David J. McGee

A Word of Advice to the Young

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 12:20:16 -0400

On the occasion of her graduation from high school, I provided a friend with some advice that I a) wish other people had given me or b) am really glad I heeded.

I read it to the assembled team of Ms. Stephanie, Joshua William Gelb, and Juddrigar Eccles Hardy VI, and they said that it should be compulsory advice for all recent graduates of high school. WHICH IS NICE OF THEM.

But in the interest of sharing it with upwards of four (4) more people, I decided to post it here.

-Study abroad. Just do it. There is no excuse to not do it. Just do it. For real. Pick someplace and go. It doesn’t matter where. Uzbekistan. Canada. Whatever.
-Do you have a meal-plan? Use the meal-plan. It will not seem as exciting as all of the one trillion amazing restaurants in Brooklyn, but when you don’t have it you will really, really miss it.
-Take art history. Let me repeat that, somewhat louder: TAKE ART HISTORY.
-Meet people. Meet as many people as possible. Hang out with them. Date them. Throw things at them. Whatever. There’s no better way to gain empathy than to just BE with lots and lots of different types of people. And empathy’s probably the greatest thing.
-Everybody you will be at school with was the star of their high school. They’re all going to be really good. YOU ARE ALSO REALLY GOOD. There’s a reason you’re there. Don’t forget this.
-It turns out cooking simple food is pretty simple. And will save you lots of money, which will suddenly become a thing you need to care about and also something you will HATE. Learn to cook some stuff. And cook it.
-You are going to live with people, which means you need to clean up after yourself. For real. I swear to the holy FSM I wish somebody had made this clear to me before I annoyed everyone I lived with for several years. You just CAN’T be a slob in shared space. People will want to stab you with spoons.
-Go. Watch. Theatre. See everything you can. While you’re a student it’s cheap as cheap. Go see everything.
-And every piece of art you see or experience, remember these three questions: What did you see? How did it make you feel? How did they do that?

So, there it is. Next time you start college, I expect you follow my every word.

$5 more!

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:34:25 -0500

Tack on $5 to The Monies. Yeah!

State of the Union

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:11:00 -0500

A Response to the State of the Union Address

Baloney. Or, in a more “adult” word: horseshit. You read that right. Horseshit. I said it.

Yeah, this is coming from the guy who gave hundreds of dollars to the Obama campaign, who drove to neighboring states to sign people up to vote for Obama, who wept on the morning when Obama was inaugurated, in surprise and pride and happiness and hope. Me. I’m still saying it. That speech was horseshit.

You’re probably surprised, at this point. You’re probably thinking of how much better it was than any speech Bush ever gave, how much more you agreed with it. Well, yeah, it was better than Bush’s State of the Union addresses, but so is having an eyebrow ring ripped out by your worst enemy while he’s murdering your mom. We don’t (we SHOULDN’T, at any rate) rate speeches by their comparisons to the particular brand of Horseshit W. spouted, else all other speeches look like West Wing season finales.

You know one of the things I hated most about President Bush? That his government held people in Guantanamo Bay indefinitely, without ever bringing charges, or bringing them to trial, or letting them go, or, you know, even telling them (or us) why they were there in the first place other than “THEY’RE EVIL BAD EVIL PEOPLE BAD SCARY OOOOO BAD!” You hated that too, right? We right-thinking people can agree that’s some medieval nonsense there. Heinous stuff, that.

Well, guess what? Last week, Barack Obama’s administration announced that fifty (50!) people will be held indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay prison, without being brought to trial. Ever. For real. Barack Obama. I’m not making this up, man. It’s in the paper and everything: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22gitmo.html?hpw . President Hope and Change announced that he’s leaving people locked up in a prison he promised to close by now (it’s been more than a year, and the clock’s ticking) because “they are too difficult to prosecute but too dangerous to release”. Fifty people. Fifty actual human beings, whatever Hannity calls them.

So when I hear Obama, a man I campaigned my goddamn guts out for, say things like “Let’s reject the false choice between protecting our people and upholding our values” I know that he’s full of shit, because he’s already chosen.

When he says “In the end, it’s our ideals, our values that built America” I know that he’s full of shit, because in the end he does not abide by America’s values. And if he’s full of shit when he’s talking about what I hold most sacred — if he’s full of shit about this, when he promised to return the country to the rule of law that had been so mercilessly shredded by the previous administration — why would I believe anything else he says?

I don’t.

I’m not overlooking the positives. Of course it’s a good idea to aim to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Of course it’s a good idea to fight for equal pay for equal work. It’s nice to say that we’re going to invest in education, that we’re going to invest in social services, that we’re going to take care of our returning soldiers (I am interested in how we’ll perform all of these social services in the midst of a spending freeze, but I suppose we’ll get to that next year when the spending freeze is canceled because it’s unpopular. Sorry Conan O’Brien, I’m one of the cynical ones, now). Of course it’s good to excoriate the Democrats for being spineless, and to whip the Republicans for being obstructionist. Yes yes. All well and good.

But what really matters to you? You, reading this. What really matters to you? Having a job? Making sure the economy is strong? Being repaid for the bank bailout? Having a president who talks all purty? What about the fact — the FACT — that you now know your government is willing to defy everything that makes its Constitution worth more than just the parchment it’s penned on because bringing people to trial is “too difficult”. Imagine if Bush said that. Imagine how you’d feel.

And that ain’t all, kid. Obama ended his speech by praising the determination and generosity of America in helping Haiti through its time of trouble. And of course, the people who have donated money, who have gone to help Haiti, should be praised. But if our government, if our people, had given just a dime for every dollar we’ve given BEFORE the earthquake struck, Haiti wouldn’t have been so devastated. If we gave a nickel to Indonesia for every dollar we gave after the Tsunami, so much needless suffering could have been avoided. If instead of outpouring sympathy for New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, we had invested in its infrastructure beforehand, we would have saved actual lives. Not a word was spent talking about how to fix these problems before they start, save a high-speed train through Tampa and a campaign against childhood obesity. Whoop.

But this speech wasn’t about that. This speech was about the economy, and then also some other stuff to fill the time. Want to fix the economy? End the wars. Want to fix healthcare? End the wars. Want the money back to fix our educational system? End the wars. Want to fix the budget deficit? End the fucking wars. Stop spending our money and our children’s money on building bombs and paying mercenaries (sorry, “contractors”) and building pilotless drones to bomb people from the stratosphere so that we can protect our country and start making it a country truly worth fucking protecting. You can start by reclaiming at least a smidge of the moral right by either bringing our prisoners to trial or letting them go. They might be back on the “battlefield” (when the hell are we, 1918?) tomorrow. So what? What are we fighting for? For real: what are we fighting for?

So yeah. I’m all for changing the tone in Washington. But nut the fuck up, Obama. Do something.

When it comes to civil liberties, right now Barack Obama is George Bush with a rhetoric coach. It may sound pretty, but it’s still anti-constitutional, police-state, illegal imprisonment in a prison he promised to close. Until this changes, I don’t believe a goddamn word out of the man’s mouth. Call me strident if you wish. But I still believe in hope. Do something to make me think you deserve it.

Following What?

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:37:36 -0500

There’s nothing wrong with “next customer”. Nothing wrong at all. When I have waited in a long and snaky line, likely being needled to near death by some sort of saxophonic melody playing from invisible but perfectly-placed store speakers, and I have finally attained the position of FIRST IN LINE, the call of “next customer” fills me with a sense of elation: soon I shall be out of the establishment free to overhear other obnoxious noises not pre-canned for my shopping enjoyment.

Then what is the what is the cry of “following guest”. Is that for me? Are you repeating it, raising your hand and looking at me? “Following guest”? “FOLLOWING GUEST”? Expecting me, the FIRST IN LINE, to understand that you mean me? ME?

This dreaded sentence fragment contains two problematic words, which isn’t a lot, per se, unless you remember that there it only contains TWO WORDS to begin with.

Let’s start with “guest”. I know I know I know your charter or your mission statement or your managerial dictate says that each of your customers is a special and unique flower who should blah blah blah blah. You are not my host. You are receiving my custom. There’s an awesome word for one who is giving you custom, and it ain’t “guest”. If I’m your guest, give me my shit for free. Or at least lend it to me long-term and tell me I can get it back to you whenever, you don’t use it that much anyway.

But fine. “Guest” I can get over, even though it’s not what you mean, or an accurate reflection of our relationship. It’s fucking annoying, but fine. It’s the “following” that really tears it for me, because as far as I can tell “following guest” can mean one of two things, and neither of them means that the person who is first in line should step forward to the till to exchange currency for goods. Or at least not without more guidance.

Here’s one way it would work: “Would the following guest please step forward: David McGee.” Or “Would the following guest please come to the register: he who has attained the position of first in line.” Because “following” implies necessarily more information is coming, right? When used in that context? Or if no further information is coming, then the person you are calling forward is the person who is behind me in line, as that person is following me, and since I am first in line I’m NOT FOLLOWING ANYBODY. GAH.

Just call me the next customer, please. I’ll be less weirdly hostile when we make our exchange.

This has been Ridiculous Complaints With Your Host David McGee.

The Monies

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:55:00 -0500

Total amount of money I have found on the streets of New York City: $70

Amount I have immediately given away to someone who claimed to have just dropped it: $20

Amount I saw that person drop: $0

Number of bananas she purchased me afterward (not a euphemism): 3

Amount she spent on those bananas: $1

Number of times the fruit stand guy, who saw the whole thing transpire, had to hint and pry that she should totally buy the bananas for me: at least 3

Number of times she said “Somebody will pay him back down the road” before getting the hint that the fruit stand guy thought that SHE should pay me back: at least 2

Number of NYU ID Cards I have found on the street: 1

The given name on the lost card: Jamiesyn

Number of people I have met named Jamiesyn: Well, 1 now.

Anyhow, total amount of money I’m up just by walking around and staying vaguely alert: $51.

Or, to be totally honest: $50. And three bananas.

***UPDATE***

Found $5 positively hauling-bill down the street on an extremely blustery day. I’m now up to $55. And three bananas.

Photo

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:27:31 -0400

What Exactly Is An Underneath?

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:01:00 -0400

An actual sign on the DC Metro (or “subway” for we real Americans):

Danger: Do not touch electrical paddles protruding from underneath of train!

OK. Fine. I won’t. There’s no need to shout. I’m willing to follow your cryptic instructions. But first answer some questions:

A) What the hell is an electrical paddle? It actually sort of sounds fun. Are you sure we can’t touch them? One? Can we touch just one?

B) FROM UNDERNEATH OF? This is three prepositions in a row. Which is too many prepositions from above to around about write in a row. Unless… is “underneath” a noun? “I have to scratch my underneath, because it itches”? “Put that baby on the underneath of the blanket so it’s warm”? “Hey, Mister! Hands off the underneath! I’m married!”

No. No, I don’t think it is. Come on, DC Metro.

And most importantly C) If they’re so dangerous, could you maybe get them back underneath of the train? You think? Must they protrude? There’s got to be a better way, yeah? Yeah.

Still want an electrical paddle though. Bet I’d win at ping pong every time.

"For the record, I’d like to live in an America in which I could leave my door unlocked all the..."

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:12:11 -0400

“For the record, I’d like to live in an America in which I could leave my door unlocked all the time; in which I could walk wherever I wanted at night; in which we all took each other on faith; in which there were fewer people and more trees, a wild America like Canada; an America in which I could believe what the President said; in which women’s bodies were their own business; in which electrical power consumption diminished every year, in which automobiles were banned from our cities and televisions and chain stores were banned everywhere; in which knowingly failing to help a stranger in an emergency would be punished by death, in which people collected experiences instead of things; in which everyone died at home, not in a hospital, in which everything was sexual and nothing was pornographic, in which beautiful words were second in importance only to beautiful deeds and beautiful souls, in which we all made use of what we already had.”

- William T. Vollmann, Rising Up and Rising Down Vol 1.

Secret Window

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:25:12 -0400

Once upon an ages ago, during that period of time known as “the hood of the child” (translated from the, um, Dutch), I read a book in which some siblings discovered a secret window in their home. EXCITING. This was not their usual home, but a summer home, or perhaps a new home. They had been into the home’s attic, and seen nothing out of the ordinary; but from outside, they espied a certain window, which may or may not have been of the stained-glass variety, in the vicinity of their attic. Through some investigation, they then discovered a boarded-up room within the attic, which room held some sort of cool mystery.

A couple of months ago, this memory, devoid of all defining details, popped into my head. I suddenly very much wanted to read the book again. I had set some time aside for writing, but I instead spent the time Internetting (from the verb “to Internet”, translated from the awesome) with various searches such as “children’s book secret window stained glass hidden room awesome memory childhood google please help me out”.

I did not find the book I was looking for. I did, however, realize the following truth: basically every children’s book ever written is about siblings discovering a secret window or a hidden room. For real. I found many, many, many* books that met the basic search criteria, but which were decidedly not the one I remembered.

But of the books I wasn’t looking for, two stood out as ones I’d actually like to read.

The first is The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton, in which two siblings discover a secret window shaped like a keyhole that leads to a hidden room in their attic. Scratched on the inside of the window is a long poem; as the kids decipher it, they somehow learn about Thoreau and Emerson and Louisa May Alcott and the transcendentalist movement. Intriguing. Learning can be fun!

The second is The Steps up the Chimney by William Corlett, in which siblings discover a secret window in their chimney that leads to a hidden room in which they discover a time-travelling magician (?). Adventure ensues. This gets bonus points for taking place in Wales, where much good children’s literature takes place.

So while my searching found me some books I’d like to read, it entirely failed to find the one I meant to.

Somehow, just yesterday, I ended up at the Wikipedia page that lists The Boxcar Children books. Yes. It’s the magic of Internetting. Now, the only excuse I can come up with for not checking this list before is the age-old one: I am an idiot. Because I read many, many, many** Boxcar Children books as a yoot, which books contain a) siblings and b) mysteries. Of course, the target of my search was among them. The book I was thinking of is The Treehouse Mystery. The vague details I remembered were all right on… but compared to the other two books mentioned above, this one actually seems really boring. And now that I’ve found it, I have no desire to read it again.

I feel like there’s a lesson here, but I’m not entirely sure what it is.

*(many)

**(many many)

Remembering

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:38:07 -0400

In Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card suggests a new type of post-life remembrance. Rather than being the subject of a white-washing eulogy, the deceased should be “spoken for”, in a Cromwellian warts-and-all type way. The speaker for the dead should speak not merely positively, but honestly; describing hopes, dreams, and aspirations, as well as foibles, failures, and flaws.

Michael Jackson died this week. Perhaps you’ve heard.

Immediately after his death, the eulogies began. And somewhat surprisingly, what I saw tended to focus on his rarely paralleled gifts as a performer, rather than on his past few decades of true batshit insanity (which tended to be glossed over with a mention, as if this did them justice). I saw also a second camp of eulogists, that denounced him as a pedophile, and pretty much nothing else worth mentioning.

Now, we don’t know if Michael Jackson ever broke the law during his strange, strange relationships with children. Certainly, whether the letter of the law was followed or not, those relationships were, in the parlance of our times, fucking weird. Grown-ass men sleeping in beds with boys who are not their own is passing strange, and creepy, and profoundly icky, and gross. My guess, for whatever it’s worth, is that he was damaged to the point where he honestly believed there was nothing wrong with his actions, because he honestly believed that he himself was also a little boy. This is not a defense, note. Honest belief is never an adequate defense.

But I am surprised by how few appraisals and obituaries I’ve seen that take both sides of the man into account. This may, admittedly, be because I have not been looking at enough appraisals and obituaries, and because those that I have read tend to be your Facebookian status updates and Twitterish 140 character shouts, which are not the world’s finest places to craft a coherent argument. But it seems that one group wants to ignore the insanity and focus on the art, and the other wants to focus on the art and ignore the insanity.

Is there room for both?

I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. Quite a bit. Do an artist’s non-artistic thoughts, opinions, doings, political alignments, felonies, &c. have anything to do, at the end of the metaphorical day, with an artist’s art? Just as a for-instance, Orson Scott Card, mentioned at the top of this essay, is a raging bigot. Does this in any way diminish the value and beauty of his Speaker for the Dead concept?

Does Michael Jackson’s creepy weirdness detract from the brilliance of Billie Jean?

Is art a “conversation” between artist and audience via the art, or a “conversation” between the art and the audience in which the artist is vestigial at best?

Is a blog post interesting if it just poses unanswerable questions?

Here is my appraisal: Michael Jackson was one of the strangest people to ever walk the face of the Earth. He was also one of the most talented. Each of these statements is true. His talent seems like it was at least partially the result of abuse. His weirdness seems to stem from the same root. I do not think his death is tragic; I do think that his life was. His performance added joy to the world, but I don’t believe he ever experienced any of it. His pain entertained us, whether we danced to his songs or laughed at his plastic surgery. He behaved inappropriately, dangerously, and criminally (baby over balcony, in any case) with children. He was a disturbed, sick, fucked-up human. And between now and the day I die, I will never be able to stop myself from dancing when Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough starts playing.

This is all true. So how will we remember? We get to decide now. Always.

Theater.

Mon, 04 May 2009 08:05:00 -0400

I have three (3) readings/performances/ERA-DEFINING THEATER EXPERIENCES going up in the New York area within the next, say, 27 days. Give or take 0 days. I am now going to shill for all of them, including telling you if/when I’ll be there, so if you want to not only experience the majesty and triumph of my written word but also my actual physical American presence, you’ll know what you’re in for. Ready? Go!

1.
Mare Cognitum (all the info you need, plus tickets: http://www.totseb.com/mare.html )
A remount of the production from the 2008 NYFringe. nytheatre.com said “Mare Cognitum is about faith and magic, and theatergoers who give in to either or both will feel as if they’ve left this world for a time and flown to another.” And my mom said “That play was the r0x0rz, holmez” (approximately). It’ll cost you $12. Come on. You were gonna spend that to see Wolverine, anyway, and this is much better and has less shouting, plus jokes.

The Workshop Theater
312 West 36th Street, 4th Floor
between 8th & 9th Avenues
New York, NY 10018

Previews:
Saturday, May 9th—6pm
Tuesday, May 12th—7pm
Performances:
Friday, May 15th—7pm
Saturday, May 16th—4:15pm
Sunday, May 17th—7pm
Thursday, May 21st—8pm
Saturday, May 23rd—1pm & 9:15pm
Sunday, May 24th—4:15pm
Wednesday, May 27th—8pm
Friday May 29th—9:45pm (David McGee, in attendance. In fact, following this performance, there will be a Q&A with me, as well as drinking, so you can ask me what I was thinking when I wrote it and whether or not I think it’s a good idea to give my plays unpronouncable names in languages nobody speaks. So that will be fun. Plus, you can see how nervous I am when I get interviewed!)
Saturday, May 30th—7pm (David McGee, in attendance)
2.
Eclipse of the Sun
A reading of a new short play based on this painting: http://www.tate.org.uk/images/cms/12516w_younourishwithhate_eclipsesun.jpg

Not only will you get to hear the play, you’ll get to participate in it! Because this will have (voluntary only, I swear) audience participation! You’ll get to hear the play read by actual professional actors, and then you’ll get to jump in and take over any part you want, any time you want. Or something like that. It’ll be fun. Plus, My Erstwhile Roommate says “Of the stupid plays you’ve written, this one is the most coherent” (approximately). The reading will follow the May 27th production of Mare Cognitum, in the very same space and everything, and will cost $0 more than just seeing Mare, so it’s like two for the price of awesome.

3.
Over and Over (all the info you need, plus tickets: http://www.breedingground.com/sff/projects/OverAndOver/index.htm )
A reading of a new long play based on things from my mind, and the ice age, and the cyclical nature of history, and environmental calamity, and sickness, and all sorts of wacky stuff. Dave McGee calls this play “not quite finished” and “sort of alarming in its scope” and “probably good, assuming it gets completed in time” (direct quotes). I will be in attendance here, and then I will rush over to the other theatre to see Mare, so if you like your Saturdays jam-packed with theatrical goodness, why not make a day of it and see both and then come drink with me? Doesn’t that sound nice? And this one’s only five bucks.

The Robert Moss Theater
440 Lafayette St, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10003
Saturday, May 30th — 4pm. ONE TIME ONLY.

So, uh, yeah. That’s it.

How Jamie Roach Inadvertently Kick-Started My Theatrical Life

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:45:08 -0400

I don’t remember the exact order of things. Because that’s what tends to happen with events more than fifteen years gone that at the time didn’t seem particularly noteworthy.

My fifth grade teacher, the late Mr. Gillis, was the kind of teacher that movies get made about. He wanted to impart to his classes of ten year olds a love of learning for its own sake, a love of literature, and culture, and music. He conducted the school choir, had us reading constantly, and introduced me and I’m sure countless others to the works of one J. William Shakespeare. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? He wrote under a pseudonym. Not a very clever one.

One of our class projects was a performance of various excerpts — language lightly modified for the non-Elizabethan young’un — from Shakespeare’s plays. I was to play Petruchio from the wooing scene in Taming of the Shrew.

(This was, side note, a role that I’m sure I already had memorized somewhere deep in the subconscious twists and turns of my brain, as I had listened to the BBC’s 1980 Taming countless hundreds of times during my infancy. As a wee tyke, I didn’t much like to sleep during the night, and my mother had a fair few sources of entertainment to choose from in those heady non-cable days in Tokyo. Therefore, it was John Cleese in tights and me in arms together on many a many early 80’s night. So, actually, come to think of it, maybe it was THAT that kick-started my theatrical life. If those Baby Einstein tapes are supposed to somehow make our infants more adept at spatial organization, maybe the tape of my childhood made me more adept at iambic pentameter and salty puns.)

Anyhoo, somewise because of this performance, I ended up being asked to audition for the Grossmont College (the local J.C.) production of Harvey Fierstein’s On Tidy Endings, as part of an evening of student-directed one-acts. My classmate and friend Jamie Roach was also asked to audition. I think that he had played Romeo in the balcony scene at our little class production, there, so obviously whoever was scouting out the elementary school for thespian talent was aiming strictly for the heavy-hitters. It was my first real audition for anything, and it went well, and I think they told me how cute I was and all in all it was a great time.

And lo: I got the part. I ended up at Grossmont College several nights a week for the next while, rehearsing and reading and sitting backstage waiting for my scenes. I worked with my first director who wasn’t a parent or teacher, the lovely and talented Ms. Alex Apostolidis, who gave me my first real instruction in things like “subtext” and “character” and “not moving just because you’ve been directed to move because then it looks stupid”. I got a chance to meet wonderful people, and to be part of a cast that included me even though I was just some damn kid, and to work in a theatre outside of school for the first time. And good grief: I was hooked.

After one performance of the show, an older man I had never met approached me. He told me that he would be directing a production of To Kill a Mockingbird at the college the next autumn, and I would be perfect to play the role of Jem, and would I maybe like to do that? I said yes, of course. And so after a summer off, I was back at Grossmont, in a bigger production with a budget and large cast and sets and lights and at least one bonafide professional actor and I knew pretty much right then and there that I never wanted to do anything else ever. Except maybe play basketball with Michael Jordan. I wanted to do that too.

So, yeah. I don’t remember when exactly in all this I found out that Jamie Roach had been offered the part first and had turned it down because his parents found the material objectionable (what with dealing with the AIDS and the gay and whatnot), but sometimes now I think about how things might have been different if his parents had been as cool hip & groovy as mine, and it’s hard to know, and it’s hard to think about, and it’s hard to wonder just how much would have changed.

"It’s true that good governments appreciate the holy indignation of the governed, provided it..."

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:10:03 -0400

“It’s true that good governments appreciate the holy indignation of the governed, provided it remains lyrical… Experience shows that one can and must refuse the theatrical role of pure and simple indignation that is proposed to us.”

- Michel Foucault, “Confronting Governments: Human Rights”

Dream Dumpage

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:43:00 -0400

Two nights ago, woke up just after I had discovered (written on a wall?) a four line or perhaps four couplet poem that was so intensely beautiful that it put me on the edge of tears. Came fully awake, the poem drifting away as I sought to hold on to the end, at least. Couldn’t, although I kept the sense of it. My guess now is that the dream logic imparted some impossibly few words with some impossibly loaded meaning. Anyway, as close as I can get to recreating the final couplet is this:

Who of us, with flowers newly blossomed

Would rather cut them down than see them tended?

*****

Last night, long involved rambling thing that took place mostly at a picnic. A large yellow awning was erected to block the sunlight (making me think that I must have had this dream just as the sunlight began to come through the blinds). Someone suggested that any color shade was OK when in the sun, but this one stayed fiercely yellow. The conversation turned to artistic and athletic agents. My brother suggested that maybe some agents make decisions for their clients based on rolling dice like a game master, which would explain why many of their decisions seem so awful. I went to get some vodka over at the concession stand. A military plane circled overhead sounding several sonic booms and then crashed somewhere off in the distance.

"Look, man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need..."

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:17:48 -0500

“Look, man, we’d probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is?”

- David Foster Wallace, quoted in the wonderful article about his life and work in The New Yorker. [extreme spoiler warning applies. the article discusses both The Broom of the System’s and Infinite Jest’s plots at length, and includes the final lines from both novels. you have been warned.]

Now, I worry about this. I worry that this is what I am doing when I write plays, and when I write fiction. That I am simply adding noise to noise, that I am with ironic distance pointing at the world as it burns, having a good laugh and cracking a few stress-relieving jokes, but doing nothing to actually put out the fire. What a shame, what a shame that would be.

This could easily turn into a treatise on why I think it’s worth the work and time and pain and trouble and pennilessness to produce fiction in the first place. And I should probably write that someday, but I only have 46 minutes and you probably wouldn’t want to read it anyway.

In the meantime, I’ll just say that I agree. It’s not enough to point. It’s never enough to just point.

"‘I would not kill even a Bishop. I would not kill a proprietor of any kind. I would make them..."

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:12:44 -0500

“‘I would not kill even a Bishop. I would not kill a proprietor of any kind. I would make them work each day as we have worked in the fields and as we work in the mountains with the timber, all the rest of their lives. So they would see what man is born to. That they should sleep where we sleep. That they should eat as we eat. But above all that they should work. Thus they would learn.’
‘And they would survive to enslave thee again.’
‘To kill them teaches nothing,’ Anselmo said. ‘You cannot exterminate them because from their seed comes more with greater hatred. Prison is nothing. Prison only makes hatred. That our enemies should learn.’”

- E. Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

"1. That which exists has value. 2. Except for that which is intended to harm or destroy."

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 05:00:09 -0500

“1. That which exists has value.
2. Except for that which is intended to harm or destroy.”

The Spoken Word

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:01:22 -0500

I had been planning to write an essay about how Obama co-opts the language of simplicity to discuss complexity, thereby sounding like Bush while thinking like, er, an adult, but Garth at The Millions beat me to it. And did it way better than I would have. So read this.

Listen to me tell a story about Moravia. This week on Podia.

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:11:00 -0500

Listen to me tell a story about Moravia. This week on Podia.

Open Letter to President Obama

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:43:20 -0500

Dear Mr. President,

This week, your Justice Department invoked former President George W. Bush’s horrifying “state secrets” powers to continue the government’s policies of “extraordinary rendition.” This is disgraceful.

Just three weeks ago, you said “we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” And we do, sir. Please put an end to these illegal and atrocious mockeries of justice. We are better than this.

Thank you very much.
Yours sincerely,
David J. McGee

*****

It ain’t much, but the White House comments system only gives one 500 characters to work with. Please email the President. He works for us. He acts in our name.