Dark age of the artist

From an email ...

You go through life and accomplish some things you are proud of. Others recognize their value and praise them. Time passes. Your pride remains strong but fewer and fewer people remember your accomplishments, and finally it seems as if they never existed. You ask yourself, Should I have chosen a different career with a longer shelf life? You begin to feel your professional life was a waste of time.

 I can relate to this, from a writer acquaintance. 

Elijah Cummings

Where I wish I was right now

"In the canon of first generation hypertext"

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                                                     Copyright 1996

The Last Song of Violeta Parra

a hyperdrama in one act
by Charles Deemer

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Playwright's Note: This script was written for and in collaboration with Andres Espejo and his company Prisma, in Santiago, Chile. Both the English and Spanish versions (translated by Andres Espejo) of the play are available online (see below). Production notes.
In the canon of first generation hypertext.

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Main Menu

The Cast:

ALBERTO, 20s, the groom [begin]
        "Voltaire told us to tend to our own gardens.  I think he was
        right."


LUISA, 20s, the bride, inheritor of the house [begin]
        "I want life to be a honeymoon."


JUAN (EL ROLO) RAMIREZ, 20s, the gallery manager [begin]
        "We were still determined to let the world know the truth
        about the death of Violeta Parra."


EDUARDO MEZA, 20s, an artist [begin]
        "I do my best work when I'm upset."


FRANCISCO LARRAIN, 40s-50s, an art critic [begin]
        "The weapon I choose is Wit, Eduardo.  You're dead."


CARMEN EYZAGUIRRE, 40s, a business woman and art collector [begin]
        "The degeneration of culture is very real, I'll grant you
        that, but it does not mean that I have to pay for it."


ANA, 20s, her daughter [begin]
        "Customs will not worry about someone as wealthy as mother.
        She will take the painting to Madrid . . ."


GUILLERMINA, 20s, asst to Juan [begin]
        "I wanted to do something important in the world.  To make a difference."


Read it or check it out.

Commentary from CANONIZING HYPERTEXT.

Robert Coover, literary magician

Best short story ever written about drinking.

Going for a Beer

By Robert Coover

Photograph by DAVIS & DAVIS, “HAROLD ANGEL” (1996) / MARX & ZAVATTERO, SAN FRANCISCO

He finds himself sitting in the neighborhood bar drinking a beer at about the same time that he began to think about going there for one. In fact, he has finished it. Perhaps he’ll have a second one, he thinks, as he downs it and asks for a third. There is a young woman sitting not far from him who is not exactly good-looking but good-looking enough, and probably good in bed, as indeed she is. Did he finish his beer? Can’t remember. What really matters is: Did he enjoy his orgasm? Or even have one? This he is wondering on his way home through the foggy night streets from the young woman’s apartment. Which was full of Kewpie dolls, the sort won at carnivals, and they made a date, as he recalls, to go to one. Where she wins another—she has a knack for it. Whereupon they’re in her apartment again, taking their clothes off, she excitedly cuddling her new doll in a bed heaped with them. He can’t remember when he last slept, and he’s no longer sure, as he staggers through the night streets, still foggy, where his own apartment is, his orgasm, if he had one, already fading from memory. Maybe he should take her back to the carnival, he thinks, where she wins another Kewpie doll (this is at least their second date, maybe their fourth), and this time they go for a romantic nightcap at the bar where they first met. Where a brawny dude starts hassling her. He intervenes and she turns up at his hospital bed, bringing him one of her Kewpie dolls to keep him company. Which is her way of expressing the bond between them, or so he supposes, as he leaves the hospital on crutches, uncertain what part of town he is in. Or what part of the year. He decides that it’s time to call the affair off—she’s driving him crazy—but then the brawny dude turns up at their wedding and apologizes for the pounding he gave him. He didn’t realize, he says, how serious they were. The guy’s wedding present is a gift certificate for two free drinks at the bar where they met and a pair of white satin ribbons for his crutches. During the ceremony, they both carry Kewpie dolls that probably have some barely hidden significance, and indeed do. The child she bears him, his or another’s, reminds him, as if he needed reminding, that time is fast moving on. 

Read it 

Life, Death and THE HOURS

Rewatched a favorite film, THE HOURS, this morning. First rate, top to bottom. Three remarkable performances. Brilliant editing. Perfect music. Great script from the novel. Love this film.

It always reminds me of a couplet by Cummings: the most who die, the more we live.

Death is so essential in defining Life: and this culture's removal of focus on this reduces the experience of living. We should celebrate Death as the context of our deepest moments of living. Our old folks, people like myself, are a valuable asset to do this but instead we warehouse and ignore the elderly, who become irrelevant in the culture. A terrible loss.

This film sings these themes.

The hopeless old guard

Headline of the day

Portland Named Nation’s Most Dangerous City, Worst Police Department

Read about it.

And to think that 35 years ago I regarded Portland as a bohemian utopia and a great home. "This is the way Greenwich Village used to be," said my agent. But not for long.

Glad to be in Milwaukie! Not far enough away but better than nothing.

Remembering W. H. Auden

Read it.

I met Auden in early 1960s when he  visited Pasadena City College and I was his student host. What I remember most is how many martinis he drank -- and yet, seemingly drunk, sobered up for long enough to give a wonderful reading, then started drinking again.

I also remember a class in which I discovered none of my students had read him (most had never heard of him), including graduate English majors. Shameful.

10 Classic W. H. Auden Poems Everyone Should Read

My most successful ("traditionally") project

Not a stage play, not a hyperdrama, not a novel ... but my 1997 electronic screenwriting tutorial. You can't argue with reviews like this, and I made a decent income from it during its heyday. Now I offer it free online. Trouble is, almost no one knows about it and I am too lazy to market it. But it remains, to my astonishment, one of a kind. A big corporation could have taken the concept and blown me out of the water. The folks at a major screenwriting program almost did but changed their mind.

Check it out.

How folks loved it! ...

Excerpts from reviews and letters about the book:

• "If you are interested in writing screenplays, I cannot recommend this course highly enough....For the first time (to my knowledge) the "book" is written for the way one works rather than expecting one to follow the author's suggested line of thought....I was prompted to go back and do further work on one of my screenplays which I had thought finished. How do you put a price on that? Charles has done a superb job compiling as much as one needs to know to write a screenplay. It is a trove of information and guidance. Just add your own story." Cam Eason, The Book Nook
• "the remarkable electronic book on Screenwriting...Screenwright has everything that you would expect in a well written screenwriting work book....Although there is plenty of meat in its twelve chapters, as a quick aide memoire it excels because you can so quickly access a piece of information at your desktop when you need it....Screenwright is a fresh approach to helping your screenwriting and one that deserves consideration from everyone starting out." John Hopson, Virtual Screenwriter at London Screenwriters Workshop
• "Especially for newcomers to screenwriting, Charles Deemer's book can help shorten a long and often painful learning curve. And what the heck -- maybe those of us who have managed to write a few scripts via the 'forest' method can soak up some of the best lessons of the 'trees.'" Si Dunn at Cyber Film School
• "The book is designed like a course, and takes the approach that the reader is basically a beginner. Every step is explained in detail, and nothing is over-looked. ... Screenwrightpresents a self-contained screenwriting course that anyone can use. It is structured unlike any other screenwriting book -- due mostly to the fact that it is an electronic (html) book." Christopher Wehner, Screenwriters Utopia
• "highly recommended...remarkable, ground-breaking screenwriting tutorial." Screaming in the Celluloid Jungle
• "...this book is [for] someone who is about to start their first screenplay - or someone who has started but found the process frustrating, unrewarding and mystifying....An unusual and innovative approach to teaching screenwriting." And in a second post: "...the strength of Screenwright is that it presents fledgeling writers with a range of options, within which to explore their own personal approach to screenwriting.... this book is ideal for those just dipping into the big pool of screenwriting." Chris Owen on misc.writing.screenplays newsgroup.

Many more.

Play ball!

Mariners open Spring Training with a game at noon. Yes!

Americans’ ignorance of history is a national scandal

Read about it.

Soft-Boiled Eggs With Anchovy Toast

Check it out.

In Palm Springs, the nation’s first all-LGBTQ city council tests the modern meaning of diversity

Read the story.

Avocado toast

NY Times had a recipe a few days ago, tried it for lunch. Outstanding! The keys: my homemade bread and pickled red onions.

Here is the recipe. Be sure to  improvise.

Jill Lapore on Socialism

S.O.S.

CJ, a novel

More info.

Ben Ray Lujan

✔@repbenraylujan

Gun violence in schools is an emergency.
30 million Americans without health insurance is an emergency.
Climate change is an emergency.
Child poverty is an emergency.
The President not getting his way is not an emergency. #FakeTrumpEmergency

310

8:29 AM - Feb 15, 2019

Sanders on Debs

Better content than delivery.

In the kitchen

Nothing like cooking to get out of a funk.. Today: blueberry pancakes for breakfast, made olive bread and five seeds flat bread (naan), grilled hot dogs for lunch, probably salmon in garlic butter for dinner.

An exciting new project, in my waking head in whole cloth this morning, to add to Requiem, but it has much more urgency, being whole at birth. Quite an original concept, I think. Ordinary work in a unique package. We'll see. 

Snow and funk

One of those days.

Our corrupt system

Cooking

I've never enjoyed cooking as much as I do now. Close was a few years in grad school when I subscribed to an international cookbook series and was trying new dishes constantly. But now is my most fun time in the kitchen since then, with my usual breadmaking and buttermilk making and stir fries and paella, but with new toys, an indoor grill, using parchment paper, and now grinding my own spices.

It keeps me busy! And Harriet loves the results. Sometimes I make her a gourmet meal and eat a hot dog myself! More into cooking than eating. Except for breakfast. That is my taste delight.

Tiger by the tail

Starts 14+ mins. in.

Tick tock

That’s the riddle. To grasp the problem, we have to slow down. To respond to it, we have to act fast. We have both no time and more time, says climate scientist Kate Marvel. Climate change is a slope. We can ease our descent. But we don’t think about it this way.
“We want there to be a really simple story: You do this, and then everything will be okay,” says Marvel, who works for NASA in New York. “And everything is not going to be okay.”

Read more. 

Ha ha ha

Another successful experiment

Made oatmeal with coconut water. Excellent! Subtle, slight sweet freshness. A keeper. (p.s. this is a well known variation, lots of online recipes, it turns out. No surprise. Just new to me.)

Snow on ground this morning, not much, should melt by early afternoon.

Wondering how to grill salmon for dinner. Such decisions ha ha.

Doubt if I can stomach Bone Spur's crap this evening. Curious about response, though.

Cooking with parchment paper

Why I love this method.