The Happy Salmon

The return of Toni Schlesinger!

Movie's Start

Just in time for the Oscars, The New-York Ghost's film issue is out, and I can say that it's great and not sound totally immodest because—well, I didn't edit it!

It's the handiwork of B. Kite, and he got some wonderful stuff from writers who are generally not asked to write "year end" film survey things—including Luc Sante, Victoria Nelson, Toni Schlesinger, and Mr. Shadowplay himself, David Cairns.

Press Release! For "The Toni Schlesinger Show"

[Toni is of course the author of Five Flights Up, a collection of her Shelter columns that I used to edit at the PTSNBN; she currently writes a column called Interiors for The New York Observer. More about her here.]

Toni Schlesinger interviews famous puppets in the manner of Charlie
Rose—one on one, no holds barred—from the last ten years of
Arts-at-St. Ann's. Guests include a noir frog, a Spanish Harlem
grandmother who doesn't wear underwear, a Greek solder (the War in
Iraq will be discussed), a miniature butler who prefers prostitutes, a
Kurt Weill sort of cat, and a witch from the forest which will be the
most frightening interview of all. Interviews open full evenings of
theater and avant-garde puppetry. [...]

More info: www.artsatstanns.org.

Interview schedule for The Toni Schlesinger Show:

Wednesday, May 30, 8pm – Interview with Brian Selznick's Kevin, chubby
little boy in the forest, and the Wild Queen, terrifying! She has a
green face. Pastoralism is discussed.

Thursday, May 31, 8pm – Interview with Anna Kiraly's noir frog from
"Slow Ascent." Toni goes in the pond with him so to speak. Joemca
performs.

Friday, June 1, 8pm – A steamy discussion with Cathead from Eric
Novak, Elyas Kahn, Sarah Provost's "Charcoal Boy". Cathead smokes and
drinks, so does Toni.

Saturday June 2, 8pm – A fiery debate ensues as Ricardo Muniz's
Abuelita, the grandmother from "El Bidin" (who doesn't wear
underwear), and Toni discuss gentrification in Spanish Harlem and they
yell at each other.

Sunday June 3, 3pm – Absurdist but memorable conversation with the
petit Pitterpat performed by Keith McDermott from Toni Schlesinger's
"The Biggest Play in the World." Pitterpat has learned to play golf.

Sunday June 3, 8pm – Tom Lee's Hoplite, the Greek Warrior who is so
ancient, he never speaks --- silent but fascinating. The war in Iraq
will be discussed.

Profondo Rosso

I love how Toni Schlesinger's NYO column just...dissolves:

What “big man topples” is to news, red is to fashion—most famously Diana Vreeland’s Park Avenue apartment, which she told Billy Baldwin to furnish like “a garden in hell,” and now the red walls and doors and “convenience stairs,” as spokeswoman Abbe Serphos put it, of the Renzo Piano’s new headquarters for The New York Times, which look as though they are painted with cheerful tomatoes. “We refer to it as ‘sunset red,’” Ms. Serphos said, in what one hopes is not some sort of subconscious prophecy about the newspaper industry.

The red will never be quite still or all there in one way, like the events of the days: The light will change, the light affecting the color will change the color, one’s mood will change, the moods of all The New York Times reporters will change ….

In any case, thinking about red in spring is upsetting. Red is theatrical, artificial, an opera costume, the blood of medieval illuminated manuscripts, love, love later on when it is no longer love but something more dangerous, not the hopeful colors of spring flowers, lilacs in Paris or violets on a 1950’s hat with green leaves and perfect green grapes.