The News For Parrots ~ Chased Skirts

from the Village Voice 8/17/72

According to Trans-Academics.org, Bebe Scarpi was a founding member of S.T.A.R., Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, in 70s NYC and provided info for the history An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail.

The News For Parrots ~ Productive Intolerance

Julie Bovasso's response to non-gentle callers.

Open Letter To My Would Be Executioners

cont. Would Be Executioners

The News For Parrots ~ Herve's Honchos

New York's bastion of off-everything theatre LaMama opened on Broadway February 4, 1970, with a production of Glorida and Esperanza.

"The production that opened Wednesday night was written, directed and, as far as humanly possible, is performed by Julie Bovasso with bravura to daunt the most rabid partisan of masculine superiority.
Part surrealist fantasy, part circus, with targets ranging from medieval religion to atomic holocause, the affair plunges along with touches of brilliance, daubs of smartness and blobs of undisciplined nonsense. If Fellini went off to visit the wonderful Wizard of Oz and neglected to edit his film afterwards, the effect might be similar."
from The Robesonian, February 9, 1970

Julie Bovasso received the first best actress Obie Award in 1956, for her appearance in Jean Genet's The Maid, and provoked this Scream of Consciousness in the Village Voice.

The show, which closed February 14, also debuted a young Herve Villechaize.

The News For Parrots ~ Preface+Poem=Proem?

PROEM

In dark and early ages, through the primal forests faring,
Ere the soul came shining into prehistoric night,
Twofold man was equal; they were comrades dear and daring,
Living wild and free together in unreasoning delight.

Ere the soul was born and consciousness came slowly,
Ere the soul was born, to man and woman, too,
Ere he found the Tree of Knowledge, that awful tree and holy,
Ere he knew he felt, and knew he knew.

Then said he to Pain, "I am wise now, and I know you!
No more will I suffer while power and wisdom last!"
Then said he to Pleasure, "I am strong, and I will show you
That the will of man can seize you,— aye, and hold you fast!"

Food he ate for pleasure, and wine he drank for gladness.
And woman? Ah, the woman! the crown of all delight!
His now,— he knew it!  He was strong to madness
In that early dawning after prehistoric night.

His,—his forever!  That glory sweet and tender!
Ah, but he would love her!  And she should love but him!
He would work and struggle for her, he would shelter and defend her,--
She should never leave him, never, till thire eyes in death were dim.

Close, close he bound her, that she should leave him never;
Weak still he kept her, lest she be strong to flee;
And the fainting flame of passion he kept alive forever
With all the arts and forces of earth and sky and sea.

And, ah, the long journey!  The slow and awful ages
They have labored up together, blind and crippled, all astray!
Through what a mighty volume, with a million shameful pages,
From the freedom of the forest to the prisons of to-day!

Food he ate for pleasure, and it slew him with diseases!
Wine he drank for gladness, and it led the way to crime!
And woman?  He will hold her,--he will have her when he pleases,--
And he never once hath seen her since the prehistoric time!

Gone the friend and comrade of the day when life was younger,
She who rests and comforts, she who helps and saves.
Still he seeks her vainly, with a never-dying hunger;
Alone beneath his tyrants, alone above his slaves!

Toiler, bent and weary with the load of thine own making!
Thou who art sad and lonely, though lonely all in vain!
Who hast sought to conquer Pleasure and have her for the taking,
And found that Pleasure only was another name for Pain--

Nature hath reclaimed thee, forgiving dispossession!
God hath not forgotten, though man doth still forget!
The woman-soul is rising, in despite of thy transgression--
Loose her now, and trust her!  She will love thee yet!

Love thee?  She will love thee as only freedom knoweth!
Love thee?  She will love thee while love itself doth live!
Fear not the heart of woman!  No bitterness it showeth!
The ages of her sorrow have but taught her to forgive. 



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


from H.L Mencken, In Defense of Women

The News For Parrots ~ The First Book of American Verse Printed Abroad

facsimile from The Writings of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, Frank Easton Hopkins

 






~~~~~~~~~~~~
from A History of American Literature, by Fred Lewis Pattee, 1896, 1908, 1909

1. Anne (dudley) Bradstreet (1612-1672).

(Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse, edited by Ellis; Poems of Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, introduction by Norton, 1897; Anne Bradstreet and Her Time, by Campbell, 1891.)

Since the days of Sappho no poetess was ever more extravagantly praised by contemporaries than was Anne Bradstreet, the "Tenth Muse" of the Puritans of early New England. The daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, she had accompanied her father into the forests of Massachusetts Bay with the earliest settlers of that province.

In 1650 there appeared in London, under the title The Tenth Muse Lately sprung up in America, the first book of American verse ever printed abroad:

"THE TENTH MUSE Lately sprung up in America. Severall Poems, compiled with great variety of Wit and Learning, full of delight. Wherein especially is contained a compleat discourse and description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Man, Seasons of the Tear. Together with an Exact Epitome of the Four Monarchies, viz. The Assyrian, Persian, Grecian, Roman. Also a Dialogue between Old England and New, concerning the late troubles. With divers other pleasant and serious Poems. By a Gentlewoman in those parts."

The title is a startling one, from the poetical standpoint. To woo the Muse with such subjects seems hardly possible, and the poems are what we might well expect. Her numbers were seldom correct; she lacked the fine touch of the true poet, and her themes were such that not even genius could lift them into the realm of poesy, yet in spite of all this she deserves much praise, since hers was the hand that first beckoned the lyric muse to these shores.

Among a surprising mass of rubbish from her pen there is here and there to be found a true gem. In her Contemplations, written apparently on the banks of the Merrimac at the flood tide of the year, we find the first poetry of the American landscape:

"Sometime now past in the Autumnal tide,
When Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed,
The trees all nicely clad, yet void of pride,
Were gilded o'er by his rich golden head.

Their leaves and fruits seem'd painted, but was true
Of green, of red, of yellow, mixed hew:
Rapt were my sences at this delectable view."

The surroundings of this early poetess were anything but inspiring. She was lame and of delicate health throughout her life. The mother of eight children, she wrote all her poems amid the hurry and care of multifarious household duties.

From Anne Bradstreet has descended a sturdy literary progeny Holmes, Channing, R. H. Dana, Buckminster, and many other New England authors trace a lineal descent from this earliest singer of the new world.

The News For Parrots ~ Menckenyms

from Pistols For Two, a pair of biographies in list form featuring Henry Louis Mencken and George Jean Nathan by Owen Hattera. Published September 1917.

The News For Parrots ~

The News For Parrots ~ A Gentlebird's Gentlebird

The News For Parrots ~ Feather In Your Hat?

The News For Parrots ~ Guess Who's Crazy For Dinner

"The System of Dr. Tarr," a humorous treatment of Poe's story (a more gruesome version of which terrified Parisian audiences last season) scored an immediate success. Some of the critics deplored the fact that the misfortunes of the mentally afflicted should be made an occasion for mirth, but it. was generally conceded that the laughter-compelling qualities of the piece far outweighed its objectionable features. The truth is that the audience was amused less by the queer actions of Dr. Tarr and his eccentric associates as by the panicky terror of the investigating Senator who is compelled to sup with the lunatics against his will. As Dr. Tarr, the leader of the lunatics, Mr. Keenan presented a masterly characterization, studied and complete in every little detail. The part will be remembered as among the best this actor has essayed. He had capital support from George Richards, who impersonated the visiting Senator with delightful unction and humor and from Wright Kramer, who scored a well deserved hit as the eccentric Professor Fether. Miss Fontaine filled with intelligence and ingenuous charm the role of Miss Salasette.

Andre Antoine founder of  Theatre Antoine in Paris just as he appeared recently in the role of King Lear.

The News For Parrots ~ Gimme That Old Time Derision

LITANIES FOR THE OVERLOOKED
by H.L. Mencken from A Book of Burlesques

For Americanos

FROM scented hotel soap, and from the Boy Scouts; from home cooking, and from pianos with mandolin attachments; from prohibition, and from Odd Fellows' funerals; from Key West cigars, and from cold dinner plates; from transcendentalism, and from the New Freedom; from fat women in straight-front corsets, and from Philadelphia cream cheese; from The Star-Spangled Banner, and from the International Sunday-school Lessons; from rubber heels, and from the college spirit; from sulphate of quinine, and from Boston baked beans; from chivalry, and from laparotomy; from the dithyrambs of Herbert Kaufman, and from sport in all its hideous forms; from women with pointed fingernails, and from men with messianic delusions; from the retailers of smutty anecdotes about the Jews, and from the Lake Mohonk Conference; from Congressmen, vice crusaders, and the heresies of Henry Van Dyke; from jokes in the Ladies' Home Journal, and from the Revised Statutes of the United States; from Colonial Dames, and from men who boast that they take cold shower-baths every morning; from the Drama League, and from malicious animal magnetism; from ham and eggs, and from the weltanschauung of Kansas; from the theory that a dark cigar is always a strong one, and from the theory that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake; from campaigns against profanity, and from the Pentateuch; from anti-vivisection, and from women who do not smoke; from wine-openers, and from Methodists; from Armageddon, and from the belief that a bloodhound never makes a mistake; from sarcerdotal moving-pictures, and from virtuous chorus girls; from bungalows, and from cornets in B flat; from canned soups, and from women who leave everything to one's honor; from detachable cuffs, and from Lohengrin; from unwilling motherhood, and from canary birds—good Lord, deliver us!