[A/H Index] [^^Terms MASTER Index]The Performed Text - CONTENT
See also: -[Performed texts]- (base info page) See also: [Performance Art] (art technique/thing) [Text as art material] [Coerced performance] -[post post-modernism]- [Performance Absurd] [Dada] [Dadaism] (an art "ism") [Performance: Frank] [ "PARTS ONE, TWO, THREE" ] [Performed Art] [The Performed Art Act] [The Performed Art Technology] [Performed danse] [Performed Art: Filmed] [The Performed Score] [The Performed UFO's] (and esp, etc) [The Performed WEB (including programming)] [] [Interventionist Art] [(art) concepts] [Art MovementsStreet Art] [Fluxus] [Street Art]The Performed Text
See also: -[Performed texts]- (base info page)Index
{The Gold Book} (cooking) {Harpo Speaks} {Inside the Third Reich - Speer} -[Hannah Weiner's SurReal Journals]- (via: http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/m504/)]-
The Gold Book
(cooking) The Gold Book In this section: {Hopping John from the Carolinas} (black eyed peas)
Hopping John from the Carolinas
(black eyed peas) BEGIN BLOCK QUOTE [P. 610]Hopping John of the Carolinas
Many lands as well as many sections of Ameica have *special* "lucky" foods and pasteries which are served on New Year's Day. In Holland, for example, when a Dutch lad goes a-courting [ie: a-courtin' ] on New Year's Day, he takes his sweetheart a pastry made in the shape of their initials. In Scotland, "Hogmaanany" dumplings are customarily served on New Year's Day, etc. Among the lucky recepies served in various sections of the United States on New Year's Day, is this pea (bean) dish from the Carolinas. It is an old Southern custom to seve it on Nw Year's Day at the noon dinner, a ten cent piece being added to the big boal of peaks just before it is brought to the table. The person finding it his or her [or nehr] plate will have good luck all year. [But, obviously not if they swallow it and choke to death]. END BLOCK QUOTE -[That block quote here]- (perf-text CONTENT) Sorry, wrong quote. Oh here it is: BEGIN BLOCK QUOTE [P. 610]Stuff
So, what are the aesthetics of peformance art as opposed to theatre? Do we need restrict our definition/usage of theatre to "traditional theatre" -- whatever that is; ie,
Harpo Speaks
Marx, Harpo (Adolph/Arthur) (1985). Harpo Speaks. New York: Limelight Press. ISBN 0.87910.036.2 In this section: {The Croquet Game} {Club Membership} {Notable Quotables} {How they got their names}
Club Membership
In scene reminiscent of Groucho's exclusion from a club which reversed its decision when they found out who "Jules Marx" was. Prompting his comment, "That's all right, i wouldn't want to be a member of any organisation that would have someone like me as a member." Harpo's approach carries a charm all his own: [P. 210] The pursuit of happiness by me and my pals was seldom interrupted. We lived in a world of our own. Only once in a great while did anything occur to remind us that the bigger world beyond our own was NOT eternally full of fun and games. Poverty I had never forgotten, and never could. But meanness and stupidity I had been spared for a long time -- until I had an unhappy remnder in the early summer of 1927. I made a fishing date with Paul Bonner, a book-collector friend of Woolcott's, and Pie Traynor, the third baseman of the Pittsburg Pirates. i said I'd take care of the accomodations. I wired a hotel out in Montauk, Long Island, for reservations. [P. 211] The hotel wired back: "RESERVATIONS CONFIRMED. TRUST YOU ARE GENTILE." I was sore as hell, but i didn't bother to wire back. Why should i stir up a fuss and embarrass Bonner and Traynor and ruin the weekend? Better to turn the whole thing into a joke. So when I entered the Montauk hotel, i had my pants rolled above the knees, wore a tam o' shanter, smoked a pipe, walked with a crooked cane, and signed in as "Harpo MacMarx". The place was deserted. At dinner we were the only diners. Twenty waitresses stood around watching us eat. I began to fell depressed, and i finally told Bonner and Traynor what the "joke" was. They got sore and insisted we should move to hotel where nobody cared what anybody's name was. That made me feel a lot better. While we were checking out the manager came over to us. I said to him, "Lad could ye dir-r-rect me to the near-r-rest Jewish templey?" and threw him one of my Gookie Faces and we blew the joint.
Notable Quoters
By chanse, one of the people who was first sent to review the first "variety" show with the Marx bothers was Alexaner Woollcott. This game him entrance into THE literary club in New York: The Round Table at the Algonquin. As he mentions in passing it's not hard to imagine why a person like him so gifted in listening was so welcome in such a competitive environment of talkers. Dramatis Personae F.P.A. Bernard Baruch Benchley Broun Beatrice Kaufman George Kaufman Herman Mankiewicz Alice Miller Dorothy Parker Ross Swope Alexander Woollcott [P. 196] Kaufman: Want to hear me give a sentence using the word "punctilious"? Woollcott: Give a sentence using the word "punctilious". Kaufman: I know a man who has two daughters, Lizzie and Tillie. Lizzie is all right, but you have no idea how punctilious. F.P.A: Guess whose birthday it is today! Beatrice Kaufman: Yours? F.P.A: No, but you're getting warm - it's Shakespeare's. Broun (who'd taken up oil painting): You have no idea how hard it is to sell a painting. F.P.A: If it's so hard, why don't you just try selling the canvas? I'll give you a note to some tent-makers i know. [P. 198] Broun: No more griping. Today i shall be bold, resolute and gay! Kaufman: I hear they've just taken in a new partner and now the firm is Bold, Resolute, Gay, and Berkowitz. Charlie Chaplin (in a conv. about blood pressure) Mine is down to 108. Kaufman: Common or perfered? Dorthy Parker: I met a strange fellow up in Canada, the tallest man i ever saw, with a scar on his forhead. I asked him how he got the scar, and he said he must have hit himself. I asked him how he could reach so high. He said he guessed he must have stood on a chair. Famous Actress (bragging about her husband): Look at him! Isn't he beautiful? And do you know, i've kept him for seven years now! Dorothy Parker: Don't worry - he'll come back in style. Herman Mankiewicz: You know it's hard to hear what a bearded man is sayingl. He can't speak above a whisker. Alice Miller (to Woollcott, on settling up a loss at cards): You sir, are the lowest form of life, a cribbage pimp. Bernard Baruch (to Swope): You, sir, are a foul-weather friend. Benchley: Have you heard the one about the little boy on the train? Kaufman: (who's heard it 20 times; for some strange reason it's Benchley's favorite joke): No. [P. 199] Benchley: A man gets on the trin with his little boy, and gives the conductor only one ticket. "How old's your kid?" the conductors says,k and the father says he's four years old. "He looks at least twelve to me," says the conductor, and the father says, "Can i help it if he worries?". Ross: This looks like a nice day for discoveries. Let's discover something. Maybe we could get a key and a kite and go discover electricity. F.P.A: I think Benjamin Franklin already did an experiment like that. Wasn't he the the guy who flew a kite and discovered the air-cooled car? Ross: Well, I could out and lie in an orchard and let an apple hit me on the head and discover Newton's Law of Gravity. This could lead to the invention of the elevator and nobody would have to walk upstairs any more. Kaufman: A funny thing - I happened to be lying in an orchard this very morning. Only it was a fig orchrd, and a fig hit me on the head, and that made me think of the Law of Gravity, and i said to myself, "This will lead to the invention of Fig Newtons, and maybe i could sell the idea to some big biscuit company and make myself a fortune." Woollcott: Well, it's buckety-buckety back to work for little Alecky (exits singing) I hope you fry in hell, I hope you fry in hell, Heigh-ho the merry-o, I hope you fry in hell!
How they got their names
(The naming of names) When the Marx brothers had gotten a good set of acts, they went on the road on the so-called "Pantages Circuit". There mother was a one-woman production company/promoter costumer/etc. and they were living in Chicago by this time; sometime after 1915. In Rockford, Illinois.... Julius - Groucho Leonard - Chico (Chicko) Adolph - Harpo (also Arthur) Milton - Gummo Herbert - Zeppo (Zippo) [P. 131] ... We were on the Pantages circuit, playing a couple of local spots before making the great swing to he West Coast and back through Canada. In Rockford, the four of us and a monologist named Art Fisher started up a game of five-card stud, between shows. At that time, there was a very popular comic strip called "Knocko the Monk", and as a result, there was a rash of stage names that ended in "o". On every bill there would be at lest one Bingo, Zingo, Socko, or Bumpo. There must have been a couple of them on the bill with us in Rockford and we must have been making cracsk about them, because when Art Fisher started dealing a poker hand he said, "A hole card for -- 'Harpo'. A card fro 'Chicko'. One for --..." Now that he'd committed himself, he had to pass "o-names" all around the talbe. The first two had been simple. I played the harp and my older brother chased chicks. For a moment Art was stuck. Then he continued the deal. A card for "Groucho" (he carried his dough in a "grouch bag"), and finally a crd for "Gummo" (he had a gumshoe way of prowling around backstage and sneaking up on people. We stuck with the gag handles for the rest of the game and that, we thought, was that. It wasn't. We couldn't get rid of them. We were Chicko, Harpo, Groucho, and Cummo for the rest of the week, the rest of the season, and the rest of our lives. Later, when we decided to make it official, and have our Art Fisher names put on the program, the type-setter made a mistake and left out the "k" out of Chicko. The power of the printed word being what it is, "Chico" is the way it has been spelled every since. Still later, Gummo left the act and was replaced by Herbie, the baby of the family. Herbie, since he was always chinning himself and practicing acrobatics, we named "Zippo". "Mr.Zippo" was the star of a famous trained chimpanzee act. Our Zippo, understandably felt we that we were being unflattering, and he insisted on spelling his stage name "Zeppo". You never could tell what you might be dealt in a poker game in those names.Inside the Third Reich - Speer
Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich. BEGIN BLOCK QUOTE [P. 603] At this time [in Spandau Prison in Nuerberg, awaiting final examination and sentencing] the prison psychologist, G.M. Gilbert, was going from cell to cell with a copy of the [entire] indictment, asking the defendents to write their comments on it. When i read the partially evasive, partially disdainful words of many of my fellow defendants, i wrote to Gilbert's astonishment: "The trial is necessary. There is a shared responsibility for such horrible crimes even in an authoritarian state." I still regard it as my greatest feat of psychic courage to have held to this view throughout the ten months of the trial.