David James parr – Creative Point-On

Special Pride 2021: How Queerness and Creativity Will Save Us.

on June 28, 2021July 1, 2021 By Pramila Baisya

by Pramila Baisya

On the occasion of Pride Month 2021, we revisit the Special Pride Episode of #CreativityWillSaveUs, our series where prominent figures from the world of art, entertainment & business unite to reflect on the central value that creativity brings to humanity during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.

Pride 2021 — #CreativityWillSaveUs Special Pride Episode. Watch it on Youtube HERE.

What does pride mean to you? The first image that is most likely to pop in your head is a rainbow flag. The pride parade is filled with individuals who both identify as queer or allies proudly waving the flags throughout the month to represent the proud visibility and ongoing resilience of the queer community. However it is integral to access, where does pride truly come from? How do queer individuals overcome self-hatred, imposter syndrome, ostracism, and quite often disapproval from their families? The answer lies in creative outlets.

But How When Why?

The first part of this episode of #CreativityWillSaveus is a segment taken from Slap & Tickle, a play written by Award-Winning Author David James Parr, telling a sweetly ill-fated love affair featuring a gay man and a transgender woman. The piece was recorded in quarantine and is part of the Pride Plays Series 2020 co-produced by Actor Michael Urie. Actress Pooya Mohseni plays the character of a transgender woman who chronicled the first stages of coming out as a trans woman. Her monologue covers common questions such as how, when, and why? Instead of fixating too long on these empty questions, her side of the monologue ends with “the dress now fits.”

“I’m glad I almost fell in love with you.” The heart wants what it wants.

From Slap&Tickle by David James Parr

Actor Sebastian LeCause plays the part of a gay man who eventually romances Ms. Mohseni’s character. He comically recalls how he tried coming out to his Dad by saying he likes Han Solo and his father, not understanding what he meant. The play continues to play on themes of intimacy, courage, and love, things many queer people fear they will never experience. Their journeys have them star-crossed and by the end, they both share an equal sentiment: “I’m glad I almost fell in love with you.” The heart wants what it wants. To watch the full Pride Plays Series video, click HERE.

#CreativityWillSaveUs takes on a new rendition when it comes to discussing art not only created during a pandemic but also as a means of expression for queer artists. Many allies don’t consciously realize that growing up queer means losing a part of your childhood because you could not grow up fully expressing yourself. Creativity at an adult age however is a reclamation of that childhood, allowing full expression of the stories that need to be told. This and other urgent and timely topics for the LGBTQ+ community today we discussed through two-panel conversations with he protagonists of the #CreativityWillSaveUs Special Pride Episode, hosted by Creative Point-On editor-in-chief Tommaso Cartia, and artistic director and business strategist Daniela Pavan.

Quarantine granted everyone regardless of sexual orientation the unique freedom of boredom which singer-songwriter Erene Mastrangeli spoke about.

Creativity at an adult age however is reclamation of that childhood, allowing full expression of the stories that need to be told.

Erene Mastrangeli spoke in this interview about refinding your gifts and creativity. “Our gifts are necessary to contribute to the evolution of humanity.” She dove into why, as a musician, “boredom” can somehow become a great resource for an artist, because she could play the piano or write a song simply to pass the time. From that moment of stasis, Erene was able to unexpectedly release a song called “Treasure”, which extends hope that all of us need to find the treasure within us to keep humanity going.

#CreativityWillSaveUs Special Pride Episode – Interview with the Protagonists Pt. 1

Producer & actor Robert Driemeyer spoke about Judy Garland and the history of bars in New York and how they often turned down queer patrons. In his segment he gave an important explanation regarding the 1969 Stonewall Riots, and why he decided to simply make a special rainbow cocktail for his Broadway Barfly – a weekly video-series that pairs theater lore with classic cocktails and historical context. “The rainbow cocktail is communal. What is better than sitting down and having a drink with someone?” Explains Robert during the conversation. It is such a simple pleasure that was denied to queer folks before our time, and this disconnect in community with social distancing in the covid era, is one that queer folks worldwide had to deal with unfairly. Queer liberation continues to charge on and now many are afforded the privilege to enjoy this pleasure and company.

“It’s wonderful that our stories can bridge together because none of us live on an island”

Pooya Mohseni

Actress and Trans Activist Pooya Mohseni spoke about her character in David James Parr’s play saying, “It’s wonderful that our stories can bridge together because none of us live on an island,” in regards to portraying a trans woman in a gay man’s story. She brought up how often trans people and their stories do not have a “traditional” place with queer stories as a whole and being part of this project was a step forward in bridging a gap between different people of the queer community.

#CreativityWillSaveUs Special Pride Episode. Interview with the Protagonists. Pt. 2.

The #CreativityWillSaveUs Special Pride Episode also featured: Photographer/Cinematographer and Digital Artist Claudio Napoli, who decided to fill the emptiness of the NYC’s streets that this year, for the first time since 1969, will not see their proud LGBTQ+ community marching for its rights, with an inspirational recollection of the last three Pride that he participated in; Photographer Thomas Cluderay who gives us an exclusive peek on the Washington D.C. quarantine, where he lives, through his collection “Stoop Sessions in the COVID Age” and from Fort Lauderdale, Miami, actor Larry Buzzeo who performs one of his favorites cheerful tunes, What a Wonderful World, part of his “Quarantine Karaoke”. The backdrop for the performance is a beautiful walk on the Fort Lauderdale beach that Larry recorded last summer, wishing for the world to safely reopen its wonders.

This pride month after a year long pandemic offers a unique time and perspective in creative expression. As things reopen and we adjust to a new normal, more inclusive and unique stories are finding a place at the forefront. Queerness continues to expand and evolve in its expression, and the fight for liberation is unstoppable. Queerness combined with creativity ultimately can and will save us.

Thirsty for more creativity? Point out our #CreativityWillSaveUs Series Phase 2 here below, with tons of conversations with prominent artists from all over the world. Ready, Set, Imagine!

ON-Poetry Presents “Jupiter Rising” by David James Parr

on August 11, 2020September 16, 2020 By Creative Pois-On

**We inaugurate our ON-Poetry column featuring the second video from the new book by David James Parr – PERSONAL TRAINING: poetry & exercise tips**

The video-poem “Jupiter Rising” is read by the author and shot around various locations in NYC. PERSONAL TRAINING is now available on Amazon and Kindle. Please enjoy here below both the video and the poem.

Enjoy the video Courtesy of David James Parr Fiction Official Youtube

Jupiter Rising

Steady as my glass that just fell off of the table—

don’t worry it wasn’t full—

and what phase of the moon are we in now?

which tide just got pulled?

Today I felt all bitter and fucked up

like a poem by Dorothy Parker

brittle on the outside

but fragile at the core

They say Jupiter is visible tonight

but I can’t see it through all this rain

On 9^th Avenue the boys are cruising one another

and they’re all starting to look the same.

So Jupiter is rising high

in the cloudy sky tonight

Michaelangelo must have spilled his paints again

leaving us this pearly drop of light.

Today I felt like a Henry James heroine

crafty and unfulfilled

dreaming of a perfect match

in a rudely imperfect world.

In my back pocket I have a business card

from—I think his name was Ed?

He works in technology

but I didn’t hear a word he said.

I was only thinking how the way he held his glass was sort of like

the way you held my wrist in the movie theatre

stroking up and down as if I might break

stroking up and down as if I might purr.

Tonight I felt like a French film star

leaving by the back door

I’d tell you la raison porquoi

but then again, what for?

Can you see Jupiter from where you sleep?

Can you see it from his bed?

In my back pocket I have a business card

—I’m sure his name was Ed.

Today I felt like a ballad by Adele

all bittersweet and corny

distraught and crying out your name

yet deep down just plain horny.

Jupiter is visible again tonight

impersonating a star

like a drag queen on a good night

think we could get there by car?

And how long before it twirls around?

Blinking its big red eye

How long before it rolls back over?

to a completely different sky.

About the Author

Writer David James Parr was born on a cul-de-sac in suburban Ohio and grew up on a farm in rural Pennsylvania, where he learned how to spell “cul-de-sac” and to mispronounce “rural”, respectively. He is the author of the novels Violet Peaks and Beauty Marks, as well as the collection How To Survive Overwhelming Loss & Loneliness in 5 Easy Steps: Stories. His title story How To Survive Overwhelming Loss & Loneliness in 5 Easy Steps was chosen by Michael Cunningham (The Hours) as one of the Top 10 Stories in The Tennessee Williams Fiction contest, and is included in the anthology The Best Gay Stories of 2017. David’s story Mata Hari was also selected in 2015 as one of the winners of The Tennessee Williams Fiction contest. David’s plays Slap & Tickle, Albee Damned and Pluto Is Listening have been produced all across the U.S. including Chicago, Dallas, New York, Provincetown and St. Petersburg, and his play Mimi at The 44th Parallel was a Top 10 Finalist in The Austin Film Festival’s 2019 Playwriting Competition. His fiction has appeared in Saints + Sinners, Mosaic and Feminisms. His play Eleanor Rigby Is Waiting was made into a film which premiered at the 2019 Manhattan Film Festival, winning Best Independent Feature.

Personal Training: Poetry & Exercise Tips

on March 4, 2020March 17, 2020 By Creative Pois-On

Don’t hold a grudge. Mold one instead, into the form of non-fat erotic, neurotic and quixotic poetry and exercise tips by our Staff Writer and Contributor, Award-Winning Author and Playwright, David James Parr. February is gone but Love & Eroticism are still in the air. This March, Creative Pois-On is “On Stage”, exploring the storytelling of Broadway and the theater, but also of all of the passion, the courage, and the fearlessness that it takes to go on the stage of our own life, conquering the demons of any stage fright, to live as the protagonists of the most truthful idea that we have of ourselves. And that’s what “Personal Training: poetry & exercise tips”, does. With this brand-new poetry collection, David James Parr takes us behind the scenes of the creation of the man and the artist he is today, in the middle of the most feral and yet lovingly human ‘stage fright’ of his earlier years in New York City. A coming of age story, from the warm-up to the toughest training that it takes to get rid of the life that we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Enjoy these excerpts from the book – and to read more please CLICK HERE

“The Warm-Up”

“Here it comes
all hips and zipper
Here he comes
all Jack-the-Ripper

Stand upright
Feet shoulder-width apart
Don’t think of his shoulders
Nor their width

Keep arms at sides
Don’t think of his arms
Nor his sides

Reach up towards sky
Arching back
Don’t think of his back
Nor its arch

Here he comes
all torso and swagger
Here he comes
All cloak and dagger

Hold position for 60 seconds
Breathing normally
Don’t think of his breathing
Nor what was once normal”

“Like Woolf and Plath and Hemingway”

“One by one we all run away
like Woolf and Plath
and Hemingway.

Some leave notes,
some leave crumbs,
some dots to connect one by one.

You can read between the lines
but first you have to plant the vines,
and hear the words: “You’re mine.”

You’re told you’re in a quiet mood,
you’re told to change your attitude,
then you hear this word:
unglued.

And then comes that day
when you realize: You may.
Like Woolf and Plath
and Hemingway.

To run away may seem a child’s game,
to such a death you can attach your name,
and look what happens: instant fame.

But are they forgotten with the book?
Downward all eyes would look,
when realizing what they took.

To disappear, a fleeting thought.
Would you like forever just to rot?
Um, well, no
Maybe not.

Still their brains I’d like to pick away.
Can’t we all just have brunch Sunday?
Woolf and Plath
and Hemingway.

Is it that we’ve all been fooled?
Did they give all they should?
Or was it only what they could?

You wake again, and yes, the sky.
Another night has passed on by,
his arm around you: a total lie.

The quiet begs you to stay.
Should you leave? Who can say?
Not Woolf nor Plath
nor Hemingway.

Your eyes thirst for sleep,
you want the silence, you want the deep,
the dark, the stillness
there you’ll keep.

He announces that it’s morning time
If you trust his eyes, you might be fine.
Again, he whispers: “You are mine.”

Like this, you keep it all at bay.
It’s been set on time delay.
Like Woolf and Plath
and Hemingway.”

Please stalk David further at:
Facebook: David James Parr Fiction
Instagram: DavidJamesParr
Twitter: @ParrFiction

The Creative Bridge with Daniela – November 2019, The Enlightenment Month

on November 22, 2019November 22, 2019 By Tommaso Cartia

Our Artistic Director Daniela Pavan discusses the topic of Light and Enlightenment from a business and a creative ideas development point of view with our host of the month, Award-Winning Author, Playwright, and novelist David James Parr.

“I honestly believe that creativity cannot be switched on and off, like a light switch. It’s a process that requires us to become comfortable with making mistakes because it includes failed attempts, it requires us to take courage and try, it’s a test and learn approach. And this creative anxiety is borne out of a society that expects perfection, that expects creatives to generate ideas quickly. This same society though teaches us that there are only right or wrong answers and leaves very little space to experiment and test ideas. Think about Thomas Edison. Its invention of the light bulb in 1879 came out as the result of tons of experiments. According to The Time, he tested more than 6,000 possible materials before finding the one that worked, the carbonized bamboo. Also, he made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. And when a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Edison kept persevering without giving up and gave birth to a disruptive invention for those times, which still is part of our current standards of living. What do you think David?”

“I totally agree with you Daniela. The creative process takes time: You have to accept that sometimes you’re not going to have the time, or the energy, to deliver on an idea. I’ve had what I thought were light bulb moments on the subway on my commute to work in the morning, but by the time I’ve been crammed inside a subway car, and had the train delayed between stops, and the air conditioning to go out, and then to spill out into a station and climb up the stairs, and so on—the idea gets lost. So it’s important to just relax and breathe and know that another idea will come, or maybe that same idea will come back. The writer Jamaica Kincaid once said—and I don’t remember the exact quote—but it was that sometimes writers need to just walk around and feel sad or emotional or go to dark places in their brain in order to illuminate some real truths…”

For the full conversation, listen to the Creative Bridge Episode

Creative Briefing – November 2019, The Enlightenment Month

on November 6, 2019November 8, 2019 By Tommaso Cartia

November, 2019, is the Enlightenment month for the Creative Pois-On Podcast. “Let there be light. And there was light.” This infamous quote from the Genesis expresses in a poetic and very visual way, an essentially creative process – to bring something to the light, out of the darkness. This is true of all creations: when you birth an idea, when you bring to the light a child, when you light up the stage of a theater and you give light to your creation for everybody to see it, when you stand up under the spotlight to pitch your business idea that you’ve been working so hard on.

Guided by the voice and the enlightened mind of the host of the month of November, Award-Winning Writer, Author, Playwright and Novelist David James Parr – an exceptional creator of worlds – the Creative Directors Tommaso Cartia and Daniela Pavan try to go deep in the understanding of how important Light is in any creative process, but also how important and fundamental Darkness is, meaning everything that happens in the dark before an idea, a project is out in the light.

This is indeed a sparkling month for the Creative Pois-On Podcast, besides the upcoming Creative Bridge episode with Daniela and the Creative Being with Tommaso, we will be featuring two dazzling interviews with two surprising guests who navigate through the waves of light, striking their audience with their works.