In the early 1980s, there was this really vital scene of young poets, fiction writers, and artists of different kinds in Los Angeles. I was part of it along with a number of other young LA-based writers, some of whom went on to be well known and established literary figures. I happened to be the Director of Live Programming at the time for a literary foundation and performance space in Venice called Beyond Baroque. Because I had semi-control of that space and its facilities, it became kind of our writer gang’s headquarters. We did readings there, held workshops, invited writers young and old that we really liked from NYC, San Francisco, and elsewhere to give readings, and used the foundation’s typesetting equipment to make the literary zines that most of us were editing at the time. It was an exciting and super formative era for us.
In 1982, an aspiring filmmaker named Gail Kazinsky started coming to Beyond Baroque events. She was very interested by what was going on and asked us if she could make a documentary film about the writers and our scene. I guess we said yes, and she spent a few weeks filming at Beyond Baroque and offsite as well. For whatever reason, she decided to focus on a small group of writers within our larger group. The chosen ones were me, poet Amy Gerstler, poet/artist/performer Bob Flanagan (RIP), artist/performer and Bob’s partner Sheree Rose, poet Ed Smith (RIP), writer and musician Jack Skelley, and Jocelyn Fischer who was the Director of Beyond Baroque.
In the billing for the unfinished film that resulted, ‘Fear of Poetry’, poet David Trinidad is also listed as being in the film, but he doesn’t seem to appear in the surviving footage. Strangely, the New York poet/musician Steven Hall is featured prominently in the film, I guess because he happened to be hanging out with us. So perhaps Gail mistakenly thought he was David Trinidad? Just to give a larger context for the film, some of the other members of our young local writer gang whom you might know but who didn’t end up being included for unknown reasons include writer/artist Benjamin Weissman, NPR ‘Bookworm’ host Michael Silverblatt, novelist Jim Krusoe, poet Kim Rosenfield, and others.
Gail Kazinsky put together a rough cut of the film not long after she finished shooting and showed it to the participants and friends at a gallery in downtown LA. We gave her our feedback and then she was supposedly going to finish the film. Shortly thereafter, she moved away from Los Angeles, I think maybe to Chicago. After that, we never heard from her or had any news about the film again. We assumed she had abandoned the film and eventually assumed the footage was forever lost. But, very recently, some mysterious person uploaded the rough cut in multiple parts onto youtube. The quality, as you’ll see, is quite poor. I don’t know if that’s because the footage the person used is a late generation copy or if the original footage has just aged and decayed very badly.
The writer and theorist Diarmuid Hester suggested to me the other week that it might be a good idea to showcase the rough cut of ‘Fear of Poetry’ here, and, as you see, I have done that today. I’m not sure how interesting the documentary will be for most or even any of you, especially in such an unfinished and visually challenging form. For me, and I’m sure for the other surviving writers who are featured, it documents a period in our lives as writers and people that wound up being extremely important to us. A year after this film was shot, I moved to NYC, followed shortly thereafter by Ed Smith and David Trinidad, and, because of those changes and others, the scene documented in the film ended and evolved into something else. That’s the story. You can ask me for more details if you want. In the meantime, I respectfully foist this on you today.
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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Good morning, David. Thanks a lot for responding to the photos. ** Jamie McMorrow, Salut, Jamie! Yes, I saw your email last night! Thank you so, so much! Yesterday was a swamp for me, but I’ll have some free time this afternoon, and I’ll check out what you sent, and see if everything is clear, and I’ll write back to you. Yeah, thanks a ton, that’s very exciting! It was very, very cool to screen the film at Silencio. Being a Lynch-designed club, the theater there is, naturally, a top notch and great space. Wednesday was basically another day of non-stop work and meetings. There are a bunch of corrections we have to make, so the work load is heavier than we had hoped, but everything is due by Tuesday so at least I can look forward to some peace, I hope, right about then. Did you get to mess with your self-revealed song? So, it’s down to detailing stuff now? Cool! Have a splendid day with enough time to do at least a little of what you really want to do. Love from here and me. ** Bernard Welt, Hi, B. I discovered the Donald B. page on FB yesterday. Wow, it’s great! Who’s doing that? There’s a bunch of photos and stuff that I’ve seen before. Fantastic work on somebody’s part. I will, of course, pass along and promo the book event, for sure. I reposted ‘The Dark Side of Disneyland’ here not very long ago, a few months. I’ll make a new, ‘welcome to the world’ post, and I’ll probably swipe some stuff from the FB page, and if you have anything to spare for the post, that would be great. Thanks so much! ** MANCY, Hi, Steven! I’m good but way overworked but good! Really excited for that new project you’re hinting at on FB. If you want a birth post here to announce it or anything, I’d be only honored to do something. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh! Thank you! ** Bear, Hi, Bear! My week has been productive. Not much else, ha ha, but productive, yes, thank you. Thank you about the Keanu post. I think he’s a pretty cool and good hearted guy, yes. That’s great, great news about finding that space/venue! Congratulations, man! What a relief! Wonderful! How was the experimental dance piece that constituted your celebration? ** Dóra Grőber, Hi! Oh, boy, yeah, I can not wait until this project is finished and sent off to the powers that be. My brain is almost empty and operating on fumes at this point. Yeah, Silencio really isn’t weird. The cool things about it are subtle. Like there’s a stage area where bands and djs play that’s kind of a reference to the red room in ‘Twin Peaks’ with red curtains and stuff, but it’s very non-offensive. I mean, it’s a nice place, comfy, it’s just not mind-blowing in any way. I hope your busy school day did whatever school can do for someone with your larger than life talents. Me, I’ll be working non-stop yet again, but Zac and I do at least have a big meeting with the producer of our new film this morning where hopefully we’ll find out how and when we can start actually working on it. Take care! ** Steevee, Hi. Very, very cool about the Terrence Davies interview! I’m the wrong person to give you advice about that question, but let’s see if others have ideas. Everyone, Steevee would love some advice about something. If you have ideas, can you help him out? Thanks! Here he is: ‘I’m interviewing Terence Davies next Tuesday. Can you think of a productive way to ask about his sense of “gay shame” and his statements in previous interviews like “I will go to my grave hating being gay?” His first three shorts already touched on how miserable being gay makes him. I’m tempted to ask him if he thinks he’d still feel the same way if he were 20 or 30 years younger.’ Interesting about the new Eno. I admit I haven’t been intrigued enough to buy recent records by him in a while, but you’ve sold me on getting that one. Cool. I hope you woke up feeling ‘up’ enough to get the busy stuff accomplished. ** _Black_Acrylic, Howdy, Ben! Thanks for the great response! ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff! Thank you again so much! And sorry about initially leaving out some of the photos. I must have been a little spacey when I assembled the post originally. Wow, 10 days. You should really get to know the place then. Nice. I’m way excited about the new ‘Twin Peaks’. There hasn’t been a shred of leaking info that hasn’t made it seem very, very promising. Ozick: I tried reading her, a couple of books, back in the late 80s when it seemed like a lot of smart people were reading and recommending her, and, a the time at least, it didn’t do very much for me, to be honest. Why, I don’t know. If you read her, I would be curious to know if I should try her again. And thank you so much for the venue-related emails! That place looks really good to me, and I forwarded the mail onto Zac, and I’ll be seeing him this morning. I’ll see what he thinks, and then I’ll write to you today. Really, thank you, Jeff! ** Armando, Hey, man! Really nice to see you! I’m in Paris. Wait, you’re in LA! Wow, that’s very cool. To check out? Hm, where are you staying? Amoeba Records, Museum of Jurassic Technology, MoCA or LACMA if there’s anything good there, … I’ll have to think. The house I grew up in? It’s in this city/LA suburb in the San Gabriel Valley called Arcadia. The address is 995 Hampton Road. I’m co-writing a possible TV series with Zac for Gisele Vienne to direct. It’s about a ventriloquist and her puppet. We’re getting the script and proposal ready to submit to the TV channel ARTE right now. Love and hugs right back to you! And have tons of LA fun! ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Yeah, Howard’s end was very sad. It was rough. And, yes, incredible how much things have changed. Have a great one, B! ** Okay. So, like I said up above, there’s an unfinished, in bad shape documentary about my and other young writers’ formative days in LA, if you’re interested and if you can bear the awful shape that the footage is in. See you tomorrow.
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