Performance Art: Stories
Autor David Kranesen Limba Engleză Paperback – 4 oct 2021 – vârsta ani
Part of our socialization is the urge to perform. We perform images of ourselves for others. For some, the urge is so great and the talent sufficient that we become performers. Performance Art is a series of short stories about performers and performances that are extreme—fire-eaters, knife-throwers, stand-up comedians, escape-artists, weight-loss artists—why we watch them, and why they do what they do. David Kranes dives into the inner lives of these risk-takers, exploring the allures and the costs of “performance.” His characters are unpredictable, quirky, and sometimes bizarre, but Kranes also reveals their humanity and insecurities. The result is a collection that is engagingly unique, sometimes comical, ironic, heart-tugging, and full of unexpected insights and delights.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781647790141
ISBN-10: 164779014X
Pagini: 192
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 15 mm
Greutate: 0.32 kg
Editura: University of Nevada Press
Colecția University of Nevada Press
ISBN-10: 164779014X
Pagini: 192
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 15 mm
Greutate: 0.32 kg
Editura: University of Nevada Press
Colecția University of Nevada Press
Recenzii
"In these 13 refreshingly unconventional stories, he [Kranes] examines the differences between individual performers and the distinction, such as it may be, between performers and so-called real life. . . . Writing, of course, is also a performance, and David Kranes knows how to effortlessly make reading him become compulsive.”
—Geoff Wichert, 15 Bytes: Utah’s Art Magazine
"Are some people born with that urge to share themselves in public? To behave privately, emotionally, majestically while strangers watch? To perform? David Kranes in stunningly singular fashion explores this need to expose the gifted self, re-inventing the way we look at celebrity. The stories are a raw and intimate journey into the rewards, the risks, and the souls of the stand-ups and fire-eaters, the daredevils and magicians, the people who ‘show off’ for us. And this of course includes Mr. Kranes himself. His prose does backflips; it’s brilliantly manic, beautifully mad, perfectly paced. And very funny.”
—Ethan Philips, actor and playwright
“Performers have one foot in this world and one in that of illusion, or maybe better, imagination. It’s the liminal space between the two that David Kranes, in his own sleight-of-hand performance, brilliantly explores. His tough, flint-like prose, unsparing in its search for what is true, reminds us that one person’s side-show is someone else’s main act, and, it gives us new ways to look at the world. Funny, disturbing, and in the end, deeply moving.”
—Bill Harley, entertainer and musician
“I love the sound of a "world-beyond-traffic," and the "no comprehension of next," in these stories. And the dancing fingers of the magician Ernie Fingers who has unexpected moments when his fingers seize up and the tailor who tells him to be still. Anyone who has experienced those moments of magic, epiphany or grace, in practice or performance, is well acquainted with those lurking moments when the gremlin comes out of the dark and all our fingers seize up. It's funny and powerful how Kranes depicts the tick, tick, tick of the mind. And he did make me think, oh, yes, "Sometimes a person's mind can be a stranger. A dark stranger."
—Russell Davis, juggler and playwright in residence at the People's Light and Theatre Company
—Geoff Wichert, 15 Bytes: Utah’s Art Magazine
"Are some people born with that urge to share themselves in public? To behave privately, emotionally, majestically while strangers watch? To perform? David Kranes in stunningly singular fashion explores this need to expose the gifted self, re-inventing the way we look at celebrity. The stories are a raw and intimate journey into the rewards, the risks, and the souls of the stand-ups and fire-eaters, the daredevils and magicians, the people who ‘show off’ for us. And this of course includes Mr. Kranes himself. His prose does backflips; it’s brilliantly manic, beautifully mad, perfectly paced. And very funny.”
—Ethan Philips, actor and playwright
“Performers have one foot in this world and one in that of illusion, or maybe better, imagination. It’s the liminal space between the two that David Kranes, in his own sleight-of-hand performance, brilliantly explores. His tough, flint-like prose, unsparing in its search for what is true, reminds us that one person’s side-show is someone else’s main act, and, it gives us new ways to look at the world. Funny, disturbing, and in the end, deeply moving.”
—Bill Harley, entertainer and musician
“I love the sound of a "world-beyond-traffic," and the "no comprehension of next," in these stories. And the dancing fingers of the magician Ernie Fingers who has unexpected moments when his fingers seize up and the tailor who tells him to be still. Anyone who has experienced those moments of magic, epiphany or grace, in practice or performance, is well acquainted with those lurking moments when the gremlin comes out of the dark and all our fingers seize up. It's funny and powerful how Kranes depicts the tick, tick, tick of the mind. And he did make me think, oh, yes, "Sometimes a person's mind can be a stranger. A dark stranger."
—Russell Davis, juggler and playwright in residence at the People's Light and Theatre Company
Notă biografică
David Kranes is the author of eight novels and three volumes of short stories, including Abracadabra (which received a starred review in Publishers Weekly), Keno Runner: A Dark Romance,and The Legend’s Daughter. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Utah. Kranes writes about magicians, gamblers, hitmen, painters, and casino workers. His characters are frequently displaced seekers with volatile emotions—but always human. He writes about the West. And his characters struggle and love in its surreal landscapes of Las Vegas casinos, Utah deserts, and Montana towns. He exposes the magic in the mundane, the surreal in the simple, and the bizarre in the banal. His work superbly balances the fantastical with the raw.
Extras
THE STAND UP PHOBIC
Ethan's hair is an air-show and he's sweating. Every performance, lately, seems a conspiracy-theorist's nightmare. Any room he's booked into is slack-jawed and oversized and swallows him. Like a bad Jonah dream. Like having a three-day booking in The Whale. In The House of Ribs. Yeah! Put your hands together-won't you, please--for our own sackcloth and ashes! Ethan Fallon!
Or…!....or the room's too small. How small--? Hey--! Where Ethan's booked is so small that, if you blow your nose, the EPA'll be there issuing a citation. It's--seriously--so small that the front and back doors are the same. And the threshold mat only says "Wel."
So, Mr. Fallon: do you think of what you do more as performing…or, I don't know, kind of, like, taking your Tourettes out for the evening?--
…So small that Ethan's nearest EXIT is himself.
And, Sir: hey-I mean it-I really appreciate the interview.
So, then: what-you-call-this-you-and-me back-and-forth-is….an interview?
I don't know; what else--?
Hey, no else. Seriously: No else. And--I mean it--don't pay attention to me; no-one does. Or…how about… What-we're-having-here--back and forth, you/me--we call a ring-tailed lemur. Or a mongoose. So: how many-is it veterinaries…or veterinarians? Nevermind; call them vegetables. How many vegetables does it take to turn a lemur into a mongoose?
…Listen: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you--
How many--?!
I don't know.
Guess! -Lemur into a mongoose.
…Three?
Close! Four hundred and seven. Four-hundred-and-six for the change-operation, and one to carry the ring.
It's okay, Ethan thinks-the club, the booking, the interview-it's operable….stage two maybe; still, he'll get through. And okay: the crowd's hostile, but not all that hostile There's-true, only scattered-laughter. Still laughter-when you consider your modifiers-can be infectious. Or fractious Potentially an ear (kind of) nose and throat subversion. And subversions …well, maybe not subversions; more, maybe, subdivisions could be-in the right light-like gold… some of them; other's more like garlic.
You were brought up-? Your father owned a restaurant in--?
What do you call someone who's afraid of garlic?
I don't-
Seriously: what's our fear-of-garlic-guy suffering from? What do we call him--and don't say, "a cab."
I don't know.
An alliumphobic! Write that down. Log it. It's important. For me. For the interview. Fear of garlic: Alliumphobia. Type that onto your….whatever: iPad… tape it over your eye socket-I don't care. Alliumphobia. Should I spell that?
No; I-
Actually: one--one i. A-l-l-i
So: How long have you been doing this? …Stand-up?
Since my dog died.
Since your dog--?
"Frankie."
Dog Frankie--?
Yeah. As in "Johnnie."
Died?
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
He was my best--probably only--friend. He had no phobias.
But that was--?
When he died: Yeah.
When you started doing--?
Stand-up: Yeah. He was twelve. Going on eighty-five
I'm sorry.
He was like--I'm talking about, at the end, but--he was like a grandfather to me.
I'm sorry.
You have no idea.
How simple would it be, Ethan wonders, to smuggle an IED into the club? Sure; okay; far-fetched. But….hey; look around; far-fetched is where you have to be careful. Because far-fetched…. is what carries the toxins. Always. This is not a world to entrust your knuckles to. Or your fingernails. Maybe especially your fingernails. Because you don't have to look far. Or fetched. For someone with a gun permit…who's drinking Chopin, in a trattoria, to…. It can be as innocent as wallpaper. As guilty as an anthrax-carrying puma.
"My dog died," Ethan announces to the club audience inappropriately.
"If I was your dog, I'd die," a drunk blurts.
"Frankie," Ethan says--naming his dog.
"Frankie &Johnnie," the drunk counters.
"He was my best friend," Ethan offers.
"Ten bucks says he was your only friend." The drunk's on a roll, he thinks.
"It's possible," Ethan says lamely.
"How close of a friend was he?" Now the drunk thinks he's the comedian.
"He was so close…," Ethan begins. He clogs-salt phlegm. "So close…." His ribcage ratchets. "So close….that….the two of us….." He can't finish the sentence.
For a split second, Ethan loses his thread. Are we in the past or present? He wonders. Tense. He can't remember his respiration-or the opening to the Declaration of Independence.
He feels he's forgotten how to breathe. Maybe it's the water-on the stage-table-maybe it's his lack of vigilance. Or virulence. Could be. Can be. Has it come-his lack--from….? Where?.... A Dasani bottle or just the tap-tiny sink in his dressing room?
Jesus, he needs to be more vigilant, visual, virtual, virtuous--more careful! Without knocking, a rogue word, any rogue word, can enter and-with no loyalty whatsoever-become systemic, begin touring the rooms of a person's brain. Furnished or unfurnished. Either. Both. Take, for instance, the word, Everglades- a word less than a hair's breadth away from….life & death, Troilus & Criseyde--so many other nouns and modifiers….specifically: being an anagram, almost-Everglades--for the word, reversible.
Okay; enough….enough, Ethan thinks… I need to get rid of my head, out of it-back to the room, the interview. Still, he has the impulse to shout, shoot the word-Enough!-like ammunition, through his dressing-room window, because enough is never enough, when your mind shows up in sackcloth, like a beggar, pleading.
In a place with both mirrors and heating vents, there is sure to be desperation. Specialists measure this. Desperation and fear.
"Yeah; right; let's talk fear-okay? Order another beer, and talk fear. Let's have an adult one-on-one, heart-to-heart about-" Ethan marks and, again, re-marks his territory. "Let's have a no-holds-barred tete-a-tete confrontation with terror, spar a round or two with anxiety. Take on dispossession, insurrection, gluten-intolerance. Even agyrophobia: …which is the fear of streets. Surgency and insurgency.
Do other people worry? Ethan wonders. Worry-worry, not just warehouse worry, that this country is being taken over? By underlings? …From the Everglades? Probably it's a crock, or….possibly, an entire pestilence thereof. Still, these things happen. Yet--
Also-if the object, even objective, of the hour is facing-demons, Ethan's got to confess that he has worries about-no small thing-- sermons. Sermons make him nervous. How nervous….? He suffers from homilophobia-fear of homilies-and gets on edge, or just this side thereof, in the presence of guys-in-black-women too-who stand (okay, true: not unlike himself)… elevated...up at one end of a room trying to capture the attention of…other people with drinks. Homilophobia. Sermons-fear of.
…Even small sermons, even sermonettes, can send Ethan into a total fight or flight. Anything pastoral. Or just a simple past-participal from a sermon-a blessed or broken-and he begins to worry that he might….who even knew?!-wake up trapped behind an organ. And Father-seriously!--Whoever, Pastor YouNameIt, will be standing behind a lectern….podium, pulpit….making him-if it's possible, feel contaminated, smaller. Homilophobia.
***
Ethan's hair is an air-show and he's sweating. Every performance, lately, seems a conspiracy-theorist's nightmare. Any room he's booked into is slack-jawed and oversized and swallows him. Like a bad Jonah dream. Like having a three-day booking in The Whale. In The House of Ribs. Yeah! Put your hands together-won't you, please--for our own sackcloth and ashes! Ethan Fallon!
Or…!....or the room's too small. How small--? Hey--! Where Ethan's booked is so small that, if you blow your nose, the EPA'll be there issuing a citation. It's--seriously--so small that the front and back doors are the same. And the threshold mat only says "Wel."
So, Mr. Fallon: do you think of what you do more as performing…or, I don't know, kind of, like, taking your Tourettes out for the evening?--
…So small that Ethan's nearest EXIT is himself.
And, Sir: hey-I mean it-I really appreciate the interview.
So, then: what-you-call-this-you-and-me back-and-forth-is….an interview?
I don't know; what else--?
Hey, no else. Seriously: No else. And--I mean it--don't pay attention to me; no-one does. Or…how about… What-we're-having-here--back and forth, you/me--we call a ring-tailed lemur. Or a mongoose. So: how many-is it veterinaries…or veterinarians? Nevermind; call them vegetables. How many vegetables does it take to turn a lemur into a mongoose?
…Listen: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you--
How many--?!
I don't know.
Guess! -Lemur into a mongoose.
…Three?
Close! Four hundred and seven. Four-hundred-and-six for the change-operation, and one to carry the ring.
It's okay, Ethan thinks-the club, the booking, the interview-it's operable….stage two maybe; still, he'll get through. And okay: the crowd's hostile, but not all that hostile There's-true, only scattered-laughter. Still laughter-when you consider your modifiers-can be infectious. Or fractious Potentially an ear (kind of) nose and throat subversion. And subversions …well, maybe not subversions; more, maybe, subdivisions could be-in the right light-like gold… some of them; other's more like garlic.
You were brought up-? Your father owned a restaurant in--?
What do you call someone who's afraid of garlic?
I don't-
Seriously: what's our fear-of-garlic-guy suffering from? What do we call him--and don't say, "a cab."
I don't know.
An alliumphobic! Write that down. Log it. It's important. For me. For the interview. Fear of garlic: Alliumphobia. Type that onto your….whatever: iPad… tape it over your eye socket-I don't care. Alliumphobia. Should I spell that?
No; I-
Actually: one--one i. A-l-l-i
So: How long have you been doing this? …Stand-up?
Since my dog died.
Since your dog--?
"Frankie."
Dog Frankie--?
Yeah. As in "Johnnie."
Died?
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
He was my best--probably only--friend. He had no phobias.
But that was--?
When he died: Yeah.
When you started doing--?
Stand-up: Yeah. He was twelve. Going on eighty-five
I'm sorry.
He was like--I'm talking about, at the end, but--he was like a grandfather to me.
I'm sorry.
You have no idea.
How simple would it be, Ethan wonders, to smuggle an IED into the club? Sure; okay; far-fetched. But….hey; look around; far-fetched is where you have to be careful. Because far-fetched…. is what carries the toxins. Always. This is not a world to entrust your knuckles to. Or your fingernails. Maybe especially your fingernails. Because you don't have to look far. Or fetched. For someone with a gun permit…who's drinking Chopin, in a trattoria, to…. It can be as innocent as wallpaper. As guilty as an anthrax-carrying puma.
"My dog died," Ethan announces to the club audience inappropriately.
"If I was your dog, I'd die," a drunk blurts.
"Frankie," Ethan says--naming his dog.
"Frankie &Johnnie," the drunk counters.
"He was my best friend," Ethan offers.
"Ten bucks says he was your only friend." The drunk's on a roll, he thinks.
"It's possible," Ethan says lamely.
"How close of a friend was he?" Now the drunk thinks he's the comedian.
"He was so close…," Ethan begins. He clogs-salt phlegm. "So close…." His ribcage ratchets. "So close….that….the two of us….." He can't finish the sentence.
For a split second, Ethan loses his thread. Are we in the past or present? He wonders. Tense. He can't remember his respiration-or the opening to the Declaration of Independence.
He feels he's forgotten how to breathe. Maybe it's the water-on the stage-table-maybe it's his lack of vigilance. Or virulence. Could be. Can be. Has it come-his lack--from….? Where?.... A Dasani bottle or just the tap-tiny sink in his dressing room?
Jesus, he needs to be more vigilant, visual, virtual, virtuous--more careful! Without knocking, a rogue word, any rogue word, can enter and-with no loyalty whatsoever-become systemic, begin touring the rooms of a person's brain. Furnished or unfurnished. Either. Both. Take, for instance, the word, Everglades- a word less than a hair's breadth away from….life & death, Troilus & Criseyde--so many other nouns and modifiers….specifically: being an anagram, almost-Everglades--for the word, reversible.
Okay; enough….enough, Ethan thinks… I need to get rid of my head, out of it-back to the room, the interview. Still, he has the impulse to shout, shoot the word-Enough!-like ammunition, through his dressing-room window, because enough is never enough, when your mind shows up in sackcloth, like a beggar, pleading.
In a place with both mirrors and heating vents, there is sure to be desperation. Specialists measure this. Desperation and fear.
"Yeah; right; let's talk fear-okay? Order another beer, and talk fear. Let's have an adult one-on-one, heart-to-heart about-" Ethan marks and, again, re-marks his territory. "Let's have a no-holds-barred tete-a-tete confrontation with terror, spar a round or two with anxiety. Take on dispossession, insurrection, gluten-intolerance. Even agyrophobia: …which is the fear of streets. Surgency and insurgency.
Do other people worry? Ethan wonders. Worry-worry, not just warehouse worry, that this country is being taken over? By underlings? …From the Everglades? Probably it's a crock, or….possibly, an entire pestilence thereof. Still, these things happen. Yet--
Also-if the object, even objective, of the hour is facing-demons, Ethan's got to confess that he has worries about-no small thing-- sermons. Sermons make him nervous. How nervous….? He suffers from homilophobia-fear of homilies-and gets on edge, or just this side thereof, in the presence of guys-in-black-women too-who stand (okay, true: not unlike himself)… elevated...up at one end of a room trying to capture the attention of…other people with drinks. Homilophobia. Sermons-fear of.
…Even small sermons, even sermonettes, can send Ethan into a total fight or flight. Anything pastoral. Or just a simple past-participal from a sermon-a blessed or broken-and he begins to worry that he might….who even knew?!-wake up trapped behind an organ. And Father-seriously!--Whoever, Pastor YouNameIt, will be standing behind a lectern….podium, pulpit….making him-if it's possible, feel contaminated, smaller. Homilophobia.
***
Cuprins
Contents
- The Daredevil's Son
- The Stand-Up Phobic
- A Man Walks Into A Bar
- Escape Artist
- When The Magician Calls
- Target Practice
- The Warren Beatty Project
- The Weight-Loss Performance Artist
- My Life As A Thief
- Devouring Fire
- The Resurrection of Ernie Fingers
- The Photojournalism Project
- The Fish Magician
Descriere
A show-stopping collection exploring the way we look at celebrity and how celebrities look at themselves