TZ Profile: Arlen Schumer (Part 2 of 2)

October 2, 2009. A crowd has gathered outside The Times Center in New York City, having purchased tickets to what promises to be a fascinating evening. Arlen Schumer has come to town, you see, and he’s brought The Twilight Zone with him.

It’s the 50th anniversary of the series, and Schumer’s celebrating it by presenting Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Forever: A Celebration of the Father of American Pop Culture on its 50th Anniversary, a “Multimedia VisuaLecture” that promises to explore both the recurrent themes of the series and the staggering imprint it continues to leave on American pop culture. Sounds like something tailor-made for a TZ nut like me, right?  Unfortunately, I live clear across the country in the Pacific Northwest. I’m raising four kids and a dog. There’s no way in hell I can go. Fortunately, my friend Bill Huelbig lives in Jersey, and he loves The Twilight Zone as much as I do. So he buys a ticket, attends the event, then reports back:

I work in Manhattan and live about two miles from Times Square, but I knew nothing about the Arlen Schumer Twilight Zone 50th Anniversary celebration being held there on October 2, 2009 until Craig, who lives 3000 miles away, told me about it. It really pays to have a friend who loves "The Twilight Zone" as much as he does. Without him I would have missed an amazing evening.

Even before it started it was worth the ticket price: an excellent sound montage of Twilight Zone dialogue and music played before showtime for what must have been a half-hour, but I lost all track of the time. Near the end of it, Arlen Schumer came into the audience and shook my hand like I was an old friend. Then he took the stage and began his multimedia lecture, and I learned things about the show I never knew in all my 50 years of being a fan. He showed the famous episode "The Eye of the Beholder", which was fun to see as part of an audience, and I was reminded that it was the program that probably got the strongest reaction out of me and my older sister when we first saw it back in 1960, more than anything else I'd ever seen on television before or since.

The highlight of the evening was a screening of "Where Is Everybody?", the Twilight Zone pilot which aired on CBS 50 years ago that very night, and almost that very minute. The second half of the show got off to a late start because of the free snacks given out at intermission so it didn't begin at exactly 10 PM as planned, but it was close enough. Weeks earlier I'd originally intended to watch this episode at home on October 2nd, but thanks to Twilight Zone superfans Craig and Arlen I got to be a part of a real Twilight Zone event, one I will not forget. 

Bill's ticket.  Note the all-too-common "Sterling" error (certainly not Arlen's fault!)

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this profile, Mr. Schumer (oh hell, let’s call him Arlen from here on) was kind enough to send me a DVD of the presentation. I’ve watched it twice, all 90+ minutes of it, and one thing is crystal clear to me: I missed something indescribably special that night (click here to read the sad tale of how I celebrated the show’s anniversary... alone). Arlen’s DVD, thankfully is the next best thing.

First and foremost, Arlen knows what the hell he’s talking about. He’s divided the series up into recurring themes and motifs. He draws numerous parallels between the visuals from specific episodes to various works of surrealist art. He illustrates just how deeply the series has permeated American popular culture, and how many television series and films have borrowed from it. Even I, who presume to know a thing or two about such matters, was stunned by the keenness of his eye and the depth of his knowledge. In other words, Arlen taught me a thing or two. He’s articulate, too, and a genuine pleasure to listen to. His enthusiasm is infectious; his passion, evident. The whole affair is like a college course, compressed into 90 dizzying minutes. I imagine the heads of those lucky enough to attend were buzzing for the rest of the night.

My single favorite passage is as follows:

“(T)here was only one Rod Serling. The delivery, the look, the style, that cigarette (by the way, that’s what killed him, of course), but that whole kind of aura that makes Serling one of the greatest broadcast voices of the twentieth century… he had the whole kind of CBS kind of broadcaster Edward R. Murrow type of respect, the same sort of dark Humphrey Bogart savoir faire… the whole quality: Walter Cronkite, CBS, Serling had that. Serling had that authority that makes him one of the three coolest guys of the early ‘60s. Him, John F. Kennedy… and there was something about Serling, he had that sort of Frank Sinatra, that swanky, sophisticated look, but he had that dark charm of Bond, James Bond. Serling premieres two years before Connery debuts as Bond, so in many ways, even though we saw a Who’s Who of Hollywood with The Twilight Zone, there’s really only one star, and that’s Serling.”

A highlight of the presentation (Christ, the whole thing is a highlight!) is a “live performance,” as it were, of his Sight, Sound & Mind DVD, which is essentially a multimedia translation of his brilliant Visions From The Twilight Zone book (both were covered in Part 1). As with most live performances, the energy is amped up a bit here; Arlen takes on the air of a Lutheran minister when he intones that classic Serling phrase: “Clocks are made by men. God creates time.” The Twilight Zone, filtered through Arlen, is as much religion as popular entertainment.

And then later, he cracks the joint up with the following: “Clocks are made by men. God creates The New York Times.” The guy’s a gem.

The Twilight Zone Forever, as presented on DVD, is an absolute must-have for Twilight Zone collectors. It’s imminently rewatchable (I’ve already partaken of it twice, and foresee many further viewings). Like his Visions book (and the companion DVD), this is an absolute MUST HAVE. Even if you were lucky enough to attend the event, it’s worth revisiting in the comfort of your own home. Are you tantalized yet? Contact Arlen directly at arlen@arlenschumer.com for more info.

Incidentally, a print version of the presentation is archived and viewable at http://www.paleycenter.org/the-twilight-zone-forever/. It’s a bit more academic (and certainly less spontaneous) than the live VisuaLecture, but it makes for great reading.  Frankly, it would make a great book.

One other item to note: Arlen has also assembled a 45-minute audio collage of music and dialogue/narration from the series, entitled Sound & Vision: The Words & Music of The Twilight Zone (I suspect this is the montage that Bill heard playing before the Times Center presentation).  Drop it in your CD player, put on some headphones, turn out the lights, and prepare for a Serling-sponsored head trip. Hit Arlen up at arlen@arlenschumer.com for more details.

If it hasn’t been made evident by now, I’m a big fan of Arlen’s work. If you aren’t… well, you will be. Poke around his website: http://www.arlenschumer.com/. As you’ll see, The Twilight Zone isn’t the only trick in his bag.

TZ Profile: Arlen Schumer (Part 1 of 2)

The subject of today’s spotlight needs no introduction, especially not to Twilight Zone fans operating at an obsessive fan level approximating mine. But since this blog is available to the entire world via this marvelous thing called the internet, I’ll pretend that those reading have never heard of the guy.

I first became aware of Arlen Schumer in 1991. Lisa, my first wife, who was well aware of my preoccupation with all things Twilight Zone (having purchased the first two Varese Sarabande soundtracks on cassette for me the previous Christmas), held up a book that she’d spotted as we browsed the shelves at Powell’s Books in downtown Portland.

I eagerly snatched it out of her hands and gazed lovingly at it. It wasn’t a work of fiction, like the Original Stories collection I’d purchased back in 1985. It wasn’t a work of nonfiction, like Zicree’s Twilight Zone Companion (which I’d beaten the hell out of since I’d first bought it in 1983). No, this was something else entirely. The title said it all: Visions from The Twilight Zone, by Arlen Schumer. And visions they were. We generally refer to this type of publication as a "coffee table" book. This was so much more. This was art. This was my favorite television series, in all its visual splendor, distilled and compressed into a 10" x 9" x .75" package. I had to have it, but at the time I was dead broke. Lisa, in her infinite generosity, bought it for me. No wonder I married her.

I took it home and devoured it with my eyes, my trembling fingers turning each page as I read the words aloud, snatches of dialogue married to stark, compelling images The words frequently didn’t match the specific episode shown, but the themes rhymed. This was poetry. No, it was something beyond poetry. There was something post-modern in Schumer’s approach, something akin to sampling, a practice that had only recently began to take over popular music, in which short musical riffs or drum loops were taken from one song and looped into another. The words and images from The Twilight Zone had been extracted, remixed, re-purposed, and presented as something wholly different, wholly original, yet still in keeping with the series’ recurring themes and ideas. This guy Schumer, whoever the hell he was, was an absolute genius.

...a sample page. Image from "Shadow Play" overlaid with text from "Escape Clause."

The images in the book stem from actual photographs of a black and white television screen, the resolution of which was a scant 250 scan lines. The result is a convincing approximation of what viewers of the show back in the early 60’s must have seen, and it adds to the visual mystique of the book immensely. All the text in the book is set in Bernard Modern, which just happens to be the very same font used in the series’ opening and closing credits. If that’s not attention to detail, I don’t know what is. The book also includes the classic episode “The Eye of the Beholder” in its entirety (in words and images), as well as insightful essays by J. Hoberman, Carol Serling (Rod's widow), and Schumer himself. Icing on the proverbial cake comes in the form of a piece culled from the private notes of series producer Buck Houghton, bestowed upon Schumer by Houghton himself.

…Our man Schumer, 20 years ago, rocking the bow tie.

The bio on Schumer in the book is pretty skimpy… graphic designer, graduated from the Rhode Island school of design, comic book artist, student of popular culture. The intervening 20 years have added some new credentials… but we’ll get to that, in Part 2.

The book, as books often do, went out of print several years ago. I remember spotting a hardcover copy at some point at a Barnes & Noble, clearance-priced at $5.00, and passing it up (d’oh!). If you don’t have this book, FIND IT. There are copies on eBay. There are second-hand copies on Amazon. Seek it out. Of all the Twilight Zone books in my collection, this is by far the most beautiful, the most exciting, the most moving. I had the rare joy of buying a copy for my friend Bill Huelbig, who resides on the other side of the country in New Jersey, this past Christmas. He’s just as big a Twilight Zone fan as I am, so I’m not sure how this particular work of art has eluded him all these years. I was happy to rectify the situation, and I’m prepared to do it again, should some other deserving TZ fan come forward, empty hands desperately outstretched. This book needs to be experienced. Hell, it needs to be BACK IN PRINT. Chronicle Books, are you listening? Do you even still exist?

Fast forward twenty years, give or take. Mr. Schumer presents The Twilight Zone Forever, a “multimedia visualecture” at The Times Center in New York City on 10/02/09, the show’s 50th anniversary. My aforementioned friend Bill buys a ticket and attends, much to his delight (and my internal dismay, since there’s no way in hell I can afford to make the trip). Bill reports back with a positive review (which will appear in Part 2 of this spotlight). A few weeks later, I take a chance and email Mr. Schumer, having only recently discovered his website, wondering if perhaps the presentation was videotaped. Turns out it was. And Mr. Schumer, out of an immeasurable kindness, sends me a DVD of the presentation. But we’ll get to that, in Part 2.

It doesn’t stop there. The magnanimous Mr. Schumer proceeds to send me an assortment of TZ-related gifts, one of which I’ll address right now, since it’s germane to the topic at hand.

Sight, Sound & Mind: A Montage of The Twilight Zone’s Words, Images & Music is a 12-minute DVD that mirrors Schumer’s Visions book, page by page (one dissolves into the next, with that 250-lines of resolution look gloriously intact), augmented by musical cues from various episodes, with all of the text read by the author himself. This alone makes the disc essential (honestly, can you imagine anybody but Anthony Bourdain reading Kitchen Confidential out loud? I like to think that if my novel Diminished Returns ever gets published, I’ll get to do the audio version). The Visions book is Schumer’s baby, and his voice brings it to vibrant, shimmering life.

I can’t stress enough what a treat this DVD is to behold. As I’ve already stated, the book needs to be back in print or, better yet, back in print with a copy of the DVD included. Until that happens, however, something of a guerrilla approach will be necessary for interested parties to attain the full experience. Get the book, then contact Mr. Schumer directly at arlen@arlenschumer.com to inquire about the DVD. Or inquire about the DVD first, then get the book. Either way, they’re two great tastes that taste great together.

My marriage to Lisa lasted nine years. The Twilight Zone, on the other hand, is forever. Arlen Schumer agrees, as you’ll see in Part 2 of our profile. Stay tuned, won’t you?