Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Goin' Down



David, after having a few drinks to boost his courage, decided it was finally time to kill himself. She said no to him, so he'd say no to the world. He walked over to the river slowly,not thinking much. He walked over to the guard rails and with a loud gloosh jumped in. He dunked under the water, and let it carry him for half a minute, until he realized he didn't write a suicide note. Shit.
David pushed off of the river bottom, and got a breath of air. He couldn't swim, so he couldn't reach the shore, and the water was too deep and fast to walk to the shore. Damnit, David did not want to die without an explanation. He flailed about in the water, trying to teach himself how to swim in his final moments.
It was a bad idea wearing shoes this is idiotic why did I want to kill myself HELP. David panicked, and thrashed his arms and legs hoping that would give him some purchase on the surface; he started sinking again. I'm dying because I took it too hard. She probably already had a date why didn't my papa teach me how to swim this water is too dirty to drink, and yet everyone in the city gulps it down HELP.
David gave up; he accepted his fate, closed his eyes, and spread out his arms and legs, inviting death.


The sun came up; light filtered in through the trees, and onto the river. David was floating on the surface, still spread out. His smile looked cold and fixed, but he was breathing. He opened his eyes, and looked to his left; he could reach the shore if he splashed a bit, but he kept floating. I never really liked that town. I wonder if I can reach New Orleans like this; I hear it's nice there. David smiled warmly, and spit some water in the air.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

An experiment in the avant garde: burned^

The sky is grayand
duh-duh-duhduuuuuulllllllll
and
cloudless above me
It's hot
------too hot to
feel anything bu
-t grimy
------- and dingy ands
t
i
c
ky
Im hotbut
-----un
hap(ohgodwhywhywhy)
peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoplesing
of the
c
-l
--e
---a
----n
-------i----g
-----s---n
power
oFire
BU(*)T allifeel
isgrimy-and-dingyands
t
i
cky

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Writers

Hemingway: The rain fell. Nick sighted the deer.

Faulkner: Pa don't understand why I watch the rain; "It's just another burden boy, look at something else." But he don't see everything. He don't see the way water comes together, like a family. He don't see how it all trails to one thing. He don't see everything.

Kosinski: I had to be very careful watching my comet in this weather; a peat flame would burn slowly, but I had to keep swinging the can or else the water would drown the flame. The rain made the ground slippery and hard to walk on, and the hill made it even worse. I had to be careful to not slip and have my comet burn out.

Thompson: The rain made the ground hard to walk on, and the ether didn't help any; even a drunk isn't as irresponsible as a man kneck deep in an ether binge. I slipped and slid down this trail, and looked at my lawyer. "YOu fat smoin' FfffffffCK!"

Hamann: Rivulets made their unsteady way down the hill. They pooled into a creek. It's interesting how things all have a habit of coming together, of organizing themselves into bigger and more complex creations. Complexity theory at work.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Death Of The Thinking Class; Keeping the flames of Cynicism, Sarcasm, Irony, and Contempt Burning

[Since I just finished up a play, I figured I'd post an essay I've been writing.]

Since the early 1950s, contempt has been creeping into literature. It started off as a few dissatisfied writers, writing about how Modernism failed, everything beforehand has failed, so why even bother making something new? It’s just going to fail. This nihilistic hatred for the past is known as Postmodernism, and is slowly putting a chokehold on our world’s supply of thinkers.
Postmodernism is particularly hard to define; unlike modernism, it doesn’t have an identity. It’s not trying to make something new, it’s not trying to stop a world war, and it’s not looking at the beauty and greatness of humanity. Postmodernism rejects everything Modernism wrought; new ideals, another look at morality, new ideas, and preventing another world war through art. Postmodernism is the cultural backlash after World War II. Modernism failed, new ideas failed, deep thought failed, so what does that leave? Postmodernists feel it leaves shallowness, reuse of old ideas, the thought that “nothing can be new”, and a new gap between the writer and his work. Literary critics have said the following about postmodernism;
“The Theory of Rejecting Theories.” Tony Cliff
“A generation raised on channel-surfing has lost the capacity for linear thinking and analytical reasoning.” Chuck Colson
“Postmodernist fiction is defined by its temporal disorder, its disregard of linear narrative, its mingling of fictional forms and its experiments with language.” Barry Lewis, Kazuo Ishiguro
“It’s the combination of narcissism and nihilism that really defines postmodernism,” Al Gore
Al Gore seems to ring the most truth so this essay will be focusing on his definition of postmodernism. But what does it mean? It means nothing exists, all of the old texts are rubbish, and nothing has meaning except for my writings. ME ME ME! Chuck Palahniuk once said, “The only reason why we ask other people about how their weekend was is so we can tell them about our weekend.” (Palahniuk, 87) Postmodernism is a form of navel-gazing in that respect, because it takes those ideals to an extreme. It doesn’t try to go deep, it doesn’t try to give you new insights; it wants you to know that it went water skiing last weekend. There is a reason the majority of postmodern books are written in the first person; it’s easier to relate a story in the first person.
The real problem with Postmodernism is how it’s affecting English departments in universities. Everything that was previously taught has been deemed wrong because it’s canon, and therefore useless. According to Philip Ayres,
'The situation could have been averted, coverage of the field could have been maintained, but for the fact postmodernists came to dominate the liberal arts in the early 1980’s, insisting there are no such things as canon for English or French literature, or of serious music, or any of the plastic arts. The truth is no one ever heard the word canon until this set of critics started evoking it as a phantom enemy, and if it ever was a popular concept it was thought as fluid, not static. In any case the result is those who are paid to know don’t know.'
(Ayres, 2)
A teacher who doesn’t know what he’s teaching leads to students who don’t know what they’re reading, which leads to frustration, which leads to an antipathy toward reading. And why bother reading when the movie is already out? Thinking processes have turned our nation’s youth into substandard readers with no talent or skill for writing. After all, if you’re having trouble writing, you can add in a plot twist! Oh, Tyler is Jack! Bruce Willis was dead the whole time! The house has a monster! There’s no need to work in a reason why, because it’s all postmodern!
Postmodernism is also in love with Marxism, believing there’s no one person better than others. Tom Wolfe said it best when he said

'The names vary but the subtext is always the same: Marxism may be dead, and the proletariat has proved to be hopeless. They’re all at sea with their third wives. But we can find new proletariats whose ideological benefactors we can be- women, non-whites, put-upon white ethnics, homosexuals, transsexuals, the polymorphously perverse, pornographers, prostitues (sex workers), hardwood trees- which we can use to express our indignation toward the powers that be and our aloofness to their bourgeois stooges… (Wolfe)'

Another problem with postmodernism is its subset, deconstructionism. Originally created by Jacques Derrida, deconstruction is a form of creating a wedge between the writer and his work. A deconstructionist uses clever words, a caustic tongue, and fuzzy logic, to prove something means exactly the opposite of what it seems. Chip Morningstar said it perfectly when he wrote, “the basic enterprise of contemporary literary criticism is actually quite simple. It is based on the observation that with a sufficient amount of clever handwaving and artful verbiage, you can interpret any piece of writing as a statement about anything at all.” (Morningstar) Let’s say I want to deconstruct the sentence “I love my cat,” to mean I hate society. The essay would say something along the lines of:

“I love my cat.” In saying this, the writer is making a distinction between his cat and the world around him. by making such a distinction, the writer is effectively alienating the idea of ‘society’ from the statement, suggesting a form of contempt by means of negligence. You may notice the writer also refrains from mentioning anything beyond said love for the cat, specifically about his personal circumstances. This suggests the reader is ashamed of his place in the world, and casts blame at the world itself. By this simple train of thought, the writer hates the world, and specifically the society that brought him there.

Of course, unlike a regular deconstructionist essay, I refrained from using the dense language of a literary critic. That would look more like this:

““Reality is fundamentally a legal fiction,” says Lacan; however, according to Scuglia[2] , it is not so much that reality that is fundamentally a legal fiction, but rather the fatal flaw, and eventually the absurdity, of reality. However, the primary theme of Dietrich’s[3] analysis of posttextual narrative is the bridge between society and sexual identity. And abundance of appropriations concerning neosemantic desituationism may be found. “ (Elsewhere.org)

If you read into the essay, you’ll notice it means absolutely. It’s a series of buzzwords and names, with no actual content placed inside. In fact, that’s a randomly generated essay; what content that was placed into it is there by the token of serendipity, not any actual thought. This is what can be passed off in college circuits though. It will be pored over by a bunch of eggheads detached from the world, except for their ability to spout vitriolic nonsense. These people are so detached from actual meaning in content, they are shocked when they read a book like As I Lay Dying or Catch-22. They are used to manufacturing their own subtext, without even a thought to the author. Donald Norman was right when he said, “Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right.”
Postmodernism advocates a lack of canon literature, (Ayres) writing in plot twists that don’t work into your story, and manufacturing meaning for the works of others. Each of these undermine literature in their own way. If no one ever reads the liker of Faulkner, Milton, Pope, or Dryden, they will never know the great works, and likely the people they teach will never know, effectively destroying any past knowledge. If we can just add a plot twist whenever stuck writing, we’ll make convoluted stories that will never make sense, destroying any chance at future knowledge. If we just paste our own ideals onto an essay or story, the artist will lose his voice and be unable to speak his mind, undermining everything he works for. All of these put together lead up to the destruction of our culture, with the death of the mind.
I’d like to finish up my essay with a quote from Edward Friedlander, MD;
“There was a time when people enjoyed discovering how much we all have in common, and how most of us wanted the same things despite the superficial differences. There was even a time when we thought the best way to overcome misunderstanding, prejudice, and hate was by means of reason, common sense, clear-thinking, and good will.
“We called this being scientific. We called this being rational. We called this being enlightened. We called this being liberal.
“We called this being modern.”






Works Cited

Ayres, Philip. “Cheerless Culture Killers.” Editorial. Quadrant June 2006: 1-5.
Bulhak, Andrew C., and Josh Larios. “The Absurdity of Society.” Communications From Elsewhere. 15 Feb. 2007 www.elsewhere.org
“Deconstruction.” Wikipedia. 15 Feb. 2007 www.wikipedia.org
Friedlander, Edward R. “Why I Am Not a Postmodernist.” Pathguy. Jan. 2005. 15 Feb. 2007 http://www.pathguy.com/postmod.htm
Gore, Al. “Al Gore’s Fifth Column.” Observer. Aug. 2000. 15 Feb. 2007 http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/frontpage1.asp
Morningstar, Chip. “How To Deconstruct Almost Anything: My Postmodern Adventure.” Fudco. 18 Feb. 2007. 15 Feb. 2007 http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.htm;
Palahniuk, Chuck. Invisible Monsters. 2nd ed. Portland: WW Norton, 2003.
“Postmodernism.” Wikipedia. 15 Feb. 2007 www.wikipedia.org
Wolfe, Tom. “Tom Wolfe on Rococo Marxism.” Editorial. Harper’s Jan. 2005: 1-100.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The Hero And The Traitor Parts 8 & 9- Act 3 scene 2 and 3

Scene 2
The café. RYAN and NIGEL are at the same table, talking as they were before.

RYAN- You see, Nolan couldn’t invent the circumstances of the execution from scratch, so he plagiarized scenes from another playwright, the English enemy William Shakespeare, reprising scenes from Macbeth and Julius Caesar. For days this secret performance played out; The condemned man came into town and prayed, argued, worked, reprehended, and spoke words of pathos- each choreographed by James Nolan to make Kilpatrick look his best before the fall. It’s all very interesting.

NIGEL- indeed it is, but how did you figure this out?
RYAN- Once I found Kilpatrick’s journal, I snapped out of my depression; after all, life can’t imitate fiction. I dug into some files I have from my Great-grandfather’s era, and found a letter of execution from around that time. It was odd in a few ways; first, Kilpatrick had signed it, which is very strange, considering his normal benevolence, and second, the name of the victim had been crossed out. I did some more fact checking, and found out that many witnesses testified the murderer looked like a famous playwright. James Nolan was known for his talent in writing, so the pieces fell together.

NIGEL- that’s quite a tenuous connection. But supposing it is true, what will you do with it? How will this fit into your book?

RYAN- There is a predicament in this case. While Kilpatrick was an honorable man, he is still considered a hero, and this new information would ruin his image. His life will be considered a study in treachery, and even his noble sacrifice will be cast in a horrible light.

NIGEL- So what shall you do?
RYAN- I don’t know. Nothing in his life became him like leaving it.
[em]End scene[/em]

Scene 3

Scene 3
An empty, dark stage, except for BORGES standing under a spotlight. BORGES is in the same position he was in the beginning of the play.

BORGES- In Nolan’s play, the passages taken from Shakespeare are the least dramatic ones; Ryan suspected that the author interpolated them so that someone, in the future, would be able to stumble upon the truth. Ryan realized that he, too, was part of Nolan’s plot… After long and stubborn deliberation, he decided to silence the discovery. He published a book dedicated to the hero’s glory; that too, perhaps has been foreseen.

Fade to black and Curtain Call.
The End

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

The Hero And The Traitor part 7- Act 3 Scene 1

Act 3
Scene 1

BORGES walks on stage. The stage is set with a guard rail on stage left, which is made to look like it overlooks a river. There is a mailbox in Center Stage. KILPATRICK is in the box. BORGES walks to the mailbox, pulls out a pen and paper and begins to write something, dictating what he’s writing. It then becomes apparent that he’s not BORGES, but JAVERT, from Les Miserables.

JAVERT-A FEW OBSERVATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVICE.
"In the first place: I beg Monsieur le Prefet to cast his eyes on this.
"Secondly: prisoners, on arriving after examination, take off their shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are being searched. Many of them cough on their return to prison. This entails hospital expenses.
"Thirdly: the mode of keeping track of a man with relays of police agents from distance to distance, is good, but, on important occasions, it is requisite that at least two agents should never lose sight of each other, so that, in case one agent should, for any cause, grow weak in his service, the other may supervise him and take his place.

NOLAN enters the box. He initiates a conversation with KILPATRICK that drowns out JAVERT.

NOLAN- Hello, Fergus.

KILPATRICK- Hello, James. I didn’t expect you to be the one that came for me.

NOLAN- I was the one who suggested this ghastly route; I believe I should be the one who suffers the guilt of it.

KILPATRICK- You’re doing a great thing, James. My name will be remembered as one of a hero, and this may finally cause our people to revolt. Thank you.

The two watch the rest of the scene unfold.

JAVERT-"Eighthly: it is annoying for visitors to La Force to be obliged to traverse the boys' court in order to reach the parlor of Sainte-Marie-l'Egyptienne.
"Ninthly: it is a fact that any day gendarmes can be overheard relating in the court-yard of the prefecture the interrogations put by the magistrates to prisoners. For a gendarme, who should be sworn to secrecy, to repeat what he has heard in the examination room is a grave disorder.
"Tenthly: Mme. Henry is an honest woman; her canteen is very neat; but it is bad to have a woman keep the wicket to the mouse-trap of the secret cells. This is unworthy of the Conciergerie of a great civilization."
"JAVERT,
"Inspector of the 1st class.
"The Post of the Place du Chatelet.
"June 7th, 1832, about one o'clock in the morning."

JAVERT puts the letter in the postbox, and walks over to the guard rail. He looks at the water. While he’s contemplating his life, NOLAN puts on a mask. JAVERT jumps over the guard rail, and into the water. There is a brief silence, then…
NOLAN- (Loudly) Fergus Kilpatrick, for your crimes against the crown and king, I sentence you to death.

NOLAN stabs KILPATRICK.

KILPATRICK- Ire..land shall be f-free…

KILPATRICK dies. NOLAN runs off stage.
End scene.

Monday, July 9, 2007

The Hero And The Traitor part 6- Act 2 Scene 3

Scene 3
Ireland. A room with bookcases covering the walls and a large table in the center. The room is filled with The Conspirators. Kilpatrick is at the head of the table, with Nolan opposite him. The table is covered in maps and pieces of paper covered in writing.

Kilpatrick- This meeting shall begin with an update on everyone’s current projects. Mr. Ferguson, if you would begin?

Conspirator 1- I have spoken with some of the wealthier families. They are willing to fund our cause, if we can keep them from being harmed during the revolution.

Kilpatrick- Excellent. Mister Hurley, if you could give us an update on English activities.

Conspirator 2- My ties with the military force have told me that English troops are going to be garrisoned in Dublin next month. If we want an even fight, we will have to strike soon.

Kilpatrick- Duly noted. On the same subject, what is the mood of the people right now, Mr. Moriarty?

Conspirator 3- The Irish people are ready to fight. We just need something to galvanize them into action.

Kilpatrick- Understood. Mr. Nolan, I want you to work on that. Also, have you found anything new about traitors that might be in our midst.

There is a pause, and Nolan shuffles in his seat.

Nolan- (With an edge to his voice) Aye, I believe I have found out who the traitor is.

Kilpatrick- Well, there’s no use hiding it; who is he?

Nolan- Why, don’t you know, Fergus? It’s none other than you.

Everyone at the table gasps, Nolan stands up.

Don’t bother denying it, I have eyewitness proof from many people, and you had the misfortune of selling our secrets to one of my contacts. What do you have to say for yourself?

All eyes are on Kilpatrick. He gets up and starts pacing.

Kilpatrick- How long have we been trying to free ourselves from England? Hundreds of years at least. For the past 3 years I have been trying to come up with a plan to save our people from England, and finally be free of their grasp. For 3 years I have been thinking, and I have found no way to be truly free; but, I have found a way to make Ireland more independent. Yes, I have been selling the Police our secrets, but you have to ask what I was selling them for. I have been trying to buy liberties. I have been trying to make life easier for the Irish people by giving away plans. Go ahead and kill me if you want. My plan failed; all I’ve tried to get for my people was for naught, but I beg of you, don’t expose me. Our people need a fallen hero much more than they need a turncoat. Think of the Irish people, James.

Kilpatrick sits down. There is a long pause while Nolan thinks.

Nolan- You’re right. We can’t expose you, because it will hurt our cause too much. We can’t even expel you from our order, either. We must do something, though…

Another silence.

Kilpatrick- I can be assassinated.

Nolan- What?

Kilpatrick- you can hire someone to kill me. It helps the cause, and I’m redeemed.

Nolan- So we make you a martyr to hide your crimes.(Short pause.) It could work, but we would have to be very careful about how the plan is enacted. The scale would have to be grand for such a deception to work. We would need many people in on the plan, and it would have to be executed flawlessly. Can we all hold to this plan unwaveringly?

The Conspirators all agree.

Then I will work out the details. Fergus, from this point forward you will be under constant surveillance; if you decide to flee, we will let everything be known to the Irish people. You will be known as a coward and traitor to those who would have considered you a champion. DO you understand?

Kilpatrick- I understand.
End act 2.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

The Hero and The Traitor Part 5- Act 2 scene 2

Scene 2
The interior of a London flat. It looks smashed up, with a bit of smoke coming in from the hallway. There is a very old desk near the middle of the stage, with a broken leg, and a huge split in the middle. Papers are strewn all around on the ground around it, and there’s a journal in front of it. RYAN enters, looking distraught, angry, and slightly unkempt. He walks with a noticeable limp. He paces as he talks
RYAN- Caesar was gold, Kilpatrick was bronze, and I’m stone. Am I stone? Or am I them? Am I just another step in the long line of Caesar? Am I not my own person, with my own unique traits? Am I just another vessel for a soul that’s not my own? Is nothing I say original, just remembered? AM I NOT ME!?
RYAN picks up a book and throws it across the room; thinking about how childish he’s acting, he stops and calms himself down. RYAN then walks over to his desk.
Great. Everything’s in disarray. My notes are out of order, and ink’s all over my draft. (Ryan sighs.) I can probably salvage some of- What’s this?
RYAN notices the journal lying in the notes.
“The Journal of Fergus Kilpatrick, 1824.”
He opens the book to march entries.
“March 10- Today a man dressed in rags approached me; he spoke to me, but not with reason. He was touched with a fever of the mind, and the words he spoke were strange.
‘Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
Those in commission yet returned?

My liege,
They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that saw him die, who did report
That very frankly he confessed his treasons,
implored your Highness Pardon, and set forth
A deep repentance. Nothing in his life
Became him like leaving it. He died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed
As ‘twere a careless trifle.

There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face.
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.’

“The man then wandered off. After a few moments thought, I recognized the lines as coming from Macbeth, which my companion James Nolan had recently translated into Gaelic.”
Ryan stops a moment, and puzzles over the next few lines.
“Must the others torment me so? Must they remind me of my past and my fate?” Pause.
What the devil does that mean?

End scene.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

The Hero And The Traitor- Act 2 scene 1

Act 2
Scene 1

Once again, a dark stage. Borges walks on stage, plants himself in the center, and begins.

BORGES- Caesar’s wife, Calpurnia, saw in dreams a tower felled by order of the senate; on the eve of Kilpatrick’s death, false and anonymous rumours of the burning of the circular tower of Kilgavarn spread throughout the country- an event that might be taken as an omen, since Kilpatrick had been born in Kilgavarn. These (and other) parallels between the story of Julius Caesar and the story of an Irish conspirator induce Ryan to imagine some secret shape of time, a pattern of repeating lines. His thoughts turn to the decimal history conceived by Condorcet, the morphologies proposed Hegel, Spengler, and Vico, mankind as posited by Hesiod, degenerating from gold to iron. He thinks of the transmigration of souls, a doctrine that lends horror to Celtic literature and that Caesar himself attributed to the Druids of Britain; he toys with the idea that before Fergus Kilpatrick was Fergus Kilpatrick, he was Julius Caesar. He is saved from these labyrinths by a curious discovery, a discovery which, however will plunge him deep into other, yet more tangled and heterogeneous mazes…

Friday, July 6, 2007

The Hero and The Traitor- Part 3

A simple stage; the only background should be Kilgavarn and a hill. It’s nighttime. KILPATRICK enters, with a sad expression on his face; he turns his back on the crowd and looks at Kilgavarn. NOLAN enters with a letter in his hand.

NOLAN- Good evening, Fergus.

KILPATRICK- Hello, James. Are you here with tidings of the evening’s events?

NOLAN- Yes I am. I was sent to find you. What brings you all the way out to this quiet spot, so far from the beaten path?

KILPATRICK- I was told the English tore down Kilgavarn. I decided to find out the truth of the rumors, and lo, they were unfounded… (A moment’s silence.) I was born here, you know. I always thought it would be poetic if I died here. Tell me, what’s the date?

NOLAN- It’s March 15.

KILPATRICK- The 15th of March; the day an empire was remade. You really are a master of your work.

NOLAN- Don’t look too deeply into the allusions; The best parts of this play are yet to unfold.

KILPATRICK- Play? Of course, everything’s an act to you. All the world’s a stage, eh?

NOLAN- You could say that now more than ever. How can you be so calm? The world will be falling apart around us in less than a few hours, and you will pay more than any of us. Why aren’t you running?

KILPATRICK- Why should I run? I’m doomed no matter what I do. If I run, I’ll be labeled a coward and traitor to the cause; If I stay, I’ll..(KILPATRICK trails off.)

NOLAN- It will do no good to think about it. Now let’s go; you have a play to attend.

KILPATRICK- Right, the play.

NOLAN- This is for you, by the way. (He hands Kilpatrick the letter.) Now, I must be off. I have many things to attend to.(Nolan exits.)

KILPATRICK looks at the letter, makes to open it, stops himself, and exits.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

The Hero And The Traitor- Part 2

Scene 2
Outdoor patio of a London Café. Rubble is strewn everywhere. This is after the bombing of London, and things are starting to open up again. The Coffee shop is a complete mess. Newspapers are strewn everywhere, chairs are on their sides, and half-empty cups of coffee are strewn about. Ryan is sitting at a table with Nigel Hurley. Ryan is a posh, upper-crusty Englishman, who used his great-grandfather’s name as a springboard to become a London Elite. Ryan is ambitious, a name-dropper, with a flair for writing, socializing, and self promotion. Nigel is an English soldier, one of the RAF who defended London during the Blitz. He’s a very slow person, methodical in his thoughts, and immune to being impressed. Up in The Box is a soldier, using it as a lookout tower for German bombers.

RYAN- It’s flabbergasting how much damage Jerry did. They must have destroyed half of the town. What d’you think, Nigel, did we finally scare Hitler and his ilk off?

NIGEL- No, the Nazis are willing to do whatever it takes to win this war. It will take a lot more than repelling them from our borders to get them to give up. They’ll be back, mark my words.

RYAN- Really? I was talking with Winston the other day, Winston Churchill, I was visiting his home for dinner, because he wants me to write a book about the RAF, and he said the Germans will have to worry about other things before they can bomb us again. He’s a really interesting man, Winston Churchill, wonderful fellow, but he drinks a bit much; it’s amazing that he’s still alive with the amount of whiskey he quaffs, reminds me a bit of my great-grandfather, he does, Fergus Kilpatrick. Say, have I ever told you about how my great-grandfather was assassinated?

NIGEL- Not personally, but I know the story. Apparently he was killed in a theater?

RYAN- Oh yes, but there’s so much more to it. You see, he had a letter on him telling him not to go out that day. Do you know what that means?

NIGEL- Somebody didn’t want him to die?

RYAN-No! It meant this was preplanned, an assassination attempt, and the person had read up on his Shakespeare. Why would someone be so loose with information, unless they wanted a bit of a flourish to his “masterpiece” if you will?

NIGEL- I think you’re obsessing over a conspiracy theory. What did the police have to say?

RYAN- The police never found a suspect, which wou-

NIGEL- So couldn’t the police have done it? Done the deed, that is.

RYAN- No, while it seems to work well, a police assassination would be too bold a move by the English.

NIGEL- If the English wouldn’t do it, who would?

RYAN- The English wouldn’t do it, but they would hire an assassin to do it; the royals could then find the assassin and pin him for murder. It would make them out to be heroes. But that’s not what happened, so suspicions are placed elsewhere. Some suggest that the Irish assassinated him to jumpstart the war against England. Quite poetic really; cutting off one’s head to free the body from a noose.

NIGEL- Hmm. Interesting. (A moment’s silence.) There are quite a few parallels between Julius Caesar’s death and Kilpatrick’s death.

RYAN- What do you mean? I’m woefully under-read on my Roman history.

NIGEL- Both were great leaders, with large amounts of power in their respected factions. Both were assassinated on the ides of March. Both had unopened letters on their persons, which told them not to go out that day. And both sparked a revolutionary war with their death.

(RYAN is disturbed by this revelation.)

RYAN- That’s… Wow. There are quite a few similarities between the two aren’t there?

NIGEL¬¬- Well, you know what they say; “History repeats itself.” You might want to look it up.

RYAN- Right…

(There is a whistling noise, then a loud explosion offstage. Smoke piles onto the stage. The Soldier is startled and starts up a siren.)

SOLDIER- Attention! Attention! Please head to your nearest bomb shelter! This is not a drill!
(End Scene.)

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Theme of the Hero and Traitor- Part 1

Theme Of The Hero And The Traitor
Concept by Jorge Luis Borges
Adapted by Chris Hamann

Set: The set should consist of furniture and architecture that is slightly Outdated for Ryan’s time, and slightly anachronistic for Kilpatrick’s time. For example, Architecture from the late 1800’s and the turn of the century work well.
Clothing: Same as above, but with a little more variance. Military garb should be from World War I
Characters: The play can be made comfortably with 5 actors.
Borges/Javert/Conspirator 3: The writer, storyteller, narrator. Bookends the acts, and closes the play.
Fergus Kilpatrick: The focal point of the play. An honorable person, who makes a terrible mistake.
Ryan Kilpatrick/Conspirator 2: The great-grandson of Kilpatrick. He’s working on a biography of the famous leader.
James Nolan/Soldier: A playwright and one of the conspirators. He plans and orchestrates the murder of Kilpatrick.
Nigel/ Conspirator 1: a friend of Ryan’s. He acts as a sounding board for Ryan’s book.


Act 1
Scene 1
The play begins with Borges standing under a spotlight, with the rest of the stage blacked out. Borges is an older man, distinguished looking, maybe resting on a cane. Borges is a showman, with a vague Spanish accent and a flourish to everything he does. It begins…

The stage must be set with a Clocktower in the background, and an old, crumbling town set. The set must suggest decay and unrest.

BORGES- Under the notorious influence of Chesterton (inventor and embellisher of elegant Mysteries) and the court counselor Leibniz (who invented the preestablished harmony), in my spare evenings I have conceived this plot- which I will perhaps commit to paper but which already somehow justifies me. It needs details, rectifications, tinkering- there are areas of the story that have never been revealed to me. Today, January 3, 1944, I see it in the following way:
The action takes place in an oppressed yet stubborn country- Poland, Ireland, the republic of Venice, some South American or Balkan State.
Or took place rather, for though the narrator is contemporary, the story told by him occurred in the mid or early nineteenth century- in 1824 (Lights up on the Clocktower), let us say, for convenience’s sake; in Ireland, let us also say. The Narrator is a man named Ryan,
(RYAN enters, crosses, and exits)
the great-grandson of the young, heroic, beautiful, murdered Fergus Kilpatrick
(KILPATRICK enters), whose grave was mysteriously violated, whose name gives luster to Browning’s and Hugo’s verses, and whose statue stands high upon a gray hilltop among red bogs.
Kilpatrick was a conspirator and a secret and glorious captain of conspirators. Like Moses, who from the land of Moab glimpsed yet could not reach the promised land, Kilpatrick perished on the eve of his victorious rebellion he had planned and dreamed of.
(KILPATRICK exits) The date of the first centenary of his death is approaching; the circumstances of the crime are enigmatic; Ryan, who is writing a biography of the hero, discovers that the enigma goes deeper than mere detective work can fathom… End Scene