Performer

Performer[1]

Series
Work In Progress
Original Broadcast Date
1989
Cast
Lester Nafzger, Julie Renick, Joe Frank
Format
Scripted Actors, Telephone, Mock Interview, 55 minutes
Preceded by:	Sleep
Followed by:	The More I Know You

"A month ago I visited my mother in Columbus Ohio."

Performer is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series Work In Progress. It was originally broadcast in 1989.

Synopsis

• Lester Nafzger, on the phone, talking about his argumentative mother, 81. They have a tremendous dispute over hypnotism.

• Superstition: counting 12 babies in arms for 12 days of good luck. Then, the 13th day.
• Lester tells us his 26 (and counting) definitive Life Reference Points, or 'linchpins', of his existence. Events that didn't make the list.
• Lester seems to know the height of everyone he knows. He's a numbers guy.
• Performances: looking for Jerry Rickshaw. Joe and Lester discuss the performance. What Jerry Rickshaw means to Lester.
• Where's Charlotte.
• My Teeth Are So Much Uglier Than Yours.
• Discussion of the role of an artist.
• Performances: Missing Barbara. Cartoon. Big Band.
• Lester describes the boogie boys: musical saboteurs.
• A serene mother-and-baby scene.
• Lester tells of his struggle to close the nearly 100 holes in the poorly-built wall connecting his furnace room to a porno theater next door. Then we hear audio from a porn movie.
• Lester recites the weight of everyone he knows.

Music

• "Watermark" - Enya (from Watermark, 1988) | YouTube [3:32]

• "River" - Enya (from Watermark, 1988) | YouTube [8:06]

• "Alternative 3" - Brian Eno (from Music For Films, 1976) | YouTube [19:46]

• "Aragon" - Brian Eno (from Music For Films, 1976) | YouTube [24:14]

• "All Blues" - Miles Davis (from Kind Of Blue, 1959) | YouTube [27:32]

• "The Plateaux Of Mirror" - Harold Budd - Brian Eno (from Ambient 2 (The Plateaux Of Mirror), 1980) | YouTube [30:59]

• "The Dream" - Ry Cooder (from Jazz, 1978) | YouTube [36:15]
• "New York, New York" [38:55]

Additional credits

The original broadcast credits state: "With Lester Nafzger, Julie Renick, and Joe Frank. Recorded by Bob Carlson and Jeff Sykes, and mixed by Jeff Sykes. Special thanks to Ariana Morgenstern."

Miscellanea

• In this program and in A Landing Strip In The Jungle Lester uses the name "Lester Ainslie".