Singing "Some Enchanted Evening"
DEAR WRITER IN THE WINDOW : Love & Society - photo by Larry Austin
DESCRIPTION, PICTURES, EXCERPTS
FROM APRIL 2001 PREMIERE PERFORMANCE OF
Dear Writer in the Window - A Memoir
HARWOOD ARTS CENTER, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.
Singing "Some Enchanted
Evening"
DEAR WRITER IN THE WINDOW : Love & Society - photo by Larry Austin
DEAR WRITER IN THE
WINDOW
A Memoir in Three Parts
Written and Performed
by Georgelle
For three Friday nights in April 2001, I stepped in front of the glass to tell of window adventures and the life stories that shaped my Writer in the Window responses to questions from passersby.
The stories in this three-part performance range from 1940s Hollywood (as the daughter of Reefer Madness producer George Hirliman and B-movie actress Eleanor Hunt) to New York in the 50s and 60s, and from the spare landscape of New Mexico to the boardwalk in Venice, California.
They tell of successive careers as a cigarette girl in New York's jazz clubs, a call-girl, a trial reporter, author of the now classic prison expose The Hate Factory (1982), tantric explorer, Art Tart, Tarot reader and astrologer, Writer in the Window, and crone.
Dear Writer in the Window : A Memoir in Three Parts combines audience interaction, storytelling and dramatization to examine the many varieties of love and sex, the sometimes surprising ways of Turning Shit to Roses, and the reasons why Every Wall is a Door.
For information about booking this performance: E-mail
Joan Crawfordesque mom gagged at last - Eleanor
Hunt in "Yellow Cargo"
DEAR WRITER IN THE WINDOW: Love & Romance - photo by Larry Austin
Part One:
LOVE & ROMANCE
Q. WHEN WILL I MEET THE MAN OF MY DREAMS?
A. The next time you go to sleep!
EXCERPT:
The selling involved in being a cigarette girl was
merely walking around, being noticeable. No one needed to be convinced to buy cigarettes.
They’d smoke the half a pack they came in with in the first hour. It was un-American
NOT to smoke in the fifties. But they did need convincing to leave a tip. I’d walk
around in a classy but sexy black dress, a tray filled with packs of cigarettes hanging
from a strap around my neck. I’d carefully tear open one corner of the requested
pack, tap the pack against my finger till one cigarette came out; put it in MY mouth,
light it, and hand it to him. All with you-can-have-me-later insinuation. Then, health
regulations came along, and I couldn’t do the sexy act anymore.
I was a cigarette girl at The Embers, an elegant, wealthy-white-people’s club where white jazz headliner’s played: George Shearing, Bill Evans; and at Birdland whenever Count Basie played and extra help was needed. Birdland was a prize gig held vigilantly by old timers in the nightclub concession business. I did know PeeWee, the truly miniature doorman who wore the traditional bellman’s uniform, with the round stiff hat. Mostly I worked at Basin Street East, a second Birdland.
IMPROVE
REALITY
Just
Send Cash
Movie poster
for 1936 film produced by father, George A. Hirliman,
by his film company, Grand National Pictures, starring mother,
Eleanor Hunt
PART TWO:
LOVE & SOCIETY
Q. WHY DOES EVERYTHING SUCK SO MUCH AND WHY DO YOU CARE?
A. Because everything is still in the state of infancy.
EXCERPT:
I was ready to pull up roots I called three
close friends of mine....We met at the Frontier, and I told them I was leaving. Why? They
said, almost in a chorus. They proceeded to tell me "There’s this incredible
murder trial that’s going to happen. These five bikers rode thru and cut off this
student’s dick, tortured him. Don’t you want to cover that?"
Oh how well they knew me!
Yes.
The reason I instantly heard YES shout inside of me was because I wanted to know the rationale of somebody who would commit such a heinous crime. And so I stayed. KUNM agreed to let me continue COSMOSIS and to cover the trial as a news reporter for them. Not only was I about to find purpose to apply my art of communication to, I was also about to lose my naïve belief in the criminal justice system.
When I walked into court that first day and looked over at the defense table, and it was like:
[sing] SOME ENCHANTED EVENING, YOU MAY SEE A STRANGER, ACROSS THE CROWDED ROOM, AND SOMEHOW YOU’LL KNOW, YOU’LL KNOW EVEN THEN, THAT SOMEHOW YOU SEE THEM AGAIN….WHO CAN EXPLAIN IT, WHO CAN TELL YOU WHY? FOOLS GIVE YOU REASONS, WISE MEN NEVER TRY….
I looked at this man and I knew him, not physically, but in my soul and being, there was a familiarity. It’s so exciting! I’m a reporter, covering my first story, it’s a murder trial that intrigued me enough to change my plans, and I feel a strong attraction for the defendant, a familiarity. This is a great life script, I thought, as if the Director in Heaven was saying, ok, we’re gonna give her a great role, let’s see what she does with it. Thus began the greatest love story of my life.
Reading questions from audience
DEAR WRITER IN THE WINDOW: Love & God - photo by Larry
Austin
Part Three:
LOVE & GOD
Q. WHAT IS THE UNIVERSE AND MORE, WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF IT ALL?
A. The universe is a poem with one theme: experience. (uni=one; verse=poem).
EXCERPT:
What I relish about being 65 is being free to be a Person, not a
Gender.
To make this transition in my own mind from chicky chick to crone, I shaved my head, just at the end of menopause, when I was 58. I needed to get over the habit of primping, lipsticking, even flirting as if I were my old vampy self. Shaving my head did the trick. Especially since when I shaved it, my hair was exactly the way I’d always wanted it to be: long enough to wear in that fabulous Gibson Girl fashion, piled high on my head.
Women have a great gift in menopause: our esters dry up, so we aren’t driven by our sexual agenda anymore. We don’t NEED sex, as men seem to until the day the die! Of course, there’s always the emotional need we women are so laden with. I think it's important to live fully when we’re young, fuck your needs out, love as much and as deeply as possible. So when you’re thru menopause, you can happily renounce giving it all away to one person. But, we have to have a way to love. I read once that’s why you always see old women out in the park feeding the birds, or taking care of stray pets…like that woman in Rio Rancho who recently died, and they found so many cats in her house they had to fumigate? She had a lot of love to give.
***
VIDEOTAPES
AVAILABLE:
In Albuquerque, you can rent them
from Alphaville -- 3408 Central SE, 505-256-8243 -- at Tulane &
Central.
By mail, you
can purchase the set of 3 for $30, plus shipping. Checks only. E-mail to
order.
Premiere performances were at Albuquerque's Harwood Arts Center -- which is very open to artists in the community. Call them when you need space for an inspiration: 242-6367
Back to Front Page