warblog

Live Free or Die: the end of Ho-hos, Ding Dongs and Twinkies

2012-01-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

It's official: Hostess Brands goes bust. The maker of Twinkies, Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs, filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time since 2004 in the face of mounting debt, skyrocketing prices for ingredients and the adoption of more healthful lifestyles.

I am calling Mitt's friends at Bain Capital immediately. They can step in, buy the company, fire the workers and completely automate it. Surely this will lower costs. This viscous, heartless attack on the very core of the American enterprise junk food industry shall not stand. You will have to rip the Twinkies and Ho Hos from my cold dead hand.

(Which may be soon if I don't stop eating this crap.)

Buh-bye 2011

2011-12-25T16:00:00.000-08:00

Bin Laden has crossed the legendary Siraat bridge into history and oblivion. So has Moammar Gadhafi. At least we won't have to argue anymore about how to spell their names.

The Bush/Rove war is over; at least our part of it. US foreign policy regarding Iraq is now quite simple and without the usual obviscations: if you want to live in peace and democracy or tear yourselves apart, we could, officially, care less.

And, unlike The Terminator, we will NOT be back.

Not only is Republican leader John Boehner's complexion the color of cinnamon toast, he is toast! Buh- bye to Newt. Buh-bye to Rick. Perry and Santorum. Buh-bye to Herman...the list goes on. We hardly knew ye. (Nor did we want to. )

Scenario: they've all dropped like flies. It's May or June 2012, the Republi-cons are seriously panicking. Or, in their case, panicking, seriously. Ron Paul has gone down in flames after the white power newsletter scandals. Donald Trump has withdrawn his support from everyone and has put on his pouty face (the one he wears all the time.) Michelle Bachman implodes when her husband leaves her for a guy. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

The field is empty. Like the GOP's moral conscience.

Then, without warning, from out of the swampy brown water of the polluted Florida everglades, emerges....

... JEB BUSH!!! dragging the corpse of Karl Rove behind him. Corpse on the right, Jeb on the left.

Can you say "Landslide?"

Not a bad 2011. (OK, the Kardashian's are still on TV. And Rachel Maddow is talking too fast and very loudly. Rachel, stay on those ADD meds; I think they're helping.)

Otherwise, not bad at all. Wishing you a great 2012.

JUST PUBLISHED

2011-12-25T15:21:00.000-08:00

Event Horizon Press has just published print and Kindle editions of our screenplay. Now on Amazon.com and soon at Barnes and Noble and other book stores. It's a romantic fantasy (is there any other kind of romance?) shamelessly fashioned as a classic valentine for lovers of all ages.

ttp://www.amazon.com/Two-Hearts-Warren-John-Deacon-Wren/dp/1468032003/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323477674&sr=1-1

The changing cultural landscape.

2011-05-03T16:25:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day.

To ALL mothers,

gay and straight,

traditional and uncoventional.

BUDGET WOES TRIM SPIDERMAN MUSICAL

2011-04-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

(AP). Producers of "Spiderman: Turn off the dark", the most expensive broadway musical ever created, have begun tightening the budget of the troubled production. The new title: "Spiderman: Turn Off" will save millions in shorter newspaper and TV ad space and smaller signs outside the Foxworthy Theatre where the show has been in previews since 1977.

Why did the chicken cross the road? For over 50 years, Harold Pinter refused to answer the question. Now he's dead. We'll never know. (BTW, how's your old mum?)

2011-01-30T04:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the critics get it wrong.

Full disclosure: I happen to think Harold Pinter is the finest dramatist in the modern English-speaking theatre. "The Birthday Party" is his finest play. And, while I hate lists of the "most" or the "best" or the "greatest," I must succumb to my belief that it is the second most important modern play after Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie."

Pinter, shortly before his death in 2008.

As for drama critics, while I like and appreciate some of them as useful evaluators of popular culture and some as solid, even brilliant writers, (particularly Rich and Brantley of the NY Times), many
inevitably just don't get it, as they didn't with "The Birthday Party" in its first production. It's fascinating to see the earliest reviews of the play now that it's recognized as a modern classic.

Here are a excerpts from the major reviews of the 1958 premiere.

Selected by Maddy Costa

"The author never got down to earth long enough to explain what his play was about, so I can't tell you. But I can give you some sort of sketch of what happens, and to whom.

To begin with, there is Meg, who lets lodgings in a seaside town. She is mad. Thwarted maternity is (I think) her trouble and it makes her go soppy over her unsavoury lodger, Stanley.

Patrick Magee as McCann

in the 1968 film version

He is mad, too. He strangles people. And I think he must have strangled one person too many, because a couple of very sinister (and quite mad) characters arrive, bent on - I suppose - vengeance ...

The one sane character is Meg's husband, but sanity does him no good. He is a deeply depressed little man, a deckchair attendant by profession. Oh well. I can give him one word of cheer. He might have been a dramatic critic, condemned to sit through plays like this."

WA Darlington, Daily Telegraph, May 20

"At the end of the third act of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party . . . a young girl flounces out of a seedy boarding-house, where she has narrowly escaped strangulation - but not seduction - with the words, "I know what you're doing. I've got a shrewd idea." Here Lulu, for that is her name, has an unfair advantage, for although the author must have explained his play to the cast, he gives no clues to the audience . . . What [it all] means, only Mr Pinter knows, for as his characters speak in non sequiturs, half-gibberish and lunatic ravings, they are unable to explain their actions, thoughts or feelings. If the author can forget Beckett, Ionesco and Simpson, he may do better next time."

Robert Shaw's brilliant performance
as Stanley in the 1968 film directed by
William Friedkin from Pinter's screenplay.

MWW, Guardian, May 21

"Harold Pinter's first play comes in the school of random dottiness deriving from Beckett and Ionesco ... The message, the moral, and any possible moments of enjoyment, eluded me.

Apart from a seaside ticket-collector and a bare-legged floozy, all the characters seemed to me to be in an advanced state of pottiness or vitamin deficiency, and quite possibly both at once."

Derek Granger, Financial Times, May 25

Sheila Hancock and Justin Salinger
in the Lyric Hammersmith UK
50-year revival in 2008.

"The writing contains some effective and even witty non sequiturs, which have led several critics to compare Mr Pinter with NF Simpson. The analogy breaks down in one vital respect. Mr Simpson uses a surrealist technique to say things that could not be said in any other way. Mr Pinter employs a similar technique to say something that could easily be said in many other ways; has, indeed, often been said in them: for the notion that society enslaves the individual can hardly be unfamiliar to any student of the cinema or the realistic theatre. That is why Mr Pinter sounds frivolous, even when he is being serious; and why Mr Simpson is serious, even when he sounds frivolous."

Kenneth Tynan, Observer, May 25

Ron Boussom, the finest Stanley
I've ever seen in a 1971 production
at South Coast Rep..As the director,
I am of course hopelessly biased.

Among the few who understood -- that Pinter was a major new talent who embraced an entirely original form of playwriting which sounded an ominous warning about the perilously thin ice on which our post-war society was foundering -- was Harold Hobson of the London Times.

"I am willing to risk whatever reputation I have as a judge of plays by saying . . . that Mr Pinter, on the evidence of this work, possesses the most original, disturbing and arresting talent in theatrical London.

Theatrically speaking, The Birthday Party is absorbing. It is witty. Its characters . . . are fascinating. The plot, which consists, with all kinds of verbal arabesques and echoing explorations of memory and fancy, of the springing of a trap, is first-rate. The whole play has the same atmosphere of delicious, impalpable and hair-raising terror which makes The Turn of the Screw one of the best stories in the world.

Pinter in a newspaper interview in 1958,
after London critics savaged the play.

Mr Pinter has got hold of a primary fact of existence. We live on the verge of disaster . . . There is terror everywhere. Meanwhile, it is best to make jokes (Mr Pinter's jokes are very good), and to play blind man's buff, and to bang on a toy drum, anything to forget the slow approach of doom. The Birthday Party is a Grand Guignol of the susceptibilities.

The fact that no one can say precisely what it is about, or give the address from which the intruding Goldberg and McCann come, or say precisely why it is that Stanley is so frightened of them, is, of course, one of its greatest merits. It is exactly in this vagueness that its spine-chilling quality lies. If we knew just what Miles had done, The Turn of the Screw would fade away. As it is, Mr Pinter has learned the lesson of the Master. Henry James would recognise him as an equal."

Harold Hobson, Sunday Times, May 25

Harold Pinter, 1930 - 2008.

WAR OF WORDS. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik: "Arizona has become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." SAY WHAT?

2011-01-11T03:00:00.000-08:00

As someone who has spent a lifetime working with words, it strikes me that, in the current discussion about what influence free speech had on the Tucson shooter, we might be overlooking the obvious.

It's ironic that even a simple, apparently harmless metaphor can easily get lost in the shuffle of argument and debate. As many of you know, I am a huge fan and defender of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik. But even this gentle, courageous man inadvertently used a curious phrase in his first press conference. "(Arizona) has become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

While many discuss the merits of his argument (and I doubt that Arizona is culpable of anything more serious than hanging too many pseudo adobe red tile roofs on virtually every building in the state), his use of the word "mecca" is troubling. For Muslims, of course, Mecca is the the most sacred spot on the planet, the holy birthplace of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. So, inadvertently and without intent, I am sure, to offend or demonize, Dupnik uses what many Muslims would find to be an unfortunate, if not inappropriate metaphor.

Would there be a different reaction if he'd said "Arizona has become the Vatican, or the Jerusalem, for prejudice and bigotry"? So far as I am able to determine, his use of "mecca" has slipped under the radar unnoticed. We're so busy talking about who's right and who's wrong, who whipped up the political climate enough to cause the shooter to take action, who is taking all of this way too seriously, take it easy, he's just an isolated nut with an axe to grind.

If Clarence Dupnik, who has shown himself to be an honorable and decent man, both by his dedicated service of over 50 years in law enforcement and his words of courage last Saturday, can say something that could be perceived as deeply offensive to billions of people (most of whom don't live in, nor have ever heard of Arizona), how carefully should the rest of us choose our words?

This is not about political correctness. Nor is it nit-picking or hair-splitting (or even the semiotics of cross-hairs in the analysis of political graphics). What we learned from our parents about 'sticks and stones breaking our bones but words never hurting' is just plain wrong. Words DO matter. They matter a lot. They sometimes hurt.

And we should choose which ones we use with more care.

THE SILENCE OF THE HAMS

2010-10-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

I turned on CNN. Anderson Cooper was speaking quietly. Killing me softly with his song. Not even carrying a big stick. Moving slowly. Hardly gesticulating at all. (Although he did keep pulling up the neck of his expensive cardigan sweater to keep out the chill of a premature autumnal night.) Even Larry King seemed strangely calm. The hypnotic drone of his gravelled voice soothed me. Flights of angels singing me to my rest.

The voice that peels
paint is silent

Only weeks before, the nasal, adnoidal wail of Campbell Brown had been cruelly silenced. Like those lambs that were screaming. Screaming at Jodie Foster on the Wyoming ranch of her foster father. Or was it Montana? Idaho, maybe. Doesn't matter.

(Incidentally, I never understood the title. If the lambs were screaming, why is it called "The SILENCE of the Lambs"? The pathetic cries of those young, helpless animals were enough to put you off lamb chops for the rest of your life. But I digress.

Actually, I digress a lot. It's a failing of mine. I'll try to do better. And yes, I am aware that 'nasal, adnoidal' is redundant. I just like the sound of them together. I did not, however, like the sound of Campbell's voice. Nails on a blackboard. Dental drill = root canal. Car alarm at 3 a.m. Garbage truck at 6.

Lou Dobbs also
ruthlessly muzzled

Months earlier, the basso profundo rumble of Lou Dobbs had also been stilled. Did you know that half of Lou's voice is sub-audible, in the lower end of the sound spectrum which most humans cannot hear at all? (Only dogs and certain other species like termites and cockroaches can hear sounds below 20 Hz.). I believe this is why Lou was misunderstood on the immigration issue and ultimately why he was asked to leave the airwaves.

An unnamed, highly-placed intelligence analyst in the Pentagon has suggested that Dobbs' voice interfered with submarine communications. (Good evening, I'm Lou Dobbs. DIVE! DIVE!)

I had to find out what was going on. What was CNN up to? Ratings plummeting by one third. Panicky television executives making bad decisions. Desperate decisions. Was some kind of pattern developing? Had management put their finger on the reason for their own downfall? I had heard a rumor from a friend. But I knew instinctively that CNN would not report the story on its own air. I googled. The headline on the flatscreen hit me like a flapjack in the face. (A flapjack is a pancake for those of you outside the greater Boston metro area).

The latest victim of CNN's
Conspiracy of Silence

Rick Sanchez had been fired!

I bumped up the volume control on my remote a full four notches. Otherwise I could hardly hear anything on TV. Including the commercials which my audio engineering friends and the FCC insist are NOT any louder than normal programming. There are, of course, extensive studies that prove conclusively otherwise. Again, I digress.

But no one was louder than Sanchez. I turned again to Google, the source of all information and power in the universe, and learned the chilling truth. Rick had been terminated by CNN. Not for being loud, which seems justified, but for attacking Jon Stewart (who is often quite loud himself) and making a veiled inference about Jews and the media during a radio interview.

But this had nothing to do with anti-semitism. Sanchez is just a jerk, mostly harmless, who slathers every story, like peanut butter on crusty bread, with trash talk and opinionated blather. (He also waves his arms around frantically, like a high school Shakespearean actor or a late night TV vitamin salesman.) Let’s be honest: he just wasn’t very good. So when CNN saw an opportunity (fairly or not) to get rid of him and his abysmal ratings, they jumped on it.

Don’t take it personally, Rick. It was business. Although, had you worn a cardigan, it might have gone a different way. Who knows? Who cares.,

The point is, we know who dominates the media business in this country and throughout the world. Probably all over the universe. To be fair and balanced like Fox, and in this case about Fox, we have to report that Rupert Murdoch is Irish Catholic. There appears to be no evidence of explicit or implied Jewishness anywhere in his family tree.

But in the rest of the media business? I rest my case.

(I'm a non-attorney spokesperson. Nor do I play one on TV.)

AREN'T WE CLEVER?

2010-09-21T22:52:00.001-07:00

With his usual crystal clarity, and no nonsense analysis, Thomas Friedman of the NY Times explains how China is about to clean America's clock in the energy war.

An example of how we educated, funded and encouraged an innovative energy enterpreneur. But when our Congress failed to develop a sane energy policy, he had to take his skills and knowledge to the EU and China where his ideas were welcomed with open arms. Hence the title.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/opinion/19friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

AYN RAND: OUR LADY OF THE NEO-CONS

2010-09-18T18:28:00.000-07:00

Can you say "The me generation? "

Unfortunately, Rand was a mediocre writer at best. And a very long-winded one at that. As Emory says in "Boys in the Band" -- I still haven't finished "Atlas Shrugged" which I began in 1912.

Yet, while her prose lacked imagination, the intellectual rigor and inspirational diction of even a pulp novelist, she had, for reasons unknown to me, a very loud megaphone which sadly influenced generations of neo-cons who, when they came into power, piloted responsible, moderate American capitalism into an emotional and intellectual tailspin from which we have yet to recover.

OK, so Hitler probably did more actual physical damage, but Rand held up her end by inflicting untold psychic damage to the values I believe are at the core of our humanness: empathy for those less fortunate. I am far from being a romantic, bleeding-heart sentimentalist, but the cold, logical, almost Stalinesque tenor of her philsophy is bone-chilling and soul-numbing.

I am convinced she would have quickly signed on as one of the pod people in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

I will now step down from my soapbox and have my usual late afternoon martini. Get a job, slackers!

Robinson Jeffers - Poet or Prescient?

2010-08-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

I always knew Jeffers was a great poet but never thought of him as a prophet. Is it just me, or does this poem, written ages ago, seem prescient of our post-double yuh, impotent Obama, Glenn Beck culture?

Shine, Perishing Republic

by Robinson Jeffers

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire

And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly

A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:

shine, perishing republic.

The poetry of Jeffers and 21 other major poets is read by Saundra Mathews-Deacon in her "Earbook" series. earbookpoets.com

LEST WE FORGET

2010-08-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

Is that the pledge of allegiance

or a Nazi salute? Only Dr. Laura

knows for sure.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger's troubles are not new. They began with incendiary remarks aimed at another minority group. During the 1990s, Schlessinger blasted "homosexuality" as "a biological error," "deviant behavior, a dysfunctional behavior," and linked gay men to pedophilia and child molestation.

Check out this brilliant, carefully researched and balanced Media Matters piece on her sad, hateful and finally failed career.

POETRY - RECENT AND ANCIENT

2010-08-19T06:01:00.000-07:00

ABIDE

Standing doubtful

on the solid loam

of my native Ontario,

I wonder if my father is right

when he warns

"Stay down to earth."

Not bad advice.

This soil embraced me

in my loins’ desire,

fed and clothed

and breathed me.

Yet always above,

the sapphire sky,

radiant with promise of

where the dreams come from.

I should have told my father

“Earth holds us,

but she also binds us.”

I think he might have smiled

and kissed my forehead,

something he had never done before.

I wonder now when the time comes

if, in the words of the old hymn,

he will shine through the gloom

and point me to that sky?

WHEN I THINK OF YOU

When I think of you,

Of your liquid eyes

And the caring glistening

Below the surface

Like diamond pebbles,

The joy in them

For aliveness,

Reflections from the sun:

I also think of me,

I also think of me

With you.

I also think of us.

YOU ARE IN MY DREAMS NOW

You are in my dreams now.

I had you in my mind.

I had you in my heart

But did not know it.

There I will hold you strong

And hold you I hope forever.

Someday, I know I will touch your face

And it will become sudden

Skin buzz,

Lip soft,

Love sweat.

Hearts' blood.

I think it will make me cry.

For you are in my dreams now,

For you are.

NEVER SEEK TO TELL YOUR LOVE

Many colors will take you to themselves

But now I want someone to tell me how to get home.

The way back there is streaked and stippled,

A shaded place. It belongs where it is going.

Not where it is. The flowers don't talk to me now.

They speak only the language of flowers,

Saying things like, how hard I tried to get here.

It must mean I'm not here yet. But you,

You seem so formal, so serious. You can't read poetry,

Not the way they taught us back in school.

Returning to the point was always the main thing, then.

Did we ever leave it? I don't think so. It was our North Pole.

We sulked and hungered there for years, and now,

Like dazzled insects skimming the bright airs,

You are back on the road again, the path leading

Vigorously upward, through intelligent and clear spaces.

They don't make rocks like us anymore.

And holding on to the thread, fine as a cobweb but incredibly strong,

Each of us advances into his own labyrinth,

Con moto. The gift of invisibility

Has been granted to all but the gods, so we say such things,

Filling the road up with colors, faces,

Tender speeches, until they feed us to the truth.

DISGUISE

I will sweep into town

disguised as a used car salesman

secretly registered

at a mysterious hotel by the river.

I will dial the phone

using a creaky, squeaky voice

and you will answer

and know instantly that I have come

to carry you away to your infinite destiny.

Later, in the dark night,

you will sneak up the balcony,

having gotten over your terror of heights

and knowing how high you can really climb

when I rip off my false mustache

and carry you to the round large bed

with the alabaster pink pillows.

We will drink liquor

and smoke brown cigarettes,

before we disappear into the fire never to return the same.

See, what I really want to say to you without my disguise

is that I am hot for your body. Get my meaning. Follow my drift?

They used to call it whoopee.

Well I’d say "WHOPEE" too, if I could spell it.

LAST WORDS

If the shoe fell from the other foot

who would hear? If the door

opened onto a pure darkness

and it was no dream? If your life

ended the way a book ends

with half a blank page and the survivors

gone off to Africa or madness?

Someone is speaking

calmly to you in a voice you know,

Someone alive and confident has put

each of these words down exactly

as he wants them on the page.

You have lived through years

of denial, of public lies, of death

falling like snow on any head

it chooses. You're not a child.

You know the real thing. I am

here, as I always was, faithful

to a need to speak even when all

you hear is a light current of air

tickling your ear. Perhaps.

But what if a dried bundle

of leaves and dirt were not dirt

and leaves but the spent wafer

of a desire to be human? Stop the car,

turn off the engine, and stand

in the silence above your life.

See how the grass mirrors fire, how

a wind rides up the hillside

steadily toward you until it surges

into your ears like breath coming

and going, released from its bondage

to blood or speech and denying nothing.

Find What's Really Going On

I hardly thought of you at all.

You were the brat with the watery eyes

Who came once to my home

And sprawl your lanky adolescence

Around my living room.

Who talked to me

When I was trying to read the paper

As though you didn't realize

What terribly important things

Were going on in the world.

Had I put my paper down

And gazed over its edge

Like the movie cowboys

Peered over the rocks

At the advancing hoard of Indians,

I would have seen

How your lips are delicate

And speak life more quietly

Than newspaper headlines

But no less terrible.

And no less wonderful

Could be your eyes

When you look at me

And I touch your small arm

To find what’s really going on

in the world.

INTRIGUING WEBSITE

2010-08-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Check out The Plaza Films U-Tube site BRAVEONE2U.

Timeless melodies, some noir, others classic and everything in between, expertly cut to fine fashion footage, for a stunningly new form of music video.

For example, I discovered Arthur Tracey on the site, singing "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", a song I had heard but never at the level of Tracey's performance. Here you'll find the very rare exclusive Visage "The Promise", contrasted with Jerry Southern singing "What Good Am I Without You" slammed up against the brilliant Lassigue Bendthaus "Super Bad".

This is the place for eclectic -- and I don't mean the NPR Santa Monica KCRW Brie and Chardonnay affectation which has become a bit of a parody of itself.

Meaty, authentic and sometimes a little disturbing.

COMPOSER/CELLIST FRED KATZ - LIVE AUGUST 19

2010-07-31T01:25:00.000-07:00

Fred Katz

The brilliant cellist and composer Fred Katz, who composed and performed his score for my 1970 and 1975 North American stage premieres of "The Little Prince", is appearing live in Los Angeles August 19. The St. Exupery classic, which I adapted and directed, was presented outdoors in the amphitheater of St. Andrews Benedictine Abbey in Valyermo, CA. The haunting resonance of Katz' cello echoing through the low canyons, with the moon rising and stars just beginning to appear in the enigmatic dusk of the California desert, was something I will never forget.

Word Jazz - Ken Nordine

Now in his nineties, Katz studied with Pablo Casals, was an original member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet, composed film scores for Roger Corman (including "The Little Shop of Horrors", among others,) is professor emeritus of cultural anthropology and ethnomusicology at California State University, Fullerton and did a very hipster cool turn as composer/ performer on the vintage "Word Jazz" series by soundscape pioneer Ken Nordine in the sixties. (Interview with Katz)

Chico Hamilton Quintet

Katz (center) , on cello, Hamilton on drums in the classic 1957 American noir film "The Sweet Smell of Success" with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis. Elmer Bernstein's score replaced Katz' original because clueless studio execs felt it was "too esoteric". But the jazz material that remains on the track is all Katz -- pure, original and defiantly "esoteric" like all great art.

ON REWRITING SHAKESPEARE

2010-07-26T02:35:00.000-07:00

A literary associate of mine recently undertook the daunting task of rewriting "Hamlet" so that it would be more accessible to modern audiences. He asked me to read the piece and give him my comments. Here is my response, edited to protect his privacy.
__________________________________________
While I am far from being a purist, I am troubled by the modernization. It is neither fish nor fowl. If your goal is to clarify, I don't think you've taken the modernization of the language far enough. As it is, it now seems halfway between what Shakespeare wrote and modern speech. I also think you lose some rhythmic force by using contractions like "it's", etc.

In the 'famous' speeches, especially, I wonder how far one should go, as I'm sure you have.

"To die. To sleep--perhaps to dream…but in that sleep of death what dreams may come…." What does changing "perchance" to "perhaps" and "for in that sleep" to "but in that sleep" actually accomplish? To me, it seems a rather arbitrary and unnecessary change; change for the sake of change rather than because the word is not understandable to a modern audience.

I sense you need a firmer rubric to follow: if the word or phrase really is archaic -- i.e. "Ay, there's the rub" -- for example, probably needs to completely change to "Now that's a problem" or something. But if a modern audience gets the meaning (i.e. perchance vs. perhaps), then I would leave it alone on two grounds: the familiarity or 'famousness' of the speech (can there be a more famous speech than "To be or not to be?") and the rhythm of the language: "Perhaps", for whatever clarity it brings, (if any), just doesn't sound as fertile as "perchance."

Ultimately, therefore, you would need to change "To be or not to be" to something like "I don't know if I should go on living or commit suicide", for as I would argue, some in a modern audience probably don't understand that "to be" really does mean "shall I live?" or "exist" or something similar.

And therein lies another conundrum: what do we mean by 'modern' audiences? The term is too generic. You can't really lump a large demographic like that together generically. Educated, or not, theatre-going, or not? Old, young? I think you have to more carefully target who the audience for this piece might be. People who willingly go to Shakespearean plays, whether at their local repertory company or on Broadway because they want to see famous stars, generally do not have a problem with Shakespeare overall.

It's the people who were force fed in high school, had a bad previous experience or have to go to see their kid's version of Romeo and Juliet at the local high school, who won't be inclined to come and see your play anyway.

In fact, one might challenge your central argument that modern audiences don't 'get' Shakespeare. I would agree in terms of pure numbers, but I think the rise in attendance (measured over thirty years and not including this recent economic downturn) at mid-and high-level repertory companies, most of whom do at least one Shakespeare a season, bodes quite well. Let's face it: we are never going to have mass media audiences for Shakespeare like those approaching the numbers who attended in his day.

There is another principle with which I'm sure you've grappled. Why change Shakespeare at all? I don't ask the question because I am a snobby sycophant, fighting any attempt to update the revered Bard. But only to suggest: if Shakespeare is no longer popular, or relevant, or understandable, so be it. Why should we take it upon ourselves to try and change that? And do we, in fact, have the right? I know he's in the public domain -- that's a specious legal argument -- I mean the moral right?

Time changes all things -- even the mighty William Shakespeare. It may well be that only those who are trained and educated in his language will be the supporters and benefactors of it. I don't see that as a bad thing. Elitist, of course, just as opera is supported by elitists. I don't favor the "if you don't get it, we'll change it so you do" approach and I wonder, quite seriously, how Shakespeare as an artist would feel about it?

And of course, the central argument: Shakespeare is many things but most would agree that it is his language, his metaphor -- certainly not his plots which most moderns find hoary at best -- that distinguishes him. He is, without doubt, the greatest writer in the English language. But he wrote in a very different era and a very different English language. So can we actually update him? My short answer is that we cannot. He is the language, the language is him.

You can't change that, no matter how brilliant the attempt. Great artists and their art cannot that easily be separated.

And further, if one is brilliant enough to be able to SUCCESSFULLY update Shakespeare, one would want, I think, to write one's own plays and transcend him as the finest writer in the English language.

While I admire the challenge you have taken upon yourself, I just don't think the piece as it stands will work very well on stage with live actors for a modern audience until and unless you solve these rather thorny problems.

Quite candidly, I think a modern audience, reasonably educated, would find this piece to be confusing, even though, as they would probably admit, they don't fully understand the Shakespeare version entirely. But they do have some vague sense of the plot, might even know a few of the characters and certainly the famous speeches, though they may have been forced to study it thirty years ago, and they carry that knowledge with them, no matter how limited, into the theatre where your play is presented.

It becomes an almost absurd tension: you vs. Shakespeare and I'm afraid that's one you cannot win even if you wished to. I do think this experiment would be of interest to scholars and academics and perhaps ultimately that would be reason enough to present the play.

I am mostly troubled by the central conceit of the piece. You suggest in the forward that the play takes place in the moments after Hamlet's death, that the concept of linear time no longer applies and that Hamlet is capable, in his mind -- as in a near death experience -- of flashing forward, backward, multiply and simultaneously. This is all wonderfully imaginative stuff and very exciting -- on paper.

Unfortunately, I can find no evidence anywhere in the body of the play that suggests this would be the actual result on an actual stage in performance except in your explanation in the forward. If the audience doesn't know what you are after (which they wouldn't unless you put it in the program), they will continue to view the play, or any play, or any film, book, poem or other form of narrative as they always do: linearly. This happens, followed by this and then this leads to this and then he kills him when he finds out, etc. etc.

In some ways, then, your new version, viewed linearly as I believe it would be, is more confusing to a modern audience than an exhausting, frustrating walk through the Shakespeare original.

None of this of course applies to visual arts like painting or sculpture which we perceive in a different way -- as a singular, sudden visually-processed unity that, unlike music or theatre, is non-linear. But even in these forms, we eventually find ourselves studying the painting more closely. Oh, look over there is a dog. She seems to be smiling at the dog. And there is some meat on the kitchen counter. Again, a kind of linear analysis begins after the initial, holistic perception has settled in.

Your piece, in my view, does not change time or space in terms of how it plays out on the actual stage in real time. You come into the theatre, actors move and speak for two hours and then it's over. You can overlap language, use taped excerpts, change lights and jumble up the order of things from how Shakespeare originally laid them out, but you cannot change the laws of physics. Time, or at least time as we perceive it, moves only forward in a continous, single strand. There may well be other realities going on outside ours, or in other universes, but if we cannot experience them simultaneously through our senses, do they really exist? The inevitable tree falling in the forest.

The theatre, or any narrative form -- unlike life -- carries us along a singular path, directs us to pay attention to one or two principal things at once and constantly pushes forward, trying very hard not to let us wander or become bored. I say "unlike life" because actual life is not so focused. Interuptions occur constantly, we frequently are diverted from our purpose by all kinds of events outside our control, and we are often overwhelmed by the push and pull of events on our lives.

That's one of the main reasons we enjoy films and plays and novels. While they seem to be quite lifelike, they are never as complicated . And we enjoy their simplicity, directness and focus for that very reason.

The ultimate problem, of course, is that the audience, no matter how inexperienced with Shakespeare or uneducated in his language, brings a certain amount of residual 'baggage' with them. Many if not most of them know the plot of many of Shakespeare's plays and most certainly of "Hamlet".

So the final question must be asked: does this version clarify their understanding? Or will it merely confuse their preconceptions, and will they spend the evening comparing, in their minds, this version with the original? I suppose one could make the argument that this is a good thing. Certainly, that discussion could be enlightening AFTER the presentation, but I fear the comparison would be going on as the performance unfurls, surely not a desireable result that would meet your goals.

Sorry to be less than enthusiastic. I do applaud your very serious, visionary effort in experimentation and I know from working with you in the past that, if you believe your approach is sound, you will stick to your guns as an artist and proceed. That's all any of us can do, for as much as outside comment and criticism can be useful, it can and must never substitute for what we as artists feel we need to pursue.

Bravo. I wish you the best with this.

BUT I'M WALT DISNEY!

2010-07-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

Today is the 55th birthday of Disneyland -- the original happiest place on earth. The others in Florida and overseas cannot compete for memory, nostalgia or the sweet sadness of people returning again and again in search of lost youth.

July 16, 1955. Walt Disney takes a stroll through the magic

castle before the park opens the next day.

A bit of trivia, with this famous opening day story. Uncle Walt, sleepless, excited and haggard, had parked his car somewhere on Main Street and gone into his office for a snooze. When he awoke, he rushed out to move his car before the park opened and was confronted by a newly-minted security guard.

"You can't park here, sir", he said, polite but firm. "But I'm Walt Disney," the startled visionary replied. "I don't care if you're Mickey Mouse," the guard snarled. "Move that thing or we'll tow your ass."

When asked why he didn't fire the kid on the spot, Disney just smiled "He was doing his job. I took him to task for his language. But he did call me 'sir'." The 'kid' eventually became chief of police at the park and served later for thirty years as head of security for the Burbank studios.

My friend Douglas McEwan, who is a true Disneyland-ophile and one of the most knowledgeable people about the subject I know, questions the veracity of this tale. (I think Douglas was born in Disneyland and lived secretly inside the castle, coming out -- an unfortunate choice of words -- only at night to feast on leftovers from the Blue Bayou Restaurant),

Here's one of his stories that he swears is true. "During the Nixon Administration, when the president and staff were at the San Clemente Nixon Residence... Disney's good friend Henry Kissinger would relax by going to Disneyland and running - this is true - a popcorn stand. He would get a few double takes from people, but who would believe that the United States Secretary of State was selling popcorn on Main Street? But it is a fact."

Disneyland lore, of course, is legend. What went on, and still continues, behind those walls, particularly at night when the place is closed and some say, eerily quiet, takes on almost mythical symbolism. I will leave it to the reader to decide.

(There is no truth to the rumor, BTW, that the figure of Walt in his perfectly-preserved office behind bulletproof, humidity-controlled plate glass is actually the body of the dead cartoonist, masterfully preserved by taxidermist Norman Bates, on occupational-therapy leave from Atascadero State Prison for the Criminally Insane.) Disneyland was, however, constructed partially on the ruins of a Howard Johnson's and, some assert, a German-American burial ground. Another famous Orange Countian -- actress Ana Mojeska -- is also buried there. She was actually Polish, but we don't hold that against her.

The thing I like most about blogging, as someone trained as a journalist, is that you don't have to worry about pesky things like facts and attribution.
_________________________________________________________________________

Douglas and our colleague and friend James ("I used to be funny" ) Diederich wrote a hilarious sketch about the "Meet Mr. Lincoln" audio-animatronic exhibit at Disneyland which we presented in our comedy sketch/improve show at Open End Theater. (Did we mention our reviews?.) Check out the sketch as written..(We have slides and home movies, too, but we didn't want to be pushy.)

EMBRACE LIFE

2010-07-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

A nice note from Daniel Cox, the director of the celebrated public service announcement, now north of 10 million hits. Watch it here.

Daniel:

One of the most brilliant pieces of short film I've ever seen with a powerful emotional punch. A simple, clear concept (the best ones are always both), flawlessly executed, beautifully shot and edited with limited effects and three really good actors, no dialog, great music.

Congratulations on a fine piece of work. - Warren

Hi Warren,
My apologies in the delay emailing you back. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment on 'Embrace Life'. I'm really humbled and delighted you found it so powerful. Again, many thanks for emailing me. Kind regards, Daniel

STRAIGHT TO THE POINT

2010-07-10T01:15:00.000-07:00

Hate to burst your comfort bubble, but it may come as a surprise that most GLBT people I know consider heterosexuals to be suspect until proven innocent. I know. Odd, isn’t it? In a democracy, it’s supposed to be the other way round. But homophobia has nothing to do with democracy. Nothing to do with humanity.

I'm not talking Jerry Falwell or James Dobson here. That kind of rabid hate is easy to search out and destroy.

I'm talking about well meaning 'stealth' social liberals with a 'live and let live' philosophy who patronize gay folk with the old "as long as they don't try to seduce my kids" mentality. You are the real danger, precisely because you fly under the radar on the wings of your illusionary passivity. (BTW, the vast majority of GLBT people aren’t interested in your children. In fact, FBI stats show conclusively that most pedophiles are heterosexual.)

Gay people count many straights as colleagues, acquaintances and even blood kin but until you step up and recognize the inherent homophobia that is deeply embedded in this society, they will never view you as a friend.

You earn their friendship only when you can feel the pain and utter despair of partners, potential adoptive parents and citizens who are denied basic Constitutional rights by their own government. You know the list: it starts with denial of Social Security survivor benefits and runs the gamut all the way to the end of the line when a life partner, wild with grief, is denied visitation rights at a hospital.

How much of your federal tax dollar goes to that hospital in the form of Medicare and Medicaid? And in the case of a religiously-sponsored hospital, how Christian is it to deny a grieving spouse or significant other the opportunity to comfort their loved one before they pass?

So, what does it take to be a friend?

You gain trust when you take a risk. Maybe you put your own job on the line by reporting anti-gay harassment to a boss who might throw his hostility back at you because now he has to report your report to his boss and they’ll have to get legal involved and set up sexual harassment workshops. Such a bother when all you’re trying to do is make a buck.

You get respect when you confront the landlord of your building who won't rent to transgender "freaks". Or perhaps you call out your sports buddy who cracks fag jokes while the two of you watch football on TV at your local sports bar.

If you can't say loudly and publicly, "Knock it off, Joe, your remarks are offensive TO ME", without being afraid Joe will think you're gay, then you're not there yet. There is, by the way, another problem here -- the underlying supposition that you wouldn’t want to be thought of as gay because there is something wrong with that. (“Not that there is anything wrong with that” is explored in a surprisingly honest and now famous Seinfeld episode which manages to balance anti-gay sentiment and political correctness in a most refreshing way.)

See a clip.

Pick up almost any rock and all kinds of creepy critters come crawling out dragging their festering prejudices behind them like partially-severed limbs. Hang in. It gets easier the more enlightened and angry you become.

You can’t really get away with the classic divide and conquer strategy anymore either, however well intended. "Oh, I play tennis with a gay guy but he's not, you know, obvious." "She's a lesbian but she really fits in with our crowd. We ride Harleys together on the weekend." Statements like these have the same ring of passive hostility and intellectual infirmity as the perennial workhorse: "Gay people in the military might interfere with combat readiness."

GLBT people don't agree on many things but they stand shoulder to shoulder on this one: separate but equal is just simply wrong.

And please, don't smother your gay 'friends' with compliments because they’re 'artistic' or know how to cut your hair just the way you like it. Don't admire them for writing a symphony or waiting on your table. Rather than leaving a big tip, consider just doing the right thing: stand up for them like a brother or sister would against the neighborhood bully.

No big revelation here: if you're not an active part of the solution -- economically, socially and especially in the voting booth -- you're part of the problem. Gay folks may like you, may design your landscape, teach your children, run your corporation or perform your heart bypass, but you cannot be their friend until you’ve got their back.

That takes time. I understand that. But how much time is too much? You and I and our generation, like those before us, walk a terribly short journey through time together. They’re waiting for you to weigh in now, when it counts. Not after they’re gone when it won’t matter and won’t do them any good.

When we leave this life, I believe the gloom of things undone travels with us to wherever it is we go. Or, if you don’t believe we go anywhere, let’s not leave all that sadness and hate behind for the next generation. Step up. Make some noise. Vote your conscience.

Do something.

Then GLBT people will be proud to wear your friendship like a badge of honor.

So often in the struggle for rights, we forget humor. I remain stunned and humbled by the courage gay people have shown amid the hatred and ugliness. This video is funny and charming and very, very moving.

BUDA BOOM, BUDA BOMB

2010-06-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

"Boom", an 1968 film based on a Tennessee Williams play (The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore), that is both kitsch and camp at the same time. The play is widely believed to be the one that ended Williams' Broadway career. The original production closed after 65 performances, the revival starring Tallulah Bankhead and Tab Hunter closed after five. (What a cast -- TOGETHER at last !)

Get a load of her gown, designed, not

surprisingly, by Karl Lagerfeld, with

vulgar jewelry -- oops, jewelry

by Bulgari.

The film stars Elizabeth Taylor in a part written for a much older woman and Richard Burton in a part written for a very young man. Inexplicably and horribly directed by Joseph Losey, whose normally wonderful films, especially those with screenplays by Harold Pinter (The Servant, Accident), are some of the best in cinema.

Only two redeeming factors (which don't really save the film but add to its legend). One of the last appearances by Noel Coward as the mysterious "Witch of Capri" (who may or may not be "The Angel of Death" wandering through the film in a campish, demented fog) and the lush, brilliant score by John Barry which inches dangerously close to over the top without actually going there.

Coward in 1972

Why they called it "Boom" is unknown, although some believe it to be a typo for "Bomb".

More trivia.

THE CREEP FACTOR

2010-06-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

One year after the death of Michael Jackson, as we are once again engulfed in superlatives and condemnations -- brilliant, junkie, visionary, wacko, the King of Pop, the Propofol Peter Pan -- it is worth noting that this painting, commissioned by MJ before his death at a cost of $150,000, remains THE monument to pop art creepiness in our age.

PS in the blowup of the photo, you may notice what appears to be decay on MJ's left leg. Oddly, just a coincidence of Photoshop stepping too hard on the compression for the web. But it, too, is so creepy I had to leave it in.

GREAT WRITING IS ALIVE AND WELL AT THE TIMES

2010-06-21T21:18:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite journalists, Robert D. McFadden of the New York Times, has elevated the mundane "snow storm" assignment to an art form. In this piece, he reports all of the relevant facts (stats, impact, etc.) but in prose that absolutely sings.

PHOTOS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

2010-06-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Iconic images. Three-year-old John F. Kennedy, Jr. salutes the coffin of his assassinated father. A monk immolates himself in protest of injustice. A fireman sits weeping in the smoking netherworld of the World Trade Center. Nine year-old Phan Phúc runs in terror from the savagery of napalm.

A President and a policeman.
A flash, no more than two or three seconds, burns itself into our collective perception. The fact that both men are black is relevant. And yet irrelevant.

There's an unspoken, deep satisfaction and pride in the policeman's face. We can’t see the President’s face as he hurries away to his next meeting and other handshakes. But we imagine he too has been touched by this remarkable moment.
Photo by Toby Melville

Something has changed irrevocably. Unseen, yet encoded into the frame, electrons swarming on a hard drive. Time has been altered. Space shifted. The photograph and the event it records seem ordinary, almost common. And yet, clearly, they are not. It is a photograph of a human face taken through technology with the vision of another human's artistry and skill.

It is difficult to take our eyes from. It does not let us go easily.

Research shows that when children watching television encounter a violent conflict between two individuals, they look first at the victim’s face; only later at the aggressor. In this photograph, there is no victim, no aggressor. One of the men’s faces is not even visible but we know in our bones that he is probably smiling too.

In this fast-paced media-rich motion picture sound bite internet world, the shot is compelling testament to the power of the low-tech, digitally-challenged still photograph. It never moves. Yet it tells a story that never stops. It is the stuff of dreams. A black and white hot branding iron, burned into our optic nerves, as we stare transfixed at the future.

(A thousand words? Only about 350; but much longer than a shutter click.)

-- WJD-W