About Mr. Black
To Brag is a big deal:
He is…
Escobombardon ("Fired Out of a Cannon")
Rodomonte ("Mountain-crumbler")
Sangre y Fuego ("Blood and Fire")
Spaccamonti("Mountain-splitter")
Spezzaferro ("Iron-breaker")
Terremoto ("Earthquake")
Bellavista ("Beautiful View", a vain but ugly man)
Fracasso ("Skirmish" or "Big Noise")
Cerimonia ("Ceremony", all proper manners and rigid, slavish devotion to pointless details)
Coccodrillo ("Crocodile", because he preys on others)
Fanfarone ("Trumpeter" or "Loudmouth")
Giangurgulo ("John the Glutton")
Grillo ("Grasshopper", because he is small and 'hops' sides)
Malagamba ("Lame Leg")
Squaquara ("Little Shi*")
Tagliacantoni ("Small-Sized")
Zerbino ("Doormat")
Capitan Spavento della Vall'Inferna ("Captain Fear, (Lord) of Hell's Valley")
Salvador de los Vírgenes Borrachos ("Savior of Drunken Virgins")
Sieur de Fracasse et Brise-tout ("Lord of 'Knock it down' and 'Break everything'")*
And many many many more. He is The Captain from the Commedia.
*Thank you:
“The Italian Comedy,” Pierre Louis Duchartre
And he is ME for bothering to make him. He is me.
There’s an old saying…
“A well loved child has many names.”
The tower is old shoeshine foot treadles.
The costume shoelaces and their wrappers… and milkglass shoe buttons.
I painted the box like old Coney Island railings painted a million times and subways and old metal things such as that painted over and over and the spire is like a church. Brooklyn’s full of them or used to be before the era of condos.
The vitrine is 10 ½ ft. tall
The puppet 4 ft tall.
He’s jointed… with glass eyes.
Favorite song:
Anything with a military air brings him to tears.