posted by Mashinka
June 2008: Mister Jeremy James Thompson produces a broadside for Mister Charles Bernstein's Every True Religion Is Bound To Fail, in conjunction with his reading at the Center for Book Arts. An annotational exquisite corpse, it was created through the collaborative involvement of five poets and academics; Walter K. Lew, Dillon Westbrook, J.D. Mitchell-Lumsden, Blake Butler, and William Moor. July 2008: The broadside makes its long awaited Autotypist appearance. (Click To View)
posted by Mashinka
The photographs below will accompany a new section of the website on the historical framework and contemporary recuperation/reconfiguration of radio drama. It will also include excerpts from my own aural-literary spectaculars, including Tales of Doom From the Boom Boom Room: The Mystery of Fraulein Franziska and the Dance of the Seventeen Fabric Samples. 
posted by Mashinka
posted by Mashinka
Daniel Isengart – a showman and impresario so skilled at his trade he could doubtlessly charm a snake with a single fiber from his fedora and a Weillian melody – unveiled the newest edition of Foreign Affairs at Corio’s Supper Club on May 13th. As indicated by the subtitle Postmodern Cabaret and Transnational Lounge, the event seems in part a response to the distinctly 21st century conditions of the instability of national identity and the prevalence of the geographically displaced person.
The roster of performances constituted several transatlantic aural flights from Germany to New York City with several layovers in France. Sporting an ensemble at once suggesting that he could have emerged from the narrative of Die Dreigroschenoper or a warehouse situated in the heart of Berlin, Isengart offered the audience a serenade that shifted from dulcet to quasi-industrial in tone as seamlessly as it did from English to German.
Nicole Renaud’s francophonic offerings delivered on the accordion were visually accompanied by the sight of her signature sparkling petticoat and its strands of white light sewn into the seams. Amber Ray, burlesque artist and chanteuse outfitted in a smart, periwinkle PVC suitdress, performed “Whatever Lola Wants” with the slight modification of “Whatever Amber Wants.” She carried herself with the demeanor of a lady who is assured that at any given moment, should she utter the words Anybody got a match?, Corio’s would be alight with flame as each audience member speedily fumbled for a lighter.
In its original incarnation, Foreign Affairs was housed in Canal Chapter, an alternative collective loft space situated in Soho. By contrast, Corio’s Supper Club boasts an aesthetic marked by plush lounging divans upholstered in chartreuse velvet, antique cherubic wallpaper c. 1960, and a prix fixe dinner priced at 40 dollars per person. It boasts celebrity clientele of the likes of The Strokes and $13 Gypsy Rose Lee Appleton rum cocktails.
The spectacle, itself, remained nothing short of spectacular in its second incarnation. In the longstanding tradition of kabarett, it served as a forgetting potion for the seated spectators, enabling the erasure from memory of such catastrophic realities as the incipient recession and death tolls of the recent earthquake in China’s Sichuan province. In stark contradistinction to Foreign Affairs no. 1, however, this particular potion was purveyed in a decidedly exclusive apothecary. Lamentably, the atmosphere and crowd of attendees underwent the same sort of metamorphosis one imagines the Bauhaus might have undergone upon its move from Weimar to Dessau. It was recently reported that the event was once again going underground in search of a more suitable location, and one dares say that a considerable sum of cabaret connoisseurs await the appearance of Foreign Affairs edition no. 3.
posted by Mashinka
Resetting the New York vaudeville circuit to high voltage, the Maestrosities musical ensemble and comedy troupe inaugurated what is to be their monthly cabaret on May 5th at the Zipper Factory, whilst simultaneously celebrating their first birthday. In spite of the assorted and enchanting medley of offerings throughout the evening, most prominently displayed in this droll odditorium of objets de consommation visuelle were the identities of the individual Maestrosities themselves.
(A selection of) the players:
Deirdre (Jenny Lee Mitchell), a proper British finishing school primrose in cat eye spectacles, soon begins to crack in the fashion of three coats of lip varnish left applied overnight - her neuroses exposed in impromptu, angelically crooned aria. Princess Penny (Gina Samardge), a petite prima donna in pink crinolines, oscillates between an embrace of her pre-pubescent persona and an awkward attempt to twirl the tassels of pasties affixed to her accordion. The Maestro (David Gochfeld), attempts with varying degrees of success to “conduct” his Maestrosities in spite of his markedly milquetoast mannerisms.
The scene:
Eight ukuleles leap daringly from the hands of one Maestrosity into another in a dizzying delivery of pas de trois juggling. Mostly razor-sharp swords perform soaring summersaults in the air. Liquor bottles are coaxed from previously empty brown bags by an inebriate magician. The grand finale - which doubles as the most sensational piece of performance art I have personally witnessed since Anita Berber’s 1916 appearance at Bluethner Hall – subverts both gravity and dominant paradigms in one fell, sequined swoop. Conceptual burlesque spectacularist Julie Atlas Muz performs a striptease - not upon her own person, but upon that of the Maestro – at the conclusion of which he is left standing on the stage in neon red-light-district boxer shorts, ankle garters, and trouser socks. She then removes her own underthings and lowers herself down upon the Maestrosities’ birthday cake. Following her performance of an exceptionally masterful bump and grind atop it, she proceeds to wrap her fingertips around the Maestro’s cranium, pull him toward her pelvic bone, and permit him to consume the frosted, vanilla flavoured confection from betwixt her thighs.
Musical medleys seamlessly weave together Material Girl, operatic numbers, and early 20th century standards. Costuming is a mélange of intentionally ill-tailored1970s spring formal wear, neon nineteen eighties Madonna music video attire, and Cotton Club crooner chic. Colloquial jargon sways back and forth between jazz age speakeasy slang, sixties bebop terminology, and a 21st century abbreviated vernacular in the span of a single sentence. The Maestrosities are aptly named. Nowhere else is there available for viewing so exceptionally crafted and idiosyncratic a display of self-assembled animate anomalies under the roof of a single odditorium.
posted by Mashinka
Were a saloonkeeper to 1) combine pages from a historical textbook dedicated to the 1880s-1940s, six tons of sixteen-inch corsetry, and one tablespoon full of comely Weilian cabaret ditties, 2) swirl them about in a Boston Shaker filled halfway with bowties of every stripe and polka-dot, and 3) strain them through the socio-cultural narratives of the 21st century into a den of proverbial decadence situated in Park Slope; the result would bear no small resemblance to the animate aesthetic cocktail constituted by the Dances of Vice Tribute to Die Dreigroschenoper.
The throng of anachronistic attendees was a concoction made up of nearly equal parts Victorian tophat, Art Deco cloche with bakelite button detail, and feathered nineteen forties fascinator (peppered with the occasional Brooklynite straight-ironed, asymmetrical coiffure). In short, it was a crowd – and an evening – of many hats.
Dances of Vice's transgression of decade-demarcated boundaries wasn't confined to millinery. A statement emblazoned in bold on much of the event paraphernalia exclaims, We are not historical reconstructionists. As further testament to this, the roster of attractions-so-amazing-you-won't-believe-your-eyes -ladies-and-gentlemen encompassed visual culture of eras both Dickensian and Dot Parkeresque alike. Grandpa Musselman & His Syncopators - a sensationally skilled jazz repertory ensemble with a rendition of "Black and Tan Fantasy" to rival the Duke's - was among those to grace the makeshift Montauk Club stage. The irony implicit in a 21st century ensemble specializing in early 20th century jazz performing at an homage to an opera composed in 1928 yet set in turn-of-the-century England was highlighted in the following official announcement: And now presenting, Grandpa Musselman & His Syncopators: A Victorian-Friendly Jazz Band!
Venerated Weimar, New York virtuoso Isengart, clad in a becoming two-piece black velvet suit, recalled Joel Grey's 1972 performance in Cabaret as a 1930 Master of Ceremonies. His crooning of selections from The Threepenny Opera was so undeniably enchanting as to beguile an audience of entranced spectators to chant "Is-en-gart" and stomp t-strapped satin mary-jane pumps in unison until sated by an encore of "Mack the Knife."
Audio theater, a mass medium whose advent did not occur until 1921, was also incorporated. Messrs. Jeremy James Thompson and Lucas Lanthier intermittently offered sharp-as-varnished-nails announcements in the tone of old-time radio broadcasters on a Heil Classic Pro – a 2008 replica of an RCA 1930 studio microphone. In the latter half of the evening, I performed a radio drama entitled The Mystery of Fraulein Festkleid and the Dance of the Seventeen Fabric Samples.
On the second floor, a miniature World's Fair of vendors booths purveying bric-a-brac and bijoux was set up, including Cha Cha's House of Ill Repute, Molly Crabapple, Glittery Blue, and Ghost's Attic Marionettes.
In summation, it was an evening that could only have occurred against the plush setting of a postmodern 21st century New York cityscape. To reduce the variegated, century-spanning assortment of phenomena above to a late Victorian Sunday Social reenactment, or to ascribe to it a purist, historical authenticity which it seems to have no aspirations of, would be so grievous a gaucherie as describing a carefully crafted Violet Fizz as a puddle of gin, egg whites, and creme de violette melting in a highball glass.
posted by Mashinka
