Monday, February 24, 2020
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Anniversary
- 1940
- February 23
Woody Guthrie writes
“This Land Is Your Land”
Folk singer Woody Guthrie writes one of his best-known songs, “This Land is Your Land.”
Listen to the songs and stories of Guthrie, performed by Charles Deemer and Jim Wylie.
 |
| Wylie & Deemer |
The ignored verses:
[Verse 4]
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said "No trespassin'"
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
[Verse 5]
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me
[Verse 4]
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said "No trespassin'"
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
[Verse 5]
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me
Friday, February 21, 2020
Read it and weep
We Have 10 Years Left To Save The World, Says Climate Expert
Christiana Figueres, the lead U.N. negotiator of the Paris climate agreement, says the next decade is the most important in the history of humanity.
Read the article.
TITANIC BLUES is about a woman who no longer can live on automatic pilot when understanding this crisis. It ain't pretty.
TITANIC BLUES is about a woman who no longer can live on automatic pilot when understanding this crisis. It ain't pretty.
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Fire!
Wow. After more than 2,000 former DOJ expressed alarm about challenges to rule of law, now the Federal Judges' Association has called an emergency meeting re concerns around independent law enforcement.
Our institutions are sounding alarms. usatoday.com/story/news/pol…
11.5K people are talking about this
Monday, February 17, 2020
Top 10, go Ducks!
| 1 | South Carolina (27) | 22-1 | 747 | 1 |
| 2 | Baylor (3) | 21-1 | 716 | 2 |
| 3 | Oregon | 22-2 | 697 | 3 |
| 4 | NC State | 22-1 | 624 | 7 |
| 5 | UConn | 20-2 | 622 | 4 |
| 6 | Mississippi State | 22-3 | 605 | 8 |
| 7 | UCLA | 21-2 | 576 | 10 |
| 8 | Stanford | 21-3 | 547 | 6 |
| 9 | Louisville | 21-3 | 506 | 5 |
| 10 | Maryland | 20-4 | 450 | 13 |
Sunday, February 16, 2020
A sad truth
It’s Too Late For Us To Fight Climate Change. Instead, Here’s How We’ll Spend Our Lives.
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
New theater, obsession, mental illness?
Ha ha ha.
I've been a champion of "hyperdrama" since my introduction to the new theater form in the mid 1980s, when I was commissioned to write one for Portland's Pittock Mansion. I probably have written more, and had more produced, than any other writer in the world. I have a one-act "in the canon of first generation hypertext." I've had several graduate dissertations written on my work. My work is studied in universities that teach hypertext. Hyperdrama has been the focus of much of my writing career.
And yet I failed. No hyperdrama theater or company yet exists that I am aware of. Those attracted to the form go into narrative computer games where the money is, ignoring the live performance version. So I will die "a failure," as far as my dream and obsession go. I still believe that traditional theater is a version of hyperdrama, a subset, just as Newtonian physics is a subset of quantum physics.
So be it. Failure or not, my work has been challenging, fun and productive. Check some of it out:
Changing Key, a video introduction to hyperdrama.
The Chekhov hyperdrama.
Other hyperdrama material.
A few studies of my hyperdrama:
In the canon of first generation hypertext
by Astrid Esslin
Hyperdrama as a New Kind of Dramatic Texts
by Nahla Sadek Elgawahergy
I've been a champion of "hyperdrama" since my introduction to the new theater form in the mid 1980s, when I was commissioned to write one for Portland's Pittock Mansion. I probably have written more, and had more produced, than any other writer in the world. I have a one-act "in the canon of first generation hypertext." I've had several graduate dissertations written on my work. My work is studied in universities that teach hypertext. Hyperdrama has been the focus of much of my writing career.
And yet I failed. No hyperdrama theater or company yet exists that I am aware of. Those attracted to the form go into narrative computer games where the money is, ignoring the live performance version. So I will die "a failure," as far as my dream and obsession go. I still believe that traditional theater is a version of hyperdrama, a subset, just as Newtonian physics is a subset of quantum physics.
So be it. Failure or not, my work has been challenging, fun and productive. Check some of it out:
Changing Key, a video introduction to hyperdrama.
The Chekhov hyperdrama.
Other hyperdrama material.
A few studies of my hyperdrama:
In the canon of first generation hypertext
by Astrid Esslin
Hyperdrama as a New Kind of Dramatic Texts
by Nahla Sadek Elgawahergy
The dramas under study in the research are The Bride of Edgefield (1994), The Last Song of Violetta Parra (1996), and The Seagull Hyperdrama (2004). The three dramas are written by the American writer Charles Deemer, who is a pioneer in the field of hyperdrama. Like all works written in hypertext, the dramas are created on a computer device and can be read on one as well. The action in the first two plays revolves around themes of greed, torn family relations, theft, and murder. While the last play The Seagull Hyperdrama is Deemer's biggest hyperdrama, where he adopts Anton Chekov's famous masterpiece The Seagull (1896) and adds many scenes to the original text.
A Dutch Translation of Charles Deemer's Hyperdrama "The Last Song of Violetta Parra" with an Introduction to Hypertext
by Nele de Roy
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Tick tock
Antarctica Hits 64.9 Degrees, Highest Temperature Ever Recorded On Continent
For TITANIC BLUES to work, the optimist in the play, who believes "we're going to get out of this," has to be believable. Can the play be performed while this is still viable? Alas, I'm not so sure!
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Democrats
Will Rogers said it best: I belong to no organized political party; I'm a Democrat.
The Iowa mess has handed Bone Spur a PR gift: if Democrats can't manage an election in a small state, how in hell can they be expected to manage health care or the country?
Good question.
The Iowa mess has handed Bone Spur a PR gift: if Democrats can't manage an election in a small state, how in hell can they be expected to manage health care or the country?
Good question.
Monday, February 3, 2020
What needs to be said
By Chris Hedges:
The rhetoric we use to describe ourselves is so disconnected from reality that it has induced collective schizophrenia. America, as it is discussed in public forums by politicians, academics and the media, is a fantasy, a Disneyfied world of make-believe. The worse it gets, the more we retreat into illusions. The longer we fail to name and confront our physical and moral decay, the more demagogues who peddle illusions and fantasies become empowered. Those who acknowledge the truth—beginning with the stark fact that we are no longer a democracy—wander like ghosts around the edges of society, reviled as enemies of hope. The mania for hope works as an anesthetic. The hope that Donald Trump would moderate his extremism once he was in office, the hope that the “adults in the room” would manage the White House, the hope that the Mueller report would see Trump disgraced, impeached and removed from office, the hope that Trump’s December 2019 impeachment would lead to his Senate conviction and ouster, the hope that he will be defeated at the polls in November are psychological exits from the crisis—the collapse of democratic institutions, including the press, and the corporate corruption of laws, electoral politics and norms that once made our imperfect democracy possible.Read it all.
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