Author: TC

“What Would Obama Think”

by Deb Flomberg

I walked into the Bug Theatre not knowing what to expect. With all of the talk about politics and the election that is surrounding us here in Denver, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to go to a show called “Iraq War, The Musical!” However, I went, figuring that either way I was in for an interesting night. Yet, I am not reviewing this show. I feel that it speaks for itself. If your political views don’t swing very far to the left, or you don’t follow politics much at all, then don’t see it. You will be mad. However, if you do consider yourself a liberal and you are informed about the political events of the past eight years, then you’ll probably enjoy it. So, the reason I am choosing not to review this show is because there was something else that really struck me as I watched this show. I was reminded that theatre is about freedom of expression and that one of the most wonderful things about being a writer, director, or actor is the ability to make people think.

‘Bury the Dead’ at the Actors’ Gang

Charlotte Stoudt:

War casualties as an image problem are the conundrum in “Bury the Dead,” Irwin Shaw’s righteous, funny and painfully relevant 1936 one-act now playing at the Actors’ Gang. The author had just graduated from college when his antiwar drama landed on Broadway, and this is very much a young man’s play, its ethos driven by core pleasures (a woman’s smile, a cold beer, the dream of a future) and an instinctive distrust of authority.

Lights up on a bleak field, where a couple of beleaguered doughboys (Seth Compton and Rick Gifford) dig a communal grave for six of their fallen comrades. No sooner have they started to cover the corpses in the dirt when slowly, eerily, the six stiffs climb to their feet and stare down the living. Yes, they’re dead all right, but they’ve decided to stick around, having had their lives cut obscenely short by what they term “the general’s real estate,” a few bloody yards of battleground. Flummoxed, their thoughtful captain (Simon Anthony Abou-Fadel) turns to Army brass, religious leaders and finally the fairer sex to convince their deceased loved ones to go gently into that good night.

Art of Democracy is building a network of exhibitions and events that will all take place in the fall of 2008. New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, St. Louis, Puerto Rico, Muncie, and several more locations are planning exhibitions. Join us as we work to amplify artistic voices willing to speak out in this dangerous hour.

Unlocking the Power of Art to Counter Injustice

Anthony Papa via Counterpunch

The artist’s role as social commentator and activist has historically been engrained in our culture. Art and its creation as a response to social and political issues can become powerfully influential in raising public awareness that results in positive change.

Art as a social weapon has been around for a long time. Recall the great German expressionist painter Kathe Kollwitz, who created works of art that centered on themes such as poverty, unemployment and worker exploitation. Diego Rivera and the other Mexican muralists used their art as a tool for the oppressed against their oppressors. They expressed their opinions and got their message across to the literate and illiterate alike, and earned worldwide recognition. In April 1937, the world learned the shocking truth about the Nazi Luftwaffe’s bombing of Guernica, Spain – a civilian target; Pablo Picasso responded with his great anti-war painting, Guernica.

Proceeds from the art exhibit and auction will benefit DPA and be used to respond to the destructive consequences of the war on drugs. The U.S. now has the highest incarceration rate in the world — one American adult out of every 100 is currently behind bars.

by Jeff VanderMeer

via Huffington Post

Summer Political Fiction: From Jessica Z to Black Clock 9

Man-eating sharks, James Bond-style villains with snow-white lap cats, superheroes in capes and tights saving the world. Mmmm, yes. Summer reading. The potent fantasy of sitting on the beach or by the pool — or at home with a hand-made paper umbrella in your rum-and-coke if you’re enduring a self-enforced “stay-cation” — and just losing yourself in a good book…

So you could be forgiven for not thinking about political fiction until the fall, especially given the recent release of the Ralph Reed fundamentalist snoozer, Dark Horse. But the fact is, this summer has seen the release of some engrossing novels (and one magazine) in which politics and social commentary take center stage. These texts reflect a post 9-11 sensibility that assimilates and responds to the last seven years of absurdity, horror, heartbreak, stupidity, and dueling cynicism-idealism. That many of these recommended reads use the near-future as a way to comment on the present shouldn’t surprise you. What writer really wants to dwell in the here-and-now given all the challenges facing the world? And who can really make sense of it all without a little distance?

For example, Shawn Klomparens’ Jessica Z (Delta, trade paperback) is set perhaps a year or two from now. It combines the concerns of literary fiction about sex and relationships with the kind of paralyzing sense of dread fueled by the continuing erosion of civil liberties. When San Francisco is hit by terrorist attacks, 28-year-old copy writer Jessica must cope with upheaval in both her public and private worlds. What’s normal post-attack, and who can be trusted? Jessica Z also quietly emphasizes the casual acceptance of torture into our current version of reality, along with the info-tainment quality of TV media. Klomparens’ particular gift is to embed the details of our self-induced dissolution into an erotic coming-of-age story that’s not only slyly funny at times but has aspects of a thriller.

Less nuanced, more direct, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother (Tor Books, hardcover) is Orwell for the teen set, a young adult tale of fighting back against a Department of Homeland Security run amok in the aftermath of a terrorist attack in San Francisco (apparently a popular target). Jailed and tortured, seventeen-year-old Marcus, a hacker, decides to take on the DHS. There’s little subtlety here — the bad guys are bad guys, the teens heroic and ultra-competent — but Doctorow’s understanding of modern technology and his ability to connect with the next generation make Little Brother as close to a handbook for the resistance as any novel yet written.In contract to Doctorow’s earnest realism, David Ohle’s

The Pisstown Chaos (Soft Skull Press, trade paper) deals in irony and absurdism. Parasite infestation has created new social pariahs and new opportunities for unscrupulous politicians. The United States has come to be ruled by Reverend Herman Hooker, an “American Divine,” a fascist in religious guise. The Balls family falls afoul of Hooker’s policies and is relocated to a detention camp. The story of their survival is told in intricate detail, with the Reverend’s desperate attempts to control the country serving as the backdrop. It’s hard to explain the power of Ohle’s compelling and potent approach to political commentary. His Reverend isn’t just a cartoon caricature and his family isn’t your normal clean-cut American nuclear unit, either. Somehow, Ohle manages to create three-dimensional characters and make some stark satirical points at the same time. Continue reading Current “Political Fiction”

The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn

Our love for telling tales reveals the workings of the mind

By Jeremy Hsu

As many as two thirds of the most respected stories in narrative traditions seem to be variations on three narrative patterns, or prototypes, according to Hogan. The two more common prototypes are romantic and heroic scenarios—the former focuses on the trials and travails of love, whereas the latter deals with power struggles. The third prototype, dubbed “sacrificial” by Hogan, focuses on agrarian plenty versus famine as well as on societal redemption. These themes appear over and over again as humans create narrative records of their most basic needs: food, reproduction and social status.

Happily Ever After
The power of stories does not stop with their ability to reveal the workings of our minds. Narrative is also a potent persuasive tool, according to Hogan and other researchers, and it has the ability to shape beliefs and change minds.

Advertisers have long taken advantage of narrative persuasiveness by sprinkling likable characters or funny stories into their commercials. A 2007 study by marketing researcher Jennifer Edson Escalas of Vanderbilt University found that a test audience responded more positively to advertisements in narrative form as compared with straightforward ads that encouraged viewers to think about the arguments for a product. Similarly, Green co-authored a 2006 study that showed that labeling information as “fact” increased critical analysis, whereas labeling information as “fiction” had the opposite effect. Studies such as these suggest people accept ideas more readily when their minds are in story mode as opposed to when they are in an analytical mind-set.

Works of fiction may even have unexpected real-world effects on people’s choices. Continue reading Research on the Power of Story

 

When the bankers bailed out their own bankruptcy with the future earnings of debtors, we satirists surrendered.

 

We trooped en masse to a hastily arranged convention determined to write a Manifesto of Surrender. How could we knot? The world defeated us – had, has, and will have. We were so defeated we could knot even explain how defeated we were. Did knot even know where to start. Did knot know where knot to start, so defeated were we. So we called a convention. Isn’t that what you do when you don’t know what to do? You call a big meeting. At least then you can point to the ignorance of the guy beside you.

 

Well all these satiric fools my friends, probably seeing in me a remarkably dimmer version of themselves, nominated and appointed me, by unanimous descent, to be a Thomas Satiric Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Interrogation, to be author of our very own Manifesto of Surrender. I felt fooly honored.

 

“We give up!” I suggested, as opening line. Continue reading The Convention of the Satirists

Though available in English for a couple years, it’s worth a revisit. Reviewed by Aminatta Forna:

In the year in which the despotic leader of the fictional African nation of Aburiria announces a grand scheme to build the world’s tallest building, Kamiti, a luckless job seeker, wakes up on a rubbish heap to find himself possessed of magical powers.

So begins Wizard of the Crow , Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s epic African political satire, his first novel in 20 years. Daunting in its ambition and scale, spanning more than 700 pages, it is, in the author’s own words, the story of “Africa of the twentieth century in the context of two thousand years of world history.” Continue reading Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Jennifer Nix:

I once again see the potential and power of literature, and hope to tell new and necessary stories. As activists, we must not lose sight of art. Let’s reach out to artists and publishers, and find ways to connect, cross-pollinate and collaborate. Let’s all tell some new stories.

In the meantime, here are some questions I posed to Aleksandar Hemon. Take another moment…I promise you’ll enjoy his sense of humor. And, if you make it to the end, I just have this to say: Page 150.

JN: How did you discover Lazarus Averbuch, and did you set out on this project with all of the political themes in mind?

AH: A friend of mine gave me the book called An Accidental Anarchist by Walter Roth and Joe Krauss. It was a straight, smart historical recounting of the Lazarus Averbuch affair, including the political fallout–the persecution of anarchists and foreigners, changes in immigration laws etc. I have deep interest in immigration and displacement, for obvious reasons, so the book was very fascinating to me. I am a history buff, because it interests me how people lived in the past and how we got to this point, whatever the point.

And history is always political, both in its form and in its content. On the one hand, what people look for and see in history is necessarily related to their politics. On the other hand, history to some extent always records the human consequences of political decisions and catastrophes, as well as the decisions and catastrophes themselves. Which is to say that I did not need to set out to do a political book. I simply knew that neither the politics of that time (and our time) nor the fallout of human suffering could be kept out of the book.

Spike Lee to Film Tony Award-Winning Musical “Passing Strange” as Show Comes to a Close on Broadway

Passing Stange was first commissioned by the Public Theater of New York, premiered at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, and is now a hit show on Broadway. The last performance takes place at the Belasco Theatre on Sunday, but that won’t be the last time audiences get to enjoy the show. The acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee is planning to film the musical this weekend to bring it to a wider audience. Speaking at a press conference earlier this month Spike Lee described why he wanted to film the play.

SPIKE LEE: As a filmmaker, for me, the greatest artists are musicians. I know there are painters and sculptors and novelists, and what not. But for me, musicians are the greatest artists on this earth, because I feel the talents they have come directly from God, and I really feel that. And when I saw the play at the Public, I was knocked out. And I came back a second time with Wesley Snipes, and I go, “You gotta see this!” And the story—the story, the musicianship, the acting, it was a revelation. Continue reading “Culture is not extra.” Stew, Politics, Art

July 2000 article at US New and World Report, and extensive discussion at The Valve.

A view on the politics of some of Shakespeare’s plays:

‘Guilty in Defence’: Shakespeare’s Radical Political Theatre by Ken Jessome

Review by Peter Faulkner:

This well informed and clearly written book has two main aims: to tell the reader about the importance and extent of the tradition of anarchist or left-libertarian writing in Britain; and to argue for the urgent relevance today of that tradition of political thought, particularly in its pacifist and environmentalist forms. The latter aim is necessarily the more difficult to fulfil, since it may well come up against the reader’s existing political prejudices or commitments; and I will consider it later. But in that it provides a great deal of information in a form that is both accessible and suggestive of the importance of the tradition discussed, the book is undoubtedly successful. Eight writers classified by Goodway as anarchists are discussed at length, in historical order as follows: Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, John Cowper Powys, Herbert Read, Aldous Huxley, Alex Comfort, Christopher Pallis and Colin Ward. In addition, Goodway offers thoughtful readings here of three other writers broadly sympathetic to the anarchist tradition, but with more reservations about it: William Morris, George Orwell and E. P. Thompson. Each writer is carefully placed in his historical context: Morris in that of late-Victorian radicalism; Orwell that of Spain and the Civil War; and Thompson in that of nuclear disarmament and the ‘New Left’.

…

From Anarchist Librarian’s Web:

Favorite Anarchist/Libertarian Novels 1.0 – July 1998 – This list compiled from discussions held on the anarchy-list in July 1998:

In no particular (dis)order:

• Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula Le Guin
• Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin
• The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
• He, She and It by Marge Piercy
• Woman on Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
• The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You by Dorothy Bryant
• The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy
• Illicit Passage by Alice Nunn
• A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski
• Anarchist Farm by Jane Doe Continue reading David Goodway’s Anarchist Seeds Beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward

Great Novel of the People – Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
Leftward Whoa! The Academy
PEN and Public or Political Fiction
“Incompatible”? – Novels, Politics, News?
Literature, Teaching, Ideology
The Reactionary Ayn Rand
Huckleberry Finn and Effects of Story
John Updike’s Lit Establishment Rules
Noam Chomsky, Orwell, and the Importance of Caricature
The Power and Import of Purpose in Fiction
The Possibilities of “Political Fiction”
Impact of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
Orwell’s Problem and Partisan Fiction [with links, clear quotes, see here]
Progressive Political Fiction 
Write a Political Novel?
The Power of Political Fiction and Mainstay Press — Interview
A Few Notes on the Literary Establishment  
Against Vicious Injustice — An Interview with Mickey Z
Politics and Art – The Personal is the Public and Private
Great Lit Is Based On Principle – Letter to ULA
The Future of Imaginative Literature – Roles for Novelists 
The Fate of Plutocracy; Or, American White Slavery
Fiction and Social Change – Some Limits of DeLillo, Pynchon…
NYT Best Fiction Discussion and Artists in Times of War (Arundhati Roy)
“Best Work of American Fiction“
More on the NYT “best of” American fiction list
Barbara Kingsolver’s 2006 Bellwether Prize
The Politics of Literary Politics
Have They Been Banned? Iraq War Novels — Interview
Establishment Irresponsibility: Ana Marie Cox Wrong on Stephen Colbert…
Send a Novel Message
Nothing They Care to Hear — Stephen Colbert
The Power of Poetry

Karen D’Souza:

“Americans (and many others) are hungry for something beyond the political twaddle that passes for national debate in this country, and indeed globally,” says Stanford University drama professor Rush Rehm. “The Mime Troupe calls things as they are; our political debate at the national level has an ‘all wear gloves’ approach, only rarely can anything be talked about.

“The Mime Troupe uses one of the rare public spaces available – performances outdoors in the park, free, and there, lo! still some truths can be told. Audiences like that, and we need it.”

For the Mime Troupe, art and activism have always been flip sides of the same coin. These left-wing rabble-rousers don’t even charge for tickets (though they do pass the hat); they believe that if theater is to be for the people, it must be truly accessible.

Lisa Traiger:

It’s hard to get rid of the sinking feeling that occurs in reliving the run-up to the most recent invasion of Iraq. In Stuff Happens, onstage at Olney Theatre Center through July 20, British playwright David Hare takes on very recent American history, recounting the maneuvers and backroom alliances made and broken by the Bush administration. Truth and fiction intermingle as we see the folly of a few leaders, enamored of power, tear asunder nations and people.

That’s Stuff Happens, its title drawn from the simplistic shrug then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made in response to a question about rioters looting Baghdad following the U.S. invasion.

Within this larger landscape, there’s one gasp-inducing moment in the Olney Theatre’s three-hour production, strategically directed by Jeremy Skidmore. Naomi Jacobson plays a nameless Palestinian woman, her hair modestly covered, her accent thick with the sand and sun of the Middle East. Plaintive and accusatory, the woman, a Palestinian scholar, asks, “Why Iraq? Why now ֹ for us, it is all about one thing: defending the interests of America’s $1 billion a year colony in the Middle East.”

“We,” she asserts, “are the Jews of the Jews.”

At a theater like Olney, long ensconced in suburban Montgomery County with its heavily Jewish audience, a collective gasp at that moment comes without surprise. While Hare’s work is no shock-and-awe campaign, this monologue hits with surgical accuracy.

Nick Miroff:

Seeing the city’s efforts as a ruse to silence him, Fernandez insists he will not remove the sign, nor allow it to be removed. Instead — and this is where the standoff takes an especially strange twist– Fernandez plans to enlarge the structure, having spent $1,500 on architectural drawings for a new, bigger, L-shaped wall, 140 feet by 61 feet, that would span the length of the property.

The new sign, Fernandez said, would feature painted murals and captions depicting the history of American racial injustice. “I really want the community to see what has been done to us people of color these last 500 years,” said Fernandez, whose message to the “European Americans” of Manassas considers Latino immigrants to be “Native Americans” with a historical right to live in the United States.

John Fox:

Last year, one of the most interesting nominations for the Booker was a book called “Animal’s People“, written by Indra Sinha, about a boy walking on all fours because of the Bhopal chemical incident. Well, now Indra Sinha is standing behind the work he did on the novel by joining eight other people on a hunger strike designed to bring the chemical manufacturers who created this atrocious situation, U.S. based Dow Chemical, to justice.

Trumbo trailer:

 
 
NPR feature:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91576667&ps=bb2