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Steven S. Drachman on Anna May Wong’s Academy Award

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A couple of thoughts on the Oscars and the sweep of the sci-fi Chinese family drama-comedy, Everything Everywhere All at Once, which (if you’ve been hiding under a talking rock for the last year) stars Michelle Yeoh as a late middle-aged laundry owner grappling with daughter problems, husband problems, and tax problems, all while battling an evil force determined to destroy the multi-verse.

Hong Kong Film’s 1980s Heyday

I spent my college years in the mid-1980s watching Hong Kong movies at New York’s Music Palace on Bowery Street in Chinatown, and that other one, the theater that had subway tracks on its roof, which I think was on Mott Street. Both are gone now.

I watched action films directed by John Woo, Ching Siu-Tung’s Chinese Ghost Story movies, Stephen Chow comedies, and on and on.

When I saw Michelle Yeoh’s explosive appearance in Supercop, at the Music Palace, I thought that she should have won a special Academy Award for riding a motorcycle off an embankment and landing on a moving train, with a smile on her face.

At the time, I really lamented the fact that no one in the mainstream media wrote about these movies, and none of them managed a proper mainstream release. Hollywood studios thought the American audience wasn’t ready for Chinese movie stars, and America’s taste-makers definitely wasn’t ready. When Jackie Chan’s Police Story made it into the New York Film Festival in 1987, it did more to damage the festival than to elevate Jackie Chan.

Hollywood’s Blind Eye Was My Gain

But the lack of media awareness of these movies had a silver lining for me. When Hong Kong film festivals finally began to dot the horizon in the early 1990s, almost no film critics (with the occasional exception, such as Dave Kerr) knew enough to write intelligently about these movies, and I stepped into the gap. I eventually interviewed Jackie Chan for Entertainment Weekly, because no one at the magazine had more than a vague idea of who he was.

It was the start of my such-as-it-is writing career. It led to other things. If not for the American obscurity of Hong Kong films in the 1980s, and my propitious knowledge of this industry when one was momentarily needed, I’d have no writing career at all.

Hollywood’s treatment of Asian film was echoed in its cold shoulder to Asian-Americans. For years and years and years, Hollywood infamously rejected any film that would star an actor of Asian national origin. Barry Hughart’s rousing fantasy/action novel, Bridge of Birds, had all the elements of a great movie franchise, and Hughart even found himself in discussions with a studio executive, who, according to Hughart explained bluntly (in what one might call “colorful” language) that the all-Chinese cast meant that the movie would never be made.

Everything Everywhere Deserved Its Oscar Sweep

Some view Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Oscar sweep as something like reparations or affirmative action, an award for all the Asian-themed movies and Asian actors the Academy has overlooked, all the movies Hollywood didn’t make, all the actors it never cast.

This seems to suggest that the movie wouldn’t have won these awards if there weren’t wrongs to be righted. And this is unfair. While not typical Oscar bait, Everything Everywhere could certainly under any circumstances have benefited from what I will call “the Sideways effect.” Generally speaking, the Sideways effect refers to the way a single nasty line in a popular movie depressed the sales of merlot wine. But I use it a different way, to describe an offbeat film that rides just the right wave at just the right time. There can be one, and only one, “Sideways effect movie” in any given year. This is one rule of the Sideways effect.

Everything Everywhere was the Sideways effect movie this year, for reasons that included cultural ones, but it could have been the Sideways effect movie even in the best of all possible worlds.

The actors and filmmakers seemed to acknowledge that they were winning awards for all those who should have won before them; it was not a coincidence that an editorial about the great Anna May Wong appeared in the New York Times the week before the Oscar ceremony.

In accepting her award for Best Actress, Michelle Yeoh called out to “all the little boys and girls who look like me,” in accepting his award for Best Supporting Actor, Ke Huy Quan stated that “I spent a year in a refugee camp and somehow I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage…. This, this, is the American Dream,” and in accepting the award for Best Picture, co-director Daniel Kwan said, “We are all products of our context. We are all descendants of something and someone, and I want to acknowledge my context.”

Recognizing What Came Before, and What Could Have Been

So it was kind of OK, in a way, that Michelle Yeoh’s award recognizes not only the best performance of 2022, and the great performances that she has given for forty years, but also the Oscar that Anita Mui didn’t win for her heartbreaking performance in Rouge and the Oscar that Maggie Cheung didn’t win for her tough and daring turn in Full Moon in New York and her haunting role in Farewell China; that Ke Huy Quan’s award also acknowledges the Oscar that Michael Hui didn’t win for Always on My Mind, that Jackie Chan didn’t win for Little Big Soldier, that Tony Leung didn’t win for Farewell China, and that Leslie Cheung didn’t win for Happy Together. And while we’re at it, maybe Stephanie Hsu’s nomination as Best Supporting Actress can somehow, in some redefinition of karma, recompense Hayley Man, a young actress whom the Academy failed to recognize for Farewell China in 1990.

And maybe it’s also a recognition of the Oscar that Brandon Lee won for his role as Number Ten Ox in Bridge of Birds in some other part of the multi-verse, a hypothetical world in which, in 1988, Hollywood had the foresight to make an action/fantasy film starring a Chinese lead actor.

And, of course, it’s also above all a recognition of the Oscar that Anna May Wong didn’t win for The Good Earth in 1937, because the studios cast Luise Raine in yellow face in the lead role. Image the performance Wong would have given, if she’d only had the chance! Imagine the acceptance speech. And imagine the Hollywood that such a thing would have created and cultivated. Imagine the movies that would have been made, but that weren’t made. It’s a requiem for a world of movies that never existed.

One day, an Oscar will just be an Oscar, and not redress for a hundred years of injustice. But not quite yet.

A Final Thought

I’ve mentioned Farewell China multiple times in this article. It’s a great movie about Chinese immigrants in New York City, directed by the great Clara Law, and you should watch it. I reviewed it for The Boston Phoenix when it played in Boston in the 1990s, and I interviewed Clara Law at the time. It used to be rentable on DVD.com, but now it’s not; you should add it to your list and keep an eye out.

After The Joy Luck Club, Crazy Rich Asians and, now, Everything Everywhere’s Oscar triumph, I’ve had the same thought — maybe Hollywood will suddenly be so excited by the idea of movies about Chinese women that they’ll reach out to Clara Law and offer her a deal.

Farewell China won a slew of awards, including Taiwan equivalent of the Oscar (and the Hong Kong Oscar nomination) that Hayley Man received for Best Actress, before vanishing utterly into obscurity, apparently.

Clara Law is still alive and well, living and working in Australia.

And One Last Thought

Blake Edward’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a great movie rendered almost unwatchable by Mickey Rooney in yellow face as an old Japanese landlord. It’s not the yellow face per se that is so objectionable, but the horribleness of his acting, the worst performance Rooney ever gave. With today’s special effects technology, Rooney could be surgically excised from the film and replaced with George Takei or Ken Watanabe. Edwards’ widow, Julie Andrews, is still alive and would presumably approve. She is a nice lady, reputation would have it. Wherever he is, I know it’s what Mickey Rooney would want.

^^^

Steven S. Drachman is the author of a science fiction trilogy, The Strange and Astounding Memoirs of Watt O’Hugh the Third, which is available in paperback from your local bookstore, Amazon and Barnes & Noble; it is also available as a Kindle e-book.

Image: What if Anna May Wong Won an Oscar?

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Granville Wyche Burgess on Pat Conroy: A Connection Through Time

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[This article first appeared in 2018.]

It all began when lyricist Anne Croswell and composer Lee Pockriss came to see my play THE FREAK, about the psychic Edgar Cayce in New York in 1981. They liked my writing enough to ask me to join them as the bookwriter for a musical based on novelist Pat Conroy’s memoir “The Water Is Wide,” about his time teaching on an island off the coast of South Carolina in 1969.  Being from South Carolina myself and also being a fan of Conroy’s eloquent writing, I readily agreed.

Our musical, CONRACK, had its premiere at AMAS Repertory Theatre in 1987.  It was well-received, with the New York Times critic calling it “a well-made family show that has something to say,” and applauding us for not “shying away from portraying racial bitterness with a stinging incisiveness.”  What I remember best about the production, however, is that it provided me with one of my favorite theatre stories.

Pat came to see the show with his seven-year-old daughter, Susannah.  When they sat in the back row of the tiny theatre in Harlem, I stationed myself right behind them, where I was amused to overhear this delightful exchange.  The character, Pat Conroy, comes onstage to sing his opening song.  As he launches into it, Susannah turns to the real Pat Conroy sitting next to her and exclaims, “Daddy, I didn’t know you knew how to sing!” For me, this has remained the most profound example I know of that ineffable mix of fantasy and reality that constitutes theatre’s magical appeal.

CONRACK went on to have productions at Goodspeed Opera House, the National Alliance of Musical Theatre, and Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.  The Ford’s performance was attended by then-President George Bush, First-Lady Barbara, and Prime Minister John Major of Great Britain and his wife.  A picture of the President congratulating the cast and me after the show and his personal letter to me are some of my proudest possessions.

But it is the personal connections with Pat Conroy that have meant the most to me as CONRACK journeys down whatever path the Fates have paved for it.  In February 2016, our musical was chosen to have a staged reading by The York Theatre in New York City. Out of the blue, Susannah, who had recently healed an estrangement with her father and was fondly remembering their trip to see our show, contacted me to ask if there were any recordings of the music.  The only ones we had were a cassette recording made from the audience at a Ford’s Theatre performance, which I promised to send her.  On the first day of our rehearsal in New York, Pat announced publicly that he had terminal cancer.  I edited the songs as best I could and sent them to Susannah.  She later told me that they were some of the last music her father listened to before he passed away.  Knowing that made me feel proud, happy, sad, grateful—a mix of emotions that flooded through me as I listened to the music pouring from the stage of The York Theatre that February.

In October 2018, I directed a full production of CONRACK in Pat’s adopted hometown, Beaufort, SC.  I was thrilled to do so because it was part of the Pat Conroy Literary Festival, an annual celebration of Pat’s work and that of authors inspired by his writings.  Many of Pat’s family attended the show, including his brother, sisters, children, grandchildren, widow, even his agent.  CONRACK would be seen by the entire Conroy Clan!  Having the people who knew Pat best witness our transformation of his very personal story into song and dance made me a little anxious.  The show went great, the audience applauded and laughed, and Pat’s family seemed to really enjoy it.  I was not prepared, however, to see them exit the theatre with tears streaming down their faces.  They hugged me and thanked me for having created such a wonderful tribute to the humor, idealism, courage, humility, and respect for others that characterized Pat Conroy.  I was so grateful for their gratitude.  I cried a little myself.  They weren’t to be my final tears in the Conroy saga that had begun some thirty-five years ago.

During my time in Beaufort, I had gotten to know Pat’s widow, Cassandra King, a charming, literate, down-to-earth “Southern gal” from Alabama.  It was she who provided me further proof that, despite the fact that I had met him only once, my connection to Pat Conroy was deep and destined to last my lifetime.  Cassandra had given me a bulging envelope on the last night of our musical’s run in Beaufort.  Due to the usual closing performance late-night party, I didn’t open it until my wife was driving me through South Carolina the next day. When I did open it, I found a card which read:  “Thank you so much for the fantastic production of CONRACK.  It was a moving experience for the entire family.  This is an actual pen of Pat’s, that he wrote with, and I only give them to very special people.” She had given me one of the pens Pat wrote with!  I kept turning it over and over in my hands as I wept. I am pausing at my computer now to hold it again, gently rubbing it, thinking how Pat must have held this pen as he put down on one of his yellow legal pads some of those lyrical, humorous, rapturously descriptive words that have enthralled and entertained millions of readers and will continue to do so for many years to come.  I hold a pen and I can feel spiritually connected to one of the greatest writers of my generation.  I am overwhelmed.

^^^

Granville Wyche Burgess is an Emmy-nominated playwright and novelist. He is the author of The Last At-Bat of Shoeless Joe, a novel about Shoeless Joe Jackson, published by Chickadee Prince, and which is available on Kindle, and in paperback from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and your local bookstore.

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Ectoplasm: A Great New Play Visits a Séance, in 1912

Ectoplasm: A Great New Play Visits a Séance, in 1912

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Ectoplasm, a new play by Sara Fellini, depicts a dinner party in 1912, thrown by two spiritual mediums, Sara Marshall (Jillian Cicalese) and Kaye Schultz (Caitlin Dullahan-Bates). The party-guests include Ira Orenthall, a Houdini-esque magician (Adam Belvo), who is a former medium turned skeptic, and whose purpose is to debunk; George and Miska Crookes (Nicholas Thomas and Raina Silver), a wealthy couple who approach the séance with the enthusiasm of the newly converted, and in the case of Miska, whose interest is both darker and more enthusiastic than expected. Rounding out the guest list is Elisha Kane (Federico Mostert), a navyman with murky motives. Madame Montfort (Florence Scagliarini), a former prostitute turned high-class socialite, has lent her home for the occasion.

Critics will have their biases, and what other reviewers have cited as the play’s flaws are, in my view, its strengths, from its overload of ideas and subjects to the wild disparity of characters who descend on this one dinner party. Certainly, the world-weary cynicism of many of the attendees seems miles from Miska’s enthusiasm, but 1912 saw its share of cynicism and starry-eyed religiosity; and any dinner party, anywhere in the world, would be likely to touch upon the issues of the day, as this one does. I like a good play-of-ideas, and this is a good one, indeed.

As the evening develops, Sara and Kaye’s friendship and budding, unfulfilled romance is tested by the clash between Kaye’s sincerity and Sara’s perplexing mix of cynicism and genuine faith. Sara believes in spirits and ghosts, and she wonders, against the headwinds of Kaye’s growing exasperation and sadness, why anyone should begrudge her a little profitable skullduggery in the service of such a worthy cause? Madame Montfort’s affection for Sara is revealed; Orenthall’s cheerful skepticism grows threatening; and Elisha’s Kane’s secret is unearthed. The play’s conclusion is scary, funny, unexpected and inevitable.

The performances are varied and excellent, especially Cicalese’s sympathetic portrayal of an admitted charlatan with a heart; Belvo’s chilly rationalism as the magician; and Silver’s cheerfully contemporary performance as Miska, whose ideas turn out to be less absurd than they seem. But the cast is across-the-board terrific.

The staging is appropriately atmospheric and makes the most of the small space.

I’ve been meaning to see this play now for weeks, but the Omicron sweep has kept me stuck at home. Finally, just before the closing weekend, I convinced the family to let me out of the house, and armed with a top-line 3M “auro” N95 mask, I risked death. And I am glad I did! But I am sorry to post this so late in the play’s run. Ectoplasm is in all ways remarkable and profound, beautifully acted and written, witty and chilling. Catch it quickly: it closes Sunday.

^^^

Ectoplasm is at the Players Theatre in New York City through February 6.

This review was written by Steven S. Drachman. He is the author of Watt O’Hugh and the Innocent Dead, which is available in trade paperback from your favorite local independent bookstore, from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and on Kindle.

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How Amazing is The New World of VR? Meet ShuShu, and his “Nymphs”

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Today’s virtual reality, or “VR,” is the stuff of yesterday’s science fiction; it’s become an amazing, immersive world filled with hyper-realistic dance clubs, parties, museums, cityscapes, expansive natural worlds, many inhabited by thousands of avatars, real people who mingle freely, hidden behind computer-animated identities.

It was in this world that we met “Shu Shu,” who is working on an ambitious theatrical presentation entitled Nymphs, which is to be presented at VRium, Shu Shu’s own VR performing arts center. Shu Shu graduated from the department of Drama Directing in the National Academy of Theatre PWST in Poland and Andrzej Wajda Film School, worked as an art-director and creative director in large artistic projects, as a theatre director, stage designer, graphic designer, 3D animation script writer, and as an opera stage technician and manager in his earliest years — back then, every night after La Boheme, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, he would grab a brush, sweep the stage and imagine that  someday he would create his own theatre.

We caught up with ShuShu recently to talk about his vision.

AUDERE: What made you decide to mount a play in VR?

SHUSHU: Theatre is the thing for which I have dedicated all my life, my greatest love in life, the only thing worth living for, as an old famous actor whom I admire once said.

I gained a significant experience in several fields of art. In each of those fields I have achieved a high level of art, a deep connection to my inner core, where you feel the essence of the art you are doing.

And now, I immerse myself in VR. My imagination and my soul are literally flying in VR. I can now do the only thing I was always dreaming of — theatre. In VR, all the fields of art I covered in the course of my artistic life assemble together in harmony.

Why your shift to VR?

A great polish theatre creator, Tadeusz Kantor, wrote once : “A theatre artist must explore and control all the fields of arts, if he wishes to understand the very essence of the theatre.” It feels like everything I have done in my life was meant to be accomplished in VR. I chose to focus all my efforts in the most powerful medium in art, an extremely metaphysical space, where your mind and soul can experience spiritual and mental elevation in its highest and deepest manner — the theatre.

I first heard of you through an earlier project of yours, a really elaborate nightclub that I believe you created.

LOVEHOTEL. This was my first VR creation ever. I created it not a long while ago, in January 2021, about 8 months ago.

This venue is a sensual space for live avatars concerts and VR love raves. This was the moment, where I first grabbed the world builder tolls and started placing basic objects piece by piece, using my VR headsets — not in PC, not using any 3D software, but simply flying in the air with a few screens with world building tolls in front of me. This was a truly joyful adventure. I recall some friends were calling me on phone inviting me to go out, while I was building LoveHotel — I said: “No! No, no way! Listen, I am flying here, do you have something better to offer me? Forget about it!”

What was the reaction to LoveHotel?

LoveHotel became famous, it opened people’s hearts. I even met some couples who fell in love there. They performed their first “avatar kiss” in this venue.

What is your vision for VR?

I knew exactly what I am looking for in VR. I had no doubts about it. I knew, I am going to immerse myself for years in VR in order to create art. But before I begin to invest so much work and time in VR, I felt there is one thing I must prove to myself — that is, whether I am able to bring the metaphysical aspect of the “real” theatre into VR. And I believe we succeeded – myself and the creative team working together with me – in NYMPHS, the first VR performance which we are currently developing. This is more than just another VR world. It is an emotional, and I would even say that it is a transcendental experience, with its own space narrative. 

Tell us about NYMPHS.

I have been working on this piece for over 6 years already. So far, mainly on the concept, and now it is actually happening, in VR. It is definitely not a usual script, which you could have imagined on a real stage. In fact, it is a VR score, with detailed audio-visual instructions, more similar to a movie script.

What makes it different than a usual play for the stage?

There is one crucial thing I have learned in VR : you no longer need the stage. In a “real” theatre the stage was created to define an autonomic space with its own reality. In VR you create an immersive world and “all the world’s a stage”, as William Shakespeare’s once wrote. Just imagine, what can be done in theatre in VR — this is the ultimate medium that could bring the magic back into theatre. Yet, the story you wish to tell should have a different structure, which reminds of a myth structure, rather than a linear realistic narrative, something that uses symbols and visual counterpoints, dissonances and by this creates a whole new meaning. NYMPHS has a dramaturgical structure of a myth.

So “where” will the play be mounted?

NYMPHS is to be the first project in our theatre, which we call “VRium.” It is meant to be a futuristic “acropolis” of art in the cyber world, an international VR performing arts centre which offers a new quality of VR art-works : theatre & dance performances, opera shows, VR fairy tales, VR art exhibitions and online concerts. This space is created to deliver you an emotional experience — to brings into VR the very essence of a theatrical artwork.

The exterior is inspired by Newton’s Cenotaph — a futuristic tomb, designed by the French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée in 1784. The project was never realized before (in reality) — and here we will bring it to life, with a very specific usage. The design-concept of the interior is based on the Theatrum Anatomicum (the anatomical theatre). The anatomical theatre was one of the most bizarre phenomena in the history of theatre. It used to be an amphitheatrical space, dedicated for autopsy and anatomical lectures. A truly macabre “theatre” of death. And so, our VR theatre is meant to be a sacral space.

Tell me more about the show itself.

NYMPHS is a requiem, an ode to those of the female persuasion, whose mind is forever poisoned by toxic love. Here they become Nymphs in an amorous yet lethal underwater dream.

The performance is a post-mortem study for the “stage.” It examines the anatomy of the female psyche, the beauty and insanity of love, using a collage of canonical literature (ancient and modern plays for theatre, myths and legends) as well as medical, psychiatric and pathological essays, cases of mental disturbances and true-life contemporary reports of female death by love. In this play, an extreme desire reveals itself to be destructive; the destructive side, on the other hand, is rendered as a pictorial fantasy.

All characters in this theatrical art-work had died by drowning — just like Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, or water creatures from myths and legends. That is why those characters are called “Nymphs” — because here they are submerged in the depth of the ocean instead of rising up to heaven.

In this performance we flow through two dimensions: the dramatic “reality”, where motives are set up in an autopsy space that resembles an anatomical theater and a mental hospital, while imaginary characters from ancient myths and legends take us into a scenic dream, “far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, as clear as crystal….”

How long will NYMPHS be?

This is an ambitious vision and it requires a huge amount of work in collaboration with several artists. I assume, that together with my creative team we will be developing this project continuously. It all depends on whether we will manage to bring some investors, sponsors and donors on board. At the moment we are doing what we can investing a huge amount of time and work. And also money. It might take some two years to create a complete animated performance. NYMPHS is planned to be 30 minutes long and composed of several short episodes. Each episode is an independent art-work, and each will be performed in a different language.

The dolls used in NYMPHS are huge, a really breathtaking image. How did you arrive at this vision?

There’s a famous theatre manifest written back in 1907 by Edward Gordon Craig, called “The Actor and the Uber-Marionette.” This was a revolutionary call for all theatre artists to resign once and for all from using actors on stage, since they are “no longer considered to be a good material for a pure artwork.” Instead, Craig offers to replace them with a superior automated doll. Today we would call it an “actroid.” There is a Japanese genius, a scientist, professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, who is currently developing animatronic “humanoids” and “geminoids”, human robots. I was inspired by Craig’s vision and by Mr. Ishiguro’s robots for quite a while already and I wish to realize Craig’s vision for the first time — in VR. Our theatre will be performed by automated monumental art-dolls. 

There is a great potential in monumental dolls which lays in the essence of my VR theatre — in one of the scenes in NYMPHS, called A Requiem for a Nymph, you will see a giant necro-doll submerged in the depth of the ocean, like an ancient goddess. When she dives and falls apart in the deep waters with her long hair swirling and waving through the water with the Love Dolls choir around her singing “Ave Maria” by Giulio Caccini — you can feel the power of the VR theatre.

This is another thing I have learned about VR — in VR everything has to be monumental.

Will actors perform it live each day?

No. The VR actors in NYMPHS are ACTROIDS, Fine Art Dolls, designed by the Popovy Sisters. However, when it comes to voice, this is where we need the actor. In VR, the voice is the soul of the character, so it is very crucial it is played by good actors. The moves and gestures of the dolls are planned to be achieved by using motion capture technology with an original choreography performed by dancers. The doll will then imitate the same choreography performed by the dancer.

Tell me a little bit about your team.

I am lucky to have the privilege to collaborate with a very talented creative team. Among them the brilliant Andy Wood, Jose Ferrer, Daniele Colombo, Carlos Austin — a VR Director of Photography with a unique vision for VR filming — and Niko Lang, who in my opinion created a VR masterpiece called “Niko’s Solar System.” Lately, we were blessed in having new talents on board, among them the Popovy Sisters, who create extraordinary art-dolls. Some of these dolls are about to perform in NYMPHS.

What VR worlds do you work in?

We have a theatre space and a VR art gallery called ArtSpaceVR, where we invite unique artists from around the world to present their art. The plan is to get investors and sponsors and elevate the project up to a range that it becomes an independent platform. At the moment, we are developing our project in AltspaceVR, which, despite all its limitations, is a wonderful tool with an inspiring community.

Lately we have presented our project in the BRCvr — the Virtual Burning Man Festival, which took place in AltspaceVR in September this year.

Explain your avatar name.

My avatar’s name is ShuShu. My mother and my beloved aunt both used to call me this nickname when I was a little child. I feel that in VR I earned back the child that is in me. I enjoy my creativity just like little ShuShu used to enjoy creating his “inventions.”

How did you decide how you wanted to present yourself in the virtual world as an avatar?

My appearance is just the best I could come up with, taking into consideration the limitations of the avatars in the app I am currently using. If I could, I might have had a different avatar — for example, a unicorn, or one of the dolls used in my theatre.

Do you prefer virtual reality to “real” reality?

There’s one thing I missed a lot in the “real” theatre and opera — it is the feeling that you belong to a family of artists, of people who breath theatre and “live” on the stage. And I found it in VR. I have managed to “infect” some artists with my VR theatre vision and I am blessed to have the opportunity to work and create with wonderful people. I came into VR just a few months ago and I was completely unknown. It took less than a half a year till my creations were exposed to thousands of people from all around the world.

Do you have friends you know only in VR?

I’ve met great personalities, whom I wouldn’t have the chance to meet in the “physical” world. I feel as we were all the pioneers of the VR technology.

What do you think the future is for VR?

The future? I think we are the future for VR — the first people, who understand the potential of this new universe and invest all their efforts in VR with a great joy. For most of our friends from the “other” world, we seem “weird” and “disconnected from reality.” I think that my friends from the “physical world”, those who are not yet familiar with VR and are not interested in VR, have no clue of what I am experiencing, and I cannot even find a way to describe them, how it feels to fly in my theater and dive in the depth of the ocean with monumental “actroids” surrounding me.

^^^

All illustrations courtesty of ShuShu. VR Worlds photography by Niko Lang. Special thanks to Chiara Feriani.

VRium | NYMPHS Creative Team : ShuShu, Niko Lang, Andy Wood, Jose Ferrer, Timo, Daniele Colombo, Carlos Austin, Luminosity, Igor Korzhov, the Popovy Sisters.

Platform : AltspaceVR.

Worlds: NYMPHS : EPISODE 1, NYMPHS : EPISODE 2, NYMPHS : EPISODE 3,

ArtSpaceVR.

VRium YouTube Channel

Sponsor: TU Holdings, USA, Florida.

Main donors: VenusSX / Ph.D. Thomas B. Nickel 

Contact ShuShu at : shushuvrart@gmail.com

Covid New York anniversary

Your Pandemic Anniversary: What ‘a Year Later’ Means for These New Yorkers

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Rachel Holliday Smith, THE CITY

This article was originally published on Mar 7 at 8:00pm EST by THE CITY

The reality of the coronavirus crisis sank in at very different moments for many across the city. Here are six New Yorkers’ recollections of when the pandemic began for them.

Times Square vendor Duane Jackson was forced to shut down his souvenir stand March 10, 2020.
Times Square vendor Duane Jackson was forced to shut down his souvenir stand March 10, 2020 and now only works on weekends. | Courtesy of Duane Jackson

It’s the disaster without a date.

You could choose to mark the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis as the day the NBA shuttered, or when the World Health Organization declared it a global emergency. Or when the first case appeared in New York. Or the first local death.

But unlike many tragic events — Dec. 7, 1941; Nov. 22, 1963; April 4th, 1968; Sept. 11, 2001 — the pandemic’s beginning is not defined by one day.

To mark the start of the ongoing catastrophe that has taken the lives of nearly 30,000 New Yorkers, THE CITY spoke to people from various walks of life and asked them to recall when the pandemic began for them. When the enormity of it sunk in, when it became real — and what day or moment sticks out most.

Here are their stories:

Duane Jackson, longtime Times Square vendor

March 10, his last normal day at his street stand

Jackson, 68, had taken his yearly vacation with his wife to Mexico in late February, returning from his home in Westchester to his job selling souvenirs and apparel at 45th Street and Broadway in Times Square on March 4, a Wednesday.

“It’s March. Things are warming up and the city is bustling,” he recalled.

That whole week, things were busy, the weekend especially so, with seven Broadway shows running within a block of the stand he’s had since 1998, he said. Before the pandemic, between 70,000 and 80,000 people walked by his block on an average day, according to data from the Times Square Alliance.

But by Tuesday, March 10, the crowds had dried up, he said.

“It was just so rapid. It was like, all of a sudden, you had the spigot from a water hose coming out like crazy, with people with activity and all of that. And then the spigot was cut off,” he said.

Jackson did not return to Times Square until late April, and then only on weekends, which is his new normal schedule. On a good day before the pandemic, he says brought in $200 to $500.

Now, “if you make $100, you’re happy.”

Shams DaBaron, a.k.a. “Da Homeless Hero,” activist for homeless New Yorkers

When the virus arrived in New York as he was living in a shelter at Third Street and the Bowery — and when he got severely sick with the virus in late March

In late February, DaBaron and the other shelter residents were watching TV when they saw news about a virus coming out of Wuhan, China, but it felt far away. And since American officials weren’t raising much alarm, he wasn’t too worried.

“But within a two-week period — oh, it hit America. And we in the shelter are like, ‘Wait a minute. Hold up. It’s here?’” DaBaron recalled.

“The emotion of fear that permeated through the entire facility — it could be seen on people’s faces. Our discussions were about it. And that was because we knew how rapid a virus can spread in a shelter system,” he said, noting the difficulty of social distancing.

“The flu, a cold — whatever goes around, a stomach virus, it travels,” he said. “So when we’re seeing this virus that’s literally killing people, and it’s spreading so fast, we’re like, ‘Holy s—t. I may die because of this.’”

Shams DaBaron.

The next few weeks in the shelter were chaotic. Everyone, including the staff, were scared and unsure about how to implement safety measures. Soap and sanitizer were hard to find, he said. Support services, like sobriety meetings, were cancelled.

“In this atmosphere of fear, substance use went up. Overdoses were rampant,” Da Baron said.

As the virus spread, men from city jails were transferred to DaBaron’s shelter — and he suspects some brought the virus with them. After a close encounter with one of the men from jail, DaBaron fell ill quickly. His case manager isolated him within the shelter, then sent him to a hotel in Astoria, Queens, to be quarantined.

“It’s a set-up like a medical facility,” he said. “Compared to being in a public shelter. I was like, ‘Whoa! Damn, this is good!’ And what I really, really, really appreciated was that I had nurses that came around every couple of hours.”

DaBaron’s condition got progressively worse over about three days. Medical staff hooked him up to an oxygen tank. His body started going cold, he remembered, and he had a hard time talking.

“My biggest fear is being buried in a potter’s field. I’ve been told all the time, ‘Who’s gonna pay for your funeral?’” he said. “And I’m thinking of those bodies, those mass graves.”

He started praying — and practicing breathing techniques he learned during yoga and meditation at The Recovery Center, a clinic for addiction help.

“As I’m there in that chair, I just said ‘Start breathing’ with the yoga stuff — six seconds in, four seconds out. I just started doing it,” he said.

Slowly, his oxygen levels improved to a less dangerous point. He stabilized, but it was weeks until his symptoms subsided.

DaBaron is grateful he got a second chance.

“That’s when I made a promise. When I was by myself, I said ‘I’m never gonna waste a moment. I said I’m never gonna walk in fear of anything,’” he said.

Siigii Garcia, Bushwick-based artist and designer

March 13, when an art installation she had worked on was set to open, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a statewide stay-at-home order

“It was gonna be immersive and interactive,” said Garcia.

The 31-year-old artist had “designed all these paintings to put on the walls and floors, and props as well. So you walk into this giant space with multiple rooms and stuff. And then you were able to like wear clothes and props to like, blend in the background. And it was a very social media type of thing. Really cool. So we worked on that for over three months,” she said.

A week ahead of the opening, the team was getting progressively more anxious, she said. With two days to go, the team invited media for a preview and only half showed up.

“It was slow and weird — kind of like when a movie goes wrong,” Garcia said.

Like many New Yorkers, she was watching TV when she heard the lockdown news.

“Everyone had to be home,” she said. “And then it never opened. The installation remained, untouched for months — maybe six months. And then the space had to close. So we had to go and actually clean up everything. There was a hope that it would open and then, nope. It got removed.”

Because she works with costumes and garments, Garcia spent much of the early part of lockdown making masks for health workers.

“You’re just home and watching the news. And you’re like, I want to help as much as I can. And I have a sewing machine.”

She sewed more than 400 masks, giving them directly to nurses and doctors who contacted her through Instagram.

Sam Levy, associate producer for the musical “SIX”

March 12, the day “SIX” was set to open — and the day Broadway closed

Levy, a native of Australia, said it was early February when the virus “started to really penetrate my consciousness.” Levy previously worked in the airline industry, and former colleagues began reporting an uptick in flight cancellations in and out of Asia, and from Europe to the United States.

“I started to worry a little bit about what it would mean for Broadway. But I just assumed we’d have to manage some small, minor hits to demand from certain regions, like China,” he said.

“It’s funny, I have a bunch of text messages from the middle of February with one of my colleagues where we say ‘We should really add coronavirus to our meeting agenda.’ And we never really did,” he said. “It never even occurred to me that it was going to be the singular historic event that it’s been.”

During rehearsals and show previews, Levy and the staff were “totally distracted by the day-to-day.” Then, in early March, a colleague involved with a “long-running tourist hit” on Broadway told Levy audiences were beginning to thin out — an oddity for his show that rarely had spare tickets.

“Suddenly, there were pockets of empty seats everywhere,” Levy said. “He also horrifyingly reported that some audience members had requested to be moved away from anyone who looked Asian. That’s when it started to hit me, really,” he said.

By the week of the planned opening, the staff at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre had implemented coronavirus safety protocols like hand sanitizers, gloves, and “single-use pens at the stage door.”

Levy texted a friend working in Myanmar as an infectious disease specialist.

“I wrote to him and said ‘Is everyone overreacting?’ or something like that, and he wrote back: ‘Please be careful. This is likely to decimate your industry for the next few months at least, possibly years,’” he said

“Not what I expected to hear. And we were due to open at the end of that week, on March 12.”

On March 11, an usher who had briefly worked at the Atkinson as a line organizer tested positive for the virus.

“Everything was a little dark. When we finally heard the governor’s announcement, I think I can safely say we all saw it coming, even if it was just by a few hours,” Levy said. “We canceled the opening. We canceled the party. We told everyone to stay home.”

Stephanie Sherman, East Sider and 7 p.m. music-maker

March 30, when she and her roommates started playing music from their roof during the nightly clap for healthcare workers

When Sherman and her four roommates — previously all strangers to each other — got word from their various offices that they would be working remotely, they had to get used to seeing a lot more of each other.

“We kind of had to reformat our apartment to be a WeWork with five people … and then try to find some semblance of life in the evenings,” she said. “The music really helped with that.”

Stephanie Sherman, left, and her roommates played music each night at 7 p.m. on top of their Gramercy building.

The roommates had some large speakers from a rooftop concert the summer before, and decided to play music during the nightly 7 p.m. applause for health care workers during the early weeks of the pandemic.

“We started with Alicia Keys’ ‘Empire State’ on March 30,” she said. And then they kept going. “We did it for 62 nights.”

It became a mini tradition for the area near Stuyvesant Town. Neighbors got into it. The event had its own hashtag, and a Spotify playlist.

“We would get notes left for us hanging on the door with requests, and signs to hold up for someone’s birthday,” Sherman, 34, said. “There was a woman, Carol, who would drop off a six-pack every Sunday in our elevator. There was a nice sense of unity from it.”

The group stopped when the Black Lives Matter marches began in late spring. They continued to clap for essential workers, but felt “playing an upbeat song to spread joy throughout the neighborhood wasn’t exactly the vibe of New York City in that moment.”

Now, she and her roommates aren’t quite sure how to mark a year since the first song played. They originally planned to play an ending song — when they thought the crisis would only last “a month or two.”

“We haven’t agreed upon anything,” she said. “We find it to be challenging because it’s not over.”

Andrew Rigie, executive director at the NYC Hospitality Alliance

Jan. 31, during a visit to the famed dim sum restaurant Jing Fong

“I met at Jing Fong restaurant in Chinatown with the owner, several other restauranteurs in the neighborhood and some advocates to talk about restaurant industry issues, and how Chinatown restaurants were already being hit and losing business to the pandemic, even though it hadn’t arrived in New York City yet,” he said.

“At that time, the directive was: ‘Go support local restaurants. Go support small businesses, particularly in Chinatown,’” he said.

“At that time, I think it would have been impossible to really conceptualize the scope of the crisis.”

Andrew Rigie.

In early March, Rigie, 38, flew to Seattle — where the first reported case of the virus in the U.S. appeared — for a hospitality conference. He returned to New York on March 3.

“I got back and that’s when there started being a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “Then on March 12, the governor announced that restaurants would have to reduce occupancy to 50% starting on Friday, March 13. And that’s when all hell broke loose.”

“I remember my wife, daughter and I went for our last indoor meal at 50% at Crave Fishbar on the Upper West Side. And speaking with Brian, the owner, he was just like, ‘What’s going on?’ And I was like ‘We have no idea. But let’s just hope that, you know, this is going to be a couple of weeks, and then we’ll be able to reopen,’” he recalled.

“And here we are, one year later.”

^^^

THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.

Headline image by Charlotte May / Pexels.

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Leslee Asch: Everything You Thought You Didn’t Know About Contemporary Puppet Theater

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Many books and thousands of pages have been written about Jim Henson’s life and work. Out of the Shadows is the first to focus solely on his love of, and impact on, puppetry as a vital contemporary art form, an important and previously unexplored aspect of the Henson legacy.

It was my great honor to serve as producing director of the Henson International Festivals of Puppet Theater, working with executive producer Cheryl Henson to present five award-winning festivals. It is now 20 years since the last Henson Festival and 30 years since Jim Henson died, a perfect time to look at the festivals themselves, the environment into which they were born, and their continued legacy and contributions to the contemporary puppet theater landscape.

The Jim Henson Foundation’s International Puppet Festivals brought puppet theater into mainstream American theater. Between 1992 and 2000, the Jim Henson Foundation hosted the International Festivals of Puppet Theater in New York City. Over the course of the five festivals there were 136 different productions from 31 countries in 24 theaters throughout the city. Over 120,000 people attended the New York performances; nearly 400,000 saw related exhibitions; 100,000 more attended Festival on Tour performances; and millions of people read about the festivals in the extensive press coverage.

Puppetry artist Hanne Tierney beautifully articulated the importance of the festivals for puppeteers: “The festival, for us, was like getting your Ph.D. from Harvard. It set the quality standard. American puppetry, at that point, really needed that festival to grow into a grown-up art form. I always felt it gave everybody this idea—I’m going to get into Harvard for my Ph.D. And it rubbed off. We still all have that feeling that we’ve got to do the best we can do. I think that’s how these festivals changed this field.”

Out of the Shadows celebrates the extraordinary festival performances and the special strengths of live performance, something which has become even more significant in this time of COVID-19, when so many theaters remain dark. As puppetry is such a visual medium, I knew this could only be done properly by including strong images from many of the shows. The book includes 156 photos, by 65 different photographers. It provides a solid history and resource for the field, and also offers an accessible entry point for a broader theater and art audience.

Employing all aspects of the visual and performing arts—sculpture, painting, costuming, music, theater—puppetry is the perfect union of the theater, which puts ideas into action, and the visual arts, which give them form. When people have traveled, or lived, internationally, it is not unusual for them to have encountered different types of traditional puppet theater, as it is an accepted part of so many cultures. Puppet theater has also become ubiquitous in major theatrical productions.

People who think they have had little or no exposure to contemporary puppet theater are surprised when I point out a few well-known theatrical examples, that they may never have considered as great works of puppet theater. Undoubtedly, one of the best-known examples is War Horse, which, with puppets by Handspring Puppet Company, took the theater world in the United Kingdom and the United States by storm.

War Horse, with puppets by Handspring Puppet Company, is shown in performance at the National Theater, London, 2007. Photo by Simon Annand

War Horse is connected to the Henson festivals through the alliances made during the Festival on Tour, a program that brought festival performances to 19 cities beyond New York. During the festivals, we presented two different productions by the Handspring Puppet Company/ William Kentridge collaboration. Woyzeck on the Highveld, in 1994, was the first of their productions to be seen in the United States. So, while we can’t take any credit for William Kentridge’s meteoric rise, we are proud to have been the first to show his work in the U.S.

Woyzeck on the Highveld, by Handspring Puppet Company. Photo ©Ruphin Coudyzer FPPSA

The second Handspring/Kentridge production was Ubu and the Truth Commission, which we presented in 1998. For this production we partnered with The Kennedy Center, in Washington, DC. The Kennedy Center then continued their relationship with Handspring beyond the festival. Alicia Adams, vice president for International Programming and Dance for the Kennedy Center, explains the genesis of War Horse as an outgrowth of the production Tall Horse. Alicia initiated Tall Horse, the first time Handspring Puppet Company had worked with large-scale puppets. When people from the National Theater in London saw it in South Africa they fell in love with the giant puppets, and began to look for a property that would require big puppets. As Alicia puts it: “Long story short, that is how War Horse began. The National Theater decided to produce War Horse [2007] and then it went on to Lincoln Center Theater, and the two directors [Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris] won the Tony that year [2011] for War Horse. So, that’s a significant outcome of that relationship and one I am very proud of.”

Other excellent mainstage examples are The Lion King (1997) on Broadway, and in opera, Madama Butterfly (2006), Satyagraha (2008), and William Kentridge’s recent opera Wozzeck (2020), and there are many more. My hope is that once people hear this, or read the book, they will start to think about all the examples that have touched them.

Many prominent New York theaters participated in the festivals, including: The Public Theater, La Mama E.T.C., HERE Arts Center, PS 122, and The New Victory Theater. As hoped, several of these theaters continue to be important presenting homes for puppet theater.

As Mark Russell, producer of the Under the Radar Festival at The Public Theater, said, when thinking about the Henson Festivals’ impact: “The American theater now knows there’s such a thing as serious puppetry, that it exists in the world. There were some amazing performances that really shifted my view of how powerful puppetry can be.”

Interest in the form continues on all levels. MoMA is planning an exhibition of the work of the artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp. The exhibition will include some of her puppets and is scheduled to open in November, 2021. Arp is one of many significant artists who have explored the field. Out of the Shadows provides context for their work.

^^^

Author Leslee Asch worked for Jim Henson and The Jim Henson Company for over twenty years. She began her career as a puppet builder and went on to serve as Director of Exhibitions for Jim Henson Productions, curating and managing exhibitions world-wide. She served as Executive Director of the Jim Henson Foundation and Producing Director of the Henson International Festivals of Puppet Theater. She is a recognized expert in the field. Out of the Shadows is available from Itasca Books and Amazon.

The book cover shown above features Peter and Wendy, by Mabou Mines, adapted by Liza Lorwin, directed by Lee Breuer, with puppets by Julie Archer. Actress Karen Kandel is with Peter and the Lost Boys. Photo by Richard Termine.

Brigadoon

Donna Levin on Brigadoon: When a Miracle Lets You Down

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Stumbling around YouTube the other day, I happened on a scene from the 1954 movie version of Brigadoon.

I’ve always loved musicals. My mom got me started early, playing West Side Story, The Music Man, Bye Bye Birdie and more, on our turntable, and then, a few years later, Camelot, Cabaret and Oliver.

Those shows seem dated to me now. If not for Sondheim, I don’t know if I would be the devotee I am today, not just of his work, but that of his descendants, such as Jason Robert Brown, and Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty.

But meanwhile, back in our living room with the turntable, Brigadoon fell through the cracks; I only saw the 1954 movie on television much later. I’ve seen it once or even twice since then, and the YouTube clip revived some serious complaints I’ve wanted to file with the Musical Theater (I will not spell it “theatre”) Complaint Department for some years. There is no such thing, so I am grateful to have, at last, this modest platform.

Brigadoon has plot holes so big that, if the script were a colander, you couldn’t strain pasta in it. Not just plot holes, but seriously mixed and disturbing messages, and I mean, beyond the standard-issue notion that true love is destined, and lasts forever. “Lasting” is a particularly troubling concept in this case, as we’ll see.

It will help if you’re familiar with the story; if not, I hope this synopsis will suffice:

Tommy and Jeff are two thirty-something Americans who get lost while hunting in the Scottish Highlands. They stumble on a village called Brigadoon, which sounds like a cookie, but isn’t. Brigadoon isn’t on their map. The cookie isn’t in the store. There is no store. The villagers dress as if it’s the mid-18th century, and they sell — for it’s market day — only products available in the mid-18th century, which don’t include anything containing partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil. That’s my last attempt at cookie humor.

In the movie, Tommy and Jeff are played, respectively, by Gene Kelly and Van Johnson. It’s an understatement to say that Gene Kelly was one of the great dancers of his time. I’m bored by his pseudo-ballet numbers, but watching him tap dance, for me, is almost a religious experience. Here I’ll refer you to the production numbers “Good Morning” and “Moses Supposes” in Singing in the Rain.

Kelly and Van Johnson perform a not-quite-as-mesmerizing number in “Go Home with Bonnie Jean,” but time now for The Plot and Its Problems.

In the first act, Tommy falls in love with Fiona MacLaren, played in the film by Cyd Charisse. Jeff has something going on with her friend Meg, but it’s not clear what, since this is Hollywood in the 1950s, and it’s all very “a nudge is as good as a wink.” More importantly, though, we will learn that Fiona’s sister, Jean, will marry another villager, Charlie Dalrymple, that very night.

But why is everyone dressed like it’s Colonial Day at your fifth grader’s school? The big reveal comes when Jean’s fiancé arrives to sign the MacLaren family Bible, and Tommy sees that Fiona was born in 1722. That makes Fiona 200-something. Cyd Charisse is aging very well—just look at her neck!

Fiona takes Tommy and Jeff to see the town schoolmaster, Mr. Lundie, who explains: Two hundred years earlier the village of Brigadoon was being threatened by witches. These weren’t cool, Elizabeth Montgomery-as-Samantha Stevens witches, willing to give up a wide range of superpowers for the latest Frigidaire—no, these were witches “who were taking the folk away from God’s teachings and putting the devil into their souls.” Those are all the details he deems necessary to describe this existential threat.

So, two hundred years ago (or last Wednesday, depending on whom you speak to), the town minister, Mr. Forsythe, went out to a hill beyond Brigadoon, and made a deal with God: the town would disappear at night, for a hundred years, then reappear, but for one day only. Mr. Forsythe’s part of the bargain was that he would leave the town and never return.

Mr. Lundie frames this as a sacrifice, since Forsythe loved his parishioners so much, but my guess is that he owed money to a lot of them.

And by the way, since Mr. Forsythe couldn’t return to the town, how did the residents learn these details? Did he leave a note? Did he go out to that hill equipped with a quill pen and adequate ink?

But this last is a petty complaint. What concerns me most of all in this so-called miracle is the other part of Forsythe’s bargain, which is that no one who currently lives in Brigadoon can leave, like, ever. Apparently, they can go gather heather on the hill, and they must have nearby farms to be growing all the produce they sell at the weekly market, but there’s a curfew. Invisible electrified fences, maybe.

Those were more petty complaints. Now we get to the part that makes me angry. Harry Beaton, another villager, is in love with Fiona’s sister, Jean. Remember that Jean is to be married that night to someone else. Let’s give Harry the benefit of the doubt and say he’d look for another true love, given a few centuries to get over Jean. But how many available women are there to choose from? Brigadoon isn’t a major urban center. Jokes about dating apps are overly obvious, but something bugs me much more: Harry wanted to “go to the university and improve meself.” Now he can’t even do that! What kind of effing blessing is it to force a man to stay in a tiny town and watch the woman he loves start a family with someone else?

And by the way, just how are they going to start a family? A pregnancy is 280 days, give or take. That means that a baby conceived the night of this so-called “blessing” will be born in the 48th century.

But I doubt it would come to that, because it seems likely to me that in a day or two the Brigadooners will awaken to find themselves buried under luxury condos.

This is the kind of post I write that elicits comments like, “it’s a musical. Chillax.” And yes, at this point I might be overthinking, because I’m imagining a century in a world without Ambien. “Honey, I couldn’t fall asleep for fifteen years last night.”

When Mr. Lundie describes his nights (“like being carried away by shadowy arms”) he hears soft moans, and concludes that “many people are looking for a Brigadoon.” Harry Beaton wasn’t looking for a Brigadoon, and neither am I. An Airbnb—three nights, tops.

Postscript: I found the 1966 television version online and slogged through much of it. This adaptation made at least one welcome, if somewhat gruesome, change: instead of referring to a vague coven of witches, Mr. Lundie describes a time when accusations of witchcraft were being hurled around, and that neighbor was turning against neighbor (plus ça change, plus la meme chose, as the French say), and Mr. Forsythe himself was thrown into prison. He made his bargain with God while being chained to a wall, after such a false accusation, you know, as opposed to a justified accusation, of witchcraft. The miracle took place the day they hanged Mr. Forsythe as a wizard.

So I repent of my snarky comment about his possible gambling debts. I stand by the rest.

^^^

Donna Levin is the author of four novels, all of which are available from Chickadee Prince Books. Her latest novel, He Could Be Another Bill Gates, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or at the bookstore right across the street from your home. Please take a look.

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