to the top three students in next week’s essay test. They all smoke like oil refineries.”

She then tapped her purse with a finger.

“But speaking of smoking I have in here a small leftover of what Myron and I were enjoying before you came over. He was trying to get some help sleeping and I needed a little hype inspiration for the
press release. Want to finish it off?”

“In here?” I asked with a bit of feigned concern.

“Of course not, outside!” she replied.

“Ahh, in that case, after you.”

We stepped outside and onto a nearby dark side street. Chloe fished in her purse and produced the remains. She lifted it to her lips and fired her lighter. It suddenly appeared to me to resemble a small white moth flying too close to the flame as loose bit of paper flared with a bright red and yellow light. After a long draw she passed it to me, and I was reminded of my dear Grandmama’s affection for the Weed With Roots In Hell, as some ancient film described it. My reverie was broken by the distant sound of footsteps. I looked furtively to my left and saw two forms approaching us some fifty or so yards away.

“Cops!” hissed Chloe, and I realized it was indeed two of New York’s Finest coming toward us with some deliberation. “They must have seen the flame! Toss it and let’s go.”

I cast aside what little had survived our joint endeavor, and we walked back around to the bar entrance and went inside. Quickly ordering two more cocktails we tried to take on the manifestation of newborn innocence.

After a few moments two police officers walked past the windows, peered into the door, entered and walked directly up to Chloe and me.

One of them, a rather bulky African American fellow, stated more ascommand than question, “Would the two of you join us outside please?”

No sooner had we followed these authoritarian figures onto the sidewalk just outside the bar, than they turned us around and proceeded to bind our hands behind our respective backs with plastic restraints!

“Is there a problem, officers? We would never intentionally displease Heroes of New York!” I said, respectfully.

“The problem is what you two were up to around the corner”, the second policeman answered, with no small amount of intimidation adding gravity to his already gravelly voice.

“We’ve got you dead to rights”, said the other, quoting, I assume, some bit of obscure crime film dialog, as he brandished the evidence he had scraped from the nearby street.

Having no wish to disturb Myron further, arousing him from whatever pitiful respite he may have found from the plunging Dow in order to relieve us from the confines of the local hoosegow, Chloe at once launched into a long explanation of how we came to be on that side street enjoying a full flavored smoke. Her elucidation included a claim to have not engaged in such activity since University, how she had acquired the questionable material from an old chum visiting from Hawaii, how he was long gone, and she had discovered the remains of that adventure in her purse, what a shame it was to let it go to waste, what a, of course, simply TERRIBLE and STUPID mistake it all was, and it would certainly would absolutely without question never ever happen again under any circumstances whatever and that I had nothing to do with any of it, I was just keeping her company. I simply lent silent moral support, although I did attempt to send her a psychic message of “You go, girl!”

The Bobbies looked at each other, then at us, then again at each other.

“Well all right”, said the gravelly one, “See that you behave the rest of the weekend at least.”

Being peppered by our profuse thanks, both walked on to other, hopefully more pressing duties. Chloe and I, in unison, performed a most dramatic wiping of our brows, then walked back into the Cubbyhole. We immediately discovered the entire scene had been witnessed by the whole of the patrons who greeted us with a standing ovation worthy of one of Chloe’s “Somethin’ Stupid” performances!

Opportunity knocks! Like a bull in a china shop!

As a struggling purveyor of the visual medium one can never pooh pooh the opportunity to expand one's horizons, as it were, even beyond that point at which ships sail bow first off the edge into the eternal abyss. So one can imagine my excitement when I was approached by this fine firm for consideration of their no doubt valuable services!
Here I present, in its true, actual and satisfactual form the offer as it appeared in my inbox this very Ante Meridiem:


Dear Sir/Madam:

I am glad to introduce ourselves as Arts & Crafts Department of Fujian Putian Promising Trading Co., Ltd. I am the general manager Tan weigang.


With over 30% of oil painting reproduction export from Putian City where we are staying in, Putian is not able to compete Xiamen in term of painting trade.

We are now thinking about reduce the chains from studios to the wholesalers overseas, so as to decrease the cost. We take the products directly from the studios and communicate between the buyers and painters directly, on one hand, it is more efficient, on the other hand, it is very beneficial to the elevation of product quality, e.g. I always emphasize the quality of photo that is sent by the clients, in order to anticipate the satisfying outcome from the studios, however this simple principle is now and then ignored should there be no link between the buyer and the painter.

I hope we both are wise enough to choose each other and we both are the right men that we are searching so hard.

You can also take a look of our website, that you know, we have two business can provide to you, one is oil paintings reproduction, the other one is photograph to oil portrait. I think you are interested about it, because I can save your cost.

Hope to receive your response very soon!


And receive my response they shall! Indeed, my YiXing ZiSha cup runneth over!

Persnickety indeed!

Elsewhere it has been suggested that your humble host may on occasion be a bit "persnickety". Let us then examine the definition of this term, to wit:

per·snick·e·ty ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pr-snk-t)
adj.

1. 1. Overparticular about trivial details; fastidious.
   2. Snobbish; pretentious.
2. Requiring strict attention to detail; demanding: a persnickety job.

It is only in the unfortunate, and one hopes temporary, situation of one having taken leave of one's senses could one seriously apply such a denotation to yours truly. Certainly a desire to alphabetize one's neckties by brand (for example, Dolce & Gabbana precedes Forzieri which precedes Villa Bolgheri in any civilized closet), or a wish to arrange one's soups by label color (the aggressive reds of any Campbell's forming a gentle gradation into the warm saffron of Healthy Choice Split Pea and Carrot) on the shelves of a pantry that wished to be worthy of the appellation pantry instead of, say, pigsty, or a simple request of the postal carrier to have one's personal letters dropped into the box first, then the bills, then the magazines, then whatever advertising material he/she insists on including (a discussion in which has been engaged numerous times with more than one local postperson, often at decibels of sufficient level to awaken sleeping babies in apartments many floors above...all to no avail, might I add. Your tax dollars at work, my friends), or any other desire to maintain a level of decorous order should hardly bring such a nomenclature as "persnickety" raining down on one's carefully manicured psyche.
The very idea.

Venus DeNifera

Alas, I am sure all of you will share my heartache in learning the saga of my dear friend Chloe’s passionate romance has come to a most unfortunate, if inevitable, denouement. Her young paramour, you will recall, had a bit of a stipend from the family fortune “earned”, if such a word is applicable, in an enterprise whose despicability is not lessened by the revelation that it was, in fact, a fraud. Of course I refer to the notorious “Bonsai Kitten” venture which enabled this fellow’s progenitors to scam a considerable sum from what must have been a clientele unpleasant enough to have deserved such a bamboozle.
In any case, it happens that no less a policing entity than the FBI itself was on the trail of the handsome young grifter, and, incredibly, my posting in this forum of the story relating what I erroneously believed to be Chloe’s good fortune gave the Federales the lead they sought. Who knew the this blog was being monitored by such important personages as our federal boys (and women as well, I assume, although my own experience with the Bureau has never gone beyond viewing Efram Zimbalist, Jr. at work, as well as the X-Files, which of course had Ms. Scully at the helm) in blue? But then, we do live in the age of Gonzales & Co., and we are supposed to “watch what we say”.
But I digress.
Chloe came to realize her heart was to be broken when she went to her dearest’s apartment and found the place ransacked and her rooster having flown the coop, as it were. A query to a passing neighbor revealed that when word leaked out as to the nature of the gentleman’s transgressions, the entire apartment complex formed a torch and pitchfork posse, which stormed the apartment and threw the scalawag into the street! Word has it he immediately snatched the first available taxi and sped to JFK, boarding the next flight to France!
Not being one to take being duped in a prone position, Chloe contacted yours truly and inquired about acquiring the services of a graphic designer and a printing company, for she plans to distribute throughout France a deck of playing cards adorned with her collection of photographs, some of them quite compromising, I must say, even as a connoisseur of the erotic arts, of her outlaw inamorato, in hopes of having him located. Should that come to fruition I believe she plans to travel to that fair land and relieve the fellow of a cherished bit of his anatomy. This may be heart wrenched hyperbole on her part, however.
Regardless, we have already made plans to pay a visit to one of the area’s finer pawnshops and prodigalize the proceeds with an afternoon at Tavern on the Green!

No Cubic Zirconium for Chloe!

After a recent, all to brief, respite away and upon my return to the more familiar environs of home, and following the surgical procedure to alleviate the rather embarrassing situation necessitating the need for removal of a bit of door-opening hardware from my nether regions, and after the somewhat equally less than pleasant chore of removing and disposing of the various power-blackout-melted cartons of Rocky Road and congealed-lobster-bisque-coated Tupperware left by my portly apartment sitter, I was informed by my dear friend Chloe that she had important news which must be imparted to me at once. We met at her favorite Chelsea restaurant, where, after receiving the kind assistance of our waiter in acquiring some extra cushioning in my chair seat, I immediately ascertained the reason for her excitement, and the purpose of our convocation, to wit, a small band of paler-than-the-rest skin color on her left hand’s third finger.
“I see in my absence you have acquired a bit of a tan line on your finger”, I said, impressing her as always with my superior powers of observation and perception.
“You are right, as you so often are”, she replied.
She produced from her handbag a small box, which she opened with considerable flourish, declaring, “and this is what caused it!”
She removed the box’s sparkling ornament, placing it onto the comfortable residence of her finger. Now her entire left hand seemed to glow with the refracted light of a diamond weighted with carats of a number that even I dared not to guess!
“How long have you been engaged?” I asked, attempting as best I could manage to hide my incredulity, for Chloe had always made clear her rather demanding criteria for any potential manhood to enter her sphere of interest.
Her requirements were simple enough; he must be:
1. “Cute”
2. Of some considerable means
3. Witty
4. Taller than her own 5 ft 7 in frame
5. Not a follower of the Sporting interests
6. “Just this side of gay”
This last condition, and its enunciation, was of the greatest interest and amusement to her friends, as its meaning could be considered ambiguous by some. I understood it clearly, of course. No admirer of the Frat Boy species, she expected any man on whose arm she may present herself to be an avid follower of culture and to have impeccable taste in cuisine and couture. No time or patience for “projects” has Chloe, to be sure! Potential suitors, and here is where the uninitiated may find the most confusion in item number 6, must be aggressively heterosexual only in matters of the concupiscent nature, understandable given Chloe’s own proclivities.
I immediately insisted on meeting this remarkable creature at once! But of course Chloe, being no amateur in the theater of everyday drama, had anticipated such a demand, and declared her young paramour would very shortly be joining us at this very table!
Chloe’s young man entered the restaurant and strolled directly to our table without the slightest hesitation or searching look, as if he was drawn to Chloe’s presence by some unseen magnetic pulse. At first glance he certainly met the first of her requirements, and only time would tell if he came within olfactory’s function of the others.
After the obligatory introductions and niceties, I began to probe the fellow’s personality, discovering a few interesting nuggets of information. He did indeed come from a background of some wealth, nouveau riche though it may have been, since his family had profited from the rise of the “Bonsai Kitten” craze in Europe. They had not originated the interest in this practice, only exploited its rising popularity on the Continent, selling Bonsai paraphernalia from an underground warehouse in France. Whether or not they provided the kitties themselves I could not ascertain. More information about the subject may be found here:
http://www.bonsaikitten.com/
The oddity of this connection was reinforced by the young man’s recitation of some rather bizarre theories on human behavior. One thesis proposed that it was possible to conclude Adolph Hitler was at heart an unhappy man, based on the downward sloping line formed on his forehead by his hair. I would suggest that his activities were evidence enough of a lack of cheer, but who can say for sure? Perhaps hairstyles are an outward indication of the heart’s inclination. Since that wicked fellow is said to have had an exceptionally strong will, we may suppose his notorious mustache functioned as an emphatic period to the exclamation point formed by his nose. What this theory says about others of the dictatorial persuasion lacking such hirsuteful blessings, the late Uday Hussein, for example, I will leave to its practitioners.
The young man also practiced a strange argot which, in answer to Chloe’s inquiry as to the quality of her inamorato’s day, included this phrase:
“Everything is hunky midori ito!”
These sorts of eccentricities are to be expected, I suppose, so I joined Chloe’s other friends in wishing the best for this liaison. However, the dinner’s end brought yet another of this suitor’s somewhat alarming personality quirks to the fore. For dessert he had ordered the restaurant’s specialty, a flaming chocolate sorbet. The waiter returned to our table expressing his deepest regret, for the last example of that delicacy just moments before had been ordered by another diner. Our guest’s disappointment was handled with aplomb, at least until that very dessert item was presented with considerable fanfare to an imperious older woman seated alone at the table next to our own. As we rose to leave, Chloe was greatly amused, and I was somewhat nonplussed, to hear the young man say to the dessert-devouring dowager,
“Enjoy the last sorbet, Bee-yotch!”

Porchance to Dream!

Greetings and salutations! I am once again alive and well on the cyber frontier and look forward to sharing many interesting tidbits as they present themselves for consideration.
For example, just this very morning I was enjoying a bit of the frijol colombina with my good friend and confidante Chloe as she began to relate a most amusing anecdote, regarding a dream into which she had wandered during a brief but productive embrace in the arms of Morpheus. She found herself in the audience of a rather large gathering of pigs (she being the only human among them, a not so unusual, if perhaps less literal occurrence in her waking life as la fille occupée autour de la ville, if you acquire my meaning) being addressed by a healthy porcine fellow behind a dais which failed to completely obscure his corpulence. His dialogue was quite indecipherable for our sleeping heroine, as it consisted entirely of a series of guttural grunts, none too senatorial snorts and a phlegmatic collection of fiats more akin to flatulence than facundity. Even more disconcerting was the call and response nature of the affair, with the audience of swine answering these grandiloquent grunts with equally disgusting expectorations of their own. The master of ceremonies would spew his choked elocution to be followed with a gag reflexing ritornelle in unison from his congregation. Just as the dreaming Chloe was deciding she had endured enough of this cacophony she was awakened with a start by the true source of the choking, spitting, growling racket, lying alongside her: her roommate's English Bulldog, Diogenes, still engaged in a sound, if not soundless, afternoon snooze of his own!