Following a screening of Sink or Swim and Dottie Gets Spanked at B.U.
I happened into a dinner with Amy Geller and Gerry Peary,, Vlada Petric , David Sterritt , and Mikita Brottman
This was an interesting way to start Easter weekend, needless to say. “Dottie” conjured up my whole childhood with its themes of art, sexuality, memory, family. Todd Haynes is amazing. “Sink or Swim” by Su Friedrich is filled with abstract associations and brings up interesting possibilities for the new film we’re working A Woman’s Voice,.

I sat next to Vlada, legendary for his strong uncompromising positions on film art. He didn’t like ‘Dottie’ “It is not cinematic”, he says in a thick Russian accent. Sterritt leans over and says “He means not enough editing” Vladic laughs patiently. I told that him I tend to like films where actors engage, where we learn something about humanity, where we immerse ourselves.
Vladic: “That is what theater is for, not cinema. Just go to the theater for that. I never immerse … I need distance, aesthetic distance”

See Ross McElwees Bright Leaves for a wonderful and hysterical scene with Petric.

This quote would explain why he liked ‘Sink or Swim’ a lot more. The film does just this:
“The more perfect the work, the more clearly does one feel the absence of any associations generated by it….which is also to be able to generate an infinite number of associations, which ultimately means the same thing.”

John drew his film “Honeydripper” from his short story, “Keeping Time”. He’s wanted to do it as a reading with drums for years, and we finally did. At the Coolidge Corner Theater February 2008.
(There are about 30 sec. of diminished sound near the top – the sound the rest is smooth) Good story – listen and enjoy!!!

Shot by Students at the New England Institute of Art under guidance of Mary Cardaras, with help from Mason Daring
Video Cameras – Thomas Dill, Dustin Hunt
Audio by Brian Smith
Edited by LaShawn McGhee

I registered for union extra work on Company Men being shot in April and May around Boston. I haven’t done this in 5 years, but it can always lead to ‘featured extra’ status where you get a line or two, and get paid significantly more, and become more than a prop. Of course, it’s all for the art.

It took all of 5 minutes to fill out the forms. SAG and Billy Dowd casting are efficient and polite, but there I was in a suit, so I decided to finally go pay for my lost book at Boston Public Library dressed nice so they wouldn’t yell at me. Upstairs there was a well picked over little book sale. There between the dated self-help books, never heard of fiction, and biographies of Katherine Hepburn, and Suzanne Summers confessionals was a beautiful weathered leather book, missing a spine, velum pages, all in Latin, dated 1837; a bible I think.
As I handed the weathered tome to the check-out lady and went for my $2.00, she says; “Oh my. I don’t know why they shelve these sometimes. This is lovely. Good heavens, it might be worth something.” Being in a coat and tie, as I was, hair slicked back, looking the age I’m supposed to look, and having acting on my mind, without missing a beat, I said; “I’m a book collector and I do happen to know this edition is worth 10,000 dollars.” The poor woman nearly fainted. Beat. “Just kidding.”

I make on my way down Boylston Street toward a little hole-in-the-wall shop across from the dirty movie store on the edge of Chinatown where I often buy for lunch delicious Vietnamese sandwiches on warm crisp rolls with unidentifiable cold cuts and hot paste of some kind for three dollars. On the way, I pass by an odd knick-knack shop filled with kitsch collectables. In the window there’s a poster for Chick Webb with Ella Fitzgerald at the Savoy Ballroom(“Home of Happy Feet”). Buddy Rich called Chick Webb “the daddy of them all”. Ella Fitzgerald actually lived with Chick Webb and his wife when she was a teenager. Anyway – this makes a nice addition to my drum studio, where I have movie posters for The Gene Krupa Story”, “Savage Drums” (starring Sabu)“ and others. The old woman buzzes me in. It’s fifteen dollars , so I take it.
“Are you a jazz fan?”
“No but I play and teach drums”
“Really that’s wonderful. I was a jazz singer myself years ago. Have you heard of the Hickory Sisters? You haven’t!? Well, we played all the clubs”

And so she goes to the back room and pulls out the scrapbook. A letter from Irving Berlin. On stage with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. In Spanish costumes playing guitars. Glamour publicity shots.
“They tried to put pancake make-up on us but we were told it would ruin our skin, so we never wore it”
On the bill with Monk. “The kids today don’t know what the black performers went through back I the day”
Booked as Identical Twins Beauties. Were you? I ask. “Oh no, they would say all kinds of things, you know.”
Posters that said; “Beautiful, spectacular. And they can sing!!”

“How’s your health”, I ask. “My sister passed away a few years ago. I have an organic farm in New Hampshire. I always ate fresh. Bottled water. I’m 85 now, and I feel great.”

I couldn’t find anything about the Hickory Sisters anywhere on the web except at Hillbilly Music.Com and they had no information. But I saw the legacy there in the scrapbook. Maybe I should help her get on the web for posterity and history?

Anyway – Here they are:

John drew his film “Honeydripper” from his short story, “Keeping Time”. He’s wanted to do it as a reading with drums for years, and we finally did. At the Coolidge Corner Theater February 2008.
(There are about 30 sec. of diminished sound near the top – the sound the rest is smooth) Good story – listen and enjoy!!!

Shot by Students at the New England Institute of Art under guidance of Mary Cardaras, with help from Mason Daring
Video Cameras – Thomas Dill, Dustin Hunt
Audio by Brian Smith
Edited by LaShawn McGhee

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