[joe-frank-list] 'Arena'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	'Solea' (Miles Davis, 'Sketches of Spain')
	1:20: Sound of a typewriter, then Joe's voice narrating a
story about 2 people, José (a bullfighter - Tim Jerome) and Susanna
(Annalee Jefferies?), at the shore, watching the waves crash, 'and to
him they [the waves] were like bulls, they kept on coming, one after
another, in stubborn and despairing fortitude'.  (An homage to how
'The 80-yard run' ended?)
	1:50: José and Susanna take up the story themselves.  José's
mother took him to the shore when he was a child, rubbed them (her
children) against the rocks to get them clean.  She's head over heels
in love with him.  He tells bullfighting stories.
	5:50: 'Music for 18 Musicians' (Steve Reich).
	6:20: July 15 - Joe complains that he can't get the beach
scene right, wonders why characters he writes can cause him such
frustration, as though they had lives of their own.
	6:40: Joe wonders, 'When will that book on Dominguín arrive?'
Luis Miguel Dominguín,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Miguel_Dominguín , was a famous
bullfighter.  Thanks to Chris Pirazzi for this reading.
	7:20: Arthur Miller remembers when he was a child and first
learning to read.  His father, also a psycho-anthropologist, gave him
'Black beauty', which terrified him.  A woman (Rosemary Foley, Avery
Hart are the other women in the cast) avers that people write to purge
their pain.  Another man (Lester Nafzger?) enters the discussion.  (I
haven't figured out how many voices are in this segment.)
	10:30: Joe narrates José and Susanna's story again, to the
sound of his typewriter and 'Solea'.  Their car is careening on the
coastal road.  Driving fast excites José.
	12:50: The panel discusses the dangers of reading.
	16:50: Joe sometimes feels that he doesn't really exist, that
he's a character in someone else's novel, that that author is a
character in someone else's novel... so on to the 'universal author
father'.
	18:10: Joe's bedroom is a mess; he's missing parts of his
novel.
	18:50: Joe narrates José and Susanna's story: they've just
made love.  José tells Susanna that it's like fighting the bull.  José
tells the story of his childhood: 13 children in 1 room, his mother a
prostitute, his father a fisherman who caught no fish.  He tells more
bullfighting stories.
	22:50: Joe narrates, says that Susanna senses that this will
be their last night together.
	23:50: They go to a church.  José explains the scenes in the
stained glass.
	27:10: Joe tells of one of José's bullfights.
	29:30: One of the panel (Arthur?) avers that had God wanted
man to read he would have given him the ability at birth.  Panel
discusses reading more.
	31:50: April 22, evening - Joe feels imbued with a sense of
doom, can't write, tells of Melville's difficulties writing
(fictional).  (Note the previous date was July 15.)
	33: Joe narrates: José and Susanna are at his favorite café.
	33:30: José tells Susanna how beautiful she is.  They say
they'll be together forever; she wants him to stop fighting, because
it's dangerous.  To demonstrate that he can't die in a bullfight he
ties steak knives to the legs of a chair, has Susanna play the bull so
he can demonstrate how good a bullfighter he is.  The scene ends with
a lame pun.
	39:20: Joe narrates José's death.
	40: A redneck couple argues the relative merits of watching
television (his preference) and reading (hers).
	44:20: To prove that TV has culture, the guy tunes to a
performance by fast pianist Alan Baron.  Joe's the host, takes calls,
Lester Ainsley (sp? - Lester Nafzger), another fast pianist calls in.
He's angry that Alan Baron won't have a piano-off with him; Baron says
Ainsley's a famous pest on the fast piano league.  They have an angry
argument.
	50: A meeting of 'Consciousness-lowering' (CL), most (all?) of
the panel.  (Re-used in ''Til you're gone')
	55:50: November 13 - Joe walks along the shore, collecting
stones, sees a dead whale; his bathroom is messy.

	Year: 1979
	Cast: Tim Jerome, Annalee Jefferies, Paul Mantell, Rosemary
Foley, Avery Hart, Matt Basford, Lester Nafzger, Eric Sears, and Joe
Frank
	Music: 'Solea' (Miles Davis), 'Music for 18 musicians' (Steve
Reich).

russell bell