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SMURF-OLITICS: Socio-Political Themes in The Smurfs.
SILENT, THERE'RE NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE! Our Gypsy cast has now raised nearly $10,000 for the American Red Cross by asking the audience to give after each performance's curtain call. Dave Barry: "The TV commentators keep saying that the attacks have awakened a 'sleeping giant.' And I guess we do look like a giant, to the rest of the world. But when I look around, I don't see a giant: I see millions of individuals..." Lance Arthur: "So in my own way, in quiet and without candles or a specially colored wardrobe or prayers to a god I don't believe in anyway, I am striving to be normal. Fuck them if they think they can change me. I won't let them." Leslie Harpold: "We left twenty five dollars on the table, a little more than the dinner we had should have cost. After spending so long chatting with the waiter, hearing about his family in Afghanistan he can't make contact with, his fear people will bring his business harm, and his general ill feelings toward the Taliban..." Brent Simmons: "My kitten's been a great comfort. I haven't really told him too much about what's happened. In part because English is at best his second language, but also because I know what my kitten -- so sweet and nice, so loving, so soft and simple and pure -- would say about the terrorists: chase them, kill them, and eat them. One envies predators their clarity." IT'S CALLED "RESPECT THE PUSSY": I wouldn't click on this link if I were you. LEND A HAND: The Missouri Community Service Commission has information about how Show-Me Staters can assist with disaster relief and other community service projects close to home, including a collection of web-based volunteerism search engines. SHARING STORIES: Last weekend, as in nine other cities around the globe, I gathered with friends to tell each other stories. Sharing our lives in that way can be a remarkably uplifting experience, connecting us one person to another through our personal truths. What brought us together as friends last weekend was a website called The Fray. What brought us together this week as a nation and world community was a fray of an entirely different sort. There's a new collection of stories in The Fray, Missing Pieces. Have a look, and tell a story of your own "missing pieces". PEOPLE ARE GOOD, REALLY: Brother, if you don't mind... I was on my back, facing this massive cloud that was approaching, it must have been 600 feet off, everything was already dark. I normally wear a pendant around my neck, inscribed with an Arabic prayer for safety; similar to the cross. A hesidic Jewish man came up to me and held the pendant in his hand, and looked at it. He read the Arabic out loud for a second. COULD SOMEBODY GET JERRY ON THE CLUE PHONE? Falwell blames gays, liberal groups for terrorist attacks. As if I weren't already sad and sorry enough about the troubles abroad in the land, now it turns out it's all my fault? Sigh. Can we please keep our eye on the ball here, people? GEEKS, PIZZA AND DIGITAL CAMERAS: A potent portent of mayhem and fun, my friends. Jason has posted a few photos from the recent Chicago edition of "Break Bread With Brad". META: Link This Page. ANY I.O.U. I OWE...: Our Gypsy cast took up a collection for the American Red Cross after last night's performance and raised over $1,200. Folks were pitching twenties and fifties into the kitty. They'll be encouraging our audiences to contribute after each curtain call, at least through this weekend. [Update: Our very generous audience contributed an additional $1,700 Thursday night.] Can I tell you how wonderful and generous this cast is? They've also organized a benefit cabaret on October 1 for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and St. Louis AIDS service organizations. (The rest of the cast is gently encouraging Pam Myers, who plays Rose in our production, to sing "Another Hundred People" from Company at the cabaret. Too cool. For the showtune-impaired among my readership, Pam was "Marta" in the original cast of Company.) LEAVE ME A LITTLE MUSIC: I'll be damned before I allow anything, however tragic, to rob me of my optimism, hope and -- most importantly -- sense of humor. When I can no longer laugh, I shall no longer live. Today, the song "Laughing Matters" from Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly has been running through my head: Bad guys win. Optimism's wearing thin. Things are spinning out of control. Cynicism's all the fad. World events could make us mad as hatters. Almost every day some underpinning slips away. These aren't laughing matters... The lyrics are courtesy of Bette Lyrics.com, which I just discovered and which claims to have all the lyrics to all of the songs Bette Midler ever recorded. Who knew?! Sounds like just what we need to lighten the mood a little around these parts. GIVE A LITTLE: A dollar or a bunch, if you've already given blood (or made arrangements to do so) and are still looking for a way to help those affected by yesterday's events, here are some ways to donate money that will help people:
I got this list from Steve Bogart who got it from Dave Swim. Please note that Amazon, PayPal and Yahoo! are waiving their usual service fees for all donations to this effort. Good show! Jish: "I was doing better today, until a short while ago when I was at a cafe for breakfast. As I stood in line, someone (very loudly and in a very accusing tone) asked: 'Are you from Afghanistan??' All eyes turned upon me, burning, each one accompanied with accusatory frowns. Needless to say, I very sheepishly said: 'I am not from Afghanistan', then I quietly left ... with an empty stomach and almost crying. I felt so small and I now feel so unsafe and uncomfortable." David Grenier: "We must protect our Arab-American brothers and sisters against jingoism and hatred. We must remember that a lynching is a lynching whether it's performed by people in klan white, police blue, or army green. ... If we don't fight for the living; if we allow hatred, paranoia, and jingoism to determine our actions; if we cheer U.S. military superiority as made-for-tv bombing campaigns kill more civilians and destroy more lives; than we are the real cowards." Lileks: "10:00: Again, and again, and again: the Towers thundering down. Gnat happily playing with her books. News reports dancing in the streets on West Bank. Saw TV reports of some little boys whooping it up. Note to self: do not teach daughter to exult when people die." WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN? It is natural, in times such as these, to grasp at anything to help us make sense of a senseless situation. However, don't ask Nostradamus why bad things happened to innocent people yesterday. As Snopes and Kevin Fox point out, the old guy with the vague foresight trotted out to explain the unexplainable didn't write the prophecy attributed to him in e-mail forwards circling the globe. UPDATE: Our wandering boy has been found. I am always grateful to be roused from sleep at 3 a.m. for good news. STUNNED: I have no words. Having just stepped off a plane from California this morning shortly before the crashes in New York and Washington, I'm still shaking. My thoughts and very best hopes are with my friends and loved ones everywhere. Thanks to everyone in California for your concerned e-mails and calls. I'm on the ground and fine here, and I love you all very, very much. (Much of St. Louis is shutting down as a precaution, including the airport of course.)
(The Red Cross site is not answering. Contact your local agency to find out how you can help!) One of our Gypsy actors was in New York Monday for an audition, scheduled to fly back this morning, via Detroit. Latest word is she's OK, albeit stranded in Queens. My students were in tears this morning. I cancelled class. The whole building is watching CNN. The major news sites are swamped. The independent web is stepping up:
New Yorkers can "check in" on the web to let otherwise unreachable loved ones know they're OK. If you have to leave San Francisco -- and it's always a shame when I must -- I can think of no better send-off than dinner and bright conversation with a charming, intelligent and attractive young man. (Naturally, with all that going for him, he's already spoken for.) According to Firda's Who's Your Weblogger Twin? test, apparently these are the Top Ten nuts hanging from Ye Olde BradLands Family Tree:
LATER: I'm just back from the day's adventures in The City, with a few minutes to spare before the night's activities kick in. I began by sleeping luxuriously late (snuggled under a delightfully comfy duvet) and then joining 20 of my dearest amigos for a late brunch at David's Delicatessan, the latest episode of "Break Bread With Brad". Props all around to the inventor of corned beef, our daffy, dishy, swishy waiter William, and to everyone who showed up on too little rest to kibitz and chow down. As it turns out, there was another gathering of web folk going on over in the East Bay environs almost simultaneously and, though I was frightfully late, I still managed to catch up with a few of the Boys in the Bandwidth, and must thank Bill, Philo and Aaron, the cutest, cuddliest pirates of them all, for waiting around to share coffee and show me all the happening sights of beautiful downtown Oakland (including a dreamy Boy From Berkeley who somehow managed to elude our clutches). Ye-aarr! FRAY DAY REDUX: Red wine and key lime soda (not together!), sidewalk cigarettes and superb folk music, oracular words and "the best gift I ever got", friends from near and abroad and, best of all, stories, stories, stories: about children's television and chewy mice, love and loss, stalking and shoes, playa transformations and terrifying travel, an incindiery Volkswagen and baring it all on stage. That's a thumbnail summary that doesn't begin to do justice to Fray Day last night in San Francisco, and can't begin to describe the global celebration that continues through today in Australia and elsewhere. You can bring The Fray into your life and do your part to promote personal storytelling: share a true tale with someone today! Back in The City, friends, San Francisco...a little slice of heaven on earth and the place to which I intend to retire. Seriously. Hey, you got plans for tonight? No? Then come to Fray Day 5, doofus. I'll be there telling a tale, hanging with friends old and new and listening to the fantastic personal, true stories that spin out of folks in a spectacularly supportive environment. See you there! It seems like I don't visit MetaFilter (a collaborative weblog and discussion website) any longer. I never posted a great deal there, but I used to be a voracious reader of the thoughtful, intelligent and just plain wacky discussions that evolved from links to clever, creative or useful sites on the web. I suppose I only just realized today that I don't really feel comfortable there anymore, even stopping by just to read the site. It feels as though a couple of boorish, brainless frat boys moved into my friend Matt's apartment and I'm suddenly the odd man out when we all get together. Or maybe it's like when a friend starts dating someone seriously and changes his personality radically, never seeming to have time for his buddies. You want to talk about microbrew and queercore and suddenly he's all about football and the Beaujolais Nouveau. Y'know? (Aw, geez. OK, bring on the "A-list, elitist bastard" e-mail. I'm pretty much used to it by now.) MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE OFFICE: The Rep's season opens this week with a dazzling production of Gypsy. My stress level is slightly elevated, but manageable. VIRTUAL RICE-TOSS: All my wishes for years of happiness to the latest pair of folk I met through the web to wed. Steve and Lyn are just the cutest couple, ain't they?
(WEB)LOG-ROLLING: Whazzat? Signs of life over at Elan's place? Like manna from the heavens, a few precious pearls o' text. More please? HUBBA HUBBA: Day-um! I am sooooo turned on by Sexy Jim. Finally, thoughtful online erotica from a real man! [Ben sent me.] Church of the Apathetic Agnostic: "We don't know and we don't care." This site deals with the doctrine of Apathetic Agnosticism in a combination of total seriousness and sophomoric humour. It is up to you, the visitor, to determine which is which. WHISTLE A HAPPY TOON: Eric O. Costello's superb, exhaustive Warner Bros. Cartoon Companion, including biographical and historical notes on damn near every Looney Tunes character. [via MetaFilter] ARTS & CRAFTS: How to Make a Wallet From Duct Tape [hat tip: The gods] | |
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