When you’ve grown up, my dears,
And are as old as I,
You’ll often ponder on the years
That roll so swiftly by, my dears,
That roll so swiftly by.
And all the many lands
You will have journeyed through
You’ll oft recall,
the best of all,
The land your childhodo knew
Your childhood knew.
Toyland, toyland,
Little girl and boy land,
While you dwell within it,
You are ever happy then.
Childhood, joyland,
Mystic merry toyland,
Once you pass its borders,
You can ne’er return again.
These lyrics, written by Victor Herbert for the song, “Toyland” (which was featured in the 1934 film, Babes in Toyland, a.k.a., March of the Wooden Soldiers, starring Laurel and Hardy) poignantly exemplifies the spirit of the “toyland” we are striving to create for our Cuckoos. And we need YOUR help in architecting this playscape.
Toys and games from different eras, spanning the 1950s-1990s, are being sought to help us create the stylized and distinct character of our children’s room. Below is a list of some of the specific toys and items we are looking for, but we’re also on the lookout for “unspecified” vintage toys and games that might strike our fancy. What we’re asking for in this cinematic scavenger hunt: take a photo of your toy and send it to us. We will then sift through prospects and make selections. If your toy is selected to appear in our film, we request that you mail it to us (as a donation). You will receive a special thank you in the film credits, and for those who take a fun, playful, dramatic or “cuckoo” picture with their toy, we may include your pic in the gallery roll-call of “toyland” pics during the film credits.
We want our Cuckoo Room to become a repository of collective childhood dreams and memories, a shared place of warmth, play and sanctuary.
You can email pics to: johnbiscello@gmail.com. If we use your toy, we will send you the address to which it should be posted.
Some of what we’re seeking:
Also, there are thirteen days left before our campaign ends, so please visit our page if you want to find out more about our indie film and become part of our growing Cuckoo flock: igg.me/at/cuckoocinema
We are winging our way forward, one shimmying feather at a time. Here’s to the land of childhood and all its inspired magic-making!
Posted in Books, Cinema, photography, Press, Prose, Uncategorized, Video
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Tagged ballad of the cuckoos, childhood's land, film, island of misfit toys, John Biscello, laurel and hardy, scavenger hunt, toyland, toys
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I miss you already,
the sun-kissed daisy
whispered to the migrant
flake of snow,
which clung
like a hopeful bead
to the daisy’s
delicate petal
before dying a lover’s death
and melting.
And then came the day
when he realized he was free,
always had been
to enjoy the abstracted
stage-play of his thoughts
and their formations,
something of an idiot’s delight,
same as the scabbed-glass opera
of the world without,
its tragedies and follies
swaddled in petticoats
of burlesque
(the people burning—
Take it off, take it off)
how interesting it all was,
how thoroughly enjoyable
it was to be alive,
a mortal gob of wax engaged
to the briefest of candle-flickers
in the ceremonial scheme of dark and light,
how much he would miss himself—
who he was, who he was not—
when he was gone,
when his persona had melted
into a puddle of anonymous molecules
that had to be on their merry, migrating way
(goodbye vagabond molecules!)
while his very last thoughts
might plants the seeds
for a brand-new play
starring god knows who
in some crumbling, time-clipped tenement
of Eternity
where, AT PRESENT,
was an immutable law
and not just a parenthetical
stage direction.
A work in progress street scene from “The Jackdaw and the Doll,” a fable I wrote inspired by a story about Franz Kafka. The book is being illustrated by Izumi Yokoyama, as her artistry interprets and realizes a world of fog, mystique, shadows, storytelling, dreams and true love.
THE JACKDAW AND THE DOLL: K. leads a double life. Timid office clerk by day, storyteller by night. But not just any storyteller. Transforming into a jackdaw, K. takes secret night-flights around the city, collecting moments of inspiration. Confronted by sickness, and “The Shroud” which has haunted him since childhood, K., joined by his new love, Dora, moves away from home to The City of Birds. It is there that he will meet a young girl, heartbroken over her lost doll, and be given a golden chance to share the healing magic of storytelling.
A fable about love, compassion and creativity, inspired by a story about the writer, Franz Kafka.
Posted in Artwork, Prose, Uncategorized
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Tagged children's book, fable, franz kafka, izumi yokoyama, John Biscello, mood piece, prague, Prose, storytelling
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Ballad of the Cuckoos is offering an intimate sneak-peek into “the room” in which our protagonists find themselves trapped. This small-scale model of the “Cuckoos Nest,” was created by my daughter, Sierra-Lindsey Biscello, who has been buiding custom-made dollhouses from recycled materials for the past several years. We hired her to build a miniature facsimile of our room/set, in which she meticulously crafted its assorted contents and structure. “The Cuckoos Nest” is featured in a moody cinematic short, filmed by Troy Paff, and set to the music of Anthony Distefano. Take a tender and cryptic trip into the haunted dollhouse, with your tour guide and architect, Sierra.
To find out more about the dollhouse (which we plan to offer as a one-of-a-kind perk), about Sierra’s dollhouses, and about our film, and how you can support us, go to: igg.me/at/cuckoocinema.
Posted in Artwork, Cinema, photography, Press, Prose, Publications, Uncategorized, Video
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Tagged ballad of the cuckoos, Cinema, custom made, indie film, interior design, John Biscello, New Mexico, welcome to the dollhouse, world in minature
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To marvel dumbly,
and trespass,
with a sense of the infinite
backlighting a wink–
this, the way of the Fool,
or sacred is as sacred does,
when trusting the air
in its holy relationship to plunge.
The Martians,
in their conscious longevity,
stamped our passports
and immigration documents
long before our legacy of amnesia
broke
and we came to realize
that everything, including our sense of planetary privilege,
has been a sham, a lost man’s desperate invention,
and while some wept and wondered, and wandered with nowhere to go,
others kept right on,
working their jaws religiously,
in chewing stick after stick of savior chewing gum,
which apparently becomes the stickiest stuff on earth
when engaging contact with foreign matters,
and other things true
to the calling of home.
The crow,
weighing on the snow-skinned branch,
caws with dark religious insistence,
like a sailor homesick for love,
or its remaindered sibling.
There is an unremitting hoarseness
to Eternity
that disguises its calling
in still feathers
and winter’s light.
Inspiration
is not a matter of chance,
or waiting, or a magic spell
that demands bated breath and fretted suspension—
it is the fact that you pick up a pen,
your fingers growing warm and intimate with its weight and feel,
the slow almost dumb beautiful realization that you,
or someone like you is holding a pen, an instrument aloft
and hovering above a blank page, and some kind of strange ceremony,
half-marriage, half-divorce, is about to take place,
in which you, or someone like you, as a form of expression,
is both the effect and the cause.
The pen, through good times and hard, accounts for dreaming,
and inspiration runs through your fingers like an unschooled course on being.
To venerate,
the privilege of air
inside the ceremony of lungs
and chance, where you,
as an honored guest,
get to ripen and breathe
the adventure of your name
into a free-range universe.
John Biscello 