The Decline Of Spengler: Difference between revisions

|title = The Decline Of Spengler

|data4  = [[1982]]

|data6  = [[Barbara Sohmers]], [[Joseph Palmieri|Joseph Palmieri]], [[Lester Nafzger]], [[Irene Wagner]], [[Tim Jerome]], [[Leslie Cass|Leslie Cass]], [[David Rapkin|David Rapkin]], [[Rosemary Foley]], [[Charles Potter|Charles Potter]], [[Arthur Miller]], [[Brother Theodore]], Joe Frank

|data8 =  1 hour

|data11 = [[Queen Of Puerto Rico, The (Show)|The Queen Of Puerto Rico]]

'''The Decline of Spengler''' is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series [[WBAI And NPR Playhouse]]. It was originally broadcast in 1982. This show was also published in text form in ''New Directions Volume 48'' in 1984 [https://www.worldcat.org/title/new-directions-in-prose-and-poetry-48/oclc/429695094].

 

[[File:florida.jpg|right|300px|Florida]]

29:20: A fellow ([[Arthur Miller]]) says that ING buries patients, waters and tends them carefully... Another fellow talks about burying people head-first. Another fellow asks about the loss of hearing.

31: Joe, reading Hoffman's notes, finds a play, with the comment, 'I wonder what Spengler would think of this?'. Joe narrates the play. The first act is a critic waking up. At the intermission the audience is served bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and sacramental wine. The actor playing the critic, Poole, sneaks into the audience, falls asleep. In the second act, Poole wakes up, then a movie is shown. The movie's protagonist doesn't know who he is, travels from town to town, asking people if they know him. His touch cures the sick. He never figures out who he is; disgusted at the badness of the movie, he walks out of the screen and into the audience, up to the Poole who, sensing a plot, pulls out a luger and shoots him. (Remember <i>Huckleberry Finn</i>?) Regretful at having shot him, Poole runs to the projection room, asks the boy there to run the film backwards to save the actor's life. The boy sends him to the manager's office, where Poole finds an old man sprawled on the floor. The action is shown to the audience. Other actors, who had seemed to be audience members, pretend to take care of the actor.  

45:30: Joe has a dream: he's an expert in Jewish wisdom but he's unhappy, so he travels on foot to Rome to see its tzaddik. The tzaddik tells him that a great surgeon was called to operate but was operated on himself. The next night the tzaddik tells him about a famous prosecutor who found himself guilty. Joe is about to leave when a man summons Joe to the tzaddik, who tells him of a great engineer who awoke to find himself turned into a holy man - who has the experience of Joe's dream about the engineer. The tzaddik reveals himself to be an SS officer, who sends him to a concentration camp. Jewish partisans rescue Joe from the train, take him to see the real tzaddik of Rome, who dresses as an SS officer and lives in Palermo. This one tells him the same stories as the previous supposed-tzaddik. Joe takes the next train to Berlin.

49:20: A guy with a German accent ([[Brother Theodore]]) tells us that things rot with age.

56:40: A man with a German accent ([[Brother Theodore]]) disclaims responsibility for everything - he knew nothing.

{{I Wish You Love (Andre Kostelanetz And His Orchestra) }}

{{Music For 18 Musicians (Steve Reich) }}

{{Diamond Dust (Jeff Beck)}}

=== [[User:Arthur Peabody|Arthur Peabody]] ===

[[Category:Show]][[Category:Show_by_date|19820101]]