Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Tiny tiny theater world

I mentioned last week that I had an unpleasant run-in on Facebook last week with Doug Henwood and his radical-chic crowd and I mentioned one Abby Tallmer, whom I called a Philistine. And for good reason - she considers John Lennon and Yoko Ono to be racists because they wrote a song 40 years ago called "Woman is the Nigger of the World" and she can't abide the word "nigger" being used in any context. Which I guess means she hates rap music and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, too.

After I was no longer part of the aging hipster conversation due to Facebook blockage, she let loose on me, snug in the cozy certitude that I would never be able to respond to her crazed rantings:
...she actually managed to compound & make even more repulsive Lennon & Ono's trivialization of one of the most heinous violent & ugly of racial slurs ever (one complete with a distinct history all its own) & to read her patently false claims of its "ironic" use and "universal application" some forty years later in 2014 so wildly offended me that it startled me out of sleep and to the keyboard.
Oh boy - somebody on the Internet said something she disagreed with - Social Justice Warrior powers activate!

It should be noted that I've never used the word "ironic" or the term "universal application" in reference to the song, so I don't know why she decided to throw those quotations marks in there, as if I did.

You can read her whole long scurrilous screed here.

I had never heard of this woman until last week - well today I see an obituary for one Jerry Tallmer, the creator of the Obie Awards:
Jerry Tallmer, who brought professionalism and a personalized approach to arts coverage to The Village Voice in its earliest days, and who dreamed up its award for Off Broadway theater, the Obie, died on Sunday in Manhattan. He was 93. 
His death was confirmed by his daughter, Abby Tallmer.
How odd that the daughter of a member of New York culture royalty would be such a Philistine.

Now don't get me wrong - I don't think that Philistines are necessarily evil - just concrete thinkers

I come from Philistines myself - the lower-middle class generally doesn't have much use for the arts outside of asking "can you make a lot of money from it?" But I have to wonder what Abby Tallmer's excuse is, considering her pedigree.

In other theater news, I had dinner with some folks tonight at the New Cosmic Diner - where I always go lately to discuss theater - to hash over some production options for the upcoming 365 Women NYC reading which will take place some time in early 2015, most likely. My Bronte play is ready to go. I was less than charmed though when my dining companions chose to spend part of the time trashing Actors Equity. Not that the AEA has no room for improvement, but these two seemed to be offended by its very existence. Not good.