News

1.) Picture a stage converted into a white cube where multiple brief scenes occur: the theatrically appropriate physical form to capture a digital world;

2.) then throw in sounds, bits of music, birds, maybe gulls, and these punctuate the black-outs between scenes--distracting the audience from quick prop and costume changes; all very electronic, all very now;

3.) "tell me a big secret" one character asks, but all of the play is big and small secrets, some of which one might rather not have learned; but that's our present day world of "information";

4.) and our present day world of "Love" can be surprising too: "Mum's not your mother". Really? No, your sister is.

5.) So many scenes, so many characters, all so brief, and yet on the mark and touching, even, but ultimately like television sound bites or 30 second ads--they give you a rush, but like a sugar high, it doesn't last.

6.) Churchill is on to the present moment,...

Victoria Sullivan & Barbara Milman When I Wasn't Looking (Red Parrot Press)

This is a slim, beautiful chapbook of twenty poems by Victoria Sullivan of one or two pages each, accompanied by photos by Barbara Milman. Though the photos and the poems are not specifically related or aligned, they share a Zen-like artistic sensibility that makes them work well together.

Sullivan (an occasional CultureCatch contributor) maintains homes in both New York City and Saugerties; it is the latter location, where she is in constant contact with nature, that most informs the tone of this book. She is a poet of a certain age; she has lived, and loved, and lost, and learned. In the latter category, she has acquired the wisdom -- partly thanks to Buddhism, one guesses based on direct references, not least the brilliant poem titled "Zen" that closes the volume -- of acceptance and non-attachment without overdoing either.