notjustaboutsex

Stepping into the new world of storytelling at the Museum of the Moving Image is a sensory treat experience. I’ve been hooked since first experiencing some of these innovative forms of narrative at the Tribeca Film Festival 2014. As soon as I put on the head visors, and was transported to a virtually 360 degree world, I was part of the action.

Sensory Stories invites visitors to encounter new immersive technologies and creative experiments that engage sight, hearing, touch, and smell. These virtual reality experiences, interactive films, participatory installations, and speculative interfaces offer insights into a possible future where stories engage more of our bodies than just our eyes and ears. http://www.FoST.org

The possibilities for sharing life’s stories and identifying with others are incredible through these mediums. In Clouds Over Sidra, created by Gabo Arora and Chris Milk, we enter a Syrian refugee camp and hear from the children who have spent much of their childhoods far from home. The way it is shot from a height, increases the feeling of children talking to adults and the narrator, a young girl, shares her dreams and, her frustrations as she tours us around the camp. We are so close to the action that you can almost smell the breads being baked in the camp bakery.

In Way To Go, I found myself standing instead of sitting and becoming almost dizzy from the power of the interaction with Vincent Morisset’s cartoon like character who runs on the edge of a forest path.

Chris Milk’s Evolution of Verse is a gorgeous poetic vision of nature with overtones of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

You don’t need a headset to see the possibilities and yes, magic of this art form. Cube, created by Google’s Creative Lab, is literally a cube that tells stories that move and transform depending on how you turn the sides.

If it’s smells you’re after, Goldilocks and The Three Bears: The Smelly Version, created by Melcher Media and Vapor Communications, delivers whiffs of coffee and chocolate. Now if that could only be combined with the bakery of in Sidra, I’d never leave the home.

John Lennon: The Bermuda Tapes directed by Michael Epstein and Mark Thompson is a great way to remember the genius of Lennon as we are privy to his creative process while writing music in Bermuda.

There are many more wonderful exhibits that offer new ways of looking at the world. The power of these methods, beyond dazzling with the technological virtuosity of the work, is that it can help communicate empathy. In Herders, by Felix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphael, we are invited into the home of people’s whose way of life is disappearing, made even more poignant by the dance and prayer of the lone Mongolian Shaman in the steppes.

On the third floor, Parade by Laurent Craste is pure magic. you’re asked to move a light and make vases dance…and they do. I’ll say no more, but the charming guard, Chris, will help you figure it out.

The exhibition can be seen until July 26th and is traveling to the Phi Centre in Montreal, where it will be on view from August 11- September 27.

https://phi-centre.com/en/events/id/FoST

What I appreciate about Irrational Man, Woody Allen’s latest effort, are the unexplored moments, or better put, the places I explored after suitable reflection. It’s true that his idealized society, this time, a small university town (Brown?) is like other locales in his films; places of privileged where the mundane survival issues are hushed. Emma Stone (Jill) is a pianist who never once thinks of her future arthritic fingers and Joaquin Phoenix (Abe Lucas), a disgruntled and disappointed, but brilliant philosophy professor who doesn’t sound like anyone I’ve heard speak at Cuny University’s Heidegger Conference. But his enthusiasm for what he teaches comes through as much as Stone’s enthusiasm for him.

The story for me begs the most important meaning- of- life question: why are complicated men so damn interesting? Are they smarter than the rest of humanity or is a tragic personality the greatest aphrodisiac going? I, too, have fallen under the spell of ‘l’homme miserable’, but they were usually a little funnier than Abe Lucas. And though he is quite cute, the bloated stomach that Mr. Phoenix’s Lucas carries around hardly makes the heart beat faster.
But bad boys are irresistible, and once Stone crosses over, moving further and further from her loyal nice bland guy (Jamie Blackley), all bets are off. Still, there was something not quite passionate enough…but then the professor is a depressive who can’t even get it up for another teacher, desperate Rita (Posey Parker), or himself. That is until… he finds purpose.
Now here’s where I found the particular remote quality of the dialogue unsettling. Stone and Phoenix overhear a conversation about an unjust child custody situation. It was great that Woody wrote the story in favor of the woman at the hands of a derelict husband… it is more and more frequent that male judges rule against good mothers. At least upstate. But the entire conversation didn’t sound authentic…it was like they were eavesdropping on a stilted soap opera, with the mother even saying something like, the “kids sit all alone, when he’s at the garage…where he works.” Obstensibly, her friends would have already known that her ex is a mechanic. And the mother speaks like an English professor which is also confusing.

What would have been fun is if Emma and Joaquin heard two different stories. Or interpreted them slightly differently. But they in fact, agree on the immorality of the situation, which no amount of philosophy can defend and so they bond even tighter.
When Abe Lucas decides to do, not not do, to be, not not be, the story kicks in. He has finally found a purpose, something to live for. But even a depressive, alcoholic might notice that in judging the judge, he too is a judge and where as a philosopher does that take you?
Still, we see serial killers every day who may be convinced that their murdering of others and playing god is justified and to them feels as if they are finally alive. One may not believe in God, but in taking specific actions, it seems that humans think we can act like our idea of a God. The bigshot who takes no prisoners.

Mr. Allen is a magician even when the story sticks a bit. If magic is an illusion, then perhaps hard principles of right and wrong may also be illusion. And he creates the situation that raises the question of consequence.
I recently handed over a taxi to Mr. Allen, who had slipped unnoticed out of a memorial for a show biz colleague of his. He was there even though no one else saw him.
And the same thing is true in his films. He’s always there. Not just by the talent he attracts, the music he employs and the great look by Santo Loquasto; but by raising hard questions about life, cleverly disguised in the cloak of comedy. His questions and concerns about life and morality become ours, even when the voyeurs of us are busy trying to figure out how much of the story reflects Mr. Allen’s own personal voyage. Still, at the end, there’s always the eggs.

photo courtesy of Telegraph
Tunisia is viewed as the lone democratic success story in the Arab Spring. But the North African nation has many issues, including an uneven economy and, according to the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization in London, the distinction of having more citizens — up to 3,000 Tunisians — thought to have gone to Iraq and Syria to fight as jihadists than any other country. It has now suffered a recent terrorist attack on foreign tourists. I decided to ask a fellow member of I.A.W.R.T. (International Association of Women in Radio and Television) her thoughts. I.A.W.R.T. deals with women in the media, images of women and violence against women
After finishing film studies in Paris, Khadija Lemkecher worked as an assistant director to Georges Lucas, Cedric Klapish, Rachid Bouchareb, and Nouri Bouzid. Following a career making commercials, documentaries and fiction films, she became the youngest Tunisian woman to own a production company making her film “Bab El fella-the Cinemonde.” Her latest short film is the award-winning “Night Blind Moon”. She is in post-production on “Women of The Pseudo-spring” and writing her next feature “Sirens Isolate Themselves to Sing.”

Her films always have women as the central focus and she advocates for the rights of women through her art and her activism.
N: Were you near the event?

K: I live in Tunis—it’s about 120 km from Sousse.

N: How does it feel to have violence so close by?

K: Fear and also rage are the predominant feeling I have.

N. Do you think it will affect tourism? And do you think most Tunisians blame the West for the creation of ISIS, with Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

K. Sure it affects tourism and all our economy–, almost one person from ten is living from tourism!

Tunisians don’t blame the West at all; we blame ourselves and how we chose this government after these two elections.

N. As the lone democratic success story in the Arab Spring, why do you think terrorists groups are breaking in?

K. No one believes that democracy can exist in an Arab country and no one can believe that Islam can be modern and moderate — these fanatics have their own view about religion and they will make anything to break our successful story.

N. Glenn Greenwald on Stop the War Coalition says this terrorism is not a threat in the west, and is overblown causing more bias against regular practicing Moslems? Do you concur?

K. Sure, Muslims are the first victims. We have from the first election (when the Islamist party was in the government) faced the terrorism and the murders. And till now every month policemen and military are targets, especially in Ramadan!

N. Are you a Moslem? How do you feel about the way women are faring today and in particular in these terrorists’ clans? Do you have or know any woman who has been recruited?

K. I am Muslim. These young women that join this pseudo-Jihad are indoctrinated in a cult. They are generally young and socially in difficulties… sometimes they are following a lover who is fighting with these groups. These girls can’t imagine that they will make prostitution in the name of Jihad! They come back home pregnant with disease like Aids….

N. As a woman and media person, what can be done to stop the movement?

K. We must fight the evil at its source. Why do our young people become terrorists and the youth suicide rate is so high in Tunisia? We have to review our education system and put culture at the center of young people’s lives, who abandoned no longer know how to gather for a music concert or a movie, but gather around these black flags, listening to that bearded sow hate speech, murder and jihad. These voids young of any personal judgment, they are hypnotized and become desperate to die. So I say education and culture, the two concepts that the dictator Ben Ali has removed, are the only ones who can save our youth indoctrination.

I want to note that the budget of culture in Tunisia is 0, 38 per cent while the budget of religious ministry is 16 per cent!!! . No theatre, no concerts, no dance, no library … No sports either!!! How can they live in a village where there’s only a coffee and a mosque?!!! See who is teaching in this mosque?!!!! You understand, Nancy?

Peace?! I think in Tunisia we need year to build a peaceful Arab democracy. It will be hard years especially for us who are in the culture. After my last movie we were threatened with death and I think the next one will be harder, but we have to continue the fight for my daughter and my son. I know that they are suffering but don’t want to give up now. I want to work for the peace of my children and all the children of the future.

I know that one day, maybe I will not be with them, but they will live in a real democratic Arab country, and it will be the first.

In honor of Danny Schecter’s birthday and beautiful memorial service held today at Judson Church, I’m printing for the first time my story about ‘the laptop’ and Danny’s foreward, and final analysis at the foot. When he offered to print the story, I was thrilled, but then got cold feet because I wasn’t clear on legal ramifications. Even now, I’ve left blank spaces for the ‘redacted’ material, just in case. But this shows how Danny supported my efforts. The bold italicized type is all Danny.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

I almost didn’t make my film Plunder about the crimes of Wall Street
because I knew how hard it would be to get top executives to sit for interviews,
or find documents detailing the scams that led to the collapse of our
economy.

It took the government’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission millions of
dollars and hundreds of hours of interviews to produce a detailed report on
the issues which has been faulted for being incomplete and largely ignored.

So investigating a crisis that goes so deep is certainly beyond the reach
of most individuals with limited resources and even less access to major
media outlets.

At the same time, sometimes you can find information you didn’t even know
was there or try to. Sometimes, sensitive information can fall into your lap
—and even your laptop when you least expect it.

That’s what happed to Nancy Koan, a sensitive and brilliant
filmmaker/artist friend of mine who admits, “What I know about finance you could tattoo
on my forehead.”

But it was Nancy who quite unexpectedly was given a computer that formerly
belonged to Goldman Sach’s most flamboyant and controversial trader whose
sleazy scamming triggered a hard-hitting Senate investigation, his own
suspension and a cash settlement of a whopping $550 million dollars—with no
admission of guilt of course.

In an article she wrote and could not get published, (of course!) she
explains that after losing her own computer, “a good pal friend called and
offered me a laptop he had found in the basement of his building. I
gratefully took it, bought it a new battery and hungrily loaded it up with
storylines, lyrics, photos –“

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

“The laptop worked fairly well, though every time I logged on, a funny
name popped up on the screen. But I was only interested in my own name and
cheerily ignored it. That the machine heated up like a toaster was a problem,
and occasionally I worried what it might do to my future eggs.

“Then last May as I was trawling through the Saturday Guardian, I spotted
a name in a column that looked strangely familiar. The short article had to
do with a character in the financial world, a galaxy as far removed from
my planet as Vonnegut’s Tralfamadore; but the name rang a bell.

“I thought I recalled seeing it somewhere, but for the life of me couldn’t
t remember where.

“The article mentioned a flashy banker, known as FAB, who was being touted
as the inventor of a smarmy financial scheme at Goldman Sachs. After a
hostile media reaction, GS was distancing itself from the young turk and had
sent him to London to cool his jets.

“For me, the financial world is such a labyrinth of secret corridors and
tunnels where only a few have the flashlight, I was in the dark. I didn’t
know beans about Goldman Sach’s or their business…GS called their deal “
ABACUS.”

“My friend Mike always says that irony is the only truth. How could an
artist like myself living in an east village tenement, develop a totally
unexpected if distant connection with one of the shakers of this financial
drama.

“In the film The Adjustment Bureau, all of the details of the characters’
lives are preordained by The Chairman. And they all happen for a reason,
to push the character along in his/her path. Was there a Chairwoman who was
setting me up in this Fabulous situation?

“Through circumstances as banal as they are bizarre, I innocently became
linked to the media’s poster boy/archetype of the Wall Street slickster, the
fabulous Fabrice Tourre,

“This strange quirk of timing and coincidence was not easily ignored. Like
the bedbugs now crawling all over New York, Goldman Sachs’ tentacles
crawled out of my very own laptop and into my lap.

“If there is a financial spectrum with Fabrice Tourre and the Goldman
Sachs crew at one end, I would be at the far other. I have no shares in their
company, no investment with them or anyone tied to their crowd.

“As I said, the discovery that my laptop is related to one of the kingpins
of the money world had put me into a quasi state of l shock. Also, was the
realization that this Gallic wizard was now in newsworthy trouble.
And if he were in trouble, could I be since we had become—unknown to him—
technically tethered.

“My first response was fear. I wondered if by virtue of my possession of
his “artifact,” I had become an unwitting accomplice. I placed a call to a
man I respect and admire. He publishes a liberal magazine, teaches
journalism and understands my lack of financial knowledge. I knew he’d suggest the
right thing to do.

“While waiting to hear back from him, I spoke to X, the friend who had
given me the laptop. He suggested I get in touch with a British newsgroup.
They would love a story like mine and besides, if I had to give up the
computer to authorities, they might pay me enough for some information so that I
could buy a new one. Maybe even get a printer!

“So I called a friend who I knew people in British media. He
suggested a journalist who was beside herself with excitement over my little
discovery and asked to inspect my computer immediately.

“While waiting to hear from lawyers as to the legality of my ownership, I
made an appointment to meet with the British Lady Z. Lady smoked like a
chimney and regaled me with the potential monetary rewards that her newspaper
would bestow on me for offering up the goods. She said that if the
information were useful; I could have a huge story.

“Fab had just moved to London and apparently there were very few photos of
him available. I was of so many minds at this juncture: was there
anything really to show buried in my laptop?

“And was it fair/ethical to show it at all? Was I doing something wrong by
not giving it to the SEC immediately? Would the Brits keep my personal
info anonymous? And how much second-hand smoke would it take to kill me?

“All of these worries, Lady X attempted to assuage, by insisting that we
were all in this together…fighting the greed of Wall Street. She even put me
on the phone with her editors who assured me that their solicitors would
take care of any legal issues if they were to arise.

“I do read tabloids, but never really gave much thought as to how the
reporters found their stories. The combination of my own doubts and Lady Z’s
aggressive style made me very nervous indeed…it felt improper and
exploitative.

“When I began to run scared from her, she looked me in the eye and asked, “
What is the most important thing in life luv?” I blurted back ‘a
relationship?’

“She laughed and insisted that it was money, knowing that I was in dire
need of it.

“As I gazed dumbfounded, ———I came to and insisted our time was up. She was
miffed. The promised fee was not forthcoming – she insisted she wouldn’t pay
me anything until she got more time.

“I felt a sense of betrayal. She tried to assure me that the paper was on
the right side of the argument; that this Wall Street Greed had to be
stopped. Perhaps she was telling the truth.

In the meantime, my mentor in all things media found out that I owned
everything that was on the hard drive and that the intellectual property was
legally mine.

Still I didn’t feel comfortable with the Brits and when I realized that
their version of the story might be similar to the piece they did on Mariah
Carey’s curves I wanted to do the right thing, but what was it?

My mentor suggested I could do one of three things: one, sell the computer
to the Brits outright; two, do nothing and not lose my computer and go
back to normal life; or three, give the laptop back to Fabrice.

Well, I didn’t know Fab except from reading…… he might
even turn out to be a really delightful guy. Then how could I vilify him?

True, he was being scapegoated by his own institution on Wall Street; but
he was still a player, and hardly innocent to counts of greed… didn’t his
arrogance contribute to the present financial mess this country finds
itself in?

“Then again, was he just doing his job? He was not acting alone. If he had
been, Goldman would not have coughed up so much money to cover up his sins.

“I backed off from the Brits when I quickly realized that I didn’t have
the stomach for Murdoch-style media. But after rejecting them, I didn’t know who to
turn to with this potentially explosive leak (well before wikileaks.)

“In the old days I might have called political activist Abbie Hoffman. (I
had made a film on him; he had street smarts.)

“Abbie is, sigh, long gone—so now who could I trust? One guilt-ridden
friend, working in the financial arena, wanted me to offer the machine to
Bernie Sanders; another, said to call Jon Stewart. Even my gestalt therapist stepped up
to the plate, suggesting that this ‘case’ might change the banking
regulations for all time.

“So much pressure — so many suggestions.

“In Burn after Reading, a Coen Brothers, film, (sadly, no relations) the
protagonists wrestle with a found CIA artifact that only brings them
trouble. In the characters’ case, they are only interested in the financial reward
of the disc. But even they had to make the right moves… which of course
they didn’t. It’s a comedy after all.

“My life is not yet a movie even if I am trying to make one, so I tried to
be circumspect. Like Julian Assange, I talked to so many people … if
anything ever happened to me, my friends would know why.

“Paranoia? You betcha.

“Suddenly I spotted helicopters flying over my roof and began to hear
unusual clicking noises on my telephone. I even took my battery out of my cell
phone when I talked to friends, forgetting that they couldn’t hear me with
it out. I wasn’t much of a spy.

“Once I recovered from the shock of ownership, I tentatively I began to
scan the computer, searching for anything that hollered ABACUS or Paulson,
the other villain from this story. I needed no code to open up old emails…
they came up automatically on outlook hard drive… something I had never
opened in four years as I don’t use it.

“But hard as it is to believe, I didn’t look. I’m a coward.. Even if there might be some clues…to do what with it? Could I save Fab from perdition.

I did spot that the year 2007 was totally missing from the dates listed in the computer history. It jumped from 2006 to 2008. That meant a year was possibly deleted for a
reason.

“How to crack this case? I remembered reading that researchers at Stanford
University had been using x-rays to decipher the writings of the ancient
mathematician Archimedes. A 10th century manuscript of the classicist’s work
had been obliterated by a Christian monk who wrote over the text with
prayers. And now scientists were going to reclaim one of the most important
works from the great mind with X-rays.

Could someone do this with Fab’s stuff?

“Once I realized that old documents are never truly erased, I was still
skeptical about giving up the laptop. Not that I have so much to protect, but
I really didn’t want the Men In Black reading all my rejection emails from
grant providers.

“In the meantime, my own unemployment is soon due to run out, and Fab for
his part is probably having a hell of a good time. Love to join him.

“I decided to give it one more try and handed over the information to
everyone’s favorite big league newspaper. Will its innards produce something
still be revealed that could help the ‘little people’ make sense of the new
financialized world that is growing around them?

“This Big media outlet was intrigued but I found like many outsiders who
try to collaborate with media cognoscenti, they weren’t in a
rush especially since they would have to do some work to advance the story.
At the same time, they wanted to push my personal story out of the picture. Facts
they adore, a strange context like the one I offered doesn’t fit their
script.

The gap that is separating the rich from the once considered middle-class
is growing as wide as the break in the Arctic ice.… how to survive in this
new world is the question on the minds of not only the traditional poor of
the world but of people like you, me, and the penguins.

“We do need to know, really, how TRILLIONS of dollars have been stolen and
VANISHED. Does the answer lie somewhere in the depths of my little laptop?”

Nancy never found out after months and moths of worrying through a bad
B-movie, while trying to outwit the IT wizards at Goldman Sachs who have since
moved on.

She had the guts and gumption to blow a whistle but she never got the
chance.

Her story is still fun to hear about. The point? There are, we can be
sure, tons of information about this financial crisis still buried, still
invisible to the to most of us who can expect to find out even less about what
really happened as the government avoids the kind of court battles that
could make public hidden documents by forcing them into discovery.

All praises are still due to Michigan’s Senator Sandy Levin who hauled GS
and Fab’s ass up to Capitol Hill where they were righteously ventilated at
in one televised afternoon.

Afterwards, GS “settled” the matter and went back to playing with its own
abacus.

New York Spring may be resembling London Fog but the great New York music scene keeps the air warm and even a little hot.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to see Brit Floyd, the top Pink Floyd cover band from the UK in their Space & Time World Tour. I’ve always liked the band, and perhaps I’m just feeling it deeper now, but this concert was bloody amazing. From the moment Damian Darlington hits the first chord to the resounding finale with simple stringed instruments, Brit Floyd gives a powerhouse show doing great songs from The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and The Division Bell. All the musicians were terrific, with bassist and vocalist Ian Catrell sounding like both Roger Waters and David Gilmour.

Angela Cervantes knocked it out of the park with her solo. The band was so tight, all of the vocalists so strong and the music…well what can you say about the music of Pink Floyd? Extra huge kudos to the brilliant media director Bryan Kolupski, born on Salvador Dali’s birthday! His marching hammer men was so 1984.

This concert was faithful to a Pink Floyd show… a mélange of great sound and light technology. I wish I were on tour with the band to hear them over and over.

On a completely different planet, Monday night at Metropolitan Café brought the virtuoso team of happily married couple singer and pianist Eric Comstock and vocalist Barbara Fasano in their new show, Shoulder Season. These two songbirds have been trilling together for ten years, and lucky for us they do. Eric is all boy next door while Barbara sizzles with sultry and they play beautifully off each other.

Their songlist was an interesting one….well- chosen numbers from Jimmy Van Heusen to Billy Strayhorn to Yip Harburg. With bassist Sean Smith whose played with Rosemary Clooney and Peggy Lee, the trio delivered an evening of melodies that told different types of summer stories like Mancini’s Two for The Road and Jerry Herman’s Ribbons Down My Back.

I loved all the repartee and innuendoes…and then when they do Paul Simon’s April Comes She Will, a wave of gentle nostalgia for summers past wafted through the crowd.

This is a show by two MAC winning artists who give their hearts to music and to their audience. They will be performing June 1 to 4 and June 8 and 9 at 7 P.M.

http://www.metropolitanroom.com

http://www.britfloyd.com

You are planning to buy me dinner with Non-GMO organic fairly grown, kindly raised food under a non-chemical trailed sky for the rest of my life.

You will send me fresh flowers that are grown in humanistic and fair farms and nurseries where there is decent pay and benefits and no harmful sprays and sexual terror for the female and children who are working there.

You agree that I am beautiful whether I’ve gained 30 pounds or 60 and have no need to trade me down for a younger version of my former self which wouldn’t match your present self in the least.

You do not buy the charms of pre-pubescents who are forced into flirting with you because they need to put food in their belly, pay for their children, or pay for the medicine that they may be addicted to until they can be treated in a humane situation which will help them break the chain. In other words: Don’t f–k kids.

You believe that all children have the right to life once they are born, which includes decent homes, moms who aren’t exhausted, time with parent figures that build self-esteem,  food that is nourishing, education that isn’t completely embarrassing and a belief in the promises of the Constitution.

You don’t stand in the way of me getting a raise in my hourly shepherdess rate which is actually something someone can live on.

I realize that as a future date you have a lot to accomplish…but aren’t I worth it?

I will stuff myself with protein bars and carob shavings until I can swallow the truth.

Tequila may help it go down but nothing will dull the edge

Perhaps a walk in the forest, but who am I kidding… Forest Hills is not the woods.

Embarrassed, realizing the pain isn’t worthy of real Pen writers, I will nonetheless cry in the dark when the last episode reaches my heart.

I have been tricked, seduced and won over by his masters; how did they know me so well?

A latecomer to the party, I made up for lost time, ignoring all others, reserving my time for HIM.

It’s almost over now and I predict my grief.

But his seat in my house will remain empty, until, like Elijah, or another wishful guest, he returns, claiming the night as his own.

If writers and artists could run the world, well, the budgets might not balance but everything else most certainly would. Pen International proved tonight that Vaclav Havel wasn’t a one –off. All of the writers who kicked off the Pen World Voices Festival of International Literature get my vote. If there had to be a one world government, then please have it be run by the people who live in the shadow of their own minds, trying to make sense of a mad world, and bringing that clarity to the reader.

The assignment for this group of writers was to present their best and worst case scenarios for 2050.  Each presenter used their own style, often with a great deal of humor but also capturing the horrors of today and trying to imagine them either becoming more intense or by some miracle of human achievement, shifting towards peace.

There were activist-writers and writers who are most certainly activists. The lesbian bias in Africa with its accompanying atrocities was described by Zanele Muholi from South Africa along with a short film.

Aminatta Forna, Scottish and raised in Sierra Leone, poetically shared her personal emails about Ebola and the great loss of life.  Two of the funniest (until they predicted their versions of the worst scenarios were Richard Flanagan (One Hand Clapping) and Egyptian writer and ardent feminist Mona Eltahawy. I think it was she who suggested that non-feminists will be grateful that others recognized the need to act while they are still asleep. (though much better said than I’m doing here)

The lead speaker of the night was Tom Stoppard who talked about a boat that suffered great losses of personnel because each man was only working for himself and not until they worked together were some of them saved. A true story for our times.  But try and tell that to the corporations.

Poet Jackie Wang asked us to close our eyes and think of a place where we feel safe and the people we feel safe with. When we opened them, she assured us that no one had thought of police.

Writers dream of a better place and what they can do to right the wrongs that artists feel so deeply. These readings could have taken place in a San Francisco cellar with Lenny Bruce and George Carlin waiting in the wings. The medium is different, but the voice is the same…perhaps politicians just don’t dream.

The festival runs from May 5 to 10. http://www.penworldvoices.org

Relations and film, film and relationships. So hard to separate. The big mirror that reflects all of our warts and cross hairs right back to us. And one of the most charming soothsayers of the human heart, Eric Rohmer, is being showcased at Lincoln Center.

Each of the Comedies & Proverb films begins with a proverb and in The Aviator’s Wife “it is impossible to think of nothing.” That implies that the film has passive action but the real activity is in the obsessive thinking of its characters.

I had seen all of Monsieur Rohmer’s Comedies except Aviator’s Wife. This is a story that shows how the art of rejection can create more rejection; how a little information can burn like a hole in a pocket until all the data is discovered, and usually the original premise is wrong; and how playing with the emotion of another is such a sweet, albeit unconscious power trip.

Like all of Rohmer’s films, the acting is natural, the scenes go on as if you’re really sitting in a conversation with a friend, witnessing the perils are of the heart. Girl (Marie Riviere) gets upsetting news, boyfriend (Phillippe Marlaud) gets upsetting sighting and the story begins. What is particularly striking in this 1981 film is the exquisite absence of cell phones. The story couldn’t be told in a cell phone world. There is nothing as mysterious with a text (ask Anthony Weiner) as a letter.  Little notes left in little slots can open up a story, with more possibilities for interpretation than even the most venal email… less is certainly more in the case of this film and the meaning of whether to hand deliver a card or gain distance with a stamp is beautifully executed by Rohmer. The film predates Charley Hebdo –notice the black and white keffiyah Riviere wears jauntily around her throat and the lovely young Anne-Laure Meury plays with her prey by joking about her Muslim Black street sweeper boyfriend.

The politics and technology have certainly changed, but not the dance between men and women. Rohmer knows well the steps; the missteps are endearing.

The theme song is sung by Arrielle Dombasle, stunning as Pauline at the Beach (also playing) and now the wife of philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy.

The selection of films including The Green Ray, A Good Marriage, Boyfriends and Girlfriends and Full Moon in Paris will screen at Lincoln Center until April 30.