The Flying Philosopher: March 2015

WHETHER IT WAS AN ACCIDEN T OR NOT

WHETHER IT WAS AN ACCIDEN T OR NOT, hearing a critique abut Fyodor Dostoyevsky “Brother Karamazov”, this corner was taken aback to our yesterdays, putting in our time at the Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Brentwood, several miles outside the post WW2 UCLA academic environs….KherckoffHall, the Library, Royce Hall Physics Building, the quad, administrative building, theater arts, parking lots, the L.A. Santa Monica bus terminal…….Jans Steps, men and women’s gym, the swimming pool…water polo.

Coach John Wooden – Athletic Director Wilbur Johns immortal “on the glass” legacy…“We’ll leave six ducats at the Gardengate, “Whitey”. (Madison Square Garden’s N.I.T Invitational)

Almost in the same breath, Nabokov’s own novel of nymphets critiqued.(“Cherie, “, Maurice Chevalier)

Hence thus therefore an insight from New York Public Radio (WNYC..the Leonard Lopate open mindedness, the twointellectuals from literary Moscow, offered their critiques of the state of mind of the Karamazov family’ self destructiveness..tuned out to Chevalier’s “Thank Heaven for little girls” …...Lolita’s own metamorphosis…Lita Grey, Charlie Chaplin’s second wife..( Sydney and Junior’s mother?)

It’s one thing living in a Conrad “Heart of Darkness” pop culture but it’s another to relish those yesterdays at UCLA, where in those tic yearnings of post World War2, there was a sweepingRose Bowl vibe, that the planet would metamorphose into amasked semblance of a Shangri-la .… a Frank Capra Jimmy Stewart “Mr. Smith goes to Washington”, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and Ronald Coleman’s “Lost Horizon”, Sam Jaffe in his role of the high caste 125 year old High Llama.

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“We’ve been waiting , Mister Conway. We’ve been waiting for you a long time”, Sam Jaffe (not the Agent) into his role as the High Llama, the leader of Shangri-la, hidden away in the Alps….John Howard,. Margo, waiting in the wings, the James Hilton mantra rolling in its Capra incarnation.

However, our part time role at the Neuropsychiatric Institute , (John Wayne’s father, Mister Morison, in his hobby lobby watch repairer cache)…as a attendant in the catatonic ward…

“Bobby what the Hell happened. What are you wining and dining here?”’

Accosting our former sports writing cub reporter. Daily Bruin track and field, shuffling along in the murky corners of thoseonce semi tropical spaces , reserved for denizens who cracked up in the constancy of pretentious blow hearts, swept away bythe seismic changes…

”A hundred million for Lincoln Center’s naming.” Social status? Social climbing? You name it!

It wasn’t as if Booby was a Stan Lomax WOR Big Appleprotégé. He was a warm empathetic track and field scriber, identifying with Craig Dixon on the 220 and 440 hurdles and AlKapp, John Patee on the cross country… four forty and the mile. (Burt Lancaster, Woody Strode off their own strides,watching Harry Trotter Ducky Drake stalwarts, stretching and straining their over achieving track team tandems. Joe E Brown field, Jane Withers hillside home on Sunset Boulevard, Ed Pauley’s pavilion in the future., overlooking.…..

Back in the catatonic ward in our part time attendant role….”Bobby tell me, what happened?”, our naiviate,subsequently moving into holding his ankles as the psychiatrist and nurses applied electric electrodes to his ankles and arms, thetherapeautic shocks to his innards and soul to bring him back to the El Espanol community property Southern California realityscene and the believability of silver screen and the Shangri-laWestwood Village environs beyond. (Sonja Henie’s ice skating rink)

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“But Bobby, what happened? How could you becomedespondent and depressed? Subject A? Flunking out?”

On coke and heroin? Jack Daniels whiskey?…. holding his ankles as the shrink administered the electrical pulsations, the electrodes attached to wires from the electrical outlets in the walls.

VIII.

“Unbelievable. Yet not that fr from the pop culture of thepretending actors. “The Great Gatsby, the Last Tycoon” Jack L. Warner, doubles tennis player, the novelist dying at the Garden of Allah , on the Sunset Strip, the gossip columnist Sheila Graham ( scion to Professor Graham, UCLA) The bewildered novelist taking to drink….. He and his wife Zelda, buttering upto the cafe society toast of their celebrity.

The locale Garden of Allah on the Sunset Strip…the humoristRobert Benchley ,as the novelist breathing is last…. ….theposturing of his star gazing(1925, Zelda , she perishing in 1940, her F.Scott going it alone, gasping for air..

The New Yorker magazine “Information Please” humorist in the lobby, while “The last tycoon” … the Chief, oblivious to F. Scott’s Fitzgerald’s waning breaths…..at the Strip’s Garden of Allah.

“It’s all a myth, boys. If you don’t like it, you can always earn your bread and butter, playing mahjong at another private tennis court..

Solly your serve!. Yon don’t have to open up a new can. These balls still have some life. ”

In the meantime, several miles away as the crow flies on the freeways, at the Neuropsychiatric catatonic ward, Bobby into his electric shock aftermath…..his body squirming , the witch doctor and his two nurses and the part time attendant held theirbreaths.

The UCLA (16 credits) part time attendant, gripping those quivering legs……shaky arms ,Bobby’s shriek sounding out his troubled peace of mind.

March 27, 2015. The City that never sleeps.

SPRING TIME FOR HITLER

“SPRINGTIME FOR HITLER”, Zero Mostel’s tour de force, notwithstanding his alter ego Gene Wilder, inspiring his father figure, to raise big bucks by producing a Mel Brooks (“Two thousand year old man”) box office disaster and floperoo.

But for the life of this corner, how did Anne Bancroft’s ‘H’ …(”the Graduate”) Mel Brooks do it

“Plastics plastics mate”, if we may quote Blossom Hoffman’s brother Dustin, (the secretary at Sutter Junior High, Canoga Park, Ca)

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But who claimed Zero Mostel’s neurons were atrophying… howin the Great White Romp, could he turn around “Springtime for Hitler” into a financial disaster…..

Is he a dinosaur?

He still labels the Internet the ‘World Wide Web’. Irreverent to cyberspace …..social media and its apps.

Right, mate? Right!

The romp with Eva Braun and Adolph at the Fuhrer‘s love nest in Berchesgarden may be a stretch, because the absurdity of raising money for a flop..…. the metamorphosis playing out anirony of ironies.

“Roll the dice, Max.”

Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) and his accountant Leo Bloom are found guilty of the grubby fraud, led away at the end of “The Producers” their very deceit a checkmate .

Nikolai Gogol’s satire, “Inspector General” may haveinfluenced Max’s tyranny of avarice...

The million dollar Grandmas kicking up their heels, Max Bialystock’s casting his “Angels” in their own parlance ofAngels, Into their rhythm like sweet sixteen teens going bonkers..in a quest for their Fountain of Youth.

All that was missing….the cream cheese bandit. Con artist and bully from the word “go”

Zero Mostel and his accountant didn’t listen to an adult man’s interior rap and argument.

“I was a contender for the Tilden High Varsity…. A first five letterman. But the coach was a son of a bitch. “You’re not a team player. You’re out for yourself. That’s not Tilden brand of basketball. Work out your demons with the Junior Varsity , if you want to earn a letter.”

“ For an eighteen year old senior, you got too much swagger foryour own good. You’re your own worst enemy, mate.”

The cream cheese bandit cussing under his breath, never forgetting the slap to his stroke (“to lord it over others)”, his arrogant and selfish trip of a life line….

Treasure Island “rehab’ and Market Street mockery of amore de wenches, in his Chief’s uniform, no less...

Sawtelle’s rehabilitation civilian life. “You’re as useless as teats on a boor’s ass.”

Meanwhile Max Bialystock was sweating bullets, his impersonator of Hitler into his LSD monologue… transition toa Munich beer parlor, becoming a “Mein Kampf” playmaker …

To facilitate Chancellor Hindenberg’s exit…. the actoracquitting his beer hall fast break, the audience loving it: theirscreaming hilarity and laughter terrifying Max and Leo Bloom… his spreadsheet of debts and assets up in flames.

Max Bialystock’s reversal of fates, Leo Bloom…. into their apocalypse, sharing the emotional swing from a purported failure, to an immense success, the sophisticated New Yorkers shaking therafters with frenzied maddening laughs… the New York Times “a masterpiece”, the beatnik LSD drifter named Adolph, wearing his Roman “Ben Hur” helmet, drawling out his ascent to political power.

Leo Bloom fraught with manic “goal tending”. No Brazilian escape flight…. the dollar bills and profitable gold mine…and the fabled Grandma gig...

”Break a leg”, the Angels euphoria into their Fountain of Youth.

Max and Leo led away in handcuffs. …not a “Grandma”turning a heel at Sardis restaurant, across the Street.

March 21, 2015. The City that never sleeps.

TWELVE FINGFERS AND FOUR HANDS?

“TWELVE FINGFERS AND FOUR HANDS? No way, stranger!.”

But the Zen Master born in Budapest, now living in FlorenceItaly, took Carnegie Hall by storm the other night. His quiet demeanor, communicated the passion and energy of the sublime grandmasters of pianissimo grandeur… Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert, plus three encores, an evocation ofenduring sound for eternity..

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Spanning the sublimity of his own identification, with these fourimmortals long withdrawn, Sir Amera’s Schiff brought them back to life, two nights ago at Carnegie Hall.

Isaac Stern would have exalted. Itzhak Pearlman Yo- Yo Ma,were at a loss for words, if you could belie it. And JaschaHeifetz, a child prodigy… well the last time our eyes feasted on the larger than life violinist, he was taunting the fates, rushing from a North Beverly Drive deli, in Beverly Hills, in a formidable strut, .to his master class across town, at USC’s conservatory.

Heifetz in his end run did not know San Jose newspaper critic claimed the Zen Master came saw and conquered Silicon Valley with his mastery at the keyboard. That piano playing of this nature, was beyond cyber space’s 21st century..

That Sir Andra’s Schiff did have four hands and twelve fingers, the notes into harmonies like the pebbles glistening under the streams of San Jose’s Silicon Valley.

The knighted Buckingham Palace virtuoso at age 61, those twelve e fingers caressing the keyboard in such a way that the audience was enraptured, the pianist offered three encores, the audience caught up in his hypnotic spell, the four composers streaming their own sublimity, goring back to Haydn’s 1780 London “out of the park”... his dry wit and sense of humor seemingly gave a transparency that the London listeners accustomed as they were to a dignified sound, clapping for“encore encore”

The second sonata was Beethoven’s E Major.

From his favored Viennese piano, the stream of harmonies in the key of E Major, the sonorities of Haydn’s Broadwood piano:subtly Viennese knuckle breaker tempo from Beethoven’s growing deafness.

It became the 18th Century, Beethoven taking asunder the drawing room façade. No twinkle toe tactfulness here, the composer damning, charging into the society, hearing and seeing it for what it was. Ripping Emperor Bonaparte’s dedication from his Eroica third E flat Symphony, opus 50.

Sir Anora’s Schiff’s own crescendo into his Budapest roots and political “winter of discontent..”

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The transformation into the ethereal cosmos, transfiguring the listeners and the pianist himself, was one with the alliance ….these immortal composers, over and through the majesty of Isaac Stern’s Carnegie Hall culture..

Gone were the other world disturbances in Oklahoma…a student fraternity. Cries of racism in Ferguson, Missouri.

That brainwashing was in these Major and Minor keys of Mozart and Schubert. Their interpreter Sir Amora’s. That popculture was a subterfuge. A Piccadilly Square myth todissimilate the passage of time, from the cradle to the grave.

VIII

The longing for heroes was not forgotten by the radio audienceeither. That the Nostradamus search was no picnic for theSalzburg born Mozart, fleeing from the Austrian court into those Viennese drawing rooms and their hypocritical stance. …..The haute monde and those drawing room pianos nee politics..

No wonder Joseph Haydn got out of himself...and enchanted the London audiences and down the road the Queen, knighting g SirAma’ras Stern.

Young Lion Brodwood pianos.

Ah delirium!

Schubert like Mozart died in his earl thirties. Yet his prodigious output of those dark depression like sonorities..

Nevertheless his perseverance…. a heavier tonal darkness that Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart scoring didn’t bring to the German canon.

The repertoire starting with Alessandro Scarlatti and JohanSebastian Bach.. No cell phone interruption for Sir Amera’s“Hash mark your electronic device, madam. “

The three encores spanned the classical period of Haydn and Beethoven into the romantic period of drama…. Mozart and Schubert….their creative pilgrimages assimilating the distance of their setbacks au contraire, from Haydn and Beethoven’saccess to political and economic power.

The Zen master had come complete circle. From those pebbles beneath those Northern California streams, running through San Jose’s Silicon Valley..

“TWELVE FINGERS AND FOUR HANDS” stranger.

March 12, 2015 Thee city that never sleeps.

In those balmy born yesterdays

In those balmy born yesterdays, post World Waer2, the StudioCity Republic studio casting, starred Gene Autry, Gabby Hayes , Andy Devine, Smiley Burnet, Rin tin tin.

The Ventura Boulevard and Laurel Canyon vibes included and a restaurant bearing the name of Gene Autry’s nemesis……. JulieStyne was writing *songs, while his partner Sammy Cahn, was calibrating the melody and rhythm in cadence with Gene Autry’sguitar…and the galloping hoof beats of “Champion “ .

*”How do you speak to an Angel?”

Who knew the quest for stardom, could transcend Dickens’s “Great Expectations” that “Dutch”, a Warner Brothers actordown the road in Burbank, who played the “ Gipper” in “KnuteRockne” would become Ronald Regan, the Governor ofCalifornia, and hence the springboard to the White House….not once, but twice as he and his strong minded wife Nancy, ”Our fates are tied with the alignment of the stars in the ceiling of our skies” resurged and galvanized the discovery of the prophecy…

”Mister Wyman as first marriage culminated with his actress wife awarded an Oscar for her role in “Johnny Belinda”, a tour de force for her…a blind lady, pulling all the emotional strings.

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“Win one for the Gipper” echoed Pat O’Brien as “KnuteRockne” in the Notre Dame locker room at half time.. . little did he know the dialogue and cheer leading at half time was a tonic, to “Dutch” being a a spokesman for General Electric, would go on into politics and score more than touchdowns as he fought out the second half of his locker room heroics, with wife Nancy at his side .

Yet Phil Reagan, played out his role as a New York City singingcop , a far cry from those “pep talks” in the Notre Dame locker room.

“Win one for the Gipper!”

March 9, 2015. The City that never sleeps.

Needless to say the South Bronx middle school teacher bringing her CD player to class

Needless to say the South Bronx middle school teacher (Morris Evening High) on bringing her CD player to class, in no way could conceive how the Modest Mussorgsky’s “The pictures of exhibition at the Hero Gates of Kiev” could resonate across the St. Petersburg conservatory of Rimsky Korsakov,(a retired Nava Officer “Flight of the Bumble Bee”) and from the Ukraine...Tchaikovsky’s benefactor, Madame von Meck, the two never meeting..

A student oblivious to the loop playing out, raised his hand. “Is that Mozart?”

“Can he come to class?” asked another admirer, a 13 year oldgirl ,her hair in a nee adolescent pony tail, as though she was in tune, with the melody flowing… the piano to the flute and clarinet.

The proliferation of notes to measures in the key of A minor,was tonic to Igor Stravinsky into his North Wetherly Drive padin Beverly Hills .

The Canoga Park, California pet shop owner, subsequently Bellair resident, whose parents were from the Ukraine, migrating toBoston, Massachusetts, opening a barber shop, their son raised as a toddler ”long life and prosper” Star Trek’s, Leonard SimonNimoy, becoming “Mr. Spock” the alien from outer space, TV’s “Star Trek”.

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Their son in search of his karma, migrated to Hollywood, where in his pedestrian role playing, he found his predestination….Smock role and in his selfless humanity and sense of humor in “Star Trek” and indirectly Modest Mussorgsky’s “The HeroGates of Kiev”.

But the metamorphosing beyond the Gates, in the flimflam of the “Star Trek” was a cause célèbre to be..

An identity crisis per se.. In order to stay in character, our heromaintained a Monday to Saturday night 12 hours +per diem, ,“Spock” masking his hero’s soul, embracing an enchanting Mr.Spock.

A heavy psychic price to pay as the half man alien from outer space, those Vulcan ears tattooing his mutation… in his permutation…a fantasy beyond the harmonies his “Hero’s Gates of Kiev”, and Canoga Park’s pet shop, had to pay the piper..

Losing himself to find his himself.

“Heavy heavy duty..” Alcohol consumption during the weeklylong days of shooting,,… 90 or so hours a week. The nicotinesacrifices may have vanished in the lights of “outer space” But the stress brought on our Hero’s identity crisis.

To live long and prosper seems precious, the key words SEEMS requires no ambiguity. Speaking and thinking in the environs,Spock became Nimroy. A heavy price to pay for the son of Ukrainian Max and Dora…their Boston barber shop….

A heavy price to pay for a semi alien persona, wouldn’t you say.“The man in the Iron Mask” starring Louis Hayward.

Charlie Chaplin’s “Tramp” woos the blind lady, selling posies,wedding Paulette Goddard in “real” time, neighbor.

A heavy price to pay for a persona. “Lights camera action. “I’m ready for my close up, Mr. De Mlle”.

But tell that to Dimitri Shostakovich, Gustav Mahler (his widow living in North Beverly Hills), Rachmaninoff in Santa Monica Canon, aforementioned Stravinsky on North Wetherrly Drive.

Meanwhile in Boston, the maestro Serge Koussevitzky studiedthe Hero’s score… getting a cut and shave in Max and Dora’s barber shop…..

The arrangement by Maurice Ravel: the harmonies and colors fortissimo.

Little did Tsar Alexander know the ‘Gates of Kiev’, the suite’s construction… ABAB CADA , the coda’s expectationsmusically chronicled by Mussorgsky’s suite, and arranged by Ravel.

As the measures and phrases went heard… Arturo Toscanini,Stokowski, Leonard Slat kin (Hollywood High,” The Bowl”)Leonard Bernstein, George and Ira Gershwin, Andre Pre v in(MGM)… The Russian religious chants in a broad rondo movement at Mussorgsky’s “Heroes Gate” recurring far and wide in cyber space.

Could *Spoke arriving at the Pearly Gates ”Long life and Prosper” anticipate the resounding melodies of ‘Pictures at theHeroes Gate of Kiev’. A suite in ten movements…..

Max and Dora Nimoy’s Ukrainian origin, Mar Chagall’sBerdychev roots, Grandma and Grandpa’s family of fivedaughters and two sons…(our aunts and uncle)

*“Life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had but not preserved… except in memory.”

March 1, 2015. The City that never sleeps.