Thomas Pynchon and Inherent Vice

A fascination with the hot cars of their day.
Writer Thomas Pynchon is fascinating, and not just because we grew up on opposite shores of Long Island. He was a North Shore beat guy, me a South Shore clamdigger a few years younger, but with aspirations. His writing tends towards offbeat themes: oddball names, sophomoric humor, illicit drug use and paranoia.

Pynchon in a rare photo from his younger days.
He was Hunter Thompson before Rolling Stone was a magazine. And he was gonzo before Charles Giuliano coined the word. He holds the same fascination for me as did Jean Shepherd whose storytelling abilities are almost cinematic. The ability to draw word pictures and conjure up mental images is a special gift that not every writer masters. Pynchon does this with a sparing use of words, not volumes of them.

His latest book, released this past summer is Inherent Vice and the video below gives you a good taste of his work. The voice over is allegedly done by the reclusive Pynchon himself.

Former Brandeis Art Student Details History of Rose Art Museum

Image by Larry Murray
Much has been written about Brandeis and the Rose Art Museum, but it takes a former student who has become an artist and critic himself to make it feel like the tragedy it is. In the style of a New Yorker magazine article with many twists and turns, my colleague at Berkshire Fine Arts, Charles Giuliano does more than simply report on the Rose. He details his very personal history with it, with the artists whose works are in it and the people whose generosity has now been betrayed.

It stands not only as a credible report, but also as a very personal remembrance.

"Brandeis Plunders Its Rose Art Museum"
Read it and weep.

Charles as a student.

"It is ironic that in taking this action, Brandeis University, a paradigm of radical liberal education, has set a precedent that may spread to other hard pressed institutions."

Charles Giuliano today.

"Rush and the Rose staff, whose jobs will be terminated at the end of June, are in the midst of editing a catalog of the collection which will go ahead with publication in September. Instead of a celebration and document as originally intended it will serve as a marketing tool for the sale of works When that happens there will be no curators on site to handle the inventory. Brandeis will have to hire scabs for this task."

I Am My Own Wife, the story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf

Promo image from the movie "I Am My Own Woman" which tells the story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf as a young man (center), a young woman (left) and Charlotte herself in her later years.
Vince Gatton as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf in "I Am My Own Wife" at Barrington Stage Company through June 8.

The Barrington Stage Company under Julianne Boyd has been taking a lot of risks in recent years, starting with their move to Pittsfield from Great Barrington. Happily most of their regular audiences took the change in stride. They too benefit from a wonderful new theatre and larger base of fellow theater-goers. The company is no longer just a summer operation, it presents plays almost year round.

So it was only a small surprise when they announced they were doing the Doug Wright Tony and Pulitzer winning I Am My Own Wife with the incredibly talented Vince Gatton playing the three dozen or so roles in this one man play.

At Berkshire Fine Arts, Charles Giuliano did the lead review, and declared it more powerful and absorbing than the original Broadway production:

Charles Giuliano's Review of "I Am My Own Wife" in Berkshire Fine Arts

Charles and I decided this play deserved more attention than just a single review, and so I undertook to write a second story, detailing the conflicts and debates that still rage about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. She was the one and only transvestite to reign in Berlin during the Communist era.

In my research on Charlotte, I read numerous other takes on her life. The best of the lot was in a review of her film, I Am My Own Woman, found at Planet Out. Its details were a little too frank for inclusion in my own article in Berkshire Fine Arts.

Popcorn Movie Review

Now a 60-something lady who loves to don Victorian lingerie and display her ever-youthful butt, Charlotte speaks fondly of her mostly deceased ex-lovers. She's always had a penchant for older men, and time has outrun most of them.

There was a time, after the Wall went up, when gay East Berliners were barred from meeting one another in public; gay bars were closed and gays were prohibited from placing "contact ads" in newspapers or magazines. That's when Charlotte met one of her great loves in response to a number scrawled on the wall of a public latrine.

Her story seemed to both absorb and mystify many in the Berkshires audience who listened in polite, presumably stunned, silence. There is wonderful humor in the production, but not many in the opening night audience laughed. So I quietly chuckled as the bon mots were delivered by Gatton.

In my treatment, I decided that Charlotte was not only his own wife, but her own husband as well. You can read why I came to that conclusion here:

Larry Murray on Charlotte von Mahlsdorf in Berkshire Fine Arts