Daniel Levine

Daniel Levine was born to Eastern European Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn in 1905. It was not until his 18th birthday however that he discovered that his true biological parents were married bank robbers from Iowa who, deeming their itinerant lifestyle unfit for a child, had left Daniel on a crowded street corner in Brownsville, where the bawling tot was discovered by sympathetic young Ida Barenmoishevitz. Ida brought the boy, practically still a fetus at that time, home to her husband Marty Markovitz Levine who was at first livid and threatened to cast out mother and child yelling "I shvitz and toil all day and you bring me home some backwards kvetching tatelah from the gutter!?" Ida however insisted the boy was an "ingela" and over time persisted. Though Marty tolerated the boys presence he never warmed to him and Daniel, sensing rejection, turned early on to a life of crime. It was through his publicized criminal notoriety that in 1923 his biological parents discovered their son's identity and made plans to reunite on Daniel's 18th birthday. They brought with them a gift. Pilfered on one of their recent escapades in Burgundy, it was a present that would irrevocably alter the course of Daniel's life: an Ondes Martenot. From that point on, giving up his life of intrigue and exploit, Daniel Levine could be seen at any time illiciting otherworldly tones from the Ondes Martenot in various subway stations under New York. He penned two hundred and fifty compositions for the instrument, but was shunned on tin pan alley, where he had held brief aspirations of writing for the shows. As his thirties approached Levine grew disillusioned with the music scene and contemplated suicide, but with the coming of WWII he found a new calling. Enlisting just three days after Pearl Harbor, Levine soon found himself on a beach of Normandy amidst carnage and devastation. He is said to have taken the lives of many Germans that day (accounts range from 35 to 350) During the waning hours of D-Day the ominous sounds of the ondes martenot could be heard echoing across the misty beach. The armies were then to forge ahead, driving the Nazis out of France. But Levine had different plans. He deserted two days later and made his way secretly to Burgundy where he tracked down the origins of his beloved instrument. A music shop owner, Francois Malchansón, confirmed former proprietorship of the instrument but disapproved vigorously of Levine's autodidactic style, brandishing a stick at him and yelling: rotten! rotten american pig! you play like a eunuch! go back to brooklyn and your stinking Al Jolson-- long live the Vichy!!" That night as the devastated Levine slept in a barn a few blocks away, Malchansón tiptoed inside and stole away the ondes martenot, bringing it to the middle of town and smashing it to bits, again yelling praises to the Axis powers. When Daniel Levine realized what had happened he felt, momentarily, an acute despair unlike any depths he had previously fathomed, but in the ensuing moments something changed. A bell rang in the city square sounding six in the morning, and as the birds flew off the tower of the cathedral, one pigeon looked directly at Daniel and winked. Not believing his eyes, Daniel cried out, "Can it BE?" the pigeon than doubled back and made an obscene gesture at him with one of his feet. Daniel Levine was a changed man. He took it as a most sure sign from God and for many years after the war he participated instrumentally in the promotion of the new age enlightenment in the United States. In the sixties he could be seen on college campuses-- (if you watch videos about the protest movement, look for the hippy that looks even weirder than the others, with his long beard and dark glasses and an air of having dropped seven hundred too many drops of liquid acid). The eighties brought about a refreshing change however. Meeting Christopher Hitchens at a book signing at Borders (Levine was actually 10 years late for a book release party for Krishnamurti) Levine began to take a liking for Whiskey, which instilled in him a sudden passion for debate and an acute sense of the meaninglessness of the universe. He spent the 80's and 90's debating against religion and Ronald Reagan. And in 2003 when Hitchens decided to endorse the War in Iraq publicly, the two of them agreed to duel it out mano a mano in an alley behind a bar in Oxford. Needless to say Levine defended himself gallantly but years of drug abuse and quiet disillusionment had worn him down, and Hitchens, empowered by his new sense of justified violence, prevailed. From then on Levine vowed to withdraw entirely from the public eye, making appearances only on the Facebook and various anonymous Myspace pages. He is rumored to live in Worcester, Massachusetts but this has not been confirmed.