Now through a circuitous circuit, I am reading the short stories of Carson McCullers, called "Seven" after her recognition of the effectiveness of the number by her character, Miss Amelia.

Many great writing samples may already be familiar to you; the one I want to include here (from "Sojourner") describes a Bach prelude and fugue. "The prelude was as gaily iridescent as a prism in a morning room. The first voice of the fugue, an announcement pure and solitary, was repeated intermingling with a second voice and again repeated within an elaborated frame, the multiple music, horizontal and serene, flowed with unhurried majesty. The principal melody was woven with two other voices, embellished with countless ingenuities - now dominant, again submerged, it had the sublimity of a single thing that does not fear surrender to the whole."

Yes, that describes us-all in the universe!

So the free Friday Target Museum of Modern Art night included, along with the closing of the Dada exhibit, a screening of "Reflections in a Golden Eye," a shockingly technicolor print in one of the only two familiar rooms left in that museum, the basement screening room atop the super submerged 5th avenue subways. I saw the first hour of that.

And I still carry the memory of the last two reels of "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" in James Wong Howe's technicolor cinematography. It occurred to me that an author is the progenitor of these unique visions. Tennessee Williams films are their own genre; perhaps the same is true of Ms. McCullers.

Colleen McCullough, the Thorn Birds, no, I can't be so lucky as to have a book by McCullers, oh, there it is, the 35 cent Bantam Giant with the cover of tall woman leading the hunchback up the stairs, some figures in red behind her....the act of my reading it destroying its brittle paper.

The Baghdad Cafe? No, the lead story is "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe." Was she too rejecting and controlling? It looked like a delicate balance existed for a time, and that was a good time for the town... It was all so infinitely relatable in its strangeness...

Edward Albee wrote the play?

I read it on the bus to West Point. Was West Point the setting for "Reflections in a Golden Eye?" This is my circuitous route to the great writing of Carson McCullers.

I suppose this post has spoiler potential for those of you eagerly about to read Willa Cather's short story, "Paul's Case," and, yes, do so without delay.

Please consider yourself warned.

On the subway I paged through the 1936 edition of Burrell and Cerf's Bedside Book of Famous American Stories. Willa Cather wrote "Paul's Case." It is one of the 67 stories in the collection and I read it with great illumination as I already had a fondness for Madame Bovary. I remember spending an adolescence feeling as misplaced as Paul ("There's no one quite so worthy of the way I feel."). To his credit he didn't make a fool of himself rightfully settled into the Waldorf with his stolen loot. When money ran low he even took the train toward home, but this I cannot condone... and I doubt she did, although she did write the story... he saw fit to accelerate his body's inevitable demise. End of story.

-----

There was a woman last night outside of the Theatre for the New City sitting on the corner of East 10th and 1st as the light rain fell pleasantly upon us. She was equipped with a bag containing a gallon of gin. According to the theatre manager, the fellow she attended the theatre with, thanks to complimentary tickets, may have run off after injuring her. She could not put standing pressure on one of her legs. Was it broken? She sat back down. I called 911. She took gulps from the bottle. One of the attendants in the Beth Israel ambulance that arrived promptly, greeted her familiarly... Hi, Peg.

It was only 11:30 PM. I used to love sitting in on the midnight plays running at Theatre for the New City in the 1980's when it was on 2nd Avenue and East 10th. The most familiar memory I can share is that of Ethel Eichelberger playing accordion.

As for the Cather story, money can cost so much emotion that, having undergone the trauma of acquiring it, you will be truly gifted to relax and enjoy the doubtful luxuries it can purchase.

Question to self:
Peter, you obsessive troll, what are you doing outside of the bubble of comical musical visual melodrama?

Answer:
I'm reconciling subjective and objective realities.

Question 2 to self:
Do you promise to help and do no harm?

Answer:
Haven't I been?

Question 2 to self repeated:
Do you promise?

Answer:
Yes.

Dear everyone, If I can't write about it, everything gets me annoyed.

I visited the Uniformed Firefighters Association building last night for a TV spot with James Chladek, thanks to my personable trivia expert friend, John Barbieri, and had the pleasure of 15 minutes of Mr. Chladek's company before a well run set of studio cameras. Good work, guys! I talked about whatever is going on lately, my collaborations with the East Village Antifolk Fest, Sharon Fogarty's Flying Dreams at Manhattan Theatre Source, the visit to Guild Hall with Bruce Jay Friedman, and of course my being forced to vacate or buy my apartment of 17 years...

"We will never sell, only rent," has become, "we will never rent, only sell."

Well, it's a buyer's market.

"I Hope the Day Is Soon"

I luxurate in generalized anxiety. I'm anxious for something to happen, anxious throughout a lifetime, for something to happen -- the anxiousness is while it doesn't... The anxiousness happens while the happening doesn't, though a life time. It finally happened! Anxiety fulfilled.

There are some things men do that women don't do and some things women do that men don't do and there are some things that people just don't do.

"This is an empty room."
"But there's a pink elephant in this room."
"Oh, that..."

Daniel Keyes wrote Flowers for Algernon and Alexander Key wrote The Forgotten Door, among other novels. Flowers for Algernon began as a short story, available since 1959. I so looked forward to the expanded novel. It (the short story) was in a book with a ferris wheel on the cover, which also contained August Heat and The Monkey's Paw, and some story about climbing a gas tank and the title story about the disappearance of a daughter on the ferris wheel, she with the delicate condition that she kept pressuring her father to worry less about. Yes, I recommend that story collection.

The idea that intelligence is what we need to appreciate art stemmed from Flowers for Algernon. Of course I saw a portion of the Cliff Robertson film on TV this evening.

Night in Funland And Other Stories from Literary Cavalcade ed. Jerome Brondfield (Scholastic Book Services TK1056, 1968, 75¢, 238pp, pb)
7 • Foreword • Jerome Brondfield • fw
13 • Night in Funland • William Peden • ss The New Mexico Quarterly Win ’60
26 • Four O’Clock • Price Day • ss AHMM Apr ’58
32 • August Heat • William F. Harvey • ss Midnight House and Other Tales, J.M. Dent, 1910
39 • The Vertical Ladder • William Sansom • ss Good Housekeeping Nov ’46
57 • The Sea Gulls • Elias Venezis • ss Atlantic Monthly Jun ’55
67 • Antaeus • Borden Deal • ss The Southwest Review Spr ’61
83 • Exchange of Men • Howard Nemerov & W. Ryerson Johnson • ss Story Jan ’63
102 • Flowers for Algernon • Daniel Keyes • nv F&SF Apr ’59
145 • One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts • Shirley Jackson • ss F&SF Jan ’55
161 • The Most Dangerous Game • Richard Edward Connell • nv Colliers Jan 19 ’24
191 • Contents of the Dead Man’s Pocket • Jack Finney • nv Colliers Oct 26 ’56
215 • As Best He Can • Geoffrey Household • ss, 1958
219 • Too Early Spring • Stephen Vincent Benét • ss The Delineator Jun ’33

The Exquisite Corpse.

Whatever my suspicions of a collaborative effort, including herein my superfluous admission of the supernatural, I can't imagine her going any other way. She was not interested in downtime, her body was not up to her ambitions, and falling is what she talked about it doing when we spoke two days prior.

Thank you?

Here is an extremist statement: I've lost all joy in the world and writing this was one of those joys.

And then I go on to write:

I thought I covered this problem.

Sleep deprivation leaves me without an iota of an idea. Just let me sleep. Competent filmmakers don't consider this problem because they don't have it. They know how to care for themselves and they do. The only person interested is the one who needs to sleep.

What am I saying? When I imagine that people know how to care for themselves, what I am saying is that I know how, and I'm just not because I'm punishing myself, diffusing what I fear is potential punishment from another. I'm sorry.

"Just SAYING it can even make it happen."

I remain flabbergasted by the concept of my grandmother tripping and dying. She only had one head impact, a single bruise in the lower left corner of her head, not even a fracture. There were only a few steps after the bottom landing where she fell. It is inconceivable to me that she could have let herself fall backwards. To fall back with that hard an impact, her feet had to slip forward, as if someone pulled a rug out from under her.

The fact remains, every day is a gift.

Margaret Carillo insisted my sister and I call her Nanny because she was never old enough to be a Grandmother. Well, this is a most elegant and formidable Nanny. She was born Domenica Giovaniello in New York City on March 15th, 1905, and for 100 years and 97 days she existed here.

I can’t begin to express our love for her. Thank you for your love and support during these days since our loss of her.

While our manner of departure still remains a mystery, the mystery of Nanny’s departure was solved on June 20th, 2005. Until then her presence never wavered, she was fully present in the fragility of consciousness, with hers as powerful as it had ever been, it being an authentic awareness of self-manifested wisdom and experience.

In terms of her age, because she was only a hundred, shrinking size can only go so far in consolidating the physical being, and the mind can only go so far in compensating for weakening senses. She spoke with me on Saturday, prophetically as it turned out. She was becoming restless and her body was not up to her plans. No one could take charge of her being, and when they tried, she rebelled. She remains a rebel to this day.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed, and on June 20th, hers dispersed, first into mom, her daughter, and now, we are all its recipients.

I had my whole life to take advantage of her, although having the greater benefit of actually getting to know her did eventually dawn on me. She could be selflessly generous, because she had the ability, willingness and natural organization skills to take care of her family without, and this she insisted upon, without burdening them. Her sensitivity to being a burden is outrageous even today.

Hers was a private presence, shared one person at a time, shared through us, and beholden to us, her family. Yet she was first and foremost her own lady. She took care of herself, and of us, too. We’re the echoes of her greatness.

Let’s acknowledge her presence in us, passing into others, as we will as well. Let’s welcome the release of her presence into the universe. The mystery of how her spirit will be released is solved, in time on Monday, June 20th, 2005, the end of spring on a full moon solstice day. Her spirit lives in Madeleine, Nicholas, Monica, Peter, Diana, Danny, Polar Bear. It is a responsibility and an inspiration for us as it blends with us, even as our generations echo what they were.

Thank you, Nanny. I love you. God, please help her adjust to her new presence in the universe.

The iterations of digital music resemble the frames of moving pictures. The persistence of hearing, of all our senses, is why we allow those iterations to mimic reality.

A tremolo of a note, of a frequency, offers wider presence in the audial spectrum, so, folks, spread out in microtones.

Effective tremolo produces a frequency strong enough to vibrate a needle as it cuts into acetate.

Subj:
Re: Coppelia
Date:
3/2/2005 11:32:04 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:
Dizozza600
To:
JefHilburn@aol.com Hi, Jeff, From Mapquest I see that Mukilteo must be very beautiful. What brought you there? Tell me about your class. I can offer you the script and some incidental music. The script continues beyond the ballet story to include a second withdrawal of Franz into Dr. Coppelius's world of dolls, and the further charade of Swanilda who arranges for Franz to unknowingly sire a batallion of children while in there. The children eventually march in to disassemble the Dr.'s dollshop and drag Franz out to be their father... Some of the language requires modification for high school students....Thank you for your inquiry.Best regards, Peter Dizozza917-915-7635. In a message dated 3/2/2005 11:09:06 PM Eastern Standard Time, JefHilburn@aol.com writes:
Hello, I just wanted to write and find out more about your script for Coppelia. I realize it's now been a few years ago for you, but I am considering it as a project for one of my high school classes. Not for profit, or even for public consumption, but am wondering if your script is available? Thanks for your time, Jeff HilburnKamiak High School Stagecraft TeacherMukilteo, Washington

Dear Professor Haine,

Thank you for your email.

As theatre director of The Williamsburg Art and Historical Center I was commissioned to create a musical theatre piece to run concurrent with its 2003 International Surrealist Exhibition, "Brave Destiny." That project is the US version of "Les Maries de la Tour Eiffel," so I placed it in front of a US monument with French influence. The symbology of this monument resulted in my play being more inspired by, then an adaptation of "Les Maries de la Tour Eiffel." In addition to the concept and script I also provided an original score consisting of three dances and three songs.

The Statue of Liberty is on Bedloe Island near Manhattan. Ferries daily carry tourists there. What the statue represents is not without controversy because our U.S. welcoming of immigrants has, sadly, become more guarded, not to mention the fact that since September 11th, 2001, the statue itself remained closed to visitors for security reasons. It was partially reopened in August of 2004.

The question of who officiates the marriage of "Bride" and "Groom" is what "The Marriage at the Statue of Liberty" is about, with Ms. Liberty herself, completing the ceremony. It is night. The last tour boat leaves. The still unmarried couple remains on Bedloe Island, but are they alone? As a seagull is about to fly into her copper frame, Ms. Liberty flexes her body to allow it to safely pass. Since she sees the gull, she must be able to see us, reasons the couple below. Where others have failed, Ms. Liberty will prevail. She comes to life to complete the ceremony. The couple is married at last! Bride and Groom are Old World supplicants of Colossus. Having found one another, they seek new world religious independence to sanctify their new bond to one another. They escape from their cloister. Vulcan, the God of Fire, shields them. He discovers they suffer from "The Mortal Tedium of Immortality" (Cocteau's line at the end of "Blood of a Poet.") Vulcan advises the couple that to marry they must regain their mortality, and to do so they must pass through the eternal flame. And where is the eternal flame? The nearest eternal flame is in the torch held by the New Colossus (as Emma Lazarus calls her), The Statue of Liberty.

Unwilling to lose supplicants, Colossus and his eternally unmarried fiancée, Colossa, masquerading as tourists, go chasing after Bride and Groom to scuttle their marriage ceremony.

A DVD of the 2003 production is available, featuring the beautiful nocturne that concludes the play. I am not sure about TV compatibility but it will be playable on your computer.

My previous effort to pay homage to Cocteau may be found in my monologue with song cycle entitled, "Doping the Blood of a Poet."

As a composer, I would love to add to the occurrences of Cocteau texts set to music, and will be honored if you would suggest a text for me to set.

Very truly yours, Peter Dizozza

Separate Attachment: The performance program including ballet descriptions.

Dear Mr Peter Dizozza, I am writing a Catalogue of Jean Cocteau’s Texts set to music. So far I have recorded some 600 occurrences. I came across your production Marriage at the Statue of Liberty which is inspired by Cocteau’s play. I would like to ask you a few questions: 1°/ Could you please tell me what parts of Cocteau’s play you kept in your production, or if your play is completely something else. As far as the characters are concerned, I could see that some of them were kept (Bride, Groom). 2°/ On which translation of the play did you base your production? 3°/ As to the music, I heard some of it on the web site (www.cinemavii.com...) but how many parts are written in your production? Do they correspond to the 3 main parts of the ballet? 4°/ Is it possible to receive a program and some press reviews? 5°/ I would appreciate any sort of information about your play that seems so interesting. Thank you in advance, Yours faithfully, Prof. Dr Malou HaineConservateur du MIM1 rue Villa Hermosa1000 Bruxelles - Tél. 00.32.(0)2.545.01.36Professeur à l'ULBDirecteur de la Collection "Musique/Musicologie", éditions Mardagawww.malouhaine.be

Separating us from chaos is The Law. I love the Law.

I woke up one morning in a restless daze,
My life had hit an impasse as an office aide.
I went at night to law school, and it changed my ways to a
Player from one who is played.

Adverse litigation is the path I choose.
Contingent is my fee on if I win or lose.
It’s not to win or lose, it’s how you play the game.
The law’s a jealous mistress,
In time I came to love the

Law, I love the
Law. Professors
Asked in Law School
Do you love the
Law? I love the
Law. I love the
Law. I love it.
No one is above it.

Please approach but not too close
Let us go forth.
Some requests are useless ‘gainst fate.
Fate, defer to precedent. What’s your case worth?
Would you rather hurry and wait? Then

Close your eyes, imagine how it was before
And see a world in turmoil crying, "Nevermore!"
The skills of legal practice are like flags unfurled,
We’re citizens of the world.

We guide and shape the future from the courthouse steps.
The past is but the history of our records kept.
Rewritten as a footnote, there is only this
Separating us from chaos, It’s the

Law. It’s the
Law. I love the
Law. I love it.
No one is above the
Law? I love the
Law I love the
Law. Great peace have they who love the Law. Peter Dizozza 1/23/05

December 30th, 2004 THE PENULTIMATE DAY OF THE YEAR
Do we go right along as we always do?
Or next year will we change the way we wanted to?
I’ve been feeling less than certain since the year began.
Did we learn? Did we try?
In a year set for change but a day is left
To unite the division of change bereft.
Opportunity demands a unity
To connect one and all.

January began with an overture.
Things went wrong. We approved them, for the end was sure.
February even gave to us an extra day.
Just a day, turns the tide.
But the gradual won over the radical.
Silent day, silent night, so incredible.
When I woke up in the morning, all was very much the same.
When you told me nothing happened I had
Nowhere else to turn; none but me to blame.

I will admit that the change has been slow, but it’s
Changing in front of our eyes, like a
Plant as it grows, like a Flower that opens, it’s
Blossoming fast as it can.
Changing according to plan!

In a day tides can turn with a seismic shift.
Though we’re safe in our homes, they’re built on some cliff.
For in stillness platelets rise most dramatically,
When they’re rubbed under tons.
Join your hands with the new transcendentalist.
As the fairies appear in the morning mist.
As we wake up in a twilight zone where we’re
Solely on our own. That is not the way to go, but I am
Running to my grave without you to save me.

I will admit that the change has been slow, but it’s
Changing in front of our eyes, like a
Plant as it grows, like a Flower that opens, the
Amaryllis is sprouting from out of its soil-covered bulb.
While the best laid plans have an outcome that yields them a different result
So if we all are the best as we are, and the best is the most we can be,
If there’s something to gain from our going insane it’s that we’re
Finally starting to see. Everything’s as it should be.

Do we go right along as we always do?

Another Florida Post
Posted by PD on 12/23/2004, 2:28 pm

In a continuing effort to keep track of life, and to share, and to stimulate explorative conversation, I offer
The Resurrection of Aileen Wuornos

Your writer herein had no precognition of the woman. All I’ve seen so far is the film adaptation of the difficulties Ms. Wuornos encountered caught in the grind of “bringing home the bacon.”

Thanks to Time Warner’s cable offer of media content, we have Monster on Demand. As we near the holidays, what better celebration than the life of one who dreamed of being an icon portrayed in a movie that makes her one; and, Ms. Theron, is that a performance or a resurrection?

Aileen is here now and in us all. Although it was a chore to watch her tortured, her sadist “John” provided the transcendent moment that inflamed her gaze, turning it into a soul scorcher. The incendiary moron who chose to waste his time squashing her smoldering hustle with lighter fluid caused her to blow out.

In Toontown, Daffy Duck kicks and punches the puff-genie back into its lamp.
A second of silence precedes the laser blaze of the genie’s resurrection blast.

After the first murder, no more hustling, at first.

However, most job markets reject volatility in upstart freelancers.

Then the police officer that picked her up for loitering at a temp agency
drove her into a garage and let her off (filled her mouth)
With a license to KILL.

And don’t touch her stomach. It’s filled with ignited lighter fluid. She is in physical pain.
Something alive within her has snapped.

Her friend, Selby, had a cast on her arm.
It’s got to fall off on its own.
Though she may bask blithely in financial windfall,
Her cast is off;
She is free.

One of the later dead fellows, the one with the gun in his car, is a retired police officer.
Remember, perhaps, when Monty Python’s criminal, Dimsdale, set off an atomic bomb. Then, even the police stood up and took notice.

The death penalty achieves its opposite, which is the letter “Z,” which means, she lives on.

I think that the penultimate line in the film, preceding
“Well, you have to say something,”
is
“Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

Consider an alternate adage gleaned from the lesson of
Jesus Christ,
WHERE THERE’S DEATH,
THERE’S RESURRECTION.

And that is not even why I’m against the death penalty.

Upon the making of the motion picture film,
Monster,
Aileen Wournous rose to judge the living and the dead,
Until she was cast into the sea of fire.

I await the sequel, not The Bride of Frankenstein, but
“The Adopted Parent of Aileen Wuornos” (It is Arlene Pralle. She adopted Aileen on death row. Thank you, internet search.)

Most significant is Aileen's relation to the shell-shocked Vietnam vet portrayed by Bruce Dern. Those two knew!

Music note, what better way to distract the viewer with the antecedent to the songs by Velvet Underground than in playing Crimson and Clover over and over under dialogue?
(WRONG… Tommy James and the Shandells released Crimson and Clover in 1969. Velvet Underground’s first album was 1967.)

Quick “John” note: If someone offers sex for money,
And you reach the point where you would actually agree to the transaction,
Give the money and go, savoring the true masturbatory pleasure of getting NOTHING in return.
Further gratuity: If the person offering is engaged in a sting operation, you will be arrested.

Has it been four years? It feels like decades have passed, and while humanity was embracing differences, a single lapse set us back to the dark ages. That it was a SINGLE lapse demonstrates how under our control the world has become. In an effort to take after-the-fact control of that lapse we can suggest that it occurred with our tacit approval, to make our justification for a retaliation that much greater. Let's continue to learn about and understand one another, and grow in our ability to appreciate and shape our world. It remains my firm belief that our world exists apart from our perception of it. For our own sake and for the benefit of all the manifestations of energy of which we're a part, may we bless and not curse...

One of Eugene O'Neill's characters talks about the moment when the veil lifts and our awareness is lucid. Then the veil falls.

I preserve moments when the veil lifts, because, indeed, for most of my life I exist beneath the veil.

and for now
---------------
I am writing to cheer you up on this beautiful day because I need cheering up.

I am scratching your back because my back needs scratching.

I am doing for you what I need done for myself.
---------------
I am grappling with the above sentences' structure because I perceive it as a conundrum.
Are not all sentient being's needs identical? We all need love.

Pass it forward.

THE ILR CHARTS

TH LW HP WI WORLD INDEPENDENT
01 - 01 01 "Don't leave me behind Prisoners of war" - Peter Dizozza
02 - 02 01 "Jungles of Dagenham" - Paola
03 - 03 02 "Maybe I'm a dreamer" - Warren Muzak
04 - 04 01 "Your Enemy" - Citizen Kane
05 - 05 01 "Its hard believing" - The Drive
06 - 06 01 "The Spider Song" - Nutronstars
07 - 07 01 "Generation" - Mahoon
08 03 03 02 "The truth" - Tim Chaplin
09 - 09 01 "Fine Looking Woman" - Jason Chesworth and the Pocket co.
10 - 08 08 "Take your own advice" - Danyluk & card