March 08, 2010
So Podhoretz responded to our response, here:
Signs of Life Strife by John Podhoretz
A few days ago, I called attention to a quote from one of the creators of a new musical called Signs of Life, which is set in and around the Thereseinstadt concentration camp. (I compared it to The Producers, and specifically to "Springtime for Hitler," the musical-within-the-musical, described by its deranged creator as "a gay romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.") The quote in question averred that the questions about Nazi era Germans and how they responded to their leaders had a great deal to teach us about America over the past decade—an observation of which the best that can be said is that it is a bit more tasteful than the very notion of a musical set at Thereseinstadt.
The writers and creators of Signs of Life, evidently thrilled that anybody is willing to write about them at all, have fired a broadside at me using the old "how can he criticize our show without seeing it" gambit:
[He quotes here our letter in full.]
Now, while I do place myself very much on the anti side on the admittedly complex aesthetic question of using the Holocaust as an artistic setting—and, not incidentally, on the anti side when it comes to the use of the musical form as a vehicle for the serious treatment of just about any topic, notwithstanding my deep love of musicals and the American songbook they created—that wasn't the reason I wrote the item. I wrote the item because of something the show's composer, Joel Derfner, said. Which was this: "The message of our show is not 'Killing Jews is bad.' It's: 'What do you do when you find out you've been lied to? What is telling the truth worth?' In the last 30 years this question has been vital to American life and especially so in the last nine years."
Now let's parse this. What happened 30 years ago in this country? Ronald Reagan's election. What happened nine years ago? George W. Bush's inauguration. Who's making repulsive and unwarranted associations now? The Signs of Life team is right that someone said something contemptible, but it wasn't I.
And thanks for the invitation, but I'll pass; I already did my time years ago when, courtesy of P.J. O'Rourke, who secured it from God-knows-where, I once read the entirety of the screenplay for the Jerry Lewis epic, The Day the Clown Cried.
Well, before we could stop ourselves, we wrote a response to his response to our response.
Another Open Letter to John Podhoretz:
Upon learning that you were pressured into reading the screenplay for The Day The Clown Cried, we are left with nothing but compassion. No one could emerge from such an experience unscathed, and we will be sure to pen an angry letter to P.J. O'Rourke.
We will simply point out:
We seem to have hit the exact intersection of your two beliefs that the Holocaust is unsuitable as a subject for art and that the musical is a form unsuited for serious subjects. Though we clearly disagree with both points (and look for support to pieces like Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 13, Anna Sokolow's dance piece Dreams, and Kander and Ebb's Cabaret on the first and Show Boat, West Side Story, and, well, Kander and Ebb's Cabaret on the second), we understand that your beliefs reflect the same goal we have—to do honor to the memory of the Shoah.
And to be clear: we believe that the Shoah transcends partisan politics, and we did not write Signs of Life to send a partisan message; the lessons to be found in it are moral ones. No single piece of art can hope to encompass the Shoah, and Signs of Life does not try: it deals with the specific perversities of Theresienstadt, and must therefore grapple with issues of truth and power, representation and reality. We explore what happens when leaders lie to their citizens. You and Joel undoubtedly have different ideas about which American leaders have done so over the course of the last few decades, but you also undoubtedly agree that these remain vital issues no matter who is in power.
In writing Signs of Life, we have tried to treat the material with honesty, and survivors of Theresienstadt, the only real judges, have consistently told us that they saw their own experiences mirrored accurately and without sentimentality onstage. We'd like to renew our invitation for you to see the show, perhaps with P.J. O'Rourke. We suspect you won't take us up on it, but we'd love to offer you the opportunity to base your criticism of Signs of Life on experience.
Yours truly,
Joel Derfner (composer)
Len Schiff (lyricist)
Peter Ullian (bookwriter)Posted by Faustus, MD at 03:44 PM | Comments (5)
March 05, 2010
A few days ago, an article in the New York Times mentioned my new show, Signs of Life, and quoted me talking about some of the resonances the piece has in society today. John Podhoretz, neoconservative columnist for the New York Post and editor of Commentary magazine, took exception to my words and wrote this:
SPRINGTIME FOR DUBYA? by John Podhoretz
I'm sure you're looking forward to the new off-Broadway musical, "Signs of Life," which offers what promises to be a wonderfully tuneful look at the Thereseinstadt concentration camp. But it turns out, according to tomorrow's New York Times, that the musical really isn't about the Holocaust after all, which is probably a wise thing, since The Producers got there first with its signature number, "Springtime for Hitler." No, it turns out, the Holocaust exists as a dramatic trope to teach us lessons about America in the age of Bush:
That show, which had its premiere on Thursday, centers on Lorelei, an artist who agrees to create pretty pictures of the camp for Nazi propaganda but who, with other prisoners, schemes to get her drawings of the real horrors to the outside world.
"The message of our show is not 'Killing Jews is bad,' " Mr. Derfner said. "It's: 'What do you do when you find out you've been lied to? What is telling the truth worth?' In the last 30 years this question has been vital to American life and especially so in the last nine years."
No, this is not, as they say, from The Onion.
My collaborators and I were taken aback by the post, and we would like to respond by posting the following open letter to Mr. Podhoretz.
Dear Mr. Podhoretz:
You are well-known as a protector of the memory of the Holocaust and as someone who, by his own admission, knows "the lyrics to every show tune ever written." We were therefore dismayed to read your post on Commentary about our new off-Broadway musical, Signs of Life. Your casually insulting aside about the "wonderfully tuneful" quality of the show—which as far as we can tell you have not seen—is irresponsible enough, but to make the ugly accusation that we believe "the Holocaust exists as a dramatic trope to teach us lessons about America in the age of Bush" is contemptible.
The characters in our show must participate in the Nazi propaganda machine in order to survive; when they realize the implications of their participation they face ethical choices that endanger their lives. But the obligation of citizens across the political spectrum to question our leaders and evaluate the truth of their answers did not end on V-Day.
The idea you seem to advocate—that if you put an event as vastly horrific as the Holocaust onstage you should do it as a museum piece, rather than exploring what we might learn from it about human nature—implies that today's society is no longer capable of a Holocaust, which is a position both false and dangerous.
We would like to invite you to see Signs of Life and to judge based on experience rather than distortion and mockery whether our show honors the memory of those slaughtered in the Holocaust. Please e-mail us and we'll arrange tickets for whatever date you'd like.
Yours truly,
Joel Derfner (composer)
Len Schiff (lyricist)
Peter Ullian (bookwriter)
Posted by Faustus, MD at 12:05 PM | Comments (7)
February 16, 2010
Harlan Ellison: Pay the writer. (I can't quite remember but I think he says "motherfucker," so if you work for, you know, the Daughters of the Confederacy you might want to wait until you get home to watch it.)
Posted by Faustus, MD at 03:36 PM | Comments (4)
February 02, 2010
My collaborators have written about the issue on their blogs, so I thought I might as well weigh in on singing Nazis.
Len points out that when characters sing they are often in a state of heightened emotion, a state in which, whether accurately or otherwise, they believe they're being honest with themselves. "Did we want to dignify," Len asks, "the honest reflections of SS officers?"
Peter notes that it was most definitely not his intention that the audience sympathize with the two Nazi characters in our show.
The question is equally tricky from a musical point of view.
There are three moments in our show when the Nazis sing. Two are performative (they lie, respectively, to the Jews of Prague and to the Red Cross inspector who comes to visit the ghetto), and the music sounds like the attitude they have assumed for the deception (respectively, reassuring and jolly), but the third is an honest moment, in which Heindel, the younger of the two, sings about his true belief in the Nazi aim.
And to the ones who cry compassion,
Preaching, 'Hate is not the answer,'
I say humans must hate Jews
The way the surgeon hates the cancer.I agree with Len that, in this moment, the character is being honest with himself, or as honest as he can be. And since the character feels—rightly or wrongly—that he is motivated by the noblest and most humanitarian of aims, the music has to feel noble and humanitarian.
But I also agree with Peter that we don't want anybody to sympathize with the Nazis in our show. So how can the music feel noble and humanitarian? We all—at least most of us—feel noble and humanitarian emotions at one time or another, and if such a song is not an attempt to make an evil character sympathetic, then what is it?
The answer, I believe, can be found (as can the answers to most things) in ancient Greek, in the sources of the words "sympathy" and "empathy." "Sympathy" derives from "pathe" (experience, suffering) and "syn" (with); "empathy" from "pathe" and "en" (in).
If you feel sympathy for someone, you're "with" him—you're on his side. You feel wounded when he feels wounded; you feel angry when he feels angry; you feel joyful when he feels joyful. If you feel empathy for someone, you're "in" him—you're in his shoes. You discern, however distantly, what he feels when he feels wounded, angry, joyful. You understand what it is to be him. Sympathy is a centripetal force, empathy a centrifugal one. Sympathy is about you. Empathy is about somebody else.
So unless our Nazi is a sociopath—which he's not, though of course many were—then the only honest way to portray him as a character is to try to empathize with him and to try write him so that the audience empathizes with him too.
Which means that the song, if I've succeeded (you can listen to it here to decide for yourself), is horrifying, because it allows the audience to glimpse something in themselves that, pushed far enough, might not look too different from this monster.
To order tickets to Signs of Life: A Tale of Terezin, click here.
To find out more about Signs of Life, click here.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:57 AM | Comments (7)
January 26, 2010
My first off-Broadway show (which with luck will not be my last) opens one month from today.
Signs of Life is the story of a young girl who comes of age in the Czech ghetto Terezin, rechristened Theresienstadt by the Nazis, who filled it with Jewish artists, musicians, and intellectuals and turned it into a propaganda tool. Once she and her friends and family realize what lies in store for them, they begin to discover that some truths might be worth dying for.
If you live in or around New York and are interested in seeing the show, go to https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/425 to buy tickets, which are $40-$55 unless you use the promotion code "AMAS," in which case they're $32-$47 ($8 off).
If you want to find out more about Signs of Life, you can go to terezinsings.org, a fundraising site the writers set up, and/or terezinmusical.com, a site the producers set up. If you want to hear some music from the show, go to joelderfner.com/music and check the sidebar on the right.
We've been in rehearsals for a week, and it's going to be fabulous, if I do say so myself.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:37 AM | Comments (10)
January 21, 2010
This is the thing I always forget:
Rehearsing a show is fun.
Because you get to fiddle with all the little stuff. In between presentations (of whatever sort—readings, workshops, etc.) you're spending your time trying to fix things that are genuine problems, like "The opening number feels disjointed and too long" or "We have three ballads in a row in the second half of act two, so we need to cut two of them or move them to elsewhere in the show."
But once you get into rehearsal (assuming you've fixed most of the genuine problems you've been worried about) you get to play with the fun stuff. Like, today we decided that (for now at least) two characters who used to not sleep together are going to sleep together. We're not sure it will work—there are later scenes that might be affected adversely by such a development—but we're hoping we can keep it, because, hey, more sex is always better.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:56 PM | Comments (2)
January 18, 2010
I'm sitting in the first day of rehearsal for my first off-Broadway show.
This is kind of fabulous.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:55 AM | Comments (6)
January 11, 2010
My boyfriend is an insane lunatic who belongs in an asylum.
At least this is my contention; he for his part thinks rather that I am avoidant and passive-aggressive, which as we all know is a ridiculous idea.
In order to help me prove to him that I am right and he is wrong, I would appreciate your answer to the following question.
If you and your boyfriend/girlfriend/lover/partner/husband/wife/whatever are having a fight—say one of average proportions—and it gets to be bedtime and you're sleepy but, even though you're past the first flushes of anger, you haven't resolved the issue(s) you're fighting about yet, do you
a) say goodnight and you'll talk about it more tomorrow and go to sleep, even though the fight isn't over, or
b) stay up and talk about what's going on until you've made up, even if it takes a few hours?
My boyfriend says that every relationship takes one option, or at least every healthy relationship; I contend that any couple choosing that option would very soon be imprisoned for attempted or actual murder.
Note, please, that to avoid protests on my boyfriend's part I have worded the question as evenly as I could, without indicating which answer I want you to give.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 01:20 AM | Comments (27)
January 07, 2010
Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:18 PM | Comments (1)
January 06, 2010
The next story the student turns in does have dinosaurs in it, but it's a piece of fluff. Swanwick shakes his head. "It needed more sodomy," he says.
The student is flummoxed, and protests that he's just trying to put into practice what he'd been told. Swanwick explains, to him and to the rest of the students, that writing is a matter of finding the appropriate balance of dinosaurs and sodomy.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 02:50 AM | Comments (4)
January 04, 2010
From page 21 of The Lobotomist, a biography I've just started reading of Walter Freeman, the man who popularized the lobotomy in the United States:
His earliest memory was a dramatic and disturbing image: the point of a pickaxe breaking through the wall of his nursery when the neighboring residence was being demolished.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 01:53 PM | Comments (2)
January 02, 2010
This afternoon:
E.S.: Ooh, your hands are really cold.
FAUSTUS: Just like my heart.
E.S.: No, because the temperature of your hands can be measured in Fahrenheit and Celsius, not Kelvin.
FAUSTUS: ...
E.S.: ...
FAUSTUS: A little obvious, but well done.
E.S.: Hmph.Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:49 PM | Comments (1)
January 01, 2010
Then of course there's always "each one more _____ than the next," which is what "each one more _____ than the last" seems to be turning into.
"He saw before him a room full of nubile young men, each one handsomer than the next."
Which is to say that they get uglier and uglier as they go. Which isn't really what was intended to be conveyed. At least I hope not.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:15 PM | Comments (5)
December 31, 2009
Language changes.
The phrase "spitting image," for example, was a few centuries ago "spirit and image." In those days, however, "spirit" was pronounced "sprit," and since "and" is in pronunciation often reduced to the consonant "n," you had something that sounded like "sprit n image," which is but a hop, a skip, and a jump from "spitting image." At some point somebody heard it wrong (this is called misanalysis) and started saying it like that, and other people spoke in his or her, um, tonguesteps (this is called diffusion), until everybody knew what "spitting image" meant even though the expression makes no sense whatsoever. And now if you said that somebody was the spirit and image of Chris Meloni, nobody would have any idea what the fuck you were talking about, not just because Chris Meloni and only Chris Meloni is the spirit and image of Chris Meloni but also because it's not an English idiom. "Spitting image" has become the correct expression.
I need only look to my own childhood to see modern examples of the phenomenon. When I was ten or so, I wrote a play in which I distinguished one character, who was a Valley Girl, solely by her use of the word "like" a few times every sentence. I did this partially because it allowed me to avoid creating actual character traits but mostly because only those ridiculous Valley Girls said "like" and everybody else thought it was stupid. Now, though, I say "like" a few times every sentence, same as everybody else I know under the age of fifty. "Like" is now a particle common in less formal spoken English, and I embrace it.
Another change that doesn't bother me is the use of the word "implement" as a verb. When I was on the high school debate team, one year the resolution we had to discuss was, if memory serves, "Resolved: that the United States should implement a policy to increase political stability in Latin America." I found this deeply offensive, since "implement" was a noun and only a noun, referring usually to the tools with which one accomplished a particular task (silverware, pens and pencils, and so on). You might as well say, "Resolved: that the United Stated should fork a policy to increase political stability in Latin America." I would use the polluted version of the word when forced to do so in service of winning debate matches, but otherwise nothing was going to be implemented in anything I said or wrote. Now, of course, "implement" passes my lips as a verb with nary a bat of an eyelash.
So I accept and, in my capacity as a descriptivist, embrace such change.
As an arrogant, pretentious snob, however, I can't fucking stand it.
There are any number of expressions in flux that are driving me crazy. The one I'm thinking about at the moment is "forbid X to Y," which has in the last few years suddenly become "forbid X from Ying." "You're forbidden from seeing him" I remember hearing Bree say to Andrew on an episode of Desperate Housewives last season (my memory is a little vague, and in fact "seeing him" might be an invention of my own whimsy; perhaps it was "forbidden from hosting an orgy in my house" or "forbidden from staying up late to read Thomas Aquinas"). I hear people saying this everywhere. And it makes me want to defenestrate them.
Because it's WRONG.
Again: I know perfectly well that, in all likelihood, in fifty years "forbid X from Ying" will be proper English, and I am delighted that language has the flexibility to grow and change.
But in my nature reign all frailties that besiege all kinds of blood, and so while delighting I also grit my teeth and wish it would go away and leave me alone.
Happy New Year.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 12:45 PM | Comments (11)
December 08, 2009
I've been in auditions since last week for a show of mine that,
GodSatanFannie Lou Hamer willing, will open off-Broadway in February. This is the first set of auditions I've been to on this scale, and I've learned a lot of very interesting things during the process, but one thing has struck me with significantly more force than the others:The life of an actor has got to be a wretched, wretched thing.
Last Monday, I sat in a room with six or seven other people (the casting director, the artistic director of the theater, her assistant, the choreographer, the accompanist, and a few others) for seven hours while a seemingly endless stream of people ran into and out of the room. Actors would walk in, and this is more or less how it went after that:
ACTOR (brightly): Hi!
SOMEONE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TABLE (SOTOSOTT): Hi. What are you going to sing for us?
ACTOR (brightly): I'll be singing [Name of Song].
SOTOSOTT: That's great.
ACTOR (to accompanist, sotto voce, pointing to the sheet music for [Name of Song]): We'll start here, and then after sixteen bars we'll cut to here. Then we'll take the key change and through the end.
ACCOMPANIST: Great.
ACTOR (brightly): Okay.(ACTOR sings truncated version of [Name of Song].)
SOTOSOTT: That was terrific. Thanks very much.
ACTOR (brightly): Thank you! Have a good day.
SOTOSOTT: You too.(ACTOR exits.)
This whole process took about three minutes. We saw over a hundred and fifty people that day, each of whom had to walk into the room, knowing absolutely nothing about what we were looking for, sing a song that might or might not show us what we wanted to see/hear, and leave, not knowing anything at all about how the song had actually been received, and pretend to feel chipper about the whole thing.
At first I smiled broadly at everybody who came in, because I wanted people to feel at least a little bit welcome, but by the afternoon my face muscles were too tired to manage it and I basically stared at people with a sickly half-grin that made me look like a deathly ill Colombian drug lord.
And actors have to deal with this, several times a day, basically forever.
I remember a television program in the early 2000s called, if memory serves, The It Factor. It followed four actors—three from New York and one from Los Angeles—as they went about their careers, or what they were hoping would eventually be their careers, or what they desperately wanted to be their careers. This one girl got audited by the IRS at some point during the season and she went to her friend who'd done her taxes with this big box with receipts and statements stuffed in it and falling out every which way. It made me want to peel my skin off.
But the thing I remember most about The It Factor is a piece of information given in the introduction to every week's show, which is that, at any given time, of all the professional actors in New York, exactly 1% are working.
One percent.
One.
There are a lot of terrible things about being a writer, let me tell you, but I don't think any of them can compare with the hideousnesses actors confront every day.
Hats off to you. For there is none of you so mean and base, that hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 07:49 PM | Comments (7)
December 03, 2009
Last night in my writing workshop we had to write for ten minutes within the following constraints:1. Use third person.
2. Refer to four colors.
3. Refer to an article of clothing.
4. Refer to a repeating sound.
5. Refer to quality of light.Here's what I came up with. (Click here to read what I wrote last time I had an exercise like this.)
Thunk.
Max eyed the mass on the floor. "It's sort of greenish," he said.
"Green greenish or yellow greenish?" asked Theseus.
"Greenish. I don't know. It's green."
"Hmm."
Crap. This was bad. The "hmm" had been "hmm" #6, the "hmm" that, roughly translated, meant something along the lines of "your inability to [verb] to within any satisfactory degree of satisfaction makes me want to unweave my shirt, tie the threads together in one long, long string, and mummify you with it."
Thunk.
"Maybe it's more bluish than greenish."
"Hmm."
Crap. "I don't know, I can't tell, if you'd let me put a decent bulb in the lamp I'd be able to see it better, but as it is the best I can come up with is that it's sort of greenish-bluish." Thunk. "They're getting closer."
"And whose fault is that?"
"Oh, Jesus Christ, Theseus, fine, fine, I fucked up, I fucked up, okay? How many times do I have to apologize for you to let it go?"
"Hmm."
Thunk.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:44 AM | Comments (3)
November 20, 2009
Tonight while watching TV:
E.S.: Team Jacob and Team Edward? What's that about?
FAUSTUS: It's New Moon, honey.
E.S.: What's that?
FAUSTUS: ...
E.S.: ...
FAUSTUS: How can you live in this country and not know?
E.S.: I don't know, I just don't.
FAUSTUS (sighing longsufferingly): New Moon is the second movie in the Twilight series, sweetheart. Edward is the heartthrob of the vampires and Jacob is the heartthrob of the werewolves.
E.S.: Hey, that's not a bad idea.
FAUSTUS: Jesus Christ.
E.S.: It is a bad idea?
FAUSTUS: I don't believe this.
E.S.: I'm so old.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 11:24 PM | Comments (6)
November 19, 2009
Last night, in a writing workshop I'm taking, we did a flash fiction exercise. We were given three essentially random prompts and ten minutes in which to complete a story. My prompts were: "Laurie, the famous actress" (protagonist), "to be king of the heap" (goal), and "the bartender from Seattle" (obstacle). Here's what I came up with.
Some small part of her, somewhere, knew it was wrong. A very small part of her, pulsing out messages of Don't, but they went unheard in the roar of her hunger.
She hadn't chosen this, after all. It could hardly be said to be her fault. Given the option, of course, she'd rather this than the alternative, but still she was not the primary agent here.
Her eyes flitted from body to body, wondering when he would make his move. She fingered the tip of the machete; still sharp enough.
Don't, don't! cried the small part of her, and this time she heard it, and considered. The more fool she.
He was upon her before she realized he had moved, the butcher knife stabbing into her leg, the one he'd already wounded.
She rolled over, pretending to weep. He came at her. She decapitated him.
Yes, she cried. Yes!
Don't, the small part of her said.
She turned on it, that small part of her, and killed it.
She stood up and began to walk toward the city.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:59 AM | Comments (4)
November 15, 2009
I just found out that the gang that hangs out at the bodega on the corner across the street and the gang that hangs out at the bodega two blocks north aren't just your run-of-the-mill everyday gangs.
They're the Crips and the Bloods.
Nobody's been shot in my neighborhood for several weeks, but next time it happens at least I'll know that the victim was killed by the cream of the crop.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 03:46 AM | Comments (4)
November 12, 2009
Just overheard at the grocery store.
CUTE LESBIAN BOI GROCERY BAGGER: People just want to integredate you.
CUTE CASHIER: They don't understand the suffition of pride.Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:30 AM | Comments (3)
November 11, 2009
A friend e-mailed me the other day asking, among other things, whether I'd read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I replied that I hadn't and that, in fact, I doubted I would, because I am furious that I didn't think of the idea myself. I mean, come on; it's been staring us all in the face this whole time, and Seth Grahame-Smith comes along and whips something up, and there it is.
Shortly after the release of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, once I'd recovered from the slavering fit of rage into which I had been thrown, I thought, okay, I really ought to try to capitalize on the recent popularity of vampire books and zombie books. After thinking for a few days I decided to try adding zombies to classic fairy tales. This resulted in passages like the following.
At last the happy day arrived. The two proud sisters set off in high spirits. Cinderella followed them with her eyes until the coach was out of sight. She then began to cry bitterly. While she was sobbing, her godmother, who was a zombie, appeared before her.
"Uuuurrrggh," said the zombie, and again, "Uuuurrrggh." Cinderella was startled, but not afraid; she knew somehow that this creature meant her no harm. "BRAINSSSSSS," said her godmother, ripping off the head of a passerby, scooping out the selfsame organ she had named, and swallowing it in one gulp. She then dropped the head to the ground, whereupon it was changed into a beautiful coach. "Ggggggmmmlkkkkke," she said, and the headless corpse was transformed into a glorious horse, and Cinderella rejoiced that the poor man, though cut down before his time, was still able to offer succor to those in need. And then came, from the road, from the field, eight zombies, shambling toward Cinderella and her zombie godmother. Two took their places as coachman and postilion, as the other six surrounded the coach as footmen.
When all these things had been done, the kind godmother, touching her with her wand, changed her worn-out clothes into what had once been a beautiful ball-gown, now fetchingly torn and tattered. She then gave her a pair of glass slippers; that is, they were woven of the most delicate spun-glass, fine as the web of a spider.
When Cinderella was thus attired, her godmother made her get into her splendid coach, told her, "Ddddrrrnnnggggggg," which Cinderella understood to be a caution to leave the ball before the clock struck twelve, and shambled off, tearing the head off another unfortunate passerby and eating his brains as she went. She was not so satisfied with these brains as with those of the previous passerby, but no matter; her next feast could not be in any wise far off.
I sent this (and the rest of the story surrounding it) to my agent, who loved it, but then everybody else in her office pointed out that fairy tales already have monsters and supernatural beings in them, so with zombies there wasn't really all that much value added.
I've been racking my brains since then but the best thing I've been able to come up with is Michelle Obama, Vampire Slayer, and really I just don't think that's going to hold up well as the years go by.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 12:57 AM | Comments (5)
October 16, 2009
I returned on Wednesday from a visit abroad, about which more later. The main thing I have to report is that during my visit I regained hope for the young.
One might be forgiven for questioning my use here of the reiterative prefix, given that I have heretofore tended to display a distinctive lack of ever having evinced any hope whatsoever for the young, but let's put it down to jet lag for now and leave it at that.
One morning during my trip I had a conversation with a young person sixteen years of age about some highly traumatic events from his past and the emotionally fraught present repercussions thereof. The arc of our discussion had touched down, and we'd sat in solemn if friendly silence for some moments. Then:
YOUNG PERSON: Is C-3PO gay?
FAUSTUS: Yes.
YOUNG PERSON: ...
FAUSTUS: Is R2-D2?
YOUNG PERSON (derisively): R2-D2 isn't gay. R2-D2 can't even talk.
FAUSTUS: ...
YOUNG PERSON: ...
FAUSTUS: ...
YOUNG PERSON: ...
FAUSTUS: What about Chewbacca?
YOUNG PERSON: Complete fruit.Posted by Faustus, MD at 03:54 PM | Comments (8)
October 01, 2009
I'm preparing to go out of the country for a couple weeks (more on this later). E.S. and I therefore had the following conversation last night.
E.S.: I'll miss you. When you're not here the empty house is all quiet and spooky.
FAUSTUS: But the house will be full of the spirit of our love.
E.S.: Like I said, quiet and spooky.
FAUSTUS: Hmph.
E.S.: Now, wait, you're coming back the 14th?
FAUSTUS: Yes.
E.S.: Why so early? Why aren't you staying till the 21st?
FAUSTUS: I told you, I—
E.S.: Of November?
FAUSTUS: Wait a minute . . .
E.S.: 2010?
FAUSTUS: I hate you.
E.S.: I'm the funniest boyfriend in the world.
FAUSTUS (relenting): You can be funny sometimes.
E.S.: Like, every six weeks or so.
FAUSTUS: There's no need to exaggerate.
E.S.: (Burps.)
FAUSTUS: Oh, my God.Posted by Faustus, MD at 08:53 AM | Comments (13)
September 23, 2009
I don't even know what to say about this commercial. On the one hand, what the fuck? On the other hand, given the political atmosphere in which we're operating these days, it might not be such a bad thing.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:56 PM | Comments (11)
September 22, 2009
My idiosyncratic schedule usually allows me to avoid the subway during its busiest times, but several days ago I had occasion to ride the downtown 1 train during morning rush hour. Luck had been with me (note, please, the pluperfect tense), and I'd been able to find a seat. Between the 66th Street and 59th Street stops, however, she must have abandoned me for somebody more muscular, because the train ground to a halt. "Due to train traffic ahead this car is being held for momentary supervision," the conductor said over the loudspeaker. "We will resume shortly." I was on my way to a meeting I was dreading, so I was thrilled, and hoped that "shortly" meant "after a long, long time."
The man across the aisle from me was not thrilled. "Fuckin' fuck FUCK SHIT fuck fuck GODDAMN FUCK," he said. (I cannot swear that I have reproduced his words with 100% accuracy, but the spirit is the same.) "Shit fuck fuck damnit stuck on the goddamn subway again why me FUCK FUCK FUCK."
Nobody else in the car paid him any attention. We'd all been in his position at one time or another, and we sympathized, but this being the New York City subway system each of us remained in his own bubble of personal space, as is customary, reading or listening to music or fantasizing about what one might be able to convince Matt Damon to do if one could get him really, really drunk (my choice of activity this morning).
"Fuckin' fuck fuck shit GODDAMNIT FUCK why me why me of course me FUCK FUCK fuck."
A young woman standing a few feet from him decided to break the personal-space-bubble rule. "What's your name?" she said. She was wearing a long skirt and had dark hair that fell midway down her back.
"Bill," he said, eyeing her suspiciously.
"Bill," she said, "I'm gonna sing you a song."
"Oh, shit," said the man sitting next to me. The woman pulled a harmonica out of her pocket and I tensed up. Things like this happen on the subway all the time, but that doesn't mean one has to be pleased about them.
She played a riff on the harmonica. "Fuckin' fuck fuck shit why me!" she sang, and looked at Bill. He stared at her blankly, and she made a motion with her hand to indicate that he should repeat what she'd sung.
""Fuckin' fuck fuck shit why me!" Bill sang suspiciously; she sort of sang along with him, to help him with the melody she'd made up.
She played another riff on her harmonica. "Stuck on the goddamn subway again!" she sang, and looked at Bill, who appeared slightly less suspicious.
"Stuck on the goddamn subway again!" The other passengers in the car had begun to pay attention; this was fun.
Another harmonica riff. "Goddamnit fuck fuck fuck fuck!" the two of them sang together.
"Goddamnit fuck fuck fuck fuck!"
Harmonica riff. "What else?" she asked Bill. His brow wrinkled in concentration and then his eyes widened.
"FUCK THE BASTARD BOSSES!" he shouted.
"Fuck the bastard bosses!" she sang.
"Fuck the bastard bosses!" he sang with her.
By this time he was grinning.
So was everybody else in the car.
Harmonica riff. "Goddamn fuckin' bastard bosses fuck fuck fuck!"
"Goddamn fuckin' bastard bosses fuck fuck fuck!"
The subway loudspeakers emitted a couple bell sounds. The doors closed and we started to move. Bill and the young woman continued communicating with each other, but in spoken prose rather than in harmonica-accompanied song. The guy sitting next to me and I looked at each other and smiled.
The subway reached 59th Street and the woman moved toward the door to get out. "What's your name?" said Bill.
"Oh, it doesn't matter," she said, and left the car.
I was still smiling when I got to my meeting; it went quickly and easily, and then I went to get ice cream.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 07:00 AM | Comments (16)
September 21, 2009
I wrote here about the misunderstanding I had with my editor in preparation for the release of the paperback edition of my book Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Happened Instead, the misunderstanding being that after she said "Send me any changes you want to make," I sent her a list of 168 changes when what she actually meant was four to six. In the comments, a couple people suggested posting the remaining changes to mitigate the effects of Random House's parsimony. Since the fact that I had to make changes meant that the book as it exists isn't perfect, I was delighted by this suggestions, as it means I can make the book perfect ex post facto. I can't imagine that anybody is particularly interested in going through the text with a pen changing semi-colons to periods and adding auxiliary verbs, but in what I think is a remarkable if painful display of emotional fortitude I'm going to say that that is not my problem and that the important thing is that it's there.
Therefore I ask you to
1. click here to download a PDF of corrections to Swish or
2. know that such a PDF exists and that if you chose you could download it and make the book perfect.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 10:07 AM | Comments (6)
September 18, 2009
I'm trying to find a way to see this as some sort of trick or strategy, but I think Bill O'Reilly actually means that he supports a public option.
I'm kind of reeling.
Maybe when I bought those cookies last night I unwittingly chose the bag that had been laced with hallucinogens so that the lacer's enemy would buy it and hallucinate?
Or . . . is it possible? . . . is there a prominent Republican who's actually speaking honestly about health care reform?
Don't pinch me; I'd rather not wake up.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:30 AM | Comments (2)
September 17, 2009
When Random House decided to issue a paperback edition of Swish, my editor asked me whether there were any changes I'd like to make to the material as it was in hardback. There were in fact some changes I wanted to make—at the last minute I made some corrections that in retrospect I ought not to have made, and there were problem spots I'd realized since the book's publication how to fix. So I told her I'd look through the book and give her a list. Some time went by, and then we had the following e-mail exchange:
From: Faustus
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 10:27 AM
To: Faustus's editor
Subject: edits for paperbackOkay, so after promising these to you for like weeks and weeks and weeks, I finally have the edits I'd like to make for the paperback. Do not be alarmed at the length of the document—I think I counted 186 edits, but at least half of them are things like "change 'the' to 'a' " and at least another quarter are things like "add a comma after 'and.' " The rest of them are mostly things like "switch the order of these phrases" or "add the word 'official' ." I worked very, very hard to make sure that there be no shifting of text from one page to another, and I think I succeeded in almost every case.
Let me know what you think.
From: Faustus's editor
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 4:56 PM
To: Faustus
Subject: RE: edits for paperbackWow, you are one thorough guy. I wish I could reward your diligence with the news that we'd be able to make all of these changes, but I'm afraid I didn't give you the best instructions about this. Even though these are tiny and most won't cause reflow, they still cost money, and we can't absorb the expense of making 186 changes. The guidelines are usually that we will make a change if it's required for accuracy or to correct a grammatical error, but we won't make dozens of changes that would just sharpen up the writing. We do indulge the occasional aesthetic improvement, it's usually on the order of four to six changes, not 186. I'm sorry not to have given you the sense of scale earlier, but, well, not all authors are as conscientious as you. Could you please cull this list into the changes that are necessary to make the book more accurate or grammatically correct?
From: Faustus
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2008 5:07 PM
To: Faustus's editor
Subject: RE: edits for paperbackWhoops.
I'll get back to you.
In the end I was able to pare my list down to fifteen or twenty corrections, which turned out to be an acceptable compromise. Acceptable to my editor, that is.
Me, I'm just waiting to become really, really famous so they can put out another edition and incorporate my corrections. It's taking a while, though, so I'm considering mass murder as a quick means to notoriety. At the very least it would draw attention from the currently missing commas and "and"s where there ought to be "the"s.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 09:03 AM | Comments (14)
September 14, 2009
I realize I'm days and days behind, but since I have only the vaguest notion who Kanye West is I figured I was okay sharing the letter my father just sent to the editor of the Charleston Post Courier about Representative Joe Wilson.
To the Editor:
If Joe Wilson's outburst were unusual for South Carolina, that would be nice. Unfortunately, our state's senators and congressmen have given the nation many similar unforgettable moments.
When a black minister rose to give the invocation at the Democratic National Convention in 1936, for example, Senator Cotton Ed Smith made a headline-grabbing show of stomping right out, followed close behind by Charleston Mayor and future South Carolina Senator Burnet Maybank.
A few decades earlier, when President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House in 1901, Senator Ben Tillman said, "The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that n----- will necessitate our killing a thousand n------ in the South before they will learn their place again." Of course, Pitchfork Ben used the full n----- word.
Further back still, when Senator Charles Sumner made an anti-slavery speech in 1856, two of our courageous congressmen locked him in the Senate chamber and beat him unconscious--one brave Carolinian wielded the cane while the other guarded the door to make sure no one could come to help the victim.
Joe ("I will not be muzzled") Wilson may have no manners, but he does fit in with centuries of South Carolina tradition.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 12:54 PM | Comments (12)
September 09, 2009
The other day my dad told me that he was in a gang in high school. Then he told me the gang was called the Argonauts.
So close, and yet so far.
Posted by Faustus, MD at 04:21 PM | Comments (7)
September 04, 2009
Today is E.S.'s birthday, which means that I was in a
mawkishtender mood last night. He was fiddling with a laser pen pointer, and we had the following conversation.E.S.: Ooh, look what happens when the light lands on the pink sapphire in your engagement ring!
FAUSTUS: That's pretty cool.
E.S.: What if somebody made a ring that did that? I should have gotten you a ring that did that.
FAUSTUS: No, because this is already the best engagement ring ever.
E.S.: I'm sure that somewhere there's a prince or tycoon or somebody with a better engagement ring.
FAUSTUS: No, because he didn't get it from you.(Pause.)
E.S.: Well, you don't know that.
FAUSTUS: Why are you always so mean to me?Posted by Faustus, MD at 04:21 PM | Comments (7)
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