The fine print

clipped from media.www.dailyvanguard.com TV is back! But who won the writers' strike? What did the writers lose? First, their revenue gains were de-clawed. The agreement includes the provision that writers will receive no online money from advertising for the first 17 to 20 days--you know, when most people will download a popular show. The writers also lost another battle. Wanting to make their influence more powerful, the WGA tried to get writers for animated television and reality TV unionized. But they gave that demand up, making it harder for a more effective strike down the road. Because of the strike, networks were legally able to drop a lot of new show development deals with writers. These are comparatively high-income jobs that WGA members will now have to find again.

Ommmmmmmmmmmm

In the office, trying to bring down my anxiety level before class. Class will be fun: workshoping student scenes. Still much to do to get my computer back to where it was but I recovered a whole bunch before heading off to the university. Two major things to get right, then I can slide and fix problems as I discover them.

I also had a big crash last June. Windows.

The ghost in the machine

My computer crashed at 3 a.m. A nightmare. But I am on the road to recovery ... just tons and tons of software to reinstall.

Anti-intellectualism

In 1963, historian Richard Hofstadter published his important book, Anti-intellectualism in American Life, documenting what a careful observer would see as the obvious. I'm delighted to learn this book is still read: all library copies are checked out, with a waiting list for their return.

Now the message gets a new champion in a recent book, The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby. Well, it's an age that's been around for centuries, though Jacoby finds the situation particularly troubling now:

But now, Ms. Jacoby said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way.

Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.

Well, it probably doesn't matter to this new humanoid creation, Homo consumerus.

But perhaps the situation looks more extreme than it used to look because today we are bombarded more frequently by media that usually follow the anti-intellectual party line. Maybe we were just as stupid in the past as now.

First Wednesday

Here's the March 5th lineup.

Comin' at ya, Mr. Agent!

Printed the new screenplay and will mail it to my agent in a bit. See if the usual "crank it up" reply comes.

A busy, productive morning, including some piano work. Gets harder, the playing part, but it's the theory I'm taking a liking to. I have no desire to perform, just to be proficient enough to compose.

A literary giant, or Happiness III

And Zorba has yet another definition of and recipe for Happiness.

clipped from www.todayinliterature.com Nikos Kazantzakis and Zorba On this day in 1883, Nikos Kazantzakis was born, in Heraklion, Crete. Kazantzakis was a philosopher, a doctor of laws, a politician, and a prolific writer in almost all genres. He studied under Henri Bergson, won the Lenin Peace Prize, missed the 1957 Nobel by one vote, translated Goethe and Dante, wrote a 33,333 line sequel to the Odyssey, and traveled the world for much of his expatriate life. Notwithstanding, his most famous novel, Zorba the Greek is a rejection of intellectualism and a return to his birthplace -- though Zorba may be a Cretan like no other. By precept and example Zorba educates a British academic to folly, passion, and the Arcadian basics: "How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea."

Holiday, what holiday?

One of those holidays that doesn't feel like one. Of course, if I had a 9-5 job and the day off, I'd dig it. What's amazing, in retrospect, is that in the past half century, I've had a "9 to 5 job" for less than ten years. As a writer, I worked project to project rather than in an office. My teaching gig is part-time. So I have very little "employment experience" in the package that most folks work within. My last 9-5 job was in the 80s, managing editor of Oregon Business Magazine. No wonder I'm so ornery, with such little experience at having a boss ha ha.

Student work to look at today, plus my own chores and projects and music practice and such. And the sun is out! Maybe I should try and get out into sunshine. Supposed to rain tomorrow.

Actually, from another perspective, I have a sense of working 24/7 and always have.

Happiness II

In a recent study, the U.S. was ranked the 23rd most happy country on the planet. And #1? Denmark. The happy Danes were featured on Sixty Minutes tonight.

Happiness

From Oregon Dream:

HANK
Let me try this another way. Where I'm coming from.
When I built this, when I was with your mother
early on, living together, even before we got
married, I was happy. I truly was happy. And so was
she. This is the real issue. She refuses to accept
that she was happy with me. She refuses to accept
that she experienced ecstasy with me. With a man, I
suppose it is. What is it, politically incorrect
for a lesbian to have a past of pleasure with me?
But that's not really what I'm getting at. I was
happy then, truly happy. And you know what I
thought at the time? I thought it would only get
better. I was only 25, my life ahead of me, and
already I knew what happiness was. I knew what
ecstasy was. I knew what passion was. And I had my
life ahead of me. Everything would only get better.
What an incredibly energizing thing to feel as a
young man. Never for a moment did I think that this
was it. This was my allotment of happiness. This
was my share in the universe of ecstasy. After this
ended, there'd be nothing more. It would never get
better. After 25, well, after 27, when the shit hit
the fan, after that, everything that followed would
feel empty in comparison. My life of ecstasy was
over.

CHEYENNE
Dad, it doesn't have to be this way.

HANK
When you're my age, I think you'll see it
differently.

CHEYENNE
God, I hope you're wrong.

HANK
I wish I was wrong, too. But I'm not. When we're
happy, we think we'll always be happy. And we're
always wrong.

March Madness

Only a month away. Key dates:

March 16: Selection Sunday
March 20 & 21: First Round
March 22 & 23: Second Round
March 27 & 28: Sweet Sixteen
March 29 & 30: Elite Eight
April 5: Final Four
April 7: Championship Game

Probably my favorite sporting event because of its "playoff" structure and the large number of possible Cinderella teams that get into the mix. I love rooting for the teams with the highest GPA ha ha.

March Madness On Demand, FREE video and audio of all games on your computer!

New screenplay

Worked on the new script this afternoon and have it in good enough shape to show my agent. I'll mail it off tomorrow.

If You Feel Sorry

If you feel sorry for yourself
this Valentine's Day, think of
the dozens of little paper poppies
left in the box when the last
of the candy is gone, how they
must feel, dried out and brown
in their sad old heart-shaped box,
without so much as a single finger
to scrabble around in their
crinkled petals, not even
one pimpled nose to root and snort
through their delicate pot pourri.
So before you make too much
of being neglected, I want you
to think how they feel.

--Ted Kooser

Anchors

My closest friends were anchors. To have outlived them is like pulling up the anchor and finding yourself adrift. It's hard to replace almost half a century of shared experiences, mutual history. My oldest remaining close friends are in L.A., not here. Friends from the 1960s. Lately I see them about once a year. I exchange emails with one of them more frequently than that. But it's not the same as when I had anchor.

Peace Like A River

Blah

Everybody gets a blah day, and this is mine. I totally sucked in piano class, after doing the piece fine here at home. No energy, minor depression, feeling rootless and disconnected. Watched Dead Poets Society, which remains a fine film. The screenwriter's agent on first reading it: "This is the best thing you've ever written. I don't think I can sell it." The very mantra of Hollywood! Fortunately, the agent did sell it, though it took him many years.

If I print out my screenplay draft, the day will be even more positive. Then start getting into it tomorrow. Blah.

The stress of hope

Anyone who lived through the sixties knows what it feels like to have hopes dashed. Assassinations, one after another after another after another, pretty much rid the popular arena of politicians whose rhetorical idealism lifted the hopes of citizens not used to having much. So it's stressful to see hope in the nation once again, in the rhetorical idealism of Barack Obama, because the experience of seeing idealism wiped out in the flash of a gun is still fresh even though the sixties are long behind us. It's not an experience of literal overkill that is easily forgotten. You can push it aside but then a figure like Obama comes along and the old ghosts seep back into your pores. And hope becomes a very stressful emotion.

The existential writer

Has any writer ever followed the "I write, therefore I am" mantra more vigorously than Henry Miller? His career is extraordinary and says much about our culture. I prefer Miller in smaller doses, such as "Henry Miller On Writing" and the Norman Mailer edited edition of his works, "Genius And Lust."

clipped from www.todayinliterature.com Henry Miller's "Gob of Spit" On this day in 1986 the original manuscript of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer was auctioned for $165,000, then a record price for a 20th century literary manuscript. This is Miller's first novel, written during and about his penniless, bohemian years in Paris in the early thirties. The diaries of his friend and lover, Anais Nin, inspired Miller to rewrite his conventionally-structured (and unsellable) autobiographical novel, Crazy Cock, in diary form. With this new approach, Miller said that he found his writer's voice: the new book went down on the back of the old book's pages at a madcap pace -- twenty, thirty, sometimes forty-five pages a day, the author's chain-smoking keeping up with the typewriter, Beethoven or jazz or an African laughing record at full volume on his victrola.

A new novel by Michael Hollister

Hollister is the author of the Hollywood Trilogy, Holywood, Follywood, Hollyworld, a story (several stories, really) set against the rise of the film industry, an achievement I greatly admire. Now he has a new book, Salishan, epic and political in reach by the sound of the press release:

Five generations of Bowmans help to build the West. Nat Bowman, a logger half Salish Indian, studies forestry and becomes a double agent in the culture war between environmentalists and timber workers focused on owls. Known only as Owl Man--spotted or barred?--he exposes crooks and penetrates an eco terrorist cell after 9/11. Dramatizes the conflict over forests, effects of the Endangered Species Act and urban versus rural politics, with a cast including over thirty tribes.

A retired English professor, Hollister also is a writer on the downhill side of a literary career, which means he's been around long enough to see the changes in the publishing industry after the corporate buyouts and consolidation of media power. These changes, which have turned "literary novel" into a more pejorative term than ever, have run parallel to developments in technology that can be liberating to writers who don't have to establish reputations or seek validation. A lot of writers are taking their good work into their own hands, and Hollister is among the best of the new breed. He deserves your attention.

Michael Hollister Website.

Student scripts

I have an extraordinary class this winter term. Typically winter is the worst of my three terms, making this term even more unusual. Two students have written complete drafts of features so far (I require much less than this), accomplishment enough, but the drafts are in great shape for a first draft. One is edgy and commercial, the other artsy, erotic and serious, both with unique voices and engaging narratives. Additionally, two others have fine first acts (the requirement for the term) in draft -- and I've only seen half the projects this week, from the "forest" folks, the "tree" track students submitting next week. The sink-or-swim writers and the planners: I give them two writing track options (almost all writing teachers require planning, which is absurd since many professional writers use the discovery method instead).

It's always more exciting to teach when you have so many good screenwriters in class. Others, of course, have the usual beginning problems but this class has an unusual number of students who "get it."

Valentine's Day

It's about time

Hooray! Of course, the case would be stronger if she won and refused the prize. But these affairs are crap shoots. I've won a few and I've judged a few others, and the latter experience especially made me realize how little these affairs have to do with writers. They are about the personal tastes of particular judges. It's a crap shoot. You win by getting the right material in front of the right judge at the right time. It is terrible that literary careers and reputations get judged by these affairs. Do we think a winner of the lottery is especially gifted? Of course not. S/he is LUCKY. Same with literary prizes. LUCK above all else. I speak as a prize winner and a literary contest judge: winning is a result of good fortune, the accidental meeting of the right material before the right judge. Blind luck. Call it what it is and move on.

clipped from seattlepi.nwsource.com Zadie Smith speaks out against literary prizes The Telegraph (U.K.) reports that author Zadie Smith has come out against literary prizes, saying they are not really about literature at all. The always vivacious Smith weighed in on something called the Willesden Herald Web site: "They (literary prizes) are really about brand consolidation," she wrote, "for beer companies, phone companies, coffee companies and even frozen food companies." It was quickly noted Smith has won many major literary prizes, including the Whitbred First Novel Award for "White Teeth." Ion Trewin, organizer of the Man Booker prizes, told London's Sunday Times: "Why has she been happy to accept money from these prizes and sponsors?"

Today's plan

I pile of student scripts to evaluate, early drafts, so I doubt if I'll get anything else done today. That's fine -- it's teaching mode time. All new projects are in good order, and this weekend maybe I'll take a peek at the completed splay draft and see what needs to be done. I also have a story nudge to incorporate into the new splay. Something I've long wanted to do: have a character who plays jazz piano. This will be the old dude. He led a trio that was pretty well known. He'll look up his former drummer on his adventures. And he's going to get in a hell of a lot of trouble through no real fault of his own. I can hear my agent now: "Crank it up! Make it big!" Yes sir, yes sir. (And for relief, there's the posthumous play, which I can make as "small" and "subtle" as I want ha ha!)

Democrats

I believe it was Will Rogers who said he belonged to no organized political party; he was a Democrat.

Will be interesting indeed to see how this primary horse race shakes down. The worst scenario for the Democrats, perhaps, and one not at all unlikely, would be for neither candidate to secure the nomination by the convention, which Obama would enter with a lead both in pledged delegates and popular vote. But then the back room political machinery in which the Clintons excel would get into gear, deals and promises would be made, and Hillary would come out the nominee. This would infuriate the Obama folks, the old politics defeating their sense of a new politics, and many would bolt the party. Thus the Republicans would win.

Now maybe the Obama momentum will turn around some old guard superdelegates so this scenario doesn't happen. It's all going to be fascinating to watch, at any rate.

As for me, I believe in the secret ballot. Unlike H, I don't put up lawn signs or bumper stickers, ever. I never tell a pollster whom or what I'm voting for. I once was approached by someone doing an exit poll: I said, None of your damn business! I believe in the secret ballot and behaving as if, in fact, it matters that it's secret, which to me means keeping it secret.

The magic hour

3ish a.m. has been an almost magical hour in my life for over half a century now. As a teenager, I belonged to the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), run by Harvard Observatory, one of the few high school students in the land to be accepted into the organization. I had passed a field test with my telescope, a six-inch f12.5 reflecting homemade model, and was assigned three variable stars. My job, which I took most seriously, was to estimate their brightness on a regular basis and send my data to the observatory. These stars were scattered through the havens, so usually one of them was best observed after midnight. Through high school, I was frequently crashing early so I could get up around 3, set up my telescope in the back yard, and make my estimations.

When our family camped under the stars in the Mojave desert, as we often did on summer weekends in the 1950s, I'd get up at 3 to use my telescope. What extraordinary skies out there! In the late 40s and early 50s, camping was pretty rare. Some of my parents friends thought they were strange indeed to drive out into the desert to sleep on the ground. We did the same thing when we'd drive from California to New Jersey to visit relatives, camping as much as staying in a motel. We almost never put up a tent. We usually slept under the stars.

In the Army, as a Russian Linguist we worked on shifts and my favorite shift became "Mids", midnight to 8 a.m., for a variety of reasons. Before work, the mess hall was virtually empty and we could order meals from a wider variety of choices. Want steak and eggs? The cook would make it for you. Want some strange concoction assembled from dinner leftovers and whatever? The cook would comply.

I also enjoyed getting off at 8 and going downtown to party. Through my life, I've often preferred partying in the morning rather than at night. In the bars, I found a more interesting assembly of drinkers then, with more interesting stories, than at night. You found the hardcore drinkers in the morning, the social drinkers at night. I found more material to steal as a writer from the former. I was able to mix with them without joining them.

Today I usually crash around 10, get up around 3, then crash again for an hour or two around 5 ... between 3 and 5 I do the day's first work.

Clawhammer

And here we have a modest first try at playing clawhammer banjo.

Hanging out

What a good few hours! First, hanging out at a Starbucks at Beaverton Town Center while H did her exercise class. Got some work done on the AlphaSmart, brainstorming the new splay with myself, and then reading the student script, which is damn close to being first rate and very commercial. Then H picked me up, we saw the art show where she has a piece, then to lunch at a fine Vietnamese restaurant. Fun leisure. Not really in the mood to work now that we're back. Hmm.

Morning

After writing, I got a start on two tasks that need doing: considerable Music Theory homework, which I got a good start on; began reading draft of complete screenplay by a very ambitious student. Hope to help him get it together to enter in Nicholl before May 1. Lots of strengths in the script.

Off with H to read while she has her exercise class, then to see some art together and have lunch. An afternoon with the wife! What a concept.

His Last Fling

This is the working title of the new splay. 12 page start this morning. Don't have the tone right yet but I can fix this later. First time through, focusing on getting the action movement right for the story.

Rodelinda

Saw the Handel opera this afternoon. Some beautiful music, an extraordinary set, good performances -- but I never really got into it. Baroque opera, baroque anything, is not a style I'm readily attracted to. After I see an opera like Mahagonny, I feel like I've had a nervous breakdown. Nothing emotional like that in my reaction to this opera.

Clinton 1123, Obama 1120

RealClearPolitics has the most current delegate count (incl supers) I've found. What a horse race.

Writing and breathing

A reader of my blog commented that I seem so busy all the time that writing for me must be as effortless as breathing. Yes and no. Certainly my mantra is "I write, therefore I am." The mind is most often engaged in writing, to be sure, and even when I'm not actually pounding the keys or scribbling on paper, I'm likely brooding about a character or story point. So yes, this results in a lot of words on paper. But there are trade-offs and disadvantages to what amounts to an obsession as well. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they are. Indeed, in my Moliere play, I have the great playwright articulate the problem:

I often play the cuckold on stage, don't I? So maybe I'm just practicing. That's what we live for, isn't it? Perfecting our parts? Fine-tuning our roles? I know I haven't given you much attention lately. I mean, you're right, our life is a rehearsal. My life is a dress rehearsal for a play. Even now, as I hear myself talking, I wonder where I'll be putting this, in what future scene in what future play I'll be standing before someone like you, perhaps before you yourself, the actress, and I'll be the actor, and we'll be talking — in some play, some day — much as we are talking here now. Because that's what my life seems to be, a dress rehearsal for a play. Which, strictly speaking, doesn't really make my life much of a life at all, does it?

This is why my memoir of the writing life is called Dress Rehearsals.

Story strategy

Different projects develop in different ways. With Three Loves, the next posthumous play, which I began this morning, I have a firm sense of structure driving my story strategy. It's a four character play: an artist, dying, in a coma; and the three women who come to his bedside and meet for the first time, each of a different generation: his first love, his wife, his mistress. Act One is three scenes, the 3 possible pairings of the women. Act Two is four scenes, the first three being each woman with the old man, who will speak his thoughts despite being in a coma; and the final scene between the three women. I have articulated little of actual content and am just diving into the structure, a sink or swim style of development.

I also have the next screenplay in mind and wrote a few pages a few days ago, although they're wrong. I'll throw them out and start over. But my strategy here is different: with the working title His Last Fling, this is the story of the mischief an old man gets into when he walks out of his retirement center but it's narrated by, and is the story of, his granddaughter, who is among those out to find him. The voice of the granddaughter is the key here -- I need her to be as engaging as that wonderful voice of Juno is, for example, though of course different. I was impressed how much "voice" can carry a story in Juno and am trying the same strategy.

These are the next two script projects.

Parameters of screenwriting

It usually takes a screenwriting student some time to realize how incredibly efficient film storytelling is. A frequent marker of this efficiency is the predominance of short scenes in the screenplay. For example, my draft is 104 pages long -- and 292 sluglines/scenes! The average scene, in other words, is only about one-third of a page in length. There are only eight scenes over a page long; only three over two pages long. How different this storytelling strategy is from writing for the stage. In my new (posthumous) play, the first scene is 45 pages long! Very different animals.

A brilliant documentary

No End In Sight, Charles Ferguson's dissection of the roots and mismanagement of the war in Iraq, has the even temper of a Greek tragedy, letting the facts build slowly to their devastating conclusions, a far cry from the bellowing histrionics and manipulation of another documentary filmmaker in the land. Ferguson is to the other as poetry is to doggerel, as tragedy is to soap opera. This film is an extraordinary contribution to our times, as depressing as its conclusions can be.

"No End in Sight," which gets across the sheer scale and depth of this appalling failure in 100 minutes, is a model of concision and clarity. Ferguson is less a polemicist than a historian, and the power of his film has much to do with its calm, stark emphasis on facts that speak for themselves. (Dennis Lim, Los Angeles Times)

Just in time

Not only for the Oscars but for my new splay, which I may be able to mail to my agent this month.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Tentative Deal Is Reached in Writers’ Strike LOS ANGELES — An end to Hollywood’s long and bitter writers’ strike appeared close on Saturday, as union leaders representing some 12,000 movie and television writers said they had reached a tentative deal with production companies.

Draft finished

Just finished the screenplay draft of my romantic thriller, iLove. It came in at 104 pages, maybe a tad long. I'll let it sit for a few days and see what I have.

The rest of the morning belongs to students.

Screenwriting CD-ROM

My popular electronic screenwriting tutorial SCREENWRIGHT is finally available on CD-ROM. More information here. Only took a decade to get around to doing this.

Goals

Have some goals for the weekend:

• Catch up on school and editing chores
  
• Finish the screenplay draft
  
• Start a new screenplay
  
• Start Three Loves, the next posthumous play
  
• Monday lunch date with my wife (have to make a reservation to get into her busy life)
  

If I can get all this done, it will have been a very productive weekend!

In the last half of the term now, which increases my script reading load considerably. The term is zipping by.

Blessings

I awake this morning energized by the gifts of good fortune. When you outlive all your closest male friends, as I have, it does something to your attitude. You can't help but wonder why they are gone but not yourself, especially since your own bad habits of self-destruction appeared to be greater than theirs. It doesn't make sense.

But there it is. It, life, must be a gift. So you hope to make the best of it. And, of course, you still miss your friends hugely. Everything's different without them.

But there it is.

Exhaustion

I'm physically and psychologically beat. Wish I could go to bed for the rest of the day. But my day is just beginning now. I did what I have to do: got the midterms graded, got my Music Theory homework done. Have catchup of less urgent student matters to do Saturday morning. But I finished what needed to get done today.

The midterms were good to great, a few outstanding. I asked three students for permission to publish their scripts in OLR.

It may be a long day but maybe my adrenalin will keep me going.

"I don't get it"

From the mail bag:

I enjoy your blog. I've been following your project of writing "posthumous plays" but I don't understand why you're doing this. The entire point of writing a play is to get it produced, isn't it? I don't get it.

--Beginning playwright

I'm glad you asked.

I didn't say I don't want these plays produced. I said I don't want them produced while I am alive. My reasons come from two sources: personal reasons; and issues surrounding the social politics of art.

First, it's important to remember that I've had over 40 plays produced. I've been the resident playwright of two theaters. I've received grants, awards, good reviews, bad reviews. Even a bit of money. I know about the experience of writing, developing and getting a play produced.

I'm in the last act of my life. From now on, I get to play the game by my own rules. My way or the highway. Looking back at the experience of having those 40 plays produced, I realized that 99% of the enjoyment happened before opening night. Put another way, there's really only one thing I like about being a playwright after opening night: watching the play from the light booth. Why there? So I can watch the audience, and they can't watch me. I can see what works and what doesn't by how they react, and they don't have to be distracted by me if they happen to know who I am.

After a play, the only folks I'm interested in seeing are the actors and the director. I don't like mingling with the audience or hearing from someone how wonderful the play is. Often someone likes it for the wrong reason by my lights anyway. I don't like reading reviews, good or bad, though when I was younger, I loved good reviews. I learned they are a temptation to soften my own critical faculties. You can't believe your press clippings. You have to be your own toughest critic.

The subject matter of these posthumous plays is very personal. In a sense, they might be called dirty laundry plays, ghost plays, demons plays. This complicates matters considerably because now there are folks in the world who may recognize the events and people that inspire these plays. They may disagree with my use of such events and people and want to tell me so (this has happened in the past). I don't need it. I don't need to give them my lecture on the difference between art and life.

The fact is, I work damn hard at making a play right. When I can't get it any better, I stop. As far as I'm concerned, that's the last word on the matter -- until, possibly, I put the script into the hands of actors later and rework some scenes in it. But I completely believe what Norman O. Brown argues in Love's Body: "The proper response to poetry is not criticism but poetry." You like my play? Great. Dislike it? Fine. Don't analyze it. Be inspired to go write your own.

The best "criticism" of my work I ever encountered was from an audience member who after a play of mine, in the darkness before curtain call, yelled, "This play has balls!" Right on, brother. I can't do better than that.

The posthumous plays are personal enough that each potentially could push me into a nervous breakdown. That's stress enough. I don't need to deal with the stress inevitably caused by the social politics of art. I'm too old to jump through all the hoops I jumped through when I was younger -- which, in fact, you'll have to jump through to establish a playwriting career.

This is why these are posthumous plays. They are not invisible but they can't be done while I am alive. I hope this clarifies the matter.

Late

I got up to read midterms. Only about half way through them. But instead I opened up Oregon Dream and read it. It actually blew me away. I have no idea if it will find its posthumous audience or just gather dust, but it's exactly the kind of theater I respond to. I'm proud to have written it. And I'm solid in my decision not to release performance rights until after I pass.

First Wednesday

Another good one last night. Our readers were great and appreciated. The danger of this series, I think, is becoming too big. The venue is small but perfect for what we do.

The lineup was:

• The Summer of the Vampire by Floyd Skloot.
  
• A Bug Eye Solution by Alison Ruch (who drove all the way from Corvallis to read).
  
• Bear by Evelyn Sharenov.
  
• High Maintenance by Phillip Van, a video.
  

No rest

Yesterday was a killer but I don't get to coast the rest of the week. Midterms to read, First Wednesday to prepare today; then Music Theory tomorrow, which I've fallen behind in. And piano prep Friday morning. Editing catchup to do on the weekend.

But I'm into the showdown of the screenplay draft, looking for ways to crank it up. Definitely a workable draft.

I hope to start the next posthumous play this weekend and move forward with banjo and piano.

Next week in class is lighter, what with watching and discussing Sideways.

Woody Guthrie

If we need a filler tomorrow at First Wednesday, I plan to read my favorite passage from the journals of Guthrie, which closes my tribute to him, Ramblin'.

When I think back through my life to everybody that I owe, I mean the ones I can remember. Of course I know that I owe these folks, and that they owe some other folks, these are in debt to others, and all of us owe everybody. The amount that we owe is all that we have.

I've heard a storm of words in me. I guess I got to where the only way that I could cry was on some piece of paper in words like these. But I know that these words that I hear are not my own private property.

I borrowed them from you. I borrowed them, the same as I walked through the high winds and borrowed enough air to keep me moving. You may have been taught to call me by the name of a poet but I am no more of a poet than you are. I am no more of a writer of songs than you are, no better singer. The only story I have tried to write has been you. All I am is just sort of a clerk and climate tester, and my workshop is the sidewalk, your street and your field, your highway and your buildings. I am nothing more nor less than a photographer without a camera.

I knew that my trail would be a story that whirls. I knew the tale would be a freewheeler, a quick starter, a high running circling chorus that keeps on repeating over and over, and would sing every song to be sung under the one tune and the one name.

And that song and that tune ain't got no end. It ain't got no notes wrote down and there ain't no piece of paper big enough to put down on.

Every day you are down and out, and lonesome and hungry, and tired of working for a hobo's handout, there's a new verse added to this song.

Every time you kick a family out of their home, cause they ain't got the rent, and owe lots of debts, there's another verse added to this song.

When a soldier shoots a soldier, that's a note to this song. When a cannon blows up twenty men, that's part of the rhythm, and when soldiers march off over the hill and don't march back, that's the drumbeat of this song.

This ain't a song you can write down and sell. This song is everywhere at the same time. Have you ever heard it? Woody has.

What a relief

Just had my conference with a student who is hugely talented. He created one of the most compelling, complex characters I've seen in a student script in ages. But then he shot himself in the foot big time in the usual ways. Ends up he's a novelist (I guessed as much). Sometimes, novelists resist screenwriting and want to change its reality. Not this guy. After getting angry at my comments, he reconsidered them and discovered on his own that, yep, I'm right. I think this guy has a bright future in screenwriting, once he gets the parameters down. After all, it IS easier to write a screenplay than a novel. (I was relieved this wasn't a novelist I'd have to spend the term arguing with about Reality 101, as sometimes happens.)

Ready to roll

Like a jock before the game, I'm resting and getting myself together for the ordeal of meeting with students from 10 to 4 with only one short break. By 430, I'll be ready to watch the movie I'm showing them.

But I've learned these one-on-one required conferences early on can stop many students from making the same mistakes over and over again, despite my notes on their work. The major problems with beginning screenwriting students are over-writing (they write as if they're writing a novel), poor economy at all levels, and poor focus (usually because they have a situation but not a story, so they don't know what to focus on). The economy of a good film, and the screenplay from which it is built, is poetic; surely no narrative form is more efficient in its storytelling. This is why studying screenwriting can benefit all writers. I've had many a novelist in my classes who came out a much better storyteller, even if they never wrote another screenplay.

The posthumous plays

In recent days, I've had a flood of ideas for this series. Three Loves comes next but another four or five ideas are stirring. This has become the most exciting project at hand now. I like the freedom of writing these completely out of the marketplace. I have a vehicle for making them accessible and yet don't have to jump through the usual political and social hoops that unfortunately are part of the arts in this country. I can see these plays in my head, and that's enough. I know how to make them accessible after I pass on, and that's enough. I also suspect one of these story ideas may become the nucleus for the music drama I've been looking for, this in a more public package. I'll still be working on the other things -- screenplay, novel -- but it's the series of posthumous plays that excites me most recently. One down, and I'm close to starting the next one. (And, of course, it's nice to be writing in this form again after being "retired" for so long. There's an intimacy in theater you don't get in other forms of storytelling.)

First Wednesday

Time to host our 2nd First Wednesday. One of the scheduled readers has been sick but I've got her covered in case she isn't ready/well. I always have something to read in case of emergency as well.

I finished my school business earlier than I expected, doing it during a writing break. Now I have the rest of the day to myself.

Super Bowl in perspective

Here's a damn good analysis.

"It was sports at its absolute best: Random, unimaginable, insane. Not even a Patriots fan could deny it, though, just for the record, I’d wait a week or so to press them on the issue."

clipped from fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com The Game Comes to the Rescue, and Oh, What a Game It Was By Will Leitch PHOENIX – Anyone reading this space over the last week probably noticed that my first trip to the Super Bowl was leaving me disillusioned. It was all so overwhelming, a celebration of everything that is wrong with the world of sports. Shameless hucksters, over-hyped “storylines,” endless gimmickry and schtick, “the fine folks at Nextel now bring you the newest hit from ‘American Idol’s’ Paula Abdul.” The N.F.L.’s showcase event was putting the ugliest public face on its sport, a distancing and antiseptic mishmash of corporate back scratching. Fortunately, the league had a trump card, the one that not even Sen. Arlen Specter could ruin: The game itself. After all the hype and sturm und drang, Super Bowl Week had no choice but to end with an actual athletic competition. And wouldn’t you know it: It was likely the most thrilling game millions of fans have ever seen.

Proud father

Imagine Archie Manning. Last year, #2 son wins the Super Bowl and is MVP. This year, #3 son does the same.

clipped from www2.nemcc.edu  Archie Manning was one of football greatest quarterbacks ever. For people in Mississippi, the Manning family is legendary.  If his own career was not enough, his sons have now made a place for themselves in college and professional football.  Peyton with Tennessee and the Baltimore Colts and Eli with the University of Mississippi and a future top professional draft position in 2004. Archie Manning was born as Elisha Archibald Manning III, on May 19, 1949, in Drew. He loved sports as a youth and excelled in all of them. The sport he had most passion for was football, and his great talent sent him to college to play football at the University of Mississippi,  While at  Ole Miss, Manning was named an All- American Quarterback. He is the only player to have his #18 jersey retired at Ole Miss. He still holds the Ole Miss record for total career  touchdowns at 56. He also ran for 823 yards and threw for 4,753 and scored 14 touchdowns.

Mythmakers

clipped from www.todayinliterature.com Cassady, Kerouac, Kesey On this day in 1968 Neal Cassady died, at the age of forty-one. Cassady was not only Jack Kerouac's wheelman on the cross-country trips that inspired On the Road but a direct influence on Kerouac's style. His rambling, benzedrine-and-booze letters to Kerouac aimed for "a continuous chain of undisciplined thought," and invited his friend to "fall into a spontaneous groove" with him by mail. Only after getting this advice (and his own pile of bennies and his 120 ft. roll of paper) did Kerouac move beyond the "phony architectures" (i.e. traditional prose) of his rough draft into "innocent go-ahead confession, the discipline of making the mind the slave of the tongue." By the early sixties Kerouac was famous, heading fast for alcoholism and his last, right-wing years. Cassady was an ex-con (drug convictions), now wheelman for Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, in the bus that had FURTHER as its destination sign.

Monday's plan

A very busy day ahead. Morning dedicated to writing, afternoon to student work. Should also have time in afternoon for banjo and piano.

With the screenplay close to draft now, I may begin the new "posthumous play," working title Three Loves. Very clear structure in my mind: act one, 3 scenes, each pairing 2 of the 3 women. Act two, 4 scenes, 3 of the dying man with each of the 3 women, the final scene of the 3 women together.

Tomorrow is conference day, I go in early and meet with students all day, one on one. Then I'll show a movie in class.

Poet as superstar

clipped from seattlepi.nwsource.com Poet-mania: Mary Oliver's sold-out appearance sparks a ticket frenzy on Craigslist Poet Mary Oliver's appearance Monday at Benaroya Hall is the fastest sellout in the 20-year history of Seattle Arts & Lectures. It is sparking ticket action on the local Craigslist, where tickets to rock concerts and sports playoffs are regularly bought and sold, but rarely to poetry readings. Take that, Minneapolis. The Twin City may have supplanted Seattle as the country's "most literate city" in an annual survey but the Oliver sellout demonstrates that Seattle still has its zealous literary enthusiasts. So does Portland, which did not merit inclusion in the top 10 literate cities. Oliver's appearance there on Tuesday is also sparking a ticket frenzy. The 2,700-seat Schnitzer Concert Hall for Portland Arts & Lectures has already sold out. The Northwest may just be the epicenter of popularity for Oliver, a reclusive, 71-year-old poet from Provincetown, Mass

Screenplay

More progress today, into the last act, moving right along. Maybe two or three days from finishing the draft.

Happy ending

I was a nervous wreck through the Super Bowl. The Giants were outplaying the Patriots but not getting any points for it. When they got the lead in the 4th quarter, the Pats took it right back and I thought, they've been outplayed and are going to sneak out with a victory. But the younger Manning and some hot catches by receivers to the rescue. The win deserved by an incredible Giants defense was secured. A happy ending -- unless, of course...

clipped from news.yahoo.com Giants stun 'perfect' Pats in Super Bowl GLENDALE, Ariz. - The Giants had the perfect answer for the suddenly imperfect Patriots: a big, bad defense and an improbable comeback led by their own Mr. Cool quarterback, Eli Manning. n one of football's biggest shockers, New York shattered New England's unbeaten season as Manning hit Plaxico Burress on a 13-yard fade with 35 seconds left in the Super Bowl. Sunday's 17-14 win was the Giants' 11th straight on the road, and the first time the Patriots tasted defeat in more than a year.

The day the music died

Today, in 1959, I had just moved to Berkeley, transferring from Cal. Tech., and was already getting attracted to the university's vibrant street life over attending classes. By July I'd be homeless, living in a tree house near the Cyclotron in Strawberry Canyon; by August I'd be joining the Army, my recruiter putting me in the Army Security Agency to fill a quota, my fate sealed to become a Russian linguist during the Cold War, military service becoming a great and valued educational experience.


And on this day, in 1959, was the plane crash that took Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper, an event immortalized by Don McLean in his song "American Pie."



Check out the annotated American Pie.

Wee hours

There's no better time for brooding than at 3 a.m.

Cinderella crashes

Maybe they can regroup and make the Big Dance.

clipped from sports.yahoo.com Brigham Young 56, (15) Wyoming 42 PROVO, Utah (AP) -- Mallary Carling scored 20 points and Brigham Young upset No. 15 Wyoming 56-42 on Saturday to send the Cowgirls to a second consecutive loss.

Historical ghosts

Are the lessons of history ever learned? The mistakes keep repeating.

clipped from seattletimes.nwsource.com Tribes confront painful legacy of Indian boarding schools By Marsha King Genevieve Williams lies in failing health in her daughter's small house on the Tulalip Reservation, haunted by powerful memories. She sees herself as a little girl. Marching everywhere in a line. Scrubbing floors on her hands and knees. Being forced to stand silent for hours in a dark hall. Watching children get strapped for speaking their native language. "Essentially, this is what happens any time one people assert they know what is good for another," said Kevin Gover, director of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution. "It is tragic and inevitable." "It's a miracle that native peoples have survived at all," said Abadian, the cultural-trauma expert. "It reflects their unbelievable resilience." But like others of her generation, she doesn't want to be cast as a victim. At 85, she's proud to be an elder. "I am Native American," she says. "I survived."

Political quiz

Who should you vote for?

In time for Oscar?

clipped from news.yahoo.com Breakthrough in striking writers talks LOS ANGELES - A breakthrough in contract talks has been reached between Hollywood studios and striking writers and could lead to a tentative deal as early as next week, a person close to the ongoing negotiations said Saturday. The two sides breached the gap Friday on the thorniest issues, those concerning compensation for projects distributed via the Internet, said the person, who requested anonymity because he were not authorized to speak publicly. A second person familiar with the talks, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment publicly, said that significant progress had been made and a deal might be announced within a week.

My first hero

Russell was my first hero, as I've mentioned here before, primarily because of his book "Marriage and Morals" and his essay "Why I Am Not A Christian." I was a teenager, a wannabe mathematician, and here was the mathematical genius I admired.

clipped from www.todayinliterature.com Prizing Bertrand Russell On this day in 1970 Bertrand Russell died, aged ninety-seven. Like Henri Bergson before him, Russell won his 1950 Nobel Prize in literature without ever having published any. In presenting the award, the most that the Swedish Academy could offer to justify their selection of a mathematician-philosopher-social activist was the view that Russell often wrote as "the outspoken hero in a Shaw comedy" talked, and that his commitment to "rationality and humanity" was "in the spirit of Nobel's intention." Buried at the bottom of the list of Russell's bibliography -- over ninety books and thousands of articles, plus tens of thousands of letters, journals and the like -- there are, in fact, two collections of short stories. Whether out of sheepishness or vanity -- the biographies do not often mention sheepishness -- Russell apparently felt that, having just received the world's most prestigious literary award, he might as well try his hand.

Saturday's plan

Woke up to a dusting of white stuff. Should vanish soon enough. The plan today is screenplay, banjo, piano, in that order. Nowhere to go, a good day to stay home and work. I taped that Czech film about the college girl getting an abortion, won a lot of awards, maybe watch it later.

It's the economy, stupid

A couple of today's headlines:

Payrolls drop for 1st time since 2003

Exxon Mobil posts record profits

Screenwriting

Put in a good hour on the screenplay this morning, early. Solved a problem and moved on. One more major transition to figure out, to propel the story into the last act. I'd really like to finish the draft within the next few days. It's doable.