Three Second Private Screening of an Angel Underground

Last night, in a particularly intense East Village sprint, I ran from Rapture Cafe, where Joseph Keckler was reading new material, to Sidewalk Cafe, where Urban Barnyard was singing old material.  Joseph and Urban Barnyard are both incredibly adept at making the banal seem holy, and, since I've spent the past few months trying to systematically portray the holy as banal, this was a welcome change of pace.  I lost most of my composure during UB's Casey-penned song about gorillas in the zoo looking disdainfully out on all the ridiculous people.  I could see that gorilla staring at me, and I did indeed feel ridiculous.  Most of that ridiculousness felt tragic.  Maybe 65%.  I should go visit the gorillas and find out what's up.

I ran into Joseph again, outside, and told him that he renews my faith in autobiographical solo performance.  I meant this very much, and I've been thinking about it a lot.  Still, I doubt I'll be recounting personal tales in public anytime soon, since I've been purging most of that urge on this here website. 

Tomorrow night, if you come to Dixon Place, you'll get to see the first reading of my new play, "The Last Chanukah," which I've been writing since August, and working on more abstractly since March, 2006.  This is the seventh version of the script, and if you read this journal, you probably have a sense of how crazy I've gotten during the playwriting process.  I don't feel crazy anymore.  I feel proud.  And optimistic for the future of this project.

THE LAST CHANUKAH: a work in progress
written by Dan Fishback
directed by Daniel Safer
Sunday, December 9th, 8pm
Dixon Place (258 Bowery), FREE
Complimentary refreshments will be available, and a talk-back will take place immediately following the reading.

Starring: Julie Lake, Jonathan Spivey, Jonathan Kline, Castrato DiMatteo, La John Joseph, Joseph Keckler, Erin Markey, Glenn Marla, Max Steele, Thain Torres, and Dan Fishback

To save his race from extinction, Mr. Fleishman decides to impregnate hundreds of Jewish women. So he sends Jonah, his nerdy young tenant, to visit the rabbis of New York, soliciting lists of eligible wombs. Meanwhile, a sickly young Jewess, crippled by her sense of social responsibility, locks herself in her room where she descends into dementia. In her nightmares, she becomes Anne Frankenstein, a pessimistic Dutch teenage monster who kills and cannibalizes anti-Semites (and then writes about it in her diary). When their stories are interrupted by the 2nd grade class of the Rizzo Rosenblat Radical Elementary School for Progressive Jewish Education and Calisthenics, tantrums are had, tears are shed, and everyone experiences believable character arcs.

The Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists is a partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records, and the Foundation for Jewish Culture, and is made possible with major funding from UJA-Federation of New York.

http://www.sixpointsfellowship.com

Tonight, after rehearsal, I found myself without an immediate task.  It felt alien.  For months, my life has been scheduled by the half-hour.  Suddenly, I had...free time.  I felt some sort of existential crisis gathering strength in the back of my head, so I did what I always do in those situations: I called Dibs and ran to his house to make dinner.

Dibs lives way out on the M train, so deep into Brooklyn it isn't even Brooklyn anymore.  It's Queens.  I played with the cat.  He and Liv and I bought too-expensive wine for no particular reason, and pesto.  We made a delicious pasta sauce, and watched videos on YouTube.  It was exactly what I needed.  But I was also distracted by momentary flashes of myself in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years: a single gay man who, in times of crisis, runs to the suburbs to leach off of the domestic bliss of his heterosexual friends and their cat.  This is, of course, a needlessly pessimistic perspective.  But it doesn't mean I shouldn't add new, personally productive options to my list of Emotional Gloom Alternatives.   "Spooning," for instance, would fit nicely on that list.

Anyone?
Love
Dan