Winters Tale act IV scene iv

Florizel:                                      What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.
I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,
That all your acts are queens.

tales of nola

This summer, I went with Terra and one of her friends to the New Orleans Public Library. Its right on St. Charles. It never seems to be open, but we went this once to see the inside. Of course when we got there, it was closed. It was raining. Walking around the building, we circled all the way back around to the front veranda.

And out of the rain was a homeless-looking man laying down on the tile. Terra's friend asked him first if he was okay. Terra's friend was the saddest sort who was always extremely shy-- the sort of guy who always thought he was being an idiot.

The homeless-looking man asked for us to call an ambulance, so we did. But we didn't know what else to do, but stay there until it arrived. And the man started crying about missing his wife, who had died. And Terra's friend told the man that one of his best friends died a couple years ago. Which made me and Terra feel additionally sad and uncomfortable. And again not knowing what to do, Terra read a poem out loud from her book of poems. And the homeless-looking guy yelled out what was surely the truth, "What the fuck are you doing I am dying over here!"

The weird thing is, I was relieved at the time that I, for once, wasn't the one doing the completely wrong thing.

I don't understand that when distopian worlds are protrayed in science fiction-- they largely consist of the same qualities of medieval social structure. That is: rigid social classes, injustice, unenlightened thought, unquestioning subserviance, even a sense of sameness and uniformity (all the peasants and the preoles dress and think the same. The noblemen dress and think the same). Yet these same science-fiction hypotheticals, contradictingly, regret the loss of an earlier, pre-industrial time. The movement away from that period in history has created a strange inertia. Are we are paranoid we are still living in that restrictive/oppressed time? Is it that the less we see oppression/control in the infinite variety of liberalism we encounter today, the more we dread that oppression/control is operating invisibly in our lives? At least by depicting a distopian society, or by shallowly visualizing the past, we can see clearly what it is we fear. Of course some authors, such as Philip K., complicate that projection, and decenter our conventional moral judgements in these mental/literary/imagined places.

I did not sneak from bed. I did not steal the fries, or your dog. I did not wait until you fell asleep to pull my skin back on over past my hip bones.

Mulch Fire, 2012

It is not the ecological disaster of imminent global warming. Nor is it the corporate negligence of the Exxon oil spill-- the inky stuff refracting rainbows in the gulf. No, this is a mulch fire in Knoxville, Tennessee. But the message that the hanging particulates intone in mid-air (code red for respiratory health) is of the most foreboding sort-- demanding that attention be paid. The message is to do what the haze cannot do, and that is to leave, flee, expel from this grabbing valley, like an exhale that rolls as current, dissembling and dismantling from its origin.

Besides that, the whole outdoors smells like barbecue and the air irritants make my eyes water, which confuse me into thinking I am sad.

What I find interesting is not writing a paper about the play I wrote, but why I am being asked to write a paper about the play I wrote.

A woman covered in snails.

A grown hick man drinking Pediasure.

Play Ideas

short play: Guppies.
Little girl fish panic when they learn the biggest of their brood will turn into males. "I don't want to be a boyyyy!"

long play: Murder Ballad Play
A young sociologist researches women in abusive relationships. The history and confusion of violence and love  wash over her. Celtic couple 1700's; appalachian couple 1800's; modern day researcher 2000.

short play: Bears in the Snow, Kite Flying Stoned
Two roommates discover they are dating the same guy. The Ice Queen visits and turns the guy into a statue.

short play: A Girl Turns Slowly into A Tree
A girl turns slowly into a tree. Football Dudes litter.