Jan 29, 2008
less
ny times
To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius.
kind of hilarious
What comes from living near a shoe factory
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/literary-atmospheres.html
Hat tip to the amazing Gleason
Jan 28, 2008
an old post
From Patrick:
As was pointed out in a recent issue of The Dramatist, royalty rates paid by theatres to produce published plays have scarcely risen in a generation. But playwrights have to pay rents, food prices and healthcare costs that have all skyrocketed in the past 30 years. And all of this has happened while public funding for the arts and artists has dropped dramatically. Remember when the NEA actually gave grants directly to playwrights? Big grants, ones that might help you live for a year or two. Playwriting isn't dying, there are plenty of people interested in writing plays, but the days of people making their living from it are over. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's a great thing for theatre, because it takes a lot of time spent both writing at home and rewriting in rehearsal, to mold great playwrights, and I think we'll see less ultimately development of professional craftsmanship with writers of theatre.
Thanks to whoever it was that pointed this out again. Sorry that I forgot how I got there.
Primary Stages
I caught the new Brooke Berman play this weekend with blogger tickets. I found it utterly charming. Chernus and Keira stood out but the entire cast was pretty freaking great. I don't know Brooke's work as well as I should but it occurred to me watching the play that there were no unlikable characters. I don't know if that's true of her other work.
The play is a lot about the itinerant nature of us 20 and 30 somethings constantly moving from apartment to apartment, and job to job trying to figure out how to live. This seems specific to the difficulties of our generation which are of course amplified in New York. This search for the American dream and affordable way of life--it's not easy.
There is a big part in Hunting and Gathering about the game Big Buck Hunter. I remember Adam Rapp talking in an interview about he was addicted to the game and nationally ranked or something. and I'm not sure whether or not the connection was made in the article to the way he writes plays--getting the characters to come out into the clearing and then blowing them away. (Like get your character up in a tree and throw apples at him, taken to an extreme.) Brooke's play is not in any way like that. But it was interesting to see her use Big Buck Hunter as a form of therapy for her characters.
In some ways, the play reminded me what a play can be. I can't say exactly what makes it nontraditional, but it feels like a new structure. Basically it follows four different characters who are linked to one another in various ways. I've been writing so many large cast plays with lots of actors playing multiple parts that I forgot that you can just write a play about four people and let them interact. And if you're Brooke, this will work.
Anyway, I recommend it. And if Amazons and Their Men is still playing, you should see that too.
Jan 25, 2008
and this:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/peas_in_a_pod.html
About Obama and Hillary:
Interest groups give them nearly identical ratings for being liberal.
Jan 24, 2008
Question of the day
Do you have all my published plays on your shelf?
If not, why not? Here is a way to rectify that situation.
Download a song--The Night Bobby Came Back To Town
Jan 23, 2008
How You Write
Marisa started it all. Then Matt chimed in. Let me add my 2 cents on how I write. Please feel free to add your process in my comments or in Marisa's or Matt's.
I spend a great deal of time covering the fronts and backs of composition notebooks with collages from magazines and stickers and scraps from my life, some more important than others. Recently I've been breaking cds and taping them to the covers, mirrored part up. The images on the front and back of my notebooks often inform what I'm writing. I also have smaller notebooks I carry around or slip in my coat. I often start writing in a new notebook before finishing the last one. Especially the small ones. I have lots of half filled notebooks of various sizes and about 15 or so full composition books that I don't go back to as much as I should. There are lots of ideas that might slip away even after I write them down if I write the play without looking at the pages or if I never get around to writing that idea or finding a way to make it work.
I write in pen in these notebooks. These are my favorite pens.
In the notebooks, I write scenes or parts of scenes, ideas about plays, ideas for plays, songs, stories, things I need to remember, people's emails, books people recommend. It's actually very disorganized. I write wherever I am, whenever I get an idea.
When I'm actually writing a play or screenplay or trying to write that novel, I am doing it on my laptop. For plays, I use 12 point times new roman and I write in word without any sort of template. I hit tab a lot. I usually look at what I might have written in my notebook about the play before writing. My favorite place to write is at my desk but I can write in cafes or on a friend's couch in a strange city.
The last few plays I wrote mostly at 5:30 am. I drink some green tea and crank out some pages every day or most every day until the play is done. The subconscious is still present in the morning, I think, before I'm quite awake and the apartment is quiet. Before that, I used to write at night after work but I see too many shows now and am too tired after work to do my preferred work. This most recent play I have been writing in fits and starts. I have trouble getting up these days and there seems to be no reason to rush. There are too many written plays in the pipeline for me to rush this one. I write a lot on the weekends these days, when I'm not revising something. I've been going to Flux Sundays and have of late written on Saturday to have scenes to show for Sunday.
I sometimes transcribe with music on but if I'm trying to come up with a completely new scene from nothing, I can't write if the music is on. Music I have in the past written to includes but is not limited to The Bosstones, Phish, Paul Simon, Aimee Mann, Catch 22 . . . Sometimes I need something upbeat to write to and sometimes I don't.
I usually wear clothes. In general and when writing.
Jan 22, 2008
Scott has something to say
about Denver Theater and risky new plays and Grote vs Shakespeare
http://theatreideas.blogspot.com/2008/01/denver-center-new-plays-great-but-come.html
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