Narratophilia

 

Narratophilia

"Late Fame" by Arthur Schnitzler / Translated by Alexander Starritt (NYRB)

ISBN: 978-1-68137-084-2

There are writers out there who make me feel that I'm wearing a bullseye sweatshirt, and through their writing/work, they make a direct hit on the bullseye.  The great Austrian author and playwright Arthur Schnitzler is one of the writers that get to me on a personal level on a consistent basis through his narratives.  Like Patricia Highsmith, Schnitzler had the ability to get in one's skin, and once placed there, you can't remove the rash.  Not saying he's like a disease, but more of a writer who can look at a system or a social group and understand their dynamics.  In that sense, he also reminds me of Fassbinder the filmmaker.  Still "Late Fame" is a very funny book on a serious subject matter of regret and how one is accepted into a social world. 

The main character is Eduard Saxberger, an office worker, who one time in his youth, wrote a book of poems "Wanderings" that was published and equally forgotten. Decades later, he eventually meets a young poet/writer who is a fan of this one book and invited Saxberger to be part of his (or their) literary group.  So, after an old man who once was a (failed) poet, has another chance into a literary world, seems promising, but alas, life has its many disappointments. 

Both a satire on literary groups in Vienna, as well as how one sees themselves as time goes marching by.  It's very much an older man's piece of literature, and now that I have reached a certain age, I really identify with some aspects of Saxberger's existence.  But don't we all?  

The Evening Series - Monday, August 21, 2017

I recently purchased a window shade, where it will keep the sunlight out, but if you’re outside the window, you can see yours truly as a shadowy figure moving around in my living room.  Day and night.  Privacy has never been an issue with me.  I don’t see the point in it.  Some people I know have shredders so they can cut up their bills and health notices as well as other personal papers before they throw it in the trash.  I, on the other hand, post all my bills, including notes from my doctor as well as sensitive tax notices on my Facebook page.  I figure the best way to hide something is to put it all in plain sight. 

It has been an open secret that every night I have a performance by our window.  Although we do have shades, the image on the curtain looks like images from a Lotte Reiniger film.  A German Filmmaker who was the pioneer of the silhouette animation.  My “shadow play” is never planned out in advance.  It’s everyday life in Tosh’s household, and that seems to bring an audience out in the evening.   The only thing I do in an organizational sense is to leave my trash cans out in front of the garage.  One for regular trash and the other is for recycling waste.  The show during the summer months starts at 9 PM.

Tonight, I’m planning on doing a version of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1895 play “Anatol.”  It’s theater about a bourgeois playboy named Anatol, who is obsessed with the thought of a lover being unfaithful to him.   It’s a common problem around me, and it’s a play that I take to my very heart.   Through the theater, one can project their anxieties in such a state, where it is healthy.  The lighting of the piece needs to be perfect.  I have to set lights within the living room to project the images to the outside world.  I hired a well-known lighting expert for the stage, Hassard Short, who came recommended by a friend of mine, Billy Ladd, who is a chorus dancer on Broadway. 

I spent the day making articulated cut-out figures, one representing me as Anatol, and the rest are all the women characters in the play.  Each cut-out female is based on an actual woman I know.  I have asked these particular 'models' to come over to the house, where they have to remove all their clothing so I can trace their body onto paper to do the cutting that will fit their form.   Being a heterosexual male, I was, of course, attracted to the female forms in front of me.  As part of my body reacted to what was in front of me, one of the models was kind enough to trace on the paper so that it can be part of the cut-out figure of my character.  I expect when I make my appearance as a cut-out, with the help of my model, I will get a standing ovation from the audience.  

When one prepares to put together a show for an audience, it seems that the preparation is more important than the actual performance.   I have had dreams where I'm a viewer instead of one who is participating in the narrative of the dream.  Now, that I'm conscious I make dreams happen.  It's the payoff that keeps on paying.  

- Tosh Berman

May 15, 2014

May 15, 2014

It has been expressed that Norrie Paramor passed away without getting any recognition for his services as producer of various Cliff Richard recordings, but the one’s that I find the most interesting is his work with The Shadows.   His recordings of the pre-fab-four are to this day the most haunting to me.  When I hear Hank Marvin/Jet Harris recording from the early 1960s, it sends me to a world where I can smell the polluted River Thames, and the “Man of Mystery” overwhelms me with a sense of melancholy.

I think their masterpiece is “Wonderful Land” due to not only Hank’s brilliant guitar playing, but also how Paramor’s strings fit over the song like putting a coat over a drunk man in some Soho street in the middle of the night.  Of course there’s great skill in making these sounds, but it's the magic aftertaste that gives me goose-bumps.  Eno is another favorite of mine, but in the long run, ironically enough, he hits against a wall, like a car speeding towards its final destination.   He is all about thinking and sound making, but there is something vacant regarding the emotional aspect of his music making.  His records all have roots from someplace else, mostly from the avant-garde recordings of the 50’s, but also the classic low-budget recordings from the 60s as well.  The big difference between Eno and say someone like Joe Meek, is that Eno is totally aware where he is, and what his place in history will be.  Meek, like Oscar Wilde, thought at the very the end no one will pay attention to him. Norrie Paramor I think should be considered to be as important as Meek and of course, Brian Eno.

Paramor reminds me of certain portraits done by Richard Avedon, in that you’re looking at an image that is very stark, but the emotional aspect of that subject matter really yells out to the viewer.  The Shadows’ “A Place in the Sun, ” especially in stereo is like overhearing a conversation between the two guitars.  It’s intimate, and the track on the right is slowly embracing or chasing the guitar track on the left.  The sensuality of the tension being built up is so subversive with respect to a recording made in the early 60s.  One of my all-time favorite authors is Arthur Schnitzler, because the way he portrays the main character’s struggle to reach out for some sort of reality, in a world that is slowly going insane.  The tension between the culture and the individual is therefore very strong, especially in his short novela “Dream Story.” For a man who kept track in great detail of his sexual experiences, he writes poetically about the nature of sex as it is placed in the context of 19th Century Austria.   So he is a writer who can record his times accurately, yet play with that information and turn it into a profound piece of art, that is an odd juxtaposition of being turned-on and horrific at the same time.

With respect to Eno, I admire him greatly, especially for his early recordings.  If there was a sense of passion and being adventurous, it would for me to be his first four solo albums, including “Discreet Music.” It can be either due to youth, or Eno just learning something new, but the way he used the sounds of the past (Meek and Paramor) to in his mind, something totally new, should be applauded.  On the other hand, it is a work that can be stale, because again, it lacks a certain amount of emotional care or landscape. L. Frank Baum invented the world of Oz, that is not logical, but it is a world that is composed of desire, a need for home, and therefore an emotional state of mind.   When I look at the works of Jasper Johns, I’m seeing how he use the everyday or something that is emotionally loaded, such as the American flag, and give it a fresh perspective.   But at heart, I think the true masterpiece of someone like Walt Disney is “Plane Crazy, ” which was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.  Who would have known it would have led us down a road that is now Disney culture.  A world that seems to be emotional, but the fact it is in the business to look “emotional.” So when I hear the works of Paramor and Meek, I feel like I am about to enter a great journey.  When I listen to Eno, I feel it's the end of the journey.