Stepping Out and Back to The Past

Today's planned visit to Flushing Meadows Park has been postponed, as the U.S. Open is just a few hundred feet away from the museum, which means that not only is one of the major reasons for the journey closed, but the park will be a madhouse for today's final match of the tournament.  Instead I'm going to take book I picked up online a while ago, and be a tourist in my own city, exploring some of the historic LGBT spots in the East Village.  How do I plan to do that you may ask?  Why, with Stepping Out: Nine Walks Through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past, of course. I found this on the bookshelf of someone I had a couple of dates with, and ended up purchasing it. I have barely opened the book in the six months I've had it, but often think about using it to walk the city, and today is the day to put it to good use!

I will report back, but in the meantime, I leave you with this little film about the 1939 World's Fair, which also took place at Flushing Meados Park, and which has the the catchy title The Middleton Family At the New York World's Fair. Yes, it is hopelessly cornball, very dated in its mindset, and blatant in its motives, but I also find it rather charming at moments. And if that Jim Treadwell isn't a dream walking, I don't know what is!

Recommended: Make Art Make Money

Art fuels more art. The simple act of getting my ass down to the seat tends to do more for my creativity than nearly anything.  And yet, sometimes just moving those few feet to the desk or the coffee shop can seem easier to put off for just "a few minutes".  So I always try to supplement my off times, my idle moments, with books about art, or artists, and ways to cope with the challenges of creativity.  

The book I am loving right now is Make Art Make Money: Lessons From Jim Henson on Fueling Your Creative Career by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens.  

It explores the successful ways that Jim Henson was able marry art and commerce, much of which involved the "art as gift" philosophy.  The basic idea behind it is that art, by its very nature is a gift.  And yet, those creating that gift need to be able to support themselves in order to continue creating.  It's a basic truth, that for the creator, most of the financial gains from that art go right back into making more. And more often than not, the one who creates will put more effort, more time, and more money into it than is "wise" in a business sense of the word. Henson both epitomizes this, and made peace with this. He was able to keep the message of his work pure even though he was commodifying and selling likenesses of his characters.  The work never became about making money. The money was always to make more and better art.  Without The Muppet Show you could never have had The Muppet Movie, without which you could never have had The Dark Crystal, without which you could never have had The Story Teller, and so on.  This is true not just on a financial level, one funding the next, but on a creative level.  The artistic achievements and new understandings reached in one project made the next one possible.

One of the passages that I found particularly inspiring discusses Henson's 1972 television special The Muppet Musicians of Bremen, in which four mistreated animals escape their miserable masters to seek a new life. Hyde Stevens uses this work to parallel the creative struggles Henson was going through.

     Chased from his home, Leroy [the donkey] finds himself alone in the world, pulling junk that                

     "ain't worth nothin". He doesn't seem very lucky at all. But he can be. 

     Enter the frog. 

     Leroy laments his condition to Kermit, who happens to be sitting on a fence. "I'm on the road

     to nowhere," he says. "I gave ol' Mordecai eighteen years of hard work, and what do I have to 

     show for it?"

     Kermit points at the wagon.

     "It's mighty hard pullin'." The wagon, he thinks, is nothing but a burden.

     Kermit tells him he also has a tuba.

     "You mean this big kinda twisty funnel thing? I don't even know what it's fer!"

Kermit shows the donkey how to change his perception of his lot in life, that the things he views as a burden can actually be a salvation. The same can be said for every artist. We spend out lives trying to hide our injuries and imperfections and show only what we have decided is worthy. Doing this is like "a dancer, dancing with one hand behind her back" as my former acting teacher used to say.  Sharing the wounds artfully, allows intimacy between artist and viewer, and opens up a whole new pathway to explore, one that's likely to be very fertile territory because it is at the heart of what we are most passionate about.

Hyde Stevens continues:

     Henson's shoestring budget resulted in Kermit being fashioned out of the fabric from his

     mother's old coat, and that intern spawned the look of a thousand Muppets. His work in

     commercials [something Henson had very ambivalent feelings about] led both to a healthy

     workshop budget and eventually to Sesame Street, who's producers were trying to use the power    

     of commercials to teach. It couldn't be predicted from the outset, but each part led to the next part,  

     and eventually it added up to staggering success when Henson started to see the shape it might

     take.

     Henson may not have chosen his career up until 1958, but he was able to turn burdens into

     strengths. "Take what you got and fly with it," Henson said. Most of us simple don't know what 

     we've got.

Make Art Make Money: Lessons From Jim Henson on Fueling Your Creative Career began as a series of essays published in , and these were later expanded to become a full exploration of Henson's work, and lessons from that way of working that we can use today.  It's available from Amazon.com, and is a steal at $9.19

         

     

                        

Course Correction

Have I failed the challenge?  That quickly?  Watch me backpedal and say that I only said I would do 31 posts in the next days until September was over, and so I haven't exactly failed, and can get back on course with a quick correction. Do you buy that?  Can we continue? Good.

I'v been dog sitting for the past week for a couple of dear friends of mine, and their apartment is full of whimsy and wonder.  I'd intended for it to be a place to really bucks down and create, and yet, I encountered all of the same demons here that I would have encountered at home.  The good thing is that I HAVE been more creative here than I think I would have at my own apartment, just not as creative as I imagined, and if we can assume there is always going to be, at least, a small gap between the imagined ideal and the imperfect reality, than I can be happy about what I achieved.  What was that, you ask?   The beginning of a painting (my first since seventh grade) a couple of blog posts, and some notes on a future Cathy Dresden show.

I've also been thinking about a piece of fiction, something I've had percolating for a while and that I may want to work on during Nanowrimo. I have yet to finish the piece I started last year, and interestingly enough i am right down to the finish line folks. The problem is it's a mystery, and the ending I had been plotting seems a little less than spectacular, and the part of me that had said to myself "mysteries are never really about the 'dun' in 'whodunnit', but the who".  I'd convinced myself it was enough to have a great idea, fun characters, and a couple of pre-planned twists. But now I am doubting those twists.  And while it has yet to be a year since I started the project, and in that time I have managed to write nearly 100,000 words, the little whisperings of doubt tend to find their way to my ears no matter what. Hopefully though, it has been long enough since I wrote last that I have given myself a little space from the attachment of perfection, and I can realize the truth that done and imperfect is better that potentially perfect and never finished.

The World's Fair of 1964-65, Pt. 1

I've been hearing about Flushing Meadows-Corona Park ever since I moved to Astoria, and while I'd always intended to visit it, I have yet to do so. Part of the reason being the distance. Believe it or not, it is 45 minutes by train, and the "not knowing" what was out there that might make the trip worthwhile, was enough to hinder me.  But after doing some research this afternoon, I have a much greater understanding of what those things are, and I'm hoping to make the trip next weekend.

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park was the site of two World's Fairs, and is the current home of the Queens Museum.  But, while I had known that the unisphere (that giant globe that is probably the most recognizable monument from the fair) still existed, I didn't know what else was still remaining.  It turns out?  A lot.  Now, "a lot" is relative.  Fair sites and most buildings on them are never intended to be permanent, so the fact that a handful of  icons still remain is pretty great.  The previously mentioned Unisphere is there...

The Unisphere as pictured in August of 1964

as are a number of statues, a carousel, a theatre, the building which now houses the Queens Museum (that site was created for the 1939 fair) and The New York Pavilion is still there as well.  

That building has a pretty fascinating history. It was designed by the famed architect Phillip Johnson, made out of steel and concrete, and it was determined after the fair was over that it should remain.  And yet, no one was ever able to decide what to do with it, and so this Atomic Age vision of the future that featured a kaleidoscopic ceiling, a floor that depicted a giant map of New York, and two observation towers that loomed above,  was left to deteriorate.

It's sad to think about something that symbolized hope and promise for the future has been corroding and decaying, with very little use.  The building poses quite a challenge, as tearing it down would be extremely expensive, as would finding a new use for it and restoring it to current safety standards and making it shine again.  Now that I've learned about it from one of my favorite podcasts The Bowery Boys.  Their websitelhas a tremendous amount of photos and information, and you can listen to their podcast, the second half of which was recorded in Queens Theater in the park, here. A large portion of the show was devoted to interviewing Matthew Silva, a devoted fan of the site who co-founded People For The Pavillon alongside Salmaan Khan and Christian Doran. Because of this organization, and others who love this unique site, there is hope that it may be repurposed, much as was done for the Highline, which was once considered an eyesore, and is now one of the city;s prime tourist spots.  Matthew also made a documentary about the Pavillon, called Modern Ruin, and while I'm not certain where it can be seen in its entirety, you CAN view the trailer.

I also found this really well crafted short film on youtube which shows comparison footage from the fairgrounds then and now, and touches a bit on the Disney contributions to the fair that year, which included The Carousel of Progress, Great Moments With Mister Lincoln, and the attraction that was initially sponsored by Pepsi as a tribute to UNICEF, It's A Small World. 

Rest assured that I will post photos from what I discover at the park next week...

The Jim Henson Exhibit At MOMI

We all have artists of our "age". People who were working at the right time to find our eyes, to meet our minds and shape us.  For me, Jim Henson came at that time.  Now, admittedly, it's a wide swath of time.  He began working in the fifties and continued into the very late eighties, and it's complicated by the fact that while he worked in a medium that is considered "kid's stuff", he never considered himself an artist for children alone, so his work was AND wasn't meant for me.  And yet, I saw Sesame Street in its earlier years, when it was a huge success, but not yet the monument it would become.  I saw The Muppet Show when it first aired, and my family was in line with a lot of other family members on the opening weekend of The Muppet Movie (we barely made it in as the line wrapped around the theatre).  I watched Emmett Otter's Jug Band Christmas whenever I could catch it on HBO, and The Dark Crystal several times at the theaters.  There was a theatre called the Village IV that played it, and they also had someone come and paint their windows with scenes of some of the more fantastical films.  I watched all the Henson films, made sure I was home to watch The Story Teller and The Jim Henson Hour.  He is, to encapsulate it, the artist for my generation.  His was a message of unification, of love, and of changing the world for the better one person at a time.  He made fun of people, yes, of our foibles and follies, but always from the perspective of one who experienced those follies and foibles first hand.

It's a message, and an aesthetic, and a sensibility (this nostalgic, vaudevillian sentimentality mixed with an earnest need to comfort and enlist the dreamers of the world in his mission) that had a strong impact on me.  And yet, I had never seen an exhibition of his before.  I had been in Austin and missed the Sesame Street exhibit at the Lincoln Center, missed the first exhibit that came through the MOMI, and not been to Atlanta to the permanent exhibit. So I was really looking forward to the new permanent exhibit at the Museum Of the Moving Image, which was years in its arrival.  But then when it came? I didn't rush there. I didn't want to be annoyed with people, irritated by them and their inane comments about the work, annoyed by the crowds.  It would have felt opposed to the intent of the exhibit, and poisoned my first glimpse. It was a sacred experience, the first visit, and had to be well timed, ad well planned.  I waited more than a month, and then, last Sunday as the doors opened for the day, I headed in.  

I don't want to spoil the experience with mountains of pictures, as people coming to the museum should be able to feel they are taking a journey that no one  else has, but I do want to tease it, and share.  

I would recommend that anyone coming read about Jim Henson before you arrive, because this collection does a wonderful job of cementing the story of his life and work, and of highlighting the experiences of the companions and fellow visionaries that joined him on his path. You'll see the harness that Carrol Spinney wore to perform Big Bird, you'll see Fran Brill's "elevator" boots that raised her up to an equivalent height of the men she performed with, and you'll see script revisions by Jerry Juhl, muppets performed by Richard Hunt, Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz and Frank Oz, designed and built by Bonnie Erickson, and by Don Sahlin.  You'll see renderings by Brian Froud, and you'll get glimpses of the impact Jane Henson had on Henson's life and art (although her impact is so ingrained and ethereal, its difficult to physicalize). Speaking of Jane, thinking back on the exhibit she is a very quiet but constant presence, especially in the early work represented. As the exhibit grows, I would love to see temporary exhibits share the space, and a closer examination of Jane Henson and her work and influence is well-deserved.

 In a way, visiting the Henson Exhibit was like visiting New York City for the first time.  I saw a world I had loved as long as I can remember, that I had always read about, watched, that had permeated my psyche, and yet, prior to seeing the physicality of it, it didn't feel truly "real" to me.  Graspable.  This exhibit allows people to get up close and see that these people and animals existed in more than two dimensions, and at the center of their artistic mission and purpose was a creator, a performer, a dreamer, a business man and a leader.  Someone who may not have been comfortable in all of the roles, but who stepped into them to help make his world a reality, one that we could all share.

Live Like Dragons

I snapped this picture three years ago, as I was so taken with the words, found scrawled on the door of a parking lot in Downtown Austin.  The site used to connect with The Dobie Mall and Movie Theatre, a former art house treasure, which is now closed. Currently, it is the easiest way to park and walk to the Harry Ransom Center.  I was returning from a long visit that day, as I'd recently discovered that you could visit and call up items from the archives and had immersed myself in some original drafts of L. Frank Baum's The Tin Woodsman of Oz, and The Magic Of Oz.


On my way back to the car I saw this quote, and was inspired.  I do not know where it is from, and a google search hasn't been very helpful.  Of course at the time, I didn't look closely enough through my lens to realize how blurry the photo was, so I unfortunately have nothing clearer, and cannot read the smudge of pink in the corner that may be a persons name.  If anyone lives near the Dobie on the U.T. campus and wants to send me a better photo, I would be forever grateful.  Or if anyone knows more about the stanza?

And maybe it's better not to know where its source. If it turns out to be an incredibly famous piece of literature, then it's context and meaning may change, destroying what I was touched by in the first moments.  As long as the source remains a mystery, the quote is equally mysterious, and I can endow it with the provenance I want it to have in order to raise it's potency to me.

I have thought about the quote a lot, wondered about its meaning. After reexamination it seems a lot more seditious than what I'd initially imagined.  It doesn't just say be free, ,it says take your freedom even if it means robbing others, and I while I'd always figured that the Kings had probably been tyrants and enslavers and deserved whatever was coming to them, did the angels deserve the same treatment?.  And is it worth their unwilling sacrifice so that we may thrive? I guess, I have to say my answer is a qualified "yes", at lest initially, or I wouldn't have felt that unexpected stomach flutter the first time I read it, that little ping like riding an elevator down, or speeding down hilly roads.  But that was when the angels remained metaphorical.  In reality? I want to fly, to soar, like everyone else.  But I'd like to think its possible to to do grow my own wings, and to defy my Kings without robbing the innocent. Or, barring that, to borrow the wings and to fly with the angel's assistance and approval.  Otherwise, I don't know that I could really enjoy the flight.

Check, Please!

Yesterday I attended my first ever "con".  Aside from my trip to the "Judy Garland Festival" in Minnesota years ago, I had never dipped my toes into fan conventions, and from the moment I stepped into FLAMECON, which features art and comics by LGBTQ artists, or featuring LGBTQ content, I had a case of "perma-grin". More on the full experience of the convention later, but I wanted to quickly share a new discovery from the trip... "Check, Please".

Promotional Art from Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu

Check, Please! is the story of Eric "Bitty" Bittle, a hockey loving, pie baking freshman in college, new to the school's hockey team. It's an episodic comic available free online here, and while there are now printed editions, they are somewhat hard to come by as of this moment.  You can purchase them at conventions. For those of you in Austin, the author, a really charming woman by the name Ngozi Ukazu will be there selling volumes 1 and 2, as well as other merchandise at Staple! Independent Media Expo on September 9th and 10th (Tickets available at the door). Believe me, in hindsight I would have bought both volumes then and there.  As it is, I will have to make due with volume one until New York Comic-con On October 5th.  

I see a really bright future for this work, as it is beautifully produced, expertly drawn, and charming as all get-out.  It's heartwarming and poignant, and Eric "Bitty" Bittle (the hockey loving, pie baking former figure skater at the center of the story) is magnetic and lovable.  Those of you with immense amounts of patience can wait for the first two volumes to be in stores in the Fall of 2018, but I encourage everyone to head to the tumblr page and get to reading.

I'm Gonna Live...

I'm trying to be pretty selective about which clips I post from the new show, in order to maintain many of the surprises and keep the new numbers fresh for the audience members. However, I don't think it spoils too much to show this clip from the July 12th show at The Metropolitan Room.  It's a personal favorite of mine.

Catching Up

It's admittedly been a long time between blog posts.  I knew this.  I was well aware that I had been neglecting what had been a place for introspection, observation, and some good old fashioned blabbering. I did not realize it had been four months.  And I had been missing it, had been wanting to creep back in, quietly, as if I'd never left.  But as life got busier, this little spot was visited less and less.  And I have to admit, it sometimes feels like I am writing for an audience of two, but with none of the true freedom that comes from a small audience, because if you say the wrong thing, you can bet it will somehow get out there, and what had seemed witty or sharp in the moment of writing, would crystallize into its shameful true form, locked in for whatever eternity the web can hold.

Since I posted last, I have created my cabaret show Cathy Dresden: An Old Fashioned Girl, which debuted at The Metropolitan Room in July, and which I am now in the midst of finding a second date for.  The show was, by all accounts, pretty successful, and the audiences did pack the Metropolitan, which was a welcome relief.

There are so many decisions to make when you are creating something like this, choosing a date, a director, a costume designer or at least someone to assist with alterations, an accompanist, coming up with a concept, choosing the songs, structuring the evening, writing transitional material/patter and monologues as well as comedic bits and jokes. And so much more. I have always had a bit of a hard time making decisions, tending to agonize over each one before finally pushing the metaphorical "go" button, and now, here I am doing it again. Luckily, the first time, everything came together, as it always seems to.  I had an immense amount of support, a terrific producer in Joseph Macchia, an amazing director, Daniel Adams, and an indispensable accompanist/banterer/singer/accordian player in the form of Michael Hicks.

(L-R) Michael Hicks, Cathy, Daniel Adams

I will admit, I worked like a dog on the show for over three months. Every night after work I came home and sat in front of my computer.  But for the first time I understood what people said when they write that if you love what you are doing, it doesn't feel like work.  Te passion seemed to override all the critical voices for just long enough to get the job done.  And then once I (through the combination of fate and of listening to my "gut") chose the right director, he aided in keeping those persistent demons at bay so that we could do the work together, aided by Michael.  I cannot overstate the importance, if you ever decide to go on this journey, of choosing the right companions.  Without them, I don't know if I could have done it.

And now, not wanting to lose the momentum, and let Cathy go back into the trunk, I'm bringing her back.  So, if you were one of those unable to make it to the first show, stay tuned...

Michael and Cathy, July 12th at The Metropolitan Room

Subway Ride

Sometimes you have to ride the subway from Brooklyn into The Flatiron District during rush hour in full drag makeup.  The thing about New York?  No one made a big deal about it.  (Unless they were secretly taking photos and turning me into an anti-Liberal meme and I didn't know it).

The Refreshing Taste of Lion Spit

Memories are unfaithful, undependable.  After years and years of thinking something was one way, you can realize that at one point your idea of the actual incident had morphed and you'd been telling a story based on that truth, but at some point, the concrete memory became about the story itself, cemented in your mind by constant re-telling.  This is one of the major problems with the reliability of memoirs, and biographies. People and their memories, though often well-intentioned, are not trustworthy.

And yet, I have a very concrete memory of being a child, maybe three, in the upper level apartment with my single mom, as dusk falls, the window open, and I can hear a lion's roar. And that lion, was able to help me get to sleep by imagining him, and feeling a kind of kinship with him. Mind you, my three year old self, I am perfectly aware, would not have thought about it quite that way, or said it that way.  But it's a memory that has continued to bring me comfort, that yes- things may get daunting, and lives may not be what we want them to be, but there are other creatures out there, outside of ourselves and very different from ourselves, sharing life with us. The thing is, it's a very cinematic memory, and one I easily could have concocted.  Don't lions live in zoos?  How far would a lion's roar carry? Are there residences close enough to zoos in order for people to hear the animals at night as they stir? I've puzzled over this occasionally, and it's one of those things that I think, "Oh I should ask Mom about that at some point," but then it is quickly forgotten.

But then a couple of weeks ago I was walking to the subway from a rehearsal for a then upcoming gig, when I saw this large truck, the bed of which had a large display of antiques including, a lion drinking fountain.  One very similar to the one I had drunk from at the zoo.  It brought back all of these- feelings, feelings of being small enough that the whole world seemed giant around me, and that there were some really cool things made just for people like me in order to experience what it would be like to put my head in the mouth of a lion. I'd never expected to see anything like it again, but there it was. The friend I was with indulged me when I asked to stop and take a few pictures.  They don't do it justice, can't capture the spontenaiety of the moment, or the sheer joy I felt at being brought face to face with this piece of my childhood.

In a world where I am a wealthy man, I will own one of these fountains and have it, along with other items of whimsy and wonder. Think of Carrie Fisher's home as seen in the recent documentary "Bright Lights" (what, you haven't seen it? How can we be friends?) And you will have a proximity of my fantasy. But regardless, at this moment I couldn't afford or house, or transport this amazing piece, so I let it go at photos. 

Later I called my mom to ask her about the fountain, and also about the memory of the lion roaring (which is tied to this fountain) and she didn't remember the fountain, why would she? But she could confirm that we had lived near Bever Park at one point, and there may have been lions there. Couple that with the synchronicitous event that my Uncle who was visiting, had that day seen a lion water fountain just like the one I was describing. 

Thanks to a Write to the Point, a personal blog of an Iowa resident, I was able to confirm that yes! There had been a lion at Bever park years ago, and a number of other animals, though from what I can tell of it, it seems like the park not so much a zoo, as a park that happened to have a number of animal exhibits. (If anyone reading this has more information about the history of Bever Park, I'd love to hear it). And it seems she shared the memory of listening through her open window to the sound of the lion's roar. Confirmation! That memory can now go into my long awaited, totally truthful memoir...

As for the lion drinking fountain? I was able to find that these were hardly unique to one zoo, but are still around (though updated for health standards) and can be found at a lot of parks sponsored by Lions Clubs across the US. The design has changed a bit, and doesn't really suit my taste...

(photo from the Dysart Reporter)

But it is a comfort to see this design is still bringing joy mixed with terror to children everywhere. As for whether or not this design once existed at Bever Park? It's hard to say. I distinctly remember this fountain being at a zoo, one that we visited occasionally and that felt like a special trip. I also remember wolves, (my grandmother commented on the smell) and lots of concrete. There don't seem to be any other zoos in Cedar Rapids, and the only other one it might be that is still open would be in Des Moines, a healthy trek for us to take. So that aspect of the story remains a mystery and I'm ok with that for the moment, as that seems in keeping with the hazy nature of memory itself.