Another Country (Part 1): Difference between revisions
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|labelstyle = background: | |labelstyle = background:var(--infobox-header-color); width:35%; | ||
|header1 = Series | |header1 = Series | ||
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|label11 = Followed by: | |label11 = Followed by: | ||
|data2 = [[Work In Progress]] | |data2 = [[Work In Progress]] | ||
|data8 = [[:Category:Serious_Monologue|Serious Monologue]], [[:Category:Narrative_Monologue|Narrative Monologue]], | |data8 = [[:Category:Serious_Monologue|Serious Monologue]], [[:Category:Narrative_Monologue|Narrative Monologue]], 58 minutes | ||
|data4 = 1986 | |data4 = [[:Category:1986|1986]] | ||
| | |below = [https://www.joefrank.com/?s=Another%20Country Purchase] | ||
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|data6 = Joe Frank | |data6 = Joe Frank | ||
|data10 = [[ | |data10 = [[Talking About Love]] | ||
|data11 = [[Another Country (Part 2)]] | |data11 = [[Another Country (Part 2)]] | ||
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}} | }} | ||
'' | ''When his mother was depressed, you could feel her mood spreading through the house like a foul mist.'' | ||
'''Another Country (Part 1)''' is a program Joe Frank produced as part of the series [[Work In Progress]]. It was originally broadcast in [[:Category:1986|1986]]. | |||
== Synopsis == | == Synopsis == | ||
A narrator tells the story of an unnamed fellow, whom I'll call | |||
Protagon to make writing this synopsis simpler. (Everybody else has a | |||
name.) | |||
Protagon grew up in Cleveland with a mother who was frequently and seriously | |||
depressed. He and his father found her moods crushing. She thought | |||
her husband weak. She'd play the piano for hours in the afternoon, | |||
classical music. He would close and lock all the intervening doors, | |||
but still hear the music.<ref>Joe tells the same | |||
story in [[Karma Memories]] at 37:40, except in the first person and | |||
refers to Freddy instead of his father.</ref> | |||
1:40: Although he enjoyed Temple services on the high holy days, he | |||
imagined the stigma Christians attached to Jews for killing | |||
Christ.<ref>The Romans killed Jesus; some 'Christian' antisemites blame | |||
Jews.</ref> When he forgot to take his skullcap off after services, | |||
he'd feel badly: he didn't want people to know he was Jewish. He | |||
thinks about the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust.<ref>Joe tells the same | |||
story in [[Karma Memories]] at 37:40, except in the first person and | |||
refers to Freddy instead of his father.</ref> | |||
5:00: At age 25 he moves to Washington DC, lives in a boarding | |||
house.<ref>so Joe says; it was a building with separate bedrooms - | |||
there was no board.</ref> Many of the other residents are Arabs, | |||
including Naim, 'one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen: she | |||
looked like an Arabian princess.' An Algerian, Ali, also a resident | |||
of the building, a law student at Georgetown, is her lover. 'He | |||
[Protagon] felt ugly and poisoned because he was a totally anti-social | |||
recluse, not really a pleasant person.' He keeps to himself, doesn't | |||
socialize. | |||
6:00: Naim faints, Ali asks Protagon to call for an ambulance, because | |||
his English is poor. He doesn't. Naim gets mad at him. 'He and Naim | |||
didn't speak to each other for weeks after the incident' | |||
7:00: He works for Film Presentations, which he figures out is | |||
sketchy. | |||
8:00: Naim and he get to know each other. She's 30, from North Yemen, | |||
went to University of Missouri, degree in communications. She took a | |||
job in Kuwait to work on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iftah_Ya_Simsim Arab <i>Sesame Street</i>],<ref> | |||
the Arab version of <i>Sesame Street</i> was made in Kuwait, beginning | |||
in 1979.</ref> for which she had made a marriage of convenience with | |||
a Palestinian, Kamal, because single women are considered immoral | |||
there. That job fell through but she kept the marriage to get a | |||
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_card Green card]. Kamal runs a | |||
company in Florida. She's studying linguistics so she can teach | |||
English to foreigners. They become lovers on her instigation. | |||
12:30: They go to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_International_Festival Edinburgh festival] | |||
to see her sister, Fadal (sp?), a famous dancer, perform. He meets | |||
Ali there, who figures out what's going on. Naim and Protagon discover their | |||
incompatibilities. | |||
18:40: They see | |||
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiders_of_the_Lost_Ark <i>Raiders of the lost ark</i>], | |||
which makes her mad. She sees it as Zionist propaganda. | |||
20:20: She gives him [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_the_Sun <i>Men in the sun</i>], | |||
her favorite book, because it tells of the plight of Palestinians. | |||
21:20: She takes him to parties, where he meet many Arabs, sees they | |||
aren't all violent fanatics. | |||
22:20: They attend a fund-raising bake sale for Palestinian | |||
terrorists in | |||
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pleasant,_Washington,_D.C. Mount Pleasant]<ref>a neighborhood of Washington</ref> | |||
They talk about how Mossad offers them money to stay in the US, funds | |||
their educations.<ref>Apparently true.</ref> | |||
24:00: 'Thilemzith thevgha atsazhu'<ref>This is a Kabyle song, from Algeria. Ali is from Algeria but I think | |||
it's coincidental.</ref> | |||
25:50: He moves to a nearby apartment. She helps him paint and | |||
furnish it, is there much of the time, keeps her room in the boarding | |||
house to keep up appearances. | |||
27:00: He gets a new job with a film and video production company, why | |||
he can afford the apartment. He figures out they misrepresent | |||
themselves. | |||
28:20: Because her education is about to end, thus her student visa | |||
also, she recruits a friend to fund a language school at which she can | |||
teach English to Arabs. | |||
29:30: His new employer lets him go. He takes a job with | |||
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnai_brith B'nai B'rith]. He can't | |||
let them see him with an Arab; she doesn't want to go near it. | |||
32:20: Naim's language school fails after 7 months. She takes 2 night | |||
jobs teaching English as a second language, lying about having a Green | |||
card. | |||
33:10: They take a trip to | |||
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_City,_Maryland Ocean City (Maryland)] | |||
which they hate. They camp, skinnydip by climbing the fence in a closed public | |||
pool at night, see the horses on Assateague. | |||
39:10: Naim had wanted to be a dancer like her sister, but a | |||
'degenerative cartilage disease in her knees' made it impossible. She | |||
likes to give elaborate parties, with lots of food and dancing. | |||
40:30: Naim tells Protagon she wants to have a child with him. | |||
41:00: They see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_(1969_film) <i>The land</i>], | |||
an Egyptian movie about landlord-peasant conflict in the time of Turkish rule, | |||
at the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithsonian_Institution Smithsonian]. | |||
She's unhappy with the way American movies depict Arabs and the way | |||
Arab movies depict women. | |||
46:20: After a call to her home Naim tells Protagon about her family: | |||
her mother married at 15, raised 8 children, a father who spends all | |||
their money on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khat khat, a narcotic leaf] | |||
- $50/day. Her father had wanted even his daughters to get | |||
educated, come back to reform North Yemen. | |||
49:40: Israel invades Lebanon.<ref>1982 June 6. Israel calls it | |||
'Peace in Galilee' [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Lebanon_War 1982 Lebanon war]</ref> | |||
B'nai B'rith paints it in a positive light. Protagon and Naim fight | |||
about this. Protagon begins to see the Arab point of view. | |||
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:95%; overflow:auto;"> | |||
<div style="font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;">Legacy Synopsis</div> | |||
<div class="mw-collapsible-content"> | |||
The story of a Jewish man with a depressed mother. He thinks of persecution of the Jews throughout history. He gets a job in advertising for a weapons manufacturer. He starts a relationship with a married Yemeni woman. They go to a film festival in Europe together. They fight over her interest in clothes, violence and anti-Arab themes in US movies. They attend a party with exiles from the Palestinian resistance. They choose and decorate an apartment together. He finds work with an fraudulent out of state video production company, then gets a job with B'nai B'rith. She helps found an Arabic language institute which fails, takes several language jobs. They go to a beach resort, skinny dipping at a campsite, and to a wildlife reserve with wild horses. She throws parties and dances. They fight over middle east politics. He's given the job of generating PR to support the invasion of Lebanon. | |||
</div></div> | |||
== Music == | == Music == | ||
{{Facades ( | {{Facades (Philip Glass)}} [Intro] | ||
{{ | {{First Light (Harold Budd - Brian Eno)}} [20:07] | ||
{{Ţilemziṭ Byiy Aḍ Zḥuy - Je Suis Jeune Et Je Veux Vivre (Djur Djura)}} [24:00] | |||
== | ==Miscellanea== | ||
The first datable event is a viewing of 'Raiders of the lost ark', | |||
which premiered 1981 June 12; they went to see it after the Edinburgh | |||
festival (in August), before he moved into the apartment. The last is | |||
the invasion of Lebanon, 1982 June 6. The language school Naim and | |||
her friend opened lasted 7 months. | |||
==Commentary== | |||
Ocean City is as they describe it: the worst place on Maryland's | |||
Atlantic coast.[[User:Arthur Peabody|Arthur Peabody]] ([[User talk:Arthur Peabody|talk]]) 00:49, 15 March 2022 (EDT) | |||
I attended parties in group homes in Mount Pleasant in the '80s![[User:Arthur Peabody|Arthur Peabody]] ([[User talk:Arthur Peabody|talk]]) 20:44, 16 March 2022 (EDT) | |||
== Additional credits == | |||
The original broadcast credits state: "Technical production by Tom Strother." | |||
==Footnotes== | |||
[[Category:Serious_Monologue]] | [[Category:Serious_Monologue]] | ||
[[Category:1986]] | |||
[[Category:Narrative_Monologue]] | [[Category:Narrative_Monologue]] | ||
[[Category: Work In Progress]] | |||
[[Category:Unknown_air_date]][[Category:Show]] | |||
[[Category:Show_by_date|19860004]] {{Airdate|airdate=1986}} | |||
{{Series|series=Work In Progress}}{{Cast|cast=Joe Frank}} |