Wednesday, October 05, 2016

PFLANZER'S PFABLES: THE HUMMINGBIRD VS. THE ELEPHANT

UP FRONT News   September 30, 2016
"The paper that won't be bought and can't be sold."

Published by Tom Weiss
Andrew Mazzone - Media Representative and Economics Advisor
Steven Gradman - Religious and Community Liaison
Allen Smith - Economics Reporter and Internet Advisor
www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com   tomfreejournalist@gmail.com   tomsupfrontnews@yahoo.com
  The views expressed in UP FRONT News are those of the publisher or of the contributing writer and do not necessarily represent the views of staff.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PFLANZER'S PFABLES: THE HUMMINGBIRD VS. THE ELEPHANT
               
   Although playwright/poet Howard Pflanzer -  known to many audiences in New York, San Diego (where the suburb of El Cajon is in the news over another cop killing of African-American), India, Spain and elsewhere - has told me that he did not, prophetically, have either Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump or Green Party longshot Jill Stein in mind when he wrote "Dead Birds or Avian Blues", a play recently performed at the Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan, the encounter between the elephant and the hummingbird, presumably intentionally, defies the play's title, as the hummingbird confronts a "terrified" "pusillanimous pachyderm", emerging triumphant with the culminating punchline, "What you can't kill, you gotta live with. Too bad." "The Sparrows" is a very serious "poem" about birds "on the roof of Auschwitz" that "chirp happily" because "they do not know and cannot read" - and will be encountered via this newspaper by the even longer shot presidential candidate from upstate New York known as Sparrow.
 While the play, which is illustrated by Juliane Pieper, includes nineteen encounters between birds and other wildlife and eight avian poems, was published some years ago by Fly By Night Press and predates this election, it addresses political issues. The reading last August at the Bowery Poetry Club - which hosts musical, theatrical and political issue events - featured Mr. Pflanzer and Zoe Anastassiou, who is from Greece and speaks Australian-accented English.