Happy Birthday to Tennessee Williams, who would have been 97 today. Over the past year I’ve developed a new acquaintance and appreciation for T.W.’s work, which started when I picked up a first edition copy of his Memoirs in an Athens, Georgia thrift store last year. The book is rambling, gossipy fun, although he doesn’t speak much [...]

It is the season of rebirth, and I need it! Shed the old skin, crawl out of the pupa and become a butterfly — or giant moth. Viva Ruiz and Jaiko Suzuki as the Mothra Girls from Vernal Hoodoo last year. It is always worth watching or hearing the real thing, too.  

This electrified excerpt from “The Rite of Spring” served as an overture for Vernal Hoodoo, the Easter show I put up at the Box in 2007. Mia Theodoratus led the band in arranging Stravinsky’s orchestral masterwork for the band. I just love those opening bars on the synthesizer! A live board recording from the show is [...]

 Rite Aid on Fairfax and Sunset in Hollywood, March, 2001.

In honor of Good Friday, I am reposting “Die, Jesus, Die!” a review of the film PASSION OF THE CHRIST that I wrote after viewing the film in a theater in March, 2004. It was an crazy cinematic experience, and I responded with this avalanche of words and images.    The title is not meant to be [...]

I’ve been trying to take advantage of the $20 rush tickets available for weeknight performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Last month I took myself to see the intense and amazing Die Walküre, which felt like the 19th Century was coming at me off the stage like a steamroller on the grandest scale. I am pretty sure that is what [...]

The promotional photo for last year’s Easter show, Vernal Hoodoo. Photo by Matthu Placek; mask design by Desi Santiago.

One of my favorite films, Judex (1963) directed by Georges Franju, screened at Anthology Film Archives last night, and on third viewing it is still inspiring and magical. It is a remake of the silent serial by Louis Feuillade, who also made the serials Les Vampires and Fantômas, hugely influential films about super-villains. In response to complaints that he [...]

  Here’s something terrifying: Big Dog, the robot created by Boston Dynamics. Take a look, then imagine ten of them coming out of the woods at you. Seeing it successfully stay standing on the ice is amazing, its reactions make it seem truly animal, which is scary! Sometimes it looks like two people facing each [...]