Documenting the descent of TALLEY'S FOLLY

The true message of TALLEY'S FOLLY

My jihad against the sexist TALLEY'S FOLLY continues.

As I noted last October about TALLEY'S FOLLY, the tide is slowly turning against it thanks to the dawning awareness that bullying and cajoling a woman into marrying you is not actually romantic.

More evidence on that score from this review in February of a production in Las Vegas:

On the page Matt has an undeniable charm but is also extremely aggressive and a downright stalker, with behavior that would be intolerable to most modern women. During the “Buzzz” director Ann Marie Pereth talked about softening Matt’s aggression in order to make the play more immediate, more relatable for the audience of today. 

This is the first time I've seen where a critic actually allows that the play is no longer relatable to contemporary audiences, as-is. Because it's a play about a stalker who refuses to believe that no means no. It's only a matter of time before theater companies get hip to the fact that an aggressive asshole does not make for a charming suitor. 

Unfortunately it's still getting a whole bunch of productions and critics are still coming up with excuses for why Matt is not a raging asshole. Like this review by Lisa Jensen of a Santa Cruz production:

But when she comes home from her job as a nurse’s aide in a hospital, tending the war-wounded, Sally (Monica West) is more angry than eager to see him. She can’t believe he presented himself to her conservative, xenophobic family, and tries to give him the brush-off, but he won’t take “no” for an answer. Or rather, as he tells her, if she did tell him “no,” he would take it. But for all her hand-wringing and high dudgeon, she never quite tells him outright there is no hope for them. And through this loophole, Matt slips in to reasonably and respectfully plead his case.

I don't know if Jensen fell asleep during the play or what but "respectful" is not how Matt treats Sally - or her family or her community. And she literally tells him to leave the boathouse, which he not only refuses but physically prevents her from calling out to her brothers and from leaving the boathouse herself. Apparently unless you actually use the word "no" then your protestations don't count. Rape defense lawyers would love to have a whole jury box of Lisa Jensens.

And then for the same production, a critic named Joanna Engelhart finds Sally's demeanor problematic:

And while West does a credible job of vacillating between what her mind and her heart are telling her, at times she’s a tad too strident and unfeeling. Clearly Matt had to have some reason for thinking Sally would be receptive to his proposal.

No, if you go by the script. he has no reason to think she'd be receptive except if you buy into the idea that bitches is crazy, and when they say no they mean yes, and you have to give them a bitch-slap - almost literally, in this play.

But gradually, more and more critics are becoming aware of the hideousness of the TALLEY'S FOLLY gender dynamic, obscured by all the sentimentality and bullshit. As Jay Gabler says of a recent production in Bloomington:

Matthew is a real talker, joking and telling stories to break the tension surrounding his reunion with Sally. You'll best enjoy Talley's Folly if you're willing to settle in and let the elliptical dialogue take its course. The two actors have an easy chemistry; we readily see how sparks flew between them, and root for it to happen again. (It's an uncomfortable fact, though, that multiple times in the course of the play, Matthew resorts to physical manhandling.)

Uncomfortable. Yah think?

The excerpt of the play below is the outrageous bullshit that critics who love the play either ignore, excuse or don't mind. And the part where he asks her if she's rational, after he's been restraining her and muffling her, is the most perfect expression of the utter contempt that Lanford Wilson and the people who love this play have for women.

                       SALLY

-Get gone now. Leave before I hit you with something. You can walk to the Barnettes', they'll give you some gas for a couple of coupons.

                      MATT

Now who is making the disturbance?

                     SALLY

               (Angry, quite loud.)

Get off this property or get out of my way so I can go back to the house, or I'll disturb you for real.

                     MATT

We are going to settle this before anyone goes anywhere.

                     SALLY

I won't be made a fool just because I fell in love again, Matt, and I won't be pushed around again.

                     MATT

You're not getting away from me.

                     SALLY

Get out of here!

                     MATT

Do you realize what you said? Did you hear yourself?

                    SALLY

             (Yelling toward the door.)

Buddy! Cliffy! Here he is. Matt Friedman is down here!

(Her last words are muffled by Matt's hand as he grabs her and holds her fast. She tries to speak over his lines.)

                     MATT

              (Grabbing her.)

Vilde chaya! you are a crazy woman! We could both be shot with that gun. People do not scream and yell and kick.

              (She stops struggling.)

People are blessed with the beautiful gift of reason and communication.

              (He starts to release her.)

                    SALLY
Cliffy!

                    MATT

               (Grabbing her again.)

How can such a thing happen? When they passed out logic everybody in the Ozarks went on a marshmallow roast. You are rational now?

Venus and Adonis - meh

I finally got around to reading Shakespeare's epic poem VENUS & ADONIS, and I have to say, I'm not especially impressed. I mean, sure, he keeps the poetry going at a roiling boil, but the story itself is quite tiresome.

SPOILER ALERT!

Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love (known as Aphrodite to the Greeks) spies the beautiful young Adonis and jumps on him. She smooches him all up and talks dirty to him and he makes ew yuck faces at her. Then he tries to get away but his horse, seeing a hot mare, takes off without him. Venus jumps on him again, and tells him he should learn from his horse's example. Adonis finally says love is icky and he's too young and he wants to go boar hunting with his friends. Venus flips out, afraid that he's going to get killed. Which his does. His blood lands on a flower. Venus vows to kiss that kind of flower every day.

This is, according to Wikipedia, "It is a complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love."

I didn't see that. At all. For the first 184 lines it's either Venus telling Adonis how hot he is, or the omniscient narrator telling us how hot Venus or Adonis is. Then finally at line 185 Adonis speaks:

  And now Adonis with a lazy spright,
     And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,
     His louring brows o'erwhelming his fair sight,
     Like misty vapours when they blot the sky,           184
       Souring his cheeks, cries, 'Fie! no more of love:
       The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.'

And apparently Venus can do nothing about it. That's a pretty poor excuse for a goddess that she can't just magically make him desire her. And her father Jove certainly never bothered with getting permission from anybody.

Also this verse reminds us that English is not pronounced the same as in Shakespeare's day, with the rhyme of "love" and "remove."

For two verses Shakespeare belabors the wonder of Adonis' dimples.

  At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,
     That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple:
     Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,
     He might be buried in a tomb so simple;              244
       Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,
       Why, there Love liv'd, and there he could not die.

     These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,
     Open'd their mouths to swallow Venus' liking.        248
     Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?
     Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?
       Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,
       To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!      252

Then starting with the next verse we get, I kid you not, twelve verses of equine love. Adonis' horse has run away and left him, so Venus resumes pestering him. So after all this pestering, Adonis gives in and gives Venus a single kiss, and that's all she gets. Some goddess of love she is. 

There are of course some nice turns of phrase but over all the content doesn't deserve all that effort.

I've been giving it some thought lately and the reason that HAMLET is widely considered the best play by Shakespeare is because the plot just hums along. Sure, there are some great soliloquies too, but it's the almost perfect plot (I have issues with Act V) that makes it so great.

OTHELLO and the politics of photography

Hudson Warehouse's OTHELLO at the Soldiers' & Sailors' Memorial in Riverside Park is the fourth Shakespeare play in the park I've seen this summer (also seen: AS YOU LIKE IT, THE TEMPEST and parts of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.) And so far only  New York Classical Theatre harassed me for taking photos. I thought maybe it was an Equity requirement, but Hudson Warehouse used Equity actors for their production and they had no problem with my taking discreet, non-flash photos with my iPhone. So NYCT harassed me because they wanted to, not because they had to.

My actor pal Bruce hanging with Othello

O&D

Wow this really is a sailor's memorial.

No, just no.

Genius of Love - new information

The song Genius of Love, by the Tom Tom Club (side project of Talking Heads members Tina Weymouth and Chris Franz)  was released in 1981 but back then you couldn't just Google up information about a song and not only discover that you were singing the wrong lyrics all along (turns out it's not "don't hang up, banjo brain") but also foreign languages were no such thing. In the original recording of "Genius of Love" there is snippet of a woman speaking in what sounds like a Scandinavian language. You can hear it beginning at minute 3:00 in the video below.

Well, it's not Scandinavian according to Chris Franz on the metafilter site:


Today I recieved this response from Chris Frantz:

Thanks for your message. The guess of Icelandic is close because Tina and her sisters lived in Iceland for several years in the mid-sixties when their father was stationed there with NATO.

But, no cigar because, in fact, that is not a sample. That is Tina's sister Lani speaking in a "made up" language that she invented to amuse herself when she was younger. She recorded the voice in one or two takes and we loved it because it was so weird.

Hope this answer helps.

Warm regards,

Chris Frantz

Waiting for Krugman

Here is a photo of Krugman vs. Ayn Rand from
the Atlas Society - they hate Krugman, of course
which is one way you know how great
Krugman is. 

Ever since I read Krugman talking about how he runs in Riverside Park I've been hopeful:

If you want to feel good about the state of America, you could do a lot worse than what I did this morning: take a run in Riverside Park. There are people of all ages, and, yes, all races exercising, strolling hand in hand, playing with their dogs, kicking soccer balls and throwing Frisbees. There are a few homeless people, but the overall atmosphere is friendly – New Yorkers tend to be rushed, but they’re not nasty – and, well, nice.

I've walked in Riverside Park on a few occasions but I will be doing it much more often now that I know there's a chance I'll bump into The Mighty Krugman. And yes, I will insist he take a selfie with me. Whoohoo!

Speaking of Ayn Rand and Krugman - yes, I still plan to do something with my play DARK MARKET which focuses on Ayn Rand's influence on Alan Greenspan and how that contributed to the 2008 meltdown of the economy. It's just that with six actors its more expensive than NORMA JEANE which is a two-hander. And not just to produce - since I pay actors to do readings, six actors can add up.

I give Krugman a shout-out in the intro of the play - I quote him from his blog:

After all, what is "Atlas Shrugged" really about? Leave aside the endless speeches and bad sex scenes. What you’re left with is the tale of how a group of plutocrats overthrow a democratically elected government with a campaign of economic sabotage.

None dare call it sociopathy

Evan Marc Katz's latest blog post has got me thinking about something I've been musing over for quite some time now - the high level of sociopathy among men.

Of course it's not called sociopathy, but Katz references the issue in his recent blog post:

Sounds a lot like what I’ve been preaching here for a decade. You can see it in the comments section. Men who think American women are selfish and would rather fly to Thailand for a bride. Women who are disgusted by men’s willingness to separate sex and love and have convinced themselves that no men are kind and commitment-oriented. This type of scarcity is not only untrue, but unhealthy as well.

First I'll point out that this paragraph reveals how much Katz's dating site, allegedly devoted to serving women, has a comments section populated by hideously misogynist men.

Now to the main issue - it's true that there are some men who are interested in love and commitment. But the fact is that a very high percentage of men do separate sex and love. Nobody knows how high a percentage because our male-dominated culture has never considered it an issue worth exploring.

And in truth, the issue is even more extreme than Katz presented. A high percentage of men don't just separate sex and love. Based on my experience in online dating, a really high percentage of men want to separate sex from any and all type of human connection. 

They usually don't state it so explicitly, using euphemisms like "no strings attached" and "no drama" and "not looking for anything serious." But what they actually mean - and I've sloooowly come to understand this from years of meeting men through online dating sites - is that they want to be in a room with you (or outdoors, they really aren't particular), they want to stick their penis into one or more of your orifices, evacuate and then go away. 

When they use the term "friends with benefits" it's complete bullshit - they don't want the friend part, they only want the benefits. They don't want to know anything about you - the only thing that matters to them is that you present enough visual sexual signifiers to arouse them. Period. Unique, individual you means less than nothing to them - your humanity is actually an inconvenient, annoying roadblock to their achieving something of value.

In other words for many men, the best kind of sex is completely dehumanized sex.

What do we call people who prefer to have minimal emotional connections with other people? Sociopaths.

But the reason that we don't call it sociopathy in this case is because sex without emotional connection is identified as a masculine thing. Men have so utterly dominated the world since the beginning of human culture anything male is the standard for humanity.

This dehumanized way that many men look at women is the basis for "flying to Thailand for a bride" and the phenomenon Katz pointed out without criticism, men working to get rich so they can have access to women they wouldn't normally have access to. 

Many men don't want a woman they have something in common with: life experiences, similar level of attractiveness, compatible aspirations, shared hobbies. Those are women they have access to. They want someone younger and beautiful and nothing else matters.

This phenomenon of men treating women like soulless things goes a long way to explaining why men abandon sick wives at such a high rate:

• A married woman diagnosed with a serious disease is six times more likely to be divorced or separated than a man with a similar diagnosis.
• Among study participants, the divorce rate was 21 percent for seriously ill women and 3 percent for seriously ill men.
• A control group divorced at a rate of 12 percent, suggesting that if disease makes husbands more likely to split, it makes wives more likely to stay.

These men married their wives to have access to pussy. And illness makes the pussy less available and/or less desirable. So why would they stick around? To deal with possible sad feelings and diminished sexual access? That's not what they signed up for, no matter what vows about sickness and health they spouted in front of an audience.

What women need to do is stop allowing their own lived experiences to be gas-lighted away by self-interested champions of the patriarchy like Evan Marc Katz and instead ask: why are so many men sociopaths?

RIP Norma Jeane

Marilyn Monroe died today 54 years ago.

Meanwhile, I have redesigned the logo for my upcoming production.

I have to give credit to Arthur Miller's play AFTER THE FALL for inspiring this version of my Norma Jeane play. I was flailing around for a year working on drafts until I read his play, with its undisguised representation of Monroe in the character of Maggie and came to this part (Quentin is the stand-in for Miller.)

MAGGIE

Why you wear those pants?

(He turns back to her, knowing what is coming.)

I told you the seat is too tight.

QUENTIN

Well they made them too tight, but I can walk in them.

MAGGIE

Fags wear pants like that. I told you.

(She drinks again. It is so pathological he looks with amazed eyes.)

They attract each other with their asses.

QUENTIN

You calling me a fag now?

MAGGIE

(She is very drunk.)

Just I've known fags and some of them didn't even know themselves that they were. And I didn't know if you knew about that.

QUENTIN

That's a hell of a way to reassure yourself Maggie.

MAGGIE

(Staggering slightly)

I'm allowed to say what I see...

This inspired me to make the play partly about a battle between Norma Jeane and the hospital psychiatrist who is a closeted homosexual. I thought it was fascinating that Miller portrayed Monroe commenting that she's known gay men who did not know they were gay.

Subway Series

I actually did take the subway to see two of the games in the 2016 Yankees-Mets "subway series."  Normally I wouldn't take the initiative to go to baseball games on my own, but an old friend was in town and loves baseball so he took me. I had a hot dog at the Yankees game, which was a big deal for me - I don't remember the last time I ate a hot dog. Like going to baseball games, it's not something I feel much compulsion to do.

I took the 7 train to get to the Mets game at CitiField. We had seats close to the field there.

Mets won this one - I forget the score - maybe 7 - 1?

I took the B train to get to Yankees Stadium - it's only twenty minutes uptown from my apartment. We had seats way up high, but I actually liked it better than the Mets seats because we could see the game much better this way. 

The Yankees won this game, 9 - 5

I prefer Yankees games over Mets games anyway, because only the Yankees have clean-up crew members dancing to the Village People's "YMCA" - that's my favorite part of the game. I did not video-record it so I will use this one from YouTube.

You can hang out with all the boys.

Evan Marc Katz: heterosexual women are great big hoes

Evan Marc Katz, patron saint of traditional gender roles:

Men spend countless hours working to get rich – not just for their own self-worth, but because having money gives them an advantage when it comes to courting women. Do these men feel bad that they’re being “used” for their money? Occasionally. But, for the most part, a rich guy understands that his money is part of the package – and if it allows him to get a woman he wouldn’t otherwise get, he can usually make peace with it.

These are the people Evan Marc Katz means when
he uses the terms "men" and "women."

So let's see - men work to get rich so they can have "an advantage" courting women. And when the money gives them an advantage courting women they "wouldn't otherwise get" they can make peace with it.

So a man can make peace (usually!) with a scenario that he spent countless hours trying to achieve.

Evan Marc Katz is a special kind of stupid.

And his claim about straight men of course begs the question, although Katz's none-too-bright followers are unlikely to think of it: if getting rich is about scoring quality pussy, why do any straight women or gay men work to get rich?

The only women who would listen to Evan Marc Katz are those who agree with him that women are whores who marry for money. No doubt because that's who they are, and they assume all women are like them. And Katz will certainly not tell them otherwise.

It makes me wonder who Katz is voting for in the upcoming presidential election. Hillary Clinton certainly didn't marry Bill for his money; she has worked all her life; and been nominated for president. How does such a woman fit into the Evan Marc Katz gender role paradigm? She doesn't. And neither does Elizabeth Warren.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, is very much an Evan Marc Katz kind of man. Sure Trump didn't actually work to get rich, he was born rich, but he obviously used his money to buy women he wouldn't otherwise be able to get, twice dumping the aging Mrs. Trump for a younger model.

Donald Trump is the kind of man that Evan Marc Katz is selling to his poor marks, but the joke is on them. Unless they are under 35, they are not considered worth purchasing by the kind of men who buy women.

I'd bet that most of Katz's audience are women over 35, and so he is encouraging them to believe in a system which has already rejected them. No matter how much Evan Marc Katz advises women to be passive, these gold-digger wannabes will never score the rich man of their dreams. 

What a grotesque snake-oil salesman is Evan Marc Katz. But at least he offers his customers some consolation for being such dummies: Why So Many Smart People Aren't Happy.

More on the horrifically regressive, logically dissonant commentary of Evan Marc Katz.

Wedding 2016

The traditional pre-wedding drag show

Big fun at Aqua Key West...

The bride and the bride

Me at the drag show

Aquanette Maya

Aquanette Inga

Aquanette Faith

Heading to Key West

This will be the fourth time I've gone to Florida, but the first time I've flown there. I've driven twice and took a train last October. I really hate to fly but it's only a three hour trip.

I will report more from the Sunshine State.

TRUMP IS A TRAITOR

From the NYTimes

I love you Sarah Silverman

All is forgiven!

Silverman, herself a fan of the Vermont senator, on Monday night brought the crowd at the Democratic National Convention to its feet with a rousing speech calling for party unity.

“To the Bernie-or-bust people, you’re being ridiculous,” Silverman said after heaping praise on both Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the party's presumptive nominee for president. 

“Not only did Bernie wake us up,” Silverman, 45, said, “he made us understand what is possible and what we deserve.

“I support Bernie Sanders and the movement behind him. And Bernie’s already succeeded in so many ways.”

Jock's father was Payne Whitney

I had actually heard of Payne Whitney long before I knew about Marilyn Monroe's connection to the Psychiatric Clinic named after him, thanks to this New Yorker cartoon, which I had already blogged about, almost six years ago - I commented on the inscrutability of the caption, and mentioned I looked up Payne Whitney and discovered he was a rich guy. Payne also has a mansion, a street and a gym named after him.

I still don't get the humor of this cartoon though - is it supposed to be funny because blue collar workers are talking about the lineage of a rich guy?

NJATPWPC

Well NORMA JEANE AT THE PAYNE WHITNEY PSYCHIATRIC CLINIC finally has its premiere performance dates in the Venus/Adonis Thespis Festival: January 3, 7 & 8. I've already started the web site and logo - I think I might need to bump up the lightness on the text though.

And speaking of Marilyn Monroe, my Monroe aficionado buddy April VeVea has just published her book Marilyn Monroe: A Day In The Life and gave me a shout-out in the introduction. Whoohoo!

Monroe trivia - I've been re-watching MAD MEN (since I have a Netflix account now) and in the third season they mention Monroe's last movie "The Misfits" - one of Sterling Cooper's clients is concerned that her dog food company has falling sales thanks to the movie pointing out that horses end up in dog food.

When worlds collide: Evan Marc Katz and Amber A'Lee Frost

Well it was inevitable - Evan Marc Katz, gender-traditionalist dating-industry huckster who likes to use men's rights activist lingo to categorize men (alpha and beta) admires leading Ladies Auxiliary brocialist feminist-hater Amber A'Lee Frost.

Katz and Frost are made for each other.

The piece that Katz links to by Frost demonstrates the deep hatred of feminists shared by Katz and the brocialists. Just as leading brocialist Hillary-hater Doug Henwood criticizes feminists much more harshly than he does the Koch brothers, Frost likes and admires Tucker Max and Neil Strauss far more than she does any feminists. Frost much prefers to harshly attack feminists, supported and encouraged by the brocialists at Jacobin and The Baffler. Frost previously defended misogynist men of the left - admiring men who are assholes and shitting on feminists is what Amber A'Lee Frost does. As a comparison - she's much less sympathetic to women talking about sexual assault in a public forum, calling it "industrialized confession" than she is towards industrial-grade assholes like Max and Strauss. No doubt Katz believes this indicates Frost would approve of him too, and he's probably right.

Speaking of the Koch brothers, Katz is a big admirer of their most prominent employee, Arthur C. Brooks.

All kinds of inter-connections among the feminist haters. But the main connection between Katz and Frost is that they both want women to defer to men. Katz explicitly tells women to be passive - in order that they may have relationships with traditionalist men (who are single in much greater quantities than more enlightened men, and so more likely to increase his match-up hit rate and further his career); while Frost, along with her contemptible brocialists-at-arms Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwoood want feminists to shut the fuck up about glass ceilings or careers or even the universality of rape(!) because the men have more important things to talk about.

Yes, dating hucksters and brocialists have much in common in their attitudes towards women.

Sophie Blackall and the Caldecott Travesty

Speaking of illustration, what's my arch-nemesis, the draftsmanship-challenged Sophie Blackall up to these days?

Turns out she won the Caldecott Award in 2016, which is the highest award for children's book illustration. The judges at the Caldecott Award must be blind. I'm so glad I didn't go into illustration as I originally planned in college, I'd be killing myself right about now.

She won it for a book called "Finding Winnie" which puts me in mind of Dorothy Parker's review of "The House at Pooh Corner" - Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.

But hopefully this win, as appalling as it is, will convince Blackall that her strength really does lie in illustrating children books and she will stick with that and not submit her "art" to publications where I might be likely to come upon it.

Like this. Ahhhhh!

Nice work, David Cowles

By way of Art.com I discovered this excellent caricature of Marilyn Monroe, probably the best I've seen. I'm thinking of ordering a poster version at art.com. Cowles is an illustrator and this is his web site.

Monroe seems to have been especially difficult to caricature - even Al Hirschfeld had a hard time capturing her, and he tried many times. In this illustration of "Some Like It Hot", the drawing of Jack Lemmon, disguised as a woman, looks more like him than Monroe looks like her.

Racist scum Milos Yiannopoulos plays the victim card

Notoriously racist, hateful right-wing scumbag Milos Yiannopoulos doesn't understand what "free speech" means. He apparently believes he has the right to violate Twitter's Terms of Service agreement and lead a mob of racist, sexist freaks to attack Leslie Jones for acting while black.

And because Twitter suspended his account, now he's the victim. Aw poor baby.

In a brief interview on Tuesday evening, Mr. Yiannopoulos said, “This is the beginning of the end for Twitter.”
“Some people are going to find this perfectly acceptable,” he said. “Anyone who believes in free speech or is a conservative certainly will not.”

He's a Trump supporter because of course he would be.

Monroe pix from the Getty archive

I still haven't figured out what's what, but they let you embed their photos and these are some I haven't seen.

I am going to get a poster print of this one, since Michael Chekhov makes an appearance in my Monroe play.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Even more Shakespeare in the park

Two good actors as Ferdinand and Miranda - no idea what their names are.

The park in question this time is the The Westside Community Garden just around the corner at 89th between Columbus and Amsterdam. The play is THE TEMPEST, and it turns out I'd seen Shakespeare in this park before, a few years ago when I came to see my actor buddy Doug perform in a production of TWELFTH NIGHT there. Probably produced by the same company as this time, The Stag & Lion Theatre company. I didn't get a program, but I figured I'd just look up their web site to find out who the actors were - the one playing Caliban was especially good. Well the joke's on me - they don't appear to have a web site. Or a Facebook page, or anything else on the Internet except for an expired Backstage casting call for the role of Prospero.

One thing I especially liked about this production was that they made an effort at period costume rather than go the lazy route of modern-dress. Although, as with the MIDSUMMER production I saw a few weeks ago,  in which I said they should cast Puck with a female actor to address the gender imbalance, they should have cast Ariel with a female actor. And TEMPEST is even worse than MIDSUMMER for gender imbalance, in fact it might be the worst in the entire canon - exactly one female character. I think it might be the only Shakespeare play that has only one female role.

Speaking of that production of MIDSUMMER I saw, I took a walk to see my old Upper East Side neighborhood (and to meet my Fitbit daily steps goal) and ended up in Carl Schurz Park, when what should I see but the very same New York Classical Theater production that I saw in Central Park. Although it appeared that they were confined to one area of Carl Schurz, which could only improve the show without all the hiking from one location to another. I got there at the very end, with the rude mechanical performance of Pyramus and Thisbe for the court, and since I didn't stick around until that scene in Central Park, I didn't recognize the production.

But I should have known immediately who I was dealing with when, the second I aimed my cell phone at the actors on "stage" one of their photo-phobic storm troopers swooped in and told me I couldn't take pictures in this taxpayer funded "venue" they'd decided to appropriate.

I got one anyway. But still. Fuck you New York Classical Theater and Actors' Equity for this antiquated, senseless no-photography rule applied to an outdoor public park. This is bullshit.

New York Classical Theater once again feeding at the public trough while forbidding photos.

Peter Thiel: worst person ever

I've been a Paypal user since its very earliest days, but I've recently discovered what a pack of rightwing assholes its founders are.

And especially Thiel:

Exhibit A:

Thiel, a self-avowed Ayn Rand fan who thinks that women’s suffrage has undermined the greatness of capitalist democracy and that freedom and democracy are incompatible, is a rather more familiar figure: a man with a distaste for the messy realities of the political present, over-enamored with his own intellect, and unaware of his own blind spots. If you’ve spent enough time on Twitter, or in the great comments sections of the internet, you know this type depressingly well. In truth the only thing really scary about Peter Thiel is that he has enough money to buy his own serious reception.

Exhibit B:

Thiel has been secretly financing lawsuits against Gawker Media for several years. He recently confirmed his involvement in Hulk Hogan's invasion of privacy suit against the company and said he is supporting other suits as well.

In Silicon Valley, where both liberals and libertarians have deep-seated fears about Donald Trump's candidacy, Thiel is something of a rarity: a billionaire tech entrepreneur who openly supports Trump.

Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, is an active venture capitalist. He is slated to be a California delegate for Trump at next week's convention.

In a recent interview with CNN, Trump said "I have great respect for Peter."

It's hard to figure out if Thiel has any ongoing association with Paypal, which is now owned by Ebay. If I find out there is still a connection I will find an alternative to Paypal. I don't want a single dime of my money going to misogynist, fascist-dictator-loving Peter Thiel.

Elizabeth Warren rejects Evan Marc Katz's advice - lives happily ever after

Dating advice huckster Evan Marc Katz likes to tell women to be passive. He also believes, like a Men's Rights Activist, that men are divided into alphas and betas.

Luckily for her, Elizabeth Warren never listened to Evan Marc Katz-style advice - and women have been told to be passive long before Evan Marc Katz decided to rebrand that piece of patriarchy-bolstering advice as his very own.

Elizabeth Warren:

I proposed to Bruce in a classroom. It was the first time I’d seen him teach, and I was already in love with him, but watching him teach let me see one more thing about him — and that was it. When class was over and the students had cleared out, he came up to me and asked, somewhat hesitantly, “Uh, what did you think?” 

“What can I say? Will you marry me?” 

He stared back at me. It was not the first (or last) time that I gob smacked him. If I was a hard-charging, go-to-the-mat-for-whatever-you-believe kind of professor, he was more of a scholarly, camping-out-in-the-archives-poring-over-an-old-legal-manuscript kind. I’m usually the one with the wild schemes, and he’s usually the voice of reason, calmly explaining why it isn’t a great idea to paint the ceiling dark purple or rip all those unknown vines out of the overgrown flower bed by hand (lesson learned: poison ivy).

But he blinked a couple of times, then jumped in with both feet. “OK.” 

To make sure the deal was sealed, I smiled and said, “Good. Let’s do it.” 

It made no sense at all. Bruce was teaching in Connecticut, and I was teaching in Houston. And besides, there was the small matter of the fact that I had a complicated life: two children, both of my parents and my Aunt Bee popping in and out all day, a red station wagon and a mean little dog that bit people. Bruce had lived with none of the above — children, seniors, station wagons or dogs — but he never hesitated.
We got married 36 years ago today. It made no sense at all, but maybe that’s how love works. All I know is that I’m sure glad I asked — and sure glad he said yes.

Happy anniversary, Sweetie! I love you.

I totally get Warren's feelings. There's something incredibly sexy about a man being articulate and sharing his knowledge in an open, accessible, non-snobbish way. That and a man who can do impressions and accents/dialects - both incredibly arousing.

No Jamelle Bouie, Robin DiAngelo is not helping

I was very disappointed to see that Jamelle Bouie cited Robin "intentions are irrelevant" DiAngelo in his latest piece about Donald Trump.

The first time I ever heard of Bouie was when he used my blog posts as a resource - because I had been documenting Razib Khan's racism for years -  to make a case against Khan when Khan was up for a steady writing gig with the NYTimes. I mention this fact in my anti-racist bona fides (bottom of this post and on the right-hand side of this blog.)

Thanks to social media, there are times when people are falsely smeared as racists - I have had that very thing happen to me. The thinking seems to be that because black people have been treated horribly on the basis of their ethnicity, it's now appropriate to turn the tables and treat white people badly on the basis of their ethnicity. You can casually smear a white person as racist, for any reason, if you feel like it because black people have suffered. And you will be considered a hero by many on the left, as Mikki Kendall was.

This is not justice. This is revenge.

It's one thing when social media zanies like Mikki Kendall promote revenge, but Robin DiAngelo has taken that revenge-based approach and codified it into a series of lectures and workshops given to established, respectable organizations. One of DiAngelo's techniques is to bow to the personal prejudices of some people in order to discriminate against others, on the basis of ethnicity. Now it certainly wasn't the intention of the woman who cried to distress a POC - she was expressing sadness for what happened to a POC - but since Robin DiAngelo's belief is that intentions are irrelevant that means that bigotry against a white person is perfectly acceptable, even if what they are doing is expressing sympathy for a POC.

This is why Robin DiAngelo is so incredibly pernicious, because she packages garden-variety bigotry as social justice.

I completely agree with Bouie's article about Donald Trump and racism. And Bouie does not lump all white people together. As he notes in his piece:

For its American Values Survey, the Public Religion Research Institute asks respondents whether “discrimination against whites is a significant problem.” In last year’s survey, 43 percent of Americans—including 60 percent of working-class whites—said discrimination against whites had become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.

But as far as an identitarian like DiAngelo is concerned, "43 percent of Americans" saying discrimination against whites had become a bigger problem is meaningless - because as far as DiAngelo is concerned, 100% of white Americans are racist. She says exactly that - that your beliefs and actions, as an individual, ethical-decision-making human being are irrelevant.

if we are well-intended and do not consciously dislike people of color, we cannot be racist. This is why it is so common for white people to cite their friends and family members as evidence of their lack of racism. However, when you understand racism as a system of structured relations into which we are all socialized, you understand that intentions are irrelevant.

So because we are all socialized in the system, we are all the same. DiAngelo does not allow for individual human beings becoming aware of, and consciously rejecting the existing race-based system of structured relations - at least without paying Robin DiAngelo to run a workshop.

All white people are equally racist to DiAngelo because all white people are equally white.

This absolutely does not help the race problem in the United States. I resent very much being lumped in with a member of the Ku Klux Klan because Robin DiAngelo has decreed that my individual beliefs and actions mean nothing - only my ethnicity matters.

Just like people of color, white people resent being lumped together with others in a negative way on the basis of some physical trait. So naturally Robin DiAngelo is only going to fuel white resentment in her wrong-headed approach to social justice.

Robin DiAnglo is not helping.

More of my thoughts on Robin DiAngelo.

My Anti-Racist Bona Fides
Because the reflex response of all Social Justice Warriors/Identitarians like Robin DiAngelo is to smear their critics as racist, here is my statement on racism:

Although I was smeared on Tumblr by infamous bully Mikki Kendall and identitarian extremist K. Tempest Bradford (and thanks to the cozy relationship between Tumblr and Google, the smears show up in Google search results on my name), in fact I have a long history of opposing racism, and the evidence for the past 10 years is on this blog. Unhinged extremists like Kendall and Bradford don't care to know anything about the strangers they randomly smear. That's why they and the people who promote them like Verso books are horrible and don't help solve the problem of racism in the United States.

• I helped prevent racist Razib Khan from getting a gig writing for the NYTime - thanks to documenting his racism for 10 years. 
• I stood up to a woman at work who had a pattern of saying racist things.
• I'd like to see Juneteenth become a national holiday.
• I demonstrated that David Mamet's play RACE is most likely based on Mamet's racial hatred of Michelle Obama.
• I believe African Americans built the US.

Preach, David McCullough!

From the NYTimes:

Mr. McCullough, raised in a Republican home and now aligned with no party, said the prospect of a Trump presidency so distressed him that he felt he could not remain publicly detached. “When you think of how far we have come, and at what cost, and with what faith, to just turn it all over to this monstrous clown with a monstrous ego, with no experience, never served his country in any way — it’s just crazy,” he said. “We can’t stand by and let it happen. The Republican Party shouldn’t stand by and let it happen.” 

“I should say, I’m a registered independent,” he added. “I’m strongly in favor of a number of Republicans both past and in our own time. It’s not as though I’m doing this from lifelong ideology against Republicans. By no means.” 

Mr. McCullough said he contacted Mr. Burns after seeing him tell this year’s graduating class at Stanford University that despite 40 years of avoiding advocacy in his work, he no longer had “the luxury of neutrality or ‘balance’ or even of bemused disdain.” After a few conversations, Mr. McCullough said, the two men came up with a plan: “Why don’t we see if we can round up some other people who care about the American story, and who have given so much of their life’s work to it, see if they are willing to step out and make themselves heard.”

Ladies who lunch

In the Arthur Ross Pinetum. Me and my actor/writer pal Starra.

Spotlight

I finally got around to seeing the movie Spotlight and thought it was very good. But frankly I'm surprised it wasn't more controversial. I thought it made very clear that the Catholic Church is a criminal enterprise, the way it freely enabled pedophiles to keep attacking children.

Unfortunately there are too many people who have made a deal with the Catholic Church to give them eternal life in exchange for a few prayers and weekly Mass attendance, and if it turns out that you have to sacrifice some children in order to keep the deal going, well, that's what you have to do. Eternal life is a pretty big fucking deal.

On the other hand, you don't need to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church in order to hang onto Magic Jesus - plenty of people have considered themselves non-Catholic Christians, entitled to make deals for eternal life since 1517.

There's no excuse to remain a member of a criminal organization that uses its wealth and power to try to destroy women's bodily autonomy. None.

The Pink Hulk in Paradise

HULK LIKE DRINKS

Paradise Factory that is - my friend Valerie David performed her last show of her PINK HULK run Friday night and I was there.

The show now includes something I hadn't heard before in previous readings - when URINE TOWN was being developed, Valerie was in the cast, but she had to drop out thanks to cancer (the first time - her two bouts of cancer which she successfully beat is the topic of her show) but...

VALERIE

I was afraid I would never be able to sing any of the songs in URINE TOWN onstage.
(the look on her face tells us "until now." She sings lines from the opening number from URINETOWN.)

Valerie has a very good voice and she really belts the song. It was one of the highlights of the show. And she had gotten permission from the authors first, of course.

The photo above was taken at the bar we went to after the show.

Wine on 20

Well the Upper West Side really does have everything I could possibly want. I happened to be walking on 84th Street, the next block over, when what should I see but a French wine bar - the fourth in a chain apparently, called Vin Sur Vingt.

Oh lah lah! I still haven't figured out why it's called Wine Twenty, none of its four locations are on 20th Street. They seem taken by the fact that vin and vingt are homophones in French.

And look at their wine selection. Tres bien.

On the week I moved in, The West Side Rag reported they were coming, although based on their Twitter account it seems like they only just opened in June.

When I was a kid, I liked to think of myself as a tomboy since, from my earliest days, I could see that boys got a better deal than girls. But as an adult, and in spite of the fact that my daughter and lesbian friends consider me to be kind of "butch" (like Diane Keaton) my tastes definitely run, if not towards the more girly, then the more fancy.

Suck it Ayn Rand LOL

My daughter, who has a good sense of what shows I'm going to like (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Orphan Black) recommended "Frankie and Grace." I had heard of it, and knew it starred Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, so I was definitely already intrigued. Well it was available on Netflix, which I caved in and subscribed to, so I tried it out. I definitely like it. It's more complex than I had expected. And by the seventh episode I really liked it because Lily Tomlin's Frankie, who is kind of a hippie, decided to start a Twitter account.

The dialog:

          Mike 

      (tech support guy)
Are you sure to send your first tweet? 

          Frankie
I sure am Mike.

           Mike
And you're sure you want to make it that profane?


          Frankie
Abso-fucking-lutely.


          Mike
OK bring the cursor up to the blue button and three, two, one click it.


          Frankie
Did you get it?

           Mike
Yeah. The whole world did. You're part of social media now baby.

          Frankie
You're the best.

           Mike

No you are @suckitaynrand

How can I not love that? I really like the Frankie character more than Grace, but  I have to say, Jane Fonda especially looks amazing.

Fireworks

This year I saw Fourth of July fireworks on the roof of an apartment on Park Avenue which belonged to a friend of a friend. I'm not that big a fan of fireworks but I wanted to hang out with my friend. But her friend, the one who owned the apartment is a horrible person who declaws her cats and is completely unapologetic about it. I ended a friendship of five years standing when I discovered my friend declawed her cat. And I'd do it again. I think it's horrible and cruel to do that to an animal. I'd rather have scratched up furniture than declaw my cat.

But I got some cool pix at least.

The happy face fireworks are pretty trippy...

I admit I upped the color intensity in a photo editing app

ESB obvs

Scammer time Part 3

davigoldd was apparently not at all offended when I offered to send money in Reichsmarks. And he made sure to tell me the internet has dangers. What a consummate gentleman!

Scammer time part 2

I really got davigoldd's attention when I said I would send him money. He immediately came up with ways to convey the money to him. Although davigoldd is probably a woman, since "my daughter" would be calling me should I be insane enough to give a random stranger my phone number.

There was a long pause after I asked him/her to speak German to me. Looking up Guten Morgen, no doubt. And then the considerate confirmation that this was indeed German.

Scammer time Part 1

Every now and then I just get the urge to mess with scammers on social media. They're usually incredibly stupid (or at least so unfamiliar with English and/or American idioms) that it takes a lot for them to get a clue. I think I finally wore old davigoldd down with my nonsense.