Awesome

I wrote a play that was kind of like this a few years ago..

I just love Rachel Maddow...

another dream destroyed

I never followed professional sports until I dated my ex-boyfriend, who was a big Yankees fan. So I actually got to know who was on the team, etc. for the 1998 - 2005 seasons. Not that I really cared much - except when that incredibly sexy Derek Jeter came up to bat, or made a play in the outfield. Like any heterosexual female, I fantasized about Derek Jeter, never thinking that I would ever actually be in his presence, like, in "real life."

So I'm in my local Starbucks today and I turn around and whose eyes should I find myself gazing into, but Derek Jeter's. I might have said something except - my mouth was full of a big piece of chocolate biscotti!

*sigh* Not at all like I imagined it...

Damn I could look at images of Derek Jeter all day though.

Julie roundup

Roundup of reviews for the just-opened AFTER MISS JULIE - am I the only person who finds the ending of the original (and this remake) to be ridiculous?

prancing pony

The Prancing Pony, as we all know, is where Aragorn liked to get his drink on.

His blue eyes sparkle and he prances like a pony and makes silly jests and talks and talks (not Aragorn)

Ode on a Grecian Urn and William Faulkner's momma

William Faulkner said:

The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much that he can't get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is worth any number of old ladies.

I think it's no accident that the writer is a he and those he'd sacrifice are females. I mentioned this statement in my essay The Asshole License, written a few years ago.

I was gratified when recently I found that my essay was being linked-to by many people during the time of the Polanski arrest because of the connection between that and the response of the French and Hollywood to the arrest - outrage that a Great Man of the Arts should be treated like any common child-rapist. I wasn't aware of Polanski's crime when I wrote that essay but I certainly would have mentioned it if I was.

I recently discovered this excellent essay about the Polanski issue that expresses my sentiments perfectly in regards to Faulkner's statement:

Being a great artist (or having the personal history that Polanski has suffered through--from Holocaust Poland to the Manson Family murder of this wife and unborn child) should not exempt from justice.

Plenty has come to light about the judge in the case and possible prosecution misconduct. Polanski couldn't face a better time to make his case.

Of course, his timing is gruesomely horrible--think of any number of ironic twists in his movies--he gets nabbed just as the country is awash with the Mackenzie Phillips incest story. But Polanski does seem to have more apologists around than Papa John.

D. H. Lawrence once said, "we shed our sicknesses in books."

I'm not so sure. I think very little gets shed writing songs or making movies. The figures on the urn are finally just figures on the urn.

It's what we do with the old ladies, or young girls, I think, that ultimately matters.

Furthermore, I doubt John Keats would have sacrificed his mother - who never got to be an old lady but died fairly young of tuberculosis (which also killed Keats at age 25) for his poem.

Presumably Faulkner felt differently about his own mother. Here's the poem he would trade her and others for:

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thou express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunt about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal - yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

more Keats here

heehee

This cartoon in the latest New Yorker made me laugh aloud on the subway today.

author blurb

I look sooo cheerful...



---

good women done good

I finally had a reading of my play THE GOOD WOMEN OF MORNINGSIDE at NYCPlaywrights - I was afraid that since I wrote it out of a personal experience it wouldn't work well as a play itself - but it did - it went very well. Of course I lucked into getting a couple of really good actors who are very good at cold readings to play the mean girls so I don't take all the credit, but I'm really quite pleased. I was going to do it as part of the Playlab, but that didn't work out. But I think I'll do it for the NYCP fundraiser. The actors playing the mean girls also seemed to have quite a bit of fun being mean.

Like Courtney in my play, I really don't get mean girls. Why would somebody try to hurt someone they don't even know? My assumption is that there is something deeply nasty and resentful in the core of their being that comes out when they think they can hurt somebody and get away with it. It's also a kind of a bonding ritual. And then there's the issue of hierarchy. This essay on mean girls I think gets at something here:

Alliances, many of them temporary and fleeting, are a critical element of the Alphas’ strategy. When it suits them, Alphas will befriend a girl with whom they would not ordinarily be associated with the sole intent -- not always apparent to the newly befriended girl -- of inflicting revenge and retribution on their latest victim. Although Alphas can be mean and cruel, they aren’t physical; catfights aren’t their thing. Rather than engaging in physical altercations, they rely on words, insults, rumor, gossip, innuendo, and manipulation. And the Alphas use others who are not members of the clique, including girls aspiring to this lofty status, and boys, naturally the most popular boys whenever possible, in their campaigns to ruin the reputations of others they find threatening or morally, intellectually, socially, or physically superior.

The Debbie-Lisa and Lisa-Jean characters in my play are based on women who fall into that category - of girls used by the Alpha girls to accomplish their ends. I didn't bother to put the Alpha Girl at the heart of the gang into this play - I already gave her a play of her own, a year before this GOOD WOMEN play. I knew the Alpha girl was seriously screwed up, but I didn't realize she had organized a whole gang of strangers to attack me until recently - which is why it took me this long to write a play about them.

The moral of the story - if you fuck with me, I will write a play about you. Cause I'm all badass like that.

Bruce Barton explains cold reading...

dreamy dreams

The Darlington Curse or The Curse of Darlington??? Apparently the Town of Grimsby has been getting its ass kicked by Darlington for 31 years now.

ooh that sexy Keats and his dreams...

And look - Ben Whishaw, who played Keats, has the same birthday as Katha Pollitt.

Tea time

eventually in any English story, there will be tea...

Happy birthday!

to Katha Pollitt - one of my favorite writers.

One of my favorite essays by her:

"STICK to straight liquor," my father advised me when I left for college, in the fall of 1967. "That way, you'll always know how drunk you are." I thought he was telling me that real grownups don't drink brandy Alexanders, but, of course, what he was talking about was sex. College boys could get totally plastered, and the worse that would happen to them would be hangovers and missed morning classes. But if I didn't carefully monitor my alcohol intake one of those boys might, as they used to say, take advantage of me. Or, as they say now, date-rape me.

Veiled parental warning like the one my father gave me- don't go alone to a boy's room, always carry "mad money" on a date, just in case - have gone the way of single-sex dorms, parietal hours, female-only curfews, and the three-feet-on-the-floor rule, swept away like so much Victorian bric-a-brac by the sexual revolution, the student movement, and the women's movement. The kids won; the duennas and fussbudgets lost.

Or did they? In "The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus" (Little, Brown; $19.95) Katie Roiphe, a twenty-five-year-old Harvard alumna and graduate student of English at Princeton, argues that women's sexual freedom is being curtailed by a new set of hand-wringing fuddy-duddies: feminists. Anti-rape activists, she contends, have manipulated statistics to frighten college women with a nonexistent "epidemic"
of rape, date rape, and sexual harassment, and have encouraged them to view "everyday experience"- sexist jokes, professional leers, men's straying hands and other body parts- as intolerable insults and assaults. "Stranger rape" (the intruder with a knife)
is rare; true date rape (the frat boy with a fist) is even rarer. As Roiphe sees it, most students who say they have been date raped are reinterpreting in the cold grey light of dawn the "bad sex" they were too passive to refuse and too enamored of victimhood to acknowledge as their own responsibility. Camille Paglia, move
over.

more

Me, Claudius

This is the best episode of Monsterpiece Theater. Sesame Street's greatest period was the early 1980s when my daughter was a toddler - and before computer graphics ruined it.

Although the 70s certainly had some classic moments - on the SUBWAY!

Christmas Blessing

Isn't that nice - Jonathan Wallace asked me to contribute a play to the 10-minute Playlab he's running because he likes my work. And I'm happy to say I like his work too - and I say that about so few playwrights this side of Shakespeare and Tony Kushner. I became acquainted with his work last year when I selected one of his plays for my 10-min. Playfest.

And actually, I think my play CHRISTMAS BLESSING is somewhat Wallace-esque.

And it's a small world after all - Jonathan knows some of the same actors and directors that I know - I wonder if he knows how much some of them like to write poetry.

Keats the hotty

The drawing of John Keats, above, portrays a very attractive man - much more attractive than in any of the paintings of Keats I have seen.

one of his poems...

ASLEEP! O sleep a little while, white pearl!
And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee,
And let me call Heaven’s blessing on thine eyes,
And let me breathe into the happy air,
That doth enfold and touch thee all about,
Vows of my slavery, my giving up,
My sudden adoration, my great love!

More Poetical Works of John Keats

Happy Birthday, John Lennon

good morning

Time for a story - here's hoping you had a better night than Oliver Acton.

The best plaza ever

I say in my link list to the right that Engrish.com never fails to amuse - so true - I always laugh out loud after looking at this site for more than 4 seconds.

Love letter from John Keats to Fanny Brawne

My sweet girl,
Your Letter gave me more delight, than any thing in the world but yourself could do; indeed I am almost astonished that any absent one should have that luxurious power over my senses which I feel. Even when I am not thinking of you I receive your influence and a tenderer nature steeling upon me. All my thoughts, my unhappiest days and nights have I find not at all cured me of my love of Beauty, but made it so intense that I am miserable that you are not with me: or rather breathe in that dull sort of patience that cannot be called Life. I never knew before, what such a love as you have made me feel, was; I did not believe in it; my Fancy was affraid of it, lest it should burn me up. But if you will fully love me, though there may be some fire, 'twill not be more than we can bear when moistened and bedewed with Pleasures.

more

gotta go to work, work all day, search for underpants hey

Excellent post at Eschaton:

Looting For Profit

Buy companies, leverage them, pay yourself a dividend, and then go bankrupt.

I think we've finally found the secret phase 2 of the underpants gnomes.


Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: Use underpants as collateral for multibillion dollar loan.
Phase 3: Profit

Although admittedly, I like anything that references the Underpants Gnomes:



Here the Underpants Gnomes explain their business model.

I laugh hysterically every time.

Emmaline Grangerford

I'm preparing my play HUCK FINN for publication and I've been thinking about all the things that I had to leave out of my adaptation of Twain's novel. I didn't mind leaving the Tom Sawyer bits out, except for the argument between Tom and Huck on the subject of genies, but I'm really sorry I couldn't get the poetry of Emmaline Grangerford in. Emmaline was the morbid daughter of the Grangerfords, a family who was feuding with the Shepherdsons. The feud section of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" ends tragically but the Emmaline part is really funny.

I added my own original bits too, when I felt it was absolutely necessary - I hate it when people mess with a classic for no good reason - and was suprised, if gratified to discover that some of my bits got as many laughs as Twain's funny bits, like this one:

---

BOB: You reckon they’ll catch that runaway slave that killed that boy, what’s his name?

JOE: Whose name? The slave?

BOB: The boy. Crazy old Finn’s boy.

JOE: I don’t remember. Except it was a strange kind of name. It was some kind of fruit.

BOB: Some kind of fruit? Who would name a child after some kind of fruit?

JOE: I’m pretty sure it was some kind of fruit. Like “Crabapple.” Yeah, that sounds right. Crabapple Finn. His pappy’s a terrible drunk – maybe he was drunk when he named him. And now that old drunk’s gonna get all Crabapple’s money. Some people have all the luck.

---

While I was preparing to adapt the novel I recorded myself reading the entire novel (I was unemployed at the time.) here is my recording of the Emmaline section below:

Bright Star - a review

I finally got to see the movie "Bright Star" tonight. Go see it if you need a really good cry. And the acting is absolutely amazing!

This Rolling Stone review says it well:

And Cornish is glorious, making Fanny a force of womanhood able to take on Brown (Schneider is a sharply witty irritant) when he tries to break the connection between her and her beloved. Cornish catches the fertile mind that Fanny poignantly tries to nurture, knowing she'll grow closer to Keats by deciphering the words that possess him. A literate, lyrical love story in the age of Hollywood crass. I must be dreaming.

complete Rolling Stone review

And of course there was the glorious Regency period clothing which makes even unattractive men unbearably enticing. Ben Wishaw is not beautiful, strictly speaking, but in that long shaggy hair and high collars and neck wraps and jackets and tight trousers, you just want to ravish him. Oh lah lah. I must write another play set in the Regency period soon, just so I can get my actors into those amazing outfits.

Watch an excellent clip of the movie here

Oh yes, and the pussycat is very cute - but then, what pussycat is not?

John Keats's theory of negative capability:

in his letter to George and Thomas Keats dated Sunday, 28 December 1817.[1]

"I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason."

well we all shine on

As I once said to somebody: "good luck hanging out with the Snake Society - make sure you always have plenty of anti-venom with you."

Unfortunately, within a year and a half there was a coup d'etat. First the General Manager and then the Artistic Director were pushed out. That was about 8 months ago.

Anybody talking about nests o' vipers 8 months ago was so silly.

Karma isn't always instant - but sooner or later it's gonna get you.

back to fantasy

All this excitement has almost made me forget my story.

absolutely repulsed and disgusted by the following Polanski apologists

You expect a scumbag like Woody Allen to defend Roman Polanski - an admitted child-rapist makes Woody Allen look restrained by comparison. But here are people whose support for a child rapist I find shocking:

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation twittered:

# I am a feminist, declared and proud, but also hate prosecutorial misconduct. How to reconcile? Don't call me apologist for Polanski.8:38 PM Sep 28th from web

# Polanski should have served time then, but there's evidence of prosecutorial misconduct & victim has spoken. I will read Kate Harding's pc.8:34 PM Sep 28th from web

# Watch "Roman Polanski: Wanted And Desired"--doc made last year. Detailed claims of prosecutorial wrongdoing at time of RP's original arrest.5:19 PM Sep 28th from web

# Rarely agree with Applebaum: http://bit.ly/wz0mw5:15 PM Sep 28th from web

# Very Rarely agree with Anne Applebaum, but do in Polanski case. http://bit.ly/16oYkD5:07 PM Sep 28th from web

Here's what Anne Applebaum had to say about Polanski:

He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers' fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar. He cannot visit Hollywood to direct or cast a film.

Since WHEN is the punishment for child-rape "professional stigma" - of which it seems to me he has experienced precious little, when you look at the list of all the douchebag directors who support him.

Whoopie Goldberg:

Hollywood has rallied behind Roman Polanski after his arrest in Switzerland over the weekend, with the actor Whoopi Goldberg suggesting that whatever he was guilty of it wasn't "rape-rape".

source

Debra Winger:

Debra Winger, who serves as president of the Zurich fest's jury, on Monday demanded Polanski's release and criticized Swiss authorities for their "philistine collusion" in arresting Polanski as he entered the country.

"This fledgling festival has been unfairly exploited, and whenever this happens the whole art world suffers," Winger said in a statement on Monday, standing together with the other four international jury members who wore red badges reading "Free Polanski" as they announced plans to continue the fest.

more


The excellent article Polanski Arrest Causes Mass Dementia Among Apologists where I learned about Vanden Heuvel:

Prosecutorial misconduct: It's uhm...bad, mmm'kay? It's especially bad when it happens to anonymous defendants who slip through the criminal justice system, who cannot afford to mount the best appeals, and whose fates go largely unnoticed by the media. It should be fought. But Polanski had all sorts of resources at his disposal to fight it: he had wealth, he had friends, he had access to fine legal representation... why, I am reliably informed by Katrina vanden Heuvel that they even made a movie about the prosecutorial misconduct in his case. Polanski had the opportunity to expose prosecutorial misconduct -- and who knows whether that misconduct didn't extend to other defendants? But he didn't fight it. Instead, he fled, taking that fight with him.

Why did he do that? I'm guessing it's because he drugged and raped a thirteen year old girl.

But don't call vanden Heuvel a "Polanski apologist." He's just totally helping to raise awareness of rampant prosecutorial misconduct! Forget it, Jake, it's crazy town!

Very important article in this week's New Yorker by John Cassidy

About finance reform...

"Our system failed in basic fundamental ways," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledged earlier this year. "To address this will require comprehensive reform. Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game."

Despite this radical statement of intent, serious doubts remain over whether the Obama Administration’s proposed regulatory overhaul goes far enough in dealing with the problem of rational irrationality. Much of what the Administration has proposed is welcome. It would force issuers of mortgage securities to keep some of the bonds on their own books, and it would impose new capital requirements on any financial firm "whose combination of size, leverage, and interconnectedness could pose a threat to financial stability if it failed." None of these terms have been defined explicitly, however, and it isn’t clear what the new rules will mean for big hedge funds, private-equity firms, and the finance arms of industrial companies. If there is any wiggle room, excessive risk-taking and other damaging behavior will simply migrate to the unregulated sector.

A proposed central clearinghouse for derivatives transactions is another good idea that perhaps doesn’t go far enough. The clearinghouse plan applies only to "standardized" derivatives. Firms like JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley would still be allowed to trade “customized” derivatives with limited public disclosure and no central clearing mechanism. Given the creativity of the Wall Street financial engineers, it wouldn’t take them long to exploit this loophole.

The Administration has also proposed setting up a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, to guard individuals against predatory behavior on the part of banks and other financial firms, but its remit won't extend to vetting complex securities—like those notorious collateralized debt obligations—that Wall Street firms trade among themselves. Limiting the development of those securities would stifle innovation, the financial industry contends. But that's precisely the point. "The goal is not to have the most advanced financial system, but a financial system that is reasonably advanced but robust," Viral V. Acharya and Matthew Richardson, two economists at N.Y.U.'s Stern School of Business, wrote in a recent paper. “That’s no different from what we seek in other areas of human activity. We don’t use the most advanced aircraft to move millions of people around the world. We use reasonably advanced aircrafts whose designs have proved to be reliable."

more...

Self-esteem

The most perfect songs written (incomplete list)

Bob Marley: Buffalo Solidier



Martha and the Vandellas (Holland Dozier Holland): Heatwave



Dave Brubeck: Take Five



Beatles: And Your Bird Can Sing



John Lennon: Oh Yoko



Pretenders: Mystery Achievement



Bruce Springsteen: Kitty's Back



Dar Williams: As Cool as I Am



Steely Dan: My Old School



Stevie Wonder: If You Really Love Me



The Kinks: Waterloo Sunset



Bow Wow Wow: I Want Candy



Patti Smith: Free Money



Fleetwood Mac: Tusk




Video embeds unavailable for Joni Mitchell: Conversation, Aimee Mann: That's Just What You Are, Joan Osborne: Lumina

back from poetry boot camp

That Emily Dickinson can really wear you out!

Poetry clubhouse

I never thought of Bill Murray as a poetry kind of guy, so I was amazed to see this:

“Poets need a refuge — they need a hideout, a clubhouse,” said the actor Bill Murray, who gave the lead gift to create a catalog for Poetry House and participates in its annual Poetry Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. (Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” is among the poems read aloud.)

Some people may never recognize the literary treasure trove in their midst, Mr. Murray added, just as most people walk by St. Patrick’s Cathedral “or use it as a place to light a cigarette or make a phone call.”

But those who find themselves in the vicinity of Poets House will “be right next to this sort of human church,” he added. “There’s a possibility. That’s all you can do is create a possibility.”

And conveniently this new poetry center is on my commute route.

And speaking of poetry - I'm off to Emilypalooza!

Emily Dickinson Marathon baby - tomorrow

info in the Amherst Bulletin

It took Amherst poet Emily Dickinson a lifetime to write her 1,789 published poems. It will take Dickinson enthusiasts just a few hours to read them Saturday - one by one - during the 5th Annual Emily Dickinson Poetry Marathon at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst.

The reading that will begin at 7 a.m. and continue into the night, with a few breaks, is a fun and social way to bask in the essence of Dickinson's poems, says Jane Wald, executive director of the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, where the readings will take place.

Hello? The reading is 7am to 10pm - that's more than "a few" hours!

Apparently there's a copy-cat marathon outside of Amherst

Time for my sonnet about Emily Dickinson and web statistics again. Although Dickinson didn't write sonnets, I did a kind of echo her style a bit with this piece.

Are you thinking of me on this spring morn,
In Emily's neck of the woods? By trees
And meadows that she loved, where she was born,
Where she spent much time thinking about bees,
Apparently, and eccentricity
While decked out in white. But why are you there
Again? I ponder the felicity
Of technology, I marvel you care
What I have to say, almost every day,
When you won't hear it from my living lips,
When you know that I long to hear you say
Anything. So reflect when on your trips:
Communication takes more than just me,
Such work needs two, in close proximity.

---

Speaking of poetry - is anybody but me annoyed by the New Yorker style of poetry? It's probably not JUST the New Yorker, but that's where I really noticed - apparently the thing to do now is to write a poem that is virtually indistinguishable from a short essay - or a long twitter-tweet - as long as your lines are cut off, seemingly at random. Here's the beginning of a piece, "Fathers and Sons" by David Mason that demonstrates perfectly:

Some things, they say,
one should not write about. I tried
to help my father comprehend
the toilet, how one needs
to undo one’s belt, to slide
one’s trousers down and sit,
but he stubbornly stood
and would not bend his knees.
I tried again
to bend him toward the seat,

OK, first things first though - dude, WHO says "some things... one should not write about"? Certainly not the New York Times, which has a blog The New Old Age devoted to stories of people dealing with their senile parents. Do you really think this poem is subversive somehow?

But enough of the content - onto the style. Let's reformat it:

Some things, they say, one should not write about. I tried to help my father comprehend the toilet, how one needs to undo one’s belt, to slide one’s trousers down and sit, but he stubbornly stood and would not bend his knees. I tried again to bend him toward the seat

Except for the opening self-declaration of what a big iconoclast the poet is, this would not be out of place at all in any blog posting in "The New Old Age"

Katha Pollitt, whose politics and essays I love, does the same thing in her What I Understood - here is the first seven lines :

When I was a child I understood everything
about, for example, futility. Standing for hours
on the hot asphalt outfield, trudging for balls
I'd ask myself, how many times will I have to perform
this pointless task, and all the others? I knew
about snobbery, too, and cruelty—for children
are snobbish and cruel—and loneliness: in restaurants

I just don't see the point in saying it's poetry when it could just as easily be an essay. You might as well have someone get up and recite a poem and call it a short play.

NYCP shout-out

Former NYCPlaywrights member Mark Rose gives us a shout-out.

Freemasonry & Dan Brown

Well the Masons don't seem nearly as annoyed at Dan Brown's book about their group as the Catholic Church was about "The DaVinci Code" - nevertheless, the National Geographic felt the need to debunk Masonic myths in its latest issue.

The most fun thing about Masonry, from what I know, is the role it played in "Die Zauberflote." I was first introduced to that opera through "Amadeus" one of my favorite movies. Speaking of which - it's a good excuse to show a bit from that movie - and this exerpt includes my Facebook friend Christine Ebersole.

Although I always found it odd that they disparage Mozart's appearance in this movie: "looks and talent don't always go together" - I think Tom Hulce is extremely cute here - especially in those cute little jackets they wore back then.



And everybody loves the Papageno/Papagena duet! Birds of a feather...




And speaking of roughly that time period...

hurray for Krugman

He came out in favor of a federal jobs program at the Spitzer lecture last night.

Then he gave a shout-out to Elliot Spitzer, who was in the audience.

This isn't as good as being there but here's some Krugman fun:

Harshing on Alan Greenspan:



on debt



debunking the "Chinese curse"! Among other things - this clip is one hour long!



How did I miss this for the past few days? Atlantic Mag Names Paul Krugman Most Influential Commentator - he's sure influential with ME!

Autumn equinox

Today is the first day of autumn, the most soulful and yet the most sensual season. And it's Krugman day. And on top of that, this Saturday is the Emily Dickinson reading marathon in Amherst and I'm on the reading team. Wow, too much excitement.

Plus the playwriting and fiction writing.

It's the Heavens to Mergatroyd sing-along!

That lion is such a ham!

tomorrow is Krugman Day

whoohoo

It’s not just that taking a populist stance on bankers’ pay is good politics — although it is: the administration has suffered more than it seems to realize from the perception that it’s giving taxpayers’ hard-earned money away to Wall Street, and it should welcome the chance to portray the G.O.P. as the party of obscene bonuses.

Equally important, in this case populism is good economics. Indeed, you can make the case that reforming bankers’ compensation is the single best thing we can do to prevent another financial crisis a few years down the road.

It’s time for the president to realize that sometimes populism, especially populism that makes bankers angry, is exactly what the economy needs.

More at the NYTimes

Watch out for Nurse Badass Nick!

Nick Fondulis is not a doctor - but he plays one on TV. It seems like just yesterday he was Huck Finn and STRESSed IN THE CITY - now he's dodging Nurse Badass and her deadly Nose Pincer Move. Watch below - Nick says "I feel terrible, what do you want?"

bright star, big city

Ooh, the NYTimes really likes "Bright Star".

I have no qualms whatsoever about watching a movie solely for the fun of seeing guys in Regency period costumes (see "Becoming Jane"), but this is a bonus: "That Fanny and Keats must sublimate their longings in letters, poems and conversations seems cruel, but they make the best of it. As does Ms. Campion: a sequence in which, fully clothed, the couple trades stanzas of “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” in a half-darkened bedroom must surely count as one of the hottest sex scenes in recent cinema."

And boy if anybody knows about sublimation, it's me. Speaking of which...

Only 5 more days until Krugman Day!

I'm going to see Krugman at the 92nd St. Y on September 22 - Krugman Day is almost here!

Krugman is my birthday twin! (Month-date, not year!)

This guy loves the Mighty Krug-Man even more than me! Although it looks like his web site needs a little updating. But not as much as Krugman's old web site which he apparently hasn't updated since 2000.

Ooh! Krugman & Rachel Maddow - two great tastes that taste great together!

hot young poet in Regency period clothing - oh yes

NYCPlaywrights starts up again

My new NYCPlaywrights resolutions:

1. I will make sure all playwrights understand what the deal is with feedback when they join

2. No matter how much I hate a play, I will remain calm and unemotional

3. This doesn't mean I will give dishonest feedback

4. I will work harder to get good actors showing up on a regular basis - especially attractive younger male actors

5. Find out what the deal is with all the Jesus plays

6. Find out what the deal is with all the plays about prostitutes

Love & lucid dreaming

A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware that he or she is dreaming. I find this a very interesting phenomenon. I've never been able to pull one off for more that an instant before waking up, but there are supposedly techniques you can use to prolong your dream while you are aware you are dreaming. But what if you are in a lucid dream and you feel like you will never wake up - what if you are trapped in a lucid dream?

A lucid dream is the best metaphor I can think of for what I've experienced over the past couple of years. I fell in love with someone with whom I intuited would probably not return my feelings, in spite of getting along well and having many things in common and having a happy facility for creating beauty together. This last part especially caused me to develop a feeling - a beautiful dream - of what it would be like to have a romantic relationship with the man. And the dream is so beautiful that even when I was ex-communicated by the one I loved - I can't seem to fully wake up from the dream. I know it's a dream - and yet I keep dreaming. I do occasionally get glimmers of hope for the attainment of full consciousness - sometimes I hear the alarm clock in the distance, sometimes I feel my cat hitting me in the face, sometimes I can smell the coffee, but I just can't quite attain full consciousness.

And while the struggle continues I pour the dream into art - poetry, fiction, plays, even music. Because I find it diverting and therapuetic, but also because it would be good if something besides anguish could come from this freakish grey netherworld. And perhaps I may even one day realize with my full emotions as well as my brain, that in fact it did turn out for the best - the art I derived from the experience was far more worthwhile, much more real, than any sure-to-be-fleeting happiness I might have had from an actual relationship with such a person. And so the process continues.

Great time with Woodstein and Redford Saturday night

First we watched "All the President's Men"

Then we hung out with Robert Redford, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward to discuss the movie, the future of journalism, Jason Robard's drinking problem, etc.

It all happened at BAM

Then she placed a hand on each side of my face

very gently and brought her lips to mine, but not quite touching.

Happy Dirt Farm

My old friend Matt Suhr, from the hippie commune days of the late 70s has a farm - e-i-e-i-o.

I'm writing a play about those hippie days. We had a garden back then, in Palmyra NJ, but my ex-husband decided to grow marijuana in between the rows of corn, so when we were busted it all got torn down.

But now Matt has Happy Dirt

Amelia Earhardt

Earhardt was quite an interesting character, judging by this recent New Yorker article

Video of Joni Mitchell doing her song "Amelia" interspersed with newsreel clips of Earhardt

Go me

Well I already have the beginnings of a web site for my production of THE GOOD WOMEN OF MORNINGSIDE. It feels so satisfying to get a work of art out of the ugliness of nasty mediocrities.

Good women live on stage

Well who said evil people are useless? Without the nasty women who inspired me with their petty mean-spiritedness, I would never have written The Good Women of Morningside - now it's going to be performed at the Chatterton playlab September 26 & 27 - I wonder if they'll come and see it? But now I know who they are and what they look like, probably not. And of course they are also inspirations for a couple of characters in my ongoing saga, although not in this latest installment.

NYCPlaywrights redesign

Well it was a ton of work, and I'm still not done (I have to finish learning PHP scripting) but at least I have something to show people now.

12 years later...

Today marks the twelfth anniversary of the death of my dear Earl Rich.

His family must have decided to maintain his web site as a tribute to him. And he's even listed online. You can find his house on Google maps, although Google maps weren't around when he was alive.

*sigh*

The return of Mother Lode

MOTHER LODE will get on its feet for the first time at John Chatterton's Short Play Lab September 26 & 27.

And speaking of Mother Lode's feet, I happen to have a pair of boots that I think will be perfect for the character:



Read the script here.

ahead of the curve...

New York Times editorial yesterday:

The question, then, is how bad does it have to get before the Obama administration and Congress make job creation a priority.

Thank you New York Times editorial - I believe I made a case for a jobs program in July 2008:

The US government will have to do two things to fix the coming world-wide economic crisis - create a jobs program, as it did during the Great Depression, and put a cap on the interest rates charged by credit card companies.

You can really see the Krugman influence in that post.

cry me a river

Internet celebrity deathmatches

The Internet - especially Facebook, brings you into text-level contact with celebrities. Some of the arguments I've had with celebrities
(I realize that most of these are not celebrities by many people's standards - only Ann Magnuson has been in a TV series or a Hollywood movie):

Me vs. Steven Pinker over whether or not Stephen Jay Gould's scientific opinions are discountable because Gould was a Marxist (I've heard from other sources that Gould, while a leftist, was not a Marxist.) I was pro-Gould, Pinker was anti-Gould

Me vs. Ann Magnuson (she's my Facebook friend) over whether or not Keith Olberman is just as bad as Bill O'Reilly - I said certainly not in a million years.

Me vs. Richard Dawkins over whether Helena Cronin, author of "The Ant and the Peacock" is obnoxious and whether or not Christopher Hitchens is a gigantic douchebag. Really, it's me and most of the civilized world vs. Dawkins on the Hitchens issue.

Me vs. Katha Pollitt on whether or not I was too harsh against a right-winger woman posing as a feminist. I agree with Pollitt on almost everything, so that was surprising.

And if my FB friend Christine Ebersole says one more word about how much she loves Ron Paul - it's ON!

Stay tuned for more celebrity arguments.

D9

When I next saw Betsy, I informed her of this strange fight.

Mongoose vs. Cobra

Pretty eerie music for that. Here's more eerieness.

Angels live

Yay! ANGELS IN AMERICA returns to the New York stage.

I've only seen the HBO version, which is great, but I am looking forward to seeing this show live - it's one of the best contemporary play(s) - maybe THE best.

DC7

Soon our "get acquainted session" as Lady Hilliard called it came to an end and I prepared to depart