No Angel

Series
The Other Side
Original Broadcast Date
10/24/1999
Cast
Arthur Miller, Larry Block, Milton Schindler, Joe Frank
Format
57 minutes
Preceded by:	Jam
Followed by:	Prison Songs
Purchase or  Stream

"Many years ago, my brother played in a, uh, orchestra."

No Angel is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series The Other Side. It was originally broadcast on October 24, 1999.

Synopsis

Arthur Miller tells the story of his brother, who played cello in an orchestra in college (in the Midwest). As part of a State Department program the orchestra traveled to South American countries. In La Paz, Bolivia, the brother had sex with the daughter of the American consul; she died in the act. 10 years later the brother told him the story was false.

11:10: Joe welcomes us to the other side, starts with a prayer.

12:20: Milton Schindler tells of his encounter with a prostitute: she approached him at a restaurant, asked to use his bathroom, then demanded money for sex.

14:20: Joe collects fossils, skeletons... goes to the Museum of Natural History; these remind him our lives are brief.

15:40: Larry Block tells the story of a daughter of Holocaust survivors, Rosalie (apparently not the same Rosalie whom Larry knows in the Karma shows). She wants her wealthy husband to get her pregnant by artificial insemination but won't make love to him. She's in a group of children of Holocaust survivors who travel to Germany to socialize with the children of Gestapo officers.

23:10: Joe's working on a film in Africa, sees a crocodile eat a zebra, a pack of hyenas eat a wildebeest and her calf, a pride of lions catch and eat a gazelle.

25:40: Milton Schindler sees a gorgeous girl at a Cinerama, Lesley, a masseuse; they strike up a conversation.

27:10: Joe asks Dr Malcolm why he has to have another operation. Malcolm tells Joe a ridiculous story about famous athlete Colin Davidson (fictional) who was carried off by a bird.

29:20: Milton Schindler tells of being an honorary pall bearer; afterwards, in his hotel room, he thinks he going to die, lies on his bed, has a dream in which God visits; Milton asks for 100 years of life, God gives him 88 years, after applying a business discount. Milton tries to kill himself but all efforts fail. He says that he was born in 1925, was 40 at the time of the story.

33:10: Joe tries to flee from death: hides out in cheap hotel rooms, uses cash, a fake passport, moves daily…

34:10: Woman tells the story of riding a bus in San Francisco when an old woman dies. She helps the paramedics, calls the hospital afterwards.

42:50: Joe's mother sends him to child psychologist Sylvia Bronfman when he's 8 because of his terrible nightmares. Over 20 years later he consults her again. Joe feels odd about being in a child psychologist's office. Joe feels guilty about spending thousands on analysis when the building's elevator operator is just scraping by, feels badly about how Joe imagines he feels about him.

After her husband (Professor Axelman (sp?), who taught at Hunter College) dies, Joe becomes obsessed with his corpse, leading to an impasse.

In this segment Joe tells us that his father was the son of a rabbi and a man of great wisdom, that while everyone else in the family speaks of him with great respect, his mother is silent about him.

53:50: Joe looks at his pistol, bought to defend himself from the riots after MLK's assassination. Then he looks at a picture of himself asleep as a child.

55:20: Joe says it's time to say good night, imagines the building being shut down.

Legacy Synopsis

• Arthur Miller: His brother acquires fame while on a college band trip when a diplomat's daughter dies while having sex with him.
• Joe: A prayer, meditations on humanity
• Man: He meets a woman in a bar who turns out to be a prostitute.
• Joe: Collecting historical artifacts. A second person description of civilized man who is only a step removed from caveman.
• Larry: The life of the mistress of a millionaire. An encounter group between the descendants of gestapo and holocaust survivors leads to romance. Converting to Judaism in order to suffer.
• Joe: A film crew in Africa dispassionately watches the cruelty of nature.
• Man: A man is protoplasm with a divine spark.
• Joe: A doctor tells a fantastic story about a man carried of by a bird. Scenes from an impossible hospital. Joe repairs the boiler.
• Actor: After attending a funeral he expects death, meets god and is offered a discount on his lifespan.
• Joe: He sees his childhood analyst, contemplates the elevator man, becomes obsessed with the analyst's dead husband.
• Joe: Time to say goodbye.

Music

• "Durian" - Cinematic Orchestra (from Motion, 1999) | YouTube [10:55]

Shared Material

• When She's Asleep, She Looks Like An Angel