It’s fitting that Jed Perl was born in New York City in 1951. That’s when Manhattan’s modern art community was in its infancy, growing out of the experimental attitudes of ‘40s immigrant painters to become a serious meeting point for art lovers and curious collectors.

Perl’s book thrills at the growing pains of the New York art scene with particularly gleeful reference to his own favorite artists. There’s Hans Hoffman, training budding expressionists in an unfathomable German brogue, and Willem de Kooning, whose messy pictorial symphonies threatened to drown out Piet Mondrian’s calmer compositions like “Broadway Boogie Woogie.”

Jackson Pollock’s rise to fame is witnessed from his peers’ point of view as he sets new levels for them to attain. The iconic avant-gardist Marcel Duchamp is feted by magazines such as Life and View. Perl follows the thread that tenuously holds the community together, looking for influences on each prominent player while retaining enough objectivity to realize that few artists can be pigeon-holed in a particular genre.

To clearly cover New York’s frenetic development, the book is split into solidly defined chapters, a lot like the critical essays Perl’s best known for. There are passages on geography, so that we can understand where the artists lived in relation to the galleries and each other. Others cover architecture, gallery owners and the Museum of Modern Art.

These sections help us to understand what the artists’ environment must have been like. As further proof that this is Perl’s main intention, the cover uses a Rudy Burckhardt photo called “De Kooning’s Paint Table.” We glimpse the streetscape that he saw through his window as he worked in a scene the author describes as, “a great image of the artist’s city.”

While Perl gets hung up on dialectics – balancing logical arguments to arrive at the truth – for one long, stodgy chapter, he spends the rest of the book getting to the core of the Big Apple’s modern art scene in a vibrant, breathtaking period.

New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century is published by Knopf.

A truncated version of this review appeared in the Charleston Post & Courier on Christmas Day.

With the new year fast approaching, I'm accepting entries for the 2006 Folly Felder Film Festival. It's part of Charleston's Piccolo Spoleto Festival, and takes place on the 'Edge of America' - Folly Beach.

With an emphasis on short films, we have a first, second and third prize for best film. The more succinct and entertaining the movies are, the better.

All original submissions will be considered. There is a $10 handling fee for each entry (checks made payable to The Actors' Theatre of South Carolina) and unfortunately, submissions cannot be returned.

We accept entries on DVD, VHS (NTSC), DVCam or HDV. The deadline for entries is May 1st 2006 and the third annual festival will take place in June.

Send your entries to the Folly Felder Film Festival, ATSC, PO BOX 930 FOLLY BEACH, SC 29439.

This classic compilation from the BBC contains a sublime slice of the 60s, capturing the decade with a few effortless sketches.

In one daft sequence we visit a charming greasy spoon café. The Beatles sing 'I'm a Loser' on the juke box; patrons wear flat caps and grey macs. There’s more gritty realism here than in a hundred kitchen sinks.

Many of the most famous gags are present, while some sketches are clever rather than funny, particularly those with a higher budget and shot in color. These look good, but the smaller two-guys-one-set sketches are far more amusing.

As an example of smart-as-a-whip British comedy, this compilation's exquisite; for a modern audience, some of it will seem old hat.

5 years ago, I ran a writing site called Scriptwriting Success, helping new and not-so-new writers with their drafting, editing and marketing issues. It was a busy time - my son had just been born, I was living in a tiny Scottish village called Bonnybridge and my first book, Scriptwriting: The Secrets Unleashed was published. But I enjoyed having people pick my brain, offering advice on everything from generating titles to pitching storylines.

I enjoyed it so much that I'm doing it again. Screenwriting Insider includes a bunch of features, a free e-book and a "Q&A" page where you can ask me questions. The answers will be posted on the site.

It's fun to be exercising that side of my mind again, for the first time since I ran a Writers' Studio in the spring. I'd love to put my notes together in a new screenwriting book. Most of all, I'd love to see visitors of my new site meet with the same success that subscribers to Scriptwriting Success achieved. I've got my fingers crossed.

Putting together a theatre production is always a venture that's full of obstacles and suprises. But the development of Christmas in Charlestowne 1782 was more interesting than most.

After much wrangling with the venue, Buxton's East Bay Theatre in Downtown Charleston, the show was confirmed only a few weeks before it opened. My co-director Chris Weatherhead vacationed in California for one of those weeks, leaving me to work with the actors and musician who were unfamiliar with carols like "Ding Dong Merrily on High" and "I Saw Three Ships."

Then one of our two actors backed out with only a week to spare, citing family illness. The play's a light-hearted one-acter set during the first Christmas after uncouth occupying British soldiers leave. It's a good concept, and gives plenty of excuses for storytelling, singing and historical business. But it also has a lot of lines to learn.

With six days to spare, a new actress - Hailey Wist - joined the cast. Her part was rewritten to suit a female role and she learned the hefty script and helped make the show a success. Now she's gone home for the holidays, and a new actress has stepped in.

That's just a brief version of the backstage story, giving you a glimpse of the joys of live theatre. The City Paper reviewed the show this week, giving it a surprisingly favorable critique (those CP folk can be pretty scathing). Next week the show will close, leaving us more time for filming and the next play we're tackling - a musical version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and another opportunity for me to make an ass of myself.

The Eva Carter Gallery in Charleston recently held a great exhibition featuring some top abstract artists, including Carter herself.

I spoke to Brian Rutenberg, a much-touted painter who was born in South Carolina and now lives and works in the Big Apple.

This is what he had to say about his working methods and the show he participated in:

My working methods have changed little over the last twenty years of painting. I paint for myself, not to further an agenda. I paint to make good paintings.

My studio looks messy to visitors but there is an order to my approach. I have several palettes going at once, each with a couple of colors which can then be "pushed around" into various tonal ranges. I work on several related paintings at once.

I use both knives and brushes depending on the speed and attitude of the mark I wish to make. For instance, a brush stroke can feel quicker than a slab of pigment put down with a knife, both affect the speed with which the eye reads the picture therefore both are tools with which I compose visual matter.

I like comfort when I paint. My studio has to be as cold as possible, not too difficult in Manhattan winters. I don't like a lot of natural light but prefer even, consistent artificial light. I paint in an old t-shirt, cut off khakis or jeans, and always laceless shoes.

As I work, old paint from brushes is usually deposited on my shirt, a process I am unaware of until it gets so encrusted with oil paint that the shirt can practically stand by itself in the corner. They know me across the street in the coffee shop where I usually get a cup of decaf. around 3pm most days in my work clothes. I look like a big scary Tom Sawyer.

There is no doubt what I do for a living, I wear it on my sleeves. Finally, I never answer the phone unless I know who it is.

The Gibbes Museum of Art presented a terrific exhibition called "Abstraction in the South" during the last Spoleto Festival and the response was very positive. There are many really talented contemporary artists in South Carolina who work in abstraction and the audience seems to be growing.

Eva Carter has been an important presence in Charleston for many years, both as an artist and as a dealer; I think she wanted to give people a longer and more intimate look into the breadth and quality of abstract painting in S.C. by focusing on only four artists. The Gibbes show cracked the door open, the galleries must go through the door.

Charleston needs venues like Eva's, The Halsey Institute for Contemporary Art (Mark Sloan), The City Gallery, and people like Tippy Stern-Brickman or Jerald Melberg who had galleries which brought fresh abstraction and non-representational art to local audiences.

In addition, I know many abstract artists in town who open their studios to the public without being involved in the gallery system. As long as artists are in their studios inventing then contemporary abstraction will thrive. Artists are always ahead of the curve. There is an audience in Charleston for abstract art, I have dozens of collectors there.

Galleries in the NYC artworld are after the next "young, hot flavor of the month". I pay no attention to fashions. All of the artists in the show at Eva Carter's are bound by a love of color, process, and most of all surface. These are all solid modernist ideals which connect directly to Matisse, Cezanne, Gauguin and push farther back to Courbet and Delacroix.

I studied with Michael Tyzack at the College of Charleston and am amused when people say or write that our work couldn't be more different. We are both closely involved in making the invisible visible. The rest is merely style.

Abstract painting is still in the forefront in New York and there are many artists doing exciting things, I just curated a show for the Halsey Institute at the College of Charleston of two NYC abstract painters who are making strong work. Also of interest are the many solid middle aged painters working in abstraction who are being re-examined like Joan Snyder, Elizabeth Murray, Ron Gorchov, and Terry Winters.

The truth is that "abstraction" is around us all of the time. Consider a simple stoplight, green doesn't really mean go, green means green. Through abstraction we ascribe meaning to the color green. Abstraction seeks to make the invisible visible. Things are not always as they seem. For this reason I firmly believe that the process of abstracting is still the most relevant form of visual thinking in our contemporary times.

Ah, the perils of playing Santa. This is the third year I've donned a beard and pom-pommed hat for the City of Charleston's Holiday Magic.

Due to cutbacks, there are less performers on our main stage this year and less school groups paying me a visit. Still, there have been plenty of overweight children for me to heft onto my knee, and I've found myself singing Christmas carols in private moments, my brain dulled by the same three CDs of Yuletide cheer played over and over again on the loudspeakers near my grotto.

People stare at me, wave or shout, "ho ho ho!" and it's a weird feeling when I change into my normal clothes and receive no attention whatsoever. Now I know how superheroes feel when they're out of tights.

By chance, I - or rather, my alter ego Mr. Claus - was interviewed by the City Paper for a cuisine feature (Out to Lunch). It took the writer a while to guess that I also write for the CP. I couldn't eat anything - too messy with the white beard on - but I got to recommend the incomparable Sermet's Corner restaurant all the same. Maybe one day, I'll get to taste the Turkish delights they serve there.

Clockwise from top left: me (Cupid), Jelena Zerega (Blitzen), Phil Levi (Hollywood), David Barr (Comet), Lauren Patton (Vixen), Christina Rhodes (Dancer), Joel Flores (Donner) and JC Conway (Dasher).

Tonight's the last night of The Eight: Reindeer Monologues at Bar 145, Charleston, and my last chance to play Cupid, the acerbic homosexual reindeer. The City Paper described the show as "possibly the weirdest Christmas play ever written," which the cast took as a compliment.

Donner admires the play for its anti-commercialization stance; Blitzen appreciates the humor, trying to keep a straight face during her segment (she tends to get the giggles when she hears Dancer laughing backstage). Comet is, well, just Comet.

Here's a bit of the review by Jennifer Corley, and you can read it all by hitting the link below.

"...The ensemble in Theatre /'verv/'s production performs excellently. David Barr as Comet, J.C. Conway as Dasher, Lauren Patton as Vixen, Christina Rhodes as Dancer, and Nick Smith as Cupid all give their reindeer characters the humor and the human qualities the play calls for (which is its problem -- it's too human). Jelena Zerega as Blitzen and Joel Flores as Donner (Rudolph's dad), for better or worse, take those human qualities to such a serious, believable degree that they're too good for the script.

Zerega's anger and Flores' pain are wasted on this material. Because, again, their convincing acting is undermined by ridiculous references. For example, Donner relates the story of how Santa "saved" Rudolph, his deformed and mentally-challenged son, by using the little red-nosed reindeer in his lineup in return for, er, some disturbing privileges... As Flores tearfully goes through Donner's monologue, you're engaged in the story until you hear something like this: 'It's a struggle just to keep feed on the table.'

"Pow! You're jolted out of the emotion and the connection.

"Director J.C. Conway may have chosen the sparser route in terms of staging, but his direction brings the right details and choices out of his actors. Smith's Cupid is, thankfully, as understated as possible, instead of exaggerated, as [playwright Jeff] Goode has it written. Rhodes' Dancer has a delicate and sad resignation and denial, as she recalls her own near-miss with Santa."

Another update on MSN's toolbar-touting Kitty Caper game, with tips from an anonymous friend...

"Collect the keys for the old woman's car on the table next to her. Go outside and click on the carrot stuck in the exhaust pipe.

"Click on the keys and then click on the car, it will slowly move forward. Click on the mud, u will get ur boots all dirty. Go back to the office and click on the boots next to the door, examine them - there is the cat's collar stuck to the bottom. Click on them. Happy hunting."

Thanks, anonymous!

If you're curious about Emily the Cat (the 'cargo kitty'), you could do worse than visit CNN - the home of all things furry and huggable (like, uh, their senior VP and executive producer, the sporty Mitch Gelman).

Just don't forget where curiosity got Emily. Apparently, she returned "bigger and heavier than before." And I thought that French cats didn't get fat.

Just back from the big screen premiere of the Dolly Club Take Time movie, a short that required much hard graft from yours truly, not to mention the contribution of many musicians, graphic designers and bemused kiddywinks. Exec. producer Derrick Horres did well to rein everything in, including bright green fizzy ice cream punch that made the children go crazy.

Dolly the dog did a book "pawing" before and after the show, and she appeared on local TV this morning. A newspaper article is up next. Tomorrow, world Dolly domination!

The best of luck to Derrick, who sincerely believes in the healing power of kindness, sharing and cute little dogs who dress up in Target togs - I hope he stays positive (and keeps making cool music) for many years to come.

The Associated Press picked up a tale that made my fur tingle, big softy that I am.

Emily the cat stowed away in a cargo container and traveled by truck from Appleton (within wandering distance of Milwaukee) to Chicago. She was then shipped overseas to Belgium, which explains why she wasn't stopped by TSA - they would have confiscated her claws. She was trucked to Nancy, France, where she was finally discovered. By finding a creature that everyone else blithely ignored, the French prove themselves smarter than us! Sacre bleu!

Emily was flown home in style, reunited with her family and did a great PR job for the press, "meowing and pawing at microphones." Maybe I should hire her as my new spokescat.

Ah, the joys of multi-tasking. The day before yesterday, I was opening a seasonal show called Christmas in Charlestowne 1782. It's a play with a cool premise: a tavern celebrating its first Christmas after the British pull out of a major US harbor, following their defeat in the Revolutionary War. Much singing, storytelling and banter ensues.

Yesterday, I was popping up in a puff of smoke on top of the Embassy Suites, the castle-shaped former barracks of the Citadel cadets in central Charleston. Dressed as Santa, I was part of the tree lighting ceremony, spending a nerve-wracking couple of hours waiting for my cue to appear and delight a hoarde of cheering children.

Today, I was rehearsing as Cupid, a foul-mouthed gay reindeer in The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, which opens on December 6th as an anathema to the many versions of A Christmas Carol that are playing in South Carolina.

It's enough to make anyone confused, but as Cupid says in his clipped, catty tones, I try not to let it get me down.

Audio Review: Voyage

'Special effects - by God.'

They're by Dirk Maggs actually, but they certainly sound worthy of a celestial being on this BBC Audio release. As the planet earth recedes into the distance and a trio of astronauts set off on a journey to Mars, Dirk achieves a fair estimation of some great natural noises.

Voyage is an adaptation of Stephen Baxter's book, relating the tale of an alternate space race. In Baxter's world, NASA continued its manned missions into space and manages to reach Mars by 1986.

Thanks to Dirk, listeners are saved from wading through 600 pages of deathless technical jargon. Space disasters, high-tech verbiage and in-depth research are no match for human problems, something that we can all relate to. Fortunately, the audio version hits its stride in its third quarter as relationships begin to fray.

The vocals might suit Batman or The Gemini Apes (past Maggs masterpieces), but here they come across as over-the-top and lacking much-needed emotion. This is human drama without the tone and cadence upon which radio dialogue relies so heavily. The program evokes Fireball XL5 rather than the Apollo missions.

Even the Hollywood blockbusters that Voyage attempts to reflect - Armageddon, Deep Impact - allow their characters the odd hushed whisper or inflection. Here the heroes shout all the way, more Aliens than human beings.

When those booster rockets ignite, you could be up there in the heavens. A pity your trip is shared with a crew of ciphers.