While Peter Coyote Cohon still mouths off as the spokesman for all things counterculture and because of his bloated ego which has just grown larger over the years and because of the way the media has fallen in love with him he is likely regarded as the originator and leader of all things doing to Mime Troupe ...
Well, he ain't ... and I am here to tell you that ain't so.
Darryl Henriques was the instigator for the selection of the first play for El Teatro Campasino ... and Darryl got that from a little ad I had cut out from the Claremont Courier that was for the play "Los Olivos". Darryl went to the play at Padua Hills and spoke with every one there and developed the first information.
That it grew from there, I will not deny. But I'm proud to say that I had a small hand in the creation of that famous part of the REAL HIDDEN AND NOW OBSCURED HISTORY of the early origins of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. They'll never hear anything about this in San Francisco, I'll wager.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
GRAPE STRIKE PUPPET SHOW (LOS OLIVOS)
For the grape strike puppet show, the little puppet on the right held a big coin while the puppet on the left watched and rubbed his head ... Then the puppet on the right bobbed down and popped right back up holding a small hand of thompson seedless grapes.
At first, the puppet on the left would rub his tummy in a circular motio (yum might taste good!) but then! the moment of awareness! The puppet on the left would draw back in horror, and hold his hands to his head and fall over in disbelief, then turn to the crowd and rub his hands together like "Mickey Moose! (very bad!!)
At first, the puppet on the left would rub his tummy in a circular motio (yum might taste good!) but then! the moment of awareness! The puppet on the left would draw back in horror, and hold his hands to his head and fall over in disbelief, then turn to the crowd and rub his hands together like "Mickey Moose! (very bad!!)
Friday, September 6, 2013
During Larry Leon's time as owner of what always was known as the Springfield estate (which during my time of residence there, as students, we always referred to as "Williams College"), during his improvement phase decided to tear down the rickety old "Gymnasium". Which had a wall of mirrors for the dancers, old wall hung coat racks that would hold mufflers, umbrellas, and canes, and a large and exquisite wood floor that was always waxed with a special wax so as not to harm the dancers' feet. I lived for several years (1969-1971?) in the basement room under what was then the ballet studio. I took this photo in 1970.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Peter tended to handle narratives to the crowds because he was naturally endowed with a good speaking voice that drew people in to the story. (And he liked hearing the sound of his own voice.) He was naturally charismatic. He had a good appearance. The people would see him standing up front in performances talking to them, and as he was up front talking to THEM, he seemed like the star of the show (and this was the result of the way media had trained people, they'd tune in on the lead singer, the public speaker, the starring actor on the screen, the one who was paid the most was the one to be paid attention to, and they'd kind of gloss over the supporting cast or be unable to recognize this was an ensemble piece they were enjoying so much and all the actors and all the scripts went into the mix. And in responding to that public trend, movie and tv scripts were written to show and point people to the star, who generally uttered platitudes, to my way of thinking. The audience many times, because of their own shaping by their response to media, was just not overall sophisticated enough to really understand the puppet shows, but because of the way they were presented, just as they had been to the common peasants of the 14th century who were similarly "unlettered", people understood and responded to them just as the crowds did six centuries prior. You see, commedia dell arte was still valid as an artform, and may be for quite some time into the future, as well.
CENSORSHIP PUPPET SHOW
At various points during the CENSORSHIP puppet show, these things happened:
The puppet on the left would move his small arms and
1. put his hands over his ears
2. put his hands over his eyes
3. put his hands over his mouth
While the puppet on the right would act out various portions of 14th century commedia del arte complete with small props
With the EYES, the puppet on the right had a small commedia del arte mask held on a stick in front of his face, while another hand came up behind the puppet's hand to stick a small stick into the puppets hand (held with a light tan velcro sewed as the puppets "paw" ... and on that stick would be a huge horn that commedia del arte actors had used to suggest a large penis, a sight that outraged the bourgeoisie and they'd go into legal battle and suppression of those troupes, too, to drive them out of existence.
The puppet on the left would pull back in shock, turn and ball up, and shiver, then rise up again in outrage.
When the point was made about CENSORSHIP, which was at the end,
another puppet would come up in the middle
the puppets would all move into position to imitate the three monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) which was a way of empowering the audience to remind them how to behave, as well.
The puppet on the left would move his small arms and
1. put his hands over his ears
2. put his hands over his eyes
3. put his hands over his mouth
While the puppet on the right would act out various portions of 14th century commedia del arte complete with small props
With the EYES, the puppet on the right had a small commedia del arte mask held on a stick in front of his face, while another hand came up behind the puppet's hand to stick a small stick into the puppets hand (held with a light tan velcro sewed as the puppets "paw" ... and on that stick would be a huge horn that commedia del arte actors had used to suggest a large penis, a sight that outraged the bourgeoisie and they'd go into legal battle and suppression of those troupes, too, to drive them out of existence.
The puppet on the left would pull back in shock, turn and ball up, and shiver, then rise up again in outrage.
When the point was made about CENSORSHIP, which was at the end,
another puppet would come up in the middle
the puppets would all move into position to imitate the three monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) which was a way of empowering the audience to remind them how to behave, as well.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
I'd see the guerilla portion of the theater here and there at major demonstrations I happened to swirl within. That's why I can tell you of the evolution of the soldier's mechanical arm, as the years of performances stretched out.
But .... first Sandy was gone, then (oh and in between I was kicked off the stairs and I was a nobody) then Ronnie, then Darryl .... well nobody was left really who was in the initial groove. So I would follow Darryl's spin off the East Bay Sharks, his crankies, and his shows for Chinese people in parks at the edge of San Francisco Chinatown (when the doors of China were about to be pried apart).
All that darting around across the country to race ahead of Dow Chemical recruiters, that was Ronnie and Sandy, I felt. And Peter was merely another horse in the harness pulling.
Although Peter did go to speak with Dalton Trumbo after word came up from Los Angeles that he was writing the script from the new English translation (1968), the script and movie were based on Dalton's imagination, a fictional portion, as it turned out, something that had never happened, and so not mentioned in the book ... he took artistic liberty with that, probably because the real story was so difficult to wrap your head around) ... I mean, I'd already read that excerpt and had discussed it with my friends, and I was already wearing my French prisoner's denim shirt everywhere I went in Berkeley at the time .. and even to performances of the Mime Troupe, because it just seemed suitable somehow. I didn't have time to go off on these events because I was studying at the university, which was very important to me, and I needed to save my juice for that. That plus working any and all odd jobs to get by ... usually manual labor, like weeding and raking, cleaning and painting places, trimming rose bushes (very badly I might add). Not too many of those jobs were for actual homeowners who lived in their homes, but rather landlords (who seemed exceptionally wealthy to me, to buy Berkeley properties on investment to rent to students and so make even more money). In 1968, I maintained an interest in community activities, and walked in to the Berkeley Co-op on University to see if I could lend a hand on the board, and at the board meeting I was the only person who'd showed up! They were all busy elsewhere. And I realize now, I could have effectively taken that place over, but all I wanted was a j-o-b.
But .... first Sandy was gone, then (oh and in between I was kicked off the stairs and I was a nobody) then Ronnie, then Darryl .... well nobody was left really who was in the initial groove. So I would follow Darryl's spin off the East Bay Sharks, his crankies, and his shows for Chinese people in parks at the edge of San Francisco Chinatown (when the doors of China were about to be pried apart).
All that darting around across the country to race ahead of Dow Chemical recruiters, that was Ronnie and Sandy, I felt. And Peter was merely another horse in the harness pulling.
Although Peter did go to speak with Dalton Trumbo after word came up from Los Angeles that he was writing the script from the new English translation (1968), the script and movie were based on Dalton's imagination, a fictional portion, as it turned out, something that had never happened, and so not mentioned in the book ... he took artistic liberty with that, probably because the real story was so difficult to wrap your head around) ... I mean, I'd already read that excerpt and had discussed it with my friends, and I was already wearing my French prisoner's denim shirt everywhere I went in Berkeley at the time .. and even to performances of the Mime Troupe, because it just seemed suitable somehow. I didn't have time to go off on these events because I was studying at the university, which was very important to me, and I needed to save my juice for that. That plus working any and all odd jobs to get by ... usually manual labor, like weeding and raking, cleaning and painting places, trimming rose bushes (very badly I might add). Not too many of those jobs were for actual homeowners who lived in their homes, but rather landlords (who seemed exceptionally wealthy to me, to buy Berkeley properties on investment to rent to students and so make even more money). In 1968, I maintained an interest in community activities, and walked in to the Berkeley Co-op on University to see if I could lend a hand on the board, and at the board meeting I was the only person who'd showed up! They were all busy elsewhere. And I realize now, I could have effectively taken that place over, but all I wanted was a j-o-b.
The Passage of Time through a Looking Glass of Histo
I wonder about the acuity of my own memory sometimes, usually pretty sharp even under the most strained circumstances.
This photo of Sandy: I remember seeing that play ... I was surprised when the actor on the left (in this photo) made his entrance onstage, as I fully expected that role to be played by Henriques. My friend explained to me, oh no, Darryl had a different role with the theater, a more physical one. Unbeknownst to me at the time, when I was at Berkeley going to school in 1964, was that Darryl had traveled up to the Bay Area to join with a group called the Actor's Guild.
So when I met up with her again, my friend Heidi was filling me in on what she and Darryl had been up to in the intervening span of time.
We were seated far back in a park, and I had travelled there from Berkeley with Heidi who had a CAR and who was Darryl's girlfriend. We were in a park somewhere in San Francisco, and far back and could barely hear the lines because of our seating. Of course, because I was with Heidi, we arrived very very late in the performance, it was almost the end of the play. So I remember a snippet of that play, but I can't place the year ... as I traveled up to the bay area in 1964 and then in 1965, I traveled up there a bit more, a few bus trips, an airplane ride, a hitch hiking trip that ended up with someone giving me money to finish the trip all the way on the bus, rides part of the way with friends in their cars sometimes until I could grab a bus ... hitch hiking across towns to get to the bus station and so forth that my movements were scattered ... and I was busy with other things, as well.
So I must have seen this in 1965 although they had obviously been performing it for awhile ... my sense is this was an early Spanish romantic piece and they'd had to get the park authority's permission to perform in a public park. That's when things were a little smoother, before events boiled up, and the collective decision-making came into it (which translated into a guy struggle between Ronnie and Peter, and Peter was hard to bring into line sometimes, because he tended to play differently ... he wanted to show that he shared the same values as and totally and completely understood all the longhairs and hippies in the audience and they were all together like they understood an in-joke, and Ronnie and others had a more traditional view of commedia dell arte and would try to pull everything back to its center. So it was a tug of war, and push and pull, even over the scripts and how they were written. And it's like the guys were so busy duking it out with each other in conceptual performance concerns that Sandy's more refined approaches would be shoved to the backburner. I kind of knew one time later, when I heard some little tidbit or piece of gossip, that this being shoved into the background and being disregarded would be hurtful, and might eventually cause Sandy to quit one day and to go her own way, though I hoped that wouldn't happen because Sandy could fight back and hold her ground. But eventually after years that was what happened, and it was burn out because every thing else had gotten so large in simultaneity with the performances.
A mexican vaquero costume, from a store in Mexico or maybe a distant part of Los Angeles where they sold clothes for the Mexican rodeo cowboys, which the band and players at Padua Theater would wear as well in their historic plays.
When the little handpuppet came out with a rainbow headband, that was really a rainbow wrist band that some merchandiser had dreamed up ... to provide matching accessories for the rainbow headbands everywhere ... they sold them as sets, sometimes. I thought they were funny, the wrist bands. I used to be able to tell a long joke back in 1965 about a Swiss guy named Alec Sanders who came from a long line of famous Swiss watchmakers and how he'd invented a new interesting time keeping instrument. He was a poor guy, Alec was, who broke the strap on the old wrist watch his grandfather had given him, and that was his entire inheritance from his grandfather. But Alec Sanders was so poor because he had been disinherited by his family in all other ways, he couldn't even afford to replace the strap. He was so removed from the family's business, he barely knew what to do to fix a watch even. But Swiss watch makers, even poor Swiss watch makers, can be clever, too. So he repaired his watch with some old cloth strips because he couldn't afford to buy material, and he called his invention "The Alec Sanders Rag Time Band".
But I could also, see the hurt that softly grows into a larger ache, sometimes I could sense that, when people were shifting subtly away from each other, and giving their attention to another, and I would sing a song appropriate for the moment, but change the words a bit for the current circumstances I was witnessing:
"I once knew a lass and she played as she willed
I hated for others to spake of her ill
But now she is gone like the fleurs on the hill
For she's gone te be wed tae another"
(And that would sober the room up for a moment because they realized they recognized themselves and their own parts in the song, and would try to straighten out)
This photo of Sandy: I remember seeing that play ... I was surprised when the actor on the left (in this photo) made his entrance onstage, as I fully expected that role to be played by Henriques. My friend explained to me, oh no, Darryl had a different role with the theater, a more physical one. Unbeknownst to me at the time, when I was at Berkeley going to school in 1964, was that Darryl had traveled up to the Bay Area to join with a group called the Actor's Guild.
So when I met up with her again, my friend Heidi was filling me in on what she and Darryl had been up to in the intervening span of time.
We were seated far back in a park, and I had travelled there from Berkeley with Heidi who had a CAR and who was Darryl's girlfriend. We were in a park somewhere in San Francisco, and far back and could barely hear the lines because of our seating. Of course, because I was with Heidi, we arrived very very late in the performance, it was almost the end of the play. So I remember a snippet of that play, but I can't place the year ... as I traveled up to the bay area in 1964 and then in 1965, I traveled up there a bit more, a few bus trips, an airplane ride, a hitch hiking trip that ended up with someone giving me money to finish the trip all the way on the bus, rides part of the way with friends in their cars sometimes until I could grab a bus ... hitch hiking across towns to get to the bus station and so forth that my movements were scattered ... and I was busy with other things, as well.
So I must have seen this in 1965 although they had obviously been performing it for awhile ... my sense is this was an early Spanish romantic piece and they'd had to get the park authority's permission to perform in a public park. That's when things were a little smoother, before events boiled up, and the collective decision-making came into it (which translated into a guy struggle between Ronnie and Peter, and Peter was hard to bring into line sometimes, because he tended to play differently ... he wanted to show that he shared the same values as and totally and completely understood all the longhairs and hippies in the audience and they were all together like they understood an in-joke, and Ronnie and others had a more traditional view of commedia dell arte and would try to pull everything back to its center. So it was a tug of war, and push and pull, even over the scripts and how they were written. And it's like the guys were so busy duking it out with each other in conceptual performance concerns that Sandy's more refined approaches would be shoved to the backburner. I kind of knew one time later, when I heard some little tidbit or piece of gossip, that this being shoved into the background and being disregarded would be hurtful, and might eventually cause Sandy to quit one day and to go her own way, though I hoped that wouldn't happen because Sandy could fight back and hold her ground. But eventually after years that was what happened, and it was burn out because every thing else had gotten so large in simultaneity with the performances.
A mexican vaquero costume, from a store in Mexico or maybe a distant part of Los Angeles where they sold clothes for the Mexican rodeo cowboys, which the band and players at Padua Theater would wear as well in their historic plays.
When the little handpuppet came out with a rainbow headband, that was really a rainbow wrist band that some merchandiser had dreamed up ... to provide matching accessories for the rainbow headbands everywhere ... they sold them as sets, sometimes. I thought they were funny, the wrist bands. I used to be able to tell a long joke back in 1965 about a Swiss guy named Alec Sanders who came from a long line of famous Swiss watchmakers and how he'd invented a new interesting time keeping instrument. He was a poor guy, Alec was, who broke the strap on the old wrist watch his grandfather had given him, and that was his entire inheritance from his grandfather. But Alec Sanders was so poor because he had been disinherited by his family in all other ways, he couldn't even afford to replace the strap. He was so removed from the family's business, he barely knew what to do to fix a watch even. But Swiss watch makers, even poor Swiss watch makers, can be clever, too. So he repaired his watch with some old cloth strips because he couldn't afford to buy material, and he called his invention "The Alec Sanders Rag Time Band".
But I could also, see the hurt that softly grows into a larger ache, sometimes I could sense that, when people were shifting subtly away from each other, and giving their attention to another, and I would sing a song appropriate for the moment, but change the words a bit for the current circumstances I was witnessing:
"I once knew a lass and she played as she willed
I hated for others to spake of her ill
But now she is gone like the fleurs on the hill
For she's gone te be wed tae another"
(And that would sober the room up for a moment because they realized they recognized themselves and their own parts in the song, and would try to straighten out)
MIME TROUPE PUPPETS
The puppets were physicalized and melodramatic, and were so much larger than their small selves, they could be bigger than the audience, and become so much larger than life.
DISARMAMENT (NO NUKES)
Another of the puppet shows was about disarmament. One puppet popped up on the left first carrying a toy cowboy gun, then a knife, then a rifle and a black leather jacket, then a rifle and leather jacket wearing a helmet (which looked like a flak jacket police and army used to wear), and there was a quick evolution into an army uniform and a plastic rocket while wearing a helmet. And the puppet on the right would try to sooth the other puppet and calm him, by stroking his little cowboy hat with a gentle indian feather while wearing a headband like an indian, tickling him and making him laugh, although the little puppet would handle the hair of the cowboy puppet and stare out at the audience like (I'm thinking about scalping him) but they tried to work it out and the indian headband puppet gave him a little massage and calmed himself after knocking the cowboy hat off, and a kiss like mama would give a good boy:
and with the knife he was wearing a samurai headband, and the other puppet pulled off the headband slowly while talking to him and and pleading with him, and he pulled off the samurai band and wrapped it around samurai puppet's neck while wiping tears away from the samurai puppets eyes and pulled the samurai to him and gave him a kiss and a embrace. With the rifle and leather jacket the other puppet shivered in fear when that one popped up and I forget what that puppet did, but had the peace sign and now that puppet on the right was wearing a headband, and they battled a bit, the puppet on the left would threaten the little puppet on the right, pointing his rifle straight at the puppet on the right's belly (which he protected with the peace sign) and then the puppet on the left would stare out at the audience like he was growing in power and soon he moved his rifle up as if counting the buttons on the jacket of the puppet on the right one two three, giving a mean little nudge and push with each one, which the frightened the puppet on the right until he got to the top button, and then leather jacket turned and stared malevolently at the audience (HA HA HA! I can blow this puppet's brains straight out if I want to) and suddenly brought his rifle up and aimed STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES OF THE puppet with headband on right (Oh no! You can't do that! That's WRONG! That might hurt that little creature!) and the puppet on the right, shot up the peace sign he was carrying to protect his head and turned his head and shivered in fear, but then fought back hitting the rifle with the peace sign, and again the little puppets tried to work it out .... BUT COULDN'T ... they just couldn't do it, even though the puppet on the right threw away his peace sign back of him and then spun and held his shaking hands like a magician and actually levitated the little soldier puppet a bit (and when the little soldier puppet started rising into the air, he looked confused, frightened, and SCARED and shook from the vibrations of being levitated), BUT HE COULDN'T DO IT, (THEY COULDN'T DO IT AND THEY COULDN'T LEVITATE THE LITTLE SOLDIER PUPPET NOT EVEN WHEN THEY REALLY TRIED and that puppet dropped suddenly down and disappeared down behind the stage, slightly twisting and turning as he did, and the other peace sign puppet did, too, although he was dropping from magyk exhaustion. When suddenly and frighteningly the puppet on the left appeared with the PLASTIC ROCKET and burst up holding the big rocket between his legs, it was so large, and even threatened the audience with it! And the puppet on the right still in a rainbow headband and holding the peace sign (now different now, an inverted peace sign to betoken the original origins of the peace sign, which was the old lymie anarchist sign meaning "No Nukes") and they battled furiously. The puppet on the left was mad and would coil himself up and spew out nasty laughter shakes as he sprayed over the heads of the audience with his nuke rocket like it was a little machine gun (and it was over the heads of the audience, because NO! That's WRONG! to shoot off rockets and really spray people with nuclear crap) and the puppet on th right would work furiously frightened though he was (because the nuclear soldier puppet had a little star on his shoulder now and would sometimes turn and pull back and point the rocket VERY THREATENINGLY at the little peace puppet on the right and it was like the puppet on the left would just grow in power and lapse into complete maddened lunacy and shake and laugh like I'M CRAZY, I'LL BLOW YOU ALL UP IF I HAVE TO! And they struggled, and struggled mightily, a parry, a thrust, peace sign against the nuclear rocket, and eventually the peace sign knocked off both the rocket and the ... the rocket flew away harmless now, and the star flew backwards like a star shooting back into space (Couldn't be nuclear holocaust) and the puppet on the right had ducked down and retrieved the star and stood shaking with it, and turned to look at the audience for encouragement, then patted the star with his sweet puppet hands and swam it so gently over to the crazed puppet on the left like it was a fluttering starfish, and first tried to stick it on the crazed puppet's shoulder, but then tried to attach it to his chest (No, that's not right, no one should have THAT kind of authority over others), and then rubbed the head of the nuclear soldier puppet with the star like he was saying "Good boy!" and then just gently handed it to the soldier puppet (who was just like the other puppet now, without his scary nuclear rocket) and handed it to him like it was a precious present, a star from the heavens, a starfish from the sea, and the soldier puppet began to melt into agreement. And they embraced at the end when we in the audience knew we were saved from nuclear holocaust, and everyone in the audience cheered! And the puppets came out for their stage call at the end, holding hands up high (we all would be victorious!) and kept bowing and turning to each other, holding hands, and gave a big stage bow. And show was over and audience applauded!
The puppets could emote so beautifully through body language .... they were volcanic! their small movements were as fluid as if they'd trained as dancers! they were emotional! as if all the pourous physicality of the actors handling the puppets streamed through their hands like a directed electric charge and stream straight into the puppets and on out into the audience. Their hands captured and showed the shifting emotions of the puppets playing out their parts on the little stage, the entire spectrum of emotionality. They were amazing! And people in the audience drawn into the performance would respond to the emotion on stage, too, with body movements and slight hand movements in response. And the audience would make sweet cooing sounds, say "AWWW" softly, and laugh in glee when the puppets kissed or hugged.
and when they bumped each other sometimes to drive the other off the stage, it was funny!
(CENSORSHIP)
Sometimes, they'd bump, then bump some more, then give a little simultaneous laugh, and stand folded over, stuck butt to butt frozen in pose. Real old commedia del arte movements that shocked the hell out of the bougeoisie of th old days and offended them mightily. But the people then would laugh, and we laughed now, too.
And other times, the puppets would do little dances and spin and do commedia del arte stuff, naughty mounting like doing the dirty little dog (that was the CENSORSHIP show).
There were backstory scripts for the puppet shows, too, to allow the puppeteer to better tell the story through the hands of each puppet handler.
Sometimes, I would get heavy into writing these out as I moved into the emotions and scenes, and the overall scene of the time just as it was then (and as it is now) and I would say "OH!" and jump back from the keyboard. And one time Peter Cohon was in the living room talking with someone else while I was writing up one these parts, and Peter just turned and gave me a straight-lipped look like he felt it, too, and it was like telepathy straight across the room. I wrote some of those in my living room office in a cottage in Richmond. And music would be playing as always from the underground radio station straight through the small macintosh receiver. I felt powered by sound, sometimes, and I loved music.
and with the knife he was wearing a samurai headband, and the other puppet pulled off the headband slowly while talking to him and and pleading with him, and he pulled off the samurai band and wrapped it around samurai puppet's neck while wiping tears away from the samurai puppets eyes and pulled the samurai to him and gave him a kiss and a embrace. With the rifle and leather jacket the other puppet shivered in fear when that one popped up and I forget what that puppet did, but had the peace sign and now that puppet on the right was wearing a headband, and they battled a bit, the puppet on the left would threaten the little puppet on the right, pointing his rifle straight at the puppet on the right's belly (which he protected with the peace sign) and then the puppet on the left would stare out at the audience like he was growing in power and soon he moved his rifle up as if counting the buttons on the jacket of the puppet on the right one two three, giving a mean little nudge and push with each one, which the frightened the puppet on the right until he got to the top button, and then leather jacket turned and stared malevolently at the audience (HA HA HA! I can blow this puppet's brains straight out if I want to) and suddenly brought his rifle up and aimed STRAIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES OF THE puppet with headband on right (Oh no! You can't do that! That's WRONG! That might hurt that little creature!) and the puppet on the right, shot up the peace sign he was carrying to protect his head and turned his head and shivered in fear, but then fought back hitting the rifle with the peace sign, and again the little puppets tried to work it out .... BUT COULDN'T ... they just couldn't do it, even though the puppet on the right threw away his peace sign back of him and then spun and held his shaking hands like a magician and actually levitated the little soldier puppet a bit (and when the little soldier puppet started rising into the air, he looked confused, frightened, and SCARED and shook from the vibrations of being levitated), BUT HE COULDN'T DO IT, (THEY COULDN'T DO IT AND THEY COULDN'T LEVITATE THE LITTLE SOLDIER PUPPET NOT EVEN WHEN THEY REALLY TRIED and that puppet dropped suddenly down and disappeared down behind the stage, slightly twisting and turning as he did, and the other peace sign puppet did, too, although he was dropping from magyk exhaustion. When suddenly and frighteningly the puppet on the left appeared with the PLASTIC ROCKET and burst up holding the big rocket between his legs, it was so large, and even threatened the audience with it! And the puppet on the right still in a rainbow headband and holding the peace sign (now different now, an inverted peace sign to betoken the original origins of the peace sign, which was the old lymie anarchist sign meaning "No Nukes") and they battled furiously. The puppet on the left was mad and would coil himself up and spew out nasty laughter shakes as he sprayed over the heads of the audience with his nuke rocket like it was a little machine gun (and it was over the heads of the audience, because NO! That's WRONG! to shoot off rockets and really spray people with nuclear crap) and the puppet on th right would work furiously frightened though he was (because the nuclear soldier puppet had a little star on his shoulder now and would sometimes turn and pull back and point the rocket VERY THREATENINGLY at the little peace puppet on the right and it was like the puppet on the left would just grow in power and lapse into complete maddened lunacy and shake and laugh like I'M CRAZY, I'LL BLOW YOU ALL UP IF I HAVE TO! And they struggled, and struggled mightily, a parry, a thrust, peace sign against the nuclear rocket, and eventually the peace sign knocked off both the rocket and the ... the rocket flew away harmless now, and the star flew backwards like a star shooting back into space (Couldn't be nuclear holocaust) and the puppet on the right had ducked down and retrieved the star and stood shaking with it, and turned to look at the audience for encouragement, then patted the star with his sweet puppet hands and swam it so gently over to the crazed puppet on the left like it was a fluttering starfish, and first tried to stick it on the crazed puppet's shoulder, but then tried to attach it to his chest (No, that's not right, no one should have THAT kind of authority over others), and then rubbed the head of the nuclear soldier puppet with the star like he was saying "Good boy!" and then just gently handed it to the soldier puppet (who was just like the other puppet now, without his scary nuclear rocket) and handed it to him like it was a precious present, a star from the heavens, a starfish from the sea, and the soldier puppet began to melt into agreement. And they embraced at the end when we in the audience knew we were saved from nuclear holocaust, and everyone in the audience cheered! And the puppets came out for their stage call at the end, holding hands up high (we all would be victorious!) and kept bowing and turning to each other, holding hands, and gave a big stage bow. And show was over and audience applauded!
The puppets could emote so beautifully through body language .... they were volcanic! their small movements were as fluid as if they'd trained as dancers! they were emotional! as if all the pourous physicality of the actors handling the puppets streamed through their hands like a directed electric charge and stream straight into the puppets and on out into the audience. Their hands captured and showed the shifting emotions of the puppets playing out their parts on the little stage, the entire spectrum of emotionality. They were amazing! And people in the audience drawn into the performance would respond to the emotion on stage, too, with body movements and slight hand movements in response. And the audience would make sweet cooing sounds, say "AWWW" softly, and laugh in glee when the puppets kissed or hugged.
and when they bumped each other sometimes to drive the other off the stage, it was funny!
(CENSORSHIP)
Sometimes, they'd bump, then bump some more, then give a little simultaneous laugh, and stand folded over, stuck butt to butt frozen in pose. Real old commedia del arte movements that shocked the hell out of the bougeoisie of th old days and offended them mightily. But the people then would laugh, and we laughed now, too.
And other times, the puppets would do little dances and spin and do commedia del arte stuff, naughty mounting like doing the dirty little dog (that was the CENSORSHIP show).
There were backstory scripts for the puppet shows, too, to allow the puppeteer to better tell the story through the hands of each puppet handler.
Sometimes, I would get heavy into writing these out as I moved into the emotions and scenes, and the overall scene of the time just as it was then (and as it is now) and I would say "OH!" and jump back from the keyboard. And one time Peter Cohon was in the living room talking with someone else while I was writing up one these parts, and Peter just turned and gave me a straight-lipped look like he felt it, too, and it was like telepathy straight across the room. I wrote some of those in my living room office in a cottage in Richmond. And music would be playing as always from the underground radio station straight through the small macintosh receiver. I felt powered by sound, sometimes, and I loved music.
Sandy's Staging Preferences
Sandy seemed to really love the more traditional comedia dell arte and I think that's where her heart was. She loved staging plays in front of houses and buildings that provided the scenic backdrop. She would scour the neighborhoods wherever she was to find a perfect tudor looking house and so on to be used as a living stage set to help set the atmosphere of the historic work being presented. Just as it was done in the old traditional days of comedia dell arte. She also insisted on costuming being as authentic as possible for the play being presented and had a friend who did her costume sewing.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Censorship
Another of the early Mime Troupe puppet skits had to do with censorship. A little puppet came out holding a script .... soon the other puppet arrived with a little wooden vaudeville cane to pull the little puppet offstage ... this was carefully crafted so the cane never touched the puppet's neck (NO! That's wrong! That might hurt the gentle little puppet) and the puppet would protect his neck with the papers he had rolled into a tube. Then ... more dialogue which I forget .... the ATTACK! The Censor puppet grew more alarmed and rose up as if shrieking and shivered as he did in absolute outrage and disgust, and the other little puppet would collapse over the edge of the stage in laughter .... (ha! ha! you're ridiculous, Censor Puppet! Everybody's laughing at YOU now!)
Then ... the near punch and judy duel in the sun ....
The little puppets parried and thrust, vaudeville cane against rolled script, but they'd never hit each other (NO! That's wrong! That might hurt the gentle little puppet) but as this was the CENSOR puppet being attacked, he was brushed on the head with the script (to whistle and boing and gong sounds from backstage people) and was almost knocked unconscious by it, and then was struck by surprise he couldn't win this round of the censorship war against the little Actor puppet. And I think at one point the Actor puppet had little boxing gloves put on his hands so he could continue this battle. (Little bells like fight bells would sound to bring them back into the ring.) And he would SWING and the Censor puppet would block his swing with his cane a la Toshiro Mifune and LAUGH an evil little Censor puppet laugh. And as I recall, as the show evolved the little Censor puppet even for the first time (like Beanie, like when they showed Beanie's legs) HAD A LEG (whoever heard of a hand puppet with a LEG? This was a THEATRICAL BREAKTHROUGH) with a soft little shoe on the foot and kicked like Bruce Lee not just hit but tried to KICK the little Actor puppet below the belt ... who defended himself with the script because it was WRONG! for even little puppets to do such things that might hurt another little puppet. But still .... the little Actor puppet had the wind knocked out of him and seemed to be going down for the count (and the audience said OOH!) But it ended up the little Actor puppet won the fight against the Censor. And at the end, the puppets came out for an encore from behind the little curtains and held hands like stage people do and then thrust their little arms in the air together held high (and they were still a little feisty towards each other, but they eventually worked that out before they disappeared behind the curtain).
Great show!!
Then ... the near punch and judy duel in the sun ....
The little puppets parried and thrust, vaudeville cane against rolled script, but they'd never hit each other (NO! That's wrong! That might hurt the gentle little puppet) but as this was the CENSOR puppet being attacked, he was brushed on the head with the script (to whistle and boing and gong sounds from backstage people) and was almost knocked unconscious by it, and then was struck by surprise he couldn't win this round of the censorship war against the little Actor puppet. And I think at one point the Actor puppet had little boxing gloves put on his hands so he could continue this battle. (Little bells like fight bells would sound to bring them back into the ring.) And he would SWING and the Censor puppet would block his swing with his cane a la Toshiro Mifune and LAUGH an evil little Censor puppet laugh. And as I recall, as the show evolved the little Censor puppet even for the first time (like Beanie, like when they showed Beanie's legs) HAD A LEG (whoever heard of a hand puppet with a LEG? This was a THEATRICAL BREAKTHROUGH) with a soft little shoe on the foot and kicked like Bruce Lee not just hit but tried to KICK the little Actor puppet below the belt ... who defended himself with the script because it was WRONG! for even little puppets to do such things that might hurt another little puppet. But still .... the little Actor puppet had the wind knocked out of him and seemed to be going down for the count (and the audience said OOH!) But it ended up the little Actor puppet won the fight against the Censor. And at the end, the puppets came out for an encore from behind the little curtains and held hands like stage people do and then thrust their little arms in the air together held high (and they were still a little feisty towards each other, but they eventually worked that out before they disappeared behind the curtain).
Great show!!
Tear Gas, Pink Slips, and FEAR!
And after I got up from the curb, after being fired onstage mid-performance by Ronnie, I continued on down the stairs, and through the crowd.. I staggered in a zig-zag out into the busy street traffic and threw myself at a bus .... I wasn't really trying to do myself in, but, you know theatrical types and street work, and I collapsed at the tail end of the bus (my best prat fall ever!) as the smoggy exhaust fogged out over the street ... and my friend Heidi came to retrieve me, and I rolled over on my back and said, "I can't seem to do anything right today."
We used to do real guerilla comedy pieces in the middle of demonstrations when the tear gas was flying and the cops were rushing us ... which worked ok, or so it seemed, until the day the clown got a little scared and ran off down an alley to evade the charging pigs. I'd seen the look of "FEAR!" in Darryls' eyes, that day, too!
The varieties in performance sometimes caused disturbances in us all. And sometimes that was the result of an actor's reaction when facing the audience and picking someone to play to, and the audience interaction could be bothersome. Sandy always looked skyward to the heavens when she moved and danced, and would sometimes bow low and reach out to the audience that way, and lovingly play into a person's eyes.
We used to do real guerilla comedy pieces in the middle of demonstrations when the tear gas was flying and the cops were rushing us ... which worked ok, or so it seemed, until the day the clown got a little scared and ran off down an alley to evade the charging pigs. I'd seen the look of "FEAR!" in Darryls' eyes, that day, too!
The varieties in performance sometimes caused disturbances in us all. And sometimes that was the result of an actor's reaction when facing the audience and picking someone to play to, and the audience interaction could be bothersome. Sandy always looked skyward to the heavens when she moved and danced, and would sometimes bow low and reach out to the audience that way, and lovingly play into a person's eyes.
Oh, I should point out here, we weren't hippies .... we were longhairs. The hairstyle was kind of the same, but .... you know ..... the hippies came later. And it seemed like "hippies" was a made-up work coming from Bill Balance radio in Los Angeles all those years ago, when he said at a show's close, "all right, my little hippies" and anyway by now it didn't really matter if it did, everyone with long hair was a hippy, though sometimes I got hung up trying to remember the exact dirty phrase Bill Balance had used in a late-night live on the air announcement that had him kicked off the air, and I just couldn't remember it ... but it was naughty! And I wanted to work it into a skit somewhere, somehow ... to see if censorship had changed a bit.
Members of what had become the Mime Troupe would visit me sometimes at that cottage in Richmond in 1967 and again (c. 1968), and casually talk or mention "Dr John" (meaning Dr. John W. Hopkins) (That abbadodo song "Nighttripper" was on KSAN then in 1968, with discussions about the place having been mentioned in a book, which is what Dr Schoenfeld had unearthed somehow) and in 1966, 1967 and 1968, I would travel by motorcycle to Williams College and visit them in their cottages. The grounds looked familiar to me, and I had a sense of "déjà vu", but I really didn't remember I had been there before right then, not until a bit later did I recall the other motorcycle ride up into the hills in 1964, the one that first carried me to Williams College. Eeerie!
déjà vu, jamais vu
déjà vu, jamais vu
He finally returned to France, visiting Paris in conjunction with the publication of his memoir Papillon (1969). The book sold over 1.5 million copies in France,[3] prompting a French minister to attribute "the moral decline of France" to miniskirts and Papillon.[4]
(She said "en France c'est un sujet tabou!")
(And my mind plays tricks on me, because I vividly recall reading that book in Richmond in 1969, but I didn't live in Richmond in 1969, so maybe it was just a magazine article in 1967 in some journal translated into English, a excerpted chapter, a preview of the book and other coming attractions).
And that french prisoner's denim shirt I used to wear for quite a long while .... I'd bought that at an army navy store, there were tons of them on the rack where I was, at least 50 of them. Those shirts were likely for people imprisoned by the french navy as the shirt had a french navy swabbie cut but without the little cloth rain shield, that's how they sewed them up, as some industrialist in France probably had got a contract for new prison wear, just to give civilian prisoners an even harder time than French naval prisoners while they stood in the rain, and the remainders were shipped off to Devil's Island, and now they'd closed those out because they were closing down the prison facility. It all comes together sometimes in a really weird line.
My Hopes Shattered Like Thin Glass
Oh hell. I got an email from Margaret today. Over the past few years, I've wasted some precious time carrying on thinking occasionally about the Ezra and Cora Williams connection, and have mighty cosmological thoughts even as recently as yesterday when I saw a spiderweb in the early morning sun stretched out from the tile roof to the wrought iron patio gate, and tried to work in string theory (which is on the verge of being discounted, too) because the way the light reflected on the filament yesterday and there were small bits of dew that could make the string vibrate a bit and shift and propel a small particle object, you see. and when spiders weave a web, they pluck the string to evenly distribute the sticky stuff. but the sticky stuff can go out elsewhere, too, small particles ... into the universe.
She wrote to me in response to my email below:
How interesting to think of the vortagraph in terms of Vermeer's mirror. I don't think there is a link here, but I could be wrong. Vermeer's use is fascinating. As for 5th dimension, even though Ouspensky had a high profile in Pound's time, and Madame Blavatsky was still a revered name, I don't recall Pound dwelling on the 4th and 5th dimensions. Time as the fourth, was always in his mind, as well as George Antheil's. But neither went out on a limb to speak of dimensions or other ways of knowing the universe. Pound did say time is not chronological and treated it that way in his writing.
Much love,
Margaret
On 9/1/2013 1:33 PM, barbara flaska wrote:
*In 1993 the physicist IGerard 't Hooft put forward the holographic principle, which explains that the information about an extra dimension is visible as a curvature in a spacetime with one fewer dimension. For example, holograms are three-dimensional pictures placed on a two-dimensional surface, which gives the image a curvature when the observer moves. Similarly, in general relativity, the fourth dimension is manifested in observable three dimensions as the curvature path of a moving infinitesimal (test) particle. Hooft has speculated that the fifth dimension is really the spacetime fabric.
She wrote to me in response to my email below:
How interesting to think of the vortagraph in terms of Vermeer's mirror. I don't think there is a link here, but I could be wrong. Vermeer's use is fascinating. As for 5th dimension, even though Ouspensky had a high profile in Pound's time, and Madame Blavatsky was still a revered name, I don't recall Pound dwelling on the 4th and 5th dimensions. Time as the fourth, was always in his mind, as well as George Antheil's. But neither went out on a limb to speak of dimensions or other ways of knowing the universe. Pound did say time is not chronological and treated it that way in his writing.
Much love,
Margaret
On 9/1/2013 1:33 PM, barbara flaska wrote:
(Nevermind that other in between stuff about poetry and art, although that's where I should really be living, and probably should have been living all along, this is kind of the nitty gritty I was driving at, but the math was far too complex for me then and even later on and most especially in 1988, because I couldn't get past my thoughts about sub-nuclear foam.Here's a great article in today's latimes on a new Telluride movie:
times on tim:
Vermeer as Conceptual predecessor to Pound's vortograph?
Didn't Vermeer do a self portrait the same way Pound et al tried with vortograph, even with a similar stance staring into the mirror (camera)?
And Pound's was shattered to show a move to the 4th dimension ... to indicate time ....
am i old hat here?
anyway, I hope you are well. we are holding our own here, I am peddling french wines now, and xxxxx has closed out the La Costa crash pad.
she's trying to get the house clean before November .... (I told her, why bother with housekeeping, after 3 years it doesn't get much worse .... a joke stolen from a naked civil servant
*In 1993 the physicist IGerard 't Hooft put forward the holographic principle, which explains that the information about an extra dimension is visible as a curvature in a spacetime with one fewer dimension. For example, holograms are three-dimensional pictures placed on a two-dimensional surface, which gives the image a curvature when the observer moves. Similarly, in general relativity, the fourth dimension is manifested in observable three dimensions as the curvature path of a moving infinitesimal (test) particle. Hooft has speculated that the fifth dimension is really the spacetime fabric.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Peter Loves Sandy
Peter was drawn to Sandy, for a variety of reasons, she was lovely!http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/SandyArcher.jpg&imgrefurl=https://missionlocal.org/2011/03/the-san-francisco-mime-troupe-commemorates-actress-sandy-archer-1938-2010/&h=1047&w=1900&sz=146&tbnid=1lfnvd1bhaJoEM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=163&zoom=1&usg=__4cCsG7-ObnDGPiwdIoml2vGJ0KQ=&docid=UAWsnpHWJnNKPM&sa=X&ei=U20jUvOPAs_YigLF-YCABQ&ved=0CCwQ9QEwAA
