Infinite Jess

Regarding "Occupy Anonymous"

2011-11-03T15:35:00.000-07:00

I've got nothing against movies about Shakespeare. I've also got nothing against Roland Emmerich movies; I loved Independence Day; thought 2012 was ridiculous fun; though Day After Tomorrow was just ridiculous, but still.

Yet I launched a little tongue-in-cheek Event on Facebook called "Occupy 'Anonymous,' to spread the word to impressionable movie-goers that contrary to the beliefs of the creators of Emmerich's new "Anonymous," the works of Shakespeare were, in fact, written by Shakespeare. Having spent a good portion of my life researching the Bard (for one hit play, one self-help book ("What Would Shakespeare Do?") and my novel MY NAME IS WILL - A NOVEL OF SEX, DRUGS, AND SHAKESPEARE, I reckon I know as much about the documentary evidence of Shakespeare's life as most amateur scholars. I've also, out of due diligence, read the most influential Oxfordian theory volumes: Ogburn's SHAKESPEARE IDENTIFIED and Anderson's THE MAN WHO WAS SHAKESPEARE. While there's some interesting and almost-convincing evidence - strictly circumstantial, mind you -- in both of these works, mostly about places Oxford visited that appear in Shakespeare's plays, they fall apart under the weight of the conspiracy theory that had would have to have been maintained to keep Oxford's authorship of the Works secret for decades past his lifetime. They also don't bother to answer questions like, "Well, mightn't Shakespeare have visited those places, too?" It should come as no surprise that there are precious few Shakespeare scholars who think anyone but Shakespeare wrote the Works.

And the worst argument for Oxford is, IMHO, his own poetry. Reasonable minds my disagree regarding the quality of the verse, but to my ear his poems are both unexceptional and unlike Shakespeare.

Anyway, my little open letter, a mashup of Occupy Wall Street and the Authorship "Debate," is approaching 1000 likes and 750 shares on Facebook, so I think I've done my bit for spreading some evidence.

By all means see Anonymous if you wish. It's a beautiful re-creation of Elizabethan London. The set decoration of Oxford's office is worth the price of admission. The confusing story and unmemorable dialogue are not as good as, say, most episodes of The Tudors, but there are some fine performances (notably Vanessa Redgrave's) and it has a worthy message about the power of the pen.

Just don't believe its main premise, that Oxford wrote Shakespeare. It simply ain't true. If you really want to dive into the whys and wherefores, the Shakespeare Authorship site's How We Know Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare has the best compendium of answers for you.

YouTube vs. Vimeo

2011-09-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

I just posted a couple of new videos on YouTube, Vintage Reduced Shakespeare Company stuff. One is a bit of footage from 1986 featuring the rarely-performed Encores to Romeo and Juliet during the period that it was a standalone pass-the-hat act. The other is a 5 minute preview of the 90 minute Reduced Shakespeare Company 30th Anniversary Retrospective.

The Retrospective itself, though, is not on YouTube. Why? Simply put, because it's ninety minutes long. Increasingly, filmmakers are using other hosting services to showcase their long form videos, rather than breaking it into parts to accommodate YouTube's 15-minute limit on videos. And Vimeo is awesome. Not only does it allow bigger files and longer videos, but it allows you to change your video after it's published -- without losing comments, likes and page views. And it seems to handle more formats and codecs than without the sync problems that often afflict YouTube.

Seems to me that YouTube is losing customers, and page views, by not offering an upgraded hosting plan to allow for long-form videos. Right?

An Ode to Black Point

2011-08-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong. I am as sad as the next guy that the Northern Renaissance Faire couldn't stay at Black Point, and visiting the site is an odd, bittersweet experience. But I was comforted by the fact that the valley, despite the homes on the ridge overlooking what is now a golf course, is still so damn pretty. I took a photo, posted earlier, from near where the Main Gate stood. And I found myself thinking back to what the same view looked like during the Faire days. My friend Kathleen had posted comparing that site to Eden... her personal Arcadia. I, with satirist hat firmly in place and way too much Shakesperean verse currently in my head, scribbled this:

Recall Arcadian verdure in its spring,

Where Porta-potties once, like diadem

Of stringéd pearls, bejewelled majestic hills;

Where, like unto the camp of Agamemnon

Before the very walls of ancient Troy,

Crew trailers did, in Bondoed rusty hues

Assail the burlapped Will Wood-mounted gate,

Whilst from the ridge, stained nylon three-man tents

Spewed forth the reek and rowd of stonéd teens,

(Divers, who knew, below age of consent)

And morning dawned with lusty workman's voice,

Alarum-like, "Get the fuck outta the road!!"

Here now, in what was once a dusty vale

Engend'ring mucous blacker than the Moor,

Republicans drive and wedge, chip and par,

Boogers for bogeys are exchanged; yet still

Do birdies come anon to bless the day

And eagles, on rarer wings, do soar.

We curse our Faire-ways missed, our hooks and slices;

Arcadia's yet green, by whate'er devices.

RSC 30th Anniversary Webcast - Addenda and Google Map

2011-08-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

Still aglow from yesterday's get-together with current Reduced Shakespeare Company mavens Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, and original members Sa Winfield and Daniel (Rover) Singer to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first performance of the RSC's Hamlet, Prince o' Denmark. The webcast took place live (when it wasn't dead), with thanks to and courtesy of Elizabeth Bugg and the fine folks at Stonetree Golf Course in Novato, California. The balcony we broadcast from is visible in the upper left of their splash page photo of the clubhouse.

Here, btw, is the Google Map of where we were.

View Black Point RSC Haunts in a larger map

I'd been wanting to do -- and offered to produce -- an actual reunion performance, featuring everyone and anyone who'd ever done a role appear for a scene or two in a production of The Complete Works. But Certain Quarters in London made themselves unavailable, which made it seem not worth pursuing. But then, by chance, it turned out that almost everyone else involved was going to be within twenty miles or so of the original Northern Renaissance Pleasure Faire site where the first performances went down.

Considering the fact that when we discovered this last Tuesday, we had no plans to get together, none of us had ever done a streaming webcast, and none of us were able to arrive at the location we selected for the shoot (the clubhouse balcony of the golf course that now covers RenFaire land) until an hour before going live, it's amazing it came together at all! Although there were plenty of technical glitches (some my fault, some the server's. I for one will be switching from uStream to Justin.tv for my future live-streaming needs), you can see some of the rough results here. An edited version will come ASAP.

Sadly, the glitches left to a few stories with untold endings and untold beginnings. I demanded "hot towels!" from Sa to clean up all the corn syrup on our hands after the bloody Titus Andronicus. I hoped we'd get to trade injury stories, and show off some scars. Sa was trying really hard to plug Rachel Culp's awesome rock n'roll clothing when I, husbandlike, interrupted her. Sa also never got to tell the tale of how she and Heidi Metcalf were backstage at the tiny Celtic Lodge at our first Fringe show, and it was so hot and cramped back there that they kept stripping off layers. By the time we were done with Hamlet... well, it was fun going backstage! etc. etc.) But you'll be able to hear that on the RSC podcast, soon enough.

For those of you who tuned in but were unable to see the live chat, I just fired up my laptop for the first time since yesterday, and the last twenty minutes or so of it's preserved:

4:21 rabidpsycho: YES COME BACK TO LONDON
4:21 rabidpsycho: Well, yes, not right now
4:21 Parrarie: yeah, I saw them during the low countries tour twice, in two days :P
4:21 actormanager: Have youplayed Ashland or any of the other Shakespeare festivals?
4:21 KyraSoleil: oh boy here we go
4:21 KyraSoleil: no sound :(
4:21 itzmechrisb: ooooh exciting lets see??
4:21 reduced: Can you hear us talk over the pics?
4:22 actormanager: no sound
4:22 itzmechrisb: no
4:22 rabidpsycho: Nope, 'fraid not
4:22 reduced: Jess in tights
4:22 reduced: Yep, that's Jess. Ooh missus.
4:22 rabidpsycho: I envy your shapely legs, Jess
4:22 reduced: That's 15 min Hamlet from UC Berkeley.
4:22 MiaVee: Gotta scoot guys, but I've enjoyed it so far, looking forward to catching up with the whole thing once it's up :) and thank you for ten years of laughter and counting that you've brought me x
4:22 KyraSoleil: nice face
4:23 rabidpsycho: See ya, Mia!
4:23 reduced: Jess at ren faire doing the sneeze bit
4:23 reduced: with Danial as Polonius
4:23 ruccha: am I missing sound, or is there no audio?
4:23 reduced: Barbara as Ophelia!!!
4:23 reduced: Adam in black wig - the new Ophelia!
4:23 reduced: There's no sound.
4:23 ruccha: thx
4:23 reduced: Jess and Daniel
4:23 reduced: Jess and Yorick
4:24 reduced: Southern Faire
4:24 reduced: Probably 1986 now.
4:24 reduced: Ah the Pikes!
4:24 reduced: The caravansery stage
4:25 reduced: A rare clean-shaven Daniel
4:25 reduced: Beards were in
4:25 KyraSoleil: Beards went OUT?
4:25 reduced: DEath of pOlonius
4:25 reduced: LA Fringe Fest!
4:25 reduced: Reed Martin, ladies and germans
4:26 reduced: This was staged reading of Revised script in 2007
4:26 reduced: Still have 28 viewers!
4:27 KyraSoleil: whoo!
4:27 reduced: Welcome back to the sound portion!
4:27 rabidpsycho: Hurrah!
4:27 reduced: sound of screeching brakes
4:27 KyraSoleil: Blah
4:28 KyraSoleil: commercial
4:28 kirane0212: where'd it go?? :(
4:28 KyraSoleil: back
4:28 rabidpsycho: I seem to never get the commercials
4:29 kirane0212: they need to be louder, i can barely hear
4:30 KyraSoleil: THANK YOU. :)
4:30 kirane0212: thank you!
4:30 kirane0212: i love y'all, i'm attempting to direct the complete works of shakes in the fall (after i buy the rights of course)
4:31 KyraSoleil: no!!!!!!!
4:31 rabidpsycho: Worst time to go off air, in the middle of a melted spine story
4:32 KyraSoleil: back :)
4:32 reduced: The whole story will be uninterrupted in the audio podcast version.
4:32 rabidpsycho: Hurrah!
4:32 kirane0212: yayyy
4:32 KyraSoleil: yay
4:33 KyraSoleil: Ouch!
4:36 KyraSoleil: Sing! Sing! Sing!
4:39 rabidpsycho: (Psst, bring Sports to the UK, if just 'cause my Dad keeps asking me what it's like)
4:40 hesherman: So, what have I missed?
4:40 actormanager: still can't hear Jess
4:41 reduced: Would love to bring SPORTS to the UK!
4:41 cutypie12-1: just came back, did i miss too much?
4:41 Parrarie: Hop over the Channel to the Netherlands and Belgium then as well :)
4:41 actormanager: naked showers were fun
4:42 hesherman: Is nuclear fission ocurring behind you? Nothing but bright white light
4:43 actormanager: sunshine too bright
4:43 reduced: Welcome back HE! Just sunshine.
4:43 rabidpsycho: Sunshine?
4:43 rabidpsycho: You'll have to run that past me again
4:43 rabidpsycho: (Though, to be fair, it's 12.43am here)
4:44 hesherman: have u ever tried to reduce material and been unable?
4:44 actormanager: yeah Todd!
4:48 cutypie12-1: you should copyright reducing :)
4:49 KyraSoleil: What was the scariest moment on stage for you guys?
4:50 Parrarie: Question: Besides the Complete works: abridged, what are some of your favorite Shakespeare adaptations? (from any medium, film, theater, literature, etc.)
4:50 reduced: I remembered!
4:50 Parrarie: :)
4:50 KyraSoleil: :)
4:53 hesherman: I once saw radically cut HAMLET where R&G didn't die, just disappeared
4:54 reduced: In a puff of smoke?
4:54 hesherman: Just never spoken of again
4:55 hesherman: Hamlet in that production was Chris Walken
4:55 reduced: So they doesn't happen in the real play? :)
4:56 KyraSoleil: Cheers!
4:56 KyraSoleil: Salu!
4:56 cutypie12-1: may there be 30 more :)
4:56 hesherman: L'chaim!
4:56 rabidpsycho: Congratulations, you guys
4:56 Parrarie: Proost!
4:57 actormanager: drink, drank, drunk
4:57 rabidpsycho: It's our honour
4:57 KyraSoleil: Yay for new generation
4:57 hesherman: Meadlowlark Lemon is gone, but the Globetrotters go on!
4:58 mclepus: Congrats! Sweet 30!
4:58 itzmechrisb: and the rest IS silence
4:58 reduced: Yes, we're the reduced Globetrotters!
4:59 rabidpsycho: I look forward to the non-skipping recording
4:59 reduced: Thanks so much y'all....
4:59 rabidpsycho: Thank YOU for doing this, rather!
4:59 Parrarie: Thank you, RSC, for reducing expectations since 1981!
5:01 Ustream-Bot: [Ustream-Bot leaving] Need assistance with Ustream? Type !help to join the live Ustream help channel.
5:02 Parrarie: I'm going to bed now, it's two in the morning over here. Good luck rehearsing tonight!
5:02 rabidpsycho: Beats my 1am - sleep well!
5:03 Parrarie: you too!

iMovie Madness: Our Turkey Video

2011-08-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

I spent a week or two trying to sift out my online media strategy. Cuz, you know, I have two blogs, (this one and LA Food Crazy), a personal Facebook page (where I have never not-accepted a friend request), an Author Facebook page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn page, a website. Sure, I have one or two followers in each place, but you start adding 'em all up and it might add up to what in the biz is called a "platform."

I decided that each has its place, so I kept them all. Thankfully, I have Hootsuite to help make multiple posts to multiple places. Hootsuite, btw, is utterly awesome. Create one post and send to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, all at once. Add the "Hootlet" menu bar button, and you can easily share any Webpage you're currently looking at to any all with a couple of clicks.

But still, I sometimes I feel the need to "personalize" the posts to the platform. Who the hell wants to see hashtags in a Facebook post? And if this was Facebook, the post would already be too long. I'd have to change it to a Note. Zuck you, Fuckerberg!

Anyway, here's a video, or short film, I made in iMovie 11 of our trip to France and Turkey last year. In case you didn't see it posted on a million other Jess Winfield platforms... enjoy. And FYI, this is the one place where I will speak the real truth, about everything, in as many words as I damn well please.

I ended up both loving and hating iMovie 11, by the way. Perhaps that is the subject for another post. Has anyone tried the hated Final Cut Pro X? I'm curious.

Jess and Sa Winfield in France, Istanbul, and Cappadocia from Jess Winfield on Vimeo.

Hello To An Old Villain: Anthony Munday!

2011-07-30T15:36:00.000-07:00

I had one of those small yips of joy that come when developing a new novel today. One of my favorite characters in MY NAME IS WILL is Anthony Munday, the spy and hack playwright/pamphleteer who, it is hinted, helps rat out William Shakespeare as a Catholic to Queen Elizabeth's spymaster Francis Walsingham, leading to the arrest of Shakespeare's Arden relations.

Munday was a late discovery in the writing process. I was looking for some source material for the Robin Hood pageant that William's rustic theatrical friends would perform in the forest of Arden, and came upon Anthony Munday's clumsy text for "The Death of Robin Hood." Looking for a little bit of background on the playwright, I discovered that he was not only a playwright but a (probably) anti-Catholic spy or double-agent who spoke at the hanging of, and then wrote pamphlets about, the hanging of Edmund Campion which I knew would be a centerpiece of my story. Bingo! My only regret was that because he was a late entry, I wasn't able to make as much use of him as I'd have liked.

Well, I've been doing some due diligence and reading Mark Anderson's SHAKESPEARE BY ANOTHER NAME in preparation for both my next novel and an article I hope to write about the "Shakespeare Authorship Controversy." (Anderson's book is, to my surprise, well-written and compelling, and although I'm still unconvinced by his premise, I may soften my tone somewhat about the Edward de Vere "Oxfordian" theory, which I ranted about in an earlier post.) Regardless of the authorship question, it is an excellent biography of the 15th Earl of Oxford, who will likely play a part in my next book.

So guess who has just shown up as de Vere's new personal secretary, at about the time Shakespeare will be coming on to the scene in London? None other than Anthony Munday! The plot thickens! I'm not sure how yet, but it definitely thickens!

Chuck Versus Sherlock

2011-07-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

Zachary Levi, Chuck

Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock

When I was on the book tour for MY NAME IS WILL, my wife Sa coined a new phrase. She's not a big reader, so she was a little panicked about going to lots of book signings and after-parties with bigwigs of the publishing world, and trying to keep with the Vassar/Yale MFA chitchat. So she came up with this stock response to the ever-popular "So what are you reading?" and "Who are your favorite authors?" icebreakers: "I don't read. I watch television."

She speaks fairly truly when she says that, although she was kind enough to read my book and like it. We do, in fact, watch a lot of television. For the past couple of weeks we've been catching up on Chuck, (still in the middle of season four, so no spoilers, please!), and also watched the three ninety minute episodes of the BBC mystery series Sherlock. I think Chuck is extraordinary, and I found Sherlock somewhat disappointing, and I've been trying to assess why.

Each show is an updates of one of my childhood icons. Chuck is essentially Get Smart meets Charlie's Angels meets 21st century geek culture, a post-Cold War retro spy comedy/adventure show that plays out in the interstices of a big box electronics store, with lots of pop culture references (the supercomputer at the nexus of a take-over-the-world control center looks exactly like an old Mac Plus computer; one of the shady front corporations in a season three episode was "Vandalay Industries." You have to know your Seinfeld to get that one) and badass, scantily-clad-chick-on-scantily-clad-chick martial arts sequences. "Sherlock" takes the classic Conan Doyle characters and simply inserts them in modern-day London, Holmes and Watson still ensconced at the fictional 221B Baker Street and solving crimes, but doing so with computers and cell phones and ready explanations that no, they're not gay. The cast in each show is terrific. Chuck features two sexy leads that have made their way onto Sa's and my respective "lists" -- you know, that list that spouses keep that provides a marital get of jail free card if the opportunity should ever arise to be unfaithful with one of five listed celebrities -- in Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski.

Guest spots are perfectly cast with an eye toward both geek cred and great comedy, from Scott Bakula and Linda Hamilton as Chuck's parents to Fred Willard and Swoozie Kurtz as a bickering old married spy couple. Sherlock features an obsessive, asexual, exasperating, Aspergers-y Holmes in Benedict Cumberbatch, and the always lovable (and Bilbo to be Martin Freeman as a redoubtable and almost-clever-enough-to-keep-up Watson. Both shows are smart, clever, fast-paced, and alternately funny and action-packed.

The difference is in the story arc. Sherlock, because of its ninety-minute episodes, had a chance to do something like a movie trilogy, with long-waveform plot development, an evolving relationship between Holmes and Watson, and doing some deep diving into that most enigmatic of questions: what makes Sherlock Holmes tick? But after a promising opening, in which Holmes and Watson are cleverly introduced and Holmes makes his usual almost-perfectly accurate eductions about Watson's past, the character relationships are left largely unexplored. Instead, the second two episodes simply feel like a more-intelligent CSI episode, with multiple dizzying plot twists and breathless deduction, but almost nothing in the way of emotion or character development.

Chuck, on the other hand, manages to constantly surprise and innovate, both moving the story forward and spinning out the compelling backstory mystery in nearly every episode. Standard sitcom tropes like the Sam and Diane/Ross and Rachel "will they get together?" storyline between civilian Chuck and his handler and superspy Sarah Walker are handled deftly, with a thoroughly contemporary edge, and so much chemistry between the two that you find yourself rooting for their relationship out loud. Characters and relationships evolve at a rapid pace, yet manage not to jump the shark of unbelievability. Every episode ends with a cliffhanger--usually an emotional one between Chuck and Sarah or Chuck and his family--that makes for long nights of three-and-four-episode marathon viewing.

I just learned today that the upcoming season of Chuck, its fifth, will be its last. If you haven't been following, I highly recommend catching up. Seasons 1-3 are available on DVD, with the fourth no doubt coming soon.

The iPad: My Maxi-Precioussss

2010-06-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

I went to check out the iPad the day of its release. I didn't buy one. Thought I didn't need it. To paraphrase my friend Kesselman, I already have something just like it but it's a quarter the size and makes phone calls and takes pictures and video. But I'm a hard core Apple guy (Apple-core?) so that un-purchased toy gnawed at me, like the Ring gnaws at Gollum. Last week, I bit off the finger. I already call my iPhone the Precious. Now I have the Maxi-Precious.

It took forever to get here. I followed the FedEx tracking page obsessively as the box went from Shenzhen to Hong Kong to Memphis to Oakland... (where it enjoyed the long Memorial Day weekend)... to Los Angeles Hollywood to the Delivery Vehicle to here. I've been getting calls and messages. "So how is it?"

After three days, here's how I think it is. Totally freaking awesome, but still leaving an all too human hole in my desire to have it all, at my fingertips, at all times.

First, let's be clear about a couple of things. It is NOT just a big iPod Touch. The greater screen real estate, combined with apps designed to take advantage of it, makes for a completely different, immersive experience. Nor is it a laptop without a keyboard. The lack of a hinged keyboard and the easy interactivity of the multitouch screen leads to a much more intimate relationship with its content. Put it this way: when was the last time you, without thinking, carried your open laptop into the bathroom to continue reading an article or watching a video at your, ahem, leisure? The iPad goes with me pretty much everywhere around the house, leaving the laptop downstairs in my office for work and the occasional working road trip or library jaunt.

There are a few apps already available that take full advantage of the iPad design and are outrageously cool. I'm a sports fan, so the ESPN ScoreCenter jumps out. It's your own personalized SportsCenter, with crawls, video stories, links, highlights, stats, all delightfully laid out and hellaciously fast (nearly everything runs zippily on this beast). The MLB and NBA apps, equally cool. I'm almost tempted to buy the MLB DirecTV package, which also gives you access to all games, streaming live, through the iPad. After months of having my Netflix membership on hold, I re-upped it to allow full use the iPad app. One tap IMMEDIATELY streams any of their huge "Play Now" library of movies and TV shows, in addition to their DVD delivery service. Amazing. And yes, with an adapter you can (I'm told) hook it up to to your TV, and run your movies full screen. I find myself using the NPR app all the time. It's brilliantly designed, with scrollable ribbons for News, Arts and Culture, and Music, and one click buttons for live listening, the most recent hourly news report. One click on any show or report adds it to a playlist for later listening. IMDB is no longer just about finding out what movie that actor was in, it's now the go-to for showtimes, reviews, TV viewing suggestions, and almost anything else relating to visual media.

Obviously with a 1.0 release there are things that aren't quite there yet. I can't imagine wanting to take pictures with such a large device, but a front iSight cam would be nice for Skype or iChat. Apple's Numbers works well and opens Excel docs without even asking. Pages looks nice, but naming, sharing, and exporting docs is confusing. I have yet to find a way to easily access Dropbox files and edit them (I mostly use Scrivener-generated RTF files, which DocsToGo strangely no longer supports), so the iPad's use as a device to work on is limited. The onscreen keyboard is functional, and faster and more accurate than the iPhone's but I still find myself using a modified hunt and peck rather than my usual zippy touch method.

But I never planned to work much on the iPad. I imagined using it for two primary purposes. One, as a book reader, to cut down on the precarious tower of tomes on my nightstand that will certainly kill me in the next earthquake. And, two, to maybe, possibly, replace my beloved but dwindling paper edition of the L.A. Times, and the constant clutter of dead tree detritus and little plastic ties therewith associated.

As far as the books go, I think it'll be a success. Apple's free Books application is gorgeous, with a clear, clean display and intuitive controls. Once their library has grown sufficiently, and once they add highlighting and note-taking capability, it will probably surpass the Kindle iPad app; which, in the meantime, is terrific, and has the advantage of being equally usable on the Kindle or iPhone and syncing bookmarks and "farthest read" points across all your devices invisibly via WhisperSync.

Newspapers, and particularly the LA Times, are another story. I've spent my morning coffee time the last three days with the iPad in place of the paper. I'm not sure it's going to work for me. I love my LA Times experience. I read the front page, continue to finish articles that are of interest to me, maybe catch one or two other stories while flipping through. Then I go to the Editorial and Op-Ed pages. I look at one or two pieces in the much-hated LateExtra, and so on flipping quickly through Business and Calendar for anything that grabs my eye, then finishing with Sports. It's a thoroughly linear experience, but one in which I will also catch any big news or interesting features I might have missed.

In three days with the iPad, my news experience is fractured. Part of this is the fault of the LA Times. Their website layout is awkward, and their iBrowse-based facsimile e-edition - which I find clumsy and unworkable even on my 21inch iMac - doesn't even run on the iPad, who knows why.

But I think there's just a disconnect between the way one reads a newspaper and the way one browses the web. On my first day, links to the Sports page from the latimes.com splash page had me reading about the LA Galaxy before I'd finished the top story on the Gulf spill. I found myself reading a full article about Glee, which I despise, just because I'd clicked on it and it now took up the entire screen, where I would have scanned in a second or two and taken in a headline or a fraction of an article or two on the same page before flipping to the next. On day two, I tried to focus, and replicate my reading routine on the iPad. Front page, Op-ed, Business, Calendar, Sports. I did this with moderate success. But then I went back to the paper edition to flip through and see if I'd missed anything. I'd missed a lot. The random local interest stories, one of Dan Neill's great car reviews, a piece about a bit of local architecture... the various bric-a-brac that, sure, Twitter follows or RSS feeds or Google Alerts or StumbleUpon might turn up for me, but even if they did, I probably wouldn't bother to click through without the cup of coffee and the set-aside reading time to encourage it.

I love new things, and I've put my paper subscription on vacation hold while I try to reshape my brain to the new paradigm. But perhaps my brain has become too set in its ways. Perhaps linear has its place. There is something to be said for getting from one end of a story to another without distraction. You'll notice I have placed no links in this post. You can always Google those apps if you're interested.

Tell you what though... I'm totally looking forward to watching the Lakers-Celtics series with the NBA GameTime app in my lap, watching those stats and shot-location diagrams update in real time, and catching up with NPR news or streaming a TV show or YouTube during the commercials.

My New Favorite My Name Is Will Hater

2010-04-05T17:24:00.000-07:00

This is the best, most succinct slam of a review of My Name Is Will I've seen. From user Shannon's one-star review on Goodreads.com.

Apparently I can't give something zero stars. This book is drivel. It starts out promisingly enough, but never rises about mediocre before crash landing in a Port-O-Potty. The modern day main character is a lying, cheating, drug-addled wannabe academic unashamedly wasting his parents money while putting forth zero effort in his life. Yet he manages to find no less than sex with his stepmom, sex on a bus, a threesome AND an orgy - none of which involve his girlfriend. In one book! At the end, apparently some kind of metaphysical, time-traveling, wormhole-crashing collision mixes Shakespeare's English world with 1980-whatever Novato, CA. Who cares. (Also, this is the worst story that ever featured a renaissance faire.)

Now that's sayin' something!

Militia Madness

2010-03-31T12:05:00.000-07:00

I caught an interview with the Randall Stone, brother of Hutaree leader David Stone, on CNN yesterday. Apparently, the problem with David (according to his bro) is that he doesn't understand the Antichrist or the end of days correctly. And he just joined the wrong militia. Yikes. Here's a bit of the transcript.

ROBERTS: Well, let me ask you this question, if I could, Randall. And maybe you can shed some light on all of this.

What were your brother's religious beliefs? And what about this battle against the Antichrist that he details quite plainly on the Hutaree's Web site?

STONE: Yes.

I have tried to talk to him about that. What his Web site stands for is not about Jesus Christ, that his opinion of the Antichrist and my opinion of the Antichrist is totally different.

ROBERTS: Mm-hmm.

STONE: You know, sure, he is going to be a political figure, but you're not going to be able to take him out. For one, the false prophet's got to come into play.

ROBERTS: Right. Right.

STONE: So, the Antichrist can't do anything on his own.

ROBERTS: Well, was he a real end-of-days follower, as far as you know?

STONE: He never was growing up. I was always the one.

Now, a long time ago, dad was a preacher, and we went around to different churches.

ROBERTS: Right.

STONE: So, we wasn't one denomination or one certain religion. And we were taught that it's not about religion; it's about a relationship.

ROBERTS: Right. Right. But did he ever talk to you about the coming Armageddon and what he thought his role would be in that?

STONE: No, no. We never -- we never really discussed that.

ROBERTS: All right.

Well, Randall Stone, the brother of David Stone Jr., thanks for joining us tonight. Really appreciate your time, sir.

STONE: Well, I did want to mention one thing to you, though.

ROBERTS: Yes, go ahead.

STONE: Well, you know, all this talk about the militias and all this talk about what they stand for, you remember Paul Revere, right?

ROBERTS: Of course. Everybody remembers Paul Revere.

STONE: OK. Yes, Paul Revere had a purpose in life. And that one day proved to be a major turning point in America, whenever he was warning the militia people to get ready.

Now, that's -- you know, I don't know why my brother didn't involve himself in a militia that stood for something and had some values and beliefs.

And then there was Letterman (great interview) last night, where the sweet tea party lady from Idaho alleged an Obama birth certificate cover-up.

One of my few remaining conservative friends think the socialist left is driving this country toward a cliff. I'd be more concerned about the rabid dinosaur with claws like AK-47's coming up behind us.

The Real Message of Massachusetts

2010-01-25T13:23:00.000-08:00

I have been arguing all week that the common interpretation of the Massachusetts election results -- that it was a rebuff of the Obama administration's policies leaning too hard to the left on healthcare -- is exactly incorrect. And today a poll was released that backs me up. From Boldprogressive.org:

We wanted to make sure you saw the Massachusetts Research 2000 poll, reported on by the Wall Street Journal, NBC, Politico, Huffington Post, TPM, and others. It polled critical 2010 swing voters: the 18% of Obama voters who returned to the polls and voted for Republican Scott Brown. On health care, they oppose the Senate bill because it "doesn't go far enough" and a whopping 82% support the public option. On the economy, by 2 to 1 they think Democrats have put special interests ahead of folks like them -- and by large margins think stronger regulation of Wall Street is more important than cutting spending. And 57% say Democrats are not "delivering enough on the change Obama promised."

A separate national poll suggests that both Medicare buy-in and the Public Option are still hugely popular. I hope anyone concerned about access to quality health care will contact their congressman and let them know that the watered-down, compromised Senate bill doesn't go far enough, and urge the passage of a reconciled bill with inclusion of the Public Option be sent to President Obama.

On Pacifism and Christianity

2010-01-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

I've had this laying around on my hard drive for some time; I believe I wrote it sometime around Veteran's Day, during which I had lengthy back and forth about pacifism with some online friends.

I hate having stuff lying around my hard drive, and today, in honor of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., who at least tried to practice what he preached... I post about pacifism.

__________

First, let's get this straight: I am an American. I am proud of that. Although I've been to most of the Western democracies and a couple of the non-western non democratic ones, I like this one best. Furthermore, I like my state of California best of all the states, and my city of the Los Angeles best of all cities. I take off my hat at sporting events to sing the Star Spangled Banner, though I will not sing the the line glorifying bombs. I pay my taxes diligently and on time -- though I think I should pay more. I watch football on Sundays (and even more on Saturdays), and I shout U-S-A when we win gold medals in the Olympics. I esteem our Founding Fathers. I am not a Communist.

But to quote Glenn Beck, "I fear for the survival of America as we know it," because such a broad portion of it refuses to look honestly at itself in the mirror.

I would like to agree with those who say that even if America is a secular nation, it is grounded in Christian values, but I do not. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be, or couldn't be, but simply that it isn't, for one reason. Jesus Christ was, first and foremost, and at all times, a pacifist. And America is not.

There are many who argue the former as a point of theology. I've read their arguments, and I don't buy them. The first quote brought out by many Jesus-wasn't-a-pacifist commentators is from Revelation (a tale told by a madman, but that's another story:) "Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty." The imagery is not that of a pacifist, you might think. But note that the sword comes from his mouth. Unless he's a sideshow entertainer of some sort, it is not a literal sword he wields. It is his WORDS that will subdue his enemies. This, to my writer's mind, is as clearly metaphorical as the suggestion that he is going to spend his time stomping on grapes.

True, Jesus says: "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." But he clearly states in 2 Corinthians that "Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world."

Of course the devil may quote Scripture to suit his purpose, but the most compelling evidence of Jesus' pacifism is in the larger story of his life and death. Though unjustly accused, and cruelly mistreated, he allows himself to be put death in the most painful way imaginable, without struggle, while forgiving his attackers and refusing to allow his own followers to stay the attackers' hands. That, my friends, is the very definition of a pacifist, and utterly in keeping with both the spirit and the letter of the Sermon on the Mount. " If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well... Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."

Christian America does not do these things. America at best distrusts pacifism and pacifists, and at worst, despises them. And this willful dichotomy, I do not understand.

If America was grounded in Christian values, it would not have gone to war in response to 9/11. Not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, not ANYWHERE. It would have turned the other cheek. Some say that this would be giving up on our way of life, submitting to terrorists. So: choosing to turn the other cheek would be to give up on... our... Christian... way of life? Really?

This is the real world, some say. Aside from the fact that the Christian Jesus is supposed to have lived in the same real world, let's look at workings of the real world.

How, in practice (and for a Buddhist that word has a very specific meaning) might we have turned the other cheek in response to the slaughter of thousands of our citizens by angry and murderous terrorists? There are many answers, but the one that is clearly NOT the answer to a Christian nation is, "by going to war." What America could have, should have, might have done is respond by "loving thy enemy." Love the terrorists? Love Al-Qaeda? Yes, Christian America, this is what your Saviour preached.

"Today, we are all Americans" was the most common international response to 9/11. Yet the support was so fleeting. What did we do wrong? What could we have done, what should we have done, what might we have done to make that "today" into a lasting respect, a lasting peace, a lasting position of world leadership and admiration? I know that the one thing we should not have done was lash out. The opposite of turning the other cheek is hit back, and hit hard. That's what we did, and in doing so we betrayed our values. We should have been sad. We should have mourned.

And we could have examined what we could have possibly done to bring this hatred upon us.

Even if, after reflection, we could find nothing we had done wrong and for which we might be repentant (and curiously, the Christian right seems very suspicious of American "apology," a near-synonym of the Christian doctrine of "repentance"), if we held ourselves innocently victimized, we still should have simply loved our enemy. We might have spent every dollar we spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on humanitarian aid to those countries. On schools to counter the ignorance and hatred taught in the Islamic fundamentalist madrassas. On economic aid, to counter the Arab arguments that we are economic imperialists. On education programs in our own country, to increase our understanding of the people who attacked us, and of their motives. On securing our borders and ports against further attack, absolutely. We could have spent money and intellectual and emotional capital on anything - ANYTHING - but attacking those who attacked us. I wonder, what dividends would that have reaped? Where, ten years later, would our economy, our position of world leadership, be now?

But that is not what we did. We retaliated. In every sport we play, hockey, baseball, basketball, that's a penalty and worthy of fine or suspension. The instant we retaliated, we lost. We lost dignity. We lost respect. We lost capital. We lost the world's esteem, and our position as a beacon of freedom and democracy in the world.

Nearly everyone, right, left, center, Christian, Jewish, secular, tells me that we "live in peace" because of the brave soldiers who fight for us. But that ignores the real truth: we live in war, wars which we and our children and grandchildren pay for daily and will continue to pay for until long after we are gone. There is only no war in our daily lives because we pay others, mostly people less fortunate or knowledgable than ourselves, domestic mercenaries or our undereducated young, to kill others so that we in our "Christian" nation don't have to ask ourselves these questions: "Will I love my enemy and turn the other cheek, or KILL, right now, here, at my front door? Will I kill? And if I do, how will I reconcile it with my faith?" Instead of facing this greatest of questions for ourselves, we pay off violent men or our young people to do it for us. We ask them to do that which we would not. And they end up scarred, maimed, insane, dead. And then we solemnly "honor their sacrifice."

I submit that this "practice" is not only not Christian and not good, but will, unless we summon the genuine courage of true pacifism -- the willingness to die for the sins of others -- be our downfall.

No. Despite protestations to the contrary, America is the among the least-Christian nations I can think of.

I consider myself, as Dr. King did, a patriotic American working to change that.

About War, Peace, and Supporting Our Troops

2009-07-27T19:12:00.000-07:00

We've been at war for so long, I almost forgot, until recent remembrances about Hiroshima reminded me of how horrified I am by it. Not just this war, or that war, but war at all. The fact that it exists, bad enough. But the glorification of it, to the point that "supporting our troops" is something that now defines our patriotism or lack thereof, has got me pissed off. I'm standing up on a soapbox and saying I'm Mad as Hell about it.

I've been a pacifist all my life, at least since I got thrown out of school for a day for wearing too many McGovern buttons to sixth grade on Election Day. Walter Cronkite reporting those killed in action figures every night on the news -- US troops 32, North Vietnamese 427 -- always made me queasy. I remember asking my mom, after watching those lopsided "scores" for a couple of years, "So that means we're winning the war, right?" She patiently explained to me that no, it did not.

So: I'm a pacifist. What does that mean, exactly? My right wing friends will immediately start in with either: "What about the Nazis?" or "What if someone was about to rape your wife?" I answer, "I might have supported our entry into WWII, but I wasn't there," and "I'd kill the motherfucker," and they smile smugly thinking they "got me."

But the truth is, there are exceptions to every rule; it doesn't mean we don't make rules. And if we're not constantly questioning and reassessing rules, then we're not thinking clearly or critically; we have become ideologues. And I am not an ideologue. I am one who believes that in almost all cases violence is a poor solution to problems, even and especially if the problem is violence. I believe that there are so few cases where war is the right option that it's worth making it a rule not to engage in it.

Here is I how I responded to a conservative friend who flipped out when I said I do not "support our troops," and and who accused me of drawing a "moral equivalency" between those soldiers who killed for the Axis powers and those who killed for the Allies. Pardon, it's long.

----

Our political views may indeed be irreconcilable, and reflect entirely different world views. While you may not share my world view, I wish to explain it, or at least try to assuage your lingering amazement that I deemed Nazi soldiers and American soldiers in WWII "morally equivalent."

First: I did NOT say they were "morally equivalent." I said that they were "more alike than different." These are two very different things.

There is no doubt that the moral arguments behind the two opposing forces in WWII were very different, and in no way equivalent -- at least in Europe. The Nazis were an aggressive, racist, murdering regime bent on global domination; the US was, at that time, a very nearly altruistic liberating force defending European allies -- "nearly" because we were of course defending our own economic interests in Europe. The conflict of Japan and America is somewhat less clear cut, as it was really about territorial hegemony beyond each's borders [further note... by that I include the formerly sovereign nation of Hawaii, hence my issues with raising the specter of Pearl Harbor.] Nevertheless, I would not argue, now, that we should not have entered into that war -- though I can easily see myself, as a genuine pacifist, arguing against it at the time... and who knows where the US not intervening in Europe would have led? Aggressive, murderous, racist regimes tend not to last very long, even without foreign intervention. But I digress.

I was referring not the causes of Axis and Allies being more alike than different, but to the Troops themselves. I was referring to the Average Soldier, who generally has neither the contemporary geopolitical awareness at the time of his 18-25 year old service nor the benefit of historical hindsight to accurately assess his or her own part in the geopolitical chess match. My argument was that as a group, those who agree to participate in the chess match as pawns for their country, patriots all, are liable to pay with their lives for whatever cause their King tells them they're fighting for -- without even a 50-50 chance that they're on some "right" side. Perhaps you'll agree with that... unless you're a "my country right or wrong" type... which is its own insidious brand of moral equivalency.

To illustrate. If you believe that wars and armies are generally just or unjust, and that the troops fighting in them are therefore moral or immoral, and that ours, at least, are inherently "moral" and worthy of "support," I challenge you to rate from zero to three the Average Soldier in the following 14 causes, where 0 is a soldier fighting for an unjust cause, and 3 is a soldier fighting for a just cause. I suggest you do this without scanning the list first, just your first impression.

1. A British soldier fighting in WWII.

2. A German soldier fighting in WWII.

3. An American soldier fighting in WWII.

Easy so far, I guess; as you rightly point out, WWII was a fairly exceptional case.

4. Same American soldier, fighting against North Korea in the Korean War.

5. A Viet Cong soldier fighting against the same US soldier (who's a general by now!).

6. A Japanese kamikaze pilot.

7. The suicide bomber who drove a truck into the US Marine barracks in Lebanon in '83.

8. An Afghani Mujahedeen soldier fighting against the Soviet Union with American arms in 1979.

9. The same Afghani soldier, now Taliban, fighting against American soldiers with North Korean arms today.

9a. The same Afghani soldier, fighting against Afghanis in an attempt to re-take Kabul.

10. An Iranian soldier in the 80's, fighting the Iraqi army, armed by the US.

11. An Iraqi soldier in the 1990s, fighting the US Army.

12. A Panamanian soldier fighting the invasion of the US (poor guy)

13. An Al Qaeda general who dies plummeting into the Twin Towers.

14. An American soldier securing the Southwest against Santa Anna in the Mexican-American War.

I personally find it nearly impossible to meaningfully differentiate any "average soldier" in any of 4-14. Is the Viet Cong fighting to defend his village with a stick, or a paid operative armed by Moscow and trained by Peking, or just a brainwashed peasant? Is the Afghani right in warring against the Soviets, but wrong in warring against us? There are too many nuances for easy answers.

I suppose if forced to, I would give only one 3 (the British in WWII, who were a peaceful, democratic people actively defending their own homeland which was under attack despite signed treaties from an aggressive, racist, and murderous regime) and a 2 only to American soldier 3, who was primarily there as an ally of Britain and France, to liberate Europe, and who also probably also felt a genuine existential threat to his homeland..

I might give 1's to 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. They are, presumably, defending against what they (rightly or wrongly) perceive to be an immediate and existential threat from foreign troops on their own soil. But even then, are those troops all, therefore, equally worthy of "support?" The Panamanian army under Noriega? The Taliban? The communist, Soviet and Chinese backed Viet Cong?

I'd give zeroes to everyone else, because they're clearly fighting and killing on what I consider unacceptable grounds: on someone else's sovereign soil, sans a direct request or alliance with the sovereign of said soil and without a present and existential threat to their own homeland, generally with economic or geopolitical power as their goal rather than self-preservation.

Note that in every American war on the list with the sole exception of WWII, -- and almost all others not on the list -- I give America a solid zero because they fall into one or more of my "unacceptable" categories. We've never fought a foreign enemy in our homeland. [NOTE, I wrote this to my friend; he hasn't written back yet, but I've no doubt he'll say Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were homeland attacks. Fair enough... but again, WWII is an exception, and re: 9/11, see below.] I say, then why the fuck exactly are we warring so much? Why at all? You can give lots of answers, about spreading freedom and democracy (i.e. opening markets, i.e., seeking wealth and geopolitical power) and felling tyrants -- but as often as not we find ourselves not thanked for our benevolence in bringing war to these places.

So... all this makes me a pacifist. But I believe that being a pacifist doesn't mean I would never kill or commit acts of war any more than my being a Democrat means I can't vote Republican (though I never have). There are exceptions to every rule. I would make an exception in a genuine case of self-defense. I'd try to kill a guy trying to kill my wife or dog if I had to. But I don't believe we've faced a genuine war of self defense since the Civil War. You might argue that the war against Islamic Fundamentalism is one, or WWII was one. But just as I wouldn't drive across town and kill a guy who made a threat against my wife, I don't believe that "self-defense" includes us projecting military power across the globe. Absent existing alliances, I might have argued for mobilizing troops and arms to the east and west coasts of America to repel invasion by Germany and Japan. My idea of justifiable self defense against Al Qaeda would be, taking out those 9/11 planes the instant they were hijacked. But we missed that chance, and our military (for so it is called) budget would now be better spent looking more actively for Al Qaeda planes, boats, trains, suitcases, whatever, crossing our borders. You know... "defense."

Finally, and back to the point of "supporting our troops," I refuse to kowtow and give blanket "respect" to every American in a uniform. I'm happy to support and respect individual soldiers, who in my considered estimation fought for a good cause, for the right reasons, in genuine service to Good (whether or not that Good happens to align with American Interests). I know a lot of those people, and I do respect them. But I will not respect some guy who kicked ass in Grenada because he wanted a free education, or a woman who didn't want to go to college and couldn't qualify for any other job and said her interrogation techniques were her "duty" at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib, or a guy who bought God's "Manifest Destiny" as a reason to slaughter Indians or Mexicans, or even a vet wounded because he was drafted into what he believed to be a bad war in Vietnam but didn't have the guts to resist. That's what "support our troops" bumper stickers not only ask me, but command me, to do.

That, my friend, is my take on America, war, and our "place in the world" as far as our troops go. I think if want to be leaders in the world, we should do so by example, not by force. And I think that for all that everyone "hates war," few people act to eliminate it. I think the only way to end collective behavior that we we hate is for individuals to stop participating in it. So, to that extent, I do not support our troops. I prefer to support those who choose not to go to war on principle. And I respect, more than a single one of our soldiers in uniform, the Gandhis and Kings and Aquinos of history, who find another way to fight tyranny.

I believe someone said, "blessed are the peacemakers." He didn't say anything about "our men and women in uniform."

Jess

Precious 2.0

2009-07-26T12:37:00.001-07:00

With the death of my original iPhone (phone speaker went out) two days ago, I've reset my tech life. Got upgraded to an iPhone 3GS 16mb for $149. I love this wee beastie. Not only can I now hear phone conversations again, but the built in speaker is loud enough to not only hear the phone ringing, but also to listen to music in most environments. It's fast, the battery lasts longer, and the new apps opened up by the gps are awesome. My favorite apps recently discovered:

Google Mobile: voice activated google searches.

Pandora: I've used it on the web for years, but the iPhone app is even better.

News Addict: I may finally be able to give up the print edition LA Times. This lays out all the top 42 news sources from NYT to CNN to Reuters to major local papers, in a magazine rack format. Tap on one, and you get their feed, customized for iPhone. Best part: it scrolls with just a tilt of the phone. Best approximation of the paper experience yet.

PUniverse. If you're an astronomy geek, this is so cool. Real time sky chart. Hold the phone over your head and it shows exactly what you're looking at. Turn, it turns with you. Tap for full data on any object in the sky. Move forward or backward in 15 min intervals, or if it's daytime, jump to the sky at nightfall. Also has separate pages for lunar phases, Jupiter's moons... I love this.

MyPhone+. With a couple of taps, grab contact, birthday, and photo from your Facebook friends profiles and sync with Address Book!

Bump. Geeky but cool. If you meet another iPhone user, you both launch Bump, and do a hand-bump to exchange contact cards.

MY NAME IS WILL Coming Back Atcha

2009-06-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

I've been a very busy dude the past few weeks. In addition to producing my own audiobook of MY NAME IS WILL for its publisher, Twelve Books, I'm doing a little bit of consulting for Disney, working on my second novel...

It's almost made me forget that the paperback edition of MNIW is coming out in three weeks. Featuring some corrected text, a Reading Group Guide, clips of all sorts of great reviews, and a recession-friendly price, it comes out July 3. You can order it now on amazon.com for $10.19. Remember that the New York Times Book Review made it a "summer beach read" choice last year. Mmm. Beach!

There's also a swell review of it out today in the Roanoke Times - which specifically notes that the book has enough layers to make it worth a second reading. Thanks, Roanoke!

Shakespeare? I Think Not

2009-03-10T15:40:00.000-07:00

Since lots of folks have asked: I'm not sure I buy the newly discovered life portrait of Shakespeare. The subject of the painting looks much younger than the 46 he is if the date assignment of 1610 is correct. It also doesn't jibe well with the other extant portraits, which although posthumous, were agreed to have been good likenesses by Shakespeare's contemporaries. Thos images both portray a balding Bard; this new portrait asks us to believe that he went bald suddenly between his exceedingly outhful age 46 and his death at 52, when his likeness was erected in Holy Trinity Church.

At least one critic agrees with me on other grounds.

Although the "copy" they talk about at the Folger was staring at me while I was waiting in the Founder's Room to go onstage for my book tour appearance there, so that's cool. And I've met Stanley Wells, a very proper British chap indeed. He was kind enough to come and say hello to me when I dropped by the Birthplace Trust offices to do some research... he had seen me perform with the RSC in New York.

Media Page Redux

2009-02-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

Some people had trouble starting the YouTube videos of the Brooklyn Book Crawl events on my site when using the Safari. They've been reloaded and should be functional now. To try again, click here. And note that it's a slightly different URL, so update your bookmarks.

One Stop Jess Media Shop

2009-02-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

I've just added a new page to my website that I hope you'll check out. It's an A-V (audio-video) page: one spot where you can go see and hear recordings of my various media appearances. The page launches with one click access to my radio interviews for the New York Times Book Review and KQED's "Forum," YouTube videos of my record-breaking one man Hamlet, the complete Shakespeare Histories in Coffey Park, and more. If you missed my book tour launch event at the Los Angeles Public Library in July, there's a complete audio recording available. I'll be updating the site with both new interviews and some vintage video which I'll be converting to digital throughout the year. Just click here to check it out, and let me know what you think!

Readers Guide Questions

2009-02-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

It's a rainy weekend in L.A. Rainy weekends are good for writers; well, for me, at least. I tend to get work done. I'm working on a Readers Group Guide for the paperback edition of MY NAME IS WILL. I'd love to have some actual questions about actual literary questions people might have about the book. You know, English class type stuff that you might have wondered about. Why did this character meet that fate, was there a double meaning to this or that phrase, was this or that character based on a real person. Please send me some; otherwise I'll have to make up the questions myself and then answer them, which feels a little autoerotic. Post your questions here as a comment or e-mail to jess@jesswinfield.com. I'll credit you in the book if I use your question; how cool would that be?

Picking Up, Dusting Off

2009-01-20T11:39:00.001-08:00

Like the rest of the world, I spent this morning watching in awe as our nation took a giant step forward in race relations, and what we all hope will be a giant leap forward in our country's evolution. There is so much already said, and being said, and to be said, but I wanted to add a very personal note.

The last eight years have been both very successful and very difficult for me. I've tried to enjoy the highs: celebrating my 10th anniversary with my wife Sa, rescuing the cutest dog in the world Orson, winning two Emmy Awards, writing, selling, and publishing my first novel. But it has also been a tragic eight years, during which I lost my sister, my brother, my father, and far too many friends and mentors. I've wrestled at various times with alcohol, grief, and depression, and had some personal relationships suffer. And hey, the hardcover of the book came out during what we now know was the third quarter of a recession, so I'm not rich. The usual life stuff, I suppose. It has been hard, at times, to muddle through. But with the help of my friends and family, I've made it so far. I thank them for that.

I offer no thanks to the outgoing president, though. As I sit at my keyboard today, I feel intensely, literally, as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Looking back from the clarity of a happier day, I have the shameful feeling that since 2000, I've grown more arrogant, more cynical, snarkier. I suppose this could be attributed to any number of causes, personal moral failure among them. But I know that my way of relating to the world hasn't been improved by living under a regime that I truly believe to have been tyrannical. How could small-mindedness, stubbornness arrogance, and aggression help but seep down, over the course of eight years, from a leader to its people? How could a nation that violates the rights of its own citizens, bombs the innocent, tortures the suspected, and murders the guilty not, to some degree, desensitize its people to kindness and compassion?

I've mentioned privately to friends that I had a long list of New Year's resolutions, and I'm happy to say that so far they're going well. But President Obama's (how sweet it is to type that, for the first time!) speech has inspired me to add to the list. As he said, "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly."

So as I set to work on this year in my career, I want to publicly proclaim I am picking myself up, dusting myself off, and rededicating myself to honesty, integrity, and professionalism in my writing. I will endeavor to be civil, to be snarky only with injustice, not with individuals. (I think I owe an apology to Joan Baez and Billy Joel for a bit in My Name Is Will!) I will try to bring to my own, exceedingly humble work -- of telling little tales -- as much truth and wisdom as I can find. In my private life, I'm going to pet the dog and cat more often, bring my wife more flowers, and take better care of myself so that I can take better care of others. I will volunteer more. And I will do a host of other small, private things that I hope will make the world a better place to live in.

If that sounds exceedingly lofty, well, what can I say, it's an exceedingly lofty day. I hope you all share my great joy, and my great hope for not just a happy new year, but a genuinely happier four years to come.

Now... I've got a novel to write.

RSC Rocks Complete Works (Abridged) [Revised]

2008-12-04T14:14:00.001-08:00

It's been a busy fall. In addition to plugging away on my second novel, I finished up my adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest for Starz Film Roman... now comes the long process of trying to get it actually made. I am, as always, cautiously optimistic.

I also had the time-warping experience of joining current Reduced Shakespeare Company mavens Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor for rehearsals of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] in L.A. a couple of weeks ago. The updated text is based on the work original RSC founder Daniel Singer and I did on the script for a twentieth-anniversary West End run last summer. A few tweaks were required to make the show US-friendly, and Reed, Austin and I took the opportunity to play with a few new gags and refinements as well. The RSC is now up and running with the revised text at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. Check out the excellent review of the revised show in the Miami Herald.

For those of you in the US who have never seen an officially-sponsored, author-approved, Reduced Shakespeare Company performance of the show, this and the RSC tour coming next year is the one to see.

You might want to check out episode #104 of The Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast. It features an interview with yours truly about the whys and wherefores of the updated script.

Rallying Against Prop 8

2008-11-17T13:28:00.001-08:00

I got up early on Saturday to make my way, via the Red Line, downtownfor the rally in objection to Prop 8. It was a hot, smoky day, and Ilooked forward to coming home and watching coverage of theextraordinary event on the news. Of course, there was no news but thatof the devastating wildfires, which, incidentally, destroyed the familyhome of the man who made my wedding ring.

I only justrealized the significance of that as I typed it. Before we got married, my wife and I arranged not tobreed. To some -- those who believe that the only legitimate purposeof marriage is to promote the getting of children by 1 man and 1 woman-- that would seem to disqualify us from have been granted a marriagelicense at all.

I hope the debate turns from boycotts against individual businesses and Mormons (you can find a lengthier discussion of my Last Word on this is on my restaurant blog, regarding El Coyote, here) and toward this larger, fundamental issue of equality and civil rights. As funny as some of the signs and as impassioned as some of the speeches from the podium were on Saturday, the single best summation of the issue was one I overheard on the subway on the way home. A woman explained to a straight man who was conflicted about the issue: "On the ballot, the first words describing the Prop 8 were: Changes California Constitution to eliminate right of... I don't even need to read a single word farther to know that it's wrong."

Constitutions are made to guarantee rights, not eliminate them.

Okay... here are some of those funny signs (many of which traded on the conceit that chickens were voted more rights than gay people in the election. Last snap courtesy seeingeyblog.com.

El Coyote Boycott News

2008-11-13T13:47:00.001-08:00

I was out of the office yesterday, and so was unable to report on yesterday's meeting between management of El Coyote and local members of the gay community upset about the revelation that a member of El Coyote's family ownership had made a personal, $100 donation to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign. I can be saved the time of describing the meeting blow by blow, as there is a factually correct account of it posted on shutupiknow.blogspot.com.

What the report fails to communicate is the level of upset among the El Coyote staff present. Each and every one I spoke to was visibly shaken, some crying openly. Each one stated clearly that although they disagree with Margie's personal position on the issue, that it is not the position of El Coyote as establishment or its management, so they do not understand the boycott. They truly wish everyone could just get along, and allow individuals have their opinions without threatening the well-being of the entire establishment, a gathering place for a uniquely diverse community. I tend to agree with that sentiment.

That said, it is not surprising that the meeting went the way it did, and it need not have done so. One important element is missing from the reportage that helps explain why it turned ugly so quickly. When Sam asked Margie if she would be willing to donate an equal or greater amount to Repeal Prop. 8, she deferred to management. Management stated "We know Margie is so upset about this, and she would take back the donation if she could."

But when Sam pressed his question, Margie refused to donate a C-note to the opposite side, which would have effectively "taken back" the donation. The deeds did not match the rhetoric. I suspect that if Margie had agreed to do this, to put some meat into her apology, the issue would be dead. But, sadly, it is not.

So... while I think the boycott is misguided, and its energy could be directed toward any number of larger, more complicit establishments, I understand and respect the anger and frustration of the community, and the need to make a visible protest of a visible target.

I had plans to dine at El Coyote tonight, at about 7:00... when the protest officially begins. I will honor the protesters by not crossing that picket line. But I will not boycott the restaurant before or after the protest. The gay (and Other) staff, nearly all long-serving, dedicated employees, and truly wonderful people, depend on my dining dollars to feed their families. Suggestions posted elsewhere that employees should "get other jobs" truly don't understand the nature of the restaurant: it is a family place in every sense, where owners, customers, and especially staff treat each other like family. One might as well suggest these employees "get a new mother and father."

You may see me in El Coyote the next few days... you will also see me at the Repeal Prop. 8 rally at City Hall on Saturday. I truly feel that's a more appropriate place to display our displeasure at the passage of Prop. 8.

The Official Post-Election Post

2008-11-12T10:17:00.001-08:00

I have put off an official Post Election Post until now. There is so much to say, and so much already being said so well. I feel the same sense of hope and wistfulness as Al Martinez expressesin his beautiful column from Monday's LA Times. (Don't worry, despitehis line about martinis and cigarettes, my heart is in no presentdanger. But the poignancy of his dealing with hope during difficult times is one I share. But no matter how poignant Al's story is,nothing compares to the tear-jerking bittersweetness of the retired White House butler and his wife that appeared a few days ago.

In yesterday's LA Times Opinion section, there is a great piece: A vote too late for Obama.
It tells the story of a woman who decided not to vote, then, in theensuing days of celebration and watching Obama conduct himself, feltlike she might have missed out on a historic moment.

This echoes one personal story I'd like to share.

I have a friend who went through similar feelings. A lifelong Republican in the financial services industry, he voted for Bush twice, and had come to regret it. He was shocked at the choice of Sarah Palin. He's moderate on social issues, but as are most in his business, suspicious of Obama's plan to soak the rich; the rich, he believes, are where jobs come from. No new news there. He respected and admired McCain, but was put off by his campaign tactics, and by his party's shift to extreme right-wing social conservatism: reproductive rights, Creationism, all that. He talked with me extensively about Obama, and my take on the election. We debated, and agreed a lot about what ails the country and how to fix it. Roads. Health care. Education. A sensible foreign policy that doesn't support dictators.

And he called me the day before the election. He was, to my amzement, still undecided, and we talked some more. He wanted me to reassure him that if Obama was elected, and his economic advisors came to him and said that raising the capital gains tax was a bad idea for the economy, he'd listen. I told him I couldn't guarantee anything. That there are a lot of unreasonable hopes being placed on this one talented, inspiring but very skinny fellow. But that I believe Obama is, if he is anything, a good listener, and not and ideologue.

After we hung up, I sent him one last e-mail. "I think that Obama," I said, "is gonna win. It's going to be historic. And I think you're going to want to be able to tell your grandchildren you were a part of it."

I got a call from my friend the day after election day. He told me that he went and talked with his own mother about which way to vote on election eve. They talked for half an hour about Obama vs. McCain. They seriously discussed leaving that section of the ballot blank.

At last, he said, he voted for McCain.

But when he saw his mother the next day, after Obama had won, he asked her, "aren't you just a little bit relieved, that it turned out this way?" And she agreed that she was.

My friend and I agreed that it's time for reasonable people to move on. He told me that it's like a football team... the QB you want to start the next game because he throws you a lot of passes isn't starting, it's the other guy. You still go out and work as hard as you can for the team. I agreed. I told him I would do the same thing if McCain had won (unlike some of my friends who threatened to really, this time, leave the country if a Republican took the White House). We thanked each other for offering our perspectives on our nation in a civil and forward-looking way.

It is this spirit of unity, even more than Barack's oratory, thoughtfulness, and intellect, that give me hope for the next administration.

Politics Meets Food -- The El Coyote Boycott

2008-11-11T14:13:00.001-08:00

My novel, MY NAME IS WILL, is a cautionary tale about the danger of mixing politics and religion. I gave our friend Margie, the niece of the owners of El Coyote, a copy last week, but I doubt she's read it yet. Now she's learning the lesson the hard way.

Margie appeared on a list of donors to the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign, which has led to calls for a boycott. Now as you know, I spend a lot of time at El Coyote, and I've spent some time here defending its kitchen. I'm going to spend a little more time defending it against a boycott.

Margie is variously described as the owner or the manager of the restaurant in various blogs and e-mails currently making their way around the 'net. My understanding is, she's possibly in line to take over someday; currently just an employee. When questions come up about the menu, or prices, or my and others longstanding request for some seafood, any seafood, she invariably refers us to the managers, Billy or Bobby. Billy and Bobby are both gay. In fact, I'd guess (with my fairly accurate straight man's gaydar) that a solid majority of the staff of the restaurant is gay. On any given night, particularly a Thursday (which has become an unofficial "gay night" -- always amusing when I sometimes go there with Kent while Sa's at her belly dance class!) a majority of the clientele is likely to be gay as well.

I'm sure she's not going to need to hear from me about the mistake I think she made donating $100 of her own money -- and listing her place of work as "El Coyote Cafe" -- when I go there tomorrow or Thursday for dinner. But I hope that the boycott call doesn't hurt their business. Some of the wages that her family pays to all those gay employees no doubt made its way into the No on 8 coffers. And I'd hate to take money out of the bank accounts and tip-takings of Billy and Bobby and Roberto and Jose and all of our other gay friends there, just because another employee (however closely related to the owners) prefers to donate differently.

We've talked with Margie quite a bit. She's the nice, tall, willowy lady who comes around with ice water and asks how you're doing. We talk about movies, current events, and, yes, politics. She's a Republican. So is almost half the country, and about four in ten Californians. She's also a lifelong Mormon (is there any other kind?). She was very excited about my book, and asked for a signed copy; I warned her it might be a little "racy" for her taste, but she wanted it anyway.

Perhaps when she reads the book, she'll get some reinforcement of the concept that toeing a church line on political issues is a slippery slope. But I think maybe she's already gotten that. From an apology letter posted online at shutupIknow, where there is some heated discussion of the issue:

I HAVE BEEN SICK AT HEART THAT ANYONE HAS BEEN OFFENDED BY ME.

I HAVE FAMILY, FRIENDS, EMPLOYEES FROM THE GAY COMMUNITY WHO ARE TREASURED PEOPLE IN MY LIFE.

I HAVE BEEN A MEMBER OF THE MORMON CHURCH ALL MY LIFE. I RESPONDED TO THEIR REQUEST WITH MY PERSONAL DONATION.

FOR YEARS THE EL COYOTE HAS FINANCIALLY AND GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED THE GAY COMMUNITY AND MANY OF ITS CHARITIES.

PLEASE BE OUR GUEST FOR AN EARLY LUNCH WED., NOV. 12TH AT 11:00 AM AT THE COYOTE AND ALLOW ME TO SPEAK WITH YOU PERSONALLY.

PLEASE CALL AND MAKE A RESERVATION AS SEATING IS LIMITED. (323) 939-2255.

Was Margie on the wrong side of this issue? I think so. Does the restaurant where she works deserve to be boycotted for it? I don't think so, but if you do, I'd at least go hear her out before deciding.

I leave you with a photo of one of the clearly-oppressed staff of El Coyote a couple of Halloweens ago. That's Roberto, affectionately known as Betty...

The First Press Conference

2008-11-07T23:13:00.001-08:00

I watched it with trepidation, excitement, and a critical mind. Would the dude I've been shilling for the past eight months handle himself as well as I hoped he would?

I watched the Dow ticker on CNN go from 200 to 100 as he spoke about middle class tax relief. Then watched it go back up to the high 100s when he talked about bailing out US automakers. No surprise there.

I did think he made one wince-worthy misstep, when he made a joke about talking to dead presidents via seance, a la Nancy Reagan. Mind you, I thought of the same joke before he made it, and I too conflated the Hillary stories with the Nancy stories.

And yet, Obama apologized within hours. Need we note: he's already admitting he made his first mistake, when Dubya's still trying to think of one of his.

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin's calling people who reported her own faux pas "cowards and jerks." So far, sooo predictable.

DC Recap

2008-11-03T20:34:00.001-08:00

My trip to DC was a whirlwind. Quite literally, as it was one of those "you-shoulda-been-here-last-week, it was beautiful" trips. It was cold. Freaking cold. And whirlwindy. Little dust devils of fall leaves everywhere.

I arrive on Friday night and take a taxi to the hotel. Ten bucks. A nice change after all the $40-50 LA and NY cab fares I've racked up on the book tour. The Capitol Suites, a block or two from the Folger, the Supreme Court, the Capitol. Unfortunately, I got in late. Like, 10:30. No bar or restaurant at the hotel as it was a long-term stay type place, so I asked about restaurants. Was told, up to Pennsylvania Avenue, turn right. Jokes about "I've had enough of the right on Pennsylvania Ave." flood through my mind. Well, Pennsylvania Ave. SW on a Sunday night at 10:50 pm is like downtown LA used to be before its Renaissance. Nothing like those bars where they made deals on West Wing. Absolutely nobody there, but a few homeless, and a very few skanky bars with skanky clientele. I finally found one place (which shall remain nameless) that would reluctantly serve me a cheeseburger. A local, first thing when I walk in, insults my jacket. If you know me, you know that insulting my jacket (I have a bigger collection than anyone who lives in SoCal has a right owning) will put me off the establishment away. I actually walk out, only to find NO other food for blocks. I come back, tail between my legs, have that cheeseburger. I'm sure it had been spat on, but I was starving. It sucked. Okay, it was called the "Tune Inn."

I take an Ambien to counteract the time lag, but still don't fall asleep til 3. Next day I wake up at noon, shower, and get a lovely breakfast from Le Bon Cafe next door. This place is excellent, by the way. Great coffee, great pastries, nice little cafe vibe. It's raining, and I haven't brought any rain gear. Weather.com (72 degrees, mostly sunny!) has failed me again.

I go to the Folger. It's deserted, in the rain on a Monday a week before the election. I walk in to find an empty Folger, just one woman talking to the stage door guard. I tell the guard my name, that I'm reading there tonight. He says to the woman, "clearly you should talk to him." She's a reporter from All Things Considered, getting people to read the witches scene from Macbeth. He declines, but I accept. You can hear the result here. meet my contact, she shows me around. The theater has a nice setup for "Henry IV P. I," and I'll be reading from a podium on the stage.

It looks fantastic. I meet Betsy Walsh, who will take me for a tour of the place. It's stunning if you've never been. The most extraordinary collection of Shakespeareana in the world. Bizarre that it's in D.C., though; an Elizabethan building wrapped in a neoclassical shell. I have an English friend who is very angry indeed that all their stuff is here. But that, I say, is how empires roll. I do not mention the Elgin Marbles.

The best part is the vault tour. I have some other pics, but I promised not to publish 'em!) Two stories down, behind the vault door, there are their special collection stacks. They have, count 'em, 79 copies of the 1623 First Folio. Since these go for anywhere from 2 to 6 million a copy, depending on their condition, this is one pricey pile of old books. They have one out on display, for those who are allowed in the inner sanctum (me! Nyah nyah!) to fondle. I fondle it. It's a very nice copy, probably closer to six mil than two. I look at my favorite bits. She points out fun publishing arcana to me.

I also see other things of note: A first-English-edition Don Quixote. The only known quarto copy of Titus Andronicus. Queen Elizabeth I's very own Bible. (yes, hers... it's in a sumptuous, very old binding, with the ER seal on the front). The famous Edward de Vere bible with his notations and markings. (This is one of the pieces of evidence that Oxfordians use... "many of his highlighted passages appear in Shakespeare's works!" Guess what, I've seen it now and DeVere highlighted, like, every other verse, and most of the famous ones, for large swaths of the Good Book. It would be nearly impossible for these NOT to appear in Shakespeare's works.) There were also original copies of several of the book that in my novel, William's friend Richard Field brings from London, including a copy of Anthony Munday's anti-Catholic screed with the long title. I notice that it had quill-pen margin notes that looked contemporary. I wondered whose they were... she said she'd try to find out. This was, seriously, the most fun I've had looking at books on shelves, ever.

I go back to the hotel and work on my presentation for a bit. It's a prestigious gig, and I don't want to suck in any way. I arrive at the librar at 7:00. It looks deserted. It's raining outside, and miserable. Anyone who's ever done a book tour knows this feeling. It's one of those readings where no one is going to show up. I wait in the Founder's room, under the debunked Ashbourne Portrait of "Shakespeare."

I'm going over my notes, when my handler comes in and says, ready to go? It's exactly 7:30, and these things never start on time. "Are we going to another room?" I ask, and she says "yes, we're going to another room." My handler is 7 months pregnant, and a little fuzzy. I guess she thought I mean, am I doing the reading in here, because when I grab my tea and my splayed out notes, she leads me directly into the theater... where there are about a hundred people waiting!

This is a good turnout for readings, trust me.

I begin my shtick... much revised, this time, so I have no idea how it'll go. I begin theatrically, saying nothing but opening to page one of the book and reading the first three paragraphs. "Elizabeth I's left tit" and "boner" both get big laughs, and when I stuffily say "good evening and welcome to the Folger Library," that gets a laugh too.

The whole thing goes great. People are engaged, laughing, nodding. I read, and lecture, and because it's DC I've skewed the whole thing towards politics. My digs on McCain and REagan get mostly cheers, some friendly boos. That's good. My references to Guantanmo and torture... a little chilling. I open up to Q&A and the questions are smart and and engaging. I get asked about the best Mexican restaurant in LA, and "Why do the Angels suck?" "Because they're from Orange County," I reply. More cheers and boos.

At then end of Q&A, I say, I don't usually do this, but since it's the last night of the tour... I will attempt to break the world's record for the fastest solo performance of Hamlet. There's a great set for Hnery IV, with a cool thrust, so I use that. I get a guy in the audience to time me. Of course I break the record, to much applause. No boos. But then I realize aloud, damn, I skipped Ophleia's drowning scene. So I take the water glass from the lectern, throw it in my own face, and melt. Yes, I improv-ed a new encore, on the spot.

I sell a couple dozen books in the foyer afterwards, a nice, healthy line, all full of people I don't know who have already paid $12 for the evening. In short, it went really well, and they want me back "anytime."

The next day, I woke early and walked, in a bitter cold, windy, nasty day, from my hotel near the Folger down the Mall from the Capitol Building -- which was a construction zone, they're already building the dais for Inauguration Day --

...to the Lincoln, Jefferson and FDR memorials. The Jefferson Memorial was inspiring. The FDR monument is highly underrated, a beautiful series of waterfalls and courtyards, each representing one of his four terms. The sculpture of the soup line from his second term is stunning.

At the Lincoln Memorial, I made a wish for our friend Mackey with a penny he gave me, and tossed it into the reflecting pool.

Then across the Potomac to Arlington Cemetery, which I was curious to visit after reading Connie Willis's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553270257?ie=UTF8&tag=jeswin-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0553270257">Lincoln's Dreams</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jeswin-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0553270257" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />

After five miles, I came away with chapped lips and, yes it's true, a renewed love of country. Washington's a bit stolid for my taste, all that marble, but hey, I could make Scalia jokes a half block from where he dispenses "justice" without getting arrested, and that's encouraging. And there is nothing to humble you like a twenty foot statue of, and the extraordinary mind of, Thomas Jefferson.

The last thing I did was to cozy up to the bar at the Capital Grille, where those West Wing deals were all being made. I had a half dozen delightful Blue Point oysters, talked hockey with the guy next to me, had a bowl of chowder before heading to Reagan National Airport. (YCK)

My trip to DC went very, very well.

Wish Tree

2008-11-02T10:46:00.001-08:00

With Tuesday approaching, I find myself engaged in a lot of wishing and hoping, most of it on a fairly large scale. Here are some wishes, many on a much smaller scale, that gave me a much-needed laugh, and a few sad sighs. Peace and chocolate, indeed.

Religionistas

2008-10-31T09:55:00.001-07:00

It was George Orwell (not LaVar Burton) who first said "all literature is political," and I believe that. For those who missed it, MY NAME IS WILL is, at its largest political level, about the dangers of aligning political and religious power. That's why stuff like this scares the bejeezus out of me.

I couldn't help thinking of this prominently displayed, marble-eternalized quote in the Jefferson Memorial. It's from Virginia's 1777 "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom," upon which the First Amemedment freedom of religion clause was based.

"No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worshipor ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religiousopinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and byargument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion."

Throw that at your rightwing neighbor, and ask 'em if they support atheists as loudly as they support guns.

Happy To Be On Blogger

2008-10-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

Although I love Rapidweaver for website creation, I had a hell of time with its blog function, and therefore my blog was entirely non-functional for most of my summer tour for MY NAME IS WILL: A Novel of Sex Drugs and Shakespeare. Quelle dommage! So I've switched to Blogger, which has happily hosted LA Food Crazy for years. Now that I'm hunkered down at home, working on my next book, I plan to post here as often as humanly possible. Generally, directly after reading the morning newspaper, when I'm still really mad about stuff and all full of opinions and espresso. It'll also be easy to post from The Road when I hit it.

But first, I will be importing over old posts from http://jesswinfield.com/Blog/blog.html.

Hope to see you here, often!

The Hot Chick and Other Republicanisms

2008-09-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to their handy convention, I think I've nearly got Republican ideology figured out.

Getting paid to serve your country is good, but getting paid to serve your community is bad. Government is bad when it tells you what to do about your tires, but good when it tells you what to do about your womb. Going to Iraq (or Vietnam) as a warrior, risking life and limb to serve God and country, is good; but risking life or limb to serve the truth as a journalist... wait, gimme a second... yeah, you're part of the left-wing mainstream media, so that's bad. Investing in alternative fuels because of global warming is bad, but seeking alternative fuels to achieve independence from evildoers is good. And drilling for oil is always really, really, REALLY good, but taxing oil company profits is always really, really, REALLY bad... and Dick Cheney had nothing to do with this message!

I just have just one remaining question: what does "moral equivalency" mean?

LA Times Reviews My Name Is Will

2008-07-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

If you haven't read your Sunday (7/20) Los Angeles Times Book Review, don't recycle it yet. In a glowing review, Donna Seaman calls MY NAME IS WILL "hilarious," "fascinating," and "a celebration of the power of language and story," among other very nice things.

The New York Times picked WILL for their summer reading list, and The New York Times Book Review will run a full page review this coming Sunday (7/27): I've seen it... it's a little snarky about my cartoon credentials and bawdy wordplay, but it's a lively piece about the book: "A lusty, pun-drunk first novel... where there's a Will, there's a way." Look for it online or on newsstands this weekend.

And my attempt to set the World's Record for "Most Shakespeare Plays Performed Solo in a Single Day in Brooklyn" received lots of press, from The New Yorker magazine to YouTube; I highly recommend this great article and podcast about the event in The Brooklyn Paper.

There's also a nice feature in Sunday's Santa Cruz Sentinel.

For all the latest, including much more news, more reviews, announcements about upcoming radio interviews on NPR, tour dates for San Diego, the Bay Area, and Seattle, etc., hop on over to www.jesswinfield.com.

Finally, check out my new online store, where you can purchase some cool jesswinfield.com merchandise, including exclusive MY NAME IS WILL tour t-shirts.

Mushrooms In The News

2008-07-03T11:23:00.000-07:00

Some of the news this week threatened to throw me into the holiday weekend on bit of a downer. First there's the "Obama Running To The Center" news cycle. It was to be expected, but during the heady days of primary Obamamania I and much of his liberal base conveniently forgot little things like his support (albeit limited) of the death penalty and his, shall we say, "nuanced" take on gun control. I was headed toward despair when he came out in favor of Bush's faith-based initiatives plan, but it only took a visit to BlySpace to settle my nerves.

Then there was the LA Times piece on the lawsuit between the Tolkien estate and the recently-deceased New Line Cinema. I'm not a huge fan of the Tolkien estate (J.R.R. explicitly created Middle Earth for other writers and artists to use as a mythology, but his son Christopher has stingily kept the names, places, and tales strictly guarded for his own painfully pedantic purposes), but for them to have not received a penny of the billions of dollars raked in by the film trilogy is... well, there's no adjective big enough to describe the injustice. (I find it telling that, although a picture of the Professor appeared in the print edition, Tolkien remains anonymous in the online edition; presumably Elijah Wood makes for a sexier page.) As both a former producer myself and a playwright and screenwriter who's worked with some skanky money men, it never to ceases to amaze me how rare it is to find a producer who truly respects the writer. Many give lip service; few put their money where their lips are. I'm glad to say that my experience the publishing industry is a breath of fresh air. My agent Ellen Levine at Trident and editor Cary Goldstein and publisher Jonathan Karp at Twelve Books all define the word "integrity."

Speaking of integrity... I'm thrilled to note that my good friend and great comedian/raconteur Nick Revell has begun regular blogging for The Huffington Post. Think Jon Stewart about to start a pub brawl through sheer intelligence. This is a very good thing for the world.

Finally, I've had a couple of friends point me to a recent story about the long-term therapeutic effects of magic mushrooms. This comes as no surprise; it merely backs up the very real research that my fictionalized Timothy Leary spouts in MY NAME IS WILL.

That little tidbit heads me into the holiday -- and my book launch next week -- on a happy note. Have a safe and celebratory Independence Day weekend!

Blogs, Hers and Mine

2008-04-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

I'm also thrilled to report that favorite political blogger is back online. For progressive political opinion with a suburban punk rock mom edge, there's no better place on the web than Bly Space. I'm proud to say that my anonymous-lest-she-become-the-victim-of-a-vast-right-wing-conspiracy (does anybody really deny that they exist?) has inspired me to blog again, and I hope vice versa.

Speaking of politics, I might as well link here to an op-ed piece I wrote in the LA Times a few weeks ago. It was actually written to run on Shakespeare's Birthday (April 23), the day after the Pennsylvania primary, but the Times wanted to run it right away. It'll make more sense when you know that.

The Write Tool For the Job

2008-01-05T11:23:00.000-08:00

font face="sans-serif">I want to proselytize a bit about a piece of software. Sometimes, software truly opens a door in the mind, makes you do something you couldn't or wouldn't do before. I only became a writer when I got my first Macintosh with Word 2.0 installed; I can't imagine writing, as both of my writer parents did, with ribbon, ink, and carbon paper. I didn't know I could, or wanted to, learn to play the piano and write a song or two before GarageBand came out, or process my own photo images before Photoshop. Software can change the paradigm.

Such a piece of software is Scrivener, a dedicated writing application that is as far beyond Microsoft Word as Word is beyond the wax tablet and chisel. Designed for writers by a writer, it works the way a writer thinks. The features are so many and so different from paragraph-and-page based word processing apps that it's hard to describe here. Scrivener assembles your work as a "project" with an iTunes-like sidebar organizing the project into different folders and documents. There are default folders depending on the type of project template, but these are entirely customizable. The current novel I'm working on, for example, I've divided into Book One, Book Two, and Book Three, with separate folders for each chapter and separate documents for each scene. There is also a folder for "research," which is a boon: you can drag and drop nearly any image, jpeg, pdf, website, or document that you might refer to, and have it at your fingertips right in the same program. A split-screen feature lets you view, say, a Google Maps street-level image of the streets your character is navigating in one half your screen, while writing in the other. The text editor doesn't really care about "pages" or other formatting until you wish to print or export to another program, at which point it offers all sorts of handy options like converting all m dashes to double dashes, or italics to underlines, entering hash marks to divide scenes, replacing double spaces after sentences with single spaces, and the like. This is liberating, as it keeps you focused on cranking out pages instead of whether the margins are lining up prettily.

You can view your project several different ways. The "Full Screen" view takes just the chunk you're working on and blacks out everything else on your computer, giving you a completely distraction-free writing space. The chunks of your project can also be viewed in either "Corkboard" mode -- a virtual pin-up environment (you can even color code the pushpins to represent different types of, or drafts of, your work) and an "Outline" mode that's better than all but the most dedicated stand-alone outlining programs. And this is the best part... move a chunk of your project in Outline view, or the Corkboard, or in your folder structure in the sidebar, and it moves in your text document, too... and vice versa. Anyone who's spent a day revising an outline to match what was actually written before being able to continue working knows this is a boon. I also love the "statistics" feature, a floating window that not only tells you your word count but lets you set targets, both daily and overall: 80,000 words for a novel say, and 1000 words for daily output, and gives you a status bar to let you know how you're doing. There is so much more: keywords that let you easily track characters or themes, highlighting features, annotations, a killer versioning tool that lets you quickly take a "snapshot" of your current version before embarking on a dubious "what if" scenario, screenplay commands based on Final Draft, autosaves practically every millisecond so you never lose work... too much to list here.

On the tiny downside, the export options can be a little daunting, and there is a bit of a learning curve because it's so different from other word processors. But if you're a writer you owe it to yourself to check it out. After all, you had to learn to throw away the wax table and chisel when you bought a word processor, too.

There's a terrific demo video on their website. The free demo version is fully-functional, allowing thirty launches before requiring you to buy a license... $39.95 for as many machines as you use. Hell, you might have your novel done after 30 launches.<

The Shakespeare Authorship "Question."

2007-10-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

It is all over the news.

Again.

"Shakespeare Didn't Write Shakespeare!" A Declaration supporting academic research into the Shakespeare Authorship Question has been signed by nearly three hundred people (I have more friends on my party invite list than that). The Declaration cites such luminaries as Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, Sigmund Freud, and Walt Whitman as fellow "doubters" of the proposition that the man from Stratford (as they call their putative illiterate country hick), the common
son of a lowly tradesman, could possibly have written the lofty Works of the Bard. The organization behind the Declaration is spearheaded by longtime doubters Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance, who are also mounting a play dramatizing [yawn] the authorship debate."

Several of my friends have asked my opinion of this "new" turn of Shakespearian events.

*sigh* The list of signees and past doubters sports some impressive names. I would like to say that they are impressive names who, on this issue at least, have their collective head up their ass. But the Declaration, in its text, demands that we orthodox Stratfordians -- those who believe that the eldest son of the wealthy Chief Bailiff (Mayor) of Stratford could and did learn his letters, move to London, and become the greatest writer in the English language -- not engage in ad hominem attacks. They demand, rather, that we base arguments on "the evidence." They further demand that we not call it mere "snobbery" when they say things like:

"Much of the knowledge displayed in the works was the exclusive province of the upper classes, yet no
record places Mr. Shakspere among them for any length of time... How Mr. Shakspere could have acquired knowledge of these sources is a mystery."

Very well, I shall not call it "snobbery" that these people believe that some knowledge "is the exclusive province of the upper classes," unattainable by someone "from an illiterate household in the remote agricultural town of Stratford-upon-Avon." I shall not call it snobbery to assert that writers from poor backgrounds are incapable of writing about matters above their social station. But I shall call it both illogical and unproven by literary history... in fact, quite the opposite. Where is it proven that writers who write about aristocrats must be of the aristocracy? By this logic, the writers of The Sopranos must be mobsters; the writers of Grey's Anatomy must surely be doctors; the writers of Rome must have spent time in the Roman senate; and Homer, Sophocles, and Virgil all must have had direct contact with and knowledge of not only the camps of the Achaians outside the gates of Troy, but of the "court intrigues" among the gods on Mount Olympus as well. As myfriend Louis Fantasia says, "you don't need to be a Klingon to write an episode of Star Trek.

Give a quick read to the anti-Stratfordian declaration. The most striking thing about its rhetoric is its repeatedinsistence that there is "no evidence" or "no record" of certain things, including:

No record of Shakespeare claiming to have written the Works. (Oh, except for the byline on the title pages of his published plays and the dedications of his sonnets to the Earl of Southampton)
No definitive evidence of his authorship from his lifetime. (There are dozens, from bylines to dedications to references to Shakespeare and his works by other contemporary authors. I guess it depends how you define "definitive.")
No personal reference by Ben Jonson, nor Leonard Digges to Mr. Shakspere while he lived.
No outpouring of eulogies until seven years after Shakespeare's death.
No depiction of pen and paper in early sketches of the Shakespeare monument in Holy Trinity church.
No statement on the monument description that Shakespeare WAS the author. (It merely compares him to Virgil.)
No mention of poetry, plays, acting, or the theater in the inscription (um, except the reference to the poet Virgil.)
No manuscripts of the Works found in Shakespeare's own hand.
No books, plays, poems, or musical instruments mentioned in Shakespeare's (extant and signed) will.
No record that he traveled in his formative years.
No evidence that his sisters or daughter could write (girls didn't get to go to school back in Good Queen Bess's day, and Will was in London, working.)
No records to confirm that Shakespeare attended Stratford Grammar School.
No mention of Shakespeare's publisher and Stratford local Richard Field in the will.
No evidence of where Shakespeare got books needed for his learning (how about his London publisher, Stratford local Richard Field?)
No record of Southampton and Shakespeare ever having met.
No record that Shakespeare addressed the public directly.
No record of the Queen mentioning Shakespeare.
No record of him returning from Stratford to London to perform plays for King James.
No record of him assisting in preparing the King James version of the Bible.
No mention of his death in 1616.
Only "dubious" references to Shakespeare's life in the works; no mention of his 11 year old son's death in The Sonnets. (The Sonnets were likely written before his son's death, but note that his son's name was "Hamnet," or as it was often written in Stratford, "Hamlet.")

This is only a sampling, but you get the idea. Doubters use this purported "lack of evidence" about a zillion things to invoke "reasonable doubt." Well, if it's that easy, allow me add to their "case." I can safely say that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Man from Stratford:

Ever bought pens, paper, or ink from the local store in Stratford, or any store in London.
Ever paid a laundrywoman to remove ink stains from his shirt.
Ever met anyone named John Falstaff.
Owned or knew a dog named Crab, or for that matter, Spot.
Enjoyed cross-dressing, as so many of his characters do.
Drank himself to death partying with Ben Jonson.
Got arrested for trespassing with an unruly gang of youths.
Left fellow London actors gold rings in his will.
Played "Hamlet's Father" in his troupe's production of the play.

Well, actually, there is evidence for those last four, and the last two are documentary. But at least two are merely hearsay, based on interviews with Stratford old-timers in the century following Shakespeare's death, so we'll leave them aside for now.

My point is that the anti-Stratfordian presentation of "evidence" is laughable. It's simply (where it isn't actually untrue) the non-presentation of non-evidence: an arbitrary list of imagined documentation that doesn't exist. It's like a defense attorney who says, never mind the knife, the 911 tapes, the history of threats, the forensic analysis, the means, the motive, the opportunity, the DNA evidence, and the blood all over the car... that's all "problematic" because there's no written confession. Oh, and this glove (unh.. unh) doesn't fit. Therefore you must acquit. It's smoke and mirrors.

The final imprecation from the anti-Stratfordians is that we must not call the Oxfordians and their ilk
"conspiracy theorists" because that is also an ad hominem attack. But there remains the uncomfortable fact that for DeVere or whoever else to have written the plays, there must have been a sizeable coverup going on, in the London theater scene, in Queen Elizabeth's court, and in Stratford. Without calling anyone names, I will simply posit that for, say, the Earl of Oxford to have written Shakespeare's works on the sly, it would require the continuous, 20-year complicity of at the very least the following individuals: The Earl himself, his household, advisors, and friends in Queen Elizabeth's court; Richard Burbage, John Heminges, Henry Condell, and the rest of the principals of the Lord Chamberlain's (later the King's) Men, along with all of their spouses, household, and friends; Ben Jonson, Richard Field, numerous other publishers and clerks, as well as that of the "Actor" Will Shaksper -- who would be leaving himself open to the charges of sedition that Oxford was supposedly avoiding by using Shakespeare's name as a nom de plume. The proponents of this case may not wish to be called be conspiracy theorists, but it is unquestionably a conspiracy theory.

What do we really know about Shakespeare? A lot. The facts (documented facts, all -- you can see much of the contemporary documentary evidence here) are that a William Shakspeare was born in Stratford to a prominent, ambitious, nouveau-riche father who was the Bailiff (approximate equivalent of Mayor) of the bustling market town, who could certainly afford his oldest son's education -- at least until the family business went sour. Shakspeare married an older woman at age 18. Some years later, a William Shakespeare (with the "e" added) turns up in London as an actor in various prominent troupes. He (or if not him, then someone actually named "Shake-scene," as Robert Greene satirized the young whippersnapper, and of whom there is no other mention) at some point turns from player to playwright, and makes a bit of a stir among the local writers as an "upstart crow." Frances Meres, in his contemporary diary, mentions "Shakespeare" as being known and lauded for both his comedies and his tragedies, as well as his "sugared sonnets among his private friends," and lists many of the plays attributed to him, Love's Labor's Lost, Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, etc.. A"William Shakespeare" dedicates two long poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, to the fair young Earl of Southampton. William Shakespeare has many plays published with his byline in his lifetime, gets in trouble once for not paying taxes, partners up as an owner of the Globe Theater, attains the rank of gentleman by applying for and obtaining the coat of arms his family has long sought, and finally returns to Stratford at the youngish, even for the day, age of 44, only to die eight years later. A prominent memorial, comparing him to Socrates and Virgil, is mounted in a place of honor in Stratford's Trinity Church. In his will he leaves money to buy memorial rings to three actor friends, two of whom -- Heminges and Condell -- will, seven years later, publish the First Folio of his collected Works.

THIS is all hard documentary evidence, not merely a compendium of the lack of it. The burden of proof is this case is, it seems to me, clearly on the "anti-Stratfordian" side, to somehow refute or explain away all of this, and the logical ab initio assumption that the man named on the title page wrote the Works. Yet the Declaration invokes "reasonable doubt" as if it is the orthodoxy that must prosecute the case!!!

But an ever greater irony is that nearly every single "there is no record of..." item listed above can also be stated about ANY proposed alternate author, be it Bacon or DeVere or whomever:

No contemporary of Shakespeare claims to have written any of the plays or poems attributed to Shakespeare.
No manuscript of a Shakespeare play written in the hand of DeVere, Bacon, or anyone else has ever been found.
No statements by anyone acquainted either with Shakespeare or with Bacon, DeVere, or any other contemporary ever claimed or suggested that Shakespeare did not write the works of Shakespeare.
The wills of neither Bacon nor DeVere nor anyone else make any mention of the disposition of the Shakespeare ouvre.

And so on and on. The only items which cannot be turned around in this fashion are those regarding Shakespeare's alleged lack of familiarity with the "aristocratic" lifestyle of falconry and Italian vacations. Again, I will not invoke "snobbery," but even if the wealthy mayor's son and, later, the young actor in a traveling theatrical troupe and even later, literary luminary, didn't have the opportunity to experience the aristocratic high life or a trip to Verona, any writer knows that creating credible fiction simply does not require autobiographical experience of the events portrayed. Just because I write about Elizabethan England in a novel doesn't mean I must have lived there!

In fact, my own personal biography suggests that it's entirely possible for a hick to write some good stuff.

I was born to a middle class family, and was the first in my family to go to college.
Although I am not the owner of an extensive library, I can nevertheless read Latin, am reasonably conversant in Spanish, and with the help of a book or two can fake my way through some French and Italian.
I was arrested for protesting at an anti-Ronald Reagan demonstration.
I spent several "lost" years doing odd jobs ranging from taxi driver to administrative assistant in an accounting office, during which time I picked up lots of characters and bits of knowledge about arcane subjects.
I became an actor in several Bay Area troupes. I broke through as an actor in my own theater company, first adapting others' plays and then writing and performing my own material.
I became a part owner in the troupe before selling my interest and moving back home to L.A. to pursue another career.
I have signed my first name variously throughout my life, "Jesse," Jess," "J" and "JM." When I made a career change I also changed my last name entirely from "Borgeson" to "Winfield."
In addition to writing about Elizabethan playwrights without having met them, I have written extensively about a little blue alien from outer space, despite never having met one, and about Capitol Hill lobbyists, despite never having entered the Capitol building.

Hey, wait a minute. I have a credible candidate to add to the Authorship Controversy. Maybe _I_ wrote Shakespeare's works! There is certainly not enough not-evidence not to not not prove otherwise!

For more in-depth information on why there's no question that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, visit the excellent Shakespeare Authorship Page.

If you want a good laugh, and a lesson in flawed argumentation, check out the DeVere Society's site.