We start this week off with the tragic news that poet, visual artist, translator, and librettist Norman MacAfee passed away on July 2nd after a brief illness. While we do not have a PennSound author page for MacAfee, his "Sixteen Drawings for Helen Adam's San Francisco's Burning" (published by Jacket2 in 2013) is a marvelous complement to the 1977 radio play staging of the drama by Charles Ruas and the Audio-Experimental Theatre, which you'll find on PennSound's Helen Adam author page.
MacAfee starts off his introductory notes to the gallery by explaining how he first made Adam's acquaintance: "My first poet friend in New York was William Leo Coakley. He and his lover, the actor and writer Robin Prising, lived on the Upper West Side, and they introduced me to Helen Adam in the early 1980s. I spent several jolly Victorian Christmas dinners at Robin and Willie's, with Helen and her sister, Pat, and others of the hosts' friends." He then goes on to explain how these remarkable drawings came to be, explaining, "One evening in the fall of 1983, Helen, Bob Holman, and I read our poems at a reading organized by Chris Kadison at No Se No Cafe on the Lower East Side. Over the next months Bob, Helen, and I began planning a production of San Francisco's Burning." He continues, "Helen gave us photocopies of the libretto manuscript and score. One afternoon in March of 1984, I made twenty color production drawings and planned more. Around the same time Bob directed a video of Helen, in costume as the Worm Queen, singing songs from the piece. We asked the composer Raphael Mostel to be music director, and he made an audiotape of himself singing and playing the openings of each of the opera's songs." While the production never came to pass, we are still left with MacAfee's stylish and charming artwork, which he was kind enough to share with Jacket2.
You'll find that piece here, and MacAfee's Jacket2 contributor page also includes links to two earlier publications in Jacket Magazine. We send our condolences to MacAfee's spouse, Miguel Cervantes-Cervantes, and his friends and family at this time.
