More on toxic "dating coach" huckster Evan Marc Katz

Once you've demonstrated that someone is actively encouraging women to date men who are statistically more likely to abuse them, as Evan Marc Katz does, there's not much else to say about them.

But I can't help but say a few more things about Evan Marc Katz and his exchange with a dissatisfied customer.

In addition to Katz's usual slipperiness in failing to own the regressive advice he gives women, the article demonstrates that even women who are inclined to be skeptical about the benefits of reverting to traditional gender roles have drunk hearty draughts of Katz's misogyny Kool-aid. Customer says:

But I also feel like I’ve learned a lot of stuff that just feels almost insurmountable taken in total, and also… a huge amount of effort that will yield… what, I’m not sure.
To wit (and hear this not as angry, but just incredibly overwhelmed):

She then goes on to list what she considers Katz's objectionable advice.

She then says:

I’m not sure I can actually do all these things.
It looks exhausting, and no fun. What is the upside, besides getting laid, since I earn my own living? 

The fact that she thinks that there actually is an upside - "getting laid" - to Evan Marc Katz's advice that women submit to traditional gender roles in order to catch a manly-man indicates that she's already in the land of cognitive dissonance. Because in fact if all you want to do is get laid, why would you have to become passive? Contrary to Evan Marc Katz's claim, men in fact do like it when women initiate sex, and not only insecure clueless men. Now the traditional-gender-role-loving men that Evan Marc Katz is promoting as real men may not want to marry a woman who actively pursues sex, on the basis of the traditional gender role phenomenon known as the madonna/whore complex. But they will certainly have sex with you and if getting laid is what you want, then it's a win-win. 

And of course there are some men who are sufficiently "masculine" and yet do not buy into rigid gender roles. I know such men. But naturally they are very popular with women and tend to already be in relationships, usually long-term relationships, so if that was the type of man Evan Marc Katz was selling, his success rate would take a big hit - there are just not enough of that kind of man for all the women who want them. But the supply of single traditional-gender-role assholes is huge, and so it's just that much more efficient for Katz to make a buck convincing women that those are the men they really want. Or at least convince them that there are no other alternatives, because "men" are likely to feel emasculated at the tiniest non-passive action on the part of women.

Notice too that the dissatisfied customer said: What is the upside, besides getting laid, since I earn my own living? 

"Since I earn my own living" - she is not looking for a man to be her meal-ticket. 

Now of course economic inequality is the basis of traditional gender roles. The reason men made all the moves in courtship with women was because they had all the power and all the money. Men bought women - not the other way around. Rarely as obviously as when slavers bought slaves, it was more of a barter system than a cash-and-carry. But the power dynamic was just as real.

The main motivation for getting married for a woman was economic - if she didn't find a man who could support her financially, she would either have to live with relatives or earn her own living at a time when it was perfectly legal to bar women from many kinds of high-paying jobs. And the jobs that were open to women were low-paying, usually because they were considered women's jobs. And of course she would not be allowed to have sex lest she be considered a worthless slut - only men had the option of socially-accepted extra-marital sex until very, very recently. So the only option for a woman who didn't want to be a celibate burden to her family (or a celibate poorly-paid worker) was to get married.

Evan Marc Katz prefers to believe that gender roles are biological - like his favorite writer Sam Harris (Harris is a New Atheist and evolutionary psychology is their religion) and so of course he ignores the economic social reality. He prefers to tell women that male dominance is just the way of the world, men are never going to change, and there is nothing to be done about it except resign yourself to being the passive receptacle of male approval. Or live a lonely, sexless life.

It used to be that dating hucksters didn't have to work so hard to push women into the passive role - the entire socio-economic system was designed to force women into that role. Marriage was very common because women had a compelling financial interest to get married. 

But since Katz's clients earn their own living, they tend to believe they don't have to settle for any man with a good job. But a woman being "picky" lowers Katz's success rate, so he is very much focused on claiming women expect too much from men. 

And then when he is called on it by someone he can't ignore, a client, he gaslights her and pretends that he's a huge egalitarian who never told women they had to be passive.

I was amused to see how Katz referred to his critics:

 I’ve seen criticism of my views from anonymous strangers before, but I’d never before had a client who expressed such great displeasure with her perception of my coaching philosophies.

As anybody who has read this blog knows, there are many Katz critics, including myself, who are not anonymous. And Katz knows it too - he reads this blog. It was easy enough to figure that out when I noticed in my blog analytics that someone from his town in California was regularly visiting this site. 

Naturally he won't discuss critics by name, any more than he will name feminists he makes claims about - because it's much easier to argue with straw-women, or clients who have already drunk his Kool-aid. 

Katz may be toxic for women as individuals and for the progress towards an egalitarian society as a whole, but he sure knows how to take care of the financial progress of Evan Marc Katz.

More on the toxic Weltanshauung of Evan Marc Katz.

Fortunately some men are helping to promote an egalitarian society:

Michael Kimmel: Why gender equality is good for everyone - men included.

Are "dating coaches" like Evan Marc Katz encouraging domestic violence?

Evan Marc Katz is defending against objections to his advice for women by offering a false equivalency.

He claims he has similar expectations from men and women when it comes to the best ways of attracting a mate. He presents an exchange between himself and a dissatisfied customer which includes this:

(CLIENT)
I have to talk to men in a certain way or they won’t find me appealing. 

(EMK)
Yes. Then again, don’t men have to talk to you in a certain way as well? They can’t be arrogant, rude or condescending. They shouldn’t be negative or nakedly insecure. They shouldn’t blather on about themselves without taking an interest in you. It would seem that there are certain characteristics that make all people unappealing, no?

As he states, he expects men to refrain from being arrogant, rude, condescending, negative, blatantly insecure, and talking only about themselves. The kinds of things he must surely expect from women too. But Katz has one extra piece of advice for women that he doesn't have for men: be passive:

Being passive doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything proactive. It means that you’re choosing not to do anything proactive, because being proactive during courtship is ineffective in making a man feel attracted to you. 

Here are a few common examples of being proactive:

• You have a great date, you email him the next day to say you had a lot of fun.
• You haven’t heard from him all weekend, you text him to make sure he’s doing okay.
• You want to see him next week, you tell him his favorite band is playing downtown and you can get tickets.
• You’re confused about where your relationship stands, you ask him where things are headed.

You think you’re being real; he thinks you’re acting clingy. Understand, the man of your dreams doesn’t NEED to be pushed to be your boyfriend.

Katz expects women to be so extremely passive that any and all attempts on the part of the woman to communicate, without first being contacted by the man are considered by Katz (on behalf of men) horrifically clingy and pushy.

The male prerogative to pursue a woman, and the female requirement to be the passive object of that pursuit are known as "traditional gender roles."

As the organization "Futures Without Violence" states:

Traditional Gender Role Beliefs: Men who hold traditional gender role beliefs (men as breadwinners, women should stay at home, etc.)14 and conform to masculinity norms (believe men need to be self-reliant, have power over women, etc.) are more likely to commit violence against women, particularly sexual assault.15,16 Alternatively, men who view women as their equals are less likely to commit an act of sexual assault.12

And as a document from the National Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence notes:

...as discussed in the VicHealth prevention framework, research has consistently found that individual men who hold traditional views about gender roles, have a rigid belief in male dominance, or hold sexually hostile attitudes about women are more likely to perpetrate violence (see VicHealth 2007: 34).

Katz doesn't refer to the men he is selling to women as believers in "traditional gender roles" he refers to them as "masculine men." But there is no doubt at all that traditional gender roles are what he is promoting for women who want to find "love":

Men win you over by giving to you. We ask you out. We call you. We pay for dates. We initiate sex. We ask for commitment. We propose marriage. We give. You receive. Reverse this order by asking him out, initiating sex, asking for commitment, or proposing marriage, and a masculine guy will feel, well, emasculated. Thus, if you want a masculine guy, your greatest move is to embrace your passive feminine side.

Evan Marc Katz is encouraging women to date and marry men who are statistically more likely to perpetrate violence against them. But as long as he gets his success stories and makes his money, why should he care? After all, by his lights, women should not expect anything more than rigid traditional behavior from men (unless they are by Katz's definition, insecure losers: "But most men do not want to be actively pursued. The only guys who do are really shy, really insecure, or really clueless about women."). Because men, manly, masculine he-men, must be in complete control in all the usual, traditional ways or they feel, well, emasculated. Or as another dating advice huckster whom Katz highly recommended says:

So you can either support feminism in the hope of bettering the state of affairs in the future, or better your life now by finding love.

This is the hideous evil dystopia that Evan Marc Katz and his fellow sexist hucksters are selling to women. And Katz has the nerve to whine about occasional criticism.

And lest you think I'm too hard on Katz, when reviewing what I've written about him previously, I've often gone incredibly easy on him. I just noticed that I said of him:

Poor Evan Marc Katz. All he wants to do is make a very sweet living sitting around talking about himself and inventing little tips and tricks for how a woman can snag a man. 

But actually, as you can clearly see from the passage above on the importance of being passive, Katz has invented nothing - he is just regurgitating virtually every single thing that women have been told (and until recently compelled to abide by) since time immemorial. What a loathsome piece of work is Evan Marc Katz.

More on the work of traditional-role-promoting "dating coach" huckster Evan Marc Katz.

Hanging in South Jersey

In Merchantville and Collingswood in all their semi-buccolic splendor.

Tomato vs. Grapefruit

Somebody on the Q train sure hates fruit.

River of No Return

Marilyn Monroe had a really great voice - I was reminded again today when I heard a recording of her "River of No Return." It's really something. This video is clearly someone's attempt to circumvent copyright laws by putting the audio recording version on top of her performance in the movie. But the audio recording is the thing.



And you can add the movie "River of No Return" to the list of dramatic roles that Arthur Miller was unaware of or ignored when he claimed that her first dramatic role was "The Misfits."

Reading for Dollars

I had a reading of the first draft of my NORMA JEANE play last weekend and I'm glad I did it - my usual tendency to procrastinate was thwarted by the fact that I had the reading scheduled and actors lined up and I had to have something for them to read. So I forced myself to finish the play. It was really rough and half-assed, of course, since it was the very first draft.

The reading itself was not a fun experience especially since one of the actors decided to check his iPhone all during the reading. And mind you, he wasn't there as a favor to me - I was paying him. And I bought the actors drinks and snacks afterwards. So I fired him. I didn't say "you're fired!" like Donald Trump, I'm just never asking him to read a play of mine again. I'm done with being disrespected in the theater. But in spite of the lack of a declaration, his ass is, nevertheless, so fired.

The best part was that he gave me feedback that some of the scenes seemed "too long" - maybe that was his excuse for why he had to check his phone in the middle of them.

On the plus side, my second draft is coming along pretty well - I figured out a way to rearrange the scenes to make them work better. I'm having another reading in October. Hopefully a better reading with more respect.

DAVID: "Balderdash!"

In case you had forgotten what David Mamet has become, here is his essay in the National Review about Gloria Steinem's take on Marilyn Monroe. I did not read the byline before I dove into this essay, but as I was reading it I did think "this must be some especially nasty cranky old conservative" - and sure enough I was right.

Big surprise Mamet is glad Monroe died young, rather than get old:

In a more equal world, a top-down world, a world of equality (as envisioned and enforced by the Left) Ms. Monroe might have been taken in hand (by whom?) early on, and cured of her unreal escapist self (her talent), and still be alive playing Mother Courage in some Resident Theatre somewhere. 

But this is the best part, considering that Mamet was so famous for flinging the F-bomb:

What balderdash. Shame on you, Ms. Steinem, for promoting hypocrisy. For anyone who might be foolish enough to nod along with your sanctimony will, along with you, the next time they watch one of Marilyn’s films, laugh and smile; you, then, are promoting a dual-consciousness, an indictment of that which one enjoys, of a legitimate pleasure brought about through the work and the talent of an actual human being, who, in your sad lament, you belittle and patronize.

I'm sure Mamet would not have the courage to say such things directly to Steinem because if he did she would defend herself. To my knowledge Steinem has not responded to this, probably because she doesn't pay attention to Mamet - because nobody pays attention to Mamet any more except other cranky old right-wing coots who like to cry "balderdash!" and read the National Review.

Marilyn Interviews

There are far more videos - audio and image - of Marilyn Monroe than I realized existed.

Here's what I found so far.

1953

1954

1955

1956

1957

1959

I don't see it

Allegedly Nina Hartley in 1976

For the second time I've been told I look like Nina Hartley. In case you don't know, she's a former porn star.

Now, she's blond and sometimes wears glasses but she's also older than me.

She's also much thinner than me, but she has massive obviously fake boobs.

However, we apparently did look alike in the 1970s, if this photo from the Eastbay Express really is her.



But nowadays, not so much.

Do It Again

While searching for a public domain song for my play about Marilyn Monroe I saw that Irving Berlin's "Do It Again" was written in 1914 and so eligible. But I can't use that song ever because some of the lyrics are incredibly creepy and even a date-rapist's fantasy.

I first heard this song when Terry Gross interviewed Gloria Steinem about Steinem's book about Monroe. What an odd context. Gross said she really liked it.

And it does show what a good singer Monroe was.

Meanies are picking on Evan Marc Katz!

Google made me take this post down claiming that it was "dangerous and derogatory" which is not true. It was very critical of content made publicly available by Evan Marc Katz for his business, but it certainly did not match anything in Google's list:

• incites hatred against, promotes discrimination of, or disparages an individual or group on the basis of their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or other characteristic that is associated with systemic discrimination or marginalisation.

• Examples: Promoting hate groups or hate group paraphernalia, encouraging others to believe that a person or group is inhuman, inferior or worthy of being hated

• harasses, intimidates or bullies an individual or group of individuals.

• Examples: Singling out someone for abuse or harassment, suggesting that a tragic event did not happen or that victims or their families are actors or complicit in a cover-up of the event

• threatens or advocates physical or mental harm to oneself or others.

• Examples: Content advocating suicide, anorexia or other self-harm; promoting or advocating harmful health or medical claims or practices; threatening someone with real-life harm or calling for the attack of another person; promoting, glorifying or condoning violence against others; content made by or in support of terrorist groups or transnational drug trafficking organisations, or content that promotes terrorist acts, including recruitment, or that celebrates attacks by transnational drug trafficking or terrorist organisations

• exploits others through extortion.

• Examples: Predatory removals, revenge porn, blackmail

Nothing in my post matched any of these.

But you can't ask Google for reasons why they take unfair actions - they do everything they can to avoid giving people who make them money - like people who run Google Ads - any direct customer support. They refuse to be held accountable for errors.

For the sake of fairness I should pursue this case but I haven't thought about Evan Marc Katz in years and he's not worth my time. 

But it's time to consider regulating the Google monopoly.

Women Laughing Alone With Salad - now a new play!

An Internet meme that has been going around for several years focuses on the cliche in many stock art photos and advertisements of a woman, laughing, alone, with salad.  Apparently this is the article that got it all started.

Then there was a tumblr devoted to it.

And now Sheila Callaghan has written a play with that title. I've written about her work on this blog before.

I was made aware of this play via an article in the NYTimes about  the Women's Voices Theater Festival.

I'm Wild About That Thing

While looking for the right song for my play I came across Bessie Smith doing "I'm Wild About That Thing." Dayam, Bessie Smith could not be any more blatant.

Honey baby, won't you cuddle near,
Just sweet mama whisper in your ear
I'm wild about that thing, it makes me laugh and sing,
Give it to me papa, I'm wild about that thing
Do it easy, honey, don't get rough,
From you, papa, I can't get enough
I'm wild about that thing, I'm wild about that thing,
Everybody knows it, I'm wild about that thing
Please don't hold it, baby, when I cry,
Give me every bit of it or else I'll die
I'm wild about that thing, ja da ding ding ding,
All the time I'm cryin', I'm wild about that thing
What's the matter, papa, please don't stop,
Don't you know I love it and I want it all?
I'm wild about that thing, just give my bell a ring,
You pressed my button, I'm wild about that thing
If you want so satisfy my soul,
Come on and rock me with a steady roll
I'm wild about that thing, gee I like your ting-a-ling,
Kiss me like you mean it, I'm wild about that thing
Come on turn the lights down low,
Say you're ready, just say let's go
I'm wild about that thing, I'm wild about that thing,
Come on and make me feel it, I'm wild about that thing
I'm wild about it when you hold me tight,
Let me linger in your arms all night
I'm wild about that thing, my passions got the fling,
Come on, hear me cryin', I'm wild about that thing

I was pretty surprised to hear her sing "you pressed my button" but I guess by the 1920s or 30s when she recorded this, pressing buttons on various devices was a regular enough occurrence that it would have become a metaphor for turning something on.

Highway 61 Visited

Aeeeii! I spent hours and hours trying to find the perfect song to end my play about Marilyn Monroe. None of the public domain jazz/pop songs I found were just right and Irving Berlin alone has like 30 songs written before 1923 (being published prior to 1923 is pretty much a guarantee of public domain status.)

I finally decided on the folk/blues traditional tune - which means written by anonymous - presented on the PublicDomain4U site performed by Jack Kelly & His South Memphis Jug Band. I plan to have Ella Fitzgerald sing the play out using this song, although I edited the lyrics a little:

Oh that 61 Highway
It's the longest road I know-whoa
Yes that 61 Highway
It the longest road I know-oh
She runs from New York City
Down to the Gulf of Mexico 

I said, please
Please see somebody for me
I said ple-eee-ase
Please see somebody for me
If you see my baby
Tell him he's alright with me.

Although Fitzgerald isn't know for singing blues, she did try her hand at it, as can be seen via her album These are the Blues. Her jazz work is much better.

If you've ever heard of Bob Dylan's song Highway 61 Revisited, now you know why the word "revisited" is in the title.

According to the Wiki about the album:

Dylan has stated that he had to overcome considerable resistance at Columbia Records to give the album its title. He told biographer Robert Shelton: "I wanted to call that album Highway 61 Revisited. Nobody understood it. I had to go up the fucking ladder until finally the word came down and said: 'Let him call it what he wants to call it'."[5] Michael Gray has suggested that the very title of the album represents Dylan's insistence that his songs are rooted in the traditions of the blues: "Indeed the album title Highway 61 Revisited announces that we are in for a long revisit, since it is such a long, blues-travelled highway. Many bluesmen had been there before [Dylan], all recording versions of a blues called 'Highway 61'."[6]

I settled on this song because the events of the play happen in 1961 and it's about traveling and mentions New York City - at the end of the play (spoiler alert) Marilyn is getting out of the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic. She eventually joined Joe Dimaggio (after a month-long stay at a regular, non-psychiatric hospital) at Yankees spring training in Ft. Lauderdale, which is on the Gulf of Mexico.

Actually it from from NYC to the Gulf of Mexico in the song, but in actuality US Route 61goes from Minnesota (where Bob Dylan grew up ) to New Orleans, which is on the Gulf of Mexico. But it goes nowhere near NYC.

The lyrics of Highway 61 Revisited are very different from Highway 61.

Best lyric:

Now, the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren't right
"My complexion," she says, "is much too white"
He said, "Come here and step into the light"
He said, "Hmm, you're right, let me tell the second mother this has been done"
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61

More naked people on my blog

Thanks to another Spring Studio life drawing session. They had two models this time.

Monroe's recipe

In another piece of Monroe trivia, in 2010 the NYTimes published her recipe for stuffing. And they really liked it.

When we gingerly tossed everything together in our largest bowl (the recipe yielded more than 20 cups), we were amazed to discover one of the most handsome stuffings we’ve encountered. The odd elements, like the profusion of raisins and the chopped egg, suddenly made sense, becoming pleasant color contrasts. Moreover, the mixture was delicious, a nice balance of vegetables, meats and bold seasonings, just faintly, tonically sweet from the raisins. Even the texture was superior, a fluffy, damp blend that packed well into a chicken cavity and emerged loosely gelled. Subsequent tests employed slight tweaks but the original genius (and the heroic volume) of her recipe remained fundamentally the same.

FUNERAL EULOGY by Lee Strasberg

Many people believed Marilyn Monroe committed suicide, including Marlon Brando and Arthur Miller. However, others believe it was an accidental overdose that killed her, including not only biographer Donald Spoto but also Lee Strasberg, as is made clear in the eulogy he gave for her. It should be noted that at the end of her life she was much closer to Strasberg than to Brando or Miller.

Marilyn Monroe was a legend. 

In her own lifetime she created a myth of what a poor girl from a deprived background could attain. For the entire world she became a symbol of the eternal feminine.
But I have no words to describe the myth and the legend. I did not know this Marilyn Monroe. 

We, gathered here today, knew only Marilyn—a warm human being, impulsive and shy, sensitive and in fear of rejection, yet ever avid for life and reaching out for fulfillment. I will not insult the privacy of your memory of her—a privacy she sought and treasured—by trying to describe her whom you knew to you who knew her. In our memories of her she remains alive, not only a shadow on a screen or a glamorous personality.
For us Marilyn was a devoted and loyal friend, a colleague constantly reaching for perfection. We shared her pain and difficulties and some of her joys. She was a member of our family. It is difficult to accept that her zest for life has been ended by this dreadful accident. 

Despite the heights and brilliance she had attained on the screen, she was planning for the future: she was looking forward to participating in the many exciting things she planned. In her eyes and in mine her career was just beginning. The dream of her talent, which she had nurtured as a child, was not a mirage. When she first came to me I was amazed at the startling sensitivity which she possessed and which had remained fresh and undimmed, struggling to express itself despite the life to which she had been subjected. Others were as physically beautiful as she was, but there was obviously something more in her, something that people saw and recognized in her performances and with which they identified. She had a luminous quality—a combination of wistfulness, radiance, yearning—to set her apart and yet make everyone wish to be part of it, to share in the childish naivete which was at once so shy and yet so vibrant.
This quality was even more evident when she was on the stage. I am truly sorry that the public who loved her did not have the opportunity to see her as we did, in many of the roles that foreshadowed what she would have become. Without a doubt she would have been one of the really great actresses of the stage. 

Now it is all at an end. I hope that her death will stir sympathy and understanding for a sensitive artist and woman who brought joy and pleasure to the world.
I cannot say goodbye. Marilyn never liked goodbyes, but in the peculiar way she had of turning things around so that they faced reality—I will say au revoir. For the country to which she has gone, we must all someday visit. 

August 9, 1962

If you think you've never seen Lee Strasberg, well you have if you've ever seen Godfather Part 2 - he played Hyman Roth.

Marilyn outtakes

Monroe does this one scene from "Something's Gotta Give" many times - I lost count. And what amazes me is how very little annoyance she shows at being interrupted by the director. Although you can see at minute 1:47 - she indicates the tiniest bit of annoyance and then it's gone. I find this pretty fascinating. A little later she has a kind word for one of the kid actors - Monroe was known for loving kids so this seems entirely in character.




More outtakes - an hour and fifteen minutes worth. She appears with Wally Cox and Dean Martin.

More more play research

My favorite photo of Ella Fitzgerald - I think this will be the costume, if possible, in my eventual production.

In other play research, I found a clip of Ella Fitzgerald talking about her ill-fated affair with Thor Einar Larsen. A big deal is made out of the fact that he was white, but also noteworthy is his age - 28 to Ella's 41.

The interviewer also mentions the Memorex commercial.



Via the Jet archives there's this "portrait of a swindler suspect" - and mentions he is "reported married to American singer Ella Fitzgerald recently." Poor Ella - she was even more unlucky in love than Marilyn Monroe.

The guy on the left is Larsen - the guy on the right is his lawyer

More play research

Based on this video interview with Arthur Miller, he appears to believe she committed suicide. However, there's no definite proof that she did and I think Donald Spoto makes a good case that it was an accidental overdose.

But then again, Miller might not be the most reliable when it comes to Marilyn Monroe. In the interview (at minute 6:55) he says of The Misfits, filmed in 1960, that it was "the first dramatic role she ever tried to do." Apparently Miller was unaware of, or discounted "Don't Bother to Knock" "Niagara" (which I just saw this past weekend) which were indisputably dramatic roles. And even "Bus Stop" was a pretty dramatic role. And what's more, they were better roles than what Miller gave Monroe in Misfits, which I talk about here. I can't imagine how Miller could say that.

Good-bye Oliver Sacks

New Yorker:

Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and writer, died on Sunday at the age of eighty-two. He was a treasured writer here at The New Yorker. Sacks wrote his first piece for the magazine, “A Surgeon’s Life,” in 1992; it was a profile of a doctor with Tourette’s syndrome. From then on, often under the rubric “A Neurologist’s Notebook,” Sacks explored both the extraordinary ways in which the brain and mind can change and the courage of the individuals who adapt to those changes. His writing testified to human frailty and human strength.

The New Yorker provides a listing of all the articles by Sacks it published.

I've mentioned Sacks several times on this blog.

Oliver Sacks as a young hottie - except for those shoes - hadn't motorcycle boots been invented yet?

Getting fancy in Queens

Wow, I couldn't believe this article I read in the NYTimes about how tourists have discovered Queens:

Mr. MacKay told of a recent conversation he had with a French journalist who was keen to tour Queens.
“She said, ‘I’m so excited to see Long Island City. Everybody in Paris is talking about Long Island City.’ And I said, ‘Really?’ ” Mr. MacKay recalled. “She said, ‘Can you take me to Sweetleaf?,’ ” referring to a popular cafe in Long Island City. “I said, ‘Sweetleaf?’ She said, ‘Yes! Everybody in Paris is talking about Sweetleaf!’ ”

I was just in Long Island City today, running 3 miles with my daughter.

I blogged about Sweetleaf over a year ago - but I don't know if everybody is talking about this little coffee shop or the swanky new location  on the edge of the East River which also serves alcohol - probably the latter though. Interestingly there's a new little French pastry shop Cannel Patisserie in Long Island City but I guess that's no big whoop to Parisians.

As the Times piece notes:

Yes, Queens... New York City’s equivalent of a flyover state, perhaps most famous for two sitcoms, one featuring a food-fixated deliveryman and the other a xenophobic bigot.

I'd better hurry and finish my play 12 ANGRY JURORS FROM QUEENS so I can get some of that tourist dollar. No telling how long Queens-mania will last.

Also fancy - there is a pianist who lives in an apartment across the lot from me and this person plays for hours at a time. I don't recognize the tunes but they play them well - some sound like Broadway-type music and others are classical-sounding. But either way it's a nice sound to have in the background while you're blogging or working on a play. Tres bien.

Oh libertarians. You're always wrong.

My FB friend Corey Robin got another shout-out from the Mighty Krug-Man the other day:

Actually, nothing — because those alleged principles were never real. Conservative religiosity, conservative faith in markets, were never about living a godly life or letting the invisible hand promote entrepreneurship. Instead, it was all as Corey Robin describes it: Conservatism is

a reactionary movement, a defense of power and privilege against democratic challenges from below, particularly in the private spheres of the family and the workplace.

It’s really about who’s boss, and making sure that the man in charge stays boss. Trump is admired for putting women and workers in their place, and it doesn’t matter if he covets his neighbor’s wife or demands trade wars.

Krugman referenced that Robin piece before as I talked about here. It's a very good piece.

The funny thing about Krugman giving a nod to Robin is that every time it happens a bunch of Robin's Facebook friends say something like "Congratulations Corey for the mention, and BTW, Krugman is a running dog of capitalism and a big poopy-head."

Many of Robin's friends consider themselves Marxists or anarchists or some other such useless leftist posturing. So it's especially amusing that Krugman was criticized by a libertarian for being an extremist leftist and a big poopy-head. Someone named Kevin Vallier at "Bleeding Heart Libertarianism" writes:

Krugman’s opponents aren’t just wrong: they oppose fundamental moral and political values (equality) that any reasonable, decent person should accept. How are Very Serious Progressives like Krugman to share a country such individuals? Krugman’s answer is clear: support state power to crush conservative policies and criticize their intelligence and character. 

It is easy to see the moral vice and animus in the post. Krugman dehumanizes his opponents by refusing to regard even some of them as fundamentally well-motivated and informed. Conservatives are foes and nothing more.

He doesn't even say Krugman was wrong to characterize conservatives that way - apparently to accurately describe conservative views is to "dehumanize" them.

I think this is the key to the whole thing: "Krugman’s opponents aren’t just wrong: they oppose fundamental moral and political values (equality) that any reasonable, decent person should accept."

What really bugs Vallier is the notion that anybody would believe that equality is a value that all reasonable decent people should hold. Krugman has values, and expresses those values, and Vallier finds this unacceptable.

And of course it's deeply ironic that any libertarian would complain about someone dehumanizing opponents - their heroine Ayn Rand specialized in dehumanizing her ideological opponents - anybody who doesn't believe that hasn't read "Atlas Shrugged." I talked about that in 2013:

The most prominent feature of Atlas Shrugged is its extreme binary view of the world - it is the most common criticism of the novel: the good guys are uniformly physically attractive and skillful and smart, the bad guys are uniformly unattractive (even Lillian Rearden who is constantly described as having "dead eyes") and stupid and incompetent and cruel. It is this extreme dichotomy that renders the novel ridiculous to so many people. Atlas Shrugged has been jokingly compared to The Lord of the Rings, except, the punchline goes, that LOTR "involves orcs." But I would argue that Rand so dehumanizes her ideological opponents that in fact Atlas Shrugged and Lord of the Rings both involve orcs.

Unusual Marilyn Pix

UPDATE: my play about Marilyn Monroe will be performed in Manhattan February 20 - 26, 2017.
GET TICKETS HERE!

There are so many photos of Marilyn Monroe available via the Internet. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions. And not even just from when she was famous - not even just when she was a pretty pin-up model, although there are thousands of those alone. 

Considering she came from a working-class background it's surprising how many photos there are of her as a child and teenager. The photo above, taken by her first professional photographer, Andre de Dienes is probably my favorite photo of Monroe - this was taken when she was Norma Jeane Baker. Not only does she look unusually normal, she looks almost contemporary - if her jeans were skinnier and had a few holes she would look like a teenager from the 2010s. 

Below are some of my favorite photos of Monroe.

As a gawky pre-teen - even Marilyn Monroe had an awkward phase!

Monroe visiting her mother Gladys (center, looking over her left shoulder)
probably taken by Andre De Dienes

With Ana Lower, the aunt of her legal guardian Grace Goddard.
Lower was Monroe's favorite of all her guardians and she attended Christian Science services with her.
She was only able to live with her for two years because of Lower's failing health.

Ballet dancer Marilyn

Great photo of Fitzgerald

Doing more research for my play and came across this New Yorker article featuring photos taken from the hey day of Harlem. This photo of Ella is from 1940.

You can click the photo so blow it up nice and big.

Thoughts on Gloria Steinem

I love Gloria Steinem, for her courage and her generosity and her plain-spokeness - if there had to be a single person chosen to represent feminism - as Steinem was by the press in the 1970s, you couldn't do better than Steinem.

That's not to say that I always agree with Steinem, although the disagreements are far rarer than the agreements. I mostly just disagree with her about pornography especially this:

Steinem asserts, "Whatever the gender of the participants, all pornography including male-male gay pornography is an imitation of the male-female, conqueror-victim paradigm, and almost all of it actually portrays or implies enslaved women and master."[18]:219[100]

Perhaps when porn was offline it was easier to believe that it was so monotonous. But these days it takes two seconds to Google "femme dom" and find thousands, probably millions of porn videos catering to those who are aroused by women dominating men. I've argued with Amanda Marcotte about this too. There's plenty of evidence that pornography isn't only about men abusing women. Unless you're going to use the No True Scotsman argument that no matter how explicit a sex video is, if it doesn't have a man dominating or abusing a woman then it isn't really porn.

The NYTimes ran a brief piece this weekend about Steinem with an awesome info graphic (see above) about her life and career, which mentions that she is on the record being for gay marriage 45 years ago. Very impressive. Although the Wikipedia entry has a surprising view on homosexuality:

What will exist is a variety of alternative life-styles. Since the population explosion dictates that childbearing be kept to a minimum, parents-and-children will be only one of many "families": couples, age groups, working groups, mixed communes, blood-related clans, class groups, creative groups. Single women will have the right to stay single without ridicule, without the attitudes now betrayed by "spinster" and "bachelor." Lesbians or homosexuals will no longer be denied legally binding marriages, complete with mutual-support agreements and inheritance rights. Paradoxically, the number of homosexuals may get smaller. With fewer over-possessive mothers and fewer fathers who hold up an impossibly cruel or perfectionist idea of manhood, boys will be less likely to be denied or reject their identity as males.[101]

Steinem appears to have bought into the common notion of the time that homosexuality is caused by the behavior of parents, especially mothers. So Steinem was way ahead of her time on gay marriage, but of her time on homosexuality  - I assume she's changed her attitude about the cause of homosexuality since then.

And in fact the number of homosexuals has gotten larger, if you count bisexuals since as has recently been reported, A third of young Americans say they aren't 100% heterosexual. This only makes sense to me, since the stigma of being gay has been reduced from 45 years ago, and so those who might have denied same-sex feelings in the past are now admitting them. This is definitely a good thing as I'm sure Steinem would agree.

Tiny showbiz world, MIDSUMMER edition

Greg Petroff as Oberon.

I was walking through Greenwich Village this weekend with a friend of mine from Ecuador and we happened on a production of MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM in Washington Square Park. I said to Juan "I probably know at least one person in this cast, I know so many people in off-off Broadway."

And sure enough, we had found a Gorilla Rep production with Greg Petroff, a long-time actor friend of mine playing Theseus/Oberon and he was completely kicking ass. You go Greg.

More Internet fun - tiny show biz world edition

As I reported yesterday, Karen Lynn Gorney from Saturday Night Fever connected to me via Linked In.

Well today   Santa Claus   commented on my blog post about the Doonesbury cartoon about Gladys Knight and the Pips.

How do I know it was Santa Claus? Well the commenter signed his name JGM, and the initials linked to his Blogger profile, which includes a link to Meath iTunes Mixes which is no longer operational but its root URL is Meath Media which means that my commenter is Jonathan Meath.

I have two odd show biz connections to Meath - one is that my theater colleague Donna Moore of COUGAR THE MUSICAL fame used to be a kid on the TV show Zoom - of which Meath was a producer - although long after Moore's time.

The other is that my actor buddy Matt DeCapua was married to a Radio City Rockette - Meath portrays Santa Claus in their Christmas Spectacular. Here he is being Santa Claus in 2012.



Of course these are fairly tenuous connections, but still.

But actually my first awareness of Meath was as the father of Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, a band I just discovered a month ago via a shout-out by Paul Krugman. Meath mentions her father at minute 10:57 in the video at Krugman's site.

Internet fun

My new Linked-In connection
(not John Travolta)

The Internet has changed the world in big ways and small and just plain weird.

I got a Linked-In friend request from a Karen Lynn Gorney the other day. I didn't recognize the name, but I often get friend requests from other theater people and figure it's as good a way as any to make connections. So I took a peek at her Linked-In profile. Oh - she was Stephanie in Saturday Night Fever.

As it happens she would be perfect to play the role of Betty Brooks in my play DARK MARKET and I am going to ask her to participate in the next reading I have of that play. How awesome is that?

She's certainly the biggest celebrity to reach out to me on Linked In - I am also friends with Al Franken's son, but he isn't technically a celebrity and I reached out to him.

In other Internet fun, I was pretty excited to see that someone was reading one of my blog posts on Ayn Rand, about Rand's stamp collecting - and according to my web analytics they came directly from the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine California. Suck on that blog post, Objectivists!

Finally, thanks to the Internet, non-professional historians can do good research and publish it for a mass audience, as is the case with April VeVea and her Marilyn Monroe blog which I mentioned a few days ago - I gave her a shout out. She returned the shout-out here.

Ella Fitzgerald's superpower

I've been thinking of Ella Fitzgerald lately thanks to the play I'm writing about Marilyn Monroe. My first introduction to Fitzgerald was as a person with superpowers. Thanks to this commercial for Memorex, which showed her breaking glass with her voice.



I always wondered - could she really do that?

Scientific American addressed the issue:

Only the finest leaded crystal is dainty and resonant enough to break at volumes that some people can produce without amplification—upward of 100 decibels. A famous commercial from the 1970s showed Ella Fitzgerald shattering a wine glass with ease through Memorex speakers, and the trick has been repeated many times with amplification. The principle of directing sound at a brittle object is used, for example, to break up kidney stones—except doctors don't bother to find the resonant frequency, preferring just to blast the stone with lots of sound energy (and if a singer were as loud as, say, an explosion, she wouldn't have to find the resonant frequency to break a glass, either). Yet, it seems that until a couple of years ago there was no proof that any person had ever broken glass with his or her voice alone. 

Then in 2005 the Discovery Channel television show MythBusters tackled the question, recruiting rock singer and vocal coach Jamie Vendera to hit some crystal ware with his best shot. He tried 12 wine glasses before stumbling on the lucky one that splintered at the blast of his mighty pipes. For the first time, proof that an unassisted voice can indeed shatter glass was captured on video. 

Vendera's glass-breaking wail registered at 105 decibels—almost as loud as a jackhammer. Not many people can muster the lung power for that kind of noise. Opera singers train for years to build up the strength to produce sustained notes at volumes above 100 decibels.

Here is the video of Vendera's accomplishment.

Life imitates art, Bill Cosby edition

A few years ago I wrote a 10-minute play called JASMINE in which a prostitute and a john face off when the john wants to have sex with her for free, because he's a Calvinist and it would be a blessing on her for him to ejaculate in her. Here's an excerpt:

TREY

It’s predestination. Can you say that word? 

JASMINE

You think I’m retarded? 

TREY

Just say it. 

JASMINE

Predestination. 

TREY

Predestination is God’s grace made manifest. Wealth, beauty, good health, good personal habits. All these things he gives us.  

JASMINE

I may not have all that stuff, but I’m going to heaven.

TREY

Maybe you could Jasmine – if you had God’s grace bestowed upon you. And by joining with me, you could be filled with God’s grace. 

JASMINE

Hah – I heard a lot of names for jizzem before – this is the first time anybody called it “god’s grace.”

TREY 

Don’t laugh Jasmine. It is the literal truth. You will be baptized with the white-hot blessings of a just and merciful god. 

JASMINE

Call it whatever you want – you want to put it in me without a condom, that’s gonna cost you a hundred.

Sounds pretty far-fetched right? Well lo and behold what I read in Gawker about another victim of Cosby coming forward:

“I felt Cosby’s left hand gently grab my long hair behind my head … his giant frame blocked the door so if anyone should try to enter, they would not be able to see what he was doing,” Whitedeer told reporters. “When Cosby was done, there was a horrible mess of semen all over my face, my clothes and in my hair. He took out a Kleenex to try to wipe off my face. I was bordering between vomiting and passing out. He was mumbling that I had been blessed with his semen, like holy water.”

New art

I recently went back to the Spring Studio to do some sketching after being away for years. I'm pleased that I am still able to capture likenesses pretty well, although I think I screwed up the model's leg. Well back to the old drawing board.

This New Yorker cartoon is apparently the source of that expression.

The mystery of Marilyn Monroe, Ella Fitzgerald, and the Mocambo club

UPDATE: My play about Marilyn Monroe will be performed February 20 - 26, 2017 in NYC.

More information here.






A month ago I wrote about the connection between Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe, and I noted that oddly, Jet Magazine did not mention Marilyn at Ella Fitzgerald's first appearance at the Mocambo club, in spite of the fact that other celebrities are mentioned and also appear in photos. Considering how much credit Ella Fitzgerald herself gave to Monroe for her appearance there, it's a really surprising oversight.

Fitzgerald is quoted all over the Internet as saying this:

“I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt… she personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him – and it was true, due to Marilyn’s superstar status – that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman – a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.”

I was curious about the elipses - what else did Fitzgerald say? - so I started to track down the source for the quote. It apparently first appeared in the August 1972 edition of Ms. Magazine, which unfortunately is not available because their archives only go back to 1987. I'm toying with the idea of buying a copy, but the lowest priced one I've found is on Amazon (ugh) for $35 and cost 70 bucks on ebay. I guess I'll try the library first.

Turns out Monroe herself is on the cover of that issue, along with an article by Gloria Steinem entitled "The Woman Who Died Too Soon" which may or may not be the same as "Ten Years Later: The Real Marilyn Monroe" also listed on the cover. And I confess I also want to read the articles "The Liberated Orgasm" and "What If Pat Nixon were a Feminist?"  

While I was Googling around for a cheaper copy of the second issue of Ms., I discovered this fascinating web site, Unraveling the Slander of Marilyn Monroe which includes a page about the Mocambo incident. Author April VeVea addresses the integration issue, which I'd already seen debunked - in spite of the persistent claim that Monroe helped Fitzgerald integrate the Mocambo, Fitzgerald was not in fact the first Black performer to appear there. According to this article:

Marilyn Monroe did indeed help Ella Fitzgerald land a gig at the swanky hot spot Mocambo in 1954. But in fact, race wasn’t the reason that Charlie Morrison, the club’s manager, didn’t want to book Fitzgerald. Black performers had played Mocambo plenty of times in the early 1950s. But unfortunately for Fitzgerald, Morrison didn’t think she was “glamorous enough.” Monroe was a huge fan of Fitzgerald and was able to (change) the manager’s mind. 

Well April VeVea makes a pretty convincing argument that in spite of Fitzgerald's claim, Monroe herself never appeared at the Mocambo. I might have immediately scoffed at this if I hadn't already been puzzled by the Jet article's failure to mention Monroe. VeVea presents evidence that the pictures of Monroe and Fitzgerald together at a Hollywood club were from Fitzgerald's appearance at the Tiffany Club:

The trouble starts with this picture. It has Marilyn and Ella at a "Hollywood Club" where Ella is performing on November 18, 1954. Except we know Ella wasn't performing at a Hollwood Club on the 18th. She was performing at the Tiffany Club.

Marilyn then went again on the 19th or 20th with Sid Skolsky and a couple of gal pals. How do we know it's a different event? Because her outfit above is clearly a black spaghetti strap dress and the other was pedal pushers with her mink.

How do we know it was the 19th or 20th? Because Ella's performance ended on the 20th. You'll notice that (Monroe's) appearance on the 18th was her first night out since her endometriosis surgery.

And VeVea further presents evidence that Monroe was not in Los Angeles when Fitzgerald performed at the Mocambo, although there is evidence that Monroe "agented the booking."

VeVea concludes:

(Fitzgerald's) version appears to have combined Marilyn's actual appearance at the Tiffany Club with her helping Ella get booked at the Mocambo. You will notice that Ella herself never says anything about race. She only says that they refused to book her. Marilyn repeatedly said in interviews that she liked Ella. Combined with her appearances at the Tiffany Club, Ella did have a significant boost in her career. While Marilyn deserves credit for helping a friend, Ella obviously had the singing chops being she was asked back to the Mocambo in November of 1955.

So the wonderful tale of how Marilyn Monroe integrated the Mocambo by promising to sit in the front row every night Ella Fitzgerald appeared is unfortunately wrong on many counts:

• Monroe appeared two or three nights at Fitzgerald's run at the Tiffany Club in November 1954, and we have photographic evidence and newspaper testimonial.
• Monroe was responsible for Fitzgerald getting the March 1955 booking at the Mocambo, but there is no evidence she appeared there - in spite of Fitzgerald's own testimonial - during Fitzgerald's run.
• The Mocambo had used Black performers well before Fitzgerald.

The Internet giveth and the Internet taketh away. *sigh*

Well I'm still going to use the Monroe-Fitzgerald connection in my play, but I will avoid including unsupported stories. We do know that Monroe was a huge Fitzgerald fan and did at least advocate for her appearance at the Mocambo and did appear at a nightclub to watch Fitzgerald. So there's that.