Dmitriiiii

As anyone who reads this blog knows, Operation Strangelove is an every night event here at Hullabaloo. But, tonight was a very special night in which the Artists Network held a screening of the Greatest Movie Ever Made in Battery Park overlooking Ground Zero, followed by “The Art of Dissent: Satire and Protest” Panel immediately afterwards featuring:

Janeane Garafolo (recent target of blacklist threats)

Art Spiegelman (“Maus”, The New Yorker)

Jeremy Pikser (screenwriter, “Bullworth”, “Reds”)

David Rees (“Get Your War On”)

Gene Seymour (Newsday film and Jazz critic)

representative from the Guerrilla Girls (who make their anonymous appearances in gorilla masks)

Moderator: critic John Leonard (CBS Sunday Morning, New York Magazine, Harper’s, The Nation)

Nile Southern, son of screenwriter Terry Southern, and September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows will introduce.

Wish I could have been there. But, the hearts of Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellars and little old me beat here tonight on Santa Monica beach right along with them. Terry Southern, the “hippest guy on the planet” is sharing a laugh with all of us too — stunned as we all are that fiction has sprung to vibrant life, resulting in dialog that, until recently, could only have been called satire:

“I’m not into nuance”

“And, does that mean you couldn’t go in there and take a television camera or get a still photographer and take a picture of something that was imperfect, untidy? I could do that in any city in America. Think what’s happened in our cities when we’ve had riots, and problems, and looting. Stuff happens! But in terms of what’s going on in that country, it is a fundamental misunderstanding to see those images over, and over, and over again of some boy walking out with a vase and say, “Oh, my goodness, you didn’t have a plan.” That’s nonsense. They know what they’re doing, and they’re doing a terrific job. And it’s untidy, and freedom’s untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They’re also free to live their lives and do wonderful things, and that’s what’s going to happen here.”

“This is still a dangerous world. It’s a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses.”

“There’s an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive. All I’m doing is remembering. When I was a kid I remember that they used to put out there in the Old West a wanted poster. It said, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.”

Even Terry couldn’t have made this shit up.

Reality is Art and Art is Reality and don’t ever forget it. If they can shut you down, they will. They always do.

Many thanks to the great Uggabugga, king of the graphic thunderbolt, for the tip.