New York Times Forums 1997 - 1999 selected posts and responses

Fashion Forum  barbarapostel - 06:31am Nov 7,1998 EST (#908 of 1347) About 15 years ago I wrote, staged and produced a one minute video called Lid City, about an X rated hat which had some of the above characters cavorting in various suggestive poses with some very strange early Mattel rubber people hand puppets. That hat, a wide brimmed felt Goucho type, almost got me a prize in an Easter Parade (locally in one of the New Hope, PA clubs) but I just could not compete with one of the Queens, in a feather extravaganza. rknighton1 - 01:51pm Nov 9, 1998 EST (#909 of 1347) ...almost got me a prize in an Easter Parade (locally in one of the New Hope, PA clubs) barbarapostel 11/7/98 6:31am Oh I could write a sonnet About your Easter Bonnet And of the barbarapostel of the Easter Parade . . . On the Avenue [chop chop] Fifth Avenue [fwap fwap] The Dominatrix will whip us And we'll find that we're in the Rottin' Grave, dear Oh I could thrill you browsers W/my cheekless leather trousers Whilst Babs Postel n' I attend the Easter Parade  JAZZ barbara postel - 11:53pm Sep 15, 1997 EST (#98 of 754) In the late 50's, I worked at Birdland (hatcheck) , also hung out in Harlem, danced (camel walked) in the streets "doing the cool jerk" and partied at after hours clubs where there was always a jam. Wild times. Have lots of old underground Blues too, Jack Dupree, Muddy Waters. Those records like "Bad blood Mama and Junkers blues" were sold under the counter, if Sam Goody knew you. barbarapostel - 04:29pm Nov 9, 1997 EST (#110 of 754) Late 1956 to 1958, I worked at Birdland, the headquarters for M&M Concessions who also owned/fronted the 5 Spot, The Embers, a Village strip joint, Transvestite club, a few well known restuarants, and other Manhattan Clubs where I occasionally got sent as a Hatcheck or Cigarette "girl" and received in addition to minimum wages, an exceptional education. Birdland was a blast. A long flight downstairs to the check room and admission/ticket office, a short flight to the bar and seats, a few more stairs to the tables and stage.The people who frequented Birdland varied from entertainers and other stars, the jazz fans, underworld people, fences, the "big time"pimps and "their woman", shylocks, the Jet Set, wealthy woman in long minks, carrying white toy poodles with red nailpolish and diamond collars, who came alone and left with a trophy male, and generally lots of characters. Some of the entertainers like Joe Williams had wonderfull personas and others like Count Basie and Miles D.... had nasty, mean overblown egos, never putting their heart into a performance. Being attractive, smart and fresh mouthed witty, with long Auburn hair, was my ticket to lots of invites, private Jams and parties, where the best played for pleasure alone, not fans or money. The joy was indescribable, as it was like floating on an abstract stream of consciousness with this magical communication between artists doing it for love. They Whaled After 2 A.M. when Birdland Closed you could go to Reubans for breakfast (Blintzes for me) or the Harlem "After Hours Clubs" where the best jams took place. There was always the pretence of a private Birthday Party with food, drink and appropriate decorations all over whosever apartment it was, in case of a police raid. In the Village , Lenny Bruce's act was always getting raided. Jazz stars would show up to and share the stage or jam after Lennys' removal. The cops always arrived at the best part, and it became kind of a status symbol to be at one of those shows. Lenny always waited for the last Act for his best material, then the Police raided and the show would continue with a Jazz Jam. airhead - 09:35pm Nov 19, 1997 EST (#114 of 754) Hey Barbara Postel, you're description of the Birdland Days reads like The Jazz Novel -- kind of like Thomas Pynchon meets Wayne Shorter! Really liked it, and believe you have a writer's gift for description. Can definitely believe that Joe Williams is a nice guy, my former band mate Steve Williams (no relation, and a 16 year member of Shirley Horn's Trio)had played with Joe and said the same. Keep writing, I love it!

New York Times on the Web Forums Arts Visual Arts and Architecture The Creative Process This is a space to share your process. What are you looking at/thinking about in your work right now? What artworks have recently inspired you? How do you get revved up to work? Do you have any strategies/tricks that you use to put yourself in a creative mindset? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1832 previous messages) barb2k - 06:00pm Aug 10, 1999 EST (#1833 of 1834) www.artistexpo.com “Imagine a Zen meditation at Hiroshima ground zero............ “   "For the last 500 years, Western Culture has suppressed the idea of disembodied intelligences--of the presence and reality of spirit. Thirty seconds into the DMT flash, and that's a dead issue." DMT is a normal part of human metabolism (it is apparently synthesized in the pineal gland or "third eye") ................. Terence McKenna DMT (dimethyltryptamine) was also used (in small one hit doses) to stare at Op Art under blacklite, probably about 1965. Supposedly it came from an Amazon treebark or its root, but there were only 5 or 6 people I knew of who had access in N.Y.C. at that time, and it soon became unavailable. Out of the five, one died, one became institutionalized with a dismal prognosis (not me), and one other person disappeared. DMT is beyond space and time, past the Galaxies and the black holes, beyond any dimension that a human brain could conceive. It all started at The Bel-Aire Hotel (of ill-repute) on West 72nd. street, near the Park, where I occupied one, of the two railroad flats on the first level up. My interest first became peaked when I heard my neighbor Harold, laughing hysterically (Hyena like), resonating through the thick plaster walls of my apartment. The substance was a stinky, orange waxlike chunk, about .3 “, and was smoked on parsley leaves. If you looked at figurative art work, people (a portrait soon developed a body) climbed out of paintings, as the boats sailed off the canvas, around the walls. Once I turned myself into a 3 piece, abstract, silvery steel sculpture, joined at the navel, slowly spiraling, about 20' high out in black space. It was at the Bancroft, a residential Hotel on West 72nd. street, near Central Park across from the Dakota, inhabited by mostly conservative senior citizens. I had moved there, after the Bel- Aire got raided, telling the Management that my things were only stored next door. Another time I saw thru walls, describing to my friend Georgette, in the other room, exactly what she was doing, ....then I told her I was growing so tall that I was looking over the top of the refrigerator in a stooped position because my shoulders were at ceiling height. I had a birds eye view of everything. Georgy came running into the room and said I looked so tall.............all that while you are returning to reality, and thats after you come down. As time went on it became a science, for take off. First play The Yardbirds, with the man in the jungle number. By the time its over you have returned and landed. Perhaps it was a natural for me and I could manipulate the experience more, because I had psychic, de’ja vue, and out of body experiences since babyhood. At first your body trembles like a rocket ready for take off, then there is a buzzing in your head, your teeth are melting together, your eyes turn in a giant beehive of colorful octagons, like a flys’, the top of your head splits open as a slowly moving stella telescope exits and you are in it, shot into black space as an alien being. Once I was a half silver and half black sequined, faceless body, on a diving board with no supports, in a black universe, except for distant stars sparkles. I saw colors that are not in the human or animal range, on both ends of the spectrum. I saw an ultra-violet flaming lion, staring at me from one of Rousseau’s Jungles. Every thing looks like it is covered in a sparkling cobalt violet, icy snow, after you return. Intentionally I turned my left leg to glass, spiraled it, grew a fur anklet then decided I needed a hoof to go with it, as I was reclining. A phone ringing required me to pick up, the voice was in a tunnel coming out of a little head in the mouthpiece. The words were indecipherable........turning into wedge shaped watermelon slices, getting larger as they exited the telephone, ................................................................................... barb2k - 06:11pm Aug 10, 1999 EST (#1834 of 1834) www.artistexpo.com Continued A phone ringing required me to pick up, the voice was in a tunnel coming out of a little head in the mouthpiece. The words were indecipherable........turning into wedge shaped watermelon slices, getting larger as they exited the telephone, leaving the room. For Kaulta. <<<<<<>>>>>>> Arts and Leisure Archive Careers in the Visual Arts My least favorite of the N.Y.T. forums For those of us struggling to make a career in the fine arts, here's a place to share stories and experiences. Do you *really* need that MFA? Do you *have* to move to New York City?   My favorite Post and poster of this forum. (54 previous messages) capitalismnow - 03:03pm Jul 21, 1997 EST (#55 of 235) free minds & free markets All: This talk of dolphins and sharks is really quite risible, as nothing, no living thing, could possibly survive in this Sargasso Sea choked with pretention, narcissism, self-absorption, fulsome back-slapping, mawkish self-congratlatoriness, arrogance, codescension, snobbery, hubris, elitism, self-righteousness, sanctimony, hypocrisy, sophistry, demagoguery, provincialism, phillistinism, reactionarism, anti-intellectualism, retrogressivism and pure hate. The only way to bring this effluent-suffused, moribund biosphere back to life is the administration of copious quantities of (to use vcarducci's term) "consumerist propaganda", i.e. CAPITALISM and FREE ENTERPRISE, LIBERTARIANISM. I've flipped through the posts here and quickly became overawed by the sheer volume of Statist-authoritarian collectivist-socialist-conformist-paternalist-totalitarian dogma, doggerel, rodomontade, agitprop and transparent propaganda. Such shopworn cliches, threadbare arguments, stale ideology, virtually every awkward, inapposite, solecistic word of it utterly vacuous. Post after post are nothing but mindless concatenations of empty epithets and turgid, non-cognitive rhetoric. For the defender of liberty, reason, rationality, truth, morality, dignity, enlightenment, culture, civilization, peace, progress and prosperity, this "forum" is positively GHASTLY destination in Cyberspace, an Auschwitz for the mind, heart and soul. A typical lucubration is something like BOBDENTE's "[Mapplethorpe's work] is a visceral and psychic tattoo that is meant to get under the skin." Well, if that is the case, your pseudo-bohemian, pseudo-intellectual, pretentious, bilious, bellicose, splenetic, misanthropic eminence, then you folks (the culturally annointed and beatified) ought truly to FUND IT YOURSELVES!!!! There is such a PORTENTOUS VOLUME of sheer Leftist/Statist/flower child-neo beatnik ordure, offal, detritus and feculence in this "forum", so much purulent anti-individualism and anti-capitalism, that I quite truly do not even know where to begin shoveling through it -- I can't tell the cultural hazmat team where to start cleaning it up. I've stated my arguments against the perpetuation of the NEA in the NEA forum, so I will find it rather tedious to replicate them here, but I suppose the spirit of noblesse oblige will impel me to do so anyway. In my next post, I'll rigorously and thoroughgoingly lay out the case for the NEA as instrument of naked tyranny and cultural despoilment, depredation, and desecration. I must go now, as I can only spend so much time in these mephitic, life-sapping waters.... daisann - 06:44pm Jul 21, 1997 EST (#56 of 235) Arts and Leisure Forum Host This discussion, "Careers in the Visual Arts" is meant for visual artists to share and discuss the problems and difficulties they face trying to maintain a career in art. There is another discussion in the current events forum for artists and non-artists who wish to discuss the politics of the NEA. I encourage all to contribute to the dialogue that we've been having here. However a post that adds nothing to the interchange but name-calling and accusations, and that doesn't hew to the topic at hand, doesn't move our discussion forward. As a host, I do have the discretion of deleting posts, and I will use this power to protect the integrity of our discussion here. barb - 07:42pm Jul 21, 1997 EST (#57 of 235) pyramid studios Censorship for name calling? Are you referring to the "Village Idiot" remark by (nameDeleted)? daisann - 10:38pm Jul 21, 1997 EST (#58 of 235) Arts and Leisure Forum Host No, barb, I'm talking about flame wars, which posts 55 and 56 edge towards. In my experiences in forums, I've seen how flame wars can consume a discussion--a handful of people take up all the bandwidth, raise the volume to a screech, and scare the average person away from joining and participating in an exchange.

(51 previous messages) vcxxxxxxx- 05:24pm Jul 17, 1997 EST (#52 of 235) ALL: I emailed MCORE to tell him that the waters in our part of the world are filled with dolphins not sharks. Perhaps he'll swim our way soon. It is readily apparent that none of the Neanderthals posting on the NEA forum know the slightest thing about art and its function in Western society. They are simply the bleating lambs in an Orwellian chorus of demagoguery. They pathetically feel that they are fully participating in the political process when they are at best tools of a propaganda scheme to silence all objections through brute symbolic force. When one ponders how it is such a terrible thing as the Holocaust could come about, I think of times like these (remember the Persian Gulf War?) and chillingly see how easily it could have all been accomplished. MCORE has stayed with the group (which is actually only a couple of posters operating under multiple aliases) out of a moral imperative he feels to stand up against the rising tide. I think his thought is: "I dont then who will?" That is exactly the thought that motivates my perhaps quixotic belief in an activist government. The point of public funding for the arts is specifically provide an alternative to the market. And of course you bite the hand that feeds you because that is your role in representing the "other" of capitalism. If any of the "antis" from the other forum would want to now jump in with their "FREE MARKETS & FREE MINDS" claptrap, I would say that both are fantasies of deluded imaginations. There is simply no such thing as the "invisible hand" of the market. When the Libertarians speak of other forms of taxation they would also do away with they show the shallowness (or its cynical disingenuousness) of their understanding of power in America. The defense contractors, pork-barrel projects and international subsidies of global capitalist expansion they rant against will never go away because too much money is at stake and too much power is vested in those interests. Libertarian elysiums of free agency donÆt stand a chance against the military-industrial complex. When the world is run by a single corporation and the environment utterly gray, then perhaps theyÆll get it. But by then it wll be too late. Until such a time, thank God for "narrow-casting" channels of communication! barbpostel - 06:56pm Jul 20, 1997 EST (#53 of 235) pyramid studios My parents were progressive, blue collar workers who exposed me to Art and Science before I could read. Though my father never went beyond the 8th grade he was an avid reader. His work as a truck driver for Doubleday had percs, one being 500'reams of paper and books that were damaged in shipping. My mother was a welder during WWII in Valajo, California when my father was in the Armed Forces. I was about 5 and got my first oil paint set when we returned to New York City. Never haveing toys or games, as the other children did made me more creative as I invented them. I feel extremely fortunate to have the parents I did who gave me the materials and the permission to create whatever I wanted, to say whatever I wanted and to express anger when I wanted, without censorship. P.S. I like swimming with Sharks and enjoy the NEA Forum. It makes me homesick for New York.

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