Sonia Flew: How the Present is Shaped by the Past

Sonia Flew is an important new play by Melinda Lopez that explores how the past invades the present, but also how the present redefines the past. NYU Educational Theatre is presenting the play at The Players Theatre on MacDougal Street on February 19th runs for two weeks. Each act focuses on an historical event that created a defining moment for individuals and society. The first act takes place during the Hanuka/Christmas holidays that followed the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. The second act is grounded during the Cuban Revolution where Fidel Castro had seized power and was asserting his authority. Many were fleeing Cuba, including those that sent their children alone to America for a new life. 

Nan Smithner's direction is extraordinary, achieving an ensemble virtuoso quality that is quite rare for such a complex narrative. The narrative and pace is carefully orchestrated so that the rise and fall of action focuses on the alignment of events and emotions with a well proportioned sense of the whole. The actors are students in NYU Steinhardt's Program in Education, a program that prides itself in preparing teachers who are well-versed and practiced in their craft. These students asserted their command over their characters, and the range of expression emerging from their engagement with the text and interactions was provocative and stimulating. 

Sonia, played by Rocio Lopez is a key figure in the play. We see her as the matriarch of her family in Wisconsin, a Cuban refugee who has created and rich and full life in a new country. She is deeply conflicted about the events of her past. Her moments of reflection in the first act provide glimpses into the emotional ravages that took place as she was uprooted from a culture and thrust into another. Now shadow of 9/11 looms large and reawakens the terror she had felt as a new order swept into power in Cuba, and she was forced by her parents to give up her culture and the only life she had known. In the second act, we see her as a young girl coming of age and caught in the machinations of the Cuban revolution in 1961. 

Tyler Grimes, as Sonia's son, is especially powerful in his role. He has the leading man look reminiscent of Josh Hartnett, a perfect image for a young G.I. on his way to Afghanistan. His decision to leave college and enlist in the army is the catalyst for Sonia's emotional dilemma. When she was forced to flee Cuba and fly to the United States, she told her parents she would never forgive them for uprooting her from her family and culture. As her son Zak leaves the house to enlist, she tells him she will never forgive him for destroying her life and her hopes and dreams for his future.  

When Sonia learns of her son's decision to leave college, enlist in the military and fight against terror in Afghanistan in the weeks following 9/11, memories of her own childhood overwhelm her. She struggles to reconcile being forced as a young girl to leave Cuba at the dawn of Fidel Castro's rule with her own responsibilities as a mother facing uncertainty. 

Sonia must find a way to come to terms with her past, her lost parents, her own children and her adopted country, or risk losing everything that she loves. Set between post-revolutionary Cuba and post-9/11 America, SONIA FLEW telescopes the large cultural and political forces of a historic moment to examine their impact on the intimate lives of ordinary men and women. What do we owe our parents? Can we forgive the past? 

This poetic and urgent play bridges time and culture in a drama about the cost of forgiveness.

SnowDream

Sometime in the early afternoon it began to snow. Tiny flakes.... almost intermitment... not too promising, I thought. In the winter, my passion is snow. I want piles of the white stuff clogging up streets and pathways...big thick flakes clinging to everything.

But all the snow has fallen elsewhere...to my way of thinking, in far away lands. There have been record snowfalls with people lamenting that the snow has become unbearable. "Send it our way," I think, almost in the form of a prayer. I love the snow. I want the snow. But when it is cold enough to snow, we have no water in the sky, and when we have the water, it is not cold enough to snow. So we have rain...more rain than we can handle.

My passion for snow has caused me to search the internet for images of winter snow. My search has turned up thousands of images of winter and snow, many of them spectacular and breath-takingly beautiful. I have made them into the background of my computer screen and into countless screensavers. Some of the images are so vivid, I can actually smell the snow. I realize this is sensory memory kicking in as I see the snow on my screen.

But outside it had started to snow in the early afternoon. I had been working inside and when I glanced out the window, I saw that the snowflakes were larger and the falling snow had become so thick that it was difficult to see all the way up the street. The wind was starting to kick up a little and the flakes were swirling madly in whirlpools. Snow was covering the ground, the street, the trees, the cars, and people were struggling through what had become a winter storm.

At last! All the yearning of winter seemed absolved by this snow storm. I put on my coat and walked out into the snow-ridden landscape. I entered the park and the trees and statues were barely visible through the thick onslaught of snowflakes. Tree branches were bending under the weight of the snow, and statues were covered and disguised as snowposts.

Everyone seemed transformed by the beauty and relentless energy of the unfolding storm. The snow muffled all the sounds of the city. A kind of reverential awe seemed to hold us spellbound in the magic of the falling snow. The quietness seemed punctuated by silence, as though the storm had come to make us discover some miracle in the impending and ongoing silence.

I wandered for hours in the snow. As the evening approached, the snowfall grew even heavier. Snow was piling up to levels that could become unmanageable. I wandered into coffee houses, drinking coffee as I watched the scenes that had been images on my computer were now the lived experience of true winter. My breath, warmed by the coffee, created icy "smoke" trails as I returned to the storm outdoors. I wanted it to never stop. The storm I had wished for, now erupted in the full fury of winter, and I was happy beyond belief.

I went to sleep watching the storm shake the trees and the wind pile up thick snow drifts. I dreamed of a vivid winter, of being snowbound while a fire crackled in the fireplace and the world came to a standstill, absolutely mute in the splendor of snow falling forever, embracing the world in a white cloak of majesty. In the silence of the snow lay the mystery of being alive.

When I awoke, the snow was gone. Just as quickly as the snow had arrived, perhaps even more so, the temperature rose, and the rain swept everything away.

A dream, I thought, the delusion of watching too many snow scenes on my computer. Looking at the screen, I saw the winter images dissolving into each other in random celebration that in the end, I had to return to my fantasies of winter. Perhaps it all was just a dream, after all.

We Might Be Giants

Sometime about 10:30 p.m. EST, The New York Giants astonished the undefeated New England Patriots by crushing their hopes for a perfect season, outplaying them in their 17-14 victory to become the Superbowl Champions in what was, for me, the most riveting football game I have ever seen. I watched dumb-founded as Eli Manning, endangered by an eminent sack by the entire defensive line, emerge unscathed and launch a rocket to David Tyree whose acrobatic leap and catch saved the Giant's quest for a perfect playoff season as he held onto the ball wedged against his helmet and crashed to the ground, slammed down violently by the defense. Moments later, the ball was sailing in a graceful, beautiful arch into the hands of Plaxico Burress for the winning touchdown with 35 seconds remaining. The play was so vivid that it seemed to occur in slow motion and silence, suspended in the awesome realization that once again the team had bounced back from certain defeat. Like Mercury Morris, a tear came to my eye as I literally wept for the sheer beauty of a Big Blue victory in the desert, a kind of aesthetic peak experience.

More than half a continent away, Manhattan was rocking with cheers from the streets, terraces and balconies throughout the city. Horns were blaring. Sirens were screaming. The Empire State Building was bathed in blue. The streets, restaurants, subways, and bars were filled with people suddenly united by the culmination of a passionate quest, strangers hugging each other like long lost friends.

Suddenly it was after midnight and I had work the next day, but I was too excited to sleep. I tossed and turned and listened to the comments and callers on WFAN.

Around 3 a.m. my son appeared by the bed and said "Dad, let me have a hug." He had just returned from a Super Bowl Party. The last time I had seen him so excited over sports was when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup and we went to the ticker tape parade together. At that time he was a goalie on a travel team. Now in the midst of the Giant's culmination of a most improbable season, we hugged each other in a genuine understanding that something special had just transpired that was more meaningful than just a game. There was connection at many levels, with many years of sharing and working through disappointments, defeats, and victories.

Few had given the Giants a chance to win any of the playoff games. They just were not good enough. And yet, the Giants maintained that they believed in themselves and their teammates, and that was all that was needed to win. They not only believed they could win, despite all odds against them, but that they would win. In a way the entire season for the Giants was a metaphor for believing and persevering through adversity. They began by losing their first two games and having the worst record in football. Then as they played their third game, they began to turn the tide, but each achievement was also followed by mistakes and defeats. The coach was highly criticized and there were calls for his dismissal. The young quarterback was denounced as lacking any talent and simply did not have the right stuff to lead any team to victory, a hopeless draft mistake that had ruined the franchise.

Yet, the Giants refused to listen to the negative energy all around them, and simply replied, "It doesn't matter. We believe." I think the meaning for all of us inspired by their persevering through adversity is that we share the journey of this team to greatness: Never stop believing in yourself. Never, never give up, no matter what. Never believe the deliberately destructive negative noise directed at you.

They Might Be Giants was the name of a 1971 Broadway play and film written by James Goldman starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward. The title comes from Don Quixote, and Justin Playfair, who has retreated into fantasy after the death of his wife, imagines himself to be Sherlock Holmes, speculates about Quixote's madness in tilting at windmills that he believes are giants:

Of course, he carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. That's insane. But, thinking that they might be... Well, all the best minds used to think the world was flat. But, what if it isn't? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we'd all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.

Sunday night, February 3, 2008, the New York Giants extended their metaphor to us and invited us to share their journey. They emerge as giants... and now We might be giants, We can be giants, if we know to believe in ourselves, the power of our destiny and what we might become.

How Do You Keep The Music Playing?

How do you keep the music playing? Does the sound keep streaming from the silence, or must I be content with the silence in infinite repose? In the simplicity of this question, this haunting concern looms like a shadow over every moment. How does one keep the beauty flowing? How do you keep the love sustaining each moment? How do you hold on to those that you love? How do you clasp forever? How do you embrace those that define you and make you the music --- just as they are the decibels of my soul singing... Captured by this beauty, I languish in the anticipation of an empty silence.

Such is the source of my melancholy... wishing that I could stave off an inevitable void that threatens with such certainty. The only solace has been and is the music... music cuts through the fear and provides reassurance through the vibrations that our songs do and must continue. With no music playing there is no universe... no existence...

Music defines my identity... as long as the music is playing I live in the love and energy of such passionate resonance. I sing, I hear, I improvise: therefore I am. But this existence is in the symphony of sounds of all those that inhabit my life, my singing, the performance that is the music unfolding as the infinite presence of everyone, ---of you performing me... and me performing you...

Then I realize that you don't need to keep the music playing. The music plays itself, and in the playing it is the presencing of you and me in infinite convergence.

Mysterious Musician of Miracles

We sat silently enjoying the receding December afternoon as the shortest day of the year was fast approaching. Around us were countless paintings heavily influenced by the art of ancient natives of the Americas.

Our meeting was something of a quest, and the destination seemed cloaked in darkness and doubt. We sat in an intimate midtown dining room, virtually empty except for our presence. Although the location had seemed expedient and convenient, we began to discover that this restaurant Zuni was entwined with our exploration and quest, perhaps in its own a way a ritual for discovery.

Even silence seemed laced with meaning. The Zuni were a people deeply involved with Kokopelli, the flute player whose message was peace and prosperity. Kokopelli's melodies were the essence of mystery, the shaman of discovery, the soul of well being. During the meal, which was simple and elegant, we were flooded with the silence of Kokopelli's mystery. For me it was the sense that Kokopelli was with us and perhaps channelled through the person that sat across from me. Nothing was said about Kokopelli at that time, but the presence was unmistakable and palpable.

The destiny of the person across from me seemed linked to Kokopelli, and my understanding of this godlike messenger was transformed. As a shaman of fertility, the core of Kokopelli is the creative force. Kokopelli is the mystery of creation, the harbinger of the advancing reality, the passion of Time and Space erupting into the infinite abyss of Now. Kokopelli is reborn through each of us. We have only to listen. Music comes from the infinite silence, called into Being by Kokopelli. Now I understand why the opening of our first Internet2 performance reached across cyberspace and cybertime with the call of the flute from California, answered by the flute in New York as a new medium was born. Kokopelli was eloquently disclosed as the passion of our new creation. Now we are engaged in a similar mission of discovery where the new eludes us, just ahead, around and through the columns of Time, in the mystery of our undisclosed being.

Immediacy

Stumbling around the Internet last night, searching for new glimpses of the awareness of immediacy as a force in our experience, I came upon "The Immediacy of Rhetoric" by Steven Krause, a remarkable research document that the author describes as "nothing more than an odd and well-documented personal essay, a 'creative' work designed to help me (via the process of writing and the product that results) come to grips with and then to understand the quickness, the sheer and dramatic speed around me, the world's immediacy."

I have long regarded "writing as inquiry" as a means to discovery, the emergence of reality uncovered by the miracle of language. Dr. Krause has modeled this process, and I recommend his dissertation as an outstanding journey inhabited by insightful companions such as Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, and many more, including a final gesture to Laurie Anderson:

Ultimately, my goal with this exploration of immediacy as it applies to rhetorical situations has been about reconfiguring questions. As I suggested in the close of my introduction, the questions of immediacy are similar to the questions Laurie Anderson raises in her song "Same Time Tomorrow": "Is time long or is it wide?" I don't have an easy answer to that question or the questions of immediacy. But I hope that by asking these challenging questions about immediate rhetorical situations, I have exposed new possibilities for discourse.

Dr. Krause began this inquiry sometime during the 1990s and defended it in 1996 and presumably published it on the Web shortly thereafter and made some minor adjustments (although apparently not to the text) in 2002. Then it began its new habitation in Time and Space somewhat like an abandoned spaceship. There once was a links page, but that was eliminated in 2002 since the links so quickly lapsed and were out of date, disappearing into the blackhole of derelict websites begun so brightly full of hope, dissipating and disappearing in efforts requiring more resources than originally anticipated in sustaining such projects. Hopefully Dr. Krause will keep his site available, but I am reminded that nothing is forever, and I would invite you to explore his thinking sooner rather than later.

In addition to immediacy, Dr. Krause couples this inquiry with rhetoric, a discipline that has enjoyed a renaissance and has been a source of inspiration for me. Rhetoric's import for creating music and for interpreting works of art has been a source of discovery and speculation in working with a colleague who, while exploring phenomenology as providing insight into the process of making art, came upon the rhetorical terrain and began to mine its resources as a fruitful instrument of inquiry.

Prior to that, immediacy had occupied my thinking with regard to creative process. My inquiry was embodied in the creation itself rather than writing about it, although I have several unfinished manuscripts lying derelict somewhere in the dusty stacks of the past.

Within the well-mapped exploration that Dr. Krause has forged for us, we can sense a vital, creative energy that underlies his inquiry. In his dissertation he is tethered by the format and the process, although he manages to reveal the emergence of many portions of his text as acts of immediacy. Yet the form forces him away from the poetic vision that might reveal even more.

Applause and kudos to Steven Krause who is apparently a professor of English who willingly posted his inquiry for us to discover and embellish. One wonders if he has created new work since he may no longer be restrained within the formal protocols of institutional research. Despite the formal restraints on "The Immediacy of Rhetoric," a creative vision underlies his work. His inquiry exists as a model of creative inquiry and discovery where we learn more in the process than in the end result. It is this creative energy that needs to be brought to research, much like that of Christa Wolf's Cassandra, the embodiment of art emerging as creative research.

In the midst of my own creative efforts, I welcome the energy articulated in these ideas. To Krause, I am grateful for being reminded of the tremendous efficacy of languaging as inquiry, the reason I began these short blogging excursions in the first place.

With All Good Will

From New York City, anxiously awaiting some sign of snow, the only snow decorates my monitor with countless scenes of blizzards and blowing drifts as I post these good wishes on some server somewhere in Time and Space, awaiting your call.

Somehow Christmas has come. Once Christmas was my busiest time, filled with countless concerts and many months spent composing and arranging materials for festivals of song and merriment. Now, perhaps a few scores remain somewhere and no recordings because then I celebrated the temporality of such moments. Christmas emerged from the darkness of the future and disappeared into the density of the past, stacked in endless array. The joy was in the immediacy of the spontaneous presence of incandescent thoughts of intense beauty. In the passion of that moment was condensed all the goodness of our kind, where the only reality was the presencing of love and joy in the flow of forever. Somehow, however briefly, our kind have been able to comprehend that reality and cling to it in our most private reflection. Somehow we see the truth of ourselves all connected in the goodness of conscious presence. We have called it many things, including Christmas. It is a festival of lights and sounds to remind us of who we truly are.

And so, with all good will I rejoice in the truth of who you are, making me who I am, and I wish you the blessing of your true vision where that faint glimmer through the darkly glass erupts in the brightness of understanding, Truth, and Love. Somewhere we meet in this revelation, and now we are in the midst of such reveling in the mystery of ourselves.

Media and Me --- Media and We

Now that we are coming into the age where all experience is more or less mediated, I realize that the time ahead is the secret source of me. The idea of what constitutes media is actually changing even as I write. We think we know the media, but this is an illusion and the old notions of media are being redefined. Media are still about communication, but not in the old magazine and newspaper sense... not even in the old television and cinematic sense. Media is about community and represents the fracturing of the masses, a splintering into communes of interest --- not the communes of the Bolshevists which were designed to control masses, but the emergence of communication and consensus.

All that matters is that we are here, that we are part of the whole. I am concerned that this new media has a slight tinge of conformist pressure. This is necessary as part of a transition to a major shift in culture and civilization. We are experiencing this transition in every phase of human expression... all music sounds alike, all rap is the same, all websites are copies of each other, all films are knock-offs of each other, books are siphoned through word processors with cut and paste precision, and images are all photoshopped to death. Technology escalates imitation, but the creation of new masterworks materialize through emulation. In the newness of ourselves there is an immediacy, an awareness that our most profound knowledge is gained as something is happening rather than when it is completed.

Technology has empowered us with a new sensibility enabling us to move through materiality to a spiritual presencing. We experience this as a form of electricity sustaining a network emulating consciousness. With each advance, our material equipment is less cumbersome, smaller, more immediate. Connecting and sharing burgeons as the principle of Being. In the initial stages we rely on this not for the inherent spiritual power but for reassurance, a validation that we exist and that our existence matters and is confirmed by others. But this has already changed in a few of us.

Almost imperceptibly we are evolving as a new species. This is a major happening, and the advance sentinels of this new species are scattered among us. Like any emergence of a species, these modern individuals are few, but they are the advancement of all that we are becoming. We are the new media.

The Clatter of Pigeons

I usually pay no attention to pigeons. I have thought of them as fellow travelers, sharing this time and space ... quiet and usually unassuming, subtly retreating from my advance as I walk along a path or through the park.

But this evening as I walked, there was a flurry and clatter of wings on the air. The sound was overwhelming, and as I looked to my left, a horde of pigeons were swarming toward me at eye-level. It was sudden, an eruption that seemed explosive as these birds suddenly took flight and headed directly toward me as though on the attack.

I stood paralyzed by the sudden clatter and the sight of so many pigeons acting in unison. In an instant they were upon me. I couldn't help but recall the attack in Hitchcock's The Birds where the entire avian population sought revenge against our species. But that thought quickly disappeared as I tried to duck the onslaught of this sudden ambush.

At the last moment they swerved above my head and flew in formation toward the sky. As they swept by me, I felt the tremendous energy and power of their flight. I felt the wind of displaced air as they circled high and swooped downward. They were magnificent to watch, a whirlwind of wings revolving above me.

I glanced back at the spot from where they launched their invasion. A lone pigeon suddenly flew out of that obscure shady area. A straggler, I thought. There is always one that can't keep up with the pack.

But to my amazement this lone laggard flew to the head of the flock and took command, leading it to a new sanctuary. The mass fell into line behind the leader. I wondered if these pigeons had swarmed upon their leader's command, since their retreat seemed so controlled and orderly. Maybe this was just a friendly reminder that they had just as much right as I do to be here in this time and space.

As they disappeared, I felt my impressions of pigeons as fellow travelers in time and space was confirmed in this brief moment. I had seen evolution in action, an advanced protocol of a new species in the calculated control of the mob leader. I had also felt the tremendous power of the mass in its upward struggle for survival.

The Hemingway Solution

We are always in the midst of our own destruction. Last night I saw this so clearly, and now in the light of day the dark clarity of that moment is fading. Somehow I understand the fleeting, evanescent state of the human condition. Recognition that at some point we all die is an intellectual abstract that our consciousness cannot grasp since Being does not include Not Being.

Yet my human condition moves inevitably toward its own destruction. I struggle on a slippery slope and my optimistic intuition suggests that even though I will slip into oblivion, somehow the universe will rescue and preserve my awareness. It is this awareness that defines and makes the universe what it is. Without awareness, the universe is nothing.

Beneath my hope is that existential angst that drives me toward some control of my exit strategy---especially since my entry into the human condition was beyond my control (or so we surmise). I fully understand Hemingway's solution. Once there is no further hope, at least there is some integrity in controlling when to say Goodbye to All That. Yes, goodbye and good riddance if I am betrayed by my belief. Not that there is anything I can do about it anyway (or so I surmise).

Last night I lay in a stupor, having finished Young-Ha Kim's extraordinary book I Have The Right to Destroy Myself. Chi Young Kim's translation is riveting, but one can see beneath the words to the spiritual bedrock of the text, touch the mind of the author who has achieved a poetic level that helps me understand myself as an artist who is just passing by or passing through, if you will. I envy my Korean friends who read the text in its original Korean because I know that language is more cinematic than English. But to get back to last night. My existential dilemma was much clearer than now as I lay in a text-induced delirium with hallucinations defining my understanding. Kim begins his novel by describing Jacques-Louis David's famous painting, The Death of Marat. Marat lies, murdered, in his bath:

I have already tried to make a copy of this painting several times. The most difficult part is Marat's expression; he always comes out looking too sedate. In David's Marat, you can see neither the dejection of a young revolutionary in the wake of a sudden attack nor the relief of a man who has escaped life's suffering. His Marat is peaceful but pained, filled with hatred but also with understanding. Through a dead man's expression David manages to realize all of our conflicting innermost emotions. ...We should all emulate David. An artist's passion shouldn't create passion. An artist's supreme virtue is to be detached and cold.

I am transported to years earlier when I wrote an opera libretto that included a critic who shared this conviction of detachment as a virtue, the daemonic divorce of feeling and reason. I know that I am in for an adventure as this author is measured, always in control, always shrouded in mystery masquerading as clarity, a genius of misdirection. I am concerned that critics have described his work as perverse because that never occurred to me as I read his text.

Through this beginning Kim has set the tone for revealing a mystery. Perhaps the narrative is real, or perhaps this is the fiction of a writer who lurks calmly on the outskirts as the main character, but then recedes assuming all identities of the narrative. Are the characters in this book simply the novel the author is editing? The writer is the book. He is the wizard pulling the strings. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" Yet, he is calm and unflustered --- detached.

I am anything but detached. In my state I am everyone in the book. Kim ends with The Death of Sardanapal by Delacroix. It is the death of the king's steeds, his concubines, all brightly lit as a delightful spectacle of murder and mayhem, while in the upper left corner you discover the detached figure of Sardanapal in the shadows. At first you might think he is watching an orgy, but on closer scrutiny you see the knives thrust deep, the writhing, dying women, Sardanapal presiding over the death of his kingdom and the fall of Babylon. His actions have taken him to his own demise. Now I begin and end in the utter detachment of death, just like the narrative structure.

The symmetry of Kim's narrative almost pulverizes me as I discover that it mirrors my own quest for literary and artistic symmetry. I find myself reeling in the vortex of passions unleashed but casually contained. There are the brothers at odds and quietly at war, each a polarity of each other. There is the writer editing his novel and servicing his "clients." These three men are balanced by three women, Judith, perhaps Klimt's Judith, and Mimi, the stunning artist whose explosive work challenges the premise of artmaking, and the woman from Hong Kong. Even as I write this, I know there is no stability, the terrain shifts even as I unravel the mystery. It becomes clear that Kim IS Sardanapal oddly detached as the reality he has constructed deconstructs, just as HE was Marat in the opening, calm and coolly dead, filled with hatred and understanding.

My own fantasies mix in and I understand why the novel is about self destruction...and my own disintegration continues like some subtext to this narrative. I see Hemingway nodding and smiling in approval in the confusion of my cluttered, unlighted room. I am worried that I am Sardanapal presiding over my own deconstruction. Everyone is me and I am them in a feverish delusion of dimensions where I disappear into the text, now streaming as an alternate reality...

Fading Half-Life Radiation of 9/11

9/11 is still vividly burned into my world. That beautiful blue-skied September morning still shimmers in my memory along with the shrill shrieking of the airplane that flew directly over my head as I came out of the supermarket, watching that American Airliner plummeting toward its destructive destiny. An instant later, there in the distance, smoke billowed out of the north World Trade Center tower. Even as the innocence of autumn was ripped apart, I had the sense that something sinister had invaded my city. The Trade Center was about 20 blocks away, and the the gaping crater in the tower was enveloped by a grotesque serenity as the scream of the airliner overhead had dissolved into the eerie silence of the distant target. Quietly the debris rained on the horrified crowd below. In the stillness of that morning smoke was slowly spreading like a grey and black dye in the sky.

In that instant I imagined the horror unleashed on those trapped in the building. Oddly, I thought that it would take a long time to repair such damage, although I knew even then that world as we knew it was crumbling. This was a World Trade Center...and now that world was fatally wounded. Less than ten minutes later the distant tableau was punctuated by a second plane swerving from the west and turning directly into the south side of the southern tower. Fire and smoke erupted through the side and front of the tower... exploding across the world as a mass murder of innocents who had begun that day with such beauty and bright hope. Now America was in the throes of a surprise attack that was beyond our comprehension.

In the days that followed the attack we lived in a war zone. Military and artillery lined Houston Street and zones were established for 14th Street down to Houston Street, Houston to Canal, and then to Chambers Street, and below that, at the center of the collapsed towers, was what became known as Ground Zero. I roamed these grounds encountering people lost and bewildered, strangers in search of validation, vigils peopled by mourners, and reading walls and fences lined with messages and pleas for information of missing loved ones.

Seven years later a city reconstructs its destruction. Even now I walk through the lingering vapor, through the empty carcass of a bleeding landscape, watching workers weld walls and supports into place as the emptiness of Ground Zero is covered by a resurrection, a Phoenix rising from the ashes to bring hope and renewal.

But beneath this restoration, the gaping wounds have turned to fresh scars. The tissues and sinews connecting this space form a network of a tragic sense of loss. It is though I had limbs that are now amputated, but I imagine them to be intact. I feel the clouds of billowing smoke, the suffocating dust, the rush of terror.

Yet I roam through my city, through this tract that has been burned throughout history. This very land has been the scene of the great fire of 1776 as a "scorched earth" left for the invading British, the disastrous fire of 1835 which leveled this entire district with the utter destruction of Wall Street, and now this same ground in its most devastating moment of 2001. What attracts such destruction and death? Does the energy of all those people past still linger throughout these downtown canyons and corridors? These are sacred grounds consecrated by the tangible presence of death and sorrow.

I know a new truth as I wander these streets. There is a lingering sadness even as I celebrate a new season, a new energy of rebirth. I know there are new reasons to celebrate. I touch the fresh fabric covering the remnants of our suffering and find a tragic and urgent beauty... a quiet reason for understanding that from the death of the past, new works and new people must emerge... that is our destiny, the perpetual rediscovery born from our pain where joy is colored by the lustre of a deeper understanding of why we love this city and honor its past while celebrating and mourning its brave new face. The presence of the past is palpable, realms of experience resonate like emerging new music sounding through the desperate anguish that lingers in forever fading half-life radiation....

Brave New World of the Eumenides

Director Nancy Smither's remarkable conception of the Aeschylus play The Eumenides restores the lustre of antiquity while breaking new ground. The play has been in production for the last week in October and the first weekend in November in Steinhardt's BlackBox Theatre at New York University. Smithner is known for an inventive physical approach to staging, the actors move with such imagination that the result is an original choreography born of passion and drama that allows characters to create worlds that intersect and collide. Moreover Smither empowers the actors to find their own space and strength, and their characters emerge with a kinesthetic energy that shapes their destinies.

To be sure, on one level The Eumenides deals with Orestes' tragic and brutal murder of his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father, Agamemnon. Although vividly remembered through Smither's brilliant use of puppetry, shadows, and visual re-enactments, these events have taken place prior to the time of the play. What now remains is the cultural shock and fury, made compelling through the presence of the Furies, a chorus of underworldings who seek revenge for the spilling of one's own blood, the son's stabbing of his mother. For them, this is the only crime. Apparently Agamemnon deserved to die because he had only sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to appease the daughter of Zeus, Artemis who was the twin sister of Apollo. Clytemnestra was also a bit miffed that Agamemnon had returned from his victory with the spoils of war: the lovely and provocative Cassandra as his slave and concubine.

The atmosphere of the world of The Eumenides is a fantascape, brimming over with the remnants of reality, the underworld, the imagination, and fantasy, like a visual and sound manifestation of Ligeti's Atmospheres that introduces the other worldliness at the end of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. This brave new world has been achieved through Tim McMath's chimerical set, Deborah Constantine's evocative lighting, and composer Rob Schwimmer's magical acoustic environment. Schwimmer has employed electronic instruments of the past such as the Theremin, which adds to the distant, other worldliness that pervades the atmosphere of the play. These elements serve to fuse the unity of the vision as the play is performed from beginning to end without intermission.

One might surmise from the many layers of figures and characters, that ultimately the issue of justice becomes a major concern. Indeed, whose justice? We may well wonder, and at the end we may still be in doubt, despite the clear resolution. The Eumenides is the third play in the trilogy, The Oresteia. The first play, Agamemnon, tells the story of Agamemnon's return from Troy and his murder at the hand of Clytemnestra. The second, The Libation Bearers, deals with the revenge of Agamemnon's children. Thus in the third play, Aeschylus is concerned with justice and the values of a new culture and emergent democracy.

Smithner's direction understands that the Furies emerge as the star of the play, thus underscoring the fact that the role of the Greek chorus has been transformed into the main character of the play. The chorus no longer merely makes commentary on the acts of the main characters. The chorus creates the action and moves the play forward. Smithner seizes this opportunity the develop each of the Furies in interlocking individual characters that are distinctly personal, but also part of the group. In fact, the Furies are likely unaware that the very nature of their group mirrors the democracy that finds new definition as the play unfolds. They press charges against Orestes and demand that he be punished for the murder of his mother.

The Furies form a compelling fabric for the play. Alecto played by Dean Amato was utterly relentless and in your face, while Lisha Brown as Mania seemed linked in her madness to the maniacal psychosis of Clytemnestra and her ghost, Praxidika played by Emily Weidenbaum was almost spiteful as the vengeful fury, complementing Ami Formica's Tisiphone as an avenger of murder, Erin Kaplan's Megaera, the grudging one, epitomizes the reluctance of the Furies to accept an new order, and Semina played by Lisa Vasfaido as the venerable one to offers distant hope for a new order. This is a vision of the Furies that emerges from director Smithner and the talented cast, who have created an intelligent commentary on the play through subscribing to a new and insightful vision.

We understand from the outset, that this is to be a forthright examination of the facts as we are introduced to the story by our storytellers, David Altman and Jamila Khan who later enact the events surrounding Agememnon's death by his own sword in the hands of Clytemnestra. The Priestess played by Naomi Tessler underscores the moral undercurrents and also beautifully represents Iphigenia who is sacrificed by her father. Hermes is ably played as the messenger by Kyle Stockwell, sent to protect Orestes from The Furies. Orestes, the central figure of the trial is portrayed by Isaac Polanco as the son who feels the guilt of murdering his mother, but who has acted at the command of Apollo. Apollo as played by Mauel Brian Simons, is the essence of reason and clarity, even when provoked and goaded by The Furies.

Athena charges into the fray with incredible wit and timing, unlike any Athena I have ever imagined. Created by actress Erin Ronder and Smithner's deft directorial vision, Athena brings humor and charm to the play, while proving there is always more than one way to look at the facts. Athena accepts the Furies on her own terms and plants the seeds for their transformation into the Eumenides at the end. Ronder has a great sense of panache and timing, and we can appreciate that the elements of doom and gloom of any tragedy can be transformed by point of view. But The Eumenides is not a tragedy. It might be the very first morality play, but of course it ranges far beyond the scope of most present day moralities. The Eumenides is meant in the end to uplift, inspire, and instruct. We are treated to a trial by jury (actually drawn from the audience as citizens of Athens). Athena has the deciding vote in the event of a tie, and make no mistake, she will opt for a new vision of justice for the future in which the Eumenides become the pillars of a new and calmer social order.

It was a joy to see the richness of Aeschylus through the artful lens of these young actors from New York University under the creative vision of Nancy Smither whose staging creates the need for a new vocabulary of movement for actors. I cannot forget the haunting vision of Clytemnestra's Ghost played as a bizaare phantom by Nandini Naik. Just as the Furies have grudgingly accepted their new and more gracious (controlled?) role in society, just as the lights are beginning to fade to black, and just as we are comfortable in the vision that all is well in this new society, the provocative image of Clytemnestra's Ghost eerily appears, reminding us that nothing is ever the way it seems.

The Otherness of Ourselves

Once while dining with a friend, I found our conversation taking a deeper turn. I am not sure why. But I began to come across aspects of myself that I had forgotten. I have always thought that each of us come from the same cataclysmic moment of the cosmos bursting into awareness of itself. We are that initial awareness masked by the otherness.

At that point where we connect in mystical acknowledgment of our beingness, we mirror to each other a singularity of consciousness. Thus in a conversation, an exchange, we discover ourselves all over. We suddenly remember moments long forgotten. Images, words, sounds, and songs pop into our heads as we speak, and I realize that had we not been engaged with the person opposite us, we might have passed those moments by, unaware that they were hidden there in a clump of consciousness buried beneath the debris of forgetfulness --- waiting to be acknowledged.

But the miracle of otherness doesn't stop there. We also look ahead to the possibilities of who we are becoming. The very presence, the energy of otherness opens us to new options and opportunities. The world unfolds in the presence of our connection and these cosmic collisions of consciousness shape us to a destiny that is constantly in flux.

In the otherness of ourselves we experience the microcosm of infinite becoming. It is the miracle of awareness, and I thank you, all of you, for your incandescent presence that illuminates the darkest and most remote corners of myself. I can only hope that the experience is mutual in my otherness of you.

Jamie Dazzled Us Like Disney

Jamie's gone. He was our Beagle friend, family member, and personal Disney star. He had all the moves of a Disney animation, except he was real life. He would run ahead, pause, look back at us with his left leg lifted and pointed, just like Bambi. And he could smile. Just like Thumper.

After 17 years, Jamie left us, quietly, in his sleep, in his bed, but I remember that Christmas Eve we brought him home, snuggled inside my son's coat to protect him from the cold. Jamie was rambunctious, inquisitive, proud, stubborn, bright, happy, and often dazzling. It was amazing to see how such a tiny bundle of energy could transform a space and make everyone happy.

Living with Jamie, we saw where Charles Shulz got his ideas for Snoopy. On the first night home, Jamie climbed on top of his doghouse (yes, we had a doghouse in the apartment) and howled. All that was missing was the moon. We were always seeing Snoopy on top of his doghouse. Now I know why. That's what Beagles do.

Jamie was always into everyone's business, just like Snoopy, and he was deeply reflective. You would often see him lying there pondering the universe. He had a deep sense of justice and would scold us when we had somehow wronged him.

We were never able to get a really good picture of Jamie. All his best images are still inside our heads. Every move was so beautiful, with such personality and verve. His tail was the indicator of his moods and usually it was straight up, proud and beautiful. I often called him "proud tail." But when he felt guilty for some infraction, it was curled down between his legs.

But all of his features were dazzling, his soft, brown floppy ears, the white arrowhead on his forehead, and his beautiful tricolor blend of brown, black, and white. Throughout his 17 years, Jamie looked puppy-like, youthful. I think it was because of the zest and energy that was always the source of his animation. Even as he entered his 17th year, people would sometimes mistake him for a puppy.

Jamie lives with us still, in our memories, in the spaces he inhabited and visited. All his love, indignities, energy, concern, joy, and animation --- still dazzle us like Disney --- but he was and is, real.

It Was Different Then

The QWERTY keyboard is the same, but it was different writing on an Olympia Portable. I first saw it in the window of a stationery store on Columbus Avenue in 1960. I had to have it. The typewriter font was "shaded pica"---very smart indeed---almost like having a sculptor chiseling each letter on the page!. Such a typeface was sure to improve my writing 150%. Up until that time I had used an old Underwood machine that we pulled out from a closet and was shared by my family, a machine notorious for blackening in each e and a. But the Olympia was a machine for dreaming writers who needed the excellence of West German technology and precision to put their dreams on paper. It was such a beautiful feat of engineering and could be taken anywhere. It was so elegant that I even wrote poetry directly onto the paper with my Olympia.

That Olympia took me almost all the way through my graduate study, until I was seduced by the IBM Selectric, especially with Selectric with memory! Goodbye, whiteout! Now my words were saved as code on a cassette tape. It was the beginning of the end to the sound of a typewriter slapping the paper in a relentless rhythm with an automatic carriage return, except the carriage return had yielded to a roving ball of type that could easily be changed for a different typeface. Soon the QWERTY keyboard would be embedded in the silence of a computer interface where the only sound would be the quiet tapping of my fingers on a keyboard, a quieter and more subtle rhythmic envelope.

Recently I found myself yearning for an Olympia portable typewriter of the 60s vintage. I know you can't go home again, but there was something about that Olympia and the romance of the word that still beckons like some eloquent siren of past voyages. Googling it does no good. Such romance is beyond Google since the Olympia is more than word. As good as it can be, Google doesn't capture the essence, the romance of words embedded in a distant and almost forgotten reality.