Scene4 Magazine · Arts and Media

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::December 2011

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 06:42:17 +0000

___________________________

Coming Next Month!

A Special Issue

What Is Obscenity

and... What's Not?

___________________

In This Issue

inFocus

Red Mother

inView (Commentary)

Michael Bettencourt

Walkabout Thoughts

I'm walking down the street and I'm talking to myself. And the thought I'm having is this. First of all, it's not about me as the writer, not about a career as a writer. It is about something else. It's about taking what I write to create value.

Arthur Meiselman

Singers of Songs

A continuous dimension I travel through is music. It is the balance to my visual world and a purveyor of intimate and relentless privacy. In that dimension, of all the singers I have ever heard, seen, enjoyed, opera, theatre, jazz, pop,

only two linger and hover above

all the other voices. Both are American.

Nathan Thomas

Why Don't You Speak Better?

In America, we haven't quite found a way to embrace the various dialects of American English. We hold out as a model a region-less, dialect-less speech. This kind of speech is very American - "I come from nowhere and will disappear ultimately like the will o' the wisp." We do not use the dialects of our country. And some dialects we actively dislike.

Les Marcott

The Santa Claus Monlogues

There's no red carpet treatment this year Santa. No helicopter arrival. No band. No parade. No fanfare. No grand entrance. It's the year of lowered expectations. You'll simply arrive in a rusty Olds 98 pushed by volunteers. You'll come through the back way and make a brief statement. You'll then sit down with the kids, read a story, take a few pictures, and walk back to the rusty Olds and be pushed away. Santa simply can't promise more than he can deliver.

Claudine Jones

chocklit Kleen

I forget why, but I did update my passport somewhat recently (oh yeah, went to Guam. Oops, blocked that out) & so had to get a new photo. It has to 'look' like you. No smiling and no scarves or hats either. I took some trouble to appear 'natural'--not to run afoul of the *shudder* TSA--and yet now less than a year later, the hair is not behaving...yag. I know I've said before that with me it's all about the hair, but really. I'm serious.

reView

FILM (reviews)

The Ides of March, Margin Call

Both films feature dream casts and long stretches of high-intensity dialogue, but only one persuades us of the overwhelming, poisonous importance of the skullduggery it portrays.

Miles David Moore

THEATRE

Red Mother

Using Brecht's "Mother Courage" as a jumping off place, Muriel Miguel of the Spider Woman Theater Ensemble embraced the war torn, twisted reality of a native woman worming her way from one war to the next

Ned Bobkoff

POETRY

Richard Cory's Untold Story

Much envied by the "people on the pavement" he went home "one calm summer night" and "put a bullet through his head."

David Alpaugh

OPERA

Xerxes by Händel

San Francisco Opera may have already reached the zenith of this season with Händel's one and only "comic" opera.

Renate Stendhal

inSight

The Steiny Road to the Operadom

Should the Steiny Road Poet call 2011 the year of

Gertrude Stein?

Karren Alenier

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

Letter Heads

When was the last time you received a letter, either hand-written or typed, through the postal service? I'm talking about a personal letter, not an appointment reminder or a birthday card from your dentist.

Lia Beachy

Life Among the Heffalumps

Holy Holidaze, Batman!

Five Gift Ideas for Starving Poets and Other Lesser Mortals

If you're like me, life is more scary now than it was this time last year, even though then we wouldn't have thought this was possible.

Kathi Wolfe

COMICS

My Old Man!

Bakky Nakky Saki

An ongoing series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

POETRY

A World Elsewhere

David Alpaugh

WRITING

The Former Future: The U.S. Writings of Mika Oklop

A writer of legendary stature in the former Yugoslavia, this is the first publication of Mika Oklop's longer expatriate writings.

Lissa Tyler Renaud

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 12th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6500 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::November 2011

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:13:54 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

Thrills and Doubts

The Debt

The Magic Circus

William Carlos Williams

Gertrude Stein in Vichy

inView (Commentary)

Michael Bettencourt

Zucotti Park or Bust

The punditocracy and chattering classes (a marvelous phrase) whine about the weirdness of the crowd and a lack of a demands-list and the fluid agenda, but of course they miss the point, either willfully/cynically or through their hard-acquired ignorance. The message is three-part, and it is clear: 1) the 99% have been shafted and don't want to be shafted anymore; 2) either we have corporatocracy or democracy, but we can't have both; and the most important 3) it's time that the power structure fears its citizens rather than the other way around.

Arthur Meiselman

The Q Factor

From George Santayana and others:

to ignore history is to be doomed to repeat it. True? Perhaps, with this caveat: the human species is a collective of behavior, habitual, ritual, repetitive behavior--not doomed to repeat its history, rather

self-programmed to recycle itself...

and its history.

Nathan Thomas

OK! I wrote them

The essence of most of the arguments against Shakespeare as a playwright boils down to snobbery. Some people simply seem to believe an education in some formal academic setting is necessary to produce greatness. Such an argument, though, ignores the reality of genius without the assistance of formal schooling. In the American experience, we can point to the example of Abraham Lincoln.

Les Marcott

Send In The Clowns

The 2012 Edition. This is a column I seem doomed to repeat every four years because every four years we elect a new president or reelect the current White House occupant. The summer of our discontent will surely turn into the fall and winter of increased agitation and frustration with the current state of our political process. The Occupy Wall Street movement is but the latest in a series of disillusioned groups trying to influence the political landscape.

Claudine Jones

manual Labor & a six-buck Chicken

Would waiting offstage for my cue these days be any different than the anticipation of that crust on my bread just out of the oven?

reView

FILM (reviews)

Drive, The Debt

Two recent movie thrillers deal with a

theme as old as Greek tragedy

Miles David Moore

WRITING

An Invitation to Gertrude Stein's Tea Party

What kind of Jew was Stein? She was an assimilated American Jew, born in Pennsylvania

Karren Alenier

POETRY

What's in the Wheelbarrow Today?

I've never raised chickens; but my wheelbarrow is red, and in the winter it's occasionally glazed with rainwater.

David Alpaugh

FILM, OPERA, PHOTOGRAPHY

Paris: with Pina, Salome and Claude

For the tourist who doesn't know the dark,

mysterious richness and history.

Renate Stendhal

BOOKS

The Night Circus

Morgenstern's much-hyped novel does not draw the reader in to either the characters' inner lives or their true natures.

Catherine Conway Honig

inSight

The Steiny Road to the Operadom

Compelling Kronos Quartet

Because the Steiny Road Poet is collaborating with a composer whose music base is electronic, she is making special note of the September 16, 2011, concert she heard by Kronos Quartet at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.

Karren Alenier

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

Label America: Broken

I don't know what my label should be. Labels are what make so many of us comfortable with ourselves since it helps define the world we live in.

Lia Beachy

Life Among the Heffalumps

Why The F Not?

A while back, Heffalumps deplored the coarsening of our culture. Citing ads for a "wide-ass" fan and the popular movie "Kick Ass," I begged, all of us, including your self-righteously indignant scribe, to swear less and cut back on obscenities in our speech and writing. Have you forgotten? Well, bleep you and all of your progeny!

Kathi Wolfe

COMICS

My Old Man!

The Purple Gang

An ongoing series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

POETRY

Mysteries

Lyric Poem for HYPATIA

Griselda Steiner

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 12th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6500 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::October 2011

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:22:10 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

Landmark Performances

Do You Agree?

inView (Commentary)

Michael Bettencourt

Writing Plays In A Time of War

In my recent work I have noticed a level of anger in the words and actions unlike anything I've drafted before. It is not just anger fed by September 11. It is also anger fed by the stupidities that have followed -- in the bombing of Afghanistan, the multiple political hypocrisies, the pointlessness of a war on terrorism by using the means of terrorism.

Arthur Meiselman

Up The Carriage Trade! - Redux

I'll take the lower class audiences - they make a playwright's writing-agony worth agonizing over - they make an actor's performance worth its salt - and they don't give a damn about directors and dramaturgs and all the other frou-frou functionaries who get in between them and the live bodies on stage. On with the show!

Nathan Thomas

Great Performances

Landmark Performances that were powerful enough to change the craft of acting. Here's my list. Essentially five performances that I'd argue had a lasting impact on the last century of acting.

Who did I leave out?

Who would you add to the list?

Les Marcott

The Dreaded "A" Word

Glen Campbell announced over the summer that he has it. Women's basketball coaching legend Pat Summitt announced she has it. Most if not all of us have been touched by it directly or indirectly. My dad had it. So what is it?

Claudine Jones

Wasn't That You?

When I first embarked on a formal music education, I had plenty of performing chops. I could act, I could dance. Stage fright was never my issue. No, no, no. Not at all. However, my stubbornly vague knowledge of keys & clefs was becoming an impediment. I learned by listening and I got cast.

reView

FILM (reviews)

The Help, The Guard

The Help feels slightly fake to me. The film lacks the delicate magic of the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird; it feels cheaper and more obvious, its characters more lacking in nuance and believability.

Miles David Moore

OPERA

Four Saints in Three Acts: An Installation

Gertrude Stein's opera at San Francisco's Summer of Stein.The San Francisco Chronicle called it "a little silly and naïve", and was it?

Renate Stendhal

DANCE

The Many Gifts of Lissa Resnick

When as a teenager Lissa Resnick first met choreographer Alan Scofield he introduced her to the human side of dance. The ironies in this statement begin with the notion that dance is inseparable from the body.

Catherine Conway Honig

POETRY

What Poets Can Learn from Songwriters

At a time when too many poets have so purged their poetry of repetition and melody that it reads and sounds like outright prose, songwriters continue to satisfy a human craving that cannot and should not be denied.

David Alpaugh

inSight

The Steiny Road to Operadom

Navigating the 'Long Book'

Perhaps, Dear Reader, you have toyed with the idea of reading Gertrude Stein's monumental tome The Making of Americans: Being a History of a Family's Progress.

Karren Alenier

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

A Toast to Fall

My favorite time of year is the transition from summer to fall. August is that deliciously deep yellow warm month of summer, September is the autumnal equinox and home of the giant Harvest Moon, and October is Halloween and the crisp doorway into the holiday season.

Lia Beachy

Life Among the Heffalumps

Camelot And The Budding Bully

The gods of terror don't telegraph their punches, and the snakes of prejudice and bigotry, slithering near the waters of civility, can release their venom in a nano-second.

Kathi Wolfe

COMICS

My Old Man!

Last Rites

An ongoing series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 12th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6500 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::September 2011

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:50:10 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

The 2011 Europe Theatre Prize Festival

——

The Jazz Baroness Lives

inView (Commentary)

Michael Bettencourt

Principles of Writing Plays

The play, the thing on the page, is not, for me at least, only about my "message" — as Sam Goldwyn allegedly said, "If you want to send a message, use Western Union." It's also about giving actors something interesting to do while on the stage — to provoke them to move and speak in ways that prompt discovery and trigger surprise.

Arthur Meiselman

Orson Welles

Seventy years ago, Orson Welles created “Citizen Kane” and it remains the zenith, the apex of filmmaking. It completed the migration of theatre into cinema. No film before or since defined the nucleus of cinema, the art form of the 20th century, as this seminal 1941 masterpiece did.

Nathan Thomas

Pure Imagination

People can talk the game about creativity all day long. But being actually inventive, to actually think something new is hugely difficult. I had a teacher many years ago who confessed that he never had a new idea in his life. All he thought about, he confessed, was a re-ordering of ideas he'd gotten from other people.

Les Marcott

Balazs Szabo

It only seems fitting that a young artist steeped in communist ideology would someday find his freedom in America and paint the portrait of one of Capitalism's ultimate successes – Ray Kroc, he of McDonalds fame. That was at the age of 23 back in 1966. Since then Hungarian born Balazs Szabo has lived an extraordinary life whose long career continues to flourish.

Claudine Jones

Zero sum

Saw Anna Deavere Smith's show:

those choreographed interviews absorbed as song

strongly figured grace

reView

FILM (reviews)

Page One, Tabloid

It's perilously easy to lose your way ethically in the news business, as the recent scandal involving Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation proved beyond doubt.

Miles David Moore

OPERA

New Operas for 2011-2012

Given the state of the American economy and wealth moving more heavily to those who always had money, there is no surprise that opera companies like New York City Opera are drastically scaling back.

Karren Alenier

JAZZ

The Jazz Baroness Lives

"I have known four great men in my life…Professor Einstein, Charlie Parker, General de Gaulle, and Thelonious Monk…on second thought you can leave out the first three!"

Catherine Conway Honig

THEATRE

Goethe's Fugue:

The 2011 Europe Theatre Prize Festival

in St. Petersburg

Lissa Tyler Renaud

inSight

The Steiny Road to Operadom

From Satie to Me

Lest, Dear Reader, you are now allowing your eyes to glaze with misapprehension, the Steiny Road Poet will provide another Cubist cut on this kind of music created by calculated chance.

Karren Alenier

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

The Magic Hour

Near the end of the Slyvain Chomet's lush animated feature L'Illusionniste, the main protagonist, Tatischeff, leaves a note for his young ward, Alice, that simply states, "Magicians do not exist."

Lia Beachy

Life Among the Heffalumps

Chomping at the Carnival House Door:

Fetisizing Freaks, Lusting For "Monsters"

If we're politically correct literati, politicians or dutiful adult children sitting with our moms at breakfast, we won't say this out loud. But in our heart of hearts, we know it's true: nothing turns us on, yet repels us as much as freaks or horrifies, yet titillates us as much as monsters.

Kathi Wolfe

COMICS

My Old Man!

Whatever Happened to Sid?

An ongoing series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

POETRY

Götterdämmerung for American Poetry?

Philip Levine's appointment as Poet Laureate of the United States reminds us that American poetry's future has never been more tenuous. He is, after all, 83 years old. Indeed, most of the living American poets who have achieved wide readership are now senior citizens.

David Alpaugh

inPrint

IN THIS ISSUE

A poem-monologue version of Antigone.

'Now hear this, now hear this -this is the will of Creon. The war is won. We have won. The enemy lies in ruins. Peace will follow like the blessings of spring but only to those who obey. The army can be mild but the army can be fierce. The army is your friend but can become your enemy. They have a task to perform and they will perform it. Obey whatever orders they issue. Bow down. Obey. Obey. Go to your homes. Await further

instructions. Be vigilant for we are vigilante. Nothing more than obedience is asked of you.'

by Martin Burke

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

NightDances-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 12th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6500 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::August 2011

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:22:10 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

trees of life

inView (Commentary)

Michael Bettencourt

Our Mediated Lives

This year, for the third year in a row, the Macy's fireworks fired off from the Hudson River. This meant, once again, that Brooklyn and Queens lost out, and lost out (again) to New Jersey, indignity of indignities.

Arthur Meiselman

The Story of Blue

Alan Blue didn't die last week. He probably will, soon. He isn't old and he isn't young. He has been a wayfarer through his life, one who never changed.

Nathan Thomas

Belief

The world seems awash in varying beliefs and belief systems. The situation seems particularly absurd in the U.S.A., given our media's hapless disability while working with something as abstract as a belief.

Les Marcott

The Legacy of Billy Jack

So why after 40 years do fans (me included) still feel compelled to watch it time and time again and sing its praises if it is so unremarkable. It seems the cult film of 1971 still has a cult following.

Claudine Jones

Watching Elbows

So what's with this running? I've never done marathons, unless you count walking 7.2 miles from Ocean Beach to downtown Bush Street at age 19.

Martin Challis

Observing as Audience

Whatever it is that stops us in our tracks matters less than what we are being asked to notice.

reView

FILM (reviews)

Tree of Life, Beginners, Incendies

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life won this year's Palme d'Or at Cannes. The Palme d'Or, like the Best Picture Oscar, has never been a guarantee of high quality in a film and The Tree of Life was a controversial choice.

Miles David Moore

OPERA

San Francisco - Summer of Ring

This year's San Francisco summer season combined the "Summer of Stein" with the "Summer of the Ring."

Renate Stendhal

PAINTING

"Kandinsky" and Kandinsky:

Towards A Larger Conversation

Lissa Tyler Renaud

inSight

The Steiny Road to Operadom

From Satie to Me

Lest, Dear Reader, you are now allowing your eyes to glaze with misapprehension, the Steiny Road Poet will provide another Cubist cut on this kind of music created by calculated chance.

Karren Alenier

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

The Magic Hour

Near the end of the Slyvain Chomet's lush animated feature L'Illusionniste, the main protagonist, Tatischeff, leaves a note for his young ward, Alice, that simply states, "Magicians do not exist."

Lia Beachy

Life Among the Heffalumps

Hanging Out with Eeyore

As I write, the world wonders if the United States government will default. Weather forecasters warn that a ferocious heat wave will engulf the Washington, D.C. area where I live for a few days, or five hundred years.

Kathi Wolfe

COMICS

My Old Man!

Escaping for Pastrami

An ongoing series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

POETRY

I Await

I've tasted the tongues of men

Taken their weight

Released their waste

Griselda Steiner

POETRY

In Memory of Peter Falk

I knew it was going to be a bad day

when I came down for breakfast

and found Lieutenant Columbo in my living room.

His feet were propped up on my coffee table

David Alpaugh

inPrint

IN THIS ISSUE

A poem-monologue version of Antigone.

instructions. Be vigilant for we are vigilante. Nothing more than obedience is asked of you.'

by Martin Burke

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 12th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6500 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::July 2011

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 11:20:02 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

VISIONS

Henri Matisse

Woody Allen

Ferzan Ozpetek

inView

Copy Rights and Epubs

It is more important to me to have my plays produced than it is to make money off them.

Michael Bettencourt

From Rome to Bangkok Italian Style

Only the Italians can do it... stage a glittering film festival in a sweltering, gridlocked city, in a mall (of all places) and do it with class, and style and even some dolce vita. It's called: Moviemov.

Arthur Meiselman

Savings

The irritation that I experience is that particularly one political party seems enthralled by only one notion – give more money to the truly rich, and everything will get better.

Nathan Thomas

The Last Gladiator in the New Rome

Evel Knievel has been called many things, but the word "artist" is a term not usually ascribed to him. Back in 2008, I went way out on a limb and wrote as much. Broadening the definition of art itself, I proclaimed Evel Knievel an artist.

Les Marcott

Who Are You

Something

goes 'boom' inside you

you are that thing

no effort on your part

transmission gratis

Claudine Jones

Rainbow

Looking to the west I see a perfect rainbow

Tucked under and lifting a symphony of cloud

The sun beams in lay-lines from its horizon

Martin Challis

reView

FILM (Reviews)

Midnight in Paris

Most recently Woody Allen's films have been dour variations on the theme of making one's own morality in a meaningless universe, which is why Midnight in Paris, his new comedy-fantasy, is such a delightful surprise.

Miles David Moore

FILM (Review)

Mine Vaganti

Ferzan Ozpetek is a photographer. All of his films reflect his photographic eye, his sense of image-flow timing, and his consummate skill to translate the vision in his mind onto film.

Arthur Meiselman

PAINTING

The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant-Garde

The art works the Steins boldly chose to collect and hang on the walls of their salons have now been gathered in a monumental exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). It is not just a major San Francisco art exhibition, it's the most ambitious exhibition SFMOMA has ever shown.

Renate Stendhal

THEATRE

Playwrights in Mind: A National Conference

What happens when playwrights and their collaborators get together? What the officers and staff the Dramatists Guild of America hoped for was that attendees would talk to each and that value would be added on all fronts.

Karren Alenier

inSight

The Steiny Road to Operadom

Taking the Edge Off

Lately the Steiny Road Poet has been escaping the harsh realities of Now by going to the movies.

Karren Alenier

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

In Ireland: At The Abbey

Sublime!

A lifelong dream to see a play at the Abbey Theatre was finally realized and it met my every expectation times a million.

Lia Beachy

Life Among the Heffalumps

Tripping Over the Ottoman: My Muse Stumbles Into Midnight In Paris

How do we make art now–when our time is so troubled? Are we current artists grossly inferior to the greats of the past?

Kathi Wolfe

Comics

My Old Man!

Big Time in Las Vegas

An ongoing series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist.

Elliot Feldman

Arts of Thailand

Ageless Beauty

Pra Chao Kaw Tue and Pra Nang Leo

Thousands of kilograms of scupted iron covered with gold.

Janine Yasovant

(Also in Thai)

Poetry

Mark the Winds

Would that my mind could reach the sky

And mark the winds like the clouds

Griselda Steiner

inPrint

IN THIS ISSUE

Into the Light

This play deals with the fascinating and enigmatic story of Edith Stein, a Jewish girl who became a respected "existential" scholar, assistant to the philosopher Husserl, and made the incredible journey into Catholicism and one of its most demanding disciplines, The Carmel. Caught up in the horror of the Holocaust, she was murdered at Auschwitz. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II which inspired an array of controversy that lingers today.

by Celine Nally

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 12th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6500 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::June 2011

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 05:07:16 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

"inView" Commentary

with

Claudine Jones, Michael Bettencourt,

Arthur Meiselman, Nathan Thomas and
Les Marcott

inView

Antoine's Beef/Luther's Hammer

Today,we have a theatre that diddles itself for the purpose of seating butts and has nothing to say of any importance about anything important.

Michael Bettencourt

Lingua Franca

STOP! You're speaking gibberish to me.

Arthur Meiselman

A Speech You Can Use

On your graduation day, better to learn how to make a delicious cookie than to hear empty blather. Or the truth.

Nathan Thomas

Driving the Kiddie Train

What he didn't survive was a rather indiscrete affair with one of the wives of a very important U.S. ally – a potentate of a strategic Middle Eastern kingdom whom he was supposed to protect.

Les Marcott

That Is Not What I Do

The definition of masturbation I read in my dad's old 1932 Webster's was not exactly current. I've made fun of that definition many times, but I truly absorbed the functional aspect just recently.

Claudine Jones

reView

FILM (Reviews)

Rubber

Source Code

Every Hollywood thriller these days seems to be a combination of several others, the only distinction being how well the director and writer at hand put together the spare parts.

Miles David Moore

MUSIC

VOX 2011

No matter what the economic wonks say about how the United States economy is improving, the abysmal financial situation in the arts is everywhere apparent.

Karren Alenier

WRITING

Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories

At the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco... with more surprises in store!

Renate Stendhal

MUSIC

The Plot Against My Favorite Leonard Cohen Song

The threat to destroy a great song for over 25 years.

David Alpaugh

THEATRE

SISTAH TRIBE - Let the Phoenix Rise

Audiences have called it "moving and powerful," "brave theater," "stirring, provocative, achingly-triumphant," "raw storytelling at its best".

Sheri Heller

inSight

Life Among the Heffalumps

Love—the Artist's 'Sleight of Hand'

Does Fran Leibowitz's writing block stem in part from her dissing of her audience?

Kathi Wolfe

Comics

My Old Man!

Alone with Veronica Lake

A new series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

Steiny Road to Operadom

Elena Ruehr's Cantata

This spring the Steiny Road Poet has had the occasion to enjoy the rich sound of large choral groups.

Karren Alenier

Arts of Thailand

Many pet dogs are under-socialized or not socialized at all and spoiled-rotten, with many behavior problems.

Janine Yasovant

(also in Thai)

Poetry

Wilderness Faces

Our own blue river

Lined with steel mountains

The tower carcasses

Strewn against the sky

Echo cries of human sorrow

Griselda Steiner

inPrint

IN THIS ISSUE

Anna Nicole: Blonde Glory

A Play by Grace Cavalieri

Derived from her book of poems, "Anna Nicole: Poems"

Premieres August 2011 at the "Dream Up Festival" in New York"

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 12th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6500 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::May 2011

Mon, 09 May 2011 09:37:42 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

THEATRE MAGIC

with

Derek Jacobi

Belarus Free Theatre

David Alpaugh

inView

The Magic of the Magic of Theatre

Directness, simplicity, honesty — those were there. But also how the performers invested the artifice with themselves and didn't just move around inside it. How they shaped the air with their words the way a painter reconfigures a canvas with paint.

Michael Bettencourt

Two To Remember

Lester Cole - He was a New York playwright, a prolific screenwriter during Hollywood's 'golden years' and Iris Chang - She was a diligent and perceptive historian who was also a gifted writer.

Arthur Meiselman

My Hero

For me, he seems to embody the best of both Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. Sir Derek has possession of breath-taking technical skills of speech and movement. His mind can take you through hair-pin turns of thought with extreme ease. And, like Sir Ralph, he has a glimpse of grandeur and other-worldliness that allows a

Cyrano and a Brother Cadfael.

Nathan Thomas

F E A R

Fear mongers have always been with us. They've been around as long as fish mongers and whore mongers. But Glenn Beck has taken fear to a level of irrationality and profitability heretofore unseen in modern times. He is certainly not the only fear monger, but arguably its chief purveyor. His success is built upon fear. He has a propensity for crying and wrapping himself up in the Constitution and has garnered a rabid and loyal following.

Les Marcott

Where'd It Go?

I know why I didn't get a chance to take piano lessons when I was a kid: we didn't have a piano. (My best friend Colleen did. In fact one time we dawdled walking home from school & she missed her lesson. Man, her mom was mad! I didn't stick around to watch the carnage.) Of course when it came to classroom stuff, I was wild about singing.

Claudine Jones

reView

FILM (Reviews)

Biutiful

Carancho

Win Win

...Having done wrong, how do you atone for it? Three recent films offer different visions of wrongdoing, at varying levels of magnitude, and reach different conclusions about the possibility of atonement

Miles David Moore

DANCE

Franz and the Real Girl

Balanchine's Coppélia

It is Balanchine's choreographic genius that makes Coppélia work its kind of magic. Recently restaged by the San Francisco Ballet, this is at once a traditional, three-act, full scale 19th century reconstruction and no ordinary story ballet.

Catherine Conway Honig

DANCE DRAMA

Walking On the Edge of Water

Not all of the theatrical jumping off place was infused with disaster. Embedded in the dance drama was the reflection on the necessity of clean fresh water. Life is fragile.

Ned Bobkoff

ARTS OF THAILAND

Jaroon Chaijit In Stone and Wood

I have to thank Thailand's Songkran festival which gave me a chance to meet Jaroon Chaijit, renowned in the Thai world of sculpted art . He creates both wood and stone carvings and continuously exhibits his contemporary art works.

Janine Yasovant

(Also in Thai)

inSight

Steiny Road to Operadom

Elena Ruehr's Cantata

This spring the Steiny Road Poet has had the occasion to enjoy the rich sound of large choral groups. This feast of many voices included the Heritage Signature Chorale (Washington, DC) which will be featured in Ysaye Barnwell's Fortune's Bones at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts early in 2012.

Karren Alenier

Life Among the Heffalumps

My Dinner In Hell: A Pompous Feast

I'm just back from my own funeral. I thought it would be deadly. But it was ALIVE! Compared to when I recently dined with the poet Prunella, the queen of pomposity and Jeremiah, the dull prince of prickliness. To tell about it will be the most boring story ever told. (I've changed the names to protect the innocent....er, the pompous.)

Kathi Wolfe

Comics

My Old Man!

The Art of Brotherly Love

A new series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

Poetry

Tel Aviv, Israel 2000

Prophets dream in the stratosphere

Where planes hide above the clouds

The Eldest's Daughter's voice

Louder than the engine's roar

Forgotten in the Holy Land

Griselda Steiner

inPrint

IN THIS ISSUE

The Cry of the North American Badger

Emotional, intellectual, and literary slavery—and

the exhilaration that comes from (rephrasing Robert Frost) a momentary

stay against convention.

A play by David Alpaugh

New Technology

Canon Pixma MX882

Wireless Inkjet

All-in-One Printer

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 12th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6000 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::March 2011

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 07:54:35 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

Nixon in China

The Opera

inView

Imagination and Identity

The assumption is that only women can really write about women, African Americans about African Americans, and so on, discounting (in fact, demonizing) any attempt by anyone "outside" to employ imagination as a tool for crossing boundaries because someone from the "outside," by definition, cannot be authentic and, therefore, cannot get it "right."

Michael Bettencourt

The Academy Awards

To many people, worldwide, the American Academy Awards is the most important and prestigious event of its kind. Important? No question… an Academy Award is worth a small fortune, before and after taxes. Prestigious? Define prestigious

Arthur Meiselman

The Isle Is Full of Noises

The Tempest provides many opportunities for music and movement. This month, a selection from a suite of incidental music for The Tempest.

Nathan Thomas

It's All Anna Nicole!

There has been a court trial involving a domestic partner and a physician. There have been magazine and newspaper articles written about her. An opera has debuted in London inspired by her life. And all of this has transpired just in the last several weeks. We must remember, Anna Nicole Smith died in 2007 but her hold on the public imagination has not diminished. It's all Anna Nicole all the time. And that's just as she would have wanted

Les Marcott

Rainy Day

It seems that in order to get past this, I'm going to have to face another demon. Why did I suddenly stop desiring to sing? I used to just open my mouth & out it came. The technique could use some work, but the desire was always simple. No longer. If that is a question with no answer, so be it.

Claudine Jones

reView

Film (Reviews)

The Fighter

Blue Valentine

True Grit

...based on a true story, The Fighter represents an extreme version of the working-class experience, and it has some interesting things to say about the hearts that beat under rough, even threatening exteriors.

Miles David Moore

Opera

Nixon in China

John Adams' first opera Nixon in China, an engaging four-hour work at the Metropolitan Opera where the composer led the orchestra and baritone James Maddalena sang Nixon, a role he developed in the opera's 1987 Houston Grand Opera premiere.

Karren Alenier

Music (Book Review)

Feast for the Senses

Brings to mind the Renaissance: A Medici prince, let's say, with a vision and a train of musicians moves from castle to castle, feast to feast, meeting and inviting along artists and artisans..

Renate Stendhal

Arts of Thailand

Somdej Ya

'A Woman of History'

It was not easy for a common Thai woman to marry a Thai prince. The man who fell in love with her was a first year student at Harvard medical school. That man was the son of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V).

Janine Yasovant

(also in Thai)

inSight

Steiny Road to Operadom

A Trinity of Influence

Gertrude Stein, Paul Bowles and Allen Ginsburg,

how connected and antithetical these writers are.

Karren Alenier

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

A Work of Fiction

She will have some be a force that will keep national security our number one priority. She will show the average man and woman that we have not abandoned them and that success is possible if they continue to sacrifice and work hard. She will tell them how they will be saved.

Lia Beachy

Life Among the Heffalumps

The Eew Of You: Bio - Why-O?

I'm happy to reveal that I'm a slob; I love being campy; but hate camping in tents in the woods; vegetables and I struggle to be friends; I procrastinate doing things I don't like; I talk too much; I repeat myself; I'm never as empathetic as I should be; and just last week I ate two babies for lunch (kidding).

Kathi Wolfe

Comics

My Old Man - On the Loose!

A new series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

Theatre of Russia

Anna Yablonskaya

Terra Incognita

On 24 January 2011 Anna Yablonskaya was killed by a bomb blast in the "Domodedovo" Moscow airport.

Grigor Atanesyan

Poetry

White Wolf

Deep in the arctic snows

She waits for me

Great White

Griselda Steiner

inPrint

IN THIS ISSUE

The Sticker Tree

Originally titled "Best of Friends", the play received four productions on two coasts in the 1970's, 80's and a national theater award from La Pensee Theater, Seattle.

by Grace Cavalieri

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Life In Acting-Martin Challis

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 11th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6000 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::February 2011

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:39:25 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

Swans of a Feather

Film -The King's Speech

Dance (Film) - Black Swan

Music - Marin Alsop & the Droids

inView

Untouched

When Muppet-creator Jim Henson died in 1990, his wife Jane was asked to relate a memorable moment about him. She chose to tell a story about a family trip to Italy and a visit to the Sistine Chapel. As they all looked at Michelangelo's work, Henson said to his assembled clan, "Only a hack would have had the fingers touch."

Michael Bettencourt

Kubrick Remembered redux

As each year goes by, more and more people realize what film artists have known since the 1960's... he was and remains singular among the handful of unique filmmakers in the 20th century. As one director mused: "I look at the history of cinema and I see it divided into 'before Kubrick' and 'after Kubrick'."

Arthur Meiselman

Spinach

This year marks my 30th anniversary in my little corner of the professional theatre game. One of the features of my starting out was an on-going discussion about that fundamental concept – the intention. Or was it your motivation? Or your goal? Or your objective?

Or was it . . . .? Wait, it's your. . . uhmmm. . . . .

Nathan Thomas

The Game

I feel sorry for today's sports writers, especially those covering the pro football beat. Increasingly with each passing season, their writing has very little to do with the game itself. Because my friends, the game itself has very little in common with the game I and others of my age grew up watching in the 70's and 80's.

Les Marcott

Kitty Mommy

Talking through current mish-mash on child-rearing relentless parental repercussions over transitory items like pee and poop.

Claudine Jones

Ellen Stewart

Ellen Stewart (La Mama ETC), a remarkable human being, whose creative vision encompassed continents, has passed away. She was highly supportive of my efforts in the theater, as she was for everyone else with dreams and ambitions.pervasive, legendary & viral.

Ned Bobokoff

reView

Film

The King's Speech

...is to savor the delights of a solid, perfectly calibrated movie in which, like a meticulously run royal household, everything is exactly as it should be.

Miles David Moore

Dance (Film Review)

Black Swan

...of psychological and stylish coherence, making me think of certain works by Polanski and Cronenberg.

Renate Stendhal

Dance (Film Review)

Black Swan

...veers off into a silly melodramatic psychodrama

Catherine Conway Honig

Music

Marin Alsop & the Droids

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra takes on John Williams' Star Wars Suite and Phillip Glass' Icarus at the Edge of Time

Karren Alenier

Arts of Thailand

A Simply Beautiful Project

An easy and rewarding opportunity for local artists and artists all over Thailand to meet and cooperate.

Janine Yasovant

(Also in Thai)

Theatre of Russia

The Audience Must Work!

Interview with Dmitry Volkostrelov

Grigor Atanesyan

inSight

Steiny Road to Operadom

A Trinity of Influence

Gertrude Stein, Paul Bowles and Allen Ginsburg,

how connected and antithetical these writers are.

Karren Alenier

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

The Thrill of It All

What is more romantic or more sexy than a really good orgasm? All a gal really wants is equal pay for equal work... to have an orgasm every single time she has sex too. Multiple would be even better. And that orgasm requires work and effort and skill and most of the time isn't found at the end of a penis.

Lia Beachy

Life Among the Heffalumps

Art and Civility: Sensitivity or Overkill?

I don't have any bombshells up my sleeve; but if this column is absolutely fabulous it will knock you out!

Kathi Wolfe

Comics

My Old Man!

The first installment of a new series by Scene4's resident mad cartoonist

Elliot Feldman

Theatre

Baku Impressions

The conference, in short, was a gamble on the part of Azerbaijan authorities to make a good impression through the arts; and it did. We were treated with infinite hospitality.

Ned Bobkoff

Poetry

The Old Barn

Poem #3 of Earth Poems Trio

Interpreted from Inuit Legend

Griselda Steiner

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Life In Acting-Martin Challis

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

A BRIEF BUT QUIRKY HISTORY of the ARTS

January 2011

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 11th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6000 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::Special Issue::January 2011

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 00:59:21 +0000

In This Issue

Art and Politics
the history of a relationship
Throughout human history, there have been two constants: the need to create art,
and the need to create history. And just as constant has been the need of those
who create the latter to solicit the total and unquestioning support of those
who create the former.
Miles David Moore

From Shakespeare to Oklahoma
a history of byways
Julie Taymor's new film of The Tempest is a "re-imagining" of Shakespeare's last
play. Well, that was what the announcer on the radio said. And this is where
theatre history wakens the crank in me. First, all plays are re-imagined with
every production.
Nathan Thomas

Ballet
dancing with history
Catherine de Medici's sons, Charles IX and Henri III, shared her enthusiasm for
the allegorical performances and ceremonial processions that originated in Italy
and depicted ideas from Catholicism and chivalry. In spite of the brutality of
16th century France before, during and after the reign of Charles IX, he founded
the Acadé ies de Poésie et de Musique. His motives were not purely aesthetic,
however.
Catherine Conway Honig

Luang Pho Sila
From the past to the present, Luang Pho Sila is a sacred Buddha statue which is
venerated by the residents of Muang Thungsaliem in Sukhothai province. It has a
long, mysterious history. It is assumed that the statue is over 800 years old
and was discovered in 1929 by villagers who gathered the bat excrements from the
Chao Ram cave. In the same year, the statue was transferred to Wat Thungsaliem
temple. In 1986, it was stolen.
Janine Yasovant

Paul Bowles
a rebellious history
Paul Bowles lived most of the years of the 20th century and was certainly a
product of the Jazz Age, which he contributed to with his musical compositions
and in the way he lived his life as a rebellious American who moved outside the
norms established by the white middle class.
Karren Alenier

One Who Falls Off Horses
There's a telling moment in the acclaimed 2009 documentary Reel Injun, in which
an elderly Navaho gentleman watches an old clip of himself falling off a horse
in an old John Ford western. He laughs it off, but in that instant you get a
sense of how Hollywood for decades portrayed the Native American.
Les Marcott

Penelope and the Darkling
A new year in a new decade always has me looking back at my own personal history
and what inspired me to fashion a lifestyle of creativity. A lifestyle so full
of uncertainties. It begins with my parents, of course, both artists who exposed
their children to music, art, dance, theatre, literature, architecture and just
about anything that was about the beauty and the emotion of it and not just the
bottom line dollar. But my passion had its true birth in books.
Lia Beachy

An All Too Brief But Absolutely Divine History of Me
Hi, I'm God. I'm crazed. With wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, censorship (the
Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery removing a video from its "Hide/Seek:
Difference and Desire in American Portraiture" exhibit), sickness, envy, and
recovering from my New Year's festivities, I barely have a chance to breathe.
But, though I'm the Perfect Being, I'm not free of ego.
Kathi Wolfe

Immortal Diva
as old as a quirk
Our historical era has a love affair with the undead. Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer
& Co, True Blood, Let the Right One In, I Dracula... the list goes on. Wishful
fantasy of a quickly aging society? No wonder an opera about an undead woman -
The Makropulos Case - is hip right now.
Renate Stendhal

A Brief History of Writing and By Design
Log shards under
maul's blow
(I feel the edge
split my skull,)
until rhythm and steel and
sharp tang of riven oak
(gnaw occiput, cleave atlas,
banish pelvis until)
Michael Bettencourt

From These Roots
Soon after JJB arrived he began reacting to the music around our house. One of
his all time favorites was a tiny Spanish maraca given to himca. 3 months old,
lying in the sun on the deck, by the little girls next door. Winding the
pendulum clock ('Bong!') in the kitchen was a very early prerequisite to
starting our day.
Claudine Jones

From Desperate to Real
Since I wrote a review of the film "Dairy of A Mad Housewife" in 1970, when
political feminism was beginning to flourish, women in America have achieved
great lifestyle freedoms, legal protection and career opportunities, but one
choice many women still invest in is marriage. While the demands of this
domestic position have changed in the past 40 years, especially the need for
most women to work, the dilemmas of long-term commitment, fidelity and child
rearing remain the same.
Griselda Steiner

Just Another Day at the Brooklyn Home for Retired Art
Elliot Feldman

Other Special Issues
THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS
January 2010
THE ONE
January 2009
WHAT IS ART?
January 2008
VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007
January 2007
THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS
February 2006
STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS
October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 11th year of publication with
comprehensive archives of over 6000 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media
6920 Roosevelt Way NE
Seattle, WA 98115 USA
+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::December 2010

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 06:22:03 +0000

COMING NEXT MONTH!

SPECIAL ISSUE

"A Brief But Quirky

History of the Arts"

In This Issue

inFocus

Delusion Ex Machina

Film -The Social Network

Performance - Laurie Anderson

Opera - The RIng Machine

inView

Theatre

Michael Bettencourt

The Nature of Human Nature

I wish my fellow playwrights would expand their thinking about what constitutes the human nature structuring both their characters and the narrative demands of the plays they are writing.

Perceptions

Arthur Meiselman

The Loss of Silence / Eat... and Be Happy

This, then, is the holiday season that closes the first decade of the 21st century. It is also the 100th anniversary of one of the most glorious years in Western history, 1910—a year of exciting promise, breathtaking art, panoramic smiles. 2010 is not like that.

Theatre

Nathan Thomas

By the Numbers

More than 42 million tickets were sold to people to see professional theatre of some kind in the 2008-09 season. That's a few tickets. That's more tickets than people bought to see professional basketball and football combined.

History

Les Marcott

The Things You Leave Behind

Your eyes are drawn to toys along the curb – most in usable condition. Clothes piled into garbage bags – most still in fashion. Lawn chairs still in place. Then your attention is turned toward the house and a front door that is wide open.

Media

Claudine Jones

Fingers & Toes

It's pervasive, legendary & viral. The internet seems to be the first resource—'why don't you just google it?'—for a quick education. So naturally, when I was thinking about doing a piece on Glenn Close vs Meryl Streep, I knew I hadda make my choice: old school or IMDB

reView

FILM (Reviews)

The Ruling Class

The Social Network

and

Inside Job

Miles David Moore

OPERA

The RING Machine

Wagner's Rheingold

at the Met

Renate Stendhal

PERFORMANCE ART

Delusion

Laurie Anderson in performance

Karren Alenier

ARTS OF THAILAND

The Artistic Spirit of Elephants

Jakraphan Chaijit - Elephants in Art and Art in Elephants

Janine Yasovant

คลิกเพื่ออ่านบทความนี้ เป็นภาษาไทย

inSight

BOOKS

Steiny Road to Operadom

19th Century American Writers on Writing

How they inform the work of Gertrude Stein and current day writers.

Karren Alenier

CINEMA

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

Adventures in Roma: Take 2

I was in Rome last month, attending the International Rome Film Festival, and five days into the festivities I took a quick dive down a set of smooth marble stairs.

Lia Beachy

PLEASURES

Life Among the Heffalumps

10 Things to Do Before You Die or During the Holidays

It's that time again. Angels get their wings, sugar plum fairies dance

and you slink under the table.

Kathi Wolfe

COMICS

Old Hippy

Methuselah Jones Rises

Elliot Feldman

plus

Old Hippy

...and Not!

Elliot Feldman

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Life In Acting-Martin Challis

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 11th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6000 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::November 2010

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 06:19:31 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

Men with Guns

The American ~ The Town ~ Animal Kingdom

plus

Cinema - Buongiorno, Roma! First night at the Rome Film Festival

Arts of Thailand - "The Lost City of Wieng Kumkam"

and

Elliot Feldman's The Unrequited Love of My Life

inView

Theatre

Michael Bettencourt

Exposing Exposition

One of the pay-offs of doing a goodly amount of reviewing lately has been the opportunity to see my craft from a different angle — to look under the hood, so to speak, and watch the machinery whirl away.

Urbanity

Arthur Meiselman

Visage

I live in an ugly country—not the latent, panoramic beauty of America's countryside— rather it's cities and towns. Unlike many places in Europe or Asia, American cities, for the most part, have no center.

Theatre

Nathan Thomas

Growing Pains

I am simply telling the truth that acting is hard. It takes courage. There aren't really short cuts. And that this appears to be the case isn't bad. Easy isn't always good.

Media

Les Marcott

One Man and His Sling Blade

Is someone who uses a top of the line, gas guzzling, multi horsepower, carbon fume emitting riding lawn mower on a lawn the size of a postage stamp utilizing appropriate technology? I think not.

Holidays

Claudine Jones

Tattered

I've helped my oldest son make a Halloween costume on oh-so-many occasions over the years; each successive year it has become more & more of a production. He always has a 'concept'. One year it included contacts that turned his eyes into a lizard's.

reView

FILM (Reviews)

Men with Guns

The American

The Town

Animal Kingdom

Miles David Moore

OPERA

Not exactly Paradise

San Francisco Opera's Werther

Renate Stendhal

ARTS OF THAILAND

History

The Lost City of Wieng Kumkam

Janine Yasovant

คลิกเพื่ออ่านบทความนี้ เป็นภาษาไทย

inSight

WRITING

The Steiny Road to Operadom

Paul Bowles and Me

It's an accessibly published fact that the Steiny Road Poet spent three weeks in Tangier with Paul Bowles in the late summer of 1982.

Karren Alenier

CINEMA

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

Buongiorno, Roma! First night at the Rome Film Festival

I happen to be in Rome for the 5th annual International Rome Film Festival and the event is a somewhat privileged segue way into the cradle of Western civilization.

Lia Beachy

MEDIA

Life Among the Heffalumps

Oh, Those Pearls!: Barbara Billingsley, in memoriam

I'm just weary of snarky, screaming, smug progressives as well as of Mean Girls, manning up and Mamma Grizzlies.

Kathi Wolfe

POETRY

the second sun

Griselda Steiner

COMICS

Old Hippy

The Unrequited Love of My Life

Elliot Feldman

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Life In Acting-Martin Challis

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 11th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6000 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4::International Magazine of Arts and Media::October 2010

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 23:11:31 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

Hysterics and the Vibrator

Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play

plus

Film - Get Low and I Am Love

Dance - from swan to phoenix in "Cuban Ballet"

Arts of Thailand - "of Salads and Kings"

and

Elliot Feldman's Inheritance

inView

Perceptions

Michael Bettencourt

Existential Eeyore: Part 2

Part 2: The prompt for this essay and the previous one comes from my having been told at various times by various people that I have an Eeyore strain, meaning (I think) that I am a glass-half-empty person.

Life

Arthur Meiselman

Shadows-2

How could you possibly love someone else's life more than your own? The open heart of your own life lying in someone else's hands, helpless, beating, unafraid. How is that possible?

Theatre

Nathan Thomas

Art vs. Commerce

A person buys a ticket to a show. Well, what is being bought exactly? What is being sold? Is the show art? Can art be sold? Can even the possibility of art be sold?

Media

Les Marcott

Setting the Captives Free?

Recently while listening to Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison I began to wonder whatever became of Glen Sherley. Who was Glen Sherley you might ask.

Living

Claudine Jones

Parallel Parking

is anything

really still at the wellspring

or now skimming the surface

reView

Film (Reviews)

A Study in Contrasts

Get Low and I Am Love

Miles David Moore

Dance (Book)

From Swan to Phoenix

Octavio Roca's candid revelations

in his new book Cuban Ballet

Renate Stendhal

Arts of Thailand

Of Salads and Kings

The Royal Project grows vegetables and salad is becoming a Thai 'thing'.

Janine Yasovant

(also in Thai)

คลิกเพื่ออ่านบทความนี้ เป็นภาษาไทย

Fashion in Poetry

Dressed in Gertrude Stein

Katrina Rodabough's The Dresses/Objects Project

Renate Stendhal

inSight

Theater

The Steiny Road to Operadom

Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play

Where is the vibrator being applied? Let's say, in keeping with the euphemisms of the play and its historic timeframe, to private parts.

Karren Alenier

Media

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

Vampires, Humans and God, Oh My!

Have you noticed how pop culture in the last ten years has been flooded with novels, comic books, TV shows and films that are dedicated to vampires?

Lia Beachy

Writing

Life Among the Heffalumps

I'm Going To Be A Writer After All

Sometimes, I wish I could tell you that I became a writer

to make the world a better place or that I picked up my pen after reading the collected works of Shakespeare.

Kathi Wolfe

Comics

Old Hippy

The Inheritance

Elliot Feldman

Poetry

On A Rainy Day

Five Poems by Changming Yuan

inPrint

Pincrest Rest Haven

A play by Grace Cavalieri

In the Pinecrest Rest Haven Mr. and Mrs. P no longer remember they're married and they fall in love (and hate) again and again. Pinecrest has all the feelings of grand opera. Its residents have all the greed, betrayal lust they ever had when young! The play was inspired by Cavalieri's book of poems by that same name.

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Life In Acting-Martin Challis

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 11th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6000 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.425.298.5119

Scene4 :: International Magazine of Arts and Media :: September 2010

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:34:58 +0000

In This Issue

inFocus

Images from the Fringe

Photos by Kfir Bolotin

plus

Film - Inception

Opera - from Santa Fe

and

Ruthie the Menace

inView

Perceptions

Michael Bettencourt

Existential Eeyore: Part 1

The prompt for this essay and the next one comes from my having been told at various times by various people that I have an Eeyore strain, meaning (I think) that I am a glass-half-empty person.

Life

Arthur Meiselman

Shadows

The days are made of light: bright and dark, black and white, blue and yellow. Days roll into days, a luxury that allows me to wander at will, along a cliff, often among the cracks and tiny caves of the hillside.

Theatre

Nathan Thomas

Art vs. Commerce

A person buys a ticket to a show. Well, what is being bought exactly? What is being sold? Is the show art? Can art be sold? Can even the possibility of art be sold?

Media

Les Marcott

Book 'em Danno!

I recently learned of the remaking of two classic and iconic television shows of the 70's – Hawaii Five-O and The Rockford Files. This revelation was met by angst and dismay by more than a few people (me included).

Theatre

Claudine Jones

Gender Bent

I've been gleefully following the recent Superior Court decision in regard to the overturning of California's notorious Proposition 8—in my opinion, & thankfully the Court's, a piece of unmitigated gainsaying in the face of common sense.

reView

Film (Review)

A Trick of the Mind

Inception

Miles David Moore

Performance

Images at the Fringe Edinburgh 2010

Kfir Bolotin

Opera

Life Is A Dream

at Santa Fe Opera

Karren Alenier

Arts of Thailand

The Sacred Beauty of

Wat Chet Yod

Janine Yasovant

คลิกเพื่ออ่านบทความนี้ เป็นภาษาไทย

(also in Thai)

OPERA

Outplaying the Met

Tales of Hoffman

at Santa Fe Opera

Renate Stendhal

(also in Thai)

inSight

Chamber Opera

The Steiny Road to Operadom

Albert Herring

In a period of less than a year and a half, the Steiny Road Poet has developed an ever-growing taste for the operas of Benjamin Britten.

Karren Alenier

Media

La Femme La Mujer La Donna

Label America: Broken

I don't know what my label should be. Labels are what make so many of us comfortable with ourselves since it helps define the world we live in.

Lia Beachy

Poetry

Life Among the Heffalumps

Martini Laughter

If I ever wore a "little black dress (LBD)," ordered a martini, smoked a cigarette or hosted a cocktail party, my nearest and dearest would call 911.

Kathi Wolfe

Comics

Old Hippy

Ruthie the Menace

Elliot Feldman

Poetry

Cathedrals and Caves

shamanic journey

with aboriginal elder

Griselda Steiner

Scene4 Blogs

Letters to the Editor

Qreviews

Qué Pasa

Writers Blogs

The Dressing-Karren Alenier

On Miles David Moore-Miles David Moore

Life In Acting-Martin Challis

Dr. Barnabas T. Bynum's New School

Musical Revue and Travelling

Minstrel Show-Les Marcott

Thai Nights-Arthur Meiselman

Special Issues

THE RISING FALL OF THE ARTS

January 2010

THE ONE

January 2009

WHAT IS ART?

January 2008

VIEW OF THE ARTS/2007

January 2007

THE ART OF SEX IN THE ARTS

February 2006

STATE OF THE ART OF THE ARTS

October 2005

All at www.scene4.com

Now in our 11th year of publication with

comprehensive archives of over 6000 pages

Scene4 Magazine - Arts and Media

6920 Roosevelt Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115 USA

+1.424.298.5119