21 May 2010: Hallelujah, I’m Schizophrenic!
According to researchers at the Stockholm-based Karolinska Institute, creative people’s brains are similar to schizophrenics’ brains. Well, I’ve always known that. Yes, me too. Just so you know. Me two.
9 May 2010: Big Prawns, Dead Prawns
Back in 1999, when one of my plays was in competition at the Edward Albee Theatre Conference at Prince William Sound Community College in Valdez, Alaska, site of the disastrous Exxon oil spill, there were lots of cocktail parties given by the oil companies for people attending the conference. Albee himself told us to be…
7 May 2010: Mating with Neanderthals
Today’s big headline news is that human beings mated with Neanderthals over 80,000 years ago. I don’t know why scientists are just discovering this now. Tennessee Williams explored such a relationship between Blanche and Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, his 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning play. And, of course, we also see such relationships being acted out…
5 May 2010: Ted Nugent on Sarah Palin
Writing on Sarah Palin in Time magazine’s double-issue on The 100 Most Influential People In The World, conservative gun-toting sexagenarian rock guitarist Ted Nugent asserts that “the independent patriotic spirit, attitude and soul of our forefathers are alive and well in Sarah. In the way she lives, what she says and how she dedicates herself…
29 April 2010: All Men Are Dogs!
How-to guru Karen Salmansohn has sold over a million books, among them How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Successful Dog Trainers. She might have gotten the idea from Strindberg’s play Miss Julie, wherein the haughty heroine treats one suitor like a dog by making him jump…
28 April 2010: What Do Kansans Look Like?
Guess who helped to write the controversial law which allows cops in Arizona to arrest anyone whom they suspect to be illegal aliens on the basis of how they look and sound? Like it or not, it’s Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor who is now running for secretary of state in…
25 April 2010: Fashion’s New “Wetback Look”
Now that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed Immigration Bill SB1070 into law, which allows cops in Arizona to arrest anyone who looks suspiciously illegal, it’s time for the fashion industry to come to the rescue. According to California Congressman Brian Bilbray, cops “will look at the kind of dress you wear. There is a…
New Playwriting Award for Asian-Americans!
Gregg Henry, Artistic Director of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, sent out this press release earlier this week. The Paul Stephen Lim Asian-American Playwriting Award Supported by the University of Kansas Endowment Association, this award is given to the outstanding full-length or one-act play on any subject written by an Asian-American student, in honor…
13 April 2010: Al Gore and Poetic Justice
Of the names being floated as nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court to replace Justice John Paul Stevens when he retires, the one I like best is Al Gore. He won the popular vote in the 2000 presidential election, but was denied his rightful place in the White House when the controversy over the Florida…
4 April 2010: Lesbian Albatrosses!
The cover story of The New York Times Magazine today is about Lindsay C. Young, a biologist who has been studying a colony of albatrosses in Hawaii. Young’s research reveals that, not only do albatrosses mate for life, but many of the “couples” she has been studying are, in fact, Sapphic females. Which leads me to…