Arts & Entertainment » peoplesworld

“Blueprint for Paradise”: A polished drama about Nazis for our time

Eric A. Gordon — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 12:38:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - The ruins of the Murphy Ranch, an abandoned pre-WWII Nazi compound in Pacific Palisades, a stony area of L.A. north of Santa Monica on the route toward Malibu, have inspired a new play, now enjoying its world premiere in Hollywood. Blueprint for Paradise by Laurel M. Wetzork reconfirms that L.A. is a magnificent town for great theatre. Every one of its seven actors has a long list of credits in film, TV, and video - which likely accounts for why they're here.

Blueprint for Paradise was a semi-finalist in both the national Eugene O'Neill playwriting competition and the HUMANITAS/Center Theatre Group playwriting competition (2015).

Set in late 1941 during the weeks leading up to Pearl Harbor, and inspired by true events, Wetzork imagines the relationship between African-American architect Paul Revere Williams (designer of landmark L.A. buildings including Saks Fifth Ave and the Los Angeles County Courthouse, as well as private residences for a number of well known movie stars) and a wealthy American couple (he's a fishing magnate) who employed him to design a compound and training ground for Nazi sympathizers - keeping from him, of course, the true nature of the project.

There was in fact a couple, Winona and Norman Stephens, sympathizers of American pro-Nazi groups, who purchased fifty acres of land intended to be a self-sufficient base for Nazi activities in the U.S., complete with its own water storage and fuel tanks, bomb shelter, a four-story, 22-bedroom mansion, and various outbuildings and bunkers. In the play the couple are Clara and Herbert Taylor.

The abandoned site, currently in a state of disrepair and covered in graffiti, is owned by the City of Los Angeles and has become a popular hiking destination. In February, 2016, many of the structures were demolished due to safety concerns, but some of Williams' architectural work is still extant.

Rooting her play in historical events, Wetzork places special emphasis on race relations and the subjugation of women in the larger context of Nazi thinking, especially the sterilization movement. The American eugenics movement, represented by the Human Betterment Foundation, based in Pasadena, attracted support from many "leading citizens," including the president of the University of Southern California, board chairman of the California Institute of Technology, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, university professors, pastors, medical and scientific professionals and other private individuals. The objective was to "improve" society by weeding out "defectives," the "feeble-minded," "mentally diseased," and poor people on public charity - in other words, a whiter America with "fewer or none of everyone else." The German Nazi movement picked up much of this ideology from America.

Members of Clara Taylor's (Meredith Thomas) household include her loyal and insightful, though not English-fluent Chinese maid Fenny Gao (Ann Hu) and an Italian valet Alessandro "Alex" Farnase (Alex Best). They get the "intersectionality" of oppression - of themselves as immigrants with accents, and of their mistress who is squashed under her husband Herbert's (David Jahn) thumb.

When the highly recommended Paul Williams (Regi Davis) appears - to Clara's shock he turns out to be a Black man! - she is initially reluctant to engage him, but Wetzork weaves a subtle fabric of mutually discovered interests that bond Clara and Williams closer. "I wanted to examine the wife's journey," the playwright says, "to discover how Williams' achievements and personality might have shaken her preconceived notions of the way the world should work."

The Human Betterment Foundation, the ultra-conservative Mothers of America, the fascist Silver Legion of America, the America First moment, all formed part of a vast network of corporate-sponsored pro-German groups that opposed U.S. involvement in the war all the way up to December 7, 1941. Among the other pillars of their undemocratic ideology, Wetzork also shows this crowd as intensely anti-Communist and anti-union (no surprise there). If fascism is an extreme form of capitalism as a corporate state that governs in the absence of democratic, egalitarian rights, Wetzork completely nails how a certain sector of American industrialists were prepared to encourage a Nazi victory in Europe and the spread of such a system to the Americas. The compound in Pacific Palisades would have been its HQ for the Western U.S.

Two other characters fill out the cast of seven, the sinister Nazi agent Wolfgang Schreiber (Peter McGlynn) whose promises to Herbert Taylor of corporate monopoly in the fishing sector after the Nazi takeover lead the American industrialist into a relationship of pathetic dependency; and a Southerner, improbably named Ludwig Gottschalk (Steve Marvel), who is a homegrown Nazi leader. His was the only character whose backstory needed more exposition to be completely believable.

Laura Steinroeder directs this expert crew of actors. Some of these characters, although fully developed, are standard-issue "types" from the Forties, like the German Nazi and the Chinese maid. The fragile but surprisingly resilient Clara and Paul Williams (who reminds me of a younger James Earl Jones) stand out as the most original and evolved. In fact, the Forties esthetic dominates here as Wetzork's homage to the era. If we didn't know otherwise, we could easily imagine this as a stage version of a classic noir film, except perhaps for some allusions to Nazi philosophy that sound purposefully contemporary. The author has lovingly constructed a polished "well-made play" à la Lillian Hellman of The Little Foxes and Watch on the Rhine.

That once almost obligatory style of drama subsequently came under criticism, if not attack and ridicule, for taking no account of experimental techniques, for wrapping up all the problems and ambiguities in a neat bow at the end. It became "dated" and "passé," but here it works just fine: The tip of the hat to that era is noted and appreciated. If the "well-made play" happens to be your thing, then from that point of view alone, not to mention the politics and the pure theatre of Blueprint for Paradise, this is your ticket.

The effective single neocolonial living-room set design is by Gary Lee Reed; moody lighting is by Matthew Gorka; sound by Cricket S. Myers with timely news broadcasts about military events in Europe; and stylish costumes by Michael Mullen.

Any theatergoer will have a highly satisfying experience with this play. More than that, it is also a cautionary tale about what was going on under our noses just a few miles from where it's being staged, and what, without vigilance, could happen again in the country we live in.

Blueprint for Paradise plays through Sept. 4, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 3 pm, at the Hudson Theatres, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles 90038. For information and tickets, please contact (323) 960-4412 or www.BlueprintForParadise.com.

Photo: Meredith Thomas and Regi Davis / Ed Krieger

“The Suitcase”: Europe’s and America’s Holocausts seen from the Shawng Zeleezay

Eric A. Gordon, Colby Wagenbach — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 11:25:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - The ambitious Echo Theater Company, responsible for the currently running office drama One of the Nice Ones, is now also staging the United States premiere of a surrealistic Polish play about the Holocaust, The Suitcase. The 2011 work is by Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk, born in 1964 and considered one of her country's most provocative contemporary playwrights and screenwriters.

The Suitcase (Walizka in Polish) is a memory-and-dream play taking place in Paris. The Narrator (Jeff Alan-Lee), a suave, ironic boulevardier who's a cheesier version of the Master of Ceremonies in the musical Cabaret, introduces us to unusual stories, focusing on one neurotic Parisian of Polish ancestry whose mother kept from him all relevant information about his father.

Our subject is Franswa Jackoh (Vincent Castellanos), the name itself a vaguely phonetic version of a French-Jewish name. Already we understand we are viewing this story from the distance of the French capital's elegant Champs Elysées, conveniently if confusingly transliterated for the audience as "Shawng Zeleezay." The rest of the play confirms that we are looking at the Holocaust through a maze of prisms, refracting history through filters of language, nationality, generation, physical distance and tone. Even in Artur Zapałowski's translation we hear an English that is not quite vernacular. The humorous pantomimic touch recalls Roberto Benigni's 1997 Holocaust film Life Is Beautiful, which gave rise to serious complaints over the appropriateness of "laughing at everything."

Franswa inscribes an improbable note to the father he never knew, tucking it into a mystical wall connected to heaven, imploring him to "please come back this instant." Sure enough, his prayer is answered in an unexpected way, for on a visit to local Holocaust museum he notices a suitcase on loan from Auschwitz, clearly marked with his father's name. The connection that had been denied to the son now appears in this freakish visitation from the father, who bears the curious name Pantofelnik. A common installation at Holocaust museums is a grimy pile of shoes of the death camp inmates. "Pantofel" is the Yiddish word for a slipper or loafer.

Other characters Franswa encounters, such as The Narrator's stage companion Jackleen (Claire Kaplan); The Miserable Tour Guide at the Holocaust Museum (that's the character's name, played by Alexandra Freeman); The Poet (Sigute Miller) - referred to by a somewhat Germanic name Bruna, closely related to the color braun, as in shirts - who yearns to seek out the unknown corners of her country (Germany?) so she can tell its story with innocent love and goodness; and eventually his father Pantofelnik (Eric Keitel), all contribute to establishing the real difficulty of telling a nation's story in one easy narrative arc.

Special note should be taken of the lighting (Chris Wojcieszyn) establishing space and ambiance. Although minimal in approach, the openness of the performing area - edges loosely defined by the fading of the light - made a viewer seem to be peering into a scene occurring inside a mind. The climactic moment of the show is heightened by a dramatic spotlight on Franswa, and we can legitimately ask, Where is that happening?

Most national histories are based on some set of self-congratulatory founding myths, and picking them apart can be devastatingly dispiriting. As the playwright says, "It hurts me that the true History of Poland remains untold," but where will that truth be found? Surely not in one book, nor one place, nor in one memory. Poland is the classic case of the long-suffering, broad-plained, virtually defenseless land mercilessly invaded by Hitler's Blitzkrieg in September 1939. But at the same time its Roman Catholic population took it upon itself to attack Polish Jews, famously in the town of Jedwabne during the Nazi time, and even after the war ended, with pogroms in Krakow and Kielce.

The playwright shows a major concern with French existentialism. At the moment when Franswa hugs this prosaic object, the suitcase, he joyously shouts, "He existed!" bringing Sartre to mind. Moreover, the intense, immediate physicality of what proves to be a psychosomatic symptom, Franswa's shortness of breath, recalls Sartre's nausea. That the play deals with a Frenchman in postwar Europe struggling with feeling whole in his identity without some external referent (his father) seems a generic trope of that intellectual tradition. The Holocaust, or the past, only becomes meaningful to Franswa insofar as he self-identifies and self-justifies with it..

So here is a deliberately Polish engagement with the most popular intellectual response in Western Europe to the postwar condition, French existentialism à la Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, while the world of the Eastern Bloc nations responded with Soviet-style socialism. Perhaps this terse 65-minute play, with its special cosmopolitan mix-up of theatrical genres, is essentially a work by a Pole for Poles. Still, universalizing the themes of that Polish intellectual engagement with the West spins off a fresh and stimulating new way of treating the past.

Facing other Holocausts

Some Jews today for historical and emotional reasons will never set foot in Germany. Not to argue with their choice, but they are missing out on a fascinating national cultural project of atoning for the sins of an earlier generation. Yes, there are some noisy right-wing, neo-Nazi groups still extant in Germany, but for the most part they are powerless, isolated, and deeply opposed by the majority.

Almost everywhere you go in Germany today, you will find many unexpected reminders of German responsibility for the Holocaust. Not only plaques, monuments and museums, but little paving stones indicating that in this house lived such-and-such a Jewish family, deported in a given year and sent to their extermination. And Germany has played a major role in reparations to Jews and in supporting the State of Israel economically and diplomatically. Germany has also welcomed thousands of Jewish immigrants - a few of them returning Germans, but most others from Eastern European lands and from Israel itself. For years Germany has been the country with the largest percentage of Jewish population increase in the world. Few other nations have undertaken such a thoroughgoing assessment of their own culpability in crimes committed under their flag. And when you think about it, there's hardly a country in the world that does not have its dark side to confess.

In a pointed Director's Note in the program, Sam Hunter asks, "It's still controversial to refer to the two major atrocities America has committed within its borders as 'genocides,' but if it weren't, what would the statute of limitations be? What would earn us the right to stop teaching guilt to our children?"

What would an America look like if our Holocausts were acknowledged as Germany has done? We eagerly erect memorials to plane crash victims and terror attacks, but these often assume the character of recording and remembering what "they" did to "us." What if there were a plaque installed at every known site of a lynching, not to mention places where striking workers were shot? Where innocent people were gunned down in the streets by police? Where are the historical markers where slave ships docked with their precious African cargo, where plantation owners held millions of Black people in bondage? How do we mark the Atlantic waves into which dead Black captive bodies were tossed? Where are the hallowed memorials in the cities where African-American families were sundered on the auction block?

And what has the American empire done to our native peoples? A Holocaust greater than the European Holocaust of the 20th century! But is there an American Indian Holocaust museum in every city, and memorials all across the land in every state and community recording who lived here and how they were disappeared, so that our people will never forget, so that we can say together as one, "Never again!" Hardly! The very question is rhetorical in today's America. Quite to the contrary: Our Native population is still the most degraded, the unhealthiest, the most short-lived, the poorest, the least educated in the land.

If the State of Israel was considered the world's "reparation" for the Holocaust against the Jews, as part of the guilt accompanying a near-universal sense of shame that the world allowed a Hitler to happen, what shall repair the two great American Holocausts? This is a question of intense debate and speculation, but for starters it would need to include a massive national commitment - international, if you include the Holocaust against Indigenous peoples everywhere - to discuss these Holocaust issues at all levels in the educational system; raising living standards with targeted measures, including jobs and guaranteed income programs, benefiting those surviving communities; and passing stringent, effective anti-discrimination laws.

How likely is this to happen any time soon in America? Not so soon, you say? Well, that's an indication of the national earnestness with which we approach these homegrown Holocausts of our own.

The Suitcase is a heartbreaking, disturbing probe into atrocity and accountability, in which no one - Pantofelnik excepted - comes off with clean hands. Even its audience is implicated. Finally, does the possibility of doing justice to the past thereby absolve us in the present?

The Suitcase plays Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8 pm only through August 18, at the Atwater Village Theatre, 3239 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles 90039. For tickets and information, call (31) 307-3753 or go to www.EchoTheaterCompany.com. Free parking in the Atwater Xing lot one block south of the theatre.

Photo: Alexandra Freeman and Vincent Castellanos / Spencer Howard

Down with the Republic! Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" in Topanga

Ed Rampell — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 13:25:00 +0000

I often look askance at vintage plays that are updated to different time periods and locations, usually in an attempt to make current productions more accessible to today's ticket buyers. I am usually especially dismayed at refurbished Greek/Roman dramas and comedies that are repurposed and presented without a toga in sight. But leave it to Ellen Geer to tackle a tragedy written in 1594 that takes place in ancient Rome, adapt and reset it in the future and - as if that isn't enough - to do so with an uncanny eye and ear as a comment on contemporary America.

The Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum production of William Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus may be the best play I've ever seen presented at this Topanga Canyon amphitheater. Now, this is saying quite a lot, as the WGTB is my favorite theatre and company in all of L.A. and over the years I've enjoyed many plays at the Geers' bohemian grove north of Malibu.

Presented in the great outdoors under the stars, this extremely violent play about political power and racial and sexual politics has an epic sweep. In other words, as crafted by director Ellen Geer, it is absolutely perfect for the unfolding presidential race and the ongoing so-called "war on terror." Recast in the near future, the dystopian drama pits various factions vying for power against one another. The production's warriors may wield automatic rifles instead of spears, but the actors essentially use Shakespeare's deathless dialogue without much modification (although they may refer to "bullets" instead of arrows).

As is WGBT's wont, the highly kinetic mise-en-scène makes splendid, thrilling use of Topanga's natural environment beyond the boards, bestowing new meaning on the Bard's dictum from As You Like It that "all the world's a stage." The production's mass spectacle ranges from exciting battle scenes to political assemblages that call to mind Nuremberg rallies - or, for that matter, Trump campaign events.

Unlike Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (which WGTB has presented with much panache), Titus Andronicus does not seem to be the playwright's reworking of historical figures and facts in ancient Rome. Be that as it may, there actually was a Roman emperor named Titus who reigned from 79 to 81 CE and whose full moniker was Titus Flāvius Caesar Vespasiānus Augustus. He had served as prefect of the Praetorian Guard. His affair with the Hebrew Queen Berenice may have influenced Shakespeare's plot.

In Titus Andronicus Marie-Françoise Theodore (who recently co-starred in It's Just Sex at the Secret Rose Theatre) portrays the voluptuous, sensuous beauty Queen Tamora, who is as cunning a schemer as she is a sexy steamer. Another standout in the voluminous cast is the dreadlocked Michael McFall as Aaron the Moor, who like Tamora, is among the victorious Romans' conquered Goth captives - and her majesty's secret lover. Aaron and Tamara share a lasciviously saucy scene in the bawdy Bard's rambunctious play. McFall also expertly delivers some chilling lines as what seemed like an incarnation of sheer evil - although, abused as enslaved Aaron has been, he embodies "The Hate That Hate Produced" (as Mike Wallace called a 1959 TV documentary about Malcolm X and the Black Muslims).

(According to Ellen Geer, the racial references are all in the original Shakespeare; some may find these lines offensive, just as some consider The Merchant of Venice to be anti-Semitic.)

In addition to these two bravura performances, Sheridan Crist excels as the title character, a once proud professional soldier brought so low by the saga's slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune he teeters on the abyss of insanity. In Act II, his apron-clad Titus looms like a cross between the Roman god of fire, Vulcan, and a celebrity chef gone mad, as he serves up a despicable dish of revenge (best served cold, but of course). Crist's bare, bald (perhaps shaved?) skull suggests that other warlike Italian, Benito Mussolini (you know, that fascist who gave Donald Trump acting lessons in "Demagogic Buffoonery 101").

Also delivering creditable performances are Christopher W. Jones as one of those characters you love to hate: Saturninus, the conniving, sniveling pretender to the throne who competes with his own brother, Bassianus (Turner Frankosky), for power and in romance. Perhaps for Saturninus there's no difference between the two, as to him, both are about control. Saturninus and Bassianus are sons of the deceased emperor - referred to here as "president" - whose death created the power vacuum that ignites the play's bloody conflict and bloodlust.

Melora Marshall portrays the senator Marcia Andronicus, a tribune who is Titus' younger sister. Willow Geer is Titus' eldest surviving daughter, the popular Lucia. The Theatricum has been a pioneer in nontraditional casting, and in Shakespeare's original, both characters are male. (What's next? A WGTB LGTB production called Titus Androgynous?)

After the tragedy's numerous, skillfully rendered battle royales, Lucia is crowned as president, and as she accepts the leadership role I could not but think of Hillary Clinton's coronation only days earlier, as the first female U.S. presidential candidate of a major party. Shakespeare's ensemble declares: "Lucia, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!"

Another clear reference to current events is all of Titus Andronicus' endless dismemberments - surely a nod to ISIS. To paraphrase Jerry Lee Lewis, there's a "whole lotta choppin' going on" in this ultra-violent drama. Alas, given today's big screen sophisticated special effects, the onstage slicing and dicing and their aftereffects are, to be charitable, very low budge. While the mutilated, ravished Lavinia appropriately shakes, from my third-row, aisle-seat perch I saw nary a tear fall from actress Michelle Wicklas' eyes. (I suspect that Lavinia's harrowing fate influenced Bertolt Brecht's depiction of Mother Courage's daughter Kattrin and her heartbreaking fate more than three centuries anon.)

Titus Andronicus has great dialogue, including additions such as the line "master of war" apparently inspired by Bob Dylan's 1963 antiwar classic. And in the likewise added riot at the end, the dashing, longhaired Alexander Wauthier (credited as Martius) declares the probably improvised line: "Down with the Republic!" Rarely have such ominous words been uttered.

The discordant soundscape composed by Marshall McDaniel lends an appropriate note of dissonance to the somewhat Orwellian action. Jordan-Marc Diamond's costumes are simultaneously futuristic and Romanesque. Saturninus' cleverly upturned collar adds a sartorial splash and may be a visual pun on the term "white collar criminal."

For some reason there were no fewer than three screen versions of Shakespeare's tragedy filmed from 1999-2000. If readers have any explanation as to why this may have been, please email me comments. Perhaps they were motion picture premonitions of the "war on terror" to come, with their attendant, disastrous invasions and unintended consequences? The titan of this trio of Andronicus screen adaptations was Julie Taymor's 1999 Titus, with a stellar cast: Anthony Hopkins in the title role, Jessica Lange as Tamora, Harry Lennix as Aaron and Alan Cumming as cunning Saturninus. Hearing that Titus was an extremely bloody movie, I avoided seeing it when it was released. But after seeing the WGTB rendition, I really want to watch it now. (For a clip see here.)

This stage Titus Andronicus is strong stuff, for adults and mature audiences only. Leave the kiddies at home - but for those who love their theatre adventurous and thought-provoking, strap on your sandals, dash to Topanga and don't miss it! This just might be the best play currently on L.A.'s boards

Titus Andronicus plays in repertory through Oct. 1 at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, Calif. 90290. For repertory schedule and other information call: (310) 455-3723 or see: www.Theatricum.com.

Photo: Melora Marshall, Sheridan Crist, Shane McDermott and Willow Geer | Miriam Geer

New history (with comics) recounts humanity’s long march toward reason

Eric A. Gordon — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:53:00 +0000

Curious Dave, protagonist of an amusing and informative new book called The Cartoon History of Humanism, Vol. 1: Antiquity to Enlightenment, wanders through time and space to converse with the pioneers of humanist philosophy. On his journey, he meets famous skeptics, atheists, writers, thinkers and hedonists who have all advanced human thought away from the mystical and toward the rational.

We encounter such familiar individuals as Cicero, Ibn Rushd, Boccaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus, Hume and Voltaire; as well as Héloïse d'Argenteuil, Pietro Pomponazzi, Isabella d'Este, Aphra Benn, and Julien Offray de la Mettrie. Some of these women were proud, lusty ladies who openly scoffed at the whole notion of sin. Volume 1 features 32 "episodes" plus a bonus. Volume 2 will bring us through the 19th and 20th centuries - plus, who knows, maybe the 21st?

But Dave's time-travel adventure is not truly the centerpiece of this book. The brief two-or-three page synopses of the interviewees' lives that follow each one-page, four-panel cartoon provide the meat of this history. Dale Debakcsy's writing is informed and personal, fresh and elegant. Only rarely does he bog down in philosophical lingo. Presented in short, bite-sized bursts of biographical flavor in almost chronological order, these episodes do not necessarily need to be consumed sequentially, but may be sampled at will. You can return to any episode if you need a quick refresher. What he has to say about some of his subjects - Machiavelli, for example - may pleasantly surprise you.

Debakcsy offers a short epilogue after each episode, discussing his sources and recommended further reading. This book, and the volume to come, are clearly evidence of a love of reading, of ideas, and of human progress.

His stories are framed as struggles against the authority of the church. The church controlled almost every aspect of life for millennia. If you wanted to investigate science or medicine, or practice free love, or challenge the nature of politics and the state, or question the existence of the supernatural, you came up against traditions and laws with biblical or other bases in myth and superstition. The very role of the King was reinforced by his subjection - at least in theory and in certain times and places - to the will of the Pope, who designated himself the vicar of God.

At least a dozen of the author's characters -- who in the author's words "nudged up the boundaries of human potential" -- would make suitable subjects for playwrights, screenwriters and librettists for musical theatre.

As a sample of Debakcsy's writing, consider this first paragraph to Episode 20 about "the most dangerous man in Europe": "By 1670, all of the pieces of modern humanism were in place, waiting for one guiding intellect to join them together at last for a complete assault on the ramparts of organized religion. Abelard had cast doubt on the consistency of the church fathers, Averroes and Albertus Magnus had attacked the cult of theological authority, Pietro Pomponazzi had dismantled the mortal soul, Paolo Sarpi had defanged the temporal authority of the church, and Thomas Hobbes had advocated for a vigorous materialism that rewrote the meaning of good, evil, heaven, and hell. Each had a profound impact on the reordering of some aspect of Europe's religious life, but one man was feared as the greatest threat to the very foundation of religion itself since the dawn of recorded history: Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), the architect of atheism."

The historian frequently connects his subjects to discoveries that came centuries later. Speaking of the Roman thinker Lucretius, "the keystone of Materialism," he calls him a "prime example of how staggeringly far a single mind can go in understanding the universe aided by nothing but the proposition that everything is composed of atoms. His masterpiece, De Rerum Natura, published over two thousand years ago, is an astonishing encapsulation of prescient hyper-modern insights into the physical world. From genetics to cosmology, optics to neuroscience, Lucretius's ideas are correct freakishly often."

Another central figure in Western thought is the Arabic scholar Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), who worked in Córdoba, Spain. According to Ibn Rushd, "the true infidelity was disobeying God's command to investigate reality, to be given a divine instrument like the brain and then not use it to its fullest." "In him," Debakcsy continues, "the three great religious traditions of the West met with a full accounting of the wisdom of antiquity and found a synthesis that would define the Western intellectual project for centuries to come, and a tension that would set the stage for the great rationalist turn that we are still enjoying. In the near millennium since his death, the only figure of remotely comparable stature in terms of philosophical impact on the structure of world thought is Karl Marx." (We will surely hear more about him in Volume 2.)

The only weakness of the book, unfortunately, is the cartoons themselves. Some graphic content is, of course, most welcome in such a heady, thought-filled text. But the cartoons - and indeed the whole time-travel excursion theme - strike me as a clever first idea that might have been discarded on further reflection. The artist does not show sufficient skill at portraiture to effectively differentiate the many distinct physical types and individuals in the book, so except for robes and wigs and some incidental props, there is a sameness about them all that disappoints. The conversational speech bubbles in the cartoons are too often forced, elliptic and tedious.

One other question I wish Debakcsy had dealt with a little better is the dissemination of ideas in the pre-modern era. If someone wrote a "book" in the centuries before the printing press, how did its content become known? How familiar were the author's contemporaries, and subsequent generations, with all this evolving progressive thinking? Without comprehensive, cumulative passing on of all this collective wisdom, most people must have been largely ignorant of it, still lashed to the dogmas of those who ruled them. Even today, with all the available means of spreading information throughout the universe, many communities remain practically immune to rational thought.

Discussing the French encyclopedist Denis Diderot (1713-1784), whose work of gathering and categorizing all knowledge of the world anticipated the French Revolution, Debakcsy suggests that characters in Diderot's literary works "re-enact dramatically the conversation that I think every humanist engages in privately - what to do with one's self in a doomed world." The implications for every sentient human being of knowing what we know affect every action we take.

The Cartoon History of Humanism
Vol. 1: Antiquity to Enlightenment
By Dale Debakcsy
Art by Count Dolby von Luckner
Humanist Press
122 pp., $24.99
Release date August 23, 2016

Photo: Dave meets Voltaire, art by Count Dolby von Luckner.

I watched Dinesh D’Souza’s awkward anti-Hillary movie so you don’t have to

Michael Berkowitz — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 11:09:00 +0000

Dinesh D'Souza's latest hate mail to the Democratic Party, the film "Hillary's America" is a tedious, cheesy, self serving slog through the unsavory underside of American History. Dour D'Souza selectively culls, bends and ultimately breaks history in a desperate attempt to show how all evil flows from Democrats.

He also uses the film to argue that his great patriotism exonerates him from his conviction for felonious election fraud. D'Souza's two earlier films "America: Imagine the World Without Her" (2014) and "2016: Obama's America" (2012) were similar polemical skewers of history, wrapped in copious American flag images and amped up patriotic music.

But no amount of flag waving could save this felonious Fellini from conviction for knowingly making illegal contributions to the Senate Republican campaign fund using "straw donors." D'Souza plea bargained his admitted guilt down to eight months in a half way house near his home . . . which he misrepresents in the film as being a dangerous facility stocked with killers and gang members.

In between attacking President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the entire Democratic Party for their immorality, D'Souza was terminated from his position as President of King's College in New York, a Christian College home of the Campus Crusade for Christ. He was discovered conducting an adulterous affair with the already married Denise Odie Joseph while D'Souza himself was married to Dixie Brubaker, the mother of his child. D'Souza ended up with neither woman, as he later married Debbie Francher in a ceremony presided over by pastor Rafael Cruz, father of Texas Senator and Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz. Clearly this staunch Republican moralist has taken to Hollywood ways!

As he did in his earlier films, D'Souza starts his new work by disingenuously posing objective questions. He claims to want to know the history of the Democratic Party. But anyone viewing his earlier movies knows that D'Souza has already concluded how thoroughly terrible the Democrats are. He can hardly wait to reveal their dastardly deeds!

Unfortunately, his breathless revelations have a few problems. Certainly the early Democratic Party upheld slavery 150 years ago and impeded equal rights through the beginnings of the twentieth century. But D'Souza fails to explain how and why the overwhelming majority of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Jews and immigrants gravitated to the Democratic Party. His failed explanations suggest that these minorities merely could not make the decisions that D'Souza himself knows would be best for them. He obscures the reforms that Democrats won championing the rights of these groups and raising so many out of poverty. Nor does he explain why ultra right wing candidates like the Ku Klux Klan's David Duke or even Donald Trump prefer to run for office under the mantel of the Republican Party.

Two thirds of the way through the film, D'Souza awkwardly shifts to attacking Hillary Clinton. He gives full rein to all allegations on Bill Clinton's illicit affairs. But D'Souza, whom we have found is an experienced observer, exonerates Bill and shifts the blame to Hillary. Hillary Clinton is the master mind, using Bill's addiction to promote her own lust for power and riches.

A far flung litany of accusations concludes that the reason that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not get help to Benghazi was that she couldn't find a way to profit from it. D'Souza hardly feels bound by the 9 Congressional Hearings and 8000 pages of data that conclusively proved otherwise, even to the satisfaction of Congressional Republicans.

D'Souza finishes his film with the warning that if Hillary is elected President, the Democrats will take "everything from everyone." "The Clintons have stolen from the United States . . . they are hateful, depraved crooks." Still one cannot help but observe that it is the film maker who is the felon and he is once again attempting to steal, though this time it is only the price of admission.

Photo: film site

New book explores the roots of the term “White trash”

Kelly Sinclair — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 14:37:00 +0000

Those seeking a better understanding of the roots of class in the US would do well to seek out Nancy Isenberg's striking book, White Trash: the 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.

In it, Isenberg shares a perhaps unfamiliar story of the European experience on our shores. Landless people of no means existed before the Revolution and arrived in the first and latter waves of white immigrants.

British vagrants broke the land for their social betters, were pressed into military services as needed, and worked as servants for the Puritan Elect. Orphans scraped off London streets served out indentures in Jamestown. Harsh conditions thinned the numbers of people called waste and rubbish but more arrived on crowded ships.

Property laws, voting restrictions, and land deals conducted amongst the upper classes saw to it that these "tallow-faced clay-eaters" (malnourishment not an evident concern for the well-to-do) rarely joined the ranks of landowners. Those who survived war, workhouses, prostitution, and press gangs ditched their poverty wages and constricted lives and lit out for the territories.

The landed--often speculators who owned from afar--hated these people who were derided as being crackers and squatters. Davy Crockett defended the landless; Andrew Jackson loathed them. However, a few squatters, like Daniel Boone, gained acceptance due to their tracking and hunting skills.

As America's rulers expanded the nation through purchase, war, and the genocidal destruction of Native tribes, settlers backed by soldiers pushed squatters into less desirable spaces-and so the landless survived as day laborers working alongside slaves, or as precarious tenant farmers, wartime cannon fodder, and sex workers.

Many fled further into the wild, where they served as buffer zones between the forts and official settlers on one side and Native American people who were in the process of being killed or forcibly removed.

It was all too easy for new landowners to lose their standing due to poor crops or when more powerful interests saw easy pickings.

Stereotypes hardened further in slave-holding states. However uneducated, poverty-stunted, vote-denied, and shunned you might be, at least you weren't a piece of property.

Enslaved people were one potential source of income. A white man who owned even one enslaved Black worker, therefore, was a man with prospects of moving up in the world.

The majority of whites in the slave-holding states, however, owned no slaves. Whether hired to fight in the stead of planters, or whether they enlisted, landless whites joined the Confederate Army in defense of land they didn't own and an ideology that branded them as a permanent lesser breed.

Southern propagandists described Northerners as being debased by daily labor, no better than slaves, while the aristocracy thought themselves to the manor born.

Union general and later President U.S. Grant insisted that the war in part was fought to free white non-landowners. They, too, needed emancipation from poverty and permanent underclass status.

During the Civil War and decades afterward, with Southern Democrats no longer posing such a huge roadblock, progressives introduced the Homestead Acts (which provided cheap land out West), broadened public education, funded a better-paid permanent military force, did away with most voter/landowner restrictions, and advanced other measures that created a path out of generational poverty.

African-Americans had to battle for even scraps from these initiatives. Native tribespeople were barely considered a footnote.

For whites, however, these efforts, combined with a growing labor movement, gave some a means to escape their class. For others, poverty abided.

In the 20^th century, compulsory public education, the GI Bill (free or nearly-free college), powerful trade unions, and the pioneering efforts of the women's movement gave more hillbillies, crackers, moonshiners, slum rats and hookers-or rather, the humans behind these stereotypes -- a means to grow beyond their origins.

They became blue-collar workers, nurses, teachers, carpenters, actors and machinists. They also became voters. They were among the screamers who opposed integration, but they also filled the ranks of the National Guard who enforced the new desegregation laws.

Their grandparents and great-grandparents climbed the economic ladders created by enclave communities of immigrants and government jobs programs. It is possible to credit their hard work, yet also recognize that their racism helped limit access to social uplift programs for African-Americans.

"Hicks", "trash", and "dirt" are some of the put-downs applied to today's erstwhile white squatters. By raw numbers, they make up the majority of social services recipients. They're poorly educated-yet again and again we see inspiring tales of teachers who uplift entire classrooms into scholarship strivers.

The lowly reside in prisons, wash dishes in diners, or waitress in dives. Doing sex work, working hustles, picking up jobs as day laborers.

For many white people, they are the object lessons in one's own family-the relatives who for whatever reason remain stuck in reverse.

"White trash" is a term that could be reclaimed as part of our collective American story. The hard labor of poor white people of European descent, combined with that of enslaved Black people, Chinese railroad workers, Mexican farm workers, free African Americans, and many more, built and industrialized the cities, fought the wars, cleared unclaimed lands, and fed and transported people across America.

Although modern politics prefers to focus on culture, religion, and the vanishing middle class, spare a thought for those who dug the ground for Trump Towers and convention centers.

The lowly live among us, ill-considered, too often actually ill. That some bring hardships upon themselves doesn't change the cruel math for their children or alter the fact that our lower ranks can rise up-or fall back-in a generation.

White Trash is a memorable read by Isenberg. The book is currently available in hardcover, so ask for it at your public library.

“Jason Bourne” film: Don’t trust the CIA

Ed Rampell — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 13:21:00 +0000

Jason Bourne is the fifth installment in the Bourne film franchise derived from Robert Ludlum's espionage novels that began with 2002's The Bourne Identity. Ludlum's original Bourne trilogy began in 1980 but didn't reach the big screen until shortly after 9/11, when the Central Intelligence Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies turned to what author Jane Mayer called The Dark Side. The latest sequel continues the Bourne formula of nonstop action combined with criticism of the CIA. It's the fourth movie starring Matt Damon as the title character and the series' third feature helmed by British director Paul Greengrass, starting with 2004's The Bourne Supremacy.

In 2012's Tony Gilroy-directed The Bourne Legacy, Jeremy Renner (star of 2008's Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker) played Aaron Cross. But now, Damon is back as the troubled amnesiac groomed to be a member of a highly trained cadre of killer elite doing the CIA's deadly, nefarious bidding around the world. Sort of "Hawaii Five-O" on steroids, unbound by trivialities such as, oh, you know, civil liberties, ethics and a little bauble called the U.S. Constitution.

There's only one fly in this ominous assassin's ointment: Bourne (né David Webb) has a conscience, which may explain his amnesia. He's probably repressing all of the god-awful things he was deployed to do for the CIA as a lethal errand boy for what Pres. Lyndon Johnson pithily described as "Murder Inc."

Jason Bourne reveals more details about the character's mysterious past, with his CIA analyst father Richard Webb portrayed by character actor Gregg Henry, who as Hollis Doyle on TV's White House drama Scandal is no stranger to covert operations. Julia Stiles is also back for her fourth outing as disaffected CIA agent Nicky Parsons. And typically for the Bourne franchise, we get a constant barrage of bombs, bullets and automobile crashes.

However, what's arguably most interesting about Jason Bourne is its up-to-the-minute topicality, ripping those proverbial headlines right off the front pages (or websites, as the case may). The film alludes to collusion between the CIA and Silicon Valley as part and parcel of the Agency's surveillance-state campaign to snoop on everyone. Riz Ahmed (of 2014's superb Nightcrawler) plays digital tycoon Aaron Kalloor, who's playing footsie with those spies who hate us.

Uncannily, Jason Bourne deals with cyber-attacks while premiering just days after WikiLeaks revealed that Democratic National Committee emails were hacked, disclosing the fact that the supposedly impartial DNC tipped the scales in favor of Clinton over Sanders.

The most interesting aspect of the Bourne saga is that, like that old "good cop/bad cop" routine from 1971's The French Connection, Hollywood has played out the "good CIA vs. the bad CIA" in our post-9/11 motion picture public discourse. The clearest example of this came in 2012, with the "bad CIA" of Zero Dark Thirty that waterboards and otherwise tortures suspects vs. the "good CIA" of Argo, that carries out covert ops to rescue American hostages from Iranian zealots. (Of course, in the garb of mass entertainment, both films were militaristic, pro-CIA propaganda pictures.)

In a similar way the "good vs. bad" CIA has also played out in the Bourne series, with Joan Allen playing Pamela Landy, who opposes the excesses of her counterparts, such as Noah Vosen in 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum, the overzealous supporter of the Company's elite assassin program that gave birth to Bourne. That movie ends with Landy testifying before Congress about the CIA's excessive use of unconstitutional force.

Earlier incarnations of the "bad CIA" included Chris Cooper as Conklin and Brian Cox as Ward Abbott in The Bourne Identity. Cox has a cameo, probably as a flashback, in the current iteration. But now, in Jason Bourne, CIA Director Robert Dewey is the heavy, backing crude, extraconstitutional foul play such as assassination, and is portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones.

Now, Dewey's counterpart advocating for a more "humane" CIA is Agency cyber whiz kid Heather Lee (played by Swedish actress Alicia Vikander). It's interesting to note that Jason's Argonauts - the good guys in the Bourne pictures - tend to be women, starting with Franka Potente as Marie in the franchise's first outing and in 2004's The Bourne Supremacy.

As Jason Bourne struggles to be liberated from his espionage peonage, Damon deploys his deadly skills with devastating results. The relentless Jason Bourne is carpeted with wall-to-wall violence: Theatergoers who love special effects and amped-up action will probably be entertained by it while munching on their popcorn - they may even momentarily be distracted from texting-while-viewing. There is a car chase to end all car chases - to today's cinema what The French Connection was to the 1970s' screen - as Bourne and his enemies wreak havoc and mayhem across a Las Vegas redolent with representations of America's over-the-top greed, materialism and capitalism gone berserk, not unlike the agents battling it out.

Paul Greengrass is a gifted filmmaker who made 1998's The Theory of Flight, 2002's Bloody Sunday (about the struggle for Irish rights), and 2006's airborne United 93 (an early look at a 9/11 hijacking many deemed "too soon"), as well as the Bourne features. But Jason's 123 minutes of nearly nonstop violence is so extreme that it becomes mind-numbing.

Having said that, what redeems Jason Bourne is its critique of the CIA. The giveaway that this may not be just another piece of pro-CIA agitprop is that there are no shots inside of the Agency's Langley, Va. HQ, which are only "rewarded" to filmmakers after their shooting scripts are submissively submitted to the CIA to vet. The way it works is if there are any offending scenes or lines that may hurt the Company's image (and, boohoo, its feelings) or its chances to lobby Congress for ever bigger budgets, they are removed. There are, however, exterior long shots and aerials. Another telling factor is that so far as I could determine, no CIA "advisor" or "consultant" is listed in the credits. Minus these intel watchdogs and those coveted interior shots at Langley, I am assuming this film was shot independently, without direct CIA influence, hence its ability to criticize Agency abuses.

It's telling that when former CIA director and ex-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta delivered his speech at the Democratic Convention, he was booed. Because the truth is, there is no "good CIA" and this bureau of dirty tricks tasked with enforcing Washington's imperial policies should be immediately pulverized into - as JFK put it - "1000 pieces." The only good CIA is no CIA. But until that fine day, ticket buyers can expect yet another sequel to the seemingly never ending Bourne series.

Blinded by the bright lights of Hollywood and “Café Society”

Eric A. Gordon — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 11:29:00 +0000

Loved, loved, and meh Café Society, this year's installment of the annual Woody Allen film production factory. How that guy keeps 'em coming not only so regularly but also on such a generally high level of interest, is truly a phenomenon of continued creative juices still flowing in the senior decades. Are they studying him in gerontology schools?

Set in the mid-to-late 1930s, his story focuses on Bobby Dorfman (a strong and gentle Jesse Eisenberg), going nowhere in his dad's modest business, yearning to seek his fortune along the starry, storied streets of Hollywood, where his uncle Phil (Steve Carell), his mom's brother, is a major movie agent handling the town's biggest talent. Bobby falls in love with Phil's secretary Vonnie (the attractive, fun Kristen Stewart). He also wants to put a little distance between himself and his brother Ben (Corey Stoll in the Damon Runyon lovable gangster mold). There's also a schoolteacher sister Evelyn and her husband, identified in Woody Allen's voiceover narration as a Communist.

The affair with Vonnie does not go smoothly, and the heartbroken Bobby returns to New York where he helps to manage a high-end nightclub - Café Society - with his brother. It's a toney spot where you can meet the élite at the intersection of politics, business, culture and crime. On the rebound from his instructive but disastrous sojourn in Hollywood, Bobby meets a divorcee, Veronica Hayes (Blake Lively), at the club, and they soon get married and start a family.

The tale is a romantic bittersweet fantasy with all the trademark Allen elements we have come to expect and appreciate: the absurd extravagance of emotions and events, the juxtaposition of sublime adolescent confusion and stereotypical Jewish neuroticism against violent gangsterism and consumerist excess, and the creative tension between (well, let's face it, caricatures of) New York versus Los Angeles, the old East Coast/West Coast divide. The convoluted story leaves the characters with Allen's wise and by now standard conflation of regrets, nostalgia, compromises, missteps and missed chances. A metaphor for life itself. Loved his fog of uncertain outcomes.

Also loved Vittorio Storaro's saturated cinematography, both indoors and out, and the over-the-top period set designs by Santo Loquasto. In this visually enchanting film we step into the champagne worlds of the 1 percent in hustle-bustle New York City and the dream capital of the planet, Los Angeles in its Hollywood heyday.

So where does the meh come in? Maybe I'm just too much of a People's World kind of critic to just let the fantasy roll where Allen wants to take us. If he does address the theme of place as central to this film, he also just about totally disregards the sense of time, except for the roadsters and the costume designs. We're in the late 1930s - the Great Depression, you've heard of it? Not a soul down on his luck selling apples or pencils in sight. Okay, maybe that's too clichéd. How about some nod to FDR or the New Deal? Or a mention of the Spanish Civil War and the convulsion going on in Europe? The supposedly Communist brother-in-law is portrayed only as a weak, nebbishy, feckless sort (the typical Woody Allen stand-in) who wants to avoid conflict with his oafish neighbor at all cost - and this during one of the most exciting and turbulent periods of Red-led labor uprising in the history of our nation.

And by the way, there actually was a New York City club called Café Society in the 1930s, founded by progressives who invited such performers as Billie Holiday and lefty songwriter Harold Rome to its stage. It was a fully integrated venue that featured showcased Broadway stars on breaks between shows, or on their dark nights, with topical material of the day, that gave a leg up to folks with something to say.

Could be, I cherish my own fantasies of the 1930s, but whatever they are, they don't quite jibe with Woody's. So: loved, loved, and meh.

Video of the film can be seen here.

Café Society
Written and directed by Woody Allen
96 minutes
In national release

“Our Little Sister”: A masterpiece

Michael Berkowitz — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 14:17:00 +0000

Our Little Sister is a film of surpassing beauty and sensitivity, a fully realized insight into family, a simple story of three sisters living together who are joined by their half sister. It unfolds patiently, with elegance and understanding.

The three Koda sisters - Sachi, Yoshino and Chika - live together in Kamakura by the sea. Years earlier they were abandoned to live in their grandmother's house. First their father left their mother for another woman. Then their mother ran off with another man. 30-year-old Sachi (Haruka Ayase), a nurse at a nearby hospital, kept the family together, raising the younger sisters.

When the sisters hear of their father's death, they decide to put aside old feelings of abandonment to travel to his funeral. At the memorial service, they encounter Suzu Asano (Suzu Hirose), their father's child with his third wife. Their meeting is at first uncomfortable. Feelings about the father are unresolved. But the open kindness of young Suzu disarms skepticism.

Sachi spontaneously invites Suzu to come live with them. Suzu gratefully accepts. She fits in quickly and well. Clearly, she is mature beyond her 13 years, having nursed her declining father. Suzu is helpful and upbeat. She adapts to school and community, as well. Skillful in soccer and proficient in studies, she wins friends, including one particularly interested boy. She enjoys hanging out with classmates at the local diner.

There are bumps in the road. But they are slight. The fact that Suzu looks like her mother, the woman who lured their father away, gives the sisters pause. As their grandmother warns, "She's the daughter of the woman who destroyed your family."

Through her quiet, supportive presence, Suzu provides a foil for the other sisters' character development. Chika (Kaho) and her boyfriend who has lost six toes on Mt. Everest are always upbeat. Sachi's secret affair with a married doctor at her hospital is more problematic. Yoshino's (Masami Nagasawa) serial failed romances and flightiness give even less promise for her future.

But the four sisters grow together. Normal family occasions, maintenance, tasks and issues rise and are resolved or dispatched. Suzu is woven into the fabric of their daily lives, complementing her siblings, even filling in spaces in their knowledge and memories. She shares reminiscences of their father that help the other sisters better understand their father and themselves. By film's end, they are bound by family and friendship, commonalities and differences. They are a family of four women learning from their experience to build a better life together.

The story is presented through the sparse, but knowing dialogue of writer Akimi Yoshida and director Kore-eda Hirokazu adapted from Yoshida's graphic novel Umimachi Diary. It is exquisitely framed by Kore-eda's breathtaking tracking shots of the sisters at the railway station, at their house window and at film's conclusion against the Kamakura seashore.

Our Little Sister won nine Japanese Academy Awards, including Best Actor, Best Director and Best Film.

Although it may be heresy, one cannot view Our Little Sister and other work by Kore-eda (Still Walking, Like Father, Like Son, After Life) without thinking of the towering postwar achievements of Tokyo Story Director Yasujiro Ozu (Late Spring, Early Summer, An Autumn Afternoon). There is no higher compliment.

This article was reposted from Huffington Post.

Photo: From Our Little Sister

American Gods: Cast, producers talk whitewashing, Mike Pence, new trailer

Chauncey K. Robinson — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 10:06:00 +0000

"American Gods" is coming to a television screen near you. The trailer for the much-anticipated live-action series based on the award winning novel by author Neil Gaiman premiered at San Diego Comic-Con on July 22 alongside a panel featuring the producers, director, cast, and Gaiman himself. The haunting, visually rich trailer gave diehard fans and newcomers to the story a glimpse of the world of "American Gods" brought to life.

Imagine a modern day reality where gods and deities come into being, and gain their power, based on what people worship. A world where supernatural personifications of the internet, capitalism, and media are newly formed gods hell-bent on taking power from the deities of earlier history who are based on ancient folklore from around the world. Imagine also that this wide array of supernatural beings is represented through diverse nationalities and races. This is the world of "American Gods" and the next potential television blockbuster. (story continues after video)

The "American Gods" panel was moderated by Yvette Nicole Brown ("The Odd Couple") and included cast members Ricky Whittle (Shadow Moon), Ian McShane (Mr. Wednesday), Pablo Schreiber (Mad Sweeney), Yetide Badaki (Bilquis), and Bruce Langley (Technical Boy), as well as executive producers, showrunners and writers Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, director and executive producer David Slade, and author and executive producer Neil Gaiman. Halfway through the panel it was revealed that Kristin Chenoweth ("Wicked") was added to the cast as the goddess Easter. The Emmy and Tony Award winning actress made a surprise appearance on stage just as her casting was announced.

The lively panel talked about wanting to stay true to the source material, while also bringing in new viewers and introducing them to the world. Gaiman explained that he was very much involved in the beginning process of the direction of the show.

The author revealed that, while he was flexible on some aspects of the adaptation, he was adamant about making sure the racial makeup of the characters was not changed in the casting process. As fans know, many of the characters in the novel are of various racial and cultural backgrounds, including Native American, African American, and African, making for a true reflection of what diversity and non-white centered narrative can look like.

Gaiman explained on the casting that, "there was no pushback [from Fuller and Green], there was nothing but absolute agreement, and that's the way that we've been casting it." He went on to reference the current racial tensions in the country along with the debate around Hollywood whitewashing, to emphasize the point on diverse casting by stating that it felt "much more important now" that they were staying true to the diversity of the characters than "a year ago, 18 months ago," or when they first began to think about an adaptation.

Executive producer Bryan Fuller, whose previous writing/directing credits include Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies and Hannibal, explained how he hoped themes within American Gods helped to add to the conversation around the current state of the nation. Fuller explained, "There's an absence of love [in the country]. There's so much hate, and we're in trouble as a country. We have a Vice Presidential candidate [Mike Pence] who thinks gay people should go through shock therapy, and women should have funerals for their lost fetuses."

Director David Slade, whose previous credits include The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, confessed that he was bit intimidated when first tasked with bringing the bigger than life story to the small screen. Slade explained, "you're terrified, and you look at it and it's so big and massive that it can't be even approached," but went on to say he was happy with the project and that he was allowed to be "entirely weird and highly cinematic," with his directing.

Fuller and Green also assured the audience that if viewers hadn't read the book they wouldn't be completely in the dark. "However you come to this - TV first, book second; book first, TV second - you're in good hands," the producers agreed. Gaiman added that readers of the novel would have "surprises" and "things that will leave you puzzled."

The "American Gods" television series, produced by FremantleMedia North America, premieres on the STARZ cable network in 2017.

Human trafficking and sex slavery: The opera

Eric A. Gordon — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 20:43:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Labor traffickers exploit vulnerable people worldwide by coercing or tricking them into situations where they can easily be abused by their employers.

Southern Californians have a rare opportunity this Sunday to see the second of two performances of Anya17, a 75-minute opera composed by Britishers Adam Gorb and his librettist Ben Kaye. The work centers around the plight of one group in particular - people who are trafficked against their will into the sex industry.

Set amidst a maelstrom of deception, secrecy and violence, Anya17 emphasizes the young girls' aspirations for comfort and freedom in "the West." The one-act opera arose out of the creators' desire to address a contemporary issue that needs bringing to public attention. The director, Tanya Kane-Perry, expresses the conviction that "Through new, contemporary works, opera remains relevant to a younger audience yearning to see its reality reflected back, unafraid to expose and reveal the turmoil of our times." The opening night performance, seen July 21, featured a panel afterward with women from various organizations in Southern California attempting to grapple with the sexual trafficking industry.

Los Angeles is considered the largest global market and transit point for human trafficking, at the crossroads between Mexico and the Pacific Rim countries. While most of the young women lured or kidnapped to American shores wind up in the sex trade, other immigrants, mostly women and also some men, wind up in forced labor, working in sweatshops, massage and nail parlors, or as domestics in private homes. They are abducted by sharp-eyed recruiters who spot destitute young people abroad who are yearning for a better life in America. Social media also provide sites where unsuspecting recruits can be snagged.

Within the U.S., too, young women are picked up in shopping malls, on the streets, in bus and train stations. Many kids in their own homes are inducted into sex work by abusive parents or relatives and guardians, or in the troubled foster care system.

Although they may be recognized by some social analysts as members of the "working class," the women who are the subject of this opera are placed into slavery-like conditions, without access to their passports or to the world outside the walls of their house of employment, and are not in a position to freely sell their labor power. These are not independent "sex workers" able to bargain with their customers.

The musical score for Anya17 is rich and evocative, performed by a 14-piece orchestra under the baton of Kristof van Grysperre, who also conducted the recent Long Beach Opera productions of Fallujah and Candide. The sonorities are modern and thorny, often percussively reflecting the violence meted out to young girls beaten into submission as they lose their identities and connection to former lives. But there are also lyrical passages where characters recall episodes from the past and fantasize about better futures. In those places some bluesy - and boozy - sounds are heard. If your operatic tastes end with La Traviata, you might not enjoy this music; but experienced in the context of the important drama on stage, Gorb's musical palette does grow on you convincingly.

While the subject matter appears very specific at first glance, it is also timeless. Has there ever been an epoch of human history when young women have not been held in sexual submission? In the 20th century we have the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, both dealing with prostitution. The score also reminded me of other works featuring the depravity of modern life, such as Alban Berg's two great Expressionist operas Lulu and Wozzeck, and Robert Kurka's The Good Soldier Schweik. Marc Blitzstein's opera The Cradle Will Rock, dedicated to Brecht, features a prostitute in a central role, and then proceeds to show how all the noble professions have sold themselves out to the Mr. Mister of monopoly capitalism.

Anya17 both benefits and suffers from being a "documentary" opera, replete with detail about trafficked lives and thus useful as a teaching device. At the same time it's so relentless in its drive to tell its critical, painful story that audiences - and future productions - may be hard to secure. I suspect the best place for it at this stage may well be university settings, where students can be inspired to address the issues it presents, though a broader public won't see it. If it is meant to be a didactic tool, it may not get produced often enough to have an effect. A film or video version might give it more exposure.

The foreign girls start learning English early on in their new lives. They're taught useful expressions such as, " My name is Anya...I like you...I make you love me...Do you like me?...I make you happy!" And they learn sexually alluring dance moves. And they are encouraged to forget themselves in cheap alcohol. Their "owners" keep them simply as "meat" for sale - 30 times a day, 7 days a week - their youth merely a "commodity" until it's used up. "The heart is cheap," Anya realizes, "the cheapest cut of all."

Anya17 contains an obvious plot point similarity to Verdi's opera Rigoletto, which in its own way is about captivity - Rigoletto's as a court jester in the house of the Duke of Mantua, and the clown's own daughter Gilda, imprisoned by her father at home for fear of the ravages of the world. The plot point has to do with a murdered young girl and a sack.

The six young singers in Anya17 have already launched their careers. Here they have been well coached in these emotionally trying and musically difficult roles which undoubtedly expanded their potential as performers - even though they may never get to sing them again. They were all fine specimens of upcoming talent: Christina Boosahda as the lead girl Anya; Rachel Abbate as Carole, the intake social worker who first encounters Anya once she's escaped and also plays Natalia, the pimp's accomplice in luring girls into their new lives; Angela Jarosz as Mila, another hapless young girl who leaves a young daughter behind until she gets settled in "the West"; and Ana María Ruge Ramírez as Elena, a longtime captive blinded in a violent beating from her owners and now known simply as "the blind girl."

The two males are Nicholas Newton playing Viktor, the sadistic pimp-in-chief who simply gives his clients what they want; and Jeffrey Strand, playing the double role of Uri, the "lover" who steals Anya's heart, then, with a cross around his neck, turns her over to the cross-border industry, and Gabriel, a john who developed some feelings for Anya in captivity (where she is Girl #17 on the menu).

Anya17 is presented by Angels Vocal Art, a new venture to train young singers in a Los Angeles summer opera workshop. The last performance is Sunday, July 24 at 3 pm at the State Playhouse Theater, on the Cal State L.A. campus on State University Drive, Los Angeles. Tickets are $15 and $25 and are available at the door. For further information go to: www.angelsvocalart.org.

“Ghostbusters”: 30 years later, can this sequel stand on its own?

Michael Berkowitz — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 11:31:00 +0000

It's not easy making a sequel. If one is brave, greedy or deluded enough to try, it is almost always a follow-up to a successful film. Who would follow up Heaven's Gate or Show Girls. Seventh Son was not followed by Eighth Son, nor did Spielberg follow the painful trajectory of 1941 with a 1942! So right away, your sequel will be held up to the standard of a success.

Of course, there may be some residual good feelings that wash over from the original film's success. But this brings one to a difficult decision: should you stick as closely as possible to the original's formula. After all, that path is a proven winner. Some folks may like that. Still it's hard to replicate the freshness or spirit of an original. And others may tire of the format. Lurking in the weeds, as well, are the critics who may savage you for not striking out on a new path, just resting on the superstructure that you've already built.

With a film like Ghostbusters, the pitfalls may be even more hazardous. Thirty years has elapsed since the wildly popular hit swept box office charts and won lifetime adherents. Times and even humor have changed. Humor seems to have gotten more explicit and raunchier. Nuance and innuendo have been lost to the graphic. More extreme comedic measures may have to be taken to win over a newer clientele.

Director Paul Feig seemed to be the right guy for the task. He had success withSpy, Bridesmaids and The Heat. All had starred Melissa McCarthy, one of the leads in the new Ghostbusters. Feig excelled in broad, visual humor. He also had crucial experience as a writer and actor.

McCarthy's Ghostbusting Gangbangers are Kristen Wiig (Knocked Up, Bridesmaids, The Martian); Kate McKinnon (Ted 2, Saturday Night Live) and Leslie Jones (Wrongfully Accused, Saturday Night Live). Of them Wiig seems the closest in spirit to '84 Ghostbuster Bill Murray. Like Murray, she combines visual comedy with more cerebral, or at least neurotic, humor, second guessing herself, subtexting asides to the audience and leavening the action with what passes for thought. McCarthy does her usual bombastic schtick, successfully beating us as well as the apparitions into humorous submission.

But McKinnon is a more difficult presence. Often she is funny. But all the time she bludgeons every line to death, like the ingénue who can't distinguish between crescendo and recitative. It works better for killing snakes than delivering dialogue. Anyone who can make McCarthy seem restrained might need to re-think their approach a bit. The latecomer to the quartet, Jones seems energetic and able, though the writers have not done her character any favors.

The inclusion of Chris Hemsworth (Thor, The Avengers) as the beefcake secretary Kevin is a nice role reversal. Hemsworth's ear and timing provide a nice foil for the women warriors.

The writing, done by Feig and Katy Dipplod, who also appears in cameo, is stronger on comedic set pieces than monster mashing mayhem. Too often the plot is advanced by pyrotechnic pacing. When things slow down, the Ghostbusters grab their gear and start blasting away in quartet.

The effects are engaging, but not as much fun as seeing the women's own spirited encounters. In presenting four female leads, the film boldly goes where no film has since the classic all female led The Women (1939) and proves that gender notwithstanding, the Ghostbuster crew has provided an entertaining, if a bit uneven, sequel to their predecessor.

Two plays about “command rape” - in war and in the office

Eric A. Gordon — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 10:30:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES - Two new productions take on war in different forms - on the battlefield in ancient and modern times, and in the office suites - and both feature "command rapes" at their center, ravages committed where there's a significant imbalance of power relations and no real possibility of consent.

Let's start chronologically with Ajax in Iraq. Of an estimated 123 plays Sophocles (c. 496-406 BCE) is said to have written, only seven, all tragedies, remain extant. Ajax is the earliest of these, written c. 439 BCE. It treats a heroic warrior who is driven mad - by the gods, of course - in one of the many Greek wars whose details are forgotten by all but scholars. And even the historians debate what those wars were really about - surely not about Helen of Troy, "the face that launched a thousand ships."

Ajax in Iraq brilliantly mashes together the 2500-year-old drama with a modern reiteration under the hot sun of present-day Iraq, where A.J. (Courtney Munch) is a female soldier recently integrated into full combat roles in our new gender-neutral U.S. military. Although the play by Ellen McLaughlin is only about 90 minutes long without intermission, we get a full measure of both the ancient tragedy and the contemporary allegory that riffs off it.

Ajax (Aaron Hendry) takes on a mistress Tecmessa (Alina Bolshakova) from a nation he has subdued, forcibly raping her within earshot of his confused co-combatants, who feel paralyzed to act in defiance of their glorified commander. In time, Tecmessa bears him a son and remains loyal, if for no other reason than that if she loses him she and her son would become slaves.

But Ajax is taking his military leadership to ever more violent extremes. It's hardly enough to slaughter soldiers and civilians wholesale with no eye to honor or justice. At its height his madness becomes psychopathic as he kills the creatures in every shepherd's flock that he can find.

Sophocles' Ajax is perhaps the first clear case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in literature.

Out of a clutch of forlorn soldiers barely knowing what the hell they are doing in Iraq after so many years of mission drift, A.J. distinguishes herself by singlehandedly hauling out the bodies of her mates after an explosion traps them inside a pile of rubble. Without even a passing thought of self-preservation, she brings all her comrades out to safety and receives the gratitude and honors of her crew. How does her Commanding Sergeant (James Bane) congratulate her? By viciously, mercilessly raping her to show her who is top dog in this company. Like her Sophoclean namesake, she too loses her mind in a paroxysm of rage against the poor animals belonging to the Iraqi peasants who should be grateful that the U.S. has come to "liberate" them.

All the while, the serene goddess Athena (Joanna Bateman) reflects on the raw scene with wise, sardonic remove, as if the gods too are incapacitated in the face of the numberless pointless atrocities committed by these crazed, vengeful mortals. "The difference between you and someone who can do unspeakable things?" she asks rhetorically to the audience. "Not so great."

In every way Ajax in Iraq is a consummate collective victory by the Not Man Apart Physical Theatre Ensemble. The high-energy 15-member cast starts off with a ballet of rhythmic military exercises, and except for a few lulls of card-playing and gossiping among the troops, it's an athletic event throughout, directed with an ever-present sense of doom and terror by John Farmanesh-Bocca. Music plays almost constantly (sound design by Adam Phalen), making this, in the original Greek sense, a "melodrama," theatre accompanied by music.

Many Americans are alienated from these wars we fight. A play like this reminds us it's not over yet for our soldiers. Any of these "heroes" may be coming home as profoundly damaged souls in need of the best possible psychological care they can get - and often do not. It's appropriate to remember that two ex-soldiers, one from the war in Afghanistan and one from Iraq, were the U.S. military-trained sharpshooters who recently unleashed their rage by killing policemen in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

In Sophocles' day, the Greek chorus that comments on the action and takes the time in the end to assess its meaning, provided audiences at a performance of Ajax sufficient catharsis to help them move on with their daily affairs, psychically informed, morally improved. The week that saw the premiere of Ajax in Iraq also saw the announcement of another several hundred U.S. troops committed to that sorry, afflicted land. How can there be catharsis for us? How can we even grant ourselves permission for it?

And now over to the battlefield in the corporate suites

One of the Nice Ones, a 90-minute world premiere black comedy now in a run at the Echo Theater Company in L.A.'s Atwater Village, lays bare the soulless heart of corporate America. It takes place in the offices of Tender Form Weight Loss Systems, where substantial profits are to be made exploiting the insecurities and fantasies of their clients, where everyone in this scam operation can be a "snowflake," unique and beautiful.

What starts out as a simple performance review between the handsome, smooth-talking corporate manager Roger (Graham Hamilton) and Tracy (Rebecca Gray), a nervous, talkaholic underachieving recent hire who uses a wheelchair, insidiously spins out of control with a steady accumulation of lies and feints, defenses and promises, threats, bargains and blackmail. Oh, yeah, and sexual intercourse (some might call it rape) on a conference table.

Two other characters enter the scene, the nerdy, lacking in self-confidence but hardworking sales associate Neal (Rodney To), whom Roger rips part psychologically, far surpassing his professional boundaries, and Colleen (Tara Karsian), a nervous new client whom Roger also tears into with his claptrap of motivational guilt-tripping.

These are not pleasant people. Before long, everyone is caught up in the vicious sport of oneupmanship, with sudden revelations and turnabouts in fortune bound to keep an audience magically entranced. This is most definitely a twisted comedy, and also most imperatively, a sour, dark commentary on the foul way we deal with each other in a society modeled on success at any cost.

Little is sacred in Erik Patterson's lurid but frequently evocative and lyrical play except the characters' personal convictions that they alone in this farrago of deceit are trying to be "one of the nice ones." True, some may be more entitled to that description than others, but who can escape the bonds of collaboration and opportunism when your paycheck depends on submission? Doesn't every poisoner, polluter, prison guard and politician in the land claim to be a saint?

The cleverly designed set (Amanda Knehans), with its two large walls and a passage between them, decorated with a collage of office detritus, becomes almost a fifth character in the play (well, actually there is a fifth character-- but no spoilers). Components of these walls will open or detach to become shelving, or chairs, a convenient closet for a stowaway body, and even adjoining urinals behind which the two male characters compare parts.

This is a snappy, important four-hander of elegant, high-precision acting that is stunningly directed by Chris Fields and well worth checking out. It entertains with original wit and provokes your mind with scheming clarity.

Ajax in Iraq plays at the Greenway Court Theatre, 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles 90036. Performances continue through August 14, Fridays & Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 7 pm. Free parking in the lot adjacent to the theatre. For reservations and information, visit http://www.greenwaycourttheatre.org/ajaxiniraq/ or call (323) 673-0544.

One of the Nice Ones plays at the Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Los Angeles 90039 through August 21 on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, and Sundays at 4 and 7 pm. For information and tickets call (310) 307-3753 or go to: www.EchoTheaterCompany.com. Parking is free in the lot one block south of the theater.

Photo: fluxtheatre.org

Holychild’s summer jam EP: A Brat Pop critique of capitalism

C. T. Elliott — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 10:37:00 +0000

Los Angeles-based feminist electronica duo HOLYCHILD has launched a new salvo in its assault on consumer culture: the "America Oil Lamb" EP. Holychild's singer/songwriter Liz Nistico and co-writer/producer Louie Diller have teamed up with fellow travelers Kate Nash, RAC, Mereki, Tkay Maidza, MS MR, and Kitten to extend their critique of pop culture, mass consumption and its objectification of the female body, all under the banner of "Brat Pop."

According to the manifesto at the Holychild website, Brat Pop is defined as "the glittery blend of electronic beats and tell-it-like-it-is lyrics." Brat Pop uses the medium of pop music with its cheery digital syncopated beats combined with cheeky lyrics that decrypt the Culture Industry's not-so-subliminal messages about body image directed toward young women. Holychild castigates a society fueled by an animal- and processed food-based diet in which generations of girls have in turn been saddled with social paranoia and body dysmorphic disorder under the commodifying culture of capitalism.

The band describes the theme of the EP as an appeal to equality in gender, race, and economics. Each song takes on a symptom of the alienation of our contemporary culture: according to the duo's statement, "toxic relationships in our commercial world ('Rotten Teeth'), the shallowness of celebrity idolization ('Not Invited'), and corporate America drowning our emotions ('America Oil Lamb')."

In the Kate Nash-guested single, "Rotten Teeth," Nistico reflects on the lack of choices fostered in youth under a system commanded by the drive for profits: "I can never be the girl I want to be/no no I'm never free." Nash responds with the existential ultimatum of an eating disorder: "Do we eat or just starve ourselves tonight?"

Guest singer Kate Nash is a feminist activist/artist in her own right: She formed the Rock 'n Roll for Girls After School Music Club; has worked with young self-harming women at the Wish Centre in Harrow, UK; and was appointed Global Ambassador of the Because I am a Girl initiative by Plan USA, which seeks to empower girls in developing countries as agents for global change.

Holychild's assessment of pop culture is enhanced by their (self-directed) music videos. The video for "Rotten Teeth" envisions female youth's battle for freedom (and "freakdom") as squads of colorful, toy-like disposable razors swoop in to menace playfully joyous merkins (fashioned from everything whimsical, from Easter grass to clown hair). Non-commercialized "Outsider" women appear in the form of awe-inspiringly coiffed bearded ladies and "unibrows" proclaiming the hirsute glory of the unshaven/untamed.

The Holychild-directed video "Money All Around" for a song from their debut LP, last year's "The Shape of Brat Pop to Come," is even more explicit in its critique of capitalist culture. The video features "pop ups" that explain Holychild's anti-commercial theses while visually excoriating the imagery of pop culture's banal expectations.

Holychild's continuing project of using the medium of pop to decode the self-oppressing messages in the broader culture is certainly a welcome development.

HOLYCHILD

America Oil Lamb EP

Glassnote Entertainment Group, LLC

“Recorded in Hollywood”: Black musical pioneer John Dolphin’s story on stage

Eric A. Gordon — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 11:31:00 +0000

CULVER CITY, Calif. - Trailblazing businessman John Dolphin envisioned opening up a record shop in Hollywood that would feature the latest and best popular music in America. The store would have a stage, a dance floor and party space, a recording studio for his new releases, and a live radio DJ featuring his products. It would be a meeting place for music lovers of all ethnicities from every part of the city, and indeed the world. He would give away a promotional new recording with each purchase. Eventually he would keep his doors open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

No one would rent him a storefront in Hollywood in 1948. The violent racism he had left behind in the Deep South as part of the Great Migration northward for jobs and opportunities (he worked at Ford in Detroit for some years) returned in other forms once he set foot in sunny post-war Los Angeles.

Dolphin's father had changed the family name away from the slaveowner's name his forebears had borne for decades. Starting up anew seemed to be in the family blood. But with Hollywood ruled out, John revised his ambitions and opened Dolphin's of Hollywood (he refused to admit defeat on that point), blocks south of downtown, on Central Avenue, corner of Vernon in South Central, the heartbeat of Black L.A.

Within a short time, music fans flocked there to absorb the fresh sounds of Dolphin's talent. Officers from notoriously racist and anti-communist Chief William H. Parker's L.A. Police Department, couldn't help noticing an ambitious Black man's entrepreneurial success, which included interracial partying and dancing at the shop. Cops, and presumably the "upstanding" citizens behind them, objected to Dolphin's "peddling all these dirty records for white kids." It was the same era memorialized in the Broadway show and film Hairspray, about integration on Baltimore's Bandstand TV. Dolphin's every move began to be carefully scrutinized, leading to arbitrary raids and arrests.

Dolphin's shop became the most famous record store in the country, visited by Hollywood stars out for a local musical escapade, and performers such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Elvis Presley. His most famous DJ was Dick "Huggy Boy" Hugg, and the roster of artists on his labels (Recorded in Hollywood, Money, Cash, Lucky and Ball) included some of the biggest up-and-coming stars of the pre-Motown era in various genres - R&B, gospel, blues, jazz, doo-wop, rock 'n' roll, even western music and the beginnings of the California surfing sound. A few of his discoveries included Sam Cooke, Jesse Belvin, Charles Mingus, Pee Wee Crayton and Major Lance.

Dolphin's grandson Jamelle Dolphin authored the book Recorded in Hollywood: The John Dolphin Story, published in 2011, based on research and the many colorful family stories he had heard all his life. Discussing changes made to the script following its earlier incarnation in a smaller 99-seat theater in Hollywood last year, he explains that with the Broadway producer Lou Spisto now on board, some new talent in the cast and reshaping to the book, "the relationships between John, Sam Cooke, Jesse Belvin, and Huggy Boy are more central to our story, as is the key relationship with my grandmother Ruth Dolphin. We spend more time getting to know my grandfather, personal warts and all, as he struggles to find his place in the world and finally become a real leader in South Central."

Veteran Broadway actor Stu James reprises his John Dolphin role. Other key roles include Eric B. Anthony as Percy Ivy, the ever-hopeful singer whose undeveloped gifts Dolphin never completely embraced; Jenna Gillespie as the forgiving wife Ruth Dolphin; Thomas Hobson as soul crooner Sam Cooke; Matt Magnusson as the hip, fast-lipped Huggy Boy broadcasting to white radio audiences and introducing them to original, authentic home-grown African-American music; and Frank Lawson as Leon Washington, the initially skeptical founding publisher of the Black L.A. Sentinel newspaper. The full cast numbers almost two dozen, playing many roles - customers, neighbors, policemen, businessmen, singers deployed as solos or four-person groups, and clubgoers. A band of six players under Abdul Hamid Royal keeps the stage rocking all night long.

Choreography by Cassie Crump shows off the versatile gifts of her large cast and astonishingly wide range of skills that accompany a book by Matt Donnelly and Jamelle Dolphin, and a mostly original score by Andy Cooper that features romantic slow numbers and sizzlingly hot Broadway-style dance ensembles. (Additional numbers such as "Earth Angel," "I'll Come Running Back To You," "Let the Good Times Roll," "Nature Boy," and "Sixty Minute Man" are also included.) One of the high points of the performance is the extended soliloquy "I Won't Walk Away" that John sings as he reevaluates his life full of carousing, womanizing, boozing, and inattention to his business, in a recommitment to Ruth, the success of his store, and the larger struggle for human rights outside its walls in the 1950s.

Four-time NAACP Best Director Award winner Denise Dowse pulls it all together with her crack, seamless guidance on a set (Bruce Goodrich) that shows off the shop against a backdrop of palm trees, iconic L.A. streetlamps, oil derricks and billboards.

Music, dance and story are the central attractions to the show, but the social context for music is very much a part of the life-and-times of the legendary John Dolphin, who became one of the very first successful Black people in the music business. There is even a reference to an Officer Bradley at one point, a cop who promises to do what he can to soften the police harassment. This will be, of course, the future mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley. The civil rights movement is also referenced in a marching song, as John begins to link his personal success to the advancement of his people. I wondered if the more progressive Black newspaper The California Eagle, edited by Charlotta Bass, might get a mention, but I didn't hear it. In 1952, Bass became the first African-American woman to run for Vice President, as a candidate of the Progressive Party, so there was definitely an overlap to this period.

I simply cannot accept that Recorded in Hollywood might close on August 7th and never be heard from again. It has Broadway lights twinkling all over it. Could be the next Dreamgirls. See it in L.A. See it now.

Recorded in Hollywood plays at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, 9820 Washington Blvd., Culver City, Calif 90232, through August 7. Performances are Thursdays at 8 pm, Fridays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 2 and 8 pm, and Sundays at 2 and 7 pm. Free parking is available beneath Culver City City Hall (enter on Duquesne Ave.). For information and tickets call (213) 972.4488 or visit www.RecordedinHollywood.com, which features a wealth of information about the store, the artists and the period.

Photo: Stu James and ensemble / Ed Krieger

Molière’s madcap merriment amuses

Ed Rampell — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 14:14:00 +0000

TOPANGA, Calif. - The Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum (WGTB) production of Molière's 1673 The Imaginary Invalid is as lighthearted as its anti-slavery Tom is heavy. But that's not to say that this saucy romp is without its own socially serious subtext. In particular, the playwright/thespian - who suffered from tuberculosis - took on the medical profession in his final play. In addition to ridiculing quackery, there is also a strong dose of mockery of the high and mighty - and whether in 17th-century monarchical France, when Molière lived and Invalid is set, or in our own time with its highly stratified class system, one can never have enough ridiculing of the ruling élite.

Ellen Geer stars as Argan, the upper-class title character beset by all sorts of maladies - or is she, as the comedy's name suggests, a prima donna hypochondriac? (Molière's spoof, titled "Le Malade imaginaire" in French, is sometimes called The Hypochondriac, and in the original, Argan is a male, but Ms. Geer has successfully, seamlessly flipped the role.) Among her infinite (real or imagined) ailments is a severe case of flatulence. So in order to defray her medical expenses Argan connives to marry off her daughter Angelique (Willow Geer) to Claude Diafoirus, who is about to graduate from medical school and is the nephew of her personal physician, the bewigged Dr. Purgeon (as in "purge").

Both are total quacks, and Molière scores salient points as he skewers anti-science dolts, those precursors to today's climate change deniers and vaccination haters. As Purgeon, the suspect surgeon, the inestimable Alan Blumenfeld delivers yet another of his endless characterizations, that range from high tragedy to satire.

As Claude, Cameron Rose steals every scene he's in like a kleptomaniac on a Rodeo Drive shopping spree with Winona Ryder. He is so improbably, foppishly garbed and coiffed as a sort of 17th-century glam rocker off his rocker and clucks about as if he is part chicken. Methinks that Rose's Claude is among the funniest characterizations I have ever seen tread the boards. I am smiling as I scribble this - bravo, Mssr. Rose!

Jonathan Blandino is Beline, a conniving cad who romances the much older Argan in order to sponge off her and inherit her loot. The shape shifting Melora Marshall here incarnates Argan's far gone, much put upon servant Toinette, who spouts clever class-conscious dialogue, just as Beaumarchais' and Mozart's lower-class characters did in works of edgy anti-aristocratic awareness, such as The Marriage of Figaro.

As the angelic Angelique, lovely Willow Geer delivers one of those performances wherein as a highly trained stage actress (among L.A.'s finest), she can turn on a dime (or centime, as the case may be), modulating her voice, perfectly calibrating her delivery. Max Lawrence plays her true love (or lust) Cleante and although it is not commented upon onstage, theirs is an interracial romance. WGTB has always been a trendsetter in terms of nontraditional casting, from gender to ethnic to age conventions and beyond.

WGTB's two-act production of Invalid uses Constance Congdon's excellent adaptation of Molière's comédie-ballet. Marshall McDaniel provides lovely original music accentuating my favorite instrument, the harpsichord. Vicki Conrad's appropriately florid costuming captures France's 17th-century élan, from a scantily-clad, lingerie-wearing, stereotypically sexy French maid to Claude's outlandish garb. All of Invalid's imaginative, madcap merriment is ably orchestrated by the versatile Mary Jo DuPrey, who also directed last year's drama August: Osage County at WGTB.

Although I loved Invalid, I am unsure about its age appropriateness. In addition to innumerable jibes about breaking wind and puns on Claude's last name, Diafoirus (I leave this to your imagination), the scatological humor is joined by repeated references to sex. The word "intercourse" is joyously bandied about with its multiple meanings - and how do you define and explain these witticisms to a child? Given this play's ribald "immaturity" I imagine it's left best for mature audiences - but I suppose it's up to each parent/guardian to determine what that is for their young 'un. So heads up - thou hast been forewarned, Dear Reader.

At the age of only 51, poor Molière - there is a wonderful 2007 French biopic called Molière, helmed by Laurent Tirard - actually died after acting in The Imaginary Invalid. The longstanding superstition that green is bad luck for actors to wear is derived from the fact that this was the color Molière wore when he died, following his performance. Despite collapsing onstage while coughing and hemorrhaging, Molière insisted on completing the comedy, which may also be the origin of the motto "The show must go on!" But audiences need not be concerned - the only thing amphitheater-goers have to "worry" about at this show is the possibility of dying laughing.

From hoary old quackery to the vicissitudes of Obamacare, the medical profession and its providing (or not providing) of healthcare still merits well aimed barbs and lampoons, which maestro Molière hurls unerringly at his targets. Just imagine what Molière might have written had he witnessed the absurdity of 2016 America's health insurance insanity, which more often than not puts profit before people. As that old French saying goes, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" - "The more things change, the more they remain the same." But one thing that never changes is that a splendid time is guaranteed to all at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum.

The Imaginary Invalid is playing in repertory through Oct. 2 at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, Calif. 90290. For repertory schedule and other information call (310) 455-3723 or see www.Theatricum.com.

Photo: left to right, Alexandre Wauthier, Ellen Geer, Max Lawrence, Alan Blumenfeld, Cameron Rose / Miriam Geer

Author Roy Speckhardt: “Can we create change through humanism?"

Eric A. Gordon — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 13:11:00 +0000

For Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, this is not a question. He clearly affirms it in the title of his persuasive and accessible new book, Creating Change Through Humanism.

"Traditional religions that hold to divine revelations of ancient men and millennia-old texts are bound to be antiquated," Speckhardt writes, "compared to the humanist drive to seek progress for humanity based on the best available evidence and reasoning."

Please don't misunderstand him. As a freethinker, he is skeptical of religion and its claims, but also acknowledges that much of modern religious expression is not especially oppressive and mind-constricting. There are liberal branches of most major religions that are completely open to the scientific method, and many participants in such denominations who would readily call themselves "humanists." For them, as for many who populate our churches and temples, religion serves primarily as a gathering place, a community space that offers comfort, meaningful tradition, and structure. There are "millions of godless peoples who remain active in religions," he says, citing the recent Pew Religious Landscape Survey.

"Perhaps today's greatest challenge is grappling with how to raise worldwide standards of living in an equitable manner while simultaneously addressing the continuously deteriorating environment, upon which our very existence depends."

"Humanists understand that this is the only life we have," writes Speckhardt, "and this planet is the only place we have to live it. Unlike many religious organizations and those they support, humanists don't rely on a god to fix things, don't rely on an afterlife to improve our lot, and don't have archaic prohibitions about contraception, abortion, or other means of providing families planning options. That's why population dynamics matter so much to humanists - only humans have the ability to protect our planet."

To Humanists, there are no classes of lesser people in the world: All are entitled to share life's bounty, without appeal to somebody's scripture to take anything away from anyone. Egalitarian argument is adduced about women's, LGBTQ, and all civil rights, leading "to the conclusion that we live on this one world as one people."

The last of the red-hot atheist rabble-rousers

Gone are the days, for the Humanist movement at least, when atheist rabble-rousers like the late activist Madalyn Murray O'Hair would gratuitously assault believers for their ignorance and superstition. Today's Humanists are drawn more to ask probing questions: "Do you explore science, literature, and art with an open mind?" Not "Do you give exclusive allegiance to a unique prophet or savior?" but instead, "Do you value your own experience and worth?" And not "Do you believe in an absolute, a personal god, an immortal soul?" but "Do you act for the good of humanity, including future generations?"

"After all," Speckhardt reminds us, "it's tiresome to always talk about what we don't believe. A consistently negative approach is simply unhealthy and less productive than alternatives." For that reason, he writes, the term "atheist" is receding from popularity as being a negative term that denies belief, while "Humanist" has only positive associations. "Our drive to help humanity is a sensible one and our reliance on empathy is a recognizable good." Or as the Humanist saying goes, "Good without a god."

In his second section, Speckhardt tackles some of the world's problems and suggests how, through Humanist activism, change can take place. He recognizes "that rampant inequality is cancerous to our world. Extremes of wealth and poverty, of cosmopolitanism and ignorance, are seeds of conflict and instability. When the bulk of a society has no hope of achieving the basic standards of life and happiness, it cultivates religious extremism and opens the door to violence as coping methods for the disenfranchised."

Not surprisingly, with such an outlook, a survey of AHA members revealed that less than three percent claimed to be Republican Party members. Overall, Humanists are liberal, progressive (many lean toward socialist ideas), and democratic (both small- and capital-D). In recent years a Freethought Equality Fund PAC has been established whereby Humanists help to support such candidates who will base their votes on the Constitution, not the Bible.

Humanism, as Speckhardt outlines it, aims to address inequities of all kinds in this world, and allies on an issue-by-issue basis with many other movements for progress. There is one evident weakness in this book, and I believe more broadly in the Humanist movement. Although the author recognizes the need for coalition politics to elect better politicians to office, to repeal offensive laws and policies, to provide a more fruitful life for all, he singles out the usual "identity politics" groups but does not make the case for labor as part of, and many would argue the most significant part of that coalition. Time and again, where the opportunity arises to include a salute to the labor movement's historic role in advocating for a better life, for overcoming racial and gender prejudices, for fair labor practices, for better wages, and against "right-to-work," outsourcing and sweatshops, he misses it. It seems not to be his priority to bring Humanists aboard the cause of working people as a class, nor specifically to reach out to the working class with a Humanist perspective.

Brochures published by AHA and distributed at its recent 75th national conference did not carry the union printer's bug; so right off the bat, a union member picking up that literature will question AHA's commitment to improving the situation for working people if it can't even figure out to buy union. This point was brought up in one session (by me) and was received with what seemed to be widespread approval. This is a critical alliance AHA appears not to have taken much into account, but it is absolutely central to its purpose.

With that important exception noted, Creating Change is a useful introduction to a subject that even without much proselytizing will undoubtedly become better known in the years to come. Year by year polls indicate increasing numbers of "nones" - atheists, freethinkers, agnostics, skeptics and humanists, especially among young people, who will be showing their profound impatience with "faith-based" (and anti-labor, anti-people) antics in our political and social lives.

Creating Change Through Humanism

Washington, D.C.: Humanist Press, 2015, 185 pp.

This week in history: “Towards the future” honors Bastille Day

Special to PeoplesWorld.org — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 10:05:00 +0000

July 14th is Bastille Day, the holiday commemorating the fall of the Bastille prison at the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. It is celebrated not only in France but in many French-speaking countries and worldwide as one of the great turning points in history, when monarchs and the nobility were overthrown from their high, commanding perches. The advent of a new kind of capitalist relations between classes led to large-scale industrialization, mechanization, and urbanism. New contradictions emerged.

Emile Verhaeren (1855-1916) was a Belgian poet who studied law. He wrote in French and is considered one of the founders of the school of symbolism. As a socialist he was particularly concerned with the impact of urban industrial society on the countryside and the social implications of this development. Written more than a century ago, "Towards the Future" anticipates the ecological crisis that we know today as climate change and the despoliation of the Earth.

Towards the Future

Mankind, determined on a golden destiny,
Have you questioned what formidable force
Has disturbed your colossal powers
Suddenly, in a century?

The impulse to extend knowledge, to find new ways,
Penetrates the massive forest of being like a novice,
And despite some feet struggling through the bushes
Man masters the limitations of his laws.

In entropy, atoms, and dust
Spectacular life is summoned and appears.
Everything is trapped in the infinity of snares
That immortal matter has expanded or reduced.

Hero, guru, artist, apostle, adventurer,
Each in his turn goes through the black wall of the unknown,
Yet thanks to this solitary or collective brain
The new being becomes universally aware.

And it is you, you the cities,
There
At long intervals, from one end to the other
Of plains and estates,
Who contain in you enough humanity
Enough scarlet strength and new clarity
To inspire with fertile rage and fury
The patient or violent minds
Of those
Who remake the rules and impose
Them on the world.

The rural spirit was the spirit of God;
It shrunk from research and revolution,
It failed; and now dies in the shade
Of axle-trees and the fiery harvest of a new solution.

Ruin settles and blows to the four corners
Where winds persist, on the empty plains,
While far away the city extracts as hers
The passion from the agony that remains.

The red factory glitters where once only fields shone;
The floods of black smoke sweep over the church tops;
The spirit of man advances and the setting sun
Is no longer the golden host come to bless the crops.

Will the fields exorcised of their errors,
Their blunders, their horrors, some day create
Gardens to reward effort and labors,
And be cups full of health and pure light?

Will they remake, with the necessary sun,
With the wind, the animals and the rain,
At the hours of wakening and beginning, one
World saved at last from the grasp of the town?

Or will they become the last paradise
Rid of gods and their ominous grip,
Where at dawn or noon, before evening clears, the wise
Ones will come down and dream before they take their sleep?

Meanwhile, life is complete and strong,
A human unrestrained creation;
And rights? And duties? The arbitrary dreams the young
Evolve before the newest aspiration!

Source: The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse, 1970.

Photo: Verhaeren painted by Théo van Rysselberghe | Wikimedia (CC)

In “The Marvin Gaye Story,” sexual healing is the political

Tim Libretti — Thu, 07 Jul 2016 14:10:00 +0000

CHICAGO - "He's such a confused man, but he says so much in his music," comments one character in the new stage work about Marvin Gaye (Rashawn Thompson) now playing at the Black Ensemble Theater (BET).

Under the auspices of CEO, founder, and general force of nature Jackie Taylor, BET has established itself over the last forty years in Chicago as a foremost chronicler of African American cultural, and particularly musical history. BET productions bring to life the way that music and the particular artists who created it have given shape and consciousness to a historical and political, as well as deeply personal experience at once vexed by repression within U.S. society, yet tenaciously vibrant with intellectual and creative energy.

Taylor's shows in the past have focused on the lives and music of such creative personalities as Jackie Wilson, Teddy Pendergrass and Dionne Warwick and, in the productions Doo Wop Shoo Bop and Those Sensational Soulful 60s, charted whole decades in African American music.

Her current production, Don't Talk About My Father Because God Is My Friend: The Marvin Gaye Story, written by her and directed by Daryl Brooks, continues this project of exploring and analyzing not just Marvin Gaye's intimate life, but the larger historical trauma of African America. Gaye's music, as Taylor's drama tells the story, almost psychotherapeutically seeks to heal these personal and collective traumas.

The aesthetic mode, particularly music, that Taylor has focused on in her years-long project of cultural recovery, offers a clarity of understanding the confusions, the challenges, the repressions, joys, and persisting conundrums in African American life that other forms of expression simply cannot provide. She gives us a sense of celebration in Gaye's music even as it gives voice to profound individual, familial and collective pain.

The challenge to Taylor's storytelling and Brooks' direction is to telescope three decades of Gaye's life and career, from the '60s to the '80s, into a couple of hours. It required discerning judgment to choose the songs from his vast oeuvre to chart the meaning of his life in coordination with the larger scope of history. The show is brilliant at economically weaving its portrait of Gaye intertwined with the broad trajectory of politics and society. The writer and director explore his music as a way Gaye sought to heal his own painful fractures and tensions as well as the violence, convulsions and divisions in the larger political world.

The power of the erotic

While many of us might recognize his 1971 hit "What's Goin' On" as a direct response to the madness of the Vietnam War, in which his brother Frankie (Kevin Patterson) fought, as well as to the racial violence and injustice African Americans suffered at homes, we might not immediately think of his 1982 hit "Sexual Healing" as a political song seeking solution to the conflicts that violently divide us. But this telling of Gaye's life interprets his music as a journey to discover and celebrate our erotic energies and selves, where the secret to making us whole again resides.

In this sense, Taylor offers us a re-interpretation of Gaye's music that grants vital importance to the erotic as a fundamental political category, much as the astute political thinker and poet Audre Lorde does in her writings. Lorde, for example, explains the power of the erotic as a form of political practice, defining it as "our most profoundly creative source" and that which is "self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society." The erotic in her view exceeds the sexual arena, and can function as the central category through which we analyze racial and class oppression and social power dynamics generally.

In many ways, Taylor foregrounds the erotic as a source of self-affirmation and power ahead of more overt representations of racial politics, discussing racial politics and political issues through the discourse of the erotic. From the beginning, the play focuses on Gaye's relationship with his father, who shot and killed Gaye in 1984, centering issues of contorted sexual identities in Gaye's family life which Taylor represents (to borrow Lorde's language) as part of the corruption and distortion of the erotic as a source of energy for change.

In a visit to the stage, the deceased yet angelic Marvin Gaye tells us the play is about forgiveness and understanding and not judgment. The play then opens with a scene of the young Marvin singing with Harvey Fuqua and the Moonglows and contemplating, at Harvey's direction, a move to Motown to start a career with legendary producer Barry Gordy. Once we see Gaye's home life, we understand that this move would require defying the authority of his violent, repressive father (Henri Watkins), who rules his house abusively with an iron fist and objects to Marvin's career, partly out of his own jealousy and rivalry.

Within this father-son relationship taboo topics are explored. We learn that Gaye's father enjoyed wearing women's clothing, and Taylor represents Marvin himself as insecure in his own masculine identity and even homophobic, blurting out in one scene, at an inappropriate and seemingly irrelevant moment, that he is not a homosexual, and in another scene talking about his father, in a pejorative way, as feminine. The moment suggests and - in a post-performance discussion with the audience - the director speculated that Gaye was sexually abused, not directly by his father but by another relative with whom his father was complicit.

Music as the means to liberation

In short, Gaye's growing up in such an environment was the source of a deep fracturing, particularly around issues of sexual identity and expression, that cut him off from an important source of energy and information inside himself.

In one scene, we see this theme accentuated when we learn the origins of his hit song, the erotically charged anthem "Let's Get It On." Originally, the song was supposed to be about an addict abstaining from drug use and disciplining his body against desires. Gaye, however, refuses to sing such a song. In one of the most compelling scenes in the play he transforms the song into a lavish celebration of our sensual beings, asserting our erotic dimension as the means to liberation, transformation and wholeness, or disalienation.

Similarly, Taylor asks us to see Gaye's love songs not simply as about romantic love between two people but as about erotic forces that bring together a people, who share a common history of oppression and resilience. The play features, for example, the famous duet Gaye sings with Tammi Terrell (Melanie McCullough) "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," and highlights, I believe, the way the song is not just about romance and sexuality but about the kind of love that binds a community together in relationships of mutual aid and caring. We can hear a much broader sense of the erotic - the sense Lorde talks about - when we hear lyrics like: "If you need me, call me/You don't have to worry/I'll come in a hurry."

Ultimately, Taylor represents Gaye's music as the vehicle through which he worked out problems that were not his alone but also endemic to his larger community - issues of drug abuse, of self-hatred and self-doubt, and also intense and persistent social violence in a racist, war-mongering America that devalues Black lives.

In the perspective Taylor offers, Gaye's music offers the lesson of love as a blueprint to healing and transformation. His hit song "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," featured in the play, is a classic about love and betrayal. It offers a narrative lesson not just for relationships between individuals but for larger sets of social relationships on the community level. However, Taylor also shows the hurt Gaye inflicts on his wives as he makes his difficult life journey.

In the end, the Marvin Gaye angel returns to the stage to tell us, "I am whole again," and to remind us that "We sing because we're happy. We sing because we're free." Amidst the degradation and violence, the music gives expression to our possibilities - and our successes - of materializing a just and humane world and treating each other lovingly.

The music gives us this clarity about who we are, how we can be, the world we can achieve. Taylor gives us a play-as-ritual designed to provide us some healing and bring us closer to each other and closer to wholeness, deftly managing to make the particular a universal.

The Marvin Gaye Story plays at the Black Ensemble Theater, 4450 N. Clark St., Chicago 60640. For tickets and further information, call (773) 769-4451, or visit their website here. Performances are Friday at 8 pm, Saturday at 3 and 8 pm, and Sunday at 3 pm, through July 10 only.

Photo: Black Ensemble Theater

China Miéville’s postmodern fantasies in “Three Moments of an Explosion”

C. T. Elliott — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 14:30:00 +0000

The contemporary British fantasist China Miéville's collection of short stories, Three Moments of an Explosion, is a diverse mix of styles, from experimental mind-benders (such as the title story) to genre-ic terror tales, all thrillingly tainted by the dread illogic of a nightmare. Miéville has embedded his work in the literary spaces between science fiction, horror, and fantasy, in the "weird fiction" tradition of H.P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, and Clark Ashton Smith.

Yet instead of a fannish imitator of masters of classic horror-fantasy, Miéville is an innovator from a deeper literary tradition whose influences seem to range from the occult paranoia of Robert Chambers' The King in Yellow, (in Miéville's "The Dowager of Bees" a pro gambler discovers the sinister, hidden suits of ordinary playing cards) to the existential surrealism of Jorge Luis Borges ("The Rope is the World").

Three Moments will appeal firstly to those who geek-out to Rod Serling's Night Gallery, X-Files progenitor Charles Fort, and Symbolist author J.K. Huysmans. Miéville, too, zeroes in on the things that don't "fit in" and makes us question the order that cannot accommodate them. From "The Design":

"None of us have to obey instructions. I consider my own existence proof of that. So much of life is cobbled together when plans go awry. That is often where happiness comes from."

With Three Moments, Miéville also makes a competent bid to complete a trinity of modern British horror with Ramsey Campbell and Clive Barker. The medieval creature that stalks a lesbian in "Säcken," the slacker/creeper of "The Rabbet," and the rotting animal head-wearing zombies of "After the Festival" all evoke the gruesome physicality, sexual malaise and uncanny terror of the best of this tradition. Yet he never takes his material entirely seriously, demonstrated by the elaborate goofs of the therapy ninjas in "Dreaded Outcome," and the teasingly slow reveal of what must be the most un-PC horror film in history in "The Junket."

Miéville's phantasmagorical interrogation of reality at times takes on explicitly politically progressive themes. Earlier this year, Christopher Kendrick extensively documented Miéville's affirming examination of Fantasy writing, left politics and socialism. Three Moments continues the project. In "The Dusty Hat" we are presented with the image of a mummified leftist at a radical political conference, controlled by a sentient quorum of dust residing on his hat. "Covehithe" envisions a world where nature avenges man's fossil fuel abuse with sunken oil derricks that come to life and rampage Godzilla-like across the Earth. In "The Bastard Prompt" and "Keep," the dis-eases of modern alienation are manifested in symptoms such as throwing up food someone else ate or the involuntary telekinetic carving of a moat in the earth around oneself.

Three Moments adeptly weaves pop culture savoir-faire, genre-surfing and social relevance into ripping yarns that haunt at an existential level. Here we have a pioneering materialist-fantasist's re-envisioning of the best traditions of weird fiction.

China Miéville: Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories

New York: Del Rey, 2015

382 pp.

Photo: Wordpress