The Shalimar proudly (re)presents "stirring" March 16th, 17th, 18 and March 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 25th AT the InterArt Annex.

Shalimar is (re)throwing up one of our most popular pieces “stirring”! “stirring” is a modern-day Pygmalion tale inspired by real life personal ads, blogs and emails and tells a bittersweet and funny story of 7 New York hipsters navigating the line between fantasy, lust, love, hope and reality.


ON March 17th, 23rd and 24th: Please Join Us for a Night of Hipster Speed Dating after the Show !!

Even though it's snowing Spring is just around the corner and we're in the mood for love! Leave your laptop behind and come out and speed date. Watch our show, have a few Brooklyn Brewery Beers (on us!), and then get ready to get to know the rest of the audience. The next day you might NOT be going to brunch alone...

March 17th & 24th: Straight Speed dating.
March 23d: Gay Speed dating (cause this ain't the middle ages).


FOR $ 20 you get A SHOW, 2 DRINKS AND a Chance to meet the LOVE OF YOUR LIFE or at least meet some really cool activity partners.

What I did This Summer

(The Theater at Round Lake which looks a lot like a set piece from "Our Town").

My Summer Begins Now!

I start working on a one-person show (scary! exciting! terrifiying!)this week... Did I mention scary?! Also doing a reading and helping my friends, Barbara and Bondo kick of the inaugural season of their theater, Round Arts in Round Lake, NY.

Mo' Info here: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~roundarts/id4.html

Some Thoughts on the Artist and Money (and what exactly one has to do with the other)

It's been a dramatic year thus far for me: I fell in love (albeit briefly, if truly, madly, deeply). I was dissappointed by love (was it love or just the appearance of it and was I subsequently more in love with the rejection of love? If I went to a shrink - I don't because I think they encourage an obsession with the "self" and tend to just perpetuate one's own narcissicsm and god knows we have enough of that in the culture already - I might explore my love of the unlovable instead I just blog about it to total strangers). But I quickly fell out of love though it's effects have lingered on...

I also had my first glimpse into the mortality of my parents: my father had a brush with his heart and I, in turn, had to deal with the reality of time and the cycle of life (?) in a way that was not just an excersise in abstract thinking about "when" and "what if"... I am getting older, the life experiences are starting to add up: the joys of my life grow as does my gratitude of being alive but so does my horror of just how brutal life is (I've been reading the articles on the Hadatha massacre which give new meaning to the not-so -banality of evil and makes one shudder for the deep wellspring of outright cruelty and savagery human beings are all too capable of that, in extension, I am capable of...right?).

In the past year, I have worked harder and longer and more consistently than I have, probably, since my first year out of college - 2 jobs, 7 days a week type of thing. And, despite a grinding schedule (a grinding schedule of my own choosing so I am not complaining) I have continued to try to nurture my artistic life, like so many of my friends - my peers who have, like me, foregone the lure of the (now dissappearing) middle class American life and decided to pursue an artist's life in the biggest of big cities. We hope that one day we will be able to fondly look back at our days slinging hash just to be able to rehearse in parking garages, begging and stealing and borrowing to make our theater, write our novel, paint, bang on the can, what have you. But, my question is what if we can't? Does creativity stop when it becomes apparent at some point that the money isn't going to come in? And, when did we start believing that artistic legitimacy was qualified by the amount we got paid for it?

In the midst of these life changes (?) or are they life realizations (?) I am more committed now than ever to being an artist, an artist-citizen. Despite my new-found commitment I refuse to buy (and buy is the right word to use for this) into the notion that my artistic life is quantifiable by how much I get paid for it. Would I like to make money eventually and work solely as an artist? Hell yes and I hold out the hope that I will! But I don't think Bruce Willis is a more legitimate artist or Matthew Barney for that matter because their coffers are loaded with greater stock options than mine. The full-time artist is a relatively new phenemeneon in history, and, yes, I am fully aware that the Medeci's sponsored more than their fair share of the greats and that Leonardo didn't do much else but paint but history ( museums and Shakespeare's folios) is litterred with the works of people who toiled and gleaned by day only to create in their spare moments (and remember leisure time is a relatively new development).

Finally, I think you create because you have to, because it's a relief and it's mysterious and, yes, I have to say it, it's transcendent and you do it because it gives you some measure of control over what you see in the world. You'd do it, I do it, for free, I do it because I love it, I do it for reasons that can never be broken down into check-form.

All that being said: I look forward to giving up the day job.

Tom Cruise as a Metaphor for America

Tom Cruise has fallen off his perch, the Midas of Motion Pictures, the ace in a fly-boy suit, the original "Top Gun", the Hollywood Jet-Fighter: on-screen and off who always seemed to be able to hit his target especially if it was the box-office has come careening off his celluloid throne. Undone by none other than Tom Cruise, apparently. It would seem that Tom Cruise bought the line that unless your life is being recorded it's not worth living (hence the endless forays to Oprah's white couch, shot after shot of Tom in a crowd, Tom in Germany, Tom in Manhattan, Tom, Tom, Tom at Tom's premiere and yet another one of Tom at Tom's premiere with his zombiefied Katie doll supernaturally glued to his side, legs akimbo, eyes wide and blankly open, the ultimate Stepford wife).

What set off the anti-Tom rebellion? His bizarre promotional blitz of his love affair with a teenage acting Katie Holmes revealed a certain kind of creepiness that everyone suspected was there - the blind allegence to all things Scientology, no sensible person would honestly follow the dicates of L.Ron Hubbard, and the whispers of Tom's homosexuality which are too frequently debated to not believe, on some level, must be true. Once the cracks became visible on Tom's carefully contructed shinier-than-thou persona - there was no going back. Even the audience as it watched yet another preview for Mission Impossible Three, as Tom speedboats, gets blown up, recovers only to get blown up again, and Philip Seymour Hoffman's beady eyes glistened with hambone delight at being a good actor playing the ultimate bad guy, to shots of Tom as he heartily kissed his love interest, a brunette that didn't look entirely dissimiliar from Ms. Holmes, despite the onslaught of images edited around one overriding concept (to make Tom's character, Ethan Hunt, but really just Tom look like the ultimate multi-national hero) you could still sense that the movie-going public didn't buy it - instead the prevailing sentiment of viewers seemed to be "I think that guy's kind of a wierdo now."

Tom seemed all powerful not to long ago like America itself; it seemed as if the man and the nation could do no wrong, bouncing back from every conceivable set-back with a bigger movie (last summer it was a Spielberg flick for which he got paid $100 million dollars) and a better photo-op. The problem is the audience can no longer be convinced to just sit back, in the dark, and escape into his invincible grin, the kilo-watt smile has taken on a faustian quality and it is almost possible to believe Tom signed on the dotted line long ago.

Eventually, the devil comes to claim his debt and to think otherwise is just... a mission impossible.

An Urbanite's Lament or an Extremely Pretentious Wish List.

1. I wish I had time to read the great books.

2. I wish I had time to read Moby Dick.

3. I wish I had time to read Ulysses.

4. I wish I had time to take a class that explained Ulysses to me.

5. I wish I had the time and money to take a spanish, french, italian and portugeuse class.

6. I wish I had the money and time to travel to spain, france, italy and brazil.

7. I wish I could go to the Frick everyday.

8. I wish New York wasn't turning into an urban mall.

9. I wish money didn't rule and wasn't a deciding factor on how one lives one's life.

10.I wish religion would dissappear.

11.I wish religious fundamentalist would dissappear with it.

12.I wish women were allowed to grow old without feeling the need to turn their faces into frozen t.v. dinners.

13.I wish I didn't feel the need to impress.

14.I wish there was no stock market.

15.I wish we weren't turning the planet into a giant fishkills landfill.

16.I wish "the fairness" doctrine were still in place.

17.I wish the Heritage Institute would crumble.

18.I wish talent were the deciding factor.

19.I wish celebrities would stop using the African continient as a photo-op.

20. I wish I had more time to blog.

The Beat My Heart Skipped.

1.

Last week I worked a catering job. My first. It took place at Halston's (the famous coke-snorting, Studio 54 dwelling designer from the 1970's) old house. His former home is a black Chrome box which looks an awful lot like a fortress on East 63rd Street and it is sandwiched improbably between stately looking brownstones. The inside of Halston's old digs are a throwback to 70's hedonism all straight lines and plush surfaces that speak to nights without end and walking through it with it's pictures of Liza splayed out on the floor and Andy holding court in the living room one couldn't help but think "if only these walls could talk". The house had been rented out for a corporate event, the new owners apparently want to make a little money off of living in this historic (?) home. The thinking in this must be since it was once a destination point for Manhattan's glitteratti why shouldn't it be again?

This particular party was to, no joke, promote luxury leathers made out of horse and the entire catering staff was dressed up in equasterian garb - jodhupers, straight-legged black boots, crisp white shirts. We were told to be "loose", "to flirt," to, in the words of the German ex-patriot and former supermodel hostess purring instructions, "to have fun, ganou?" and to "work our zuper sex appeal". The crowd I was serving cosmos to (or rather "pink martinis" as I was instructed to say because cosmos, as everyone who is anyone who reads any publication put out by Conde Nast knows, are hopelessly "over") was much more staid than the crowd of folks who wiled away the hours in Halston's house in the 70's. The only white powder I saw was the salt in the kitchen being sprinkled over the seared asparagus that was being cut up and served as an hors d'oeurve.

Still the money for grinning in too tight horse-riding pants whilst making sure that everyone got a slice of lemon in their Pelligrino was good, nay, it was great. Two hundred dollars for pouring and stirring while serving conquetishly ain't bad and I left the evening with my friend, Nate feeling flush. Almost immeaditely I started an internal debate on if I should spend this money on a long desired i-pod or if I should tuck it into the bank for my most recent travel dream of going to Peru sometime in the next year on a South American jaunt or if I should use it to pay for a check-up which, being uninsured, I haven't had in a long time. Momentarily interrupting my money fantasy to check my cellphone (because it had been several hours and who know who could have called!) I got a rather vague but anxious sounding phone call from my mother telling me to call her. I knew something odd was happenning because there are only certain days in which she calls usually the end of the week and the beginning of the week, rarely the middle of the week. It was late but the call made me nervous and I knew my anxiety over why she was breaking with habit and calling me on a Wednesday rather than our usual Monday or Friday would bother me all night so I decided to call right away. She picked up after the first couple of rings. My father was in the hospital.

2.

Immeaditely upon hearing the words "chest pain" and "hospital" and "heart surgery" my own heart starts to beat with the fury of, yes, ten thousand horses (it was, afterall, an equesterian themed evening) and I try not to panic or immeaditely succumb to my own theatrically-trained (over)dramatic nature. Instead I ask a flurry of questions in what I think is a very calm and measured voice which my mother tries to answer back in her own calm, measured, voice. My father is an older man and though I am not overly morbid I am also not deluded and the older I have gotten I have had thoughts (that, admittedly, come with increasing frequency) that there might be a day when... well, you know what the end of that thought is, right? That there might be a day when he will not be with me and I will have to face the realities of life's terrors (Hamlet called 'em "slings and arrows") without him. And, yes, that terrifies me but I also tend not to dwell and, generally, don't like to project into the future (mine or anyone else's the exception being George W. Bush who I often imagine leaving office to protests and rioting). Too much crytal-ball gazing about one's own life in my experience either results in a pity party (starring yourself) or a romantic comedy (starring yourself). As my brother wisely told me, "try and live in the present as much as possible because there is only one absolute certaintity about the future: death."

3.

My father had the presence of mind to realize that something odd was happening to his heart and that it wasn't just idigestion from an especially flavorful meal the night before. My mother, ever the optomist, thought it was just a case of heartburn but my father realized something was awry and went to the hospital. He was right and though he did not have a heart attack he was definitely headed in that direction so, two days later the surgeon cut open his chest and worked on replacing the valves in his heart - he had a quadruple bypass surgery. I, because of work and travel, did not make it home and the day he had the surgery was one of the most nervous and humbling of my life so far. Bypass surgery is increasingly common, in fact, when I told my friends of my familial news almost everyone had an anecdote about some aunt or grandfather that had had multiple bypasses and was "still kickin." Whether or not Auntie or Grandpa did actually get quadruple bypass surgery or my friends were just telling me so to put my mind at ease I do not know. Nonetheless, I was comforted by the thought that every family has to deal with major heart surgery. The hours my father lay in the operating room, I tried to distract myself from thinking, about really contemplating, that there was a remote chance that I might not see him ever...again.

4.

I don't really think about death too often perhaps because up until this point I have not had to face too much of it in my own life. Of course I have known people who have died but they have either been aquintances or distant relatives. It's odd to realize that other than the occassional philosophical pondering of "the great mystery of the universe" i.e. "what the fuck am I doing here?" or reading about deaths so great you cannot help be struck by the utter senselessness of tragedy, I don't think about death that often. Does anyone other than tenured philosophy professors and priests? It's odd to realize that you have gone through your life thus far relatively untouched by life's only certaintity. Is this just unique to me? Or is it common in a culture that obscures and ignores and, frankly, reviles mortality and it's bedfellow - aging? I once read about a student who studied under Margaret Mead and said that before his first anthropoligical expedition she asked him if he had ever witnessed a child being born or if he had ever seen another person die? He said no and she said of course not because in western culture both events are hidden from us, and, condsidered, ironically, wholly unnatural.

5.

My father is recovering. I am greatly relieved at this news and his progress is steady. My mother tells me he is very weak, sleeping a great deal, has no apetite except, oddly enough, for milk. Apparently, he asked her for some ice-cream. It is difficult for me to hear these details and bluntly put, it scares me to think of my father being infantilized. Especially when I still feel like such a child myself. I think about this when I take the "L" train to Never-never land, my tragically hip neighborhood in Brooklyn, and watch all the lost boys and girls sulk and pose. Each one more beatiful than the next, their oufits, their i-pods, their haircuts, a testament to their purchase power and agonizingly cool tastes. I study them and think of my father who never wanted to be anything but an adult and I wonder how they will grow old? How will they deal with the betrayal of their bodies? How will I?

How will we react when we can no longer count on our vanity to distract us?

Never Forget: or the United States of Amnesia

A Chronology of Scandal from 2000 to 2006, the Bush Years (thus far).

November 2000 - Florida cannot be called for either Bush or Gore because of hanging chads, Ralph Nader and Jeb Bush's campaign to intimidate black voters and purge the voter rolls of "felons."

November 2000- Neither side will concede and the Democrats press for a recount, both sides begin to assemble their legal teams.
Tom Delay's entire congressional staff flies down to Florida to storm the the Voter offices in Miami-Dade (hmm, did, contributions from the Chocatow Indian Tribe by way of Jack Abramoff bankroll the trip?).
Republicans protest that there was nothing wrong with the voting machines despite evidence to the contrary. Pat Buchannan remains the favorite candidate of the ederly, mostly retired, Jewish population of Palm Beach.
Jeb takes angry phone calls from his younger brother saying "I thought you said you'd deliver Florida?"

December 2000 - Katherine Harris, Florida Secretary of State, stops the hand recounts.
The Florida Supreme Court rules in favor of the recount.
The Bush legal Team goes to the Federal Supreme Court demands they stop the recount. Sandra Day O'Connor, eager to retire, and Antonin Scalia eager for Opus Dei to take control of the Constitution, plus Renquist, Thomas, et al, vote Bush into office.
Despite their federalist viewpoint that State law trumps federal law, politics, evidently, trumps judicial philosophy.
Joe Lieberman concedes. Al Gore bitterly follows. George W. Bush...wins?

January 2001 - George W. Bush takes office on a rainy day (God crying?) and cannot even climb outside the presidential Lincoln Town Car because angry protestors might throw an egg at him.

January 2001 - Bush appoints cabinet members: Corporate fat-cats and incompetent idealogues. He promises to be the "CEO President."
Enron's stock falls to $42 a share because of circulating rumors of financial mismanagement.

August 2001 - Bush gets a memo that reads "Bin Laden determined to stike in U.S."
He is on vacation in Crawford, TX just six months after he takes office.
He has brush to clear and a photo-op with a chain-saw.
Assumes Condi will show it to Veep and Big Dick Bacon-Heart will take care of it.

September 11, 2001 - Bin Laden's determination(as described in memo) has paid off.
Towers are hit, and crumble into a burning, ash-ridden pyre. 3000 people lose their lives: Americans and immigrants.

September, 2001 - Bush and Cheney both go into hiding in undisclosed locations (an underground bunker in Nebraska is the rumor).
Just like Churchill did during the London Blitz and FDR during Pearl Harbor!?!
7 hours after the attack they eventually get flown back to D.C. Bush runs into Richard Clarke and tells him, in not so many words, to figure out how to implicate Iraq.

From Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies:

"Look," he told us. "I know you have a lot to do and all … but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way."
I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed.
"But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this."
"I know, I know, but … see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred."
"Absolutely, we will look … again." I was trying to be more respectful, more responsive. "But, you know, we have looked several times for state sponsorship of Al Qaeda and not found any real linkages to Iraq. Iran plays a little, as does Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, Yemen."
"Look into Iraq, Saddam," the President said testily and left us.

September, 2001 - Five days later after all flights have been grounded with the exception of Bin Laden's family's private jet which was allowed to leave the country, Bush appears in New York surronded by SWAT teams.
He tells Americans not to be scared and not to let the terrorists win - they can do this by continuing to shop. Using a credit card is fearless.

October, 2001 - Bush orders troops to bomb Afghanistan.
One conservative commentator says that we should "bomb them back to the stone ages".
Many people remark that Afghanistan hasn't entirely come out of the stone ages and Ann Coulter wisely advises that we kill all their leaders and convert the entire population to Christianity.
Conservatives declare Noam Chomsky a traitor and moral relativism dead.
Andrew Sullivan, glad for once that the radical Christian right isn't focusing all its energies on the evils of the "homosexual agenda", writes an article for the NYTIMES Magazine declaring a new war of civilizations.
Rapturists rejoice and Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind Series" sees an even greater spike in sales. Secular Americans with a modicum of critical thinking skills are scared shitless as they begin to realize the country is quite possibly being run by end-timers.
Toby Keith records a song that promises "towel-heads" they will get an American boot shoved up their ass.
The Emmy's continue as scheduled but most stars wear black and the red carpet is scrapped for security reasons.

November, 2001 - Whispers of an Invasion of Iraq start to make it's way around the Media-Industrial Complex.
Suddenly there is an "Office of Special Plans" that is populated by brash, chicken-hawk militarists, calling themselves "Neo-Cons."
Old policy papers from the American Enterprise Institute advocating regime change in the Middle East are dusted off and carefully scrutinized.
Americans continue to work and shop. Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt are still married.
Bush's popularity is in the high 70's or 80's and pundits talk about American Unity and the end of 90's decadence.

December, 2001 - The Iraq War, the invasion of Iraq, WMD's, Judith Miller are about to come very familiar words in the next year.

(To Be Continued - Next up: 2002).