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What could be more perfect, to uplift the world we live in, than to laugh a little and express a lot (in poetry)?
Below is a set of samples of my performance character,"The Bubbie Satvah." The Bubbie is part Jewish Grandma, part suburban baby-boomer, part ex-hippie meditator and hopeful ex-pat Artiste-in-residence in The Netherlands, by way of Paris. She speaks for the beauty in self-development, one pop-psychobabble experience at a time. Freud is her "Daddy," Jung is
her "Uncle" and nobody tells her where to go. She will stage a "happening" [this 60's reference betrays her age] in the gallery space to relate her travel experiences, read a few poems on the theme of world peace and good nutrition, serve some of her mother's apple cake and get the audience to write a collaborative poem.
(1) &(2) Two photos of drawings from a series reacting to terrorist incidents of recent years, starting with the Trade Center destruction. These drawings depict armless humanoid figures in furtive attempts to relate to each other. After profound trauma, despite damage, there is still the possibility of compassion and relationship (emblemized by lively color and energetic
mark-making).
3) Poetry Chapbook "STOP THE WAR SERIES"
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PROPOSAL FOR PERFORMANCE PIECE
For "Perfect World" events in conjunction with showings of paintings and poetry readings.
SAMPLES:
1) POETIC COMEDY IMPROV
A Jewish Mother's answer to an Imperfect World:
"There's No Place Like OM!"
"Perfect World?" Who would want such a thing? It would take away Bubbie's reason to live. She is a not-so-typical Jewish mother with ideas of her own about perfectionism, and she'll tell you a bunch of them if you stand still for half a minute. Better yet, take a seat, take a load off your 'dogs' and keep a bottle of water handy, you shouldn't dehydrate while listening to some of Bubbie's life story. It wouldn't be possible to get the whole thing in two hours, so she'll have to write a series of shows, like the vagina monologues but nobody's been raped, yet. And Bubbie has walked down plenty of dark alleys and weird little off-the-beaten, not so touristic tracks. She believes in the invincibility of the obviously insane.
No one would attack her. She's got to be crazy to trot through Florence alone at midnight with an 80 pound suitcase and a 40 pound backpack, catching the night bus to Aix-en-Provence. Some nice Egyptian fellow she met on the corner helped schlep the bag to the bus parking lot and gave her the phone number of his brother in Cairo, should she ever wish to travel in
that direction. She keeps all these contacts in her diaries and expects to transcribe them all some day into a huge database that will be her personal network for global relations. She's promoting world peace, one travel-contact at a time.
BUBBIE POETIC THERAPY: AKA "HAIKU! GEZUNDHEIT!"
[Bubbie's Life-of-the-Party Poetics, she should make
some use of her Ph.D.!]
This is a famous Japanese party game called "RENGA." Each person will write a short haiku and we will read them in sequence. We're just adding some schmaltz, to make it ethnic. You see, normally, the most famous American Jewish attribute is GUILT. Got GUILT? I'm here to help you. We're going to make poems together. Poems help make it better by getting at the
unconscious, through language. But you have to be ready to do this without judgment! Really - only your Jewish mother gets to judge you. Try to leave her out of this. Bubbie is the GRANDMA. Everyone knows, you can be yourself with your grandma. She only wants to FEED you.
NOW for some of Bubbie Poetic Therapy. Write a Haiku of YOUR FAVORITE JEWISH MEMORY: Haiku is composed of three lines; 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. Usually, there is some theme of nature, combined with a human emotion. Here's an example:
Something in the mist
relieves your deepest hunger --
Grandma's chicken soup!