what is staged and what is real in Borat--

thanks to comtois http://jamespeak.blogspot.com/

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2006/11/10/guide_to_borat/

good news from jason

http://www.jasongrote.com/

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com

PLAYWRIGHT

I've discovered something recently. My subconscious mind doesn't register the novel I'm trying to write. All the time it wants me to work on plays. It doesn't think I'm a novelist and so it is not impressed with time spent working on the novel. i'm not sure what to do about this. i could try and convince it i guess that novel writing is writing too but it may be a hard thing to convince it of. Especially since noveling doesn't offer the form of thearapy that writing plays does. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's more work or maybe somewhere so deep in me i have told myself i have to be writing a play all the time adn now that's all I can accept. It's like there is an invisible tattoo on all my organs that says playwright and subsequently the novel writing does not feel like progress. Or maybe I'm just in a funk again because I just finished a play and i forget that i always have this moment of happiness followed by a funk that the play is over and exists and by existing some of the doors of what it can be have been closed and it just is something now. in any case, i want to start another play right this second to get out of this funk and that may be what i do. because writing a novel is not helping. although i don't want to stop the novel so i may take on the dubious task of trying to write a novel and a play at the same time. i'll let you know how it goes.

from Chris Durang

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-durang/you-must-watch-hacking-d_b_33271.html

"By creating machines with a security flaw that
includes the ability to change vote tallies with NO
SIGN THAT SOMETHING HAS BEEN CHANGED -- that's one
helluva security flaw -- Diebold shows itself to be a
truly dishonest company. One could decide they're just
incompetent - they're only receiving billions from our
tax dollars for these fraudulent machines - but I
think it's fair enough to say they're dishonest.

I have no idea if my vote on Tuesday will register
properly. And if the votes in my area don't match
"exit polls" or national Pennsylvania polls, there's
no way to do a recount without the paper trail. No
way. "

coming soon

http://www.theater2k.com/t2kmain1.swf

from ny times Ted Koppel

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/opinion/06koppel.html?hp

"We are left with the impression that the grown-ups in
Washington would prefer to make the difficult
decisions for us without involving the courts,
Congress or the press. That is precisely the wrong way
to go about winning this war. Back when the United
States was widely admired, it was for all that was
most cumbersome about our democratic process.

America's efforts to transplant democracy elicit none
of that admiration. How can they, when we appear to
have lost confidence in fundamental aspects of
democracy here at home? What has historically
impressed our allies and adversaries has been our
often flawed, but ultimately sincere, determination to
operate within the law — if not always abroad, then at
least within the United States."

from ny times

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/opinion/05rich.html?em&ex=1162962000&en=8a1ab164161ba7af&ei=5087%0A

"On the same day Mr. Kerry blundered, the United
States suffered a palpable and major defeat in Iraq.
The Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, once again
doing the bidding of the anti-American leader Moktada
al-Sadr, somehow coerced American forces into
dismantling their cordon of Sadr City, where they were
searching for a kidnapped soldier. As the melodramatic
debates over how much Mr. Kerry should apologize
dragged on longer, still more real news got short
shrift: the October death toll for Americans in Iraq
was the highest in nearly two years. Some 90 percent
of the dead were enlisted men and nearly a third were
on extended tours of duty or their second or third
tours. Their average age was 24. "

I didn't get a chance to work on the novel this
morning. What I did do however was finish a first
draft of the play about Bush and Cheney and the War in
Iraq. At the moment it's called "Never Again, a
Fantasy Play."

I don't quite feel the sense of accomplishment I
always think I'll feel when I get to the end of
somtthing. Perhaps it's because I know in some ways
it's just the start of the process and I still have to
hear it out loud and revise it and then try to talk
someone into doing it and then that makes me tired to
think about.

Maybe I can come home and work on the novel after
work. In any case, happy Monday.

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com/

Warrantless

Blue Box Productions has a radio play of mine alog
with some others up here in protest of Bush's illegal
wiretapping.

http://www.blueboxproductions.net/operation%20liberty%20tap.html

If you check back again on the 15th there will be more
plays up.

oh and also

I meant to say. The reading of Incendiary went REALLY
well. I was kind of shocked how well it went. I hope
you can come see it when we do a workshop production
of it in Feb at Juilliard with 2nd year actors.

batistick

Saw a fantastic show last night--Mike Batistick's Port
Authority Throwdown at 45 Bleecker/Culture Project
produced by the Working Theatre.

All four actors were terrific, the set design was
gorgeous in a port authority way and the direction was
out of sight. Most of all though it was a smart well
written play about something important delivered in an
entertaining way with humanity and truth and humor.

Can't recommend enough.

only got a bit of writing done today. see me here
babling in the early morning hours.

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com/

tomorrow

Tomorrow I will start a novel. I finished a first
draft last night of my dog play. I know I haven't
mentioned it at all yet or posted anything from it
really because it's different kind of play and I'm not
sure how much more work I need to do on it before I'm
ready.

I was hoping to finish the political play as well by
today but I guess I will have to just write both it
and the novel. because deadlines are important
people.

So for the next month or two month or three months, I
may be blogging less, or i may be blogging more or you
may find me here instead.

http://szymkowicznaked.blogspot.com/ or not. It's
hard to say.

ny times article

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/business/worldbusiness/30energy.html?hp&ex=1162270800&en=0aec92e4764ed849&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"Most of these experts also say existing energy
alternatives and improvements in energy efficiency are
simply not enough.

"We cannot come close to stabilizing temperatures"
unless humans, by the end of the century, stop adding
more CO2 to the atmosphere than it can absorb, said W.
David Montgomery of Charles River Associates, a
consulting group, "and that will be an economic
impossibility without a major R.& D. investment.""

playwrights on writing

http://www.calendarlive.com/stage/cl-playwrights-sg,0,1013979.storygallery

I'm having a reading Halloween Tuesday at 2:30 of my
play Incendiary at Juilliard. Let em know if you wnat
to come and I'll use my special powers to get you past security.

whoops, what I meant to say was:

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3728

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3820

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=3821

hooray

http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/multiple.asp

fratricide

here is the replacement poem i wrote for the scene in
my cowboy hamlet. I'm not saying it's a better poem.
in fact the fact that it's bad is kind of the point.
And it works better in context but here it is anyway.

Fratricide: A Poem For a Bear to Read

In the grimy streets of
Dust-y
Dust
Where the flowers don't grow
Fratricide

A man goes out to buy a horse
But comes home with
A gun instead
It gleams
Polished as it is
Fratricide

A Bear is just a large person who feels too much

Fratricide

I had
Such
Hope in my heart
Before
Fratricide

Flowers at the funeral
No flowers at the saloon

A bear will hibernate in winter
But our feelings
Cannot sleep
Fratricide

on wonkette
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/impeachment/its-a-mandate-209624.php

via daisey
http://www.mikedaisey.com/

"Buried in this Newsweek story is the news that 51% of
American voters want Bush impeached — 28% say High
Priority, 23% say Low Priority, 44% against, 6%
undecided or don't know what a president is. And only
78% of Republicans oppose impeachment, proving
something or other.

Didn't Bush come back in '04 claiming 51% was a
"mandate" for all kinds of new fun?"