(These experimental fiction excerpts are from a play and a short story collection I have written. Themes include the search for answers to life outside of the American mainstream, reflecting facets of the people I have known, as well as my imagination).
I have written a play about a Black American photographer, Philip Mercurio and a Jewish American women, Malka Silver. The play, called The Manipulated Image (a photography term) was written during 1979-1982. This play is an early example of my experimental performance style and literary development.
The script is a collage of poetry, monologue, songs and dialogue. The female part is written for a Renoiresque (full-figured) woman since my focus as a writer is often to provide full-figured women with opportunities in dance, theatre and poetry. I call this a jazz play, since jazz music may be improvised with the words.
In her 1959 novel, A Spy In The House of Love, Anais Nin explores the complexity of an interracial romantic experience. My journey in writing The Manipulated Image is also that of a woman artist who wants to know more and to experience life more intensely. Here is an excerpt of the play where the two main characters discuss their relationship.
Malka: (poem/song for Malka or vocalist)
beneath your eyes
there is a dance
that appeals to me
I want to live and breathe
inside your eyes
yet a phone call
every two months
then an hour of making love
it’s just not enough
beneath your touch
there is a story
I’d like to know
a story unspoken
a story yearning to be
in my dream
I walked into my past
I found you
in my dream
you were the equal of my fantasy
and I really could embrace you
I know I belong with you
yet we get so close
and the shutter closes
on a locked window
in my dream
there’s a rumor
telling
the sun shines
on both of us the same
yet we get so close
and the shutter
closes on a locked window
it’s like this with everyone
yet with you
yes-the difference
skin distinctions
catch me unaware
intrude on living
I am another
apart
and another part of me is different
another part of me
a distinct geography
scorches the closeness
my sundial
and childhood messages
erase enclose engulf
I forget this…
then memory appears
I face you
my white face
I face you
that part of me
that cannot be erased
through tears sharing laughter
someone hideous
will always stop the show
close the gates
lock the window
it’s curtain time
erase our sound
until we find the strength
infinite, always
feeling our way
to push the window upward
next time a little higher.
Philip:(poem/song for Philip or vocalist)
in my dream
there’s just the two of us
and I face you
my Black face
and I face you
my Black face
in a crowd
and I face you
my Black face through
your mirror of truth
through your mirror of lies
in my dream
there is a shadow
you are a stranger
you are the river
you are the passion
you are taboo
you are untouchable
is that why I want you?
that’s what “they” say
flow river flow
out of the river
take me on your journey
out of this river of lies
Philip: (speaking)
on a Sunday afternoon
it would really be
so much nicer
to take pictures
of early spring flowers
and rare urban landscapes
than to speak of this.
I’d much rather focus my
lens in Central Park
than to admit
how much I sometimes
hate you
for having a white-skinned face.
The following are some additional excerpts from my short story collection. One is The Tainted City. This story is about a Mexican American man, Luis, (“the fantasy”) and a Jewish American (Renoiresque) woman, Felicia. The story takes place in Los Angeles, California. Both Luis and Felicia experience cultural challenges and discrimination, although in different ways. Here is an excerpt from The Tainted City (1978-1979).
“One evening Felicia put on her black kaftan and her red sash. She took candles to the fantasy’s apartment and they drove to the synagogue. It is Tisha B’Av, the memory of the destruction of the second temple in ancient Palestine. A time of sack cloth and ashes.
The Rabbi reads a story. The ancient story of a marano, a secret Jew who had to hide his faith, convert to Catholicism or be killed during the Spanish Inquisition. People in the synagogue think Luis is a Spanish Jew.
After the service, Luis holds the rabbi’s hand. He apologizes to the rabbi, saying, ‘my very blood ancestors may have been the ones who forced your people to hide their faith. I am honored to be here tonight.’
What Felicia had rejected she saw anew through the fantasy.”
My second story is Janine the Samba Queen. This story is a work in progress. Here is a synopsis of my story notes (1985-1987).
Janine is a renoiresque (full-figured) Black American woman, a dance student and a childcare worker. She does not fit into conventional standards of beauty. Her life changes when she meets Gato, a white Brasilian samba teacher.
She becomes his samba dance partner and also begins to perform Middle Eastern dance professionally, after studying both dance forms with Gato. She transforms her appearance, sews elaborate dance costumes and wears elaborate wigs.
When Gato is invited to dance the samba, representing Brasil for a special United Nations parade, he asks Janine to accompany him to New York to be his dance partner. Janine wears a costume she has made, with red rhinestones from her neck down to her waist. “I’m not used to being treated like royalty yet I’m learning.” she says.
Some of the other students in the dance class are initially jealous that Gato prefers a fat woman as his dance partner and companion.
Janine inspires other women. She overcomes racism, fatophobia and lookism in her life. In her day job at the childcare center, she teaches dance to the pre-school children and makes costumes for them as well.
Although outside the mainstream, she never feels self-pity. Her parents are supportive of her and that also gives her strength and courage. She keeps her ties to her family and the Black community.
My third story is Daniel, about a middle class Black man named Daniel and a Renoiresque Jewish American woman, Miriam. Here is an excerpt from Daniel written in 1985.
“Always, they were white women he danced with…Miriam watched them in silence. They did not see her.
Once she heard he was nearly engaged to a reporter for The New York Times, a Black woman.
‘It’s something new for Daniel–he didn’t date anyone but white women for a real long time.’ Philip commented.
‘Why?’ Miriam asked.
‘Some Black men only date white women. Black women threaten them, or so they think,” he said. But that’s not the way I feel.’
(Years later they meet again)
Daniel no longer had dreadlocks. He wore his hair in a short Afro style. He had a short beard, a mustache, a slight beer belly and the aura of affluence seemed to seep through his very being.
Something about that affluent feeling, that sense of affluence being the goal, the ultimate purpose of life, led Miriam to sense that something else was lacking, a sense of the spiritual reality that she now knew and loved which was missing in Daniel.”
Read more about these writings: Notes for a Play and Three Short Stories, Reflections for My Stories
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