An Improviser is Born
Up-River! The adventure of reality from Haggard to Conrad to Coppola to Bourdain
by Bill Benzon How, then, do we get from H. Rider Haggard to Anthony Bourdain? Let’s start with the easy and straightforward. Both are white men, as are Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola for that matter. Haggard was British; he was born in the 19th century and died in the 20th (1856-1925). Bourdain was…
From tears to ecstasy, some aspects of musical performance
by Bill Benzon Music has been extraordinarily important to me. I’ve listened to and been moved by a lot of it, of all kinds, polka, jazz, classical, rock, and who knows what else. And I’ve performed in various settings – dive bars, concert halls, the streets of New York, weddings, even a funeral or two.…
Seder-Masochism: Nina Paley began at the end and ended at the beginning
by Bill Benzon Seder-Masochism, the whole film Nina Paley recently finished her second feature film, Seder-Masochism. Her first, of course, is the award-winning Sita Sings the Blues, a retelling of the Ramayana from a feminist point of view which Paley released in full in 2008. However, she had started posting segments to the internet several…
Thomas Naylor’s Paths Peace in a world of small states
by Bill Benzon A small-state world would not only solve the problems of social brutality and war; it would solve the problems of oppression and tyranny. It would solve all problems arising from power. – Leopold Kohr, Breakdown of Nations This insight was the late Thomas Naylor’s lodestone; it informed and animated everything he did. Primarily an economist – who taught at…
First Man and a sense of the sacred
Neural Weather, An Informal Defense of Psychoanalytic Ideas
Is FDR the capital of the SK8board nation?
by Bill Benzon FDR? You mean Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32d president of the USofA? Not quite. I mean FDR SK8park, in Philadelphia. “SK8park”? What’s that? Can’t you spell? Yes I can. Sound it out. Oh, you mean “skate park”. Right. SK8park, FDR SK8park. It’s at the southern end of Franklin Delano Park. What’s this skateboard…
Wonderful Rainbow Aesthetics: The Song of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
by Bill Benzon Sometime in 1993 Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, known as IZ to his many fans, calls his producer at 2AM and sets up a recording session ASAP. He records a handful of tunes, just his voice and ukulele, one tune after the other, all single takes, and goes home. One of those takes was a…
Bergen Arches: Living for the City
by Bill Benzon “We’re in one of those great historic periods…when people don’t understand the world anymore…when the past is not sufficient to explain the future.” –Peter Drucker Fasten your seatbelts, we’re going for a ride. We start over 300 million years ago and arrive at the present in a mere six paragraphs. We remain…
World Island: Zeal means hope [The World’s Got Talent]
by Bill Benzon Zeal Greenberg is one of the most amazing men I’ve ever worked with. I emphasize “worked with”. I’ve discussed Disney’s Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 over dinner with Steve Martin. I took Malcolm Forbes’s photo with one of his fans, who then took a photo of me and Forbes. He and his motorcycle club, the…
Feed Me Donald! – Trump, Musk, the Internet, and Monsters from the Id
by Bill Benzon Seen on Google search, Friday morning, September 9, 2018: I’m sure you’ve heard about it. Elon Musk went on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Rogan lit up a blunt, and Musk took a toke. The next day Tesla’s stock tanked. Well, not exactly tanked, but it was down seven points, and the drop can’t…
Through a 3D Glass Starkly, New York 2140 Redux
Three Children of the Space Age: Elon Musk, Freeman Dyson, and Me
Disney’s Dumbo, Tripping the Elephants Electric
by Bill Benzon We are now less than a year away from the scheduled release of Disney’s live-action remake of Dumbo, the studio’s fourth animated feature. It is in some ways dark and sinister–animals jaded from the daily grind of performing and being on display; cruel, exploitive, and drunken clowns; and the snobbish elephant matrons…
Grappling at the edges of reality with Joe Rogan
by Bill Benzon A couple of weeks ago I was making my online rounds. When I checked YouTube I saw a link to a conversation between Steven Pinker and Joe Rogan. I’m quite familiar with Pinker and have correspond with him a bit, though I’ve not read his most recent book. And the name, “Joe…
Gojira 1954: No More Nukes
Leapin’ Lizards: Three Lessons I Learned in Marching Band
by Bill Benzon Like many musicians, I was in a marching band in middle school and high school, the Marching Rams of Richland Township in Western Pennsylvania. We were a very good band. We marched in the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. in 1965. That experience was a rich one. But it was also…
A look under the hood and behind the curtain through the insane musical genius that is Mnozil Brass
by Bill Benzon I don’t know just when it was, but let’s say it was half a dozen years ago. I’m on an email list for trumpet players and someone had sent a message suggesting we check out the Mnozil Brass. Strange name, I thought, but I found some clips on YouTube and have been…